The voices and footsteps, even the frou-frou of worshippers going to church, the voices and footsteps of worshippers returning from church, had floated up to the patient’s open window. Sunlight had drawn across his room in one pale beam, and vanished. A few callers had called. Hothouse flowers, waxen and pale, had been left with messages of sympathy. Even Dr Critchett had respectfully and discreetly made inquiries on his way home from chapel.
Lawford had spent most of his time in pacing to and fro in his soft slippers. The very monotony had eased his mind. Now and again he had lain motionless, with his face to the ceiling. He had dozed and had awakened, cold and torpid with dream. He had hardly been aware of the process, but every hour had done something, it seemed, towards clarifying his point of view. A consciousness had begun to stir in him that was neither that of the old, easy Lawford, whom he had never been fully aware of before, nor of this strange ghostly intelligence that haunted the hawk-like, restless face, and plucked so insistently at his distracted nerves. He had begun in a vague fashion to be aware of them both, could in a fashion discriminate between them, almost as if there really were two spirits in stubborn conflict within him. It would, of course, wear him down in time. There could be only one end to such a struggle—THE end.
All day he had longed for freedom, on and on, with craving for the open sky, for solitude, for green silence, beyond these maddening walls. This heedful silken coming and going, these Sunday voices, this reiterant yelp of a single peevish bell—would they never cease? And above all, betwixt dread and an almost physical greed, he hungered for night. He sat down with elbows on knees and head on his hands, thinking of night, its secrecy, its immeasurable solitude.
His eyelids twitched; the fire before him had for an instant gone black out. He seemed to see slow-gesturing branches, grass stooping beneath a grey and wind-swept sky. He started up; and the remembrance of the morning returned to him—the glassy light, the changing rays, the beaming gilt upon the useless books. Now, at last, at the windows; afternoon had begun to wane. And when Sheila brought up his tea, as if Chance had heard his cry, she entered in hat and stole. She put down the tray, and paused at the glass, looking across it out of the window.
“Alice says you are to eat every one of those delicious sandwiches, and especially the tiny omelette. You have scarcely touched anything today, Arthur. I am a poor one to preach, I am afraid; but you know what that will mean—a worse breakdown still. You really must try to think of—of us all.”
“Are you going to church?” he asked in a low voice.
“Not, of course, if you would prefer not. But Dr Simon advised me most particularly to go out at least once a day. We must remember, this is not the beginning of your illness. Long-continued anxiety, I suppose, does tell on one in time. Anyhow, he said that I looked worried and run-down. I AM worried. Let us both try for each other’s sakes, or even if only for Alice’s, to—to do all we can. I must not harass you; but is there any—do you see the slightest change of any kind?”
“You always look pretty, Sheila; tonight you look prettier: THAT is the only change, I think.”
Mrs Lawford’s attitude intensified in its stillness. “Now, speaking quite frankly, what is it in you suggests these remarks at such a time? That’s what baffles me. It seems so childish, so needlessly blind.”
“I am very sorry, Sheila, to be so childish. But I’m not, say what you like, blind. You ARE pretty: I’d repeat it if I was burning at the stake.”
Sheila lowered her eyes softly on to the rich-toned picture in the glass. ‘supposing,” she said, watching her lips move, ‘supposing—of course, I know you are getting better and all that—but supposing you don’t change back as Mr Bethany thinks, what will you do? Honestly, Arthur, when I think over it calmly, the whole tragedy comes back on me with such a force it sweeps me off my feet; I am for the moment scarcely my own mistress. What would you do?”
“I think, Sheila,” replied a low, infinitely weary voice, “I think I should marry again.” It was the same wavering, faintly ironical voice that had slightly discomposed Dr Simon that same morning.
‘“Marry again"!” exclaimed incredulously the full lips in the looking-glass. “Who?”
“YOU, dear!”
Sheila turned softly round, conscious in a most humiliating manner that she had ever so little flushed.
