by A. J. Cronin
‘The point is,’ said Dibs in a laboured tone, as though he had said it a hundred times before, ‘that she walked out on me. How can I be to blame for that?’
‘Oh, shut up,’ cried Carr. ‘I’m sick of your infernal whining. You haven’t got the guts of a louse.’
They started to quarrel for perhaps the hundredth time; and Robert stood listening with a hangdog air. He burned to ask them where Elissa was; but he did not dare. His bumptiousness was gone. All his moral stiffening turned to a watery paste.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then blurted out:
‘I guess I’ll say good-bye, gentlemen. I hadn’t ought to stay too long. So I’ll be going.’
He waited, hungry for the comfort of a civil answer, but neither of them looked up; and so, his eye disconsolate, he swung round, drifted towards the door.
But in the vestibule he paused, his heart pounding, the flush risen more highly to his cheek. Oh, Lord, he thought agitatedly. I can’t go away like this. Back to that lonely barracks at the Rodgerses’ place. Simply can’t go away. Must see her or I’ll go plumb crazy. With a fearful side-glance to see if he were observed he turned to the negro porter at the desk. Moistening his lips he said:
‘Is Mrs Baynham in the hotel?’
The nigger porter pocketed the little wooden twig with which he had been polishing his teeth and hastily stood up.
‘Yes, sah, Mis’ Baynham in her room.’
He repeated:
‘In her room?’
‘Yes, saw. Suite t’ree, sah. First floah front.’
‘You might – you might show me up.’ By a powerful effort he managed to keep his voice composed. But, as he ascended the stairs behind the porter and paused before a yellow-painted door upon the first floor, the last vestige of his composure crumpled weakly. His face wore a look of sickly self-consciousness as he entered the room; and he stood in the middle of the polished wood floor fingering his watch-chain with damp, stupid fingers.
‘I called,’ he said thickly, then his parochial voice broke and he had to start all over again. ‘I was passing. Happened to be passing. So I thought – thought I might call.’
She stared at him with hard, unfriendly eyes. Reclining upon a wicker chaise-longue at the window, she had the look of a large, sulky cat. Her silk kimono, worn for the heat, fell with voluptuous lightness around her outstretched, languid figure. Her hair was unbound, her arms bare beneath the wide, blue sleeves, her bosom hardly covered.
But she made no effort towards delicate concealment. She simply lay and stared him out of countenance. At last she said:
‘So you thought you might call.’
He took a step forward.
‘Oh, Elissa,’ he whined, ‘ surely it is God’s providence that we meet again. There’s no way else to explain it. I thought you’d gone for good. It’s like a miracle to me. Oh, but I’ve prayed for it. Yes, before God I have prayed for it.’
‘You’ve prayed for it?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘Prayed for that?’
‘You don’t get me,’ he cried. ‘I don’t mean any wrong. I’ve repented. Upon my knees I’ve told God I’m sorry. And don’t you see, this is how He shows He understands. He brings us together again. Oh, Elissa, dear Elissa, we love each other. And why shouldn’t we? It’s wonderful. God created man and woman for each other.’ His lips twitched; his eye glistened; throwing out his hand, he declaimed brokenly: ‘The Lord God, He made woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said: “ This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”’
There was a dead silence; then she said cuttingly:
‘Is that all he said?’
No irony could restrain him. Surging forward on a wave of hysterical emotion he rushed on, quoting abandonedly:
‘“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”’
Her eyes widened; and she cried:
‘Are you mad?’
‘No, not mad. Only mad for love of you.’ His breast heaved; tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘Oh, Elissa my beloved, we have sinned together. But now we belong to each other. You are mine – you whom my soul loveth. Now I will be glad and rejoice in thee.’
Sharply she cried out:
‘Stop that idiocy. I won’t have it. Throw any more of that sanctimonious mush at my head and I’ll have you chucked out of my room.’
He flung himself on his knees, blubbering, before her.
‘Oh, no, Elissa, no, no. You don’t understand. It’s beautiful, the Song of Solomon, and I never knew it till I met you. All those long, dark nights without you it’s been singing in my head. Singing, singing. “ Honey and milk are under my tongue.” “ Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb.” Let me kiss you with kisses on my mouth, oh, can’t you see – can’t you see I’m asking you to marry me?’
