The Price of Love by Arnold Bennett (page 5)

confiding money to Thomas Batchgrew for investment. And as Louis had had a flashing vision of the future, so did Rachel now have such a vision. But hers was more terrible than his. Louis foresaw merely vexation. Rachel foresaw ruin doubtfully staved off by eternal vigilance on her part and by nothing else–an instant’s sleepiness, and they might be in the gutter and she the wife of a ne’er-do-well. She perceived that she must be reconciled to a future in which the strain of intense vigilance could never once be relaxed. Strange that a creature so young and healthy and in love should be so pessimistic, but thus it was! She remembered in in spite of herself the warnings against Louis which she had been compelled to listen to in the previous year.

“Odd, of course!” said Louis. “But I can’t exactly see how he’ll swindle me out of the money! A debenture is a debenture.”

“Is it?”

“Do you know what a debenture is, my child?”

“I don’t need to know what a debenture is, when Mr. Batchgrew’s mixed up in it.”

Louis suppressed a sigh. He first thought of trying to explain to her just what a debenture was. Then he abandoned the enterprise as too complicated, and also as futile. Though he should prove to her that a debenture combined the safety of the Bank of England with the brilliance of a successful gambling transaction, she would not budge. He was acquiring valuable and painful knowledge concerning women every second. He grew sad, not simply with the weight of this new knowledge, but more because, though he had envisaged certain difficulties of married existence, he had not envisaged this difficulty. He had not dreamed that a wife would demand a share, and demand it furiously, in the control of his business affairs. He had sincerely imagined that wives listened with much respect and little comprehension when business was on the carpet, content to murmur soothingly from time to time, “Just as you think best, dear.” Life had unpleasantly astonished him.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say to Rachel, with steadying facetiousness–

“You mustn’t forget that I know a bit about these things, having spent years of my young life in a bank.”

But a vague instinct told him that to draw attention to his career in the bank might be unwise–at any rate, in principle.

“Can’t you see,” Rachel charged again, “that Mr. Batchgrew has only been flattering you all this time so as to get hold of your money? And wasn’t it just like him to begin again harping on the electricity?>”

“Flattering me?”

“Well, he couldn’t bear you before–if you’d only heard the things he used to say!–and now he simply licks your boots.”

“What things did he say?” Louis asked, disturbed.

“Oh, never mind!”

Louis became rather glum and obstinate.

“The money will be perfectly safe,” he insisted, “and our income pretty nearly doubled. I suppose I ought to know more about these things than you.”

“What’s the use of income being doubled if you lose the capital?” Rachel snapped, now taking a horrid, perverse pleasure in the perilous altercation. “And if it’s so safe why is he ready to give you so much interest?”

The worst of women, Louis reflected, is that in the midst of a silly argument that you can shatter in ten words they will by a fluke insert some awkward piece of genuine ratiocination, the answer to which must necessarily be lengthy and ineffective.

“It’s no good arguing,” he said pleasantly, and then repeated, “I ought to know more about these things than you.”

Rachel raised her voice in exasperation–

“I don’t see it, I don’t see it at all. If it hadn’t been for me you’d have thrown up your situation–and a nice state of affairs there would have been then! And how much money would you have wasted on holidays and so on and so on if I hadn’t stopped you, I should like to know!”

Louis was still more astonished. Indeed, he was rather nettled. His urbanity was unimpaired, but he permitted himself a slight acidity of tone as he retorted with gentle malice–

“Well, you can’t help the colour of your hair. So I’ll keep my nerve.”

“I didn’t expect to be insulted!” cried Rachel, flushing far redder than that rich hair of hers, and paced pompously out of the room, her face working violently. The door was ajar. She passed Mrs. Tams on the stairs, blindly, with lowered head.

V

In the conjugal bedroom, full of gas-glare and shadows, there were two old women. One was Mrs. Tams, ministering; the other was Rachel Fores, once and not long ago the beloved and courted girlish Louise of a chevalier, now aged by all the sorrow of the world. She lay in bed–in her bed nearest the fireplace and farthest from the door.

She had undressed herself with every accustomed ceremony, arranging each article of attire, including the fine frock left on the bed, carefully in its place, as is meet in a chamber where tidiness depends on the loyal cooperation of two persons, but through her tears. She had slipped sobbing into bed. The other bed was empty, and its emptiness seemed sinister to her. Would it ever be occupied again? Impossible that it should ever be occupied again! Its rightful occupant was immeasurably far off, along miles of passages, down leagues of stairs, separated by impregnable doors, in another universe, the universe of the ground floor. Of course she might have sprung up, put on her enchanting dressing-gown, tripped down a few steps in a moment of time, and peeped in at the parlour door–just peeped in, in that magic ribboned peignoir, and glanced–and the whole planet would have been reborn. But she could not. If the salvation of the human race had depended on it, she could not–partly because she was a native of the Five Towns, where such things are not done, and no doubt partly because she was just herself.

She was now more grieved than angry with Louis. He had been wrong; he was a foolish, unreliable boy–but he was a boy. Whereas she was his mother, and ought to have known better. Yes, she had become his mother in the interval. For herself she experienced both pity and anger. What angered her was her clumsiness. Why had she lost her temper and her head? She saw clearly how she might have brought him round to her view with a soft phrase, a peculiar inflection, a tiny appeal, a caress, a mere dimpling of the cheek. She saw him revolving on her little finger…. She knew all things now because she was so old. And then suddenly she was bathing luxuriously in self-pity, and young and imperious, and violently resentful of the insult which he had put upon her–an insult which recalled the half-forgotten humiliations of her school-days, when loutish girls had baptized her with the name of a vegetable…. And then, again suddenly, she deeply desired that Louis should come upstairs and bully her.

She attached a superstitious and terrible importance to the tragical episode in the parlour because it was their first quarrel as husband and wife. True, she had stormed at him before their engagement, but even then he had kept intact his respect for her, whereas now, a husband, he had shamed her. The breach, she knew, could never be closed. She had only to glance at the empty bed to be sure that it was eternal. It had been made slowly yet swiftly; and it was complete and unbridgable ere she had realized its existence. When she contrasted the idyllic afternoon with the tragedy of the night, she was astounded by the swiftness of the change. The catastrophe lay, not in the threatened loss of vast sums of money and consequent ruin–that had diminished to insignificance!–but in the breach.

And then Mrs. Tams had inserted herself in the bedroom. Mrs. Tams knew or guessed everything. And she would not pretend that she did not; and Rachel would not pretend–did not even care to pretend, for Mrs. Tams was so unimportant that nobody minded her. Mrs. Tams had heard and seen. She commiserated. She stroked timidly with her gnarled hand the short, fragile sleeve of the nightgown, whereat Rachel sobbed afresh, with more plenteous tears, and tried to articulate a word, and could not till the third attempt. The word was “handkerchief.” She was not weeping in comfort. Mrs. Tams was aware of the right drawer and drew from it a little white thing–yet not so little, for Rachel was Rachel!–and shook out its quadrangular folds, and it seemed beautiful in the gaslight; and Rachel took it and sobbed “Thank you.”

Mrs. Tams rose higher than even a general servant; she was the soubrette, the confidential maid, the very echo of the young and haughty mistress, leagued with the worshipped creature against the wickedness and wile of a whole sex. Mrs. Tams had no illusions save the sublime illusion that her mistress was an angel and a martyr. Mrs. Tams had been married, and she had seen a daughter married. She was an authority on first quarrels and could and did tell tales of first quarrels–tales in which the husband, while admittedly an utterly callous monster, had at the same time somehow some leaven of decency. Soon she was launched in the epic recital of the birth and death of a grandchild; Rachel, being a married women like the rest, could properly listen to every interesting and recondite detail. Rachel sobbed and sympathized with the classic tale. And both women, as it was unrolled, kept well in their minds the vision of the vile man, mysterious and implacable, alone in the parlour. Occasionally Mrs. Tams listened for a footstep, ready discreetly to withdraw at the slightest symptom on the stairs. Once when she did this, Rachel murmured, weakly, “He won’t–” and then lapsed into new weeping. And after a little time Mrs. Tams departed.

VI

Mrs. Tams had decided to undertake an enterprise involving extreme gallantry–surpassing the physical. She went downstairs and stood outside the parlour door, which was not quite shut. Within the parlour, or throne-room, existed a beautiful and superior being, full of grace and authority, who belonged to a race quite different from her own, who was beyond her comprehension, who commanded her and kept her alive and paid money to her, who accepted her devotion casually as a right, who treated her as a soft cushion between himself and the drift and inconvenience of the world, and who occasionally, as a supreme favour, caught her a smart slap on the back, which flattered her to excess. She went into the throne-room if she was called thither, or if she had cleansing or tidying work there; she spoke to the superior being if he spoke to her. But she had never till then conceived the breath-taking scheme of entering the throne-room for a purpose of her own, and addressing the superior being without an invitation to do so.

Nevertheless, since by long practice she was courageous, she meant to execute the scheme. And she began by knocking at the door. Although Rachel had seriously warned her that for a domestic servant to knock at the parlour door was a grave sin, she simply could not help knocking. Not to knock seemed to her wantonly sacrilegious. Thus she knocked, and a voice told her to come in.

There was the superior being, his back to the fire and his legs apart–formidable!

She curtsied–another sin according to the new code. Then she discovered that she was inarticulate.

“Well?”

Words burst from her–

“Her’s crying her eyes out up yon, mester.”