Her husband was pouring out his tea, unaware, apparently, of her change of position. She watched him curiously. In spite of all her reason, of her absolute certainty, she wondered even again for a moment if this really could be Arthur. And for the first time she realised the power and mastery of that eager and far too hungry face. Her mind seemed to pause, fluttering in air, like a bird in the wind. She hastened rather unsteadily to the door.
“Will you want anything more, do you think, for an hour?” she asked.
Her husband looked up over his little table. “Is Alice going with you?”
“Oh yes; poor child, she looks so pale and miserable. We are going to Mrs Sherwin’s, and then on to Church. You will lock your door?”
“Yes, I will lock my door.”
“And I do hope Arthur—nothing rash!”
A change, that seemed almost the effect of actual shadow, came over his face. “I wish you could stay with me,” he said slowly. “I don’t think you have any idea what—what I go through.”
It was as if a child had asked on the verge of terror for a candle in the dark. But an hour’s terror is better than a lifetime of timidity. Sheila sighed.
“I think,” she said, “I too might say that. But there; giving way will do nothing for either of us. I shall be gone only for an hour, or two at the most. And I told Mr Bethany I should have to come out before the sermon: it’s only Mr Craik.”
“But why Mrs Sherwin? She”d worm a secret out of one’s grave.”
“It’s useless to discuss that, Arthur; you have always consistently disliked my friends. It’s scarcely likely that you would find any improvement in them now.”
“Oh, well—” he began. But the door was already closed.
“Sheila!” he called in a burst of anger.
“Well, Arthur?”
“You have taken my latchkey.”
Sheila came hastily in again. “Your latchkey?”
“I am going out.”
‘“Going out!"—you will not be so mad, so criminal; and after your promise!”
He stood up. “It is useless to argue. If I do not go out, I shall certainly go mad. As for criminal—why, that’s a woman’s word. Who on earth is to know me?”
“It is of no consequence, then, that the servants are already gossiping about this impossible Dr Ferguson; that you are certain to be seen either going or returning; that Alice is bound to discover that you are well enough to go out, and yet not even enough to say goodnight to your own daughter—oh, it’s monstrous, it’s a frantic, a heartless thing to do!” Her voice vaguely suggested tears.
Lawford eyed her coldly and stubbornly—thinking of the empty room he would leave awaiting his return, its lamp burning, its fire-flames shining. It was almost a physical discomfort, this longing unspeakable for the twilight, the green secrecy and the silence of the graves. “Keep them out of the way,” he said in a low voice; “it will be dark when I come in.” His hardened face lit up. “It’s useless to attempt to dissuade me.”
“Why must you always be hurting me? why do you seem to delight in trying to estrange me?” Husband and wife faced each other across the clear-lit room. He did not answer.
“For the last time,” she said in a quiet, hard voice, “I ask you not to go.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Ask me not to come back,” he said; ‘that’s nearer your hope.” He turned his face to the fire. Without moving he heard her go out, return, pause, and go out again. And when he deliberately wheeled round in his chair the little key lay conspicuous there on the counterpane.
CHAPTER NINE
The last light of sunset lay in the west; and a su
llen wrack of cloud was mounting into the windless sky when Lawford entered the country graveyard again by its dark weather-worn lych-gate. The old stone church with its square tower stood amid trees, its eastern window faintly aglow with crimson and purple. He could hear a steady, rather nasal voice through its open lattices. But the stooping stones and the cypresses were out of sight of its porch. He would not be seen down there. He paused a moment, however; his hat was drawn down over his eyes; he was shivering. Far over the harvest fields showed a growing pallor in the solitary seat beneath the cypresses. He stood hesitating, gazing steadily and yet half vacantly at the motionless figure, and in a while a face was lifted in his direction, and undisconcerted eyes calmly surveyed him.
“I am afraid,” called Lawford rather nervously—”I hope I am not intruding?”