She drew back. For a full minute there was no sound but his heavy, panting breath. Then all at once she collapsed. She gave way to ungovernable laughter. She lay back shaken, helpless. ‘Oh, God,’ she gasped. ‘ If I survive this trip I shall be lucky. It’s too much. One thing after another. And now this. It’s too much – just too much.’
His face, working piteously, entreated her compassion.
‘Don’t laugh,’ he begged convulsively. ‘ Don’t laugh at me. I know you’re ’way above me. But you gave yourself to me. You love me.’
Her laughter ceased; she gazed at him with hard derision; then, with a biting contempt, she said:
‘Stop that idiotic blubbering.’
‘I can’t,’ he choked, and tried to take her hand. ‘I can’t help it.’
‘Get up!’
‘Don’t you see,’ he whimpered, ‘I’m just crazy about you. All my life long I’ve never thought of any woman. And now I can’t stop thinking. I can – I can think of nothing else.’
‘Get up!’ she repeated coldly.
He stumbled to his feet, stood drooping before her.
‘Now listen,’ she went on. ‘And listen carefully. I don’t love you. I think you’re the most insufferable idiot God ever made. On the boat I hoped for one instant you might amuse me. But you didn’t. You bored me horribly. And you were too idiotic, too conceited to see it. You’re all surface, my saintly friend, and quite hollow inside. You’re not a man. You’re a fool, a selfish Bible-banging fool without the backbone of a spider. I’m selfish and know it. But you – you’re the most hide-bound egoist that ever hummed a psalm tune. And you think you’re a God-sent minister of the Light – Heaven’s gift to humanity. You say you’re sincere. That’s the worst of it. If you were a hypocrite I might respect you. But you believe you’re a saviour. You bound about, roaring salvation. And how you like it. Then the moment you’re hurt you start to snivel. Here am I stuck in this wretched hotel with fever about and no boat for a week. And you come oozing in with repentance in your soul and matrimony in your eye. God, it’s too funny. Really, you sicken me. Quite painful. Now leave me, please. It’s hot, and it bores me terribly to talk like this. I shall perspire in a moment, and that would be too frightful.’
His whole face fell; his big frame seemed to cave in. He stared at her with appalled and abject eyes; then he gulped and cried brokenly:
‘You can’t mean that, Elissa. Oh, my dear, my own dear. You must like me. I’m decent. I’m straight. I’m kind. I’ll give up here and come back with you. I’ll do anything. I’ll – I’ll make good – get on for your sake.’
‘I’d rather you got out,’ she answered indifferently.
‘Let me pray,’ he blubbered, and clawed at her arm. ‘Just lemme pray. That might turn you to me. Don’t send me away like this. We belong to each other since that night – that wonderful night.’
‘Get out,’ she said negligently, again picking up the book that lay on the arm of her chair. ‘Please do get out.’
He stood stockstill, and for all his bul
k he had a beaten dog’s look. Fumbling in his breast pocket he withdrew a handkerchief and blew his nose surreptitiously. Two minutes passed. Now he was gazing at the lines of her indolent figure; a spot of colour crept slowly back into his cheeks. He moved away, stopped; looked at her again. Suddenly his flush rose up again, and he stammered:
‘You wouldn’t – oh, Elissa, even if you don’t want to get married –’ He waited, his lips dry, his eyes upon that milky skin, hoping she might help him out. But she was silent. ‘Say – you wouldn’t–’ he stammered again. ‘You wouldn’t be nice to me –’
‘No,’ she answered without troubling even to lift her eyes from the page. ‘ It doesn’t interest me at the moment.’
Dismally his eyes fell to the floor; an angry misery rushed over him. The corners of his mouth drew down sullenly; defeated, he no longer entreated; a sense of his humiliation was in his mouth like gall.
‘So you won’t have anything more to do with me,’ he threw out. ‘Not good enough, I guess! You can afford to run me down. You – sitting here while your friend is ill – too selfish to go to her!’
