The Return Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO

  But the coolness and deliberation of his scrutiny, had to a certainextent calmed Lawford's mind and given him confidence. Hitherto he hadmet the little difficulties of life only to vanquish them with ease andapplause. Now he was standing face to face with the unknown. He burstout laughing, into a long, low, helpless laughter. Then he arose andbegan to walk softly, swiftly, to and fro across the room--from wall towall seven paces, and at the fourth, that awful, unseen, brightly-litprofile passed as swiftly over the tranquil surface of thelooking-glass. The power of concentration was gone again. He simplypaced on mechanically, listening to a Babel of questions, a conflictingmedley of answers. But above all the confusion and turmoil of his brain,as a boatswain's whistle rises above a storm, so sounded that sameinfinitesimal voice, incessantly repeating another question now, 'Whatare you going to do? What are you going to do?'

  And in the midst of this confusion, out of the infinite, as it were,came another sharp tap at the door, and all within sank to utterstillness again.

  'It's nearly half-past eight, Arthur; I can't wait any longer.'

  Lawford cast a last fleeting look into the glass, turned, and confrontedthe closed door. 'Very well, Sheila, you shall not wait any longer.' Hecrossed over to the door, and suddenly a swift crafty idea flashed intohis mind.

  He tapped on the panel. 'Sheila,' he said softly, 'I want you first,before you come in, to get me something out of my old writing-desk inthe smoking-room. Here is the key.' He pushed a tiny key--from off thering he carried--beneath the door. 'In the third little drawer from thetop, on the left side, is a letter; please don't say anything now. Itis the letter you wrote me, you will remember, after I had asked you tomarry me. You scribbled in the corner under your signature the initials"Y.S.O.A."--do you remember? They meant, You Silly Old Arthur!--do youremember? Will you please get that letter at once?'

  'Arthur,' answered the voice from without, empty of all expression,'what does all this mean, this mystery, this hopeless nonsense abouta silly letter? What has happened? Is this a miserable form ofpersecution? Are you mad?--I refuse to get the letter.'

  Lawford stooped, black and angular, against the door. 'I am not mad. Oh,I am in the deadliest earnest, Sheila. You must get the letter, if onlyfor your own peace of mind.' He heard his wife hesitate as she turned.He heard a sob. And once more he waited.

  'I have brought the letter,' came the low toneless voice again.

  'Have you opened it?'

  There was a rustle of paper. 'Are the letters there underlined threetimes--"Y.S.O.A."?'

  'The letters are there.'

  'And the date of the month is underneath, "April 3rd." No one elsein the whole world, living or dead, could know of this but ourselves,Sheila?'

  'Will you please open the door?'

  'No one?'

  'I suppose not--no one.'

  'Then come in.' He unlocked the door and opened it. A dark, ratherhandsome woman, with sleek hair, in a silk dress of a dark rich colourentered. Lawford closed the door. But his face was in shadow. He hadstill a moment's respite.

  'I need not ask you to be patient,' he began quickly; 'if I couldpossibly have spared you--if there had been anybody in the world to goto... I am in horrible, horrible trouble, Sheila. It is inconceivable. Isaid I was sane: so I am, but the fact is--I went out for a walk; itwas rather stupid, perhaps, so soon: and I think I was taken ill, orsomething--my heart. A kind of fit, a nervous fit. Possibly I am alittle unstrung, and it's all, it's mainly fancy: but I think, I can'thelp thinking it has a little distorted--changed my face; everything,Sheila; except, of course, myself. Would you mind looking?' He walkedslowly and with face averted towards the dressing-table.

  'Simply a nervous--to make such a fuss, to scare!...' began his wife,following him.

  Without a word he took up the two old china candlesticks, and held them,one in each lank-fingered hand, before his face, and turned.

  Lawford could see his wife--every tint and curve and line as distinctlyas she could see him. Her cheeks never had much colour; now her wholeface visibly darkened, from pallor to a dusky leaden grey, as shegazed. It was not an illusion then; not a miserable hallucination. Theunbelievable, the inconceivable, had happened. He replaced the candleswith trembling fingers and sat down.

  'Well,' he said, 'what is it really; what is it really, Sheila? What onearth are we to do?'

  'Is the door locked?' she whispered. He nodded. With eyes fixedstirlessly on his face, Sheila unsteadily seated herself, a little outof the candlelight, in the shadow. Lawford rose and put the key ofthe door on his wife's little rose-wood prayer-desk at her elbow, anddeliberately sat down again.

  'You said "a fit"--where?'

  'I suppose--is--is it very different--hopeless? You will understandmy being... O Sheila, what am I to do?' His wife sat perfectly still,watching him with unflinching attention.

  'You gave me to understand--"a nervous fit"; where?'

