by Dolly
I looked at her with a maudlin smile and mumbled something irrelevant about my lost hat.
" Harry! " she cried again, " please don't act like that! You hurt me, dear."
There was a note of pathos and love in her voice that penetrated even to my drink-sodden brain, but I only looked at her with that ghastly grin, and tried to pull myself together.
" Do you hear me, sir!" she said brightly, changing her tactics, as she came across to me and placed her hands on my shoulders with that imperiousness of gesture so characteristic of her. She was about to shake me playfully, but as she bent toward me, her nostrils caught the reeking odour of spirits in my thick breathing.
She dropped her arms to her side as if I had struck her, and her eyes dilated with sudden wonder and something of fear.
" Harry, what is it ? " she whispered.
" Ish ar-right, me dear! "
She had shrunk away from me a step; now she came close to me again, regardless of the stench of the liquor, and, laying a trembling hand on my arm, stooped and looked for a moment straight into my eyes.
" Harry!" was all she said. It was as a cry wrung from a soul in agony.
" Ish ar-right!" I muttered again fretfully. " Lesh have dinner."
But I could eat nothing, could hardly sit up to the table. Nor was her appetite any better. She sat watching me with the look of a stricken animal in her blue eyes. The tender mouth was trembling pitifully, and every now and then I saw her eyes glisten brightly.
What was the matter with Ethel I could not make out. Why could not she be bright and cheerful as she always was ?
But when I rose from the table and, staggering to a couch, threw myself down to sleep, I saw her take out her handkerchief and bury her face in it, while great sobs shook her frame.
I remained on the couch until the early morning hours, when, sober and with a bitter loathing in my soul for myself and life, I crept up to bed. Ethel was lying asleep, the tremulous look about her mouth and the long lashes wet with recent tears. I dared not in my pollution lay myself beside her, so with a rug I curled myself on the sofa, to doze fitfully and to dream until daylight of fiends issuing from the mouth of a gigantic bottle.
The next morning was a time of bitter humiliation for me, and it must have held a torture far worse for my lovely young wife. When I awoke from the deep slumber into which, with the first approach of grey dawn, I had sunk I was alone. I looked at the clock. Half-past eight. Time I was away. What had kept me ? Why had I lain on the sofa ? Then with a flash that left me stunned and helpless, it came back to me—that and more. Not only the effect did I remember, the cause was clear and vivid. I saw now too clearly the reason of that vague dread of an unknown something that had possessed me. This was the elusive horror that my mind had been chasing in a vain endeavour to grasp and realise—this, to be possessed of a fiend, of a devil, as surely as the Galilean of old, of whose aberration we used to read with a smile, as being but an empty figure of speech. And I had deliberately walked into the trap; nay, more, had myself forged the chains wherewith I was to be bound on the wheel and broken.
Bitterly I cursed the inquisitive folly that had urged me into allowing him to practise his black art upon me a second time, and had assisted him in his vileness by my own blind experiments. The man dominated my entire being. He was my master in spirit; he had the power to project himself into my body and take command of it. I felt, as I passed my hands to my throbbing temples, that I was at the beck and call of this unscrupulous scoundrel. He could make me come when he willed it, could make me do as he willed; nay, more, he could make me think as he willed, or, worse, could think for me and make my body act on the decisions of his mind.
Fool that I was! I had walked blindly into the pitfall—had calmly surrendered myself to the claws of the tiger; and this had been the culmination ! The culmination! The end! Was this the end? Would the devil be satisfied with this one disgrace ? Might he not make me repeat the shameful performance in public as well as to break the heart of my poor wife ?
What was yet to come ? But I would fight against it I told myself fiercely. With every atom of my intellect, with every nerve and fibre of my being, I would fight against it. And I must succeed. If there is a God in heaven He must help one of His creatures to regain his independence. He could not stand coldly aside and permit such a frightful wrong. Fight! Fight! Fight! That was my only hope, and with the depth of my resolution my soul grew stronger, and the future assumed a rosier hue. Alas! I little dreamed, as I dressed and went downstairs, what my tortured spirit had yet to go through.
I met Ethel at the breakfast table, her eyes red with weeping and her lips quivering. Perhaps her woman's intuition warned her that this was but the first step on the downward path. Ah, but she did not guess the force that had thrust me relentlessly forward into that state of bestial intoxication, I who had never touched liquor of any sort before! And I did not tell her, made no attempt to excuse myself, but sat there like a whipped cur, trying to eat some breakfast, with but one desire—to escape from those appealing eyes.
Once I was on the point of telling her all, but I smothered the impulse. Of what use to tell her ? She would not understand even if she believed, and she could not help me; it was but adding to her misery. No, I must fight it out by myself.
She never alluded to the night before; she hardly spoke a word, except to give an order to the Chinese boy. She only sat there watching me, with a sadness in her eyes that wrung my heart. Oh, my sweet, dainty Ethel, could you but have guessed what I suffered then—What I suffered for your sake as well as for my own, and for that little one yet unborn !
The Chinese boy, gliding silently round the table, guessed there was something amiss, for I caught him several times looking curiously from one to the other, as though trying to read in our faces the nature of the quarrel. Ethel, with quick decision, had sent him away the night before, as soon as she grasped the true state of affairs, so he could have had no clue from which to draw inferences.
