The Return

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The first faint streaks of dawn were silvering across the stars whenLawford again let himself into his deserted house. He stumbled downto the pantry and cut himself a crust of bread and cheese, and ate it,sitting on the table, watching the leafy eastern sky through the paintedbars of the area window. He munched on, hungry and tired. His nightwalk had cooled head and heart. Having obstinately refused Mr Bethany'sinvitation to sleep at the Vicarage, he had sat down on an old low wall,and watched until his light had shone out at his bedroom window. Thenhe had simply wandered on, past rustling glimmering gardens, underthe great timbers of yellowing elms, hardly thinking, hardly awareof himself except as in a far-away vision of a sluggish insignificantcreature struggling across the tossed-up crust of an old,incomprehensible world.

  The secret of his content in that long leisurely ramble had beenthat repeatedly by a scarcely realised effort it had not lain in thedirection of Widderstone. And now, as he sat hungrily devouring hisbreakfast on the table in the kitchen, with the daybreak comforting hiseyes, he thought with a positive mockery of that poor old night-thinghe had given inch by inch into the safe keeping of his pink and whitedrawing-room. Don Quixote, Poe, Rousseau--they were familiar but notvery significant labels to a mind that had found very poor entertainmentin reading. But they were at least representative enough to set himwondering which of their influences it was that had inflated with sucha gaseous heroism the Lawford of the night before. He thought of Sheilawith a not unkindly smile, and of the rest. 'I wonder what they'll do?'had been a question almost as much in his mind during these last fewhours as had 'What am I to do?' in the first bout of his 'visitation.'

  But the 'they' was not very precisely visualised. He saw Sheila, andHarry, and dainty pale-blue Bettie Lovat, and cautious old Wedderburn,and Danton, and Craik, and cheery, gossipy Dr Sutherland, and theverger, Mr Dutton, and Critchett, and the gardener, and Ada, and thewhole vague populous host that keep one as definitely in one's place inthe world's economy as a firm-set pin the camphored moth. What his placewas to be only time could show. Meanwhile there was in this lonelinessat least a respite.

  Solitude!--he bathed his weary bones in it. He laved his eyelids init, as in a woodland brook after the heat of noon. He sat on in calmestreverie till his hunger was satisfied. Then, scattering out his lastcrumbs to the birds from the barred window, he climbed upstairs again,past his usual bedroom, past his detested guest room, up into the narrowsweetness of Alice's, and flinging himself on her bed fell into a longand dreamless sleep.

  By ten next morning Lawford had bathed and dressed. And at half-past tenhe got up from Sheila's fat little French dictionary and his Memoirs toanswer Mrs Gull's summons on the area bell. The little woman stood witharms folded over an empty and capacious bag, with an air of sustainedmelancholy on her friendly face. She wished him a very nervous 'Goodmorning,' and dived down into the kitchen. The hours dragged slowly byin a silence broken only by an occasional ring at the bell. About threeshe emerged from the house and climbed the area steps with her baghooked over her arm. He watched the little black figure out ofsight, watched a man in a white canvas hat ascend the steps to push ablue-printed circular through the letter-box. It had begun to rain alittle. He returned to the breakfast-room and with the window wide opento the rustling coolness of the leaves, edged his way very slowly acrossfrom line to line of the obscure French print.

  Sabathier none the less, and in spite of his unintelligibleliterariness, did begin to take shape and consistency. The man himself,breathing, and thinking, began to live for Lawford even in those fewhalf-articulate pages, though not in quite so formidable a fashion asMr Bethany had summed him up. But as the west began to lighten with thedeclining sun, the same old disquietude, the same old friendless andforeboding ennui stole over Lawford's solitude once more. He shut hisbooks, placed a candlestick and two boxes of matches on the hall table,lit a bead of gas, and went out into the rainy-sweet streets again.

  At a mean little barber's with a pole above his lettered door he wentin to be shaved. And a few steps further on he sat down at thecrumb-littered counter of a little baker's shop to have some tea. Itpleased him almost to childishness to find how easily he could listenand even talk to the oiled and crimpy little barber, and to the pretty,consumptive-looking, print-dressed baker's wife. Whatever his face mightnow be conniving at, the Arthur Lawford of last week could never havehob-nobbed so affably with his social 'inferiors.'