‘Precisely,’ she agreed blandly. ‘I told you I was selfish.’
He hardly seemed to hear her.
‘Expect me to slink out now, I suppose! Quite finished with me. All right then. I’ll show you I don’t care two cents for your opinion! I’ll show you who hasn’t got the backbone of a spider!’ He shouldered to the door, twisted the handle, and wrenched it open. Turning, he faced her, flooded by a hot unreasonable resentment, ‘Maybe you imagine you can wipe your feet on me,’ he cried. ‘So superior maybe. Well just wait and see. I’ll show you! I say, I’ll show you!’ His voice rose to a shout, then, slamming the door violently, he was gone.
What he was to show her he did not at that moment know. As, with a burning face, he rattled down the steps and flung out of the hotel he knew only that he felt on fire. Recklessly he struck out across the Plaza – anywhere to get away. But he wasn’t going back to Laguna; he couldn’t go back to that mean, cursed, suspicious Rodgers. That would kill him. No, no; he’d stay here. He wanted to stay here; and he would stay. He’d show them – show them all!
Then, as with a flash of revelation, he remembered the hotel in the Calle de la Tuna. He knew, of course he knew, the nature of that place; at least he suspected it. He swallowed drily, revolving a curious equation in his brain. He couldn’t go there; he knew he couldn’t; that was a bad – an evil place. Yet somehow, he hesitated, at once fascinated and afraid. He had to stay somewhere; couldn’t go back to that Rodgers; and he wasn’t sure – couldn’t be sure – as to whether the hotel was bad. It wasn’t right to misjudge a place like that, and, if it was bad, oughtn’t he to go down and try to clean it up! As he equivocated he quickened his pace, began to alter his direction, turning down towards the harbour. And, as he did so, he began, in a fearful, intimate fashion, to pray. ‘O God,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I don’t want to do wrong. I don’t want to be comin’ down here. She’s put me to it. Didn’t I want to do the right thing? Didn’t she sneer at me? O Lord, help me now. Lead me not into temptation.’
He began to walk more swiftly, as though pursued by devils. Always he walked towards the harbour. And always his lips kept moving in that strained, shuffling petition. ‘Help me, O Lord. Help me now. Don’t lemme do wrong.’
He turned a corner, slipped down a lane where the houses were smaller, dilapidated, somehow more sordid. He heard laughter, sound of a guitar. A woman, standing in a narrow doorway, murmured in his ear as he strode past. What did she say? Five peseta, senior. She was very fat, her breasts like bladders of lard. Her low laugh followed him down the narrow street. He was still praying, and still his eyes were burning as he entered the Calle de la Tuna.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The sun had drawn to another setting beyond the Peak leaving Los Cisnes confronted by the night. Within the sick-room, shadows pressed insistently. Already the corners were obscure, cloaked by soft darkness that hung like arras. Closer, gently came these insatiable shadows, enclosing the dwindling light as though it were a life that must be crushed and finally extinguished.
Only the shadows moved; all else sustained a fearful immobility. The window stood half open, but no breath stirred to clear the taint of drugs and sickness that was in the air. Outside, beneath the brassy twilight, a thunder heat lay brooding on the land. Within, this same moist heat made breathing stifling.
Beside the bed, Harvey sat with his chin upon one palm, his haggard face quite hidden, his body upright, rigid. Before him, on a small sidetable, were ranged a chart, some basins, a bowl of sterile water, thermometer and hypodermic syringe, a row of medicines – the whole set out with scrupulous exactitude by Susan. At the outset she had stripped and scrubbed the room, and for those last three days had kept it to the stern precision of a hospital ward. Seen dimly in that tenebrous light, she was on his right, resting an arm upon the high caoba-chest as though she were unutterably fatigued. But her eyes, like Harvey’s eyes, were fixed upon the bed.
Only the bed was illumined, bathed in the fading yellow glare that slanted down, retreating, it seemed, before the dusk. And on the pillow, caught and circled in that glow as by a halo, was Mary’s face, pallid as ivory and thin as bone, the meagre shadow of a face that once had smiled and quickened to the joy of life. Now no smile touched the dry lips. Now in the sunken eyes there was no joy; and but a drain of life.
