The Dead of Night

by Oliver Onions

  ‘Any old room will do to kiss you in,’ he muttered.

  They kissed as they stood, while the Marcus Stones looked down from the paper walls.

  ‘All the same,’ he said presently, ‘I should have thought that in a house like this –’

  Her cunning deepened. She became a hypocrite. She made herself disappointed, hurt.

  ‘And it was my choice – I didn’t want to take Virginia’s room or James’s – I wanted this one –’

  She won. He took her into his arms again. – ‘My love, my love!’ he breathed.

  She could not take him down again by the way she had brought him. A few minutes later they sought the main passage. Her heart gave a sudden bound as, at the stairhead that looked down into the hall, he paused before the rosewood door.

  ‘That’s an odd piece of work,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember to have seen one like that before.’

  They passed down.

  But in the drawing-room, as he stood before the Adam mantel­piece, he returned to the subject of their room. – ‘I thought they’d made us free of the whole place,’ he said.

  She laughed nervously. – ‘Really, Barty, I should have thought that with me –’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t take you about in Fords as long as there’s a decent car.’

  ‘Do you love me very much? Because I’ve been wondering Barty –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Suppose we didn’t stay here for our honeymoon after all. Suppose we went somewhere else? I have a little money –’

  ‘Oh, the place is right enough. I like it. Though’ – he laughed as the dressing-gong boomed – ‘I think it might have run to a dressing-room –’

  He was shown the men’s bathroom, she sought the other. Again at the head of the stairs he paused before the door. – ‘How long have we before dinner?’ he asked.

  ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘Better be getting a move on then,’ he said.

  She was out of her bath before him, and, hurrying to their room, she made haste into her frock. She knew what he was thinking, that it was odd that they should bury themselves in a disused portion of the house like this, and so it was; her choice had been a stupid one after all. If only they could go away altogether . . . She made the more haste. She was ready when he appeared, in his dressing-gown.

  ‘I’ll wait downstairs,’ she smiled as she passed; and she closed the door on him and descended to the drawing-room.

  He was not down by the time the second gong sounded. In the dining-room the maid and the butler waited. She walked out into the hall and looked up the stairs. There she saw him. He was trying the handle of the rosewood door.

  10

  Dinner was over, coffee had been brought into the library, and they were alone. They stood by the tall windows, he with his arm about her, looking out into the lily-garden. It was a heavenly August even­ing, with the light beginning to fade. As if by some tacit and blissful understanding their lips did not now kiss. For minutes they had not spoken.

  ‘It will be a short night,’ he said softly.

  He might have meant that it would be light by half-past three.

  ‘Do you remember – out there?’ His nod was towards the leaden fountain.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hadn’t even to ask you if you would. You simply came to me.’

  ‘You came to me. I was there all the time.’

  ‘It has been wonderful.’

  She was mute.

  The water plashed on the lily-leaves, the sky became smoky gold. Without a word they passed out into the garden. They stood where they had formerly stood, facing one another, her right hand in his left hand, her left hand in his right. They looked long at one another.

  ‘Do you know what I should like?’ he asked.

  ‘What, beloved?’ she asked faintly.

  ‘It was here that we kissed first, by this fountain. Your voice made music like the fountain. I hadn’t even to ask you; I only said “when?” and you said “When you like”. It is now.’

  ‘Now is for ever. Husband, shall we go to our room?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Not to that room. I want to be by the fountain, where we kissed. I want to hear it with your breathing in the night. I do not want that other room. I want the room over this, and the garden, and the fountain, and you.’

  Her knees had almost failed her; he felt the sudden slackness of her hands.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  ‘Barty,’ she said suddenly in a voice that shook, ‘go and start up the car. I want to go to London.’

  ‘It is too late to go to London,’ he answered, and she did not know what it was in his voice that made it almost the voice of a stranger.

  ‘I want to go away. I don’t want to stay in this house. I will go with you anywhere. I will go with you into the pinewoods. The needles shall be your couch all night. And tomorrow we will go away. I cannot stay in this house. I will wander – wander anywhere with you –’

  ‘I want to stay.’

  ‘Get the car, get the car –’

  ‘Come into the house, Agatha.’

  ‘No, no, no, no, no – ’ She tried to drag her hands away.

  ‘Come into the house.’

  All at once she obeyed him. She did come into the house. But entering the library, it was only to cross to the door. She stood with her back to it, as she had stood on the morning when the family had questioned her about the sword. Her arms were spread across it.

  ‘Barty,’ she said slowly, ‘you cannot pass me.’

  ‘I would not pass you,’ he answered; and it was not the phrase of the Barty who spoke the easy slang of the hour. ‘I would not pass you. I would have you come with me, and now.’

  ‘Love, love, love, not to that room!’ broke from her, and she could have slain herself for the last two words.

  His bright eyes danced. – ‘Ah!’

  ‘Not through that door!’ Again it seemed to come from her of itself.

  ‘Ah! the door! And why not the door?’

