He started up and stretched himself, and taking out the neat little packet that the maid had brought from the chemist’s, he drew up a chair, and sat down once more in front of the glass. He sighed vacantly, rose and lifted down from the wall above the fireplace a tinted photograph of himself that Sheila had had enlarged about twelve years ago. It was a brighter, younger, hairier, but unmistakably the same dull indolent Lawford who had ventured into Widderstone churchyard that afternoon. The cheek was a little plumper, the eyes not quite so full-lidded, the hair a little more precisely parted, the upper lip graced with a small blonde moustache. He tilted the portrait into the candlelight, and compared it with this reflection in the glass of what had come out of Widderstone, feature with feature, with perfect composure and extreme care, Then he laid down the massive frame on the table, and gazed quietly at the tiny packet.
It was to be a day of queer experiences. He had never before realized with how many miracles mere everyday life is besieged. Here in this small punctilious packet lay a Sesame—a power of transformation beside which the transformation of that rather flaccid face of the noonday into this tense, sinister face of midnight was but as a moving from house to house—a change just as irrevocable and complete, and yet so very normal. Which should it be, that, or—his face lifted itself once more to the ice-like gloom of the looking-glass-that, or this?
It simply gazed back with a kind of quizzical pity on its lean features under the scrutiny of eyes so deep, so meaningful, so desolate, and yet so indomitably courageous. In the brain behind them a slow and stolid argument was in progress; the one baffling reply on the one side to every appeal on the other being still simply. “What dreams may come?”
Those eyes surely knew something of dreams, else, why this violent and stubborn endeavour to keep awake.
Lawford did indeed once actually frame the question, “But who the devil are you?” And it really seemed the eyes perceptibly widened or brightened. The mere vexation of his unparalleled position. Sheila’s pathetic incredulity, his old vicar’s laborious kindness, the tiresome network of experience into which he would be dragged struggling on the morrow, and on the morrow after that, and after that—the thought of all these things faded for the moment from his mind, lost if not their significance, at least their instancy.
He simply sat face to face with the sheer difficulty of living on at all. He even concluded in a kind of lethargy that if nothing had occurred, no “change,” he might still be sitting here, Arthur Rennet Lawford, in his best visitor’s room, deciding between inscrutable life and just—death. He supposed he was tired out. His thoughts hadn’t even the energy to complete themselves. None cared but himself and this—this Silence.
“But what does it all mean?” the insistent voice he was getting to know so well began tediously inquiring again. And every time he raised his eyes, or, rather, as in many cases it seemed, his eyes raised themselves, they saw this haunting face there—a face he no longer bitterly rebelled at, nor dimmed with scrutiny, but a face that was becoming a kind of hold on life, even a kind of refuge, an ally. It was a face that might have come out of a rather flashy book; or such as is revered on the stage. “A rotten bad face,” he whispered at it in his own familiar slang, after some such abrupt encounter; a fearless, packed, daring, fascinating face, with even—what?—a spice of genius in it. Whose the devil’s face was it? What on earth was the matter?... “Brazen it out,” a jubilant thought cried suddenly; “follow it up; play the game! give me just one opening. Think—think what I’ve risked!”
And all these voices thought Lawford, in deadly lassitude, meant only one thing—insanity. A blazing, impotent indignation seized him. He leaned near, peering as it were out of a red dusky mist. He snatched up the china candlestick, and poised it above the sardonic reflection, as if to throw. Then slowly, with infinite pains, he drew back from the glass and replaced the candlestick on the table; stuffed his paper packet into his pocket, took off his boots and threw himself on to the bed. In a little while, in the faint, still light, he opened drowsily wondering eyes. “Poor old thing!” his voice murmured, “Poor old Sheila!”
CHAPTER FIVE
It was but little after daybreak when Mrs Lawford, after listening at his door a while, turned the key and looked in on her husband. Blue-grey light from between the venetian blinds just dusked the room. She stood in a bluish dressing-gown, her hand on her bosom, looking down on the lean impassive face. For the briefest instant her heart had leapt with an indescribable surmise; to fall dull as lead once more. Breathing equably and quietly, the strange figure lay stretched upon the bed. “How can he sleep? How can he sleep?” she whispered with a black and hopeless indignation. What a night she had had! And he!