And Mrs. Tams also snivelled.

The superior being frowned and said testily, yet not without a touch of careless toleration–

“Oh, get away, you silly old fool of a woman!”

Mrs. Tarns got away, not entirely ill-content.

In the lobby she heard an unusual rapping on the glass of the front door, and sharply opened it to inform the late disturber that there existed a bell and a knocker for respectable people. A shabby youth gave her a note for “Louis Fores, Esq.,” and said that there was an answer. So that she was forced to renew the enterprise of entering the throne-room.

In another couple of minutes Louis was running upstairs. His wife heard him, and shook in bed from excitement at the crisis which approached. But she could never have divined the nature of the phenomenon by which the unbridgable breach was about to be closed.

“Louise!”

“Yes,” she whimpered. Then she ventured to spy at his face through an interstice of the bedclothes, and saw thereon a most queer, white expression.

“Some one’s just brought this. Read it.”

He gave her the note, and she deciphered it as well as she could–

DEAR Louis,–If you aren’t gone to bed I want to see you to-night about that missing money of aunt’s. I’ve something I must tell you and Rachel. I’m at the “Three Tuns.”

JULIAN MALDON.

“But what does he mean?” demanded Rachel, roused from her heavy mood of self-pity.

“I don’t know.”

“But what can he mean?” she insisted.

“Haven’t a notion.”

“But he must mean something!”

Louis asked–

“Well, what should _you_ say he means?”

“How very strange!” Rachel murmured, not attempting to answer the question. “And the ‘Three Tuns’! Why does he write from the ‘Three Tuns’? What’s he doing at the ‘Three Tuns’? Isn’t it a very low public-house? And everybody thought he was still in South Africa!… I suppose, then, it _must_ have been him that we saw to-night.”

“You may bet it was.”

“Then why didn’t he come straight here? That’s what I want to know. He couldn’t have called before we got here, because if he had Mrs. Tams would have told us.”

Louis nodded.

“Didn’t you think Mr. Batchgrew looked very _queer_ when you mentioned Julian to-night?” Rachel continued to express her curiosity and wonder.

“No. I didn’t notice anything particular,” Louis replied vaguely.

Throughout the conversation his manner was self-conscious. Rachel observed it, while feigning the contrary, and in her turn grew uneasy and even self-conscious also. Further, she had the feeling that Louis was depending upon her for support, and perhaps for initiative. His glance, though furtive, had the appealing quality which rendered him sometimes so exquisitely wistful to her. As he stood over her by the bed, he made a peculiar compound of the negligent, dominant masculine and the clinging feminine.

“And why didn’t he let anybody know of his return?” Rachel went on.

Louis, veering towards the masculine, clenched the immediate point–

“The question before the meeting is,” he smiled demurely, “what answer am I to send?”

“I suppose you must see him to-night.”

“Nothing else for it, is there? Well, I’ll scribble him a bit of a note.”

“But I shan’t see him, Louis.”

“No?”

In an instant Rachel thought to herself: “He doesn’t want me to see him.”

Aloud she said: “I should have to dress myself all over again. Besides, I’m not fit to be seen.”

She was referring, without any apparent sort of shame, to the redness of her eyes.

“Well, I’ll see him by myself, then.”

Louis turned to leave the bedroom. Whereat Rachel was very disconcerted and disappointed. Although the startling note from Julian had alarmed her and excited in her profound apprehensions whose very nature she would scarcely admit to herself, the main occupation of her mind was still her own quarrel with Louis. The quarrel was now over, for they had conversed in quite sincere tones of friendliness, but she had desired and expected an overt, tangible proof and symbol of peace. That proof and symbol was a kiss.

Louis was at the door … he was beyond the door … she was lost.

“Louis!” she cried.

He put his face in at the door.

“Will you just pass me my hand-mirror. It’s on the dressing-table.”

Louis was thrilled by this simple request. The hand-mirror had arrived in the house as a wedding-present. It was backed with tortoise-shell, and seemingly the one thing that had reconciled Rachel the downright to the possession of a hand-mirror was the fact that the tortoise-shell was real tortoise-shell. She had “made out” that a hand-mirror was too frivolous an object for the dressing-table of a serious Five Towns woman. She had always referred to it as “the” hand-mirror–as though disdaining special ownership. She had derided it once by using it in front of Louis with the mimic foolish graces of an empty-headed doll. And now she was asking for it because she wanted it; and she had said “my” hand-mirror!

This revelation of the odalisque in his Rachel enchanted Louis, and incidentally it also enchanted Rachel. She had employed a desperate remedy, and the result on both of them filled her with a most surprising gladness. Louis judged it to be deliciously right that Rachel should be anxious to know whether her weeping had indeed made her into an object improper for the beholding of the male eye, and Rachel to her astonishment shared his opinion. She was “vain,” and they were both well content. In taking it she touched his hand. He bent and kissed her. Each of them was ravaged by formidable fears for the future, tremendously disturbed in secret by the mysterious word from Julian; and yet that kiss stood unique among their kisses, and in their simplicity they knew not why. And as they kissed they hated Julian, and the past, and the whole world, for thus coming between them and deranging their love. They would, had it been possible, have sold all the future for tranquillity in that moment.

VII

Going downstairs, Louis found Mrs. Tarns standing in the back part of the lobby between the parlour door and the kitchen; obviously she had stationed herself there in order to keep watch on the messenger from the “Three Tuns.” As the master of the house approached with dignity the foot of the stairs, the messenger stirred, and in the classic manner of messengers fingered uneasily his hat. The fingers were dirty. The hat was dirty and shabby. It had been somebody else’s hat before coming into the possession of the messenger. The same applied to his jacket and trousers. The jacket was well cut, but green; the trousers, with their ragged, muddy edges, yet betrayed a pattern of distinction. Round his neck the messenger wore a thin muffler, and on his feet an exhausted pair of tennis-shoes. These noiseless shoes accentuated and confirmed the stealthy glance of his eyes. Except for an unshaven chin, and the confidence-destroying quality that lurked subtly in his aspect, he was not repulsive to look upon. His features were delicate enough, his restless mouth was even pretty, and his carriage graceful. He had little of the coarseness of industrialism–probably because he was not industrial. His age was about twenty, and he might have sold _Signals_ in the street, or run illegal errands for street-bookmakers. At any rate, it was certain that he was not above earning a chance copper from a customer of the “Three Tuns.” His clear destiny was never to inspire respect or trust, nor to live regularly (save conceivably in prison), nor to do any honest daily labour. And if he did not know this, he felt it. All his movements were those of an outcast who both feared and execrated the organism that was rejecting him.

Louis, elegant, self-possessed, and superior, passed into the parlour exactly as if the messenger had been invisible. He was separated from the messenger by an immeasurable social prestige. He was raised to such an altitude above the messenger that he positively could not see the messenger with the naked eye. And yet for one fraction of a second he had the illusion of being so intimately akin to the messenger that a mere nothing might have pushed him into those vile clothes and endowed him with that furtive look and that sinister aspect of a helot. For one infinitesimal instant he was the messenger; and shuddered. Then the illusion as swiftly faded, and–such being Louis’ happy temperament–was forgotten. He disappeared into the parlour, took a piece of paper and an envelope from the small writing-table behind Rachel’s chair, and wrote a short note to Julian–a note from which facetiousness was not absent–inviting him to come at once. He rang the bell. Mrs. Tams entered, full of felicity because the great altercation was over and concord established.

“Give this to that chap,” said Louis, casually imperative, holding out the note but scarcely glancing at Mrs. Tams.

“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Tarns with humble eagerness, content to be a very minor tool in the hidden designs of the exalted.

“And then you can go to bed.”

“Oh! It’s of no consequence, I’m sure, sir,” Mrs. Tams answered.

Louis heard her say importantly and condescendingly to the messenger–

“Here ye are, young man.”

She shut the front door as though much relieved to get such a source of peril and infection out of the respectable house.

Immediately afterwards strange things happened to Louis in the parlour. He had intended to return at once to his wife in order to continue the vague, staggered conversation about Julian’s thunderbolt. But he discovered that he could not persuade himself to rejoin Rachel. A self-consciousness, growing every moment more acute and troublesome, prevented him from so doing. He was afraid that he could not discuss the vanished money without blushing, and it happened rarely that he lost control of his features, which indeed he could as a rule mould to the expression of a cherub whenever desirable. So he sat down in a chair, the first chair to hand, any chair, and began to reflect. Of course he was safe. The greatest saint on earth could not have been safer than he was from conviction of a crime. He might be suspected, but nothing could possibly be proved against him. Moreover, despite his self-consciousness, he felt innocent; he really did feel innocent, and even ill-used. The money had forced itself upon him in an inexcusable way; he was convinced that he had never meant to misappropriate it; assuredly he had received not a halfpenny of benefit from it. The fault was entirely the old lady’s. Yes, he was innocent and he was safe.

Nevertheless, he did not at all like the resuscitation of the affair. The affair had been buried. How characteristic of the inconvenient Julian to rush in from South Africa and dig it up! Everybody concerned had decided that the old lady on the night of her attack had not been responsible for her actions. She had annihilated the money–whether by fire, as Batchgrew had lately suggested, or otherwise, did not matter. Or, if she had not annihilated the money, she had “done something” with it–something unknown and unknowable. Such was the acceptable theory, in which Louis heartily concurred. The loss was his–at least half the loss was his–and others had no right to complain. But Julian was without discretion. Within twenty-four hours Julian might well set the whole district talking.