  ‘Barty!’ She flung out her arms to him, and again her right hand was in his left hand, and the hand on which a woman wears a ring in the hand in which a man holds a sword. ‘Loved and dearly loved, take me away! All my days I will love you – I will be your slave – there shall be nothing you ask that shall not be done on the instant – but do not ask me this!’

  ‘That I should not enter the room I choose?’

  ‘That you should not enter that room, by that door!’

  His reply was to draw her powerfully away from the library door and to march past her.

  She made a little start forward, and then stopped. She stopped because he too had stopped. He had stopped, suddenly irresolute, where the stair-rail made its shell-like turn. She saw him put up his hand, as if he felt for something, and then he took a halting step forward, not up the stairs, but in the direction of the drawing-room. With her fingers on her lips she stole after him. She looked down the long room with the chandeliers and the Adam fireplace at the end.

  He was standing with his back to her, over by the fire-place, and his head moved slightly, as if he was looking for something. Strong and soldierly his black-jacketed back looked, patterned against the dim white – for the light by which she saw all this was merely the familiarity of her own eyes with the falling evening, and to have switched a light on for a moment and then off again would have been to see nothing at all. But looking up the stairs the upper portion of the house held a little more of the day. She walked down the drawing-room to him.

  ‘Barty, Barty – dearest, dearest –’

  He spoke. – ‘Ah! Is that you, love?’

  ‘This is our wedding-night. I am waiting for you.’


  ‘Is our chamber ready?’

  Ah! But she had the key of that chamber safely put away! She had taken him into her arms. She whispered. – ‘I am waiting, Barty – waiting –’

  ‘I am ready.’

  Enfolded, they passed down the drawing-room and out into the hall. Still enfolded they slowly mounted the stairs. They stood before the door. After all what did it matter? Had he not tried it before dinner and found it locked? And had she not the key?

  Nevertheless he stopped. His hand, as she saw by the dim edge of his cuff, was fumbling over the door. He muttered something inaud­ible. Afraid to use force, still she sought to draw him gently away. He muttered again.

  ‘It is in my mind – it is in my mind – ’ she heard him say, like a man who tries to remember . . .

  Ah!

  She had almost shrieked. In the name of God, what was that? That sound within the door itself, as if a mouse crept? Something was yielding. Where a moment before a linen-fold had been a vertical strip of twilight appeared. It widened as with a creaking noise the panel slid aside. His fingers had found it.

  The opening was wide enough to have stooped and entered side­ways by, but he did not stoop and enter sideways. Instead he put a hand of today through that opening centuries old and slipped back the modern catch that had been fitted. The door opened, and the linen-folds creaked back into their place again.

  11

  He was where he had wished to be, with the smell of lilies and the sound of the plashing fountain and with her; but where, and when? Space? Time? Space and time are too much for human love. There is no love in a void. God is great, but He must make Himself little to our hearts, close in our flesh in a bridal bed; if we love otherwise it is not He who penetrates us, but another. But who then? Who was her Barty? A demon-lover, and she the woman who wailed? No, no, no, no, no! He was Barty, whose people lived not a dozen miles away! He was Barty, who that day had put a ring on her finger and promised to worship her with his body! It was all a mistake that he been missing in that body for eleven years! What did that matter, since he was here, in the chamber of his own choosing, and on his wedding-night?

  The room had still a little light, enough to see by. There was the wardrobe, there the bedside table, there the bed she had slept in last night. But he was so brown, so nearly the colour of that rosy door, that except for his eyes and the white shape of his evening shirt she saw him as she had seen him first, blurred and dim. But the eyes were brilliant and roving, and he spoke in a stern voice.

  ‘I have been long away. I was not expected back. You have been constant?’ he said.

  Appalled, she found no voice.

  ‘Our fathers locked their women up, with a girdle,’ he went on. ‘There is one in my family. My younger brother has it, as he has all else. But you I girdled with your promise only. Now I have come back. Have you been constant?’

  ‘Barty – !’ came faintly from her.

  ‘He may have the rest, my brother. I give it to him. But you I give to no man.’

  ‘Barty! You have me, you have me! Hold me, hold me!’ she cried, terrified.

  ‘I was away too long,’ he muttered again. ‘Perhaps I ought not to have come back.’

  ‘What is this frightful thing you are saying? You were missing at Guillemont, in 1916!’

  He spoke quickly. – ‘At what place?’

  ‘At Guillemont. Or Thiepval. You didn’t always say exactly the same.’

  She felt that he shook his head.

  ‘I know no Guillemont nor Thiepval. They have a French sound. Edge Hill I knew. We were on the top there, but we went down, because of the Banbury men behind us. We went down against the traitor Essex, and Rupert cut them up. And Chalgrove knew me, and Naseby! . . . Who fought at those French places?’

  ‘Barty! Barty! You were at the war! This war! The war they called The Great War!’

  ‘Then let them not call it The Great War in my hearing!’ he said curtly. ‘It is much that they call it The Great Rebellion! Does a king make war on a rebel subject?’

  ‘Dear God, what is he saying?’ she asked.