“Not at all, not at all,” said the stranger. “I have no privileges here; at least as yet.”
Lawford again hesitated, then slowly advanced. “It’s astonishingly quiet and beautiful,” he said.
The stranger turned his head to glance over the fields. “Yes, it is, very,” he replied. There was the faintest accent, a little drawl of unfriendliness in the remark.
“You often sit here?” Lawford persisted.
The stranger raised his eyebrows. “Oh yes, often.” He smiled. “It is my own modest fashion of attending divine service. The congregation is rapt.”
“My visits,” said Lawford, “have been very few—in fact, so far as I know, I have only once been here before.”
“I envy you the novelty.” There was again the same faint unmistakable antagonism in voice and attitude; and yet so deep was the relief in talking to a fellow creature who hadn’t the least suspicion of anything unusual in his appearance that Lawford was extremely disinclined to turn back. He made another effort—for conversation with strangers had always been a difficulty to him—and advanced towards the seat. “You mustn’t please let me intrude upon you,” he said, “but really I am very interested in this queer old place. Perhaps you would tell me something of its history?” He sat down. His companion moved slowly to the other side of the broken gravestone.
“To tell you the truth,” he replied, picking his way as it were from word to word, “it’s "history," as people call it, does not interest me in the least. After all, it’s not when a thing is, but what it is, that much matters. What this is”—he glanced, with head bent, across the shadowy stones, “is pretty evident. Of course, age has its charms.”
“And is this very old?”
“Oh yes, it’s old right enough, as things go; but even age, perhaps, is mainly an affair of the imagination. There’s a tombstone near that little old hawthorn, and there are two others side by side under the wall, still even legibly late seventeenth century. That’s pretty good weathering.” He smiled faintly. “Of course, the church itself is centuries older, drenched with age. But she’s still sleep-walking while these old tombstones dream. Glow-worms and crickets are not such bad bedfellows.”
“What interested me most, I think,” said Lawford haltingly, “was this.” He pointed with his stick to the grave at his feet.
“Ah, yes, Sabathier’s,” said the stranger; “I know his peculiar history almost by heart.”
Lawford found himself staring with unusual concentration into the rather long and pale face. “Not, I suppose,” he resumed faintly—”not, I suppose, beyond what’s there.”
His companion leant his hand on the old stooping tombstone. “Well, you know, there’s a good deal there”—he stooped over—”if you read between the lines. Even if you don’t.”
“A suicide,” said Lawford, under his breath.
“Yes, a suicide; that’s why our Christian countrymen have buried him outside of the fold. Dead or alive, they try to keep the wolf out.”
“Is this, then, unconsecrated ground?” said Lawford.
“Haven’t you noticed,” drawled the other, “how green the grass grows down here, and how very sharp are poor old Sabathier’s thorns? Besides, he was a stranger, and they—kept him out.”
“But, surely,” said Lawford, “was it so entirely a matter of choice—the laws of the Church? If he did kill himself, he did.”
The stranger turned with a little shrug. “I don’t suppose it’s a matter of much consequence to HIM. I fancied I was his only friend. May I venture to ask why you are interested in the poor old thing?”
Lawford’s mind was as calm and shallow as a millpond. “Oh, a rather unusual thing happened to me here,” he said. “You say you often come?”
“Often,” said the stranger rather curtly.
“Has anything—ever—occurred?”
‘“Occurred?’“ He raised his eyebrows. “I wish it had. I come here simply, as I have said, because it’s quiet; because I prefer the company of those who never answer me back, and who do not so much as condescend to pay me the least attention.” He smiled and turned his face towards the quiet fields.
Lawford, after a long pause, lifted his eyes. “Do you think,” he said softly, “it is possible one ever could?”
‘“One ever could?’“
“Answer back?”
There was a low rotting wall of stone encompassing Sabathier’s grave; on this the stranger sat down. He glanced up rather curiously at his companion. “Seldom the time and the place and the revenant altogether. The thought has occurred to others,” he ventured to add.