Louis was dimly aware that the district already had talked, but he was not aware to what extent it had talked. Neither he nor anybody else was aware how the secret had escaped out of the house. Mrs. Tarns would have died rather than breathe a word. Rachel, naturally, had said naught; nor had Louis. Old Batchgrew had decided that his highest interest also was to say naught, and he had informed none save Julian. Julian might have set the secret free in South Africa, but in a highly distorted form it had been current in certain strata of Five Towns society long before it could have returned from South Africa. The rough, commonsense verdict of those select few who had winded the secret was simply that “there had been some hanky-panky,” and that beyond doubt Louis was “at the bottom of it,” but that it had little importance, as Mrs. Maldon was dead, poor thing. As for Julian, “a rough customer, though honest as the day,” he was reckoned to be capable of protecting his own interests.

And then, amid all his apprehensions, a new hope sprouted in Louis’ mind. Perhaps Julian was acquainted with some fact that might lead to the recovery of a part of the money. Had Louis not always held that the pile of notes which had penetrated into his pocket did not represent the whole of the nine hundred and sixty-five pounds? Conceivably it represented about half of the total, in which case a further sum of, say, two hundred and fifty pounds might be coming to Louis. Already he was treating this two hundred and fifty pounds as a windfall, and wondering in what most pleasant ways he could employ it!… But with what kind of fact could Julian be acquainted?… Had Julian been dishonest? Louis would have liked to think Julian dishonest, but he could not. Then what …?

He heard movements above. And the front gate creaked. As if a spring had been loosed, he jumped from the chair and ran upstairs–away from the arriving Julian and towards his wife. Rachel was just getting up.

“Don’t trouble,” he said. “I’ll see him. I’ll deal with him. Much better for you to stay in bed.”

He perceived that he did not want Rachel to hear what Julian had to say until after he had heard it himself.

Rachel hesitated.

“Do you think so?… What have you been doing? I thought you were coming up again at once.”

“I had one or two little things–“

A terrific knock resounded on the front door.

“There he is!” Louis muttered, as it were aghast.

CHAPTER XI

JULIAN’S DOCUMENT

I

Julian Maldon faced Louis in the parlour. Louis had conducted him there without the assistance of Mrs. Tams, who had been not merely advised, but commanded, to go to bed. Julian had entered the house like an exasperated enemy–glum, suspicious, and ferocious. His mien seemed to say: “You wanted me to come, and I’ve come. But mind you don’t drive me to extremities.” Impossible to guess from his grim face that he had asked permission to come! Nevertheless he had shaken Louis’ hand with a ferocious sincerity which Louis felt keenly the next morning. He was the same Julian except that he had grown a brown beard. He had exactly the same short, thick-set figure, and the same defiant stare. South Africa had not changed him. No experience could change him. He would have returned from ten years at the North Pole or at the Equator, with savages or with uncompromising intellectuals, just the same Julian. He was one of those beings who are violently themselves all the time. By some characteristic social clumsiness he had omitted to remove his overcoat in the lobby. And now, in the parlour, he could not get it off. As a man seated, engaged in conversation by a woman standing, forgets to rise at once and then cannot rise, finding himself glued to the chair, so was Julian with his overcoat; to take it off he would have had to flay himself alive.

“Won’t you take off your overcoat?” Louis suggested.

“No.”

With his instinctive politeness Louis turned to improve the fire. And as he poked among the coals he said, in the way of amiable conversation–

“How’s South Africa?”

“All right,” replied Julian, who hated to impart his sensations. If Julian had witnessed Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow he would have come to the Five Towns and, if questioned–not otherwise–would have said that it was all right.

Louis, however, suspected that his brevity was due to Julian’s resentment of any inquisitiveness concerning his doings in South Africa; and he therefore at once abandoned South Africa as a subject of talk, though he was rather curious to know what, indeed, Julian had been about in South Africa for six mortal months. Nobody in the Five Towns knew for certain what Julian had been about in South Africa. It was understood that he had gone there as a commercial traveller for his own wares, when his business was in a highly unsatisfactory condition, and that he had meant to stay for only a month. The excursion had been deemed somewhat mad, but not more mad than sundry other deeds of Julian. Then Julian’s manager, Foulger, had (it appeared) received authority to assume responsible charge of the manufactory until further notice. From that moment the business had prospered: a result at which nobody was surprised, because Foulger was notoriously a “good man” who had hitherto been baulked in his ideas by an obstinate young employer.

In a community of stiff-necked employers, Julian already held a high place for the quality of being stiff-necked. Jim Horrocleave, for example, had a queer, murderous manner with customers and with “hands,” but Horrocleave was friendly towards scientific ideas in the earthenware industry, and had even given half a guinea to the fund for encouraging technical education in the district. Whereas Julian Maldon not only terrorized customers and work-people (the latter nevertheless had a sort of liking for him), but was bitingly scornful of “cranky chemists,” or “Germans,” as he called the scientific educated experts. He was the pure essence of the British manufacturer. He refused to make what the market wanted, unless the market happened to want what he wanted to make. He hated to understand the reasons underlying the processes of manufacture, or to do anything which had not been regularly done for at least fifty years. And he accepted orders like insults. The wonder was, not that he did so little business, but that he did so much. Still, people did respect him. His aunt Maldon, with her skilled habit of finding good points in mankind, had thought that he must be remarkably intelligent because he was so rude.

Beyond a vague rumour that Julian had established a general pottery agency in Cape Town with favourable prospects, no further news of him had reached England. But of course it was admitted that his inheritance had definitely saved the business, and also much improved his situation in the eyes of the community … And now he had achieved a reappearance which in mysteriousness excelled even his absence.

“So you see we’re installed here,” said Louis, when he had finished with the fire.

“Aye!” muttered Julian dryly, and shut his lips.

Louis tried no more conversational openings. He was afraid. He waited for Julian’s initiative as for an earthquake; for he knew now at the roots of his soul that the phrasing of the note was misleading, and that Julian had come to charge him with having misappropriated the sum of nine hundred and sixty-five pounds. He had, in reality, surmised as much on first reading the note, but somehow he had managed to put away the surmise as absurd and incredible.

After a formidable silence Julian said savagely–

“Look here. I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve written it all down, and I thought to send it ye by post. But after I’d written it I said to myself I’d tell it ye face to face or I’d die for it. And so here I am.”

“Oh!” Louis murmured. He would have liked to be genially facetious, but his mouth was dried up. He could not ask any questions. He waited.

“Where’s missis?” Julian demanded.

Louis started, not instantly comprehending.

“Rachel? She’s–she’s in bed. She’d gone to bed before you sent round.”

“Well, I’ll thank ye to get her up, then!” Julian pronounced. “She’s got to hear this at first hand, not at second.” His gaze expressed a frank distrust of Louis.

“But–“

At this moment Rachel came into the parlour, apparently fully dressed. Her eyes were red, but her self-control was complete.

Julian glared at Louis as at a trapped liar.

“I thought ye said she was in bed.”

“She was,” said Louis. He could find nothing to say to his wife.

Rachel nonchalantly held out her hand.

“So you’ve come,” she said.

“Aye!” said Julian gruffly, and served Rachel’s hand as he had served Louis’.

She winced without concealment.

“Was it you we saw going down Moorthorne Road to-night?” she asked.

“It was,” said Julian, looking at the carpet.

“Well, why didn’t you come in then?”

“I couldn’t make up my mind, if you must know.”

“Aren’t you going to sit down?”

Julian sat down.

Louis reflected that women were astonishing and incalculable, and the discovery seemed to him original, even profound. Imagine her tackling Julian in this fashion, with no preliminaries! She might have seen Julian last only on the previous day! The odalisque had vanished in this chill and matter-of-fact housewife.

“And why were you at the ‘Three Tuns’?” she went on.

Julian replied with extraordinary bitterness–

“I was at the ‘Three Tuns’ because I was at the ‘Three Tuns.'”

“I see you’ve grown a beard,” said Rachel.

“Happen I have,” said Julian. “But what I say is, I’ve got something to tell you two. I’ve written it all down and I thought to post it to ye. But after I’d written it I says to myself, ‘I’ll tell ’em face to face or I’ll die for it.'”

“Is it about that money?” Rachel inquired.

“Aye!”

“Then Mr. Batchgrew did write and tell you about it. Won’t you take that great, thick overcoat off?”

Julian jumped up as if in fury, pulled off the overcoat with violent gestures, and threw in on the Chesterfield. Then he sat down again, and, sticking out his chin, stared inimically at Louis.

Louis’ throat was now so tight that he was nervously obliged to make the motion of swallowing. He could look neither at Rachel nor at Julian. He was nonplussed. He knew not what to expect nor what he feared. He could not even be sure that what he feared was an accusation. “I am safe. I am safe,” he tried to repeat to himself, deeply convinced, nevertheless, against his reason, that he was not safe. The whole scene, every aspect of it, baffled and inexpressibly dismayed him.

Julian still stared, with mouth open, threatening. Then he slapped his knee.

“Nay!” said he. “I shall read it to ye.” And he drew some sheets of foolscap from his pocket. He opened the sheets, and frowned at them, and coughed. “Nay!” said he. “There’s nothing else for it. I must smoke.”

And he produced a charred pipe which might or might not have been the gift of Mrs. Maldon, filled it, struck a match on his boot, and turbulently puffed outrageous quantities of smoke. Louis, with singular courage, lit a cigarette, which gave him a little ease of demeanour, if not confidence.

