by Francis Iles
“Yes?”
“Oh, I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t.”
Her hands, in brown suede gauntlets, were twisting in her lap. She had very small hands, and the wide gauntlets at her wrists made them look smaller still. He had adored her tiny hands and feet, and could notice still how pretty they were.
“Tell me? What?”
“Something—terrible.” She looked at him with eyes that were really terrified. Some of her fear communicated itself to him.
“What do you mean?” he asked sharply.
“I—I’m—I’m going to have—a baby.”
“Nonsense!”
He twisted in his seat and stared at her. She shrank a little away from him.
“I am, Teddy, I am. I ought to know, oughtn’t I?”
“Then it isn’t mine,” he said brutally.
Her eyes swam. She buried her face in her hands, weeping. “Oh, Teddy,” she moaned.
“Ivy—who else have you been with?”
She shook her head mutely, and he repeated the question.
“Oh, Teddy, how can you? How can you?”
“You must have been.”
“I haven’t,” she choked. “I swear I haven’t. I swear it.”
“Well, it isn’t mine. That’s certain.”
But he believed her. A cold dismay invaded his body; he began to sweat.
This was terrible. Oh, damn the girl, damn the girl, damn her! What was to happen now? Little fool; she would somehow manage to . . . Presumably he must believe her when she said she hadn’t . . . Oh, hell!
And Madeleine . . .
He got out of the car and walked up and down the track, pushing the ends of his moustache into his mouth and biting them savagely, hardly conscious of what he was doing.
“Teddy, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s all right. I suppose it isn’t your fault.” But his tone implied that it was.
Ivy began to cry.
As always, her tears, which a few minutes ago he had been ready to tolerate, irritated him almost beyond control. This was a serious business. They had got to thresh it out. It is impossible to get much further if one of the parties to a discussion keeps her face buried in her hands and sobs into them.
“Ivy! For heaven’s sake stop that damned crying. How on earth can we talk if you won’t keep calm?”
She made an obvious effort to pull herself together, wiped her eyes, and blew her reddened nose. Crying completely spoilt her looks, but she had never learnt not to give way to it. By degrees her sobs died down.
“I don’t believe it. It’s pure imagination.”
Ivy stared sullenly through the windscreen ahead. “Yes, it’s easy to say that, isn’t it?” He hardly recognised her voice. This was a new Ivy all of a sudden, an Ivy he had never met before. From being helpless and clinging, she had become in a flash like a stubborn bit of tough rubber.
“Well—how do you know?”
“The usual way, of course.”
He glanced at her sideways. “If you really are . . .” Suddenly he reached a decision. “All right, Ivy. You needn’t worry. It’s quite simple. I’ll operate.”
She started. “An . . . ? But—doctors aren’t allowed to.”
“Really, my dear girl,” he laughed harshly, “sometimes doctors have no choice.”
“You might kill me. It’s dangerous.”
“Not in properly qualified hands. Don’t be such a little fool.” He was beginning to lose his temper. “There’s no danger at all with me. Do you think I’d suggest it if there was? Do use your sense.”
“You don’t care what happens to me.”
He shrugged his shoulders and controlled his rising anger. After all, there might be no immediate hurry, though that he must discover. And she would have to consent. But if she was going to be difficult . . . Oh, God, what a mess this was!
He recalled that inspiration he had had on the ledge at the entrance to the cave. It no longer seemed so horrible. Horrible? It was beautifully simple. And there could be no question afterwards. It would be plain that she had been scrambling up the side and missed her footing. And what a solution it would have been. He almost regretted not having had the nerve to do it. The nerve: that’s all that is needed.
He looked with something like hatred at her tear-stained face, as she sat there staring stubbornly ahead; and a cold fury seized hold of him. Weil, by God, it wasn’t too late yet. If the little idiot was going to be difficult . . . If there was going to be any question of her coming between him and Madeleine . . . Or even of Madeleine ever hearing . . . Well, she had better look out.
He swung off at a sharp angle into the undergrowth.