She turned noiselessly away. The candle had guttered to extinction. The big glass reflected her, voluminous and wan, her dark-ringed eyes, full lips, rich, glossy hair, and rounded chin. “Yes, yes,” it seemed to murmur mournfully. She turned away, and drawing stealthily near stooped once more quite low, and examined the face on the pillow with lynx-like concentration. And though every nerve revolted at the thought, she was finally convinced, unwillingly, but assuredly, that her husband was here. Indeed, if it were not so, how could she for a single moment have accepted the possibility that he was a stranger? He seemed to haunt, like a ghostly emanation, this strange, detestable face—as memory supplies the features concealed beneath a mask. The face was still and stony, like one dead or imaged in wax, yet beneath it dreams were passing—silly, ordinary Lawford dreams. She was almost alarmed at the terribly rancorous hatred she felt for the face... “It was just like Arthur to be so taken in!”
Then she too remembered Quain, and remembered also in the slowly paling dusk that the house would soon be stirring. She went out and noiselessly locked the door again. But it was useless to begin looking for Quain now—her husband had a good many dull books, most of them his “eccentric” father’s. What must the servants be thinking? and what was all that talk about a mysterious visitor? She would have to question Ada—diplomatically. She returned to her room and sat down in an arm-chair, and waited. In sheer weariness she fell into a doze, and woke at the sound of dustpan and broom. She rang the bell, and asked for hot water, tea, and a basin of cornflour.
“And please, Ada, be as quiet as possible over your work; your master is in a nice sleep, and must not be disturbed on any account. In the front bedroom.” She looked up suddenly. “By the way, who let Dr Ferguson in last night?” It was dangerous, but successful.
“Dr Ferguson, ma’am? Oh, you mean... He WAS in.”
Sheila smiled resignedly. “Was in? What do you mean, ‘was in’? And where were you, then?”
“I had been sent out to Critchett’s, the chemist’s.”
“Of course, of course. So cook let Dr Ferguson in, then? Why didn’t you say so before, Ada? And did you bring the medicine with you?”
“It was a packet in an envelope, ma’am. But Cook is sure she heard no knock—not while I was out. So Dr Ferguson must have come in quite unbeknown.”
“Well, really,” said Sheila, “it seems very difficult to get at the truth sometimes. And when illness is in the house I cannot understand why there should be no one available to answer the door. You must have left it ajar, unsecured, when you went out. And pray, what if Dr Ferguson had been some common tramp? That would have been a nice thing.”
“I am quite certain,” said Ada a little flatly, ‘that I did shut the door. And cook says she never so much as stirred from the kitchen till I came down the area steps with the packet. And that’s all I know about it, ma’am; except that he was here when I came back. I did not know even there was a Dr Ferguson; and my mother has lived here nineteen years.”
“We must be thankful your mother enjoys such good health,” replied Mrs Lawford suavely. “Please tell cook to be very careful with the cornflour—to be sure it’s well mixed and thoroughly done.”
Mrs Lawford’s eyes followed with a certain discomfort those narr
ow print shoulders descending the stairs. And this abominable ruse was—Arthur’s! She ran up lightly and listened with her ear to the panel of his door. And just as she was about to turn away again, there came a little light knock at the front door.
Mrs Lawford paused at the loop of the staircase; and not altogether with gratitude or relief she heard the voice of Mr Bethany, inquiring in cautious but quite audible tones after her husband.
She dressed quickly and went down. The little white old man looked very solitary in the long, fireless, drawing-room.
“I could not sleep,” he said; “I don’t think I grasped in the least, I don’t indeed, until I was nearly home, the complexity of our problem. I came, in fact, to a lamppost. It was casting a peculiar shadow. And then—you know how such thoughts seize us, my dear—like a sudden inspiration, I realised how tenuous, how appallingly tenuous a hold we every one of us have on our mere personality. But that,” he continued rapidly, ‘that’s only for ourselves—and after the event. Ours, just now, is to act. And first—?”