II

And then at length Julian began to read–

“‘Before I went to South Africa last autumn I found myself in considerable business difficulties. The causes of said difficulties were bad trade, unfair competition, and price-cutting at home and abroad, especially in Germany, and the modern spirit of unrest among the working-classes making it impossible for an employer to be master on his own works. I was not insolvent, but I needed capital, the life-blood of industry. In justice to myself I ought to explain that my visit to South Africa was very carefully planned and thought out. I had a good reason to believe that a lot of business in door-furniture could be done there, and that I could obtain some capital from a customer in Durban. I point this out merely because trade rivals have tried to throw ridicule upon me for going out to South Africa when I did. I must ask you to read carefully’–you see, this was a letter to you,” he interjected–“read carefully all that I say. I will now proceed.”

“‘When I came to Aunt Maldon’s the night before I left for South Africa I wanted a wash, and I went into the back room–I mean the room behind the parlour–and took off my coat preparatory to going into the scullery to perform my ablutions. While in the back room I noticed that the picture nearest the cupboard opposite the door was hung very crooked. When I came back to put my coat on again after washing, my eye again caught the picture. There was a chair almost beneath it. I got on the chair and put the picture into an horizontal position. While I was standing on the chair I could see on the top of the cupboard, where something white struck my attention. It was behind the cornice of the cupboard, but I could see it. I took it off the top of the cupboard and carefully scrutinized it by the gas, which, as you know, is at the corner of the fireplace, close to the cupboard. It was a roll consisting of Bank of England notes, to the value of four hundred and fifty pounds. I counted them at once, while I was standing on the chair. I then put them in the pocket of my coat which I had already put on. I wish to point out that if the chair had not been under the picture I should in all human probability not have attempted to straighten the picture. Also–‘”

“But surely, Julian,” Louis interrupted him, in a constrained voice, “you could have reached the picture without standing on the chair?” He interrupted solely from a tremendous desire for speech. It would have been impossible for him to remain silent. He had to speak or perish.

“I couldn’t,” Julian denied vehemently. “The picture’s practically as high as the top of the cupboard–or was.”

“And could _you_ see on to the top of the cupboard from a chair?” Louis, with a peculiar gaze, was apparently estimating Julian’s total height from the ground when raised on a chair.

Julian dashed down the papers.

“Here! Come and look for yourself!” he exclaimed with furious pugnacity. “Come and look.” He jumped up and moved towards the door.

Rachel and Louis followed him obediently. In the back room it was he who struck a match and lighted the gas.

“You’ve shifted the picture!” he cried, as soon as the room was illuminated.

“Yes, we have,” Louis admitted.

“But there’s where it was!” Julian almost shouted, pointing. “You can’t deny it! There’s the marks. Are they as high as the top of the cupboard, or aren’t they?” Then he dragged along a chair to the cupboard and stood on it, puffing at his pipe. “Can I see on to the top of the cupboard or can’t I?” he demanded. Obviously he could see on to the top of the cupboard.

“I didn’t think the top was so low,” said Louis.

“Well, you shouldn’t contradict,” Julian chastised him.

“It’s just as your great-aunt said,” put in Rachel, in a meditative tone. “I remember she told us she pushed a chair forward with her knee. I dare say in getting on to the chair she knocked her elbow or something against the picture, and no doubt she left the chair more or less where she’d pushed it. That would be it.”

“Did she say that to you?” Louis questioned Rachel.

“It doesn’t matter much what she said,” Julian growled. “That’s how it _was_, anyway. I’m telling you. I’m not here to listen to theories.”

“Well,” said Louis amiably, “you put the notes into your pocket. What then?”

Julian removed his pipe from his mouth.

“What then? I walked off with ’em.”

“But you don’t mean to tell us you meant–to appropriate them, Julian? You don’t mean that!” Louis spoke reassuringly, good-naturedly, and with a slight superiority.

“No, I don’t. I don’t mean I appropriated ’em.” Julian’s voice rose defiantly. “I mean I stole them…. I stole them, and what’s more, I meant to steal them. And so there ye are! But come back to the parlour. I must finish my reading.”

He strode away into the parlour, and the other two had no alternative but to follow him. They followed him like guilty things; for the manner of his confession was such as apparently to put his hearers, more than himself, in the wrong. He confessed as one who accuses.

“Sit down,” said he, in the parlour.

“But surely,” Louis protested, “if you’re serious–“

“If I’m serious, man! Do you take me for a bally mountebank? Do you suppose I’m doing this for fun?”

“Well,” said Louis, “if you _are_ serious, you needn’t tell us any more. We know, and that’s enough, isn’t it?”

Julian replied curtly, “You’ve got to hear me out.”

And picking up his document from the floor, he resumed the perusal.

“‘Also, if the gas hadn’t been where it is, I should not have noticed anything on the top of the cupboard. I took the notes because I was badly in need of money, and also because I was angry at money being left like that on the tops of cupboards. I had no idea Aunt Maldon was such a foolish woman.'”

Louis interjected soothingly: “But you only meant to teach the old lady a lesson and give the notes back.”

“I didn’t,” said Julian, again extremely irritated. “Can’t ye understand plain English? I say I stole the money, and I meant to steal it. Don’t let me have to tell ye that any more. I’ll go on: ‘The sight of the notes was too sore a temptation for me, and I yielded to it. And all the more shame to me, for I had considered myself an honest man up to that very hour. I never thought about the consequences to my Aunt Maldon, nor how I was going to get rid of the notes. I wanted money bad, and I took it. As soon as I’d left the house I was stricken with remorse. I could not decide what to do. The fact is I had no time to reflect until I was on the steamer, and it was then too late. Upon arriving at Cape Town I found the cable stating that Aunt Maldon was dead. I draw a veil over my state of mind, which, however, does not concern you. I ought to have returned to England at once, but I could not. I might have sent to Batchgrew and told him to take half of four hundred and fifty pounds off my share of Aunt Maldon’s estate and put it into yours. But that would not have helped my conscience. I had it on my conscience, as it might have been on my stomach. I tried religion, but it was no good to me. It was between a prayer-meeting and an experience-meeting at Durban that I used part of the ill-gotten money. I had not touched it till then. But two days later I got back the very note that I’d spent. A prey to remorse, I wandered from town to town, trying to do business.'”

III

Rachel stood up.

“Julian!”

It was the first time in her life that she had called him by his Christian name.

“What?”

“Give me that.” As he hesitated, she added, “I want it.”

He handed her the written confession.

“I simply can’t bear to hear you reading it,” said Rachel passionately. “All about a prey to remorse and so on and so on! Why do you want to confess? Why couldn’t you have paid back the money and have done with it, instead of all this fuss?”

“I must finish it now I’ve begun,” Julian insisted sullenly.

“You’ll do no such thing–not in my house.”

And, repeating pleasurably the phrase “not in _my_ house,” Rachel stuck the confession into the fire, and feverishly forced it into the red coals with lunges of the poker. When she turned away from the fire she was flushing scarlet. Julian stood close by her on the hearth-rug.

“You don’t understand,” he said, with half-fearful resentment. “I had to punish myself. I doubt I’m not a religious man, but I had to punish myself. There’s nobody in the world as I should hate confessing to as much as Louis here, and so I said to myself, I said, ‘I’ll confess to Louis.’ I’ve been wandering about all the evening trying to bring myself to do it…. Well, I’ve done it.”

His voice trembled, and though the vibration in it was almost imperceptible, it was sufficient to nullify the ridiculousness of Julian’s demeanour as a wearer of sackcloth, and to bring a sudden lump into Rachel’s throat. The comical absurdity of his bellicose pride because he had accomplished something which he had sworn to accomplish was extinguished by the absolutely painful sincerity of his final words, which seemed somehow to damage the reputation of Louis. Rachel could feel her emotion increasing, but she could not have defined what her emotion was. She knew not what to do. She was in the midst of a new and intense experience, which left her helpless. All she was clearly conscious of was an unrepentant voice in her heart repeating the phrase: “I don’t care! I’m glad I stuck it in the fire! I don’t care! I’m glad I stuck it in the fire.” She waited for the next development. They were all waiting, aware that individual forces had been loosed, but unable to divine their resultant, and afraid of that resultant. Rachel glanced furtively at Louis. His face had an uneasy, stiff smile.

With an aggrieved air Julian knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

“Anyhow,” said Louis at length, “this accounts for four hundred and fifty out of nine sixty-five. What we have to find out now, all of us, is what happened to the balance.”

“I don’t care a fig about the balance,” said Julian impetuously. “I’ve said what I had to say and that’s enough for me.”

And he did not, in fact, care a fig about the balance. And if the balance had been five thousand odd instead of five hundred odd, he still probably would not have cared. Further, he privately considered that nobody else ought to care about the balance, either, having regard to the supreme moral importance to himself of the four hundred and fifty.

“Have you said anything to Mr. Batchgrew?” Louis asked, trying to adopt a casual tone, and to keep out of his voice the relief and joy which were gradually taking possession of his soul. The upshot of Julian’s visit was so amazingly different from the apprehension of it that he could have danced in his glee.

“Not I!” Julian answered ferociously. “The old robber has been writing me, wanting me to put money into some cinema swindle or other. I gave him a bit of my mind.”

“He was trying the same here,” said Rachel. The words popped by themselves out of her mouth, and she instantly regretted them. However, Louis seemed to be unconscious of the implied reproach on a subject presumably still highly delicate.