“Teddy!”
She had scrambled out of the car and followed him. Her sullenness had gone; there was the old pathetic note in her voice.
“Teddy—aren’t you a little bit sorry for me?”
“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently.
“You’re not. You’re cross.”
It was all he could do to answer her civilly. “Well, who wouldn’t be?”
“If you really loved me you’d be glad.”
“Glad you’re going to have an illegitimate child?” he said angrily. “Oh, don’t be such a fool.”
“You don’t love me,” she sobbed. “You don’t. Now I really know. You wouldn’t be so unkind. Oh, Teddy. . . . Well, it’s lucky I’m not going to have a baby, after all.”
“What?” he shouted. “What was that?”
His tone frightened her tears away, but she faced him with a certain defiance. “No, I’m not. I made it all up, to find out if you really do love me or not; because you never would tell me. You’re not brave enough, I suppose. Well, now I do know.” She laughed hysterically. “So it’s lucky I’m—not like that, isn’t it?”
He stared at her, his face white, loathing her. “You little—bitch.”
“Yes, that’s right,” she cried shrilly. “Call me beastly, vulgar names. I’m nothing now, of course. Not since you met your precious Madeleine. Why don’t you call her that? That’s what she is, and everyone knows it but you. She’s just a—”
Something took control of Dr. Bickleigh. Something that made him hit Ivy in the face with his clenched fist, knocking her backwards into a tangle of brambles and smashing back the blasphemy on to her lips. Something that took him striding with set, mask-like face and burning eyes back to the car, heedless of the wailing cries that followed him.
“Teddy! Oh, Teddy, I didn’t mean . . . Teddy darling!”
He jammed in the gear as if he hardly knew what he was doing, and threw in the clutch. The car leapt forward. He drove at top speed out of the wood and down the road.
Dr. Bickleigh had never laid any but amorous hands on a woman before. His brain, incapable of thought, was throbbing with mixed emotion: half of it was disgust, and half a queer, shouting exaltation.
5
BY LUNCH-TIME he had stopped trembling.
But he had not forgiven Ivy. On his own account, yes. Considered from that point of view, Ivy was merely pitiable; he was really sorry for her. But the feeling that stayed with him was that Ivy had insulted, not himself, but Madeleine; not merely her futile outburst against Madeleine in person, but his own new standing with Madeleine, his attempts to make himself more worthy of Madeleine, all that Madeleine stood for; it all came back to Madeleine. And that was unforgivable.
Nevertheless, he was glad now, in his sane senses, that there could be no question of that ledge outside the cave; and could shudder to wonder what might not have happened if such a question had arisen. The intensity of his rage with Ivy had frightened himself afterwards. In that mood, heaven alone knew what he might not have done. But it was rather wonderful (he could not help feeling) that the capability for such a mood existed in him at all.
He was rather silent at lunch, answering Julia with such abruptness that she raised her thick eyebrows at him. Afterwards, when he was putting on his hat in front of the hall mirror to start out ag
ain, she said: “Are you going to be in to tea to-day, Edmund?”
“No,” he answered, without turning round. Then something impelled him to add: “I shall be having tea at The Hall.”
He wished Julia would burst out at that. A real hammer-and-tongs row at that moment, such as he and Julia had never had in their lives, would do him all the good in the world while he was still so on edge from the morning; relieve his tautened nerves, afford him something on which to expend his bottled-up energy. Besides, he felt just then ready to give Julia as good as she could give him, and better.
But Julia did not oblige. She merely said: “You will be in to dinner?”
“Of course. Why not?”
“Very well. I shall want to talk to you after it.”
That was just like Julia, he thought, savagely cranking up the car (the Jowett’s self-starter seldom worked nowadays). She had probably worked out to the minute how many hours of uneasy anticipation he should have.
More than ever he longed for Madeleine.
There were several more visits to pay before he could consider himself free enough to go up to The Hall. He hurried through them, cursing Ivy for having cut so into his morning. It was nearly four o’clock before he drew up before the iron-studded oak front door.