  For no reason in the world, unless to spend a moment or two longerin the friendly baker's shop, he bought six-penny-worth of cakes. Hewatched them as they were deposited one by one in the bag, and evenasked for one sort to be exchanged for another, flushing a little at thepretty compliment he had ventured on.

  He climbed out of the shop, and paused on the wooden doorstep. 'Do youhappen to know Mr Herbert Herbert's?' he said.

  The baker's wife glanced up at him with clear, reflective eyes. 'MrHerbert's?--that must be some little way off, sir. I don't know any suchname, and I know most, just round about like.'

  'Well, yes, it is,' said Lawford, rather foolishly; 'I hardly know why Iasked. It's past the churchyard at Widderstone.'

  'Oh yes, sir,' she encouraged him.

  'A big, wooden-looking house.'

  'Really, sir. Wooden?'

  Lawford looked into her face, but could find nothing more to say, so hesmiled again rather absently, and ascended into the street.

  He sat down outside the churchyard gate on the very bank where he had inthe sourness of the nettles first opened Sabathier's Memoirs. The worldlay still beneath the pale sky. Presently the little fat rector walkedup the hill, his wrists still showing beneath his sleeves. Lawfordmeditatively watched him pass by. A small boy with a switch, a tinynose, and a swinging gallipot, his cheeks lit with the sunset, followedsoon after. Lawford beckoned him with his finger and held out the bagof tarts. He watched him, half incredulous of his prize, and with many acautious look over his shoulder, pass out of sight. For a long whilehe sat alone, only the evening birds singing out of the greenness andsilence of the churchyard. What a haunting inescapable riddle life was.

  Colour suddenly faded out of the light streaming between the branches.And depression, always lying in ambush of the novelty of his freedom,began like mist to rise above his restless thoughts. It was all sodevilish empty--this raft of the world floating under evening's shadow.How many sermons had he listened to, enriched with the simile of theocean of life. Here they were, come home to roost. He had fallen asleep,ineffectual sailor that he was, and a thief out of the cloudy deep hadstolen oar and sail and compass, leaving him adrift amid the riding ofthe waves.

  'Are they worth, do you think, quite a penny?' suddenly inquired a quietvoice in the silence. He looked up into the almost colourless face, intothe grey eyes beneath their clear narrow brows.

  'I was thinking,' he said, 'what a curious thing life is, andwondering--'

  'The first half is well worth the penny--its originality! I can't affordtwopence. So you must GIVE me what you were wondering.'

  Lawford gazed rather blankly across the twilight fields. 'I waswondering,' he said with an oddly naive candour, 'how long it took oneto sink.'

  'They say, you know,' Grisel replied solemnly, 'drowned sailors floatmidway, suffering their sea change; purgatory. But what a splendidpennyworth. All pure philosophy!'

  '"Philosophy!"' said Lawford; 'I am a perfect fool. Has your brothertold you about me?'

  She glanced at him quickly. 'We had a talk.'

  'Then you do know--?' He stopped dead, and turned to her. 'You reallyrealise it, looking at me now?'

  'I realise,' she said gravely, 'that you look even a little more paleand haggard than when I saw you first the other night. We both, mybrother and I, you know, thought for certain you'd come yesterday.In fact, I went into the Widderstone in the evening to look for you,knowing your nocturnal habits....' She glanced again at him with a kindof shy anxiety.

  'Why--why is your brother s
o--why does he let me bore him so horribly?'

  'Does he? He's tremendously interested; but then, he's pretty easilyinterested when he's interested at all. If he can possibly twistanything into the slightest show of a mystery, he will. But, of course,you won't, you can't, take all he says seriously. The tiniest pinch ofsalt, you know. He's an absolute fanatic at talking in the air. Besides,it doesn't really matter much.'

  'In the air?'