“But you can tell him, if you’ve a mind,” Julian went on challengingly.

“We shan’t do any such thing,” said Rachel, words again popping by themselves out of her mouth. But this time she put herself right by adding, “Shall we, Louis?”

“Of course not,” Louis agreed very amiably.

Rachel began to feel sympathetic towards the thief. She thought: “How strange to have some one close to me, and talking quite naturally, who has stolen such a lot of money and might be in prison for it–a convict!” Nevertheless, the thief seemed to be remarkably like ordinary people.

“Oh!” Julian ejaculated. “Well, here’s the notes.” He drew a lot of notes from a pocket-book and banged them down on the table. “Four hundred and fifty. The identical notes. Count ’em.” He glared afresh, and with even increased virulence.

“That’s all right,” said Louis. “That’s all right. Besides, we only want half of them.”

Sundry sheets of the confession, which had not previously caught fire, suddenly blazed up with a roar in the grate, and all looked momentarily at the flare.

“You’ve _got_ to have it all!” said Julian, flushing.

“My dear fellow,” Louis repeated, “we shall only take half. The other half’s yours.”

“As God sees me,” Julian urged, “I’ll never take a penny of that money! Here–“

He snatched up all the notes and dashed wrathfully out of the parlour. Rachel followed quickly. He went to the back room, where the gas had been left burning high, sprang on to a chair in front of the cupboard, and deposited the notes on the top of the cupboard, in the very place from which he had originally taken them.

“There!” he exclaimed, jumping down from the chair. The symbolism of the action appeared to tranquillize him.

IV

For a moment Rachel, as a newly constituted housewife to whom every square foot of furniture surface had its own peculiar importance, was enraged to see Julian’s heavy and dirty boots again on the seat of her unprotected chair. But the sense of hurt passed like a spasm as her eyes caught Julian’s. They were alone together in the back room and not far from each other. And in the man’s eyes she no longer saw the savage Julian, but an intensely suffering creature, a creature martyrized by destiny. She saw the real Julian glancing out in torment at the world through those eyes. The effect of the vibration in Julian’s voice a few minutes earlier was redoubled. Her emotion nearly overcame her. She desired very much to succour Julian, and was aware of a more distinct feeling of impatience against Louis.

She thought Julian had been magnificently heroic, and all his faults of demeanour were counted to him for excellences. He had been a thief; but the significance of the word “thief” was indeed completely altered for her. She had hitherto envisaged thieves as rascals in handcuffs bandied along the streets by policemen at the head of a procession of urchins–dreadful rascals! But now a thief was just a young man like other young men–only he had happened to see some bank-notes lying about and had put them in his pocket and then had felt very sorry for what he had done. There was no crime in what he had done … was there? She pictured Julian’s pilgrimage through South Africa, all alone. She pictured his existence at Knype, all alone; and his very ferocity rendered him the more wistful and pathetic in her sight. She was sure that his mother and sisters had never understood him; and she did not think it quite proper on their part to have gone permanently to America, leaving him solitary in England, as they had done. She perceived that she herself was the one person in the world capable of understanding Julian, the one person who could look after him, influence him, keep him straight, civilize him, and impart some charm to his life. And she was glad that she had the status of a married woman, because without that she would have been helpless.

Julian sat down, or sank, on to the chair.

“I’m very sorry I spoke like that to you in the other room–I mean about what you’d written,” she said. “I suppose I ought not to have burnt it.”

She spoke in this manner because to apologize to him gave her a curious pleasure.

“That’s nothing,” he answered, with the quietness of fatigue. “I dare say you were right enough. Anyhow, ye’ll never see me again.”

She exclaimed, kindly protesting–

“Why not, I should like to know?”

“You won’t want me here as a visitor, after all this.” He faintly sneered.

“I shall,” she insisted.

“Louis won’t.”

She replied: “You must come and see me. I shall expect you to. I must tell you,” she added confidentially, in a lower tone, “I think you’ve been splendid to-night. I’m sure I respect you much more than I did before–and you can take it how you like!”

“Nay! Nay!” he murmured deprecatingly. All the harshness had melted out of his voice.

Then he stood up.

“I’d better hook it,” he said briefly. “Will you get me my overcoat, missis.”

She comprehended that he wished to avoid speaking to Louis again that night, and, nodding, went at once to the parlour and brought away the overcoat.

“He’s going,” she muttered hastily to Louis, who was standing near the fire. Leaving the parlour, she drew the door to behind her.

She helped Julian with his overcoat and preceded him to the front door. She held out her hand to be tortured afresh, and suffered the grip of the vice with a steady smile.

“Now don’t forget,” she whispered.

Julian seemed to try to speak and to fail…. He was gone. She carefully closed and bolted the door.

V

Louis had not followed Julian and Rachel into the back room because he felt the force of an instinct to be alone with his secret satisfaction. In those moments it irked him to be observed, and especially to be observed by Rachel, not to mention Julian. He was glad for several reasons–on account of his relief, on account of the windfall of money, and perhaps most of all on account of the discovery that he was not the only thief in the family. The bizarre coincidence which had divided the crime about equally between himself and Julian amused him. His case and Julian’s were on a level. Nevertheless, he somewhat despised Julian, patronized him, condescended to him. He could not help thinking that Julian was, after all, a greater sinner than himself. Never again could Julian look him (Louis) in the face as if nothing had happened. The blundering Julian was marked for life, by his own violent, unreasonable hand. Julian was a fool.

Rachel entered rather solemnly.

“Has he really gone?” Louis asked. Rachel did not care for her husband’s tone, which was too frivolous for her. She was shocked to find that Louis had not been profoundly impressed by the events of the night.

“Yes,” she said.

“What’s he done with the money?”

“He’s left it in the other room.” She would not disclose to Louis that Julian had restored the notes to the top of the cupboard, because she was afraid that he might treat the symbolic act with levity.

“All of it?”

“Yes. I’ll bring it you.”

She did so. Louis counted the notes and casually put them in his breast pocket.

“Oddest chap I ever came across!” he observed, smiling.

“But aren’t you sorry for him?” Rachel demanded.

“Yes,” said Louis airily. “I shall insist on his taking half, naturally.”

“I’m going to bed,” said Rachel. “You’ll see all the lights out.”

She offered her face and kissed him tepidly.

“What’s come over the kid?” Louis asked himself, somewhat disconcerted, when she had gone.

He remained smoking, purposeless, in the parlour until all sounds had ceased overhead in the bedroom. Then he extinguished the gas in the parlour, in the back room, in the kitchen, and finally in the lobby, and went upstairs by the light of the street lamp. In the bedroom Rachel lay in bed, her eyes closed. She did not stir at his entrance. He locked the bank-notes in a drawer of the dressing-table, undressed with his usual elaborate care, approached Rachel’s bed and gazed at her unresponsive form, turned down the gas to a pinpoint, and got into bed himself. Not the slightest sound could be heard anywhere, either in or out of the house, save the faint breathing of Rachel. And after a few moments Louis no longer heard even that. In the darkness the mystery of the human being next him began somehow to be disquieting. He was capable of imagining that he lay in the room with an utter stranger. Then he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XII

RUNAWAY HORSES

I

Rachel, according to her own impression the next morning, had no sleep during that night. The striking of the hall clock could not be heard in the bedroom with the door closed, but it could be felt as a faint, distinct concussion; and she had thus noted every hour, except four o’clock, when daylight had come and the street lamp had been put out. She had deliberately feigned sleep as Louis entered the room, and had maintained the soft, regular breathing of a sleeper until long after he was in bed. She did not wish to talk; she could not have talked with any safety.

Her brain was occupied much by the strange and emotional episode of Julian’s confession, but still more by the situation of her husband in the affair. Julian’s story had precisely corroborated one part of Mrs. Maldon’s account of her actions on the evening when the bank-notes had disappeared. Little by little that recital of Mrs. Maldon’s had been discredited, and at length cast aside as no more important than the delirium of a dying creature; it was an inconvenient story, and would only fit in with the alternative theories that money had wings and could fly on its own account, or that there had been thieves in the house. Far easier to assume that Mrs. Maldon in some lapse had unwittingly done away with the notes! But Mrs. Maldon was now suddenly reinstated as a witness. And if one part of her evidence was true, why should not the other part be true? Her story was that she had put the remainder of the bank-notes on the chair on the landing, and then (she thought) in the wardrobe. Rachel recalled clearly all that she had seen and all that she had been told. She remembered once more the warnings that had been addressed to her. She lived the evening and the night of the theft over again, many times, monotonously, and with increasing woe and agitation.

Then with the greenish dawn, that the blinds let into the room, came some refreshment and new health to the brain, but the trend of her ideas was not modified. She lay on her side and watched the unconscious Louis for immense periods, and occasionally tears filled her eyes. The changes in her existence seemed so swift and so tremendous as to transcend belief. Was it conceivable that only twelve hours earlier she had been ecstatically happy? In twelve hours–in six hours–she had aged twenty years, and she now saw the Rachel of the reception and of the bicycle lesson as a young girl, touchingly ingenuous, with no more notion of danger than a baby.