As I drew on my coat before setting out, I looked over my shoulder, to see Ethel's eyes still following me with a passion of entreaty in their blue depths that spoke to me more plainly than the most fervent torrent of words could have done.
I walked down to the newspaper office with bitter rebellion in my heart against life and the inscrutable power that orders things here below, and permits such black villainy to go unchecked. I was totally unfit for work. I was completely unmanned and trembling like a scared hare, and ever in the midst of my efforts to fix my thoughts on my work, I caught myself looking forward with dread to the time when I should have to quit the shelter of the office and go—where ? But I reached home in safety, and the next day passed without event.
The next was Sunday, and the blessed calm of that day stole over my spirits and I began to breathe freely again. Thank God, my fears had been groundless! I had lived through three days without feeling that terrible power, and in my relief I told myself that the dreadful phantom had gone. The effort had proved too much for him, and he had abandoned the attempt. Had I gone into that den of his on one of those evenings, perhaps I should have found him weak and helpless as I had seen him on that first evening in Range Road.
Still Ethel never alluded to that Thursday night, nor did I tell her a word of what had occurred. Now that I was myself again and free from the horror there was less reason than ever that I should tell her.
So I left her to think it was a sudden impulse of weakness to which I had yielded, tempted perhaps by some friends, and which I had promptly conquered as soon as I had realised my folly.
Monday came, and after a hard day's work I left the office and started for home.
Oh, my God! my God! 1 cannot write down the details of that night of horror. I had not taken twenty steps from the office door before I felt myself gripped by the force. Gripped and dragged ruthlessly along through the busy Shanghai streets as if I was being carried, feebly struggling, in the arms of a puissant giant.
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bsp; He was standing in the surgery, very much as he had been before, but by the side of the bottle stood a decanter.
He smiled and nodded to me as I pushed open the door and crept submissively to the chair.
" Ah," he said, " back again! Well, I am pleased to see you."
He turned to the cabinet, picking up the bottle and holding it up to the light, his head on one side.
" I am delighted at the compliment you pay my poor selection of spirits in coming back for some more. I think you will find this rather superior to the other."
He raised the decanter and poured out a glassful.
" I got this especially for you, knowing your fondness for the stuff. It is the very best liqueur brandy; strong, too. It cost—let me see, what did it cost ? Well, well, no matter, I think I can afford it."
He handed me the glass, and I drained it as I had drained the others, handing it back to be refilled. He took the empty glass with a laugh.
"What, more? I say, be careful, you know. I appreciate the flattery, but it won't do for you to go home drunk every time. Consider how shocked dear Mrs. Keith would be. You owe your wife some consideration, you know. Never mind; here you are."
"You fiend! You hell-hound! " I longed to tell him, but my tongue refused to utter a sound. Instead, I seized the glass and drank off the contents in large gulps.
Rawdon sent me home in much the same state as I had been before. No, worse, for I was morose and aggressive instead of being maudlin. And I struck my wife. O God! I struck her, my sweet, patient Ethel! Struck her because she was sitting there with drawn, haggard face, looking at me so sadly, so appealingly.
I felt I was going mad. No mind could support this intolerable horror and live. And there was no relief for me; turn where I would there was no relief. The law? What could the police do for me ? Had I gone to them and told them that a man was making me drink against my will and ill-treat my wife, they would have laughed at me. They would have scouted the idea and recommended me to see a doctor, not a magistrate. And they would not have been to blame. Had anyone told me two short months before, that such a thing was possible—that in this twentieth century, here in this city of Shanghai, with all its boasted civilisation, a man could be ridden to destruction by the will of another man or fiend, call it what you will—like them I would have laughed derisively and recommended chloral to the one who feared so absurd a contingency.
Then intervened another three days of calm and comparative peace. But I had never regained my spirits; that shadow, I felt, was still hanging over me, watching me, ready to swoop down again and whirl me away whither it willed.
Oh, the agonising suspense of that first day! That horrible waiting with bated breath for something to happen—something that seemed vivid and clear enough, yet that the mind could not frame.
It was no wonder that my bodily health began to give way under the fearful strain. My nerves were all gone. My hand shook so that I could hardly raise a spoonful of soup to my lips without its spilling—I who but a short time before had made a boast of my steady nerves.
Ethel saw me with alarm growing paler and more haggard every day, and on the morning of the third insisted on my seeing a doctor. I could read in her eyes what it was she feared. She thought my mind was tottering, and God knows it was, but from a cause she never guessed.
The doctor came, and, as I had anticipated, told me it was nerves. I had been overworking myself, and he recommended a rest. He left me an opiate, and that night I enjoyed the first unbroken slumber that had been my lot for many a day.
On that morning of the fourth day I arose more refreshed and at ease, and went down to my office. The long day's work helped to restore a little the mental equilibrium that had been so pitiably disturbed, and thus afternoon came.
The paper was nearly ready for striking off, there remained but a few more proofs to be corrected for the third and last time.