  Lawford took a deep breath, and quietly faced her again. 'In the oldchurchyard, Widderstone; I was looking at--at the gravestones.'

  'A fit; in the old churchyard, Widderstone--you were "looking at thegravestones"?'

  Lawford shut his mouth. 'I suppose so--a fit,' he said presently.'My heart went a little queer, and I sat down and fell into a kind ofdoze--a stupor, I suppose. I don't remember anything more. And then Iwoke; like this.'

  'How do you know?'

  'How do I know what?'

  '"Like that"?'

  He turned slowly towards the looking-glass. 'Why, here I am!'

  She gazed at him steadily; and a hard, incredulous, almost cunning glintcame into her wide blue eyes. She took up the key carelessly, glancedat it; glanced at him. 'It has made me--I mean the first shock, youknow--it has made me a little faint.' She walked slowly, deliberately tothe door, and unlocked it. 'I'll get a little sal volatile.' She softlydrew out the key, and without once removing her eyes from his face,opened the door and pushed the key noiselessly in on the other side.'Please stay there; I won't be a minute.'

  Lawford's face smiled--a rather desperate, yet for all that a patient,resolute smile. 'Oh yes, of course,' he said, almost to himself, 'I hadnot foreseen--at least--you must do precisely what you please, Sheila.You were going to lock me in. You will, however, before taking any finalstep, please think over what it will entail. I did not think you would,after such proof, in this awful trouble--I did not think you wouldsimply disbelieve me, Sheila. Who else is there to help me? You have theletter in your hand. Isn't that sufficient proof? It was overwhelmingproof to me. And even I doubted too; doubted myself. But never mind; whyI should have dreamed you would believe me; or taken this awful thingdifferently, I don't know. It's rather awful to have to go on alone.But there, think it over. I shall not stir until I hear the voices. Andthen: honestly, Sheila, I couldn't face quite that. I'd sooner give upaltogether. Any proof you can think of--I will... O God, I cannot bearit!' He covered his face with his hands; but in a moment looked up,unmoved once more. 'Why, for that matter,' he added slowly, and, as itwere, with infinite pains, a faint thin smile again stealing into hisface, 'I think,' he turned wearily to the glass, 'I think, it's almostan improvement!'

  Something deep in those dark clear pupils, out of that lean adventurousface, gleamed back at him, the distant flash of a heliograph, as itwere, height to height, flashing 'Courage!' He shuddered, and shut hiseyes. 'But I would really rather,' he aided in a quiet childlike way, 'Iwould really rather, Sheila, you left me alone now.'

  His wife stood irresolute. 'I understand you to explain,' she said,'that you went out of this house, just your usual self, this afternoon,for a walk; that for some reason you went to Widderstone--"to read thetombstones," that you had a heart attack, or, as you said at first, afit, that you fell into a stupor, and came home like--like this. Am Ilikely to believe all that? Am I likely to believe such a story as that?Whoever you are, whoever you may be, is it likely? I am not in the leastafraid. I thought at first it was some silly practica
l joke. I thoughtthat at first.' She paused, but no answer came. 'Well, I suppose in acivilised country there is a remedy even for a joke as wicked as that.'

  Lawford listened patiently. 'She is pretending; she is trying me; she isfeeling her way,' he kept repeating to himself. 'She knows I AM I, buthasn't the courage... Let her talk!'

  'I shall leave the door open,' Sheila continued. 'I am not, as youno doubt very naturally assumed--I am not going to do anything eithersenseless or heedless. I am merely going to ask your brother Cecilto come in, if he is at home, and if not, no doubt our old friendMr. Montgomery would--would help us.' Her scrutiny was still andconcentrated, like that of a cat above a mouse's hole.

  Lawford sat crouched together in the candle-light. 'By all means,Sheila,' he said slowly choosing his words, 'if you think poor oldCecil, who next January will have been three years in his grave, willbe of any use in our difficulty. Who Mr. Montgomery is...' His voicedropped in utter weariness. 'You did it very well, my dear,' he addedsoftly.

  Sheila gently closed the door and sat down on the bed. He heard hersoftly crying, he heard the bed shaken with her sobs. But a slow glancetowards the steady candle-flames restrained him. He let her cry onalone. When she had become a little more composed he stood up. 'You havehad no dinner,' he managed to blurt out at last, 'you will be faint.It's useless to talk, even to think, any more to-night. Leave me tomyself for a while. Don't look at me any more. Perhaps I can sleep:perhaps if I sleep it will come right again. When the servants aregone up, I will come down. Just let me have some--some medical book, orother; and some more candles. Don't think, Sheila; don't even think!'

