The Dead of Night

by Oliver Onions

  ‘Well, if it was all a dream it would be as easy to dream it out as in;’ and Virginia passed down the stairs, and her brother up and along to his own room.

  With a stretch that refreshed every inch of her Agatha woke towards seven o’clock. Ah-h-h! that had been a sleep! Such a sleep was a thing to remember! She looked at her little travelling-clock. Only two-and-a-half hours! It seemed like a great space of life! Historic things might have happened in that mere portion of an afternoon! She sprang from the bed and ran to the tall wardrobe glass. She was frockless, slipperless, and she knew that her shoulders and back were magnificent, and rejoiced. Were they not worth taking care of? They were a trust, a debt, a promise. Already in her heart she exulted in the ratification. She reached for her bathrobe. She opened the rosewood door and peeped out – for it was the single defect of her room that it opened on the stairs. She passed to the bathroom. No frock had been laid out for her; evidently orders had been given that she was not to be disturbed; but she would choose her frock herself. Not the Malmaison pink . . . she ran over her frocks as she bathed. The golden velvet. Gold for gladness and the rising of the sun. Also gold for the golden voice in which she sang. She returned to her room and got out the frock. She heard the noise of an arriving car, but made no haste. The others would be in their rooms, also dressing, and some dinner-guest had arrived a little early, that was all. She thought she heard Humphrey Paton’s voice. Humphrey admired her and hung about her and would not leave her alone, but she could never make herself golden for Humphrey. ‘If there was a spare me you could have it,’ she had told him, ‘but I’ve only one, and I’m keeping it.’ Humphrey had said he would ask her again. He might ask her again that night. It would make no difference. Sibyl Trevor was head over ears in love with him too. Why didn’t Sibyl ask him? She was modern enough. Agatha was not modern. She wasn’t anything. She was just Agatha – dressed in gold and passing out by the rosewood door that gleamed as richly red as her heart.

  She reached the foot of the stairs. The before-dinner tray was always carried to the library, and Agatha put her hand on the rounded bottom of the handrail that curled like a shell. It en­countered another hand there. Gazing, she saw that it was a brown and weathered hand. She was looking down into a pair of eyes – a man’s eyes. The eyes looked up back into hers. She knew that in that moment her true life began. The miraculous thing was upon her.

  5

  At dinner that night Agatha Croft sat far away from Barty Paton. Humphrey Paton was on her one hand, Mr James on the other. Mr James seemed for some reason specially to take charge of her, but Humphrey’s charge seemed even more special. As if, even if he had ever had a chance, there remained a hope for him now! She knew that with the other there would be neither asking nor offering; it was as it was, a sealed and perfect circle. Amazing! She did not even remember to have heard that there was a missing brother. And at the thought that these people had claims of priority over her own she laughed. Priority! Thenceforward there was neither first nor last, but only that sealed and perfect circle. Hearing her soft laugh Mr James’s fears were confirmed in him. Something had happened to Agatha. A strange Agatha had come into the house. She had dreams about tall, brown, soldierly-looking men, and produced swords from nowhere. Agatha, of whom they had all been so fond!

  Dinner ended. This tall young man so extraordinarily risen from the dead had not yet been introduced to Agatha The band in the drawing-room was tuning up. Suddenly she saw across the room the daring eyes in the steep handsome head fixed powerfully on her own. Straightway they asked the question, and she smiled and nodded the answer. She walked out of the room. Two minutes later he had joined her. This was where their hands had first encountered, on the scroll of the rail at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘How brown you are!’ she said, and thought the beginning perfect.

  ‘Yes, I’m rather brown. Don’t you like me brown?’ he asked.

  She laughed, as she had always known that one day she would laugh. – ‘Well, I don’t think I should have liked you pale. Where have you been?’

  ‘Oh, don’t begin that!’ he too laughed. ‘For the last twenty-four hours I’ve been doing nothing but tell people where I’ve been! Where haven’t I been?’

  ‘You know perfectly well I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Are you staying here, in this house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have they still got that lily-garden?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then come and take a turn in it.’

  ‘Ought we to, straight away like this? So many people want to talk to you!’

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘We mustn’t be long,’ she said.

  They went out by the library window. The music was loud at the other side of the house, but became softer as they closed the door behind them.

  ‘What is your name?’ he asked her.

  ‘Couldn’t you have known that too? Agatha.’

  ‘Agatha.’ He repeated it, and it sounded like a vow on his tongue. ‘Mine’s Barty.’

  ‘I did know that.’

  ‘Why did you put your hand in mine on the stair-rail there?’

  ‘I think it was you who put yours in mine.’

  ‘Give it to me now.’

  She placed it in his.

  ‘Now turn to me.’

  ‘Oh, I am turned!’

  ‘And now –’

  That too she did, her mouth on his, the golden velvet gathered to his black and white.

  ‘Now tell me when we can be married,’ he ordered her.

  She said, whenever he liked, and he mused.

  ‘Of course you realise I’m a most infernal nuisance?’ he said.

  ‘Why, love?’

  ‘Well, Humphrey for one thing.’

  ‘He’s told you?’

  ‘He told me I should be meeting the girl he wanted to marry.’