“You really do, then—you really are convinced—” began Mrs Lawford.
But Mr Bethany was too quick. “We must be most circumspect. My dear friend, we must be most circumspect, for all our sakes. And this, you’ll say,” he added, smiling, stretching out his arms, his soft hat in one hand, his umbrella in the other—’this is being circumspect—a seven o”clock in the morning call! But you see, my dear, I have come, as I took the precaution of explaining to the maid, because it’s now or never today. It does so happen that I have to take a wedding for an old friend’s niece at Witchett; so when in need, you see, Providence enables us to tell even the conventional truth. Now really, how is he? Has he slept? Has he recalled himself at all? Is there any change?—and, dear me, how are YOU?”
Mrs Lawford sighed. “A broken night is really very little to a mother,” she said. “He is still asleep. He hasn’t, I think, stirred all night.”
“Not stirred!” Mr Bethany repeated. “You baffle me. And you have watched?”
“Oh no,” was the cheerful answer; “I felt that quiet, solitude; space, was everything; he preferred it so. He—he changed alone, I suppose. Don’t you think it almost stands to reason that he will be alone...when he comes back? Was I right? But there, it’s useless, it’s worse than useless, to talk like this. My husband is gone. Some terrible thing has happened. Whatever the mystery may be, he will never come back alive. My only fear is that I am dragging you into a matter that should from the beginning have been entrusted to—Oh, it’s monstrous!” It appeared for a moment as if she were blinking to keep back her tears, yet her scrutiny seemed merely to harden.
Only the merest flicker of the folded eyelids over the greenish eyes of her visitor answered the challenge. He stood small and black, peeping fixedly out of the window at the sunflecked laurels.
“Last night,” he said slowly, “when I said goodbye to your husband, on the tip of my tongue were the words I have used, in season and out of season, for nearly forty-five years—"God knows best." Well, my dear lady, a sense of humour, a sense of reverence, or perhaps even a taint of scepticism—call it what you will—just intercepted them. Oh no, not any of these, my child; just pity, overwhelming pity. God does know best; but in a matter like this it is not even my place to say so. It would be good for none of us to endanger our souls even with verbal cant. Now, if, do you think, I had just five minutes” talk—five minutes; would it disquiet him?”
Only by an almost undignified haste, for the vicar was remarkably agile, Sheila managed to unlock the bedroom door without apparently his perceiving it, and with a warning finger she preceded him into the great bedroom. “Oh, yes, yes,” he was whispering to himself; “alone—well, well!” He hung his hat on his umbrella and leaned it in a corner, and then he turned.
“I don’t think, you know, an old friend does him any wrong; but last night I had no real oppor—” He firmly adjusted his spectacles, and looked long into the dark, dispassioned face.
“Hm!” he said, and fidgeted, and peered again. Mrs Lawford watched him keenly.
“Do you still—” she began.
But at the same moment he too broke silence, suddenly stepping back with the innocent remark, “Has he—has he asked for anything?”
“Only for Quain.”
‘“Quain"?”
“The medical Dictionary.”
“Oh, yes; bless me; of course.... A calm, complete sleep of utter prostration—utter nervous prostration. And can one wonder? Poor fellow, poor fellow!” He walked to the window and peered between the blinds. “Sparrows, sunshine—yes, and here’s the postman,” he said, as if to himself. Then he turned sharply round, with mind made up.
“Now, do you leave me here,” he said. “Take half an hour’s quiet rest. He will be glad of a dull old fellow like me when he wakes. And as for my pretty bride, if I miss the train, she must wait till the next. Good discipline, my dear. Oh, dear me! I don’t change. What a precious experience now this would have been for a tottery, talkative, owlish old parochial creature like me. But there, there. Light words make heavy hearts, I see. I shall be quite comfortable. No, no, I breakfasted at home. There’s hat and umbrella; at 9.3 I can fly.”
Mrs Lawford thanked him mutely. He smilingly but firmly bowed her out and closed the door.