At six o’clock she arose. Already she had formed the habit of arising before Louis, and had reconciled herself to the fact that Louis had to be forced out of bed. Happily, his feet once on the floor, he became immediately manageable. Already she was the conscience and time-keeper of the house. She could dress herself noiselessly; in a week she had perfected all her little devices for avoiding noise and saving time. She finally left the room neat, prim, with lips set to a thousand responsibilities. She had a peculiar sensation of tight elastic about her eyes, but she felt no fatigue, and she did not yawn. Mrs. Tams, who had just descended, found her taciturn and exacting. She would have every household task performed precisely in her own way, without compromise. And it appeared that the house, which had the air of being in perfect order, was not in order at all, that indeed the processes of organization had, in young Mrs. Fores’ opinion, scarcely yet begun. It appeared that there was no smallest part or corner of the house as to which young Mrs. Fores had not got very definite ideas and plans. The individuality of Mrs. Tams was to have scope nowhere. But after all, this seemed quite natural to Mrs. Tams.

When Rachel went back to the bedroom, about 7.30, to get Louis by ruthlessness and guile out of bed, she was surprised to discover that he had already gone up to the bathroom. She guessed, with vague alarm, from this symptom that he had a new and very powerful interest in life. He came to breakfast at three minutes to eight, three minutes before it was served. When she entered the parlour in the wake of Mrs. Tams he kissed her with gay fervour. She permitted herself to be kissed. Her unresponsiveness, though not marked, disconcerted him and somewhat dashed his mood. Whereupon Rachel, by the reassurance of her voice, set about to convince him that he had been mistaken in deeming her unresponsive. So that he wavered between two moods.

As she sat behind the tray, amid the exquisite odours of fresh coffee and Ted Malkin’s bacon (for she had forgiven Miss Malkin), behaving like a staid wife of old standing, she well knew that she was a mystery for Louis. She was the source of his physical comfort, the origin of the celestial change in his life which had caused him to admit fully that to live in digs was “a rotten game”; but she was also, that morning, a most sinister mystery. Her behaviour was faultless. He could seize on no definite detail that should properly disturb him; only she had woven a veil between herself and him. Still, his liveliness scarcely abated.

“Do you know what I’m going to do this very day as ever is?” he asked.

“What is it?”

“I’m going to buy you a bike. I’ve had enough of that old crock I borrowed for you. I shall return it and come back with a new ‘un. And I know the precise bike that I shall come back with. It’s at Bostock’s at Hanbridge. They’ve just opened a new cycle department.”

“Oh, Louis!” she protested.

His scheme for spending money on her flattered her. But nevertheless it was a scheme for spending money. Two hundred and twenty-five pounds had dropped into his lap, and he must needs begin instantly to dissipate it. He could not keep it. That was Louis! She refused to see that the purchase of a bicycle was the logical consequence of her lessons. She desired to believe that by some miracle at some future date she could possess a bicycle without a bicycle being bought–and in the meantime was there not the borrowed machine?

Suddenly she yawned.

“Didn’t you sleep well?” he demanded.

“Not very.”

“Oh!”

She could almost see into the interior of his brain, where he was persuading himself that fatigue alone was the explanation of her peculiar demeanour, and rejoicing that the mystery was, after all, neither a mystery nor sinister.

“I say,” he began between two puffs of a cigarette after breakfast, “I shall send back half of that money to Julian. I’ll send the notes by registered post.”

“Shall you?”

“Yes. Don’t you think he’ll keep them?”

“Supposing I was to take them over to him myself–and insist?” she suggested.

“It’s a notion. When?”

“Well, on Saturday afternoon. He’ll be at home probably then.”

“All right,” Louis agreed. “I’ll give you the money later on.”

Nothing more was said as to the Julian episode. It seemed that husband and wife were equally determined not to discuss it merely for the sake of discussing it.

Shortly after half-past eight Louis was preparing the borrowed bicycle and his own in the back yard.

“I shall ride mine and tow the crock,” said he, looking up at Rachel as he screwed a valve. She had come into the yard in order to show a polite curiosity in his doings.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Are you dangerous?” he laughed.

“But when shall you go?”

“Now.”

“Shan’t you be late at the works?”

“Well, if I’m late at the beautiful works I shall be late at the beautiful works. Those who don’t like it will have to lump it.”

Once more, it was the consciousness of a loose, entirely available two hundred and twenty-five pounds that was making him restive under the yoke of regular employment. For a row of pins, that morning, he would have given Jim Horrocleave a week’s notice, or even the amount of a week’s wages in lieu of notice! Rachel sighed, but within herself.

In another minute he was elegantly flying down Bycars Lane, guiding his own bicycle with his right hand and the crock with his left hand. The feat appeared miraculous to Rachel, who watched from the bow-window of the parlour. Beyond question he made a fine figure. And it was for her that he was flying to Hanbridge! She turned away to her domesticity.

II

It seemed to her that he had scarcely been gone ten minutes when one of the glorious taxicabs which had recently usurped the stand of the historic fly under the Town Hall porch drew up at the front door, and Louis got out of it. The sound of his voice was the first intimation to Rachel that it was Louis who was arriving. He shouted at the cabman as he paid the fare. The window of the parlour was open and the curtains pinned up. She ran to the window, and immediately saw that Louis’ head was bandaged. Then she ran to the door. He was climbing rather stiffly up the steps.

“All right! All right!” he shouted at her. “A spill. Nothing of the least importance. But both the jiggers are pretty well converted into old iron. I tell you it’s all _right_! Shut the door.”

He bumped down on the oak chest, and took a long breath.

“But you are frightfully hurt!” she exclaimed. She could not properly see his face for the bandages.

Mrs. Tams appeared. Rachel murmured to her in a flash–

“Go out the back way and fetch Dr. Yardley at once.”

She felt herself absolutely calm. What puzzled her was Louis’ shouting. Then she understood he was shouting from mere excitement and did not realize that he shouted.

“No need for any doctor! Quite simple!” he called out.

But Rachel gave a word confirming the original order to Mrs. Tams, who disappeared.

“First thing I knew I was the centre of an admiring audience, and fat Mrs. Heath, in her white apron and the steel hanging by her side, was washing my face with a sponge and a basin of water, and Heath stood by with brandy. It was nearly opposite their shop. People in the tram had a rare view of me.”

“But was it the tram-car you ran into?” Rachel asked eagerly.

He replied with momentary annoyance–

“Tram-car! Of course it wasn’t the tram-car. Moreover, I didn’t run into anything. Two horses ran into me. I was coming down past the Shambles into Duck Bank–very slowly, because I could hear a tram coming along from the market-place–and just as I got past the Shambles and could see along the market-place, I saw a lad on a cart-horse and leading another horse. No stirrups, no saddle. He’d no more control over either horse than a baby over an elephant. Not a bit more. Both horses were running away. The horse he was supposed to be leading was galloping first. They were passing the tram at a fine rate.”

“But how far were they off you?”

“About ten yards. I said to myself, ‘If that chap doesn’t look out he’ll be all over me in two seconds.’ I turned as sharp as I could away to the left. I could have turned sharper if I’d had your bicycle in my right hand instead of my left. But it wouldn’t have made any difference. The first horse simply made straight for me. There was about a mile of space for him between me and the tram, but he wouldn’t look at it. He wanted me, and he had me. They both had me. I never felt the actual shock. Curious, that! I’m told one horse put his foot clean through the back wheel of my bike. Then he was stopped by the front palings of the Conservative Club. Oh! a pretty smash! The other horse and the boy thereon finished half-way up Moorthorne Road. He could stick on, no mistake, that kid could. Midland Railway horses. Whoppers. Either being taken to the vets’ or brought from the vet’s–_I_ don’t know. I forget.”

Rachel put her hand on his arm.

“Do come into the parlour and have the easy-chair.”

“I’ll come–I’ll come,” he said, with the same annoyance. “Give us a chance.” His voice was now a little less noisy.

“But you might have been killed!”

“You bet I might! Eight hoofs all over me! One tap from any of the eight would have settled yours sincerely.”

“Louis!” She spoke firmly. “You must come into the parlour. Now come along, do, and sit down and let me look at your face.” She removed his hat, which was perched rather insecurely on the top of the bandages. “Who was it looked after you?”

“Well,” he hesitated, following her into the parlour, “it seems to have been chiefly Mrs. Heath.”

“But didn’t they take you to a chemist’s? Isn’t there a chemist’s handy?”

“The great Greene had one of his bilious attacks and was in bed, it appears. And the great Greene’s assistant is only just out of petticoats, I believe. However, everybody acted for the best, and here I am. And if you ask me, I think I’ve come out of it rather well.”

He dropped heavily on to the Chesterfield. What she could see of his cheeks was very pale.

“Open the window,” he murmured. “It’s frightfully stuffy here.”

“The window is open,” she said. In fact, a noticeable draught blew through the room. “I’ll open it a bit more.”

Before doing so she lifted his feet on to the Chesterfield.

“That’s better. That’s better,” he breathed.

When, a moment later, she returned to him with a glass of water which she had brought from the kitchen, spilling drops of it along the whole length of the passage, he smiled at her and then winked.

It was the wink that seemed pathetic to her. She had maintained her laudable calm until he winked, and then her throat tightened.

“He may have some dreadful internal injury,” she thought. “You never know. I may be a widow soon. And every one will say, ‘How young she is to be a widow!’ It will make me blush. But such things can’t happen to me. No, he’s all right. He came up here alone. They’d never have let him come up here alone if he hadn’t been all right. Besides, he can walk. How silly I am!”

She bent down and kissed him passionately.

“I must have those bandages off, dearest,” she whispered. “I suppose to-morrow I’d better return them to Mrs. Heath.”