  Sheila paid him no attention for a while. 'You tell me not to think,'she began, in a low, almost listless voice; 'why--I wonder I am in myright mind. And "eat"! How can you have the heartlessness to suggest it?You don't seem in the least to realize what you say. You seem to havelost all--all consciousness. I quite agree, it is useless for me toburden you with my company while you are in your present condition ofmind. But you will at least promise me that you won't take any furthersteps in this awful business.' She could not, try as she would, bringherself again to look at him. She rose softly, paused a moment withsidelong eyes, then turned deliberately towards the door, 'What, whathave I done to deserve all this?'

  From behind her that voice, so extraordinarily like--and yet in somevague fashion more arresting, more resonant than her husband's, brokeincredibly out once more. 'You will please leave the key, Sheila. I amill, but I am not yet in the padded room. And please understand, I takeno further steps in "this awful business" until I hear a strange voicein the house.' Sheila paused, but the quiet voice rang in her ear,desperately yet convincingly. She took the key out of the lock, placedit on the bed, and with a sigh, that was not quite without a hint ofrelief in its misery, she furtively extinguished the gas-light on thelanding and rustled downstairs.

  She speedily returned. 'I have brought the book.' she said hastily.'I could only find the one volume. I have said you have taken a freshchill. No one will disturb you.'

  Lawford took the book without a word. And once more, with eyes stonilyaverted, his wife left him to his own company and that of the face inthe glass.

  When completely deserted, Lawford with fumbling fingers opened Quain's'Dictionary of Medicine.' He had never had much curiosity, and hadalways hated what he disbelieved, but none the less he had heardoccasionally of absurd and questionable experiments. He rememberedeven to have glanced over reports of cases in the newspapers concerningdisappearances, loss of memory, dual personality. Cranks... Oh yes, hethought now, with a sense of cold humiliating relief, there had beensuch cases as his before. They were no doubt curable. They must becomparatively common in America--that land of jangled nerves. Possiblybromide, rest, a battery. But Quain, it seemed, shared his prejudices,at least in this edition, or had hidden away all such apocryphal matterbeneath technical terms, where no sensible man could find it, 'Besides,'he muttered angrily, 'what's the good of your one volume?' He flungit down and strode to the bed, and rang the bell. Then suddenlyrecollecting himself, he paused and listened. There came a tap on thedoor. 'Is that you, Sheila?' he called, doubtfully.

  'No, sir, it's me,' came the answer.

  'Oh, don't trouble; I only wanted to speak to your mistress. It's allright.'

  'Mrs. Lawford has gone out, sir,' replied the voice.

  'Gone out?'

  'Yes, sir; she told me not to mention it; but I suppose as you asked--'

  'Oh, that's all right; never mind; I didn't ring.' He stood with faceuplifted, thinking.

  'Can I do anything, sir?' came the faint, nervous question after a longpause.

  'One moment, Ada,' he called in a loud voice. He took out hispocket-book, sat down, and scribbled a little note. He hardly noticedhow changed his handwriting was--the clear round letters crabbed andirregular.

  'Are you there, Ada?' he called. 'I am slipping a note beneath thedoor; just draw back the mat; that's it. Take it at once, please, to Mr.Critchett's, and be sure to wait for an answer. Then come back directto me, up here. I don't think, Ada, your mistress believes much inCritchett; but I have fully explained what I want. He has made me upmany prescriptions. Explain that to his assistant if he is not there.Go at once, and you will be back before she is. I should be so very muchobliged, tell him. "Mr Arthur Lawford."'

  The minutes slowly drifted by. He sat quite still in the clearuntroubled light, waiting in the silence of the empty house. And forthe first time he was confronted with the cold incredible horror of hisordeal. Who would believe, who could believe, that behind this strangeand awful, yet how simple mask, lay himself? What test; what heaped-upevidence of identity would break it down? It was all a loathsomeignominy. It was utterly absurd. It was--

  Suddenly, with a kind of ape-like cunning, he deliberately raised along lean forefinger and pointed it at the shadowy crystal of thelooking-glass. Perhaps he was dead, was really and indeed changed inbody, was fated really and indeed to change in soul, into That. 'It'sthat beastly voice again,' Lawford cried out loud, looking vacantly athis upstretched finger. And then, hand and arm, not too willingly, as itwere, obeyed; relaxed and fell to his side. 'You must keep a tight hold,old man,' he muttered to himself. 'Once, once you lose yourself--theleast symptom of that--the least symptom, and it's all up!' And thefools, the heartless, preposterous fools had brought him one volume!