“Of course, of course,” said Lawford eagerly. “But it is an absolutely new one to me. I don’t mean that I have never had such an idea, just in one’s own superficial way; but”—he paused and glanced swiftly into the fast-thickening twilight—”I wonder: are they, do you think, really, all quite dead?”
“Call and see!” taunted the stranger softly.
“Ah, yes, I know,” said Lawford. “But I believe in the resurrection of the body; that is what we say; and supposing, when a man dies—supposing it was most frightfully against one’s will; that one hated the awful inaction that death brings, shutting a poor devil up like a child kicking against the door in a dark cupboard; one might surely one might—just quietly, you know, try to get out? wouldn’t you?” he added.
“And, surely,” he found himself beginning gently to argue again, ‘surely, what about, say, him?” He nodded towards the old and broken grave that lay between them.
“What, Sabathier?” the other echoed, laying his hand upon the stone.
And a sheer enormous abyss of silence seemed to follow the unanswerable question.
“He was a stranger; it says so. Good God!” said Lawford, “how he must have wanted to get home! He killed himself, poor wretch, think of the fret and fever he must have been in—just before. Imagine it.”
“But it might, you know,” suggested the other with a smile—“might have been sheer indifference.”
‘“Nicholas Sabathier, Stranger to this parish"—no, no,” said Lawford, his heart beating as if it would choke him, “I don’t fancy it was indifference.”
It was almost too dark now to distinguish the stranger’s features but there seemed a faint suggestion of irony in his voice. “And how do you suppose your angry naughty child would set about it? It’s narrow quarters; how would he begin?”
Lawford sat quite still. “You say—I hope I am not detaining you—you say you have come here, sat here often, on this very seat; have you ever had—have you ever fallen asleep here?”
“Why do you ask?” inquired the other curiously.
“I was only wondering,” said Lawford. He was cold and shivering. He felt instinctively it was madness to sit on here in the thin gliding mist that had gathered in swathes above the grass, milk-pale in the rising moon. The stranger turned away from him.
‘“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come must give us pause,’“ he said slowly, with a little satirical catch on the last word. “What did you dream?”
Lawford glanced helplessly about him. The moon cast lean grey beams of light between the cypresses.
But to his wide and wandering eyes it seemed that a radiance other than hers haunted these mounds and leaning stones. “Have you ever noticed it?” he said, putting out his hand towards his unknown companion; ‘this stone is cracked from head to foot?... But there”—he rose stiff and chilled—”I am afraid I have bored you with my company. You came here for solitude, and I have been trying to convince you that we are surrounded with witnesses. You will forgive my intrusion?” There was a kind of old-fashioned courtesy in his manner that he himself was dimly aware of. He held out his hand.
“I hope you will think nothing of the kind,” said the other earnestly; “how could it be in any sense an intrusion? It’s the old story of Bluebeard. And I confess I too should very much like a peep into his cupboard. Who wouldn’t? But there, it’s merely a matter of time, I suppose.” He paused, and together they slowly ascended the path already glimmering with a heavy dew. At the porch they paused once more. And now it was the stranger that held out his hand.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you will give me the pleasure of someday continuing our talk. As for our friend below, it so happens that I have managed to pick up a little more of his history than the sexton seems to have heard of—if you would care some time or other to share it. I live only at the foot of the hill, not half a mile distant. Perhaps you could spare the time now?”
Lawford took out his watch, “You are really very kind,” he said. “But, perhaps—well, whatever that history may be, I think you would agree that mine is even—but, there, I’ve talked too much about myself already. Perhaps tomorrow?”
“Why, tomorrow, then,” said his companion. “It’s a flat wooden house, on the left-hand side. Come at any time of the evening”; he paused again and smiled—’the third house after the Rectory, which is marked up on the gate. My name is Herbert—Herbert Herbert to be precise.”
The Altar of the Dead And Other Morbid Tales Page 22