He muttered: “She said she always kept linen for bandages in the shop because they so often cut themselves. Now, I used to think in my innocence that butchers never cut themselves.”

Very gently and intently Rachel unfastened two safety-pins that were hidden in Louis’ untidy hair. Then she began to unwind a long strip of linen. It stuck to a portion of the cheek close to the ear. Louis winced. The inner folds of the linen were discoloured. Rachel had a glimpse of a wound….

“Go on!” Louis urged. “Get at it, child!”

“No,” she said. “I think I shall leave it just as it is for the doctor to deal with. Shall you mind if I leave you for a minute? I must get some warm water and things ready against the doctor comes.”

He retorted facetiously: “Oh! Do what you like! Work your will on me…. Doctor! Any one ‘ud think I was badly injured. Why, you cuckoo, it’s only skin wounds!”

“But doesn’t it _hurt_?”

“Depends what you call hurt. It ain’t a picnic.”

“I think you’re awfully brave,” she said simply.

At the door she stopped and gazed at him, undecided.

“Louis,” she said in a motherly tone, “I should like you to go to bed. I really should. You ought to, I’m sure.”

“Well, I shan’t,” he replied.

“But please! To please me! You can get up again.”

“Oh, go to blazes!” he cried resentfully. “What in thunder should I go to bed for, I should like to know? Have a little sense, do!” He shut his eyes.

He had never till then spoken to her so roughly.

“Very well,” she agreed, with soothing acquiescence. His outburst had not irritated her in the slightest degree.

In the kitchen, as she bent over the kettle and the fire, each object was surrounded by a sort of halo, like the moon in damp weather. She brushed her hand across her eyes, contemptuous of herself. Then she ran lightly upstairs and searched out an old linen garment and tore the seams of it apart. She crept back to the parlour and peeped in. Louis had not moved on the sofa. His eyes were still closed. After a few seconds, he said, without stirring–

“I’ve not yet passed away. I can see you.”

She responded with a little laugh, somewhat forced.

After an insupportable delay Mrs. Tams reappeared, out of breath. Dr. Yardley had just gone out, but he was expected back very soon and would then be sent down instantly.

Mrs. Tams, quite forgetful of etiquette, followed Rachel, unasked, into the parlour.

“What?” said Louis loudly. “Two of you! Isn’t one enough?”

Mrs. Tams vanished.

“Heath took charge of the bikes,” Louis murmured, as if to the ceiling.

Over half an hour elapsed before the gate creaked.

“There he is!” Rachel exclaimed happily. After having conceived a hundred different tragic sequels to the accident, she was lifted by the mere creak of the gate into a condition of pure optimism, and she realized what a capacity she had for secretly being a ninny in an unexpected crisis. But she thought with satisfaction: “Anyhow, I don’t show it. That’s one good thing!” She was now prepared to take oath that she had not for one moment been _really_ anxious about Louis. Her demeanour, as she stated the case to the doctor, was a masterpiece of tranquil unconcern.

III

Dr. Yardley said that he was in a hurry–that, in fact, he ought to have been quite elsewhere at the time. He was preoccupied, and showed no sympathy with the innocent cyclist who had escaped the fatal menace of hoofs. When Rachel offered him the torn linen, he silently disdained it, and, opening a small bag which he had brought with him, produced therefrom a roll of cotton-wool in blue paper, and a considerable quantity of sticking-plaster on a brass reel. He accepted, however, Rachel’s warm water.

“You might get me some Condy’s Fluid,” he said shortly.

She had none! It was a terrible lapse for a capable housewife.

Dr. Yardley raised his eyebrows: “No Condy’s Fluid in the house!”

She was condemned.

“I do happen to have a couple of tablets of Chinosol,” he said, “but I wanted to keep them in reserve for later in the day.”

He threw two yellow tablets into the basin of water.

Then he laid Louis flat on the sofa, asked him a few questions, and sounded him in various parts. And at length he slowly, but firmly, drew off Mrs. Heath’s bandages, and displayed Louis’ head to the light.

“Hm!” he exclaimed.

Rachel restrained herself from any sound. But the spectacle was ghastly. The one particle of comfort in the dreadful matter was that Louis could not see himself.

Thenceforward Dr. Yardley seemed to forget that he ought to have been elsewhere. Working with extraordinary deliberation, he coaxed out of Louis’ flesh sundry tiny stones and many fragments of mud, straightened twisted bits of skin, and he removed other pieces entirely. He murmured, “Hm!” at intervals. He expressed a brief criticism of the performance of Mrs. Heath, as distinguished from her intentions. He also opined that the great Greene might not perhaps have succeeded much better than Mrs. Heath, even if he had not been bilious. When the dressing was finished, the gruesome terror of Louis’ appearance seemed to be much increased. The heroic sufferer rose and glanced at himself in the mirror, and gave a faint whistle.

“Oh! So that’s what I look like, is it? Well, what price me as a victim of the Inquisition!” he remarked.

“I should advise you not to take exercise just now, young man,” said the doctor. “D’you feel pretty well?”

“Pretty well,” answered Louis, and sat down.

In the lobby the doctor, once more in a hurry, said to Rachel–

“Better get him quietly to bed. The wounds are not serious, but he’s had a very severe shock.”

“He’s not marked for life, is he?” Rachel asked anxiously.

“I shouldn’t think so,” said the doctor, as if the point was a minor one. “Let him have some nourishment. You can begin with hot milk–but put some water to it,” he added when he was half-way down the steps.

As Rachel re-entered the parlour she said to herself: “I shall just have to get him to bed somehow, whatever he says! If he’s unpleasant he must _be_ unpleasant, that’s all.”

And she hardened her heart. But immediately she saw him again, sitting forlornly in the chair, with the whole of the left side of his face criss-crossed in whitish-grey plaster, she was ready to cry over him and flatter his foolishest whim. She wanted to take him in her arms, if he would but have allowed her. She felt that she could have borne his weight for hours without moving, had he fallen asleep against her bosom…. Still, he must be got to bed. How negligent of the doctor not to have given the order himself!

Then Louis said: “I say! I think I may as well lie down!”

She was about to cry out, “Oh, you must!”

But she forbore. She became as wily as old Batchgrew.

“Do you think so?” she answered, doubtfully.

“I’ve nothing else particular on hand,” he said.

She knew that he wanted to surrender without appearing to surrender.

“Well,” she suggested, “will you lie down on the bed for a bit?”

“I think I will.”

“And then I’ll give you some hot milk.”

She dared not help him to mount the stairs, but she walked close behind him.

“I was thinking,” he said on the landing, “I’d stroll down and take stock of those bicycles later in the day. But perhaps I’m not fit to be seen.”

She thought: “You won’t stroll down later in the day–I shall see to that.”

“By the way,” he said, “you might send Mrs. Tams down to Horrocleave’s to explain that I shan’t give them my valuable assistance to-day…. Oh! Mrs. Tams”–the woman was just bustling out of the bedroom, duster in hand–“will you toddle down to the works and tell them I’m not coming?”

“Eh, mester!” breathed Mrs. Tams, looking at him. “It’s a mercy it’s no worse.”

“Yes,” Louis teased her, “but you go and look at the basin downstairs, Mrs. Tams. That’ll give you food for thought.”

Shaking her head, she smiled at Rachel, because the master had spirit enough to be humorous with her.

In the bedroom, Louis said, “I might be more comfortable if I took some of my clothes off.”

Thereupon he abandoned himself to Rachel. She did as she pleased with him, and he never opposed. Seven bruises could be counted on his left side. He permitted himself to be formally and completely put to bed. He drank half a glass of hot milk, and then said that he could not possibly swallow any more. Everything had been done that ought to be done and that could be done. And Rachel kept assuring herself that there was not the least cause for anxiety. She also told herself that she had been a ninny once that morning, and that once was enough. Nevertheless, she remained apprehensive, and her apprehensions increased. It was Louis’ unnatural manageableness that disturbed her.

And when, about three hours later, he murmured, “Old girl, I feel pretty bad.”

“I knew it,” she said to herself.

His complaint was like a sudden thunderclap in her ears, after long faint rumblings of a storm.

Towards tea-time she decided that she must send for the doctor again. Louis indeed demanded the doctor. He said that he was very ill. His bruised limbs and his damaged face caused him a certain amount of pain. It was not, however, the pain that frightened him, but a general and profound sensation of illness. He could describe no symptoms. There were indeed no symptoms save the ebbing of vitality. He said he had never in his life felt as he felt then. His appearance confirmed the statement. The look of his eyes was tragic. His hands were pale. His agonized voice was extremely distressing to listen to. The bandages heightened the whole sinister effect. Dusk shadowed the room. Rachel lit the gas and drew the blinds. But in a few moments Louis complained of the light, and she had to lower the jet.

The sounds of the return of Mrs. Tams could be heard below. Mrs. Tams had received instructions to bring the doctor back with her, but Rachel’s ear caught no sign of the doctor. She went out to the head of the stairs. The doctor simply must be there. It was not conceivable that when summoned he should be “out” twice in one day, but so it was. Mrs. Tams, whispering darkly from the dim foot of the stairs, said that Mrs. Yardley hoped that he would be in shortly, but could not be sure.

“What am I to do?” thought Rachel. “This is a crisis. Everything depends on me. What shall I do? Shall I send for another doctor?” She decided to risk the chances and wait. It would be too absurd to have two doctors in the house. What would people say of her and of Louis, if the rumour ran that she had lost her head and filled the house with doctors when the case had no real gravity? People would say that she was very young and inexperienced, and a freshly married wife, and so on. And Rachel hated to be thought young or freshly married. Besides, another doctor might be “out” too. And further, the case could not be truly serious. Of course, if afterwards it did prove to be serious, she would never forgive herself.