  ‘And then I was missing!’ Barty’s voice rang out. ‘They passed their Act. Oblivion and Pardon they called it, but I was not there. I missed my Oblivion and Pardon! . . . I was at Tunis with Blake. Carthage is there – Carthage is there – Carthage – Car – Car . . . I pray you pardon me. There has been much fighting in the world –’

  ‘Love, love, love!’ was all she could say, for she too knew what was to come. He was remembering farther back still.

  ‘Stay a moment – I was with The Lion at Acre, but Carthage –’

  The Great War! The Rebellion! The Crusades!

  ‘Was it there the Switzers fought, they with the swords a half taller than themselves? But ’tis no weapon. All is wind and flash. Give me the short sword and the run-in! . . . Was’t you who said Carthage?’

  Then he gave a little cry of satisfaction.

  ‘Ah! It comes! What said Scipio? “Delenda est.” But that was Cato’s doing. For a hundred and twenty years they fought, and Hasdrubal’s wife spat upon him, and cast herself and her children into the flames – there has been much fighting – much, much fighting –’

  She could endure no more. At least there could be light. She sprang to the switch at the side of the rosewood door, and the room broke into light.

  For a moment she thought she had done the right thing, for he blinked and then stood looking at his own clothes. He was precisely as he had been at dinner, but no frown such as this had bitten into his face at dinner.

  ‘What sorcery was that?’ he demanded harshly. She had fallen back.

  ‘What chamber is this? Its door I know, but what are these other furnishings? And how came that light from nowhere? Answer me!’ he said.

  Had she the courage? Dared she throw herself on that strange and haunted breast?

  Oh, if it only needed courage – if courage would avail –

  But he put her back, repeating his first question of all.

  ‘Have you been constant?’

  She was at peace now, for she knew that it was upon her. She smiled.

  ‘Oh, have I not!’

  ‘I held you, not with a girdle, but with your word. I knew my brother loved you. He had my inheritance, but I thought nought of that. I was long away, and a word is only a word. Thought you I was dead?’

  ‘I always knew you would come.’

  ‘You bear a Saint’s name. Have you been a Saint?’

  Saintly she looked as she stood there, smiling, waiting. – ‘It should have ended that day in the pinewood, Barty,’ she said.

  He was looking round the room again; he took a stride across it. With a swift movement he flung open the wardrobe door, as if he expected to find a man inside. He found no man, but he found something else. It was the sword. He took it in his hand. He looked at it long, steadfastly, rememberingly.

  ‘It is a sorcery,’ he muttered. ‘That is the door of my chamber. This is my sword. But all else is strange . . . Is it not strange?’ he demanded in a tone that made her heart glad, for it could not be long now.

  ‘Thrust quickly, Barty,’ she said.

  ‘Why would you not open that door? You had the key. Why had I to open it myself, the secret way?’

  The secret way? Ah, more secret than he knew!

  ‘I will tell you why. He was here. My brother was here. You sought to gain time, that he might escape by the window and the garden . . . Have you anything to say?’ he loudly challenged her.

  ‘Yes, beloved. It was always my fear that you would get there before me,’ she replied.

  ‘Will you pray?’

  ‘I have prayed.’

  ‘You are very beautiful,’ he said, looking at the bosom as bare as
that of the Saint whose name she shared. ‘I am loth to mar that. You may choose another way, so it be tonight.’

  ‘No, this way; we will lose no time –’

  ‘Then – hai!’

  Her swimming eyes saw his face become a sudden blur of brown, and the brightness of his own eyes was the last thing to leave her as she sank.

  12

  Barty’s memory is clear up to a point. He remembers that he wanted to change rooms, he says, for they had put him into one that hadn’t even a dressing-room and was miles from the bathroom. And he remembers seeing a room with a rosewood door, but he doesn’t suppose the door had anything to do with it. Certainly he fell into a violent trembling when they showed him the door, but there might easily have been another explanation of that. He loved her, he says, and it was their wedding-night. They had been going to bed. And somehow – how he can’t explain – he managed to open the door, and that is all he knows about it. As for the sword, he might have had a service-pattern one, for ceremonial, but they hadn’t used swords much in The Great War. He knows nothing whatever about the one they showed him.

  Of course they can’t allow that kind of man his freedom, but he will probably get it in another way soon, for he was always of a roving disposition, and frets under restraint. Probably his wanderings about Africa – or wherever it was – had not done him any good. He has a little patch of garden, in which he works, and last summer he got quite remarkably brown. People go to see him, but Mr James never. Mr James is to be pitied, because, although nobody locks him up, he has a bee in his bonnet too. It is about a sword. He cannot even go into a museum where there are swords, and strangers are sometimes warned not to mention swords in his presence.

  But they may talk as much as they like about rosewood doors.

  The Accident

  1

  The street had not changed so much but that, little by little, its influence had come over Romarin again; and as the clock a street or two away had struck seven he had stood, his hands folded on his stick, first curious, then expectant, and finally, as the sound had died away, oddly satisfied in his memory. The clock had a peculiar chime, a rather elaborate one, ending inconclusively on the dominant and followed after an unusually long interval by the stroke of the hour itself. Not until its last vibration had become too subtle for his ear had Romarin resumed the occupation that the pealing of the hour had interrupted.