Suddenly Susan raised herself and spoke.
‘Is it time to light the candles?’ Her voice was measured; yet strangely hollow and distraught.
Harvey did not answer. Detached by dreadful apprehension he heard her voice; but it conveyed no meaning. Fragments of thought alone pierced through the desperation of his mind. How long he had been seated thus! And yet how short! The measure of a second; the measure of a life. Sands falling – each grain a second, a tear, a life. They ran, these sifted sands, with such incredible rapidity; and then the glass was empty, the tear fallen, the life consumed. It was dreadful to desire so passionately to save a human life. His whole soul was molten with that desire. He had always regarded the emotion centred around the crisis of grave illness with hostility, suspicion, even with disgust. He had seen in the swing of the balance – one way or the other – merely the success or failure of scientific research. But he was changed – completely changed – his purpose burning now where it had been cold.
Mary! – he thought dully only of her name; but it conveyed minutely everything he felt.
She had been ill only three days; incredible the change these days had wrought. But from the first he had known the form of her fever to be acute, racing with malignant intensity towards that inevitable exigency when either she would live or die. He had painfully faced that fact, sustained by his expectation of an early crisis. But that crisis would not come. Remission only had come bringing its blight of transient false hope. And then the temperature had started up again, climbing, climbing towards that burning zenith where life must shrivel and drop back as ashes into the illimitable void. Climbing fever and falling pulse. He knew with perfect certainty what these must bring unless the crisis came. And all his soul was stifled by the anguish of the thought.
Again Susan spoke, spanning a deep abyss:
‘I must light the candles.’
She lit a candle and then another, brought them silently to the table. The flames rose straight, unwavering, like spears, causing the shadows to draw back and stand arrested, waiting like mourners banded and weeping by the candles of a catafalque. A big white moth came sailing inwards like a ship; a hum of circling insects rose, importunate as whispered prayers.
Watching that circling flight, she said:
‘I ought to shut the window,’ and, after a pause: ‘The night air.’
He lifted his head and looked at her; the words fell into his consciousness like drops of water from an enormous height. As though returning from a long way off, he said slowly:
‘Let
me do it for you.’
Rising, he went to the window, closed it. All his movements were sluggish – he was terribly tired.
He leaned his forehead against the pane. Darkness had swiftly fallen; the very trees so burdened by its weight they drooped quite slackly in the stifling air. Away to the east a rift of brassy light still lingered, like a streak of molten metal, predicative of storm. Somehow the glare was sinister, charging the hot night with fateful imminence. He turned to find her sad, calm eyes upon him.
‘There’s going to be a storm,’ she said. ‘You can feel it in the air.’
‘Yes – there is thunder – behind those mountains.’ But no sooner were the words spoken than they were forgotten. He was staring at her, studying, apparently, her pale and tired face, her untidy hair, her rolled-up sleeves, the bandage on her thumb – which she had burned with acid disinfectant. ‘You are completely worn out,’ he said at length.
Though his voice was perfectly impassive she flushed instantly and her mouth made a nervous grimace that was meant to be a smile.
‘I am not in the least worn out. Not a mite. It’s you – you who have done so much. You couldn’t have done more. I guess you’re– you’re killing yourself.’
His attention was not upon her words; looking at his wrist-watch, he said:
‘Go down and get some food. Then you must go to bed and rest.’
‘But I don’t need rest,’ she protested in a low, uneven tone. ‘It’s you. Please, please, listen to me.’
‘Go down now,’ he said considerately, as though he had not heard.
She made an involuntary gesture of dissent, then checked herself. She looked at him beseechingly.
‘Just one night off,’ she whispered. ‘You simply cannot stand it other ways. You’ve worked that hard – you’re dead beat. You must take tonight – yes – must take tonight off.’
He approached the head of the bed slowly; it was impossible for her to see his face; then he said:
‘You know there cannot be another night.’
Leaning forward, she tried to make him look at her; but he did not. His hand fell upon the pillow; he sat down again beside the bed.