I touched my bell and told the boy to get me some from the hand-press; I would help correct them. They were second proofs, but, for a Chinese compositor, remarkably clear that day. As I ran my eye down the column hardly a misspelt word did I see. At last I picked out a mistake and seized my pen to make the necessary correction in the margin; but a couple of minutes after I found myself drawing circles and squares in red ink on the margin of the proof sheet, and the correction was still unmade.
Then suddenly I dropped the pen and reached for my hat, resolved upon going home. It was fully an hour before my usual time of departure. I rarely left the office until the evening's issue was well under way. But this afternoon I felt a strange reluctance to remain there any longer; I felt I wanted to go home to my waiting wife. So I rang the bell again, and returned the proofs, dirty as when they had been brought to me, to the astonished devil and hurried out.
The door of the editor's sanctum was ajar, so I sneaked past, loth to be asked for an explanation of my early departure when I had none to give. Thus I gained the street, and, hailing a rickshaw, was soon trotting down Szechuen Road ; but, once in the air, I felt vaguely uneasy. What had been the cause of my sudden desire to leave the office ? I had a chill feeling that this sudden move had nothing to do with a wish of my own—that it was something outside of me. So, troubled and ill-atease, the rickshaw took me down Szechuen Road to the bridge that spans Soochow Creek, when just as we were about to mount the incline, I felt myself gripped by the force that of late had dominated my being. What little will had hitherto controlled my actions was suddenly wrenched from me; I felt the terrible power, like an iron hand, compressing my heart as though it would silence its throbbing.
I tried to tell the rickshaw-coolie to go faster ; instead I bade him stop, and stepped out. I knew now what it was. That fiend had thrown his baleful influence over me again, and was dragging me off to some fresh devilment. My God! what was I going to do now ? I asked myself wildly as I hurried along, breaking every now and then into a short run. I was skirting the creek, making for the gardens, and beyond them the river. Was this irresistible force, that was dragging and pushing me along as helplessly as though I were bound fast to a traction-engine, going to drag me headlong over the Bund and into the water ? For the moment I hoped it was. Life like this had grown intolerable. Death, anything, was better than being the sport of a devil incarnate.
I crossed the approach to the Broadway Bridge and turned into the gardens, walking straight toward the summer-house that stands facing the river. As I approached, the violent trembling to which my frame was growing so accustomed shook me, and I did the last few paces at a run. It seemed but the logical result of a natural law of causation that as I approached I should see Arnold Rawdon seated on the bench in the semiobscurity within. There was the usual intense yet far-away look in his eyes, as he held poised between finger and thumb the stump of a cigar that had long since gone out for lack of attention.
I say I was not surprised, for I realised with an inward groan of anguish that it was for this I had come. I appeared now to have known it all along ; it was for this I had paid off my rickshaw at the creek and hurried to the rendezvous. My master had called me, and I had come. As my form cut off the light in the doorway his eyes focussed themselves upon me, and he gave a little gasp of relief and sat erect, a faint colour tinging the ghastly pallor of his cheeks and lips.
I ran eagerly forward with outstretched hand. " Did you want me, Rawdon ? I am come." He rose and took my hand, looking at me with those terrible eyes in which lurked so much expression, a vindictive sneer of malice curving his lips.
" Oh, yes ! " he answered quietly. " I am very glad to see you here, of course. You know I am always glad to avail myself of the benefit of your society."
I felt a fierce longing to use the hand that was so cordially shaking his to strike him down at my feet. Instead, I stood gazing at him with the servile look a spaniel bends on his master. He continued—
" I am glad, too, to see you are sober. It must be fearfully harassing to dear Mrs. Keith to see her husband straying so r
ecklessly from the paths of moderation and virtue."
He stopped suddenly and seemed to be making an effort to concentrate his mind, while the pupils of his eyes, that had been so horribly dilated, narrowed and contracted almost to their normal size. I could see the iris drawing together as one sees the iris of a cat contract when brought from darkness into a brilliant light.
I felt his power over me slipping away and my own will beginning, very faintly at first, to assert itself. He felt the waning of his strength, too, and strove desperately to regain the ground he was losing.
" You hound! " I cried, marvelling at my own temerity while yet the words passed my lips, "This is your doing!"
" My doing ? My dear fellow"—he was still cool and collected, and spoke with the same bitter sneer —" I quite fail to see wherein I am responsible for your erratic doings. And yet I suppose it is my fault—a fault of omission. Still," he added ironically, " one would hardly expect me to go very far out of my way to keep an ungrateful friend sober for the sake of preserving the connubial concord."
" You cursed devil!" I cried again, this time feeling more emboldened. " You know that it is your vile machinations that have forced me to drink against my will."
" My dear Keith! "—he raised his eyebrows in well-simulated astonishment—" surely you are not quite yourself. Consider; were anyone to hear you say such an absurd thing they might insinuate you were demented."
" I know! I know ! " I answered. "And if I go mad, if there is a God above us, the cause will be judged to you."
The white lips drew back from his teeth in a smile that resembled the snarl of a savage beast.
" Ah, I think I said I would make you both suffer!—and somebody was kind enough to deride the idea. We must try now what we can do with Mrs. Keith—the charming Ethel!"