The Return Page 8

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Sabbath, pale with September sunshine, and monotonous with chimingbells, had passed languidly away. Dr Simon had come and gone, optimisticand urbane, yet with a faint inward dissatisfaction over a patientbehind whose taciturnity a hint of mockery and subterfuge seemed tolurk. Even Mrs Lawford had appeared to share her husband's reticence.But Dr Simon had happened on other cases in his experience where tactwas required rather than skill, and time than medicine.

  The voices and footsteps, even the frou-frou of worshippers going tochurch, the voices and footsteps of worshippers returning from church,had floated up to the patient's open window. Sunlight had drawn acrosshis room in one pale beam, and vanished. A few callers had called.Hothouse flowers, waxen and pale, had been left with messages ofsympathy. Even Dr Critchett had respectfully and discreetly madeinquiries on his way home from chapel.

  Lawford had spent most of his time in pacing to and fro in his softslippers. The very monotony had eased his mind. Now and again he hadlain motionless, with his face to the ceiling. He had dozed and hadawakened, cold and torpid with dream. He had hardly been aware ofthe process, but every hour had done something, it seemed, towardsclarifying his point of view. A consciousness had begun to stir in himthat was neither that of the old, easy Lawford, whom he had never beenfully aware of before, nor of this strange ghostly intelligence thathaunted the hawklike, restless face, and plucked so insistently at hisdistracted nerves. He had begun in a vague fashion to be aware of themboth, could in a fashion discriminate between them, almost as if therereally were two spirits in stubborn conflict within him. It would, ofcourse, wear him down in time. There could be only one end to such astruggle--THE end.

  All day he had longed for freedom, on and on, with craving for the opensky, for solitude, for green silence, beyond these maddening walls. Thisheedful silken coming and going, these Sunday voices, this reiterantyelp of a single peevish bell--would they never cease? And above all,betwixt dread and an almost physical greed, he hungered for night. Hesat down with elbows on knees and head on his hands, thinking of night,its secrecy, its immeasurable solitude.

  His eyelids twitched; the fire before him had for an instant gone blackout. He seemed to see slow-gesturing branches, grass stooping beneatha grey and wind-swept sky. He started up; and the remembrance of themorning returned to him--the glassy light, the changing rays, thebeaming gilt upon the useless books. Now, at last, at the windows;afternoon had begun to wane. And when Sheila brought up his tea, as ifChance had heard his cry, she entered in hat and stole. She put down thetray, and paused at the glass, looking across it out of the window.

  'Alice says you are to eat every one of those delicious sandwiches, andespecially the tiny omelette. You have scarcely touched anything to-day,Arthur. I am a poor one to preach, I am afraid; but you know what thatwill mean--a worse breakdown still. You really must try to think of--ofus all.'

  'Are you going to church?' he asked in a low voice.

  'Not, of course, if you would prefer not. But Dr Simon advised me mostparticularly to go out at least once a day. We must remember, this isnot the beginning of your illness. Long-continued anxiety, I suppose,does tell on one in time. Anyhow, he said that I looked worried andrun-down. I AM worried. Let us both try for each other's sakes, or evenif only for Alice's, to--to do all we can. I must not harass you; but isthere any--do you see the slightest change of any kind?'

  'You always look pretty, Sheila; to-night you look prettier: THAT is theonly change, I think.'

  Mrs Lawford's attitude intensified in its stillness. 'Now, speakingquite frankly, what is it in you suggests these remarks at such a time?That's what baffles me. It seems so childish, so needlessly blind.'

  'I am very sorry, Sheila, to be so childish. But I'm not, say whatyou like, blind. You ARE pretty: I'd repeat it if I was burning at thestake.'

  Sheila lowered her eyes softly on to the rich-toned picture in theglass. 'Supposing,' she said, watching her lips move, 'supposing--ofcourse, I know you are getting better and all that--but supposing youdon't change back as Mr Bethany thinks, what will you do? Honestly,Arthur, when I think over it calmly, the whole tragedy comes back on mewith such a force it sweeps me off my feet; I am for the moment scarcelymy own mistress. What would you do?'

  'I think, Sheila,' replied a low, infinitely weary voice, 'I think Ishould marry again.' It was the same wavering, faintly ironical voicethat had slightly discomposed Dr Simon that same morning.

  '"Marry again"!' exclaimed incredulously the full lips in thelooking-glass. 'Who?'

  'YOU, dear!'

  Sheila turned softly round, conscious in a most humiliating manner thatshe had ever so little flushed.

  Her husband was pouring out his tea, unaware, apparently, of her changeof position. She watched him curiously. In spite of all her reason, ofher absolute certainty, she wondered even again for a moment if thisreally could be Arthur. And for the first time she realised the powerand mastery of that eager and far too hungry face. Her mind seemed topause, fluttering in air, like a bird in the wind. She hastened ratherunsteadily to the door.

  'Will you want anything more, do you think, for an hour?' she asked.

  Her husband looked up over his little table. 'Is Alice going with you?'

  'Oh yes; poor child, she looks so pale and miserable. We are going toMrs Sherwin's, and then on to Church. You will lock your door?'

  'Yes, I will lock my door.'

  'And I do hope Arthur--nothing rash!'

  A change, that seemed almost the effect of actual shadow, came over hisface. 'I wish you could stay with me,' he said slowly. 'I don't thinkyou have any idea what--what I go through.'

  It was as if a child had asked on the verge of terror for a candle inthe dark. But an hour's terror is better than a lifetime of timidity.Sheila sighed.

  'I think,' she said, 'I too might say that. But there; giving way willdo nothing for either of us. I shall be gone only for an hour, or twoat the most. And I told Mr Bethany I should have to come out before thesermon: it's only Mr Craik.'

  'But why Mrs Sherwin? She'd worm a secret out of one's grave.'

  'It's useless to discuss that, Arthur; you have always consistentlydisliked my friends. It's scarcely likely that you would find anyimprovement in them now.'

  'Oh, well--' he began. But the door was already closed.

  'Sheila!' he called in a burst of anger.

  'Well, Arthur?'

  'You have taken my latchkey.'

  Sheila came hastily in again. 'Your latchkey?'

  'I am going out.'

  '"Going out!"--you will not be so mad, so criminal; and after yourpromise!'

  He stood up. 'It is useless to argue. If I do not go out, I shallcertainly go mad. As for criminal--why, that's a woman's word. Who onearth is to know me?'

  'It is of no consequence, then, that the servants are already gossipingabout this impossible Dr Ferguson; that you are certain to be seeneither going or returning; that Alice is bound to discover that you arewell enough to go out, and yet not even enough to say good-night to yourown daughter--oh, it's monstrous, it's a frantic, a heartless thing todo!' Her voice vaguely suggested tears.

  Lawford eyed her coldly and stubbornly--thinking of the empty roomhe would leave awaiting his return, its lamp burning, its fire-flamesshining. It was almost a physical discomfort, this longing unspeakablefor the twilight, the green secrecy and the silence of the graves. 'Keepthem out of the way,' he said in a low voice; 'it will be dark when Icome in.' His hardened face lit up. 'It's useless to attempt to dissuademe.'

  'Why must you always be hurting me? why do you seem to delight in tryingto estrange me?' Husband and wife faced each other across the clear-litroom. He did not answer.

  'For the last time,' she said in a quiet, hard voice, 'I ask you not togo.'

  He shrugged his shoulders. 'Ask me not to come back,' he said; 'that'snearer your hope.' He turned his face to the fire. Without movinghe heard her go out, return, pause, and go out again. And whe
n hedeliberately wheeled round in his chair the little key lay conspicuousthere on the counterpane.