“He’ll be here soon,” she said cheerfully, to Louis in the bedroom.

“If he isn’t–” moaned Louis, and stopped.

She gave him some brandy, against his will. Then, taking his wrist to feel it, she felt his fingers close on her wrist, as if for aid. And she sat thus on the bed holding his hand in the gloom of the lowered gas.

IV

His weakness and his dependence on her gave her a feeling of kind superiority. And also her own physical well-being was such that she could not help condescending towards him. She cared for a trustful, helpless little dog. She thought a great deal about him; she longed ardently to be of assistance to him; she had an acute sense of her responsibility and her duty. Yet, notwithstanding all that, her brain was perhaps chiefly occupied with herself and her own attitude towards existence. She became mentally and imaginatively active to an intense degree. She marvelled at existence as she had never marvelled before, and while seeming suddenly to understand it better she was far more than ever baffled by it. Was it credible that the accident of a lad losing control of a horse could have such huge and awful consequences on two persons utterly unconnected with the lad? A few seconds sooner, a few seconds later–and naught would have occurred to Louis, but he must needs be at exactly a certain spot at exactly a certain instant, with the result that now she was in torture! If this, if that, if the other–Louis would have been well and gay at that very moment, instead of a broken organism humiliated on a bed and clinging to her like a despairing child.

The rapidity and variety of events in her life again startled her, and once more she went over them. The disappearance of the bank-notes was surely enough in itself. But on the top of that fell the miracle of her love affair. Her marriage was like a dream of romance to her, untrue, incredible. Then there was the terrific episode of Julian on the previous night. One would have supposed that after that the sensationalism of events would cease. But, no! The unforeseeable had now occurred, something which reduced all else to mere triviality.

And yet what had in fact occurred? Acquaintances, in recounting her story, would say that she had married her mistress’s nephew, that there had been trouble between Louis and Julian about some bank-notes, and that Louis had had a bicycle accident. Naught more! A most ordinary chronicle! And if he died now, they would say that Louis had died within a month of the wedding and how sad it was! Husbands indubitably do die, young wives indubitably are transformed into widows–daily event, indeed!… She seemed to perceive the deep, hidden meaning of life. There were three Rachels in her–one who pitied Louis, one who pitied herself, and one who looked on and impartially comprehended. The last was scarcely unhappy–only fervently absorbed in the prodigious wonder of the hour.

“Can’t you do anything?” Louis murmured.

“If Dr. Yardley doesn’t come quick, I shall send for some other doctor,” she said, with decision.

He sighed.

“Better send for a lawyer at the same time,” he said.

“A lawyer?”

“Yes. You know I’ve not made my will.”

“Oh, Louis! Please don’t talk like that! I can’t bear to hear you.”

“You’ll have to hear worse things than that,” he said pettishly, loosing her hand. “I’ve got to have a solicitor here. Later on you’ll probably be only too glad that I had enough common sense to send for a solicitor. Somebody must have a little common sense. I expect you’d better send for Lawton…. Oh! It’s Friday afternoon–he’ll have left early for his week-end golf, I bet.” This last discovery seemed to exhaust his courage.

In another minute the doctor, cheerful and energetic, was actually in the room, and the gas brilliant. He gazed at an exanimate Louis, made a few inquiries and a few observations of his own, gave some brief instructions, and departed. The day was in truth one of his busy days.

He seemed surprised when Rachel softly called to him on the stairs.

“I suppose everything’s all right, doctor?”

“Yes,” said he casually. “He’ll feel mighty queer for a few days. That’s all.”

“Then there’s no danger?”

“Certainly not.”

“But he thinks he’s dying.”

Dr. Yardley smiled carelessly.

“And do you?… He’s no more dying than I am. That’s only the effect of the shock. Didn’t I tell you this morning? You probably won’t be able to stop him just yet from thinking he’s dying–it is a horrid feeling–but you needn’t think so yourself, Mrs. Fores.” He smiled.

“Oh, doctor,” she burst out, “you don’t know how you’ve relieved me!”

“You’ll excuse me if I fly away,” said Dr. Yardley calmly. “There’s a crowd of insurance patients waiting for me at the surgery.”

V

In the middle of the night Rachel was awakened by Louis’ appeal. She was so profoundly asleep that for a few moments she could not recall what it was that had happened during the previous day to cause her anxiety.

After the visit of the doctor, Louis’ moral condition had apparently improved. He had affected to be displeased by the doctor’s air of treating his case as though it was deprived of all importance. He had said that the doctor had failed to grasp his case. He had stated broadly that in these days of State health insurance all doctors were too busy and too wealthy to be of assistance to private patients capable of paying their bills in the old gentlemanly fashion. But his remarks had not been without a touch of facetiousness in their wilful disgust. And the mere tone of his voice proved that he felt better. To justify his previous black pessimism he had of course been obliged to behave in a certain manner (well known among patients who have been taking themselves too seriously), and Rachel had understood and excused. She would have been ready, indeed, to excuse for worse extravagances than any that could have occurred to the fancy of a nature so polite and benevolent as that of Louis; for, in order to atone for her silly school-girlishness, she had made a compact with herself to be an angel and a serpent simultaneously for the entire remainder of her married life.

Then Mrs. Tams had come in, from errands of marketing, with a copy of the early special of the _Signal_, containing a description of the accident. Mrs. Tams had never before bought such a thing as a newspaper, but an acquaintance of hers who “stood the market” with tripe and chitterlings had told her that Mr. Fores was “in” the _Signal_, and accordingly she had bravely stopped a news-boy in the street and made the purchase. To Rachel she pointed out the paragraph with pride, and to please her and divert Louis, Rachel had introduced the newspaper into the bedroom. The item was headed: “Runaway Horses in Bursley Market-place. Providential Escape.” It spoke of Mr. Louis Fores’ remarkable skill and presence of mind in swerving away with two bicycles. It said that Mr. Louis Fores was an accomplished cyclist, and that after a severe shaking Mr. Louis Fores drove home in a taxicab “apparently little the worse, save for facial contusions, for his perilous adventure.” Lastly, it said that a representative of the Midland Railway had “assured our representative that the horses were not the property of the Midland Railway.” Louis had sardonically repeated the phrase “apparently little the worse,” murmuring it with his eyes shut. He had said, “I wish they could see me.” Still, he had made no further mention of sending for a solicitor. He had taken a little food and a little drink. He had asked Rachel when she meant to go to bed. And at length Rachel, having first arranged food for use in the night, and fixed a sheet of note-paper on the gas-bracket as a screen between the gas and Louis, had undressed and got into bed, and gone off into a heavy slumber with a mind comparatively free.

In response to his confusing summons, she stumbled to her peignoir and slipped it on.

“Yes, dear?” she spoke softly.

“I couldn’t bear it any longer,” said the voice of Louis. “I just had to waken you.”

She raised the gas, and her eyes blinked as she stared at him. His bedclothes were horribly disarranged.

“Are you in pain?” she asked, smoothing the blankets.

“No. But I’m so ill. I–I don’t want to frighten you–“

“The doctor said you’d feel ill. It’s the shock, you know.”

She stroked his hand. He did indubitably look very ill. His appearance of woe, despair, and dreadful apprehension was pitiable in the highest degree. With a gesture of intense weariness he declined food, nor could she persuade him to take anything whatever.

“You’ll be ever so much better to-morrow. I’ll sit up with you. You were bound to feel worse in the night.”

“It’s more than shock that I’ve got,” he muttered. “I say, Rachel, it’s all up with me. I _know_ I’m done for. You’ll have to do the best you can.”

The notion shot through her head that possibly, after all, the doctor might have misjudged the case. Suppose Louis were to die in the night? Suppose the morning found her a widow? The world was full of the strangest happenings…. Then she was herself again and immovably cheerful in her secret heart. She thought: “I can go through worse nights than this. One night, some time in the future, either he will really be dying or I shall. This night is nothing.” And she held his hand and sat in her old place on his bed. The room was chilly. She decided that in five minutes she would light the gas-stove, and also make some tea with the spirit-lamp. She would have tea whether he still refused or not. His watch on the night-table showed half-past two. In about an hour the dawn would be commencing. She felt that she had reserves of force against any contingency, against any nervous strain.

Then he said, “I say, Rachel.”

He was too ill to call her “Louise.”

“I shall make some tea soon,” she answered.

He went on: “You remember about that missing money–I mean before auntie died. You remember–“

“Don’t talk about that, dear,” she interrupted him eagerly. “Why should you bother about that now?”

In one instant those apparently exhaustless reserves of moral force seemed to have ebbed away. She had imagined herself equal to any contingency, and now there loomed a contingency which made her quail.

“I’ve got to talk about that,” he said in his weak and desperate voice. His bruised head was hollowed into the pillow, and he stared monotonously at the ceiling, upon which the paper screen of the gas threw a great trembling shadow. “That’s why I wakened you. You don’t know what the inside of my brain’s like…. Why did you say to them you found the scullery door open that night? You know perfectly well it wasn’t open.”

She could scarcely speak.

“I–I–Louis don’t talk about that now. You’re too ill,” she implored.

“I know why you said it.”

“Be quiet!” she said sharply, and her voice broke.