  'I mean if once a theory gets into his head--the more far-fetched,so long as it's original, the better--it flowers out into a positivemiracle of incredibilities. And of course you can rout out evidence foranything under the sun from his dingy old folios. Why did he lend youthat PARTICULAR book?'

  'Didn't he tell you that, then?'

  'He said it was Sabathier.' She seemed to think intensely for themerest fraction of a moment, and turned. 'Honestly, though, I think heimmensely exaggerated the likeness. As for...'

  He touched her arm, and they stopped again, face to face. 'Tell me whatdifference exactly you see,' he said. 'I am quite myself again now,honestly; please tell me just the very worst you think.'

  'I think, to begin with,' she began, with exaggerated candour, 'his israther a detestable face.'

  'And mine?' he said gravely.

  'Why--very troubled; oh yes--but his was like some bird of prey.Yours--what mad stuff to talk like this!--not the least symptom, that Ican see, of--why, the "prey," you know.'

  They had come to the wicket in the dark thorny hedge. 'Would it be verydreadful to walk on a little--just to finish?'

  'Very,' she said, turning as gravely at his side.

  'What I wanted to say was--' began Lawford, and forgetting altogetherthe thread by which he hoped to lead up to what he really wanted tosay, broke off lamely; 'I should have thought you would have absolutelydespised a coward.'

  'It would be rather absurd to despise what one so horribly wellunderstands. Besides, we weren't cowards--we weren't cowards a bit. Mychildhood was one long, reiterated terror--nights and nights of it. ButI never had the pluck to tell any one. No one so much as dreamt ofthe company I had. Ah, and you didn't see either that my heart wasabsolutely in my mouth, that I was shrivelled up with fear, even atsight of the fear on your face in the dark. There's absolutely nothingso catching. So, you see, I do know a little what nerves are; anddream too sometimes, though I don't choose charnelhouses if I can get acomfortable bed. A coward! May I really say that to ask my help was oneof the bravest things in a man I ever heard of. Bullets--that kind ofcourage--no real woman cares twopence for bullets. An old aunt of minestared a man right out of the house with the thing in her face. Anyhow,whether I may or not, I do say it. So now we are quits.'

  'Will you--' began Lawford, and stopped. 'What I wanted to say was,'he jerked on, 'it is sheer horrible hypocrisy to be talking to you likethis--though you will never have the faintest idea of what it has meantand done for me. I mean... And yet, and yet, I do feel when just forthe least moment I forget what I am, and that isn't very often, whenI forget what I have become and what I must go back to--I feel that Ihaven't any business to be talking with you at all. "Quits!" And here Iam, an outcast from decent society. Ah, you don't know--'

  She bent her head and laughed under her breath. 'You do really stumbleon such delicious compliments. And yet, do you know, I think my brotherwould be immensely pleased to think you were an outcast from decentsociety if only he could be thought one too. He has been trying half hislife to wither decent society with neglect and disdain--but it doesn'ttake the least notice. The deaf adder, you know. Besides, besides; whatis all this meek talk? I detest meek talk--gods or men. Surely in thefirst and last resort all we are is ourselves. Something has happened;you are jangled, shaken. But to us, believe me, you are simply one offewer friends-and I think, after struggling up Widderstone Lane hand inhand with you in the dark, I have a right to say "friends" than I couldcount on one hand. What are we all if we only realized it? We talk ofdignity and propriety, and we are like so many children playingwith knucklebones in a giant's scullery. Come along, he will, somesuppertime, for us, each in turn--and how many even will so much as lookup from their play to wave us good-bye? that's what I mean--the plotof silence we are all in. If only I had my brother's lucidity, how muchbetter I would have said all this. It is only, believe me, that I wantever so much to help you, if I may--even at risk, too,' she added,rather shakily, 'of having that help--well--I know it's little good.'

  The lane had narrowed. They had climbed the arch of a narrow stonebridge that spanned the smooth dark Widder. A few late starlings werewinging far above them. Darkness was coming on apace. They stood forawhile looking down into the black flowing water, with here and therethe mild silver of a star dim leagues below. 'I am afraid,' saidGrisel, looking quietly up, 'you have led me into talking most pitilessnonsense. How many hours, I wonder, did I lie awake in the dark lastnight, thinking of you? Honestly, I shall never, NEVER forget that walk.It haunted me, on and on.'