  ‘You ought to know how little hope I gave him!’

  ‘Still, it makes rather a mess of things, my turning up. I see that already. They’d got everything nicely settled. Things were running smoothly. Then up I pop, and there isn’t any place for me.’

  ‘Isn’t there?’ Her laugh was as musical as the fountain among the lilies. ‘See – try –’

  And again they kissed, for a minute as still as the classic figures on the leaden bowl.

  ‘All of which,’ she said releasing herself, ‘is manifestly absurd. You must come in.’

  ‘Will you promise to come out again a little later?’

  ‘Yes. But not with you. Come now.’

  It was with Humphrey that she knew she must come into the garden later, but at present she could hardly spare him a thought. It was part of Barty’s riches that they were precious with the griefs of others. He was not dancing; his dancing was eleven years old now; and what did it matter to her who her own feet danced with when her heart danced so for him? She hardly knew who her partners were. Where Barty stood conspicuous by the Adam mantelpiece was a constant group, that was added to and taken away from, but remained; and her eyes met his every time she passed. Then Barty himself left the group. She saw him in another part of the room, talking to James. And she would have taken any wager that they were talking about herself.

  It was some minutes later that James came up to her. There was a harassed look on his face. Poor James, she thought. She was giving him rather a day of it!

  ‘Are you dancing this dance, Agatha?’ he asked.

  Poor dear! Why should she tease him? – ‘No. I’m talking it out with you,’ she answered.

  ‘Shall we go into the library?’

  ‘Unless somebody’s proposing there,’ she laughed.

  They found the library empty. Mr James did not so much begin as flounder helplessly into it. All his judgmaticalness seemed
to have left him.

  ‘This is an extraordinary announcement that has just been made to me – extraordinary! Incomprehensible!’

  ‘What, James?’ (And yet why should she play with him? Why not proclaim it in a loud voice to the world?) ‘That I’ve just promised a man I’ll marry him?’

  ‘A man you never set eyes on till an hour or two ago! Extra­ord­in­ary! Incomprehensible!’

  ‘I’m not pretending it’s exactly usual,’ Agatha admitted, ‘but then one’s marriage isn’t.’

  ‘But there’s measure – degree – suitability –’

  ‘Oh no!’ she interposed quickly. ‘There’s complete suitability, and there’s the other thing, but I don’t know of any degrees.’

  ‘Unsound, unsound – a leap in the dark is always to be deplored –’

  ‘Oh, but one knows! And I could never have married Humphrey.’ (For James’s heart had always been set on the Humphrey affair.)

  ‘Humphrey’s was always the steadier nature of the two.’

  ‘But surely, dear James, you aren’t trying to persuade me to change my mind!’ she laughed at him.

  ‘Only to common prudence, my child – not that I ever credited Barty with much –’

  ‘I grant you he has a sort of neck-or-nothing look.’

  ‘Neck-or-nothing! – Then there are all these adjustments that will have to be made – his death was never legally presumed, but natur­ally steps had to be taken on reasonably plain assumptions –’

  ‘Do you mean to say they aren’t glad to have him back?’ (Because if that was so Humphrey’s shrift would be short indeed!)

  Mr James looked shocked. As if everybody wasn’t overjoyed to see Barty back!

  ‘Agatha,’ he said, ‘forgive my saying that there’s something strange in your manner all day. Virginia’s noticed it, Arthur’s noticed it, we’ve all noticed it.’

  A little of the irradiation seemed to leave Agatha. Her voice dropped a little. – ‘You mean about this morning?’ she said.

  ‘We cannot pretend that the occurrence is yet explained.’

  She knitted her brows. – ‘It looks as if Barty and I were both nuisances,’ she said slowly

  ‘To go back for a moment to this morning, you will admit – may I say, the slight inconsistencies –’

  ‘I know,’ said Agatha.

  ‘I suppose you couldn’t unknowingly – subconsciously – I am at a loss for a word – in any way have brought that weapon into the house?’

  Agatha’s face suddenly cleared. – ‘Oh no. I found it where I said I found it. And in that case – ’ she added with decision.

  ‘In that case what?’

  ‘It comes to this, that Barty and I are both nuisances, and the sooner we stop being nuisances separately the better.’

  ‘You mean that you are announcing the engagement?’

  ‘There isn’t going to be any engagement. We’re going to be married immediately, and I’m going to speak to Humphrey now,’ she replied.

  6

  The first rejoicings over, the everyday effects of the return of a young man from the dead have to be considered. They have specially to be considered when that young man is the elder of two brothers, and from childhood has been the dominating character. And the particularity with which they must be considered becomes extreme when the absentee’s first act, and within a few hours of his return, is to carry off the young woman the other hopes to make his wife.

  It began about the car. There were two cars, but one was only a Ford runabout, mostly used for short errands to the village, while the other was a magnificent Hispano-Suiza. Without asking anybody Barty took the Hispano-Suiza the very next morning, and did not return with it till late at night. He had been used to doing these things, and merely resumed his habits. On the following day he was starting up the car when Humphrey entered the garage.

  ‘If you’re taking that out do you think you could manage to be back by midday?’ he asked. ‘I rather want to run up to town this afternoon.’