Madeleine was in the hall, obviously waiting for him. They kissed in silence before greeting each other. She was wearing a hat, and seemed to be dressed to go out.
“Dear, I’m so sorry, but I can’t stay,” she said. “I ought not to have waited so long, but I had to see you first. And I knew you’d come. I’m due for tea at the Bournes’.”
He looked his terrible disappointment. “You never told me yesterday.”
“I didn’t know. Lady Bourne sent her son over with a note this morning.”
“Denny? You should have told him you couldn’t go.”
“But it would have looked so bad.”
“Not if you’d got a previous engagement.”
Madeleine shook her head. “No, I felt I ought to go. It’s a nuisance, Edmund, but we mustn’t always think of ourselves, must we? And, anyhow, you’ve seen me first.”
“You’re the dearest girl,” muttered Dr. Bickleigh, and kissed her again. She was exactly the same height as himself.
“And, Edmund,” she said gently, disengaging herself after a moment, “I don’t think you must come up here every day.”
“But I must see you whenever I possibly can.”
“Yes, but not every day. Not nearly every day. People would begin to talk at once.”
“Good heavens, let ’em,” declared the infatuated doctor. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a bit of cheap gossip, Madeleine.”
“I was thinking of you, dear,” she told him reproachfully. “Gossip does a doctor so much harm.”
“Well, when can I see you?”
In the end it was arranged that Madeleine should be walking in her woods every Monday and Friday, near the lake. On Wednesdays, the day when he had no evening surgery, Dr. Bickleigh should come to the house itself, with his sketching materials as a disguise, and stay for tea. Saturdays and Sundays were no good, because of tennis-parties. Tuesdays and Thursdays must be sacrificed. Dr. Bickleigh grumbled a good deal, but Madeleine was not to be moved.
“And, anyhow,” she pointed out, “it will be Friday the day after to-morrow.”
“But it’s Wednesday to-day. My day for tea.”
“You had your Wednesday tea yesterday,” she smiled. “You mustn’t be greedy, Edmund.” He had never heard her so playful before. It delighted him so much that he let her carry the point.
“And now I must go.”
They had an impassioned parting.
Dr. Bickleigh drove away gloomily, wishing that Madeleine had not been so firm, wishing that she would let him choose her hats for her.
He felt terribly flat.
To return home was impossible. In the end he drove into Merchester and had tea at a café there, spinning it out as long as possible. The rest of the interval before dinner he spent, with a book he had bought for the purpose in Merchester and disliked as soon as he began to read it, lying in a field half a dozen miles from home. The ground was damp after yesterday’s rain, and he had no rug with him.
By the time he did get home his reaction from the nervous energy of lunch-time was complete. He felt utterly worn out, tired, disappointed, and dispirited. So far from standing up to Julia after dinner, he could hardly endure the thought of friction. Definitely, he decided, he could not bear it. And yet it was hardly possible to go out again; while to flee to bed under pretence of being unwell would be worse than useless, for Julia would only follow him up there and he would be more at her mercy than ever. If only she had had one of her headaches to-day, so that he could get rid of her with the same ease as last night!
He wandered into his surgery and looked gratefully at the bottle of morphia tablets.
Julia. . . . Oh, Lord! She would wipe the floor with him to-night; simply wipe the floor with him. He couldn’t stand up to her; couldn’t do it. She would try to make him renounce going to The Hall, renounce Madeleine, renounce the only thing in his life worth having; she would bully him into . . .
No, anything was better than that, even flight. Oh, for one of her headaches!
Well, but if one can cure headaches, one should be able to bring them on too. Dr. Bickleigh struck his hands together in excitement. What a marvellous inspiration! Give her a headache, and then relieve it for her afterwards—with morphia. Now, what drug would effect his purpose best?
But that was where his inspiration fell down. He could think of not a single drug in his stock which would produce a headache only, accompanied by no other symptoms. Not a single one. He frowned in disappointment. How absurd that there should not be such a thing.