  'Thinking of me? Do you really mean that? Then it was not allimagination; it wasn't just the drowning man clutching at a straw?'

  The grey eyes questioned him. 'You see,' he explained in a whisper, asif afraid of being overheard, 'it--it came back again, and--I don't minda bit how much you laugh at me! I had been asleep, and had had a mostawful dream, one of those dreams that seem to hint that some day THATwill be our real world, that some day we may awake where dreaming thenwill be of this; and I woke--came back--and there was a tremendousknocking going on downstairs. I knew there was no one else in thehouse--'

  'No one else in the house? And you like this?'

  'Yes,' said Lawford, stolidly, 'they were all out as it happened. And,of course,' he went on quickly, 'there was nothing for me to do butsimply to go down and open the door. And yet, do you know, at first Isimply couldn't move. I lit a candle, and then--then somehow I gotto know that waiting for me was just--but there,' he broke offhalf-ashamed, 'I mustn't bother you with all this morbid stuff. Willyour brother be in now, do you think?'

  'My brother will be in, and, of course, expecting you. But as for"bother," believe me--well, did I quite deserve it?' She stooped towardshim. 'You lit a candle--and then?'

  They turned and retraced their way slowly up the hill.

  'It came again.'

  'It?'

  'That--that presence, that shadow. I don't mean, of course, it's a realshadow. It comes, doesn't it, from--from within? As if from out of someunheard-of hiding place, where it has been lurking for ages and agesbefore one's childhood; at least, so it seems to me now. And yetalthough it does come from within, there it is, too, in front of you,before your eyes, feeding even on your fear, just watching, waitingfor--What nonsense all this must seem to you!'

  'Yes, yes; and then?'

  'Then, and you must remember the poor old boy had been knocking all thistime--my old friend--Mr Bethany, I mean--knocking and calling throughthe letter-box, thinking I was in extremis, or something; then--howshall I describe it?--well YOU came, your eyes, your face, as clear aswhen, you know, the night before last, we went up the hill together. Andthen...'

  'And then?'

  'And then, we--you and I, you know--simply drove him downstairs, andI could hear myself grunting as if it was really a physical effort; wedrove him, step by step, downstairs. And--' He laughed outright, andboyishly continued his adventure. 'What do you think I did then, withoutthe ghost of a smile, too, at the idiocy of the thing? I locked the poorbeggar in the drawing-room. I saw him there, as plainly as I ever sawanything in my life, and the furniture glimmering, though it was pitchdark: I can't describe it. It all seemed so desperately real, absolutelyvital then. It all seems so meaningless and impossible now. And yet,although I am utterly played out and done for, and however absurd it maysound, I wouldn't have lost it; I wouldn't go back for any bribe thereis. I feel just as if a great bundle had been rolled off my back. Ofcourse, the queerest, the most detestable part of the whole businessis that it--the thing on the stairs--was thi
s'--he lifted a grave andhaggard face towards her again--'or rather that,' he pointed with hisstick towards the starry churchyard. 'Sabathier,' he said.

  Again they had paused together before the white gate, and this timeLawford pushed it open, and followed his companion up the narrow path.

  She stayed a moment, her hand on the bell. 'Was it my brother whoactually put that horrible idea into your mind?--about Sabathier?'

  'Oh no, not really put it into my head,' said Lawford hollowly. 'He onlyfound it there; lit it up.'

  She laid her hand lightly on his arm. 'Whether he did or not,' she saidwith an earnestness that was almost an entreaty, 'of course, you MUSTagree that we every one of us have some such experience--that kindof visitor, once at least, in a lifetime.' 'Ah, but,' began Lawford,turning forlornly away, 'you didn't see, you can't have realized--thechange.'

  She pulled the bell almost as if in some inward triumph. 'But don't youthink,' she suggested, 'that that, like the other, might be, as it were,partly imagination too? If now you thought back.'

  But a little old woman had opened the door, and the sentence, for themoment, was left unfinished.