  ‘Can’t you take the train?’ Barty asked. ‘I did rather want her for the day. Get Thompson to take you in the Ford to the twelve-thirty, there’s a good chap.’

  ‘Of course if this is going to be a daily business – ’ said Humphrey with a shrug.

  And there it was in a nutshell. There was every likelihood of its being a daily business. For various reasons a marriage within a couple of days had been found to be impracticable, but the master-reason of all was that by refusing to remain quietly in his coffin Barty had undoubtedly upset everything. Nobody dared say that he wasn’t wanted, but things had gone much more comfortably without him. He even wore his brother’s clothes until he could get some of his own, and how he was to be provided with money was still undetermined.

  Fifty pounds had been put into his pocket to be going on with. But fifty pounds was not enough to marry on.

  ‘You can have the Ford as a present if it’s any good to you,’ said the wretched Humphrey.

  ‘Thanks,’ Barty answered, stretching his sinewy frame as if to keep it in exercise. He almost added that he would see them all at the devil before Agatha set foot in a Ford, but instead he placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder, for he was a reasonable sort of young man as long as he had things his own way. ‘I know how you must feel, old chap,’ he said. ‘It’s devilish rough on you, and don’t think I don’t sympathise. But she wouldn’t have had you at any price, if you don’t mind my putting it in that way, so where was the harm in my having a go? I’m hanged if I’d ask you to take your girl round the country in a Ford!’

  ‘She’d have had me but for you. James says so.’

  ‘James is just an old housemaid. She doesn’t say so!’

  ‘My feelings don’t seem to count for very much.’

  ‘I’m dashed sorry. I truly am. But I didn’t cut you out. I won’t say I’d have stood off in any case, but I’d have given you decent notice.’

  ‘I hope you’ll give me notice when you bring her over here. I’ll take care to be out of the way.’

  ‘Come, be a man about it,’ said Barty, slightly contemptuously; and he started up the car.

  The twelve miles of road between the two houses could be covered in about a quarter of an hour. People standing back in the hedges heard the roar, saw the flash of coach-work; and then stood looking into the dust when it had gone. No Fords for Barty! Then, pulling up at the fanlighted door, he descended – an unhesitating, hard-trained fellow wearing his brother’s clothes and shaved with his brother’s razor, brown as a gipsy, with a steep cropped head and eyes that flashed with daring. ‘Where today, love?’ he would say, bathing her with a look that brought all inner beauty to the surface as the sun brings out the perfume of a flower; and if she said the pinewoods the pinewoods it was, and if she had said the skies he would have attempted it. Their food was packed in a basket, and they would run the car a quarter of a mile into the wood and leave it there, while they walked or sat. And they talked gloriously, of nothing but themselves and the wondrous thing that had descended upon them.

  ‘Oh, how heavenly to have waited!’ she would murmur to him.

  And sometimes he did not talk to her quite as he talked to every­body else, in the speech of the day, but after a dateless fashion, quite proper in a man who announced himself through a rosewood door before setting his firm, real lips on hers.

  ‘But it was such an age!’

  ‘How heavenly now that it was such an age!’

  ‘I have always known and loved you!’

  ‘How can you always have known and loved me?’

  ‘Perhaps not so – nor so – nor so – ’ The so’s were crushed on her lips.

  ‘Barty!’

  ‘Spirit!’ he breathed.

  ‘It’s all one with us –’
/>
  ‘Then what should I kill if you betrayed me?’

  ‘Could you dream that I betrayed you?’

  What did they mean? They knew what they meant: and it was because she knew what he meant that she never asked him what everybody else asked him, when he yawned and stretched that warrior frame of his and replied, ‘Oh, all over the place – Central Africa, Nubia, Abyssinia, the Desert – ’ If fragments of this did come out from time to time it was more when he spoke to others in her presence than to herself. For his wanderings in search of her had been in Abyssinias of time, not of earthly locality; through Deserts of years his longings had come to hers, as his body had now come to his father’s house. They had known it separately before. Now they knew it together.

  She too had one thing, and only one thing, that she kept from him. It was the episode of the sword. She tried not to think of the sword. She even feared that he might divine the thought in her mind, and that some nameless ill might befall if the sword came between. Also she had a more immediate reason.

  For just as her account to Virginia had varied, so his accounts of these dual wanderings of his, of the body and of that other, varied. She noted this, but she was not a Mr James, to place her fingertips together and talk of evidential values. What did it matter? If he had said that such and such a thing had happened at such and such a time and place, and later said it had happened somewhere else, it was all queer together, and he lied as innocently as she. However he had come to stay now, and she sometimes flung her arms about him, not out of passion, but for reassurance of his solid substance.

  ‘Love,’ he said to her one day suddenly as they lay side by side under the still pines, ‘why should we get married?’

  ‘Why?’ she echoed, and then she laughed. ‘Are you going to send me back to Humphrey?’

  ‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘here we are, you and I. And as far as we can make out we’ve always been so. There’s something about it – I don’t know – somehow it doesn’t seem to fit in with a church –’

  She put her hand into his powerful brown one and spoke slowly.