But eyes and brain had been very busy. He had looked at the gutted candle; at the tinted bland portrait on the dressing-table; at the chair drawn-up; at the boots; and now again he turned almost with a groan towards the sleeper. Then he took out an envelope, on which he had jotted various memoranda, and waited awhile. Minutes passed and at last the sleeper faintly stirred, muttering.
Mr Bethany stooped quickly. “What is it, what is it?” he whispered.
Lawford sighed. “I was only dreaming, Sheila,” he said, and softly, peacefully opened his eyes. “I dreamed I was in the—,” His lids narrowed, his dark eyes fixed themselves on the anxious spectacled face bending over him. “Mr Bethany! Where? What’s wrong?”
His friend put out his hand. “There, there,” he said soothingly, “do not be disturbed; do not disquiet yourself.”
Lawford struggled up. Slowly, painfully consciousness returned to him. He glanced furtively round the room, at his clothes, slinkingly at the vicar; licked his lips; flushed with extraordinary rapidity; and suddenly burst into tears.
Mr Bethany sat without movement, waiting till he should have spent himself. “Now, Lawford,” he said gently, compose yourself, old friend. We must face the music—like men.” He went to the window, drew up the blind, peeped out, and took off his spectacles.
“The first thing to be done,” he said, returning briskly to his chair, “is to send for Simon. Now, does Simon know you WELL?” Lawford shook his head. “Would he recognise you?... I mean...”
“I have only met him once—in the evening.”
“Good; let him come immediately, then. Tell him just the facts. If I am not mistaken, he will pooh-pooh the whole thing; tell you to keep quiet, not to worry, and so on. My dear fellow, if we realised, say, typhoid, who’d dare to face it? That will give us time; to wait a while, to recover our breath, to see what happens next. And if—as I don’t believe for a moment—Why, in that case I heard the other day of a most excellent man—Grosser, of Wimpole Street; nerves. He would be absorbed. He’ll bottle you in spirit, Lawford. We’ll have him down quietly. You see? But there won’t be any necessity. Oh no. By then light will have come. We shall remember. What I mean is this.” He crossed his legs and pushed out his lips. “We are on quaky ground; and it’s absolutely essential that you keep cool, and trust. I am yours, heart and soul—you know that. I own frankly, at first I was shaken. And I have, I confess, been very cunning. But first, faith, then evidence to bolster it up. The faith was absolute”—he placed one firm hand on Lawford’s knee—”why, I cannot explain; but it was. The evidence is convincing. But there are others to think of. The shock, the incredibleness, the consequences; we must not sca
n too closely. Think WITH; never against: and bang go all the arguments. Your wife, poor dear, believes; but of course, of course, she is horribly—” he broke off; “of course she is SHAKEN, you old simpleton! Time will heal all that. Time will wear out the mask. Time will tire out this detestable physical witchcraft. The mind, the self’s the thing. Old fogey though I may seem for saying it—that must be kept unsmirched. We won’t go wearily over the painful subject again. You told me last night, dear old friend, that you were absolutely alone at Widderstone. That is enough. But here we have visible facts, tangible effects, and there must have been a definite reason and a cause for them. I believe in the devil, in the Powers of Darkness, Lawford, as firmly as I believe he and they are powerless—in the long run. They—what shall we say?—have surrendered their intrinsicality. You can just go through evil, as you can go through a sewer, and come out on the other side too. A loathsome process too. But there—we are not speaking of any such monstrosities, and even if we were, you and I with God’s help would just tire them out. And that ally gone, our poor dear old Mrs Grundy will at once capitulate. Eh? Eh?”
Through all this long and arduous harangue, consciousness, like the gradual light of dawn, had been flooding that other brain. And the face that now confronted Mr Bethany, though with his feeble unaided sight he could only very obscurely discern it, was vigilant and keen, in every sharp-cut hungry feature.
A rather prolonged silence followed, the visitor peering mutely. The black eyes nearly closed, the face turned slowly towards the window, saw burnt-out candle, comprehensive glass.
The Altar of the Dead And Other Morbid Tales Page 18