Then a vague memory stirred in him. He concentrated on it, chased it grimly, at last began to disentangle it. There had been a sample. Oh, at least three years ago. Some preparation put up by one of the well-known firms. One out of the hundreds he got in a year, but he had noticed it particularly because it had been so expensive, and because he had seen it reviewed a day or two later in the B. M. J. It had been designed for—what? Ha, yes: one of the many correctives for uric acid diathesis. And it had been a failure, not only on account of its price, but because—he remembered clearly now—it induced such violent headaches. Now had he . . . ?
He opened the drawer where he kept such of the samples as seemed at all interesting, and searched feverishly.
Tucked away at the back, he found it.
Tiptoe with excitement, Dr. Bickleigh crept into the dining-room. Nobody was there. In front of each place, ready on a plate, was the half of a grape-fruit, ready prepared, with a crystallised cherry in the middle. Hurriedly Dr. Bickleigh produced a folded paper from his pocket and sprinkled its contents over his wife’s portion.
Towards the end of dinner that evening Mrs. Bickleigh was attacked by such a blinding headache that she had to ask her husband for something to relieve it at once. The draught he gave her did her no good for the moment, but soon after coffee had been served in the drawing-room she found herself so sleepy that on the doctor’s advice she went up to bed immediately, where she fell at once into a sleep so deep that it made her oblivious even of one of the worst headaches she had ever had.
CHAPTER V
1
IT WOULD be unfair to Dr. Bickleigh’s feelings to describe them during these days as an infatuation. All of us suffer at one time or another from those awkward phenomena. Dr. Bickleigh’s emotion was on a higher plane altogether than the ordinary mortal’s; he never doubted that.
The thought of Madeleine was never out of his mind. If not blazing like a beacon in the foreground, then it was glowing heartfully in the background. It illuminated his every thought and action with a bright, holy light. From a wonderful experience Madeleine had leapt into an obsession with him. Everything else in his life (except Julia, in the evenings) had faded into
a pale unreality. Even Julia only existed when he was with her.
He recognised this preoccupation, and compared it, quite sincerely, with the ecstasies of certain well-known saints. But the revelation vouchsafed to himself, he felt, was in one way at least greater than theirs; for, though it is doubtless a miraculous thing that a divine Being should put on humanity, is it not much more miraculous that a human being should put on divinity? If he had said any prayers at all, he would have said them to the spirit of Madeleine.
He stood humbly aghast at the incredible thing that had happened to him. That one who was the incarnation of purity, of unworldliness, of the soul as opposed to the body, should stoop to such gross clay as himself—should reach down to lift him too on to her own exalted plane! And she had lifted him. His old life, with its sordid outlook on money and women, pettifogging details of this and that, lay in tatters about him; with outstretched finger Madeleine pointed the way to broader, nobler ambitions and purer vistas. His old timidity began to vanish: how could he feel inferior to anyone in the world, if Madeleine loved him? Madeleine, with her sweet, chaste kisses that were the physical expression only of a communion of souls.
He did not desire her. He had not thought of her in that way at all. She was simply outside the orbit of gross, fleshly appetites. Every kiss they exchanged (and Madeleine, as befitted one so unfleshly, was sparing with her kisses) was to him part of a breathlessly holy ritual. And he, who had been accustomed to paw every woman the moment he gained her lips, never attempted the smallest familiarity of touch with Madeleine. Her body was sacrosanct.
In a word, Dr. Bickleigh had somehow managed to become seventeen again.
On the Thursday evening, depressed at having seen nothing of Madeleine all day and living only for the next afternoon, he had frankly fled. A particularly difficult case had been invented right the other side of Merchester, and Dr. Bickleigh had departed the moment after swallowing his coffee. He stayed out long enough to ensure that Julia should be in bed and asleep before he returned.
On Friday afternoon, bursting with eagerness, he parked his car on the side of the road and made his way into Madeleine’s woods.