  When on earth was Ada coming back? She was lagging on purpose. She wasin the conspiracy too. Oh, it should be a lesson to Sheila! Oh, if onlydaylight would come! 'What are you going to do--to do--to DO?' He roseonce more and paced his silent cage. To and fro, thinking no more;just using his eyes, compelling them to wander from picture to picture,bedpost to bedpost; now counting aloud his footsteps; now humming; only,only to keep himself from thinking. At last he took out a drawer andactually began arranging its medley of contents; ties, letters, studs,concert and theatre programmes--all higgledy-piggledy. And in the midstof this childish strategem he heard a faint sound, as of heavy watertrickling from a height. He turned. A thief was in one of the candles.It was guttering out. He would be left in darkness. He turned hastilywithout a moment's heed, to call for light, flung the door open and fullin the flare of a lamp, illuminating her pale forehead and astonishedface beneath her black straw hat, stood face to face with Ada.

  With one swift dexterous movement he drew the door to after him,looking straight into her almost colourless steady eyes. 'Ah,' hesaid instantly, in a high faint voice, 'the powder, thank you; yes,Mr Lawford's powder; thank you, thank you. He must be kept absolutelyquiet--absolutely. Mrs Lawford is following. Please tell her that I amhere, when she returns. Mr Critchett was in, then? Thank you. Extreme,extreme silence, please.' Again that knotted, melodramatic finger raiseditself on high; and within that lean, cadaverous body the soul of itslodger quailed at this spectral boldness. But it was triumphant. Themaid at once left him and went downstairs. He heard faint voices inmuffled consultation. And in a moment Sheila's silks r
ustled oncemore on the staircase. Lawford put down the lamp, and watched herdeliberately close the door.

  'What does this mean?' she began swiftly, 'I understand that--Ada tellsme a stranger is here; giving orders, directions. Who is he? whereis he? You bound yourself on your solemn promise not to stir tillI returned. You... How can I, how can we get decently through thishorrible business if you are so wretchedly indiscreet? You sent Ada tothe chemist's. What for? What for? I say.'

  Lawford watched his wife with an almost extraneous interest. She wascertainly extremely interesting from that point of view, that verynovel point of view. 'It's quite useless,' he said, 'to get in the leastnervous or hysterical. I don't care for the darkness just now. That wasall. Tell the girl I am a strange doctor--Dr Simon's new partner. Youare clever at conventionalities, Sheila. Invent! I said our patient mustbe kept quiet--I really think he must. That is all, so far as Ada isconcerned.... What on earth else ARE we to say?' he broke out. 'That,for the present to EVERYBODY, is our only possible story. It will giveus what we must have--time. And next--where is the second volume ofQuain? I want that. And next--why have you broken faith with me?' MrsLawford sat down. This sudden and baffling outburst had stupefied her.

  'I can't, I can't make head or tail of what you say. And as for havingbroken faith, as you call it, would any wife, would any sane woman facewhat you have brought on us, a situation like this, without seekingadvice and help? Mr Bethany will be perfectly discreet--if he thinksdiscretion desirable. He is the only available friend we have closeenough to ask at once. And things of this kind are, I suppose, ifanybody's concern, his. It's certain to leak out. Everybody will hearof it. Don't flatter yourself you are going to hush up a thing like thisfor long. You can't keep living skeletons in a cupboard. You think onlyof yourself, only of your own misfortune. But who's to know, pray, thatyou really are my husband--if you are? The sooner I get the vicar onmy side the better for us both. Who in the whole of the parish--I askyou--and you must have the sense left to see that--who will believe thata respectable man, a gentleman, a Churchman, would deliberately go outto seek an afternoon's amusement in a poky little country churchyard?Why, apart from everything else, THAT was absolutely mad to start with.Can you really wonder at the result?'

  Probably because she still steadfastly refused to look at him, hermemory kept losing its hold on the appalling fact facing them. Sherealised fully only that she was in a great, unwarrantable, andinsurmountable difficulty, but until she actually lifted her eyes for amoment she had not fully realised what that difficulty was. She got upwith a sudden and horrible nausea. 'One moment,' she said, 'I will seeif the servants have gone to bed.'

  That long saturnine face, behind which Lawford lay in a dull anddesperate ambush, smiled. Something partaking of its clay, some reflexghost of its rather remarkable features, was even a little amused atSheila.

  She returned in a moment, and stood in profile in the doorway. 'Will youcome down?' she remarked distantly.

  'One moment, Sheila,' Lawford began miserably. 'Before we take thisirrevocable step, a step I implore you to postpone awhile--for whatcomes, I suppose, may go--what precisely have you told the vicar? I mustin fairness know that.'

  'In fairness,' she began ironically, and suddenly broke off. Her husbandhad turned the flame of the lamp low down in the vacant room behindthem; the corridor was lit obscurely by the chandelier far down in thehall below. A faint, inexplicable dread fell softly and coldly on herheart. 'Have you no trust in me?' she murmured a little bitterly. 'Ihave simply told him the truth.'

  They softly descended the stairs; she first, the dark figure followingclose behind her.