CHAPTER V.
THE FACE IN THE DARKNESS.
I did not go home even when he had left me, though shortly afterwards Istarted to. As I was going along Throgmorton Street I met MacCulloch.He was jubilant. He had pulled off a big stake over some race orother--upon my word, I forget what. It was one which had been run thatday. He asked me to have a small bottle with him. While we were havingit three other fellows joined us. Then MacCulloch asked the lot of usto go and dine with him. I knew that I ought not to, but I didn't care.I seemed to care for nothing. The moral side of me seemed dead, orsleeping. I was aware that, instead of plunging into dissipation withMacCulloch and his friends, duty, not to speak of common sense,required that, without further loss of time, I should prepare Lucy forthe worst. Instead of following the path of duty, I went to dine, andthat without sending to Lucy a word of warning not to wait for me. Whenthe usually good husband does misbehave himself, it strikes me that heis worse than the usually bad one. I speak from what seems to me to bethe teachings of my own experience.
We went down, all of us, in two hansoms to the West End. I rode uponMacCulloch's knees. We began by playing billiards at some place inJermyn Street. I know that I lost three pounds at pool. Then we dinedin a private room at the Cafe Royal. I have not the faintestrecollection of what we had for dinner, but I am under a strongimpression that I ate and drank of whatever there was to eat and drink,and that of both there was too much. My digestion is my weak point. Theplainest possible food is best for me, and only a little of that. I wasunwell before the dinner was half way through. Still I kept peggingaway. I never did know why. By the time it was over I was only fit forbed. But when I suggested that the next item on the programme should bea liver pill or a seidlitz-powder and then home, they wouldn't hear ofit. Their idea of what was the proper thing for men in our situationwas another couple of cabs and a music-hall.
I am not certain what music-hall it was. Something, I can scarcely saywhat, leads me to believe that it was one at which there was a ballet.So far as I was concerned, as soon as I was in my stall I fell asleep.They wouldn't let me sleep it out. Some one, I don't know who, woke me,as I understood the matter, because I snored. When sleeping mybreathing is a trifle stertorous perhaps; at least, so Lucy hasinformed me more than once. Then we went for a turn in the promenade.So far as I am able to recollect, MacCulloch who, I suspect, in commonwith the other men, had been since dinner making further efforts toquench his thirst, wanted to introduce me to some one whom he didn'tseem to know, and who certainly didn't seem to want to know me. I fancyKenyan, one of the fellows who was with us, trod upon somebody else'stoes, or somebody else trod upon his. At any rate there was anargument, which in an extraordinarily short time began to be punctuatedby blows. Some one hit me, I don't know who, and I hit some one--I amdisposed to think MacCulloch, because his back was turned to me, and hehappened to be nearest. Then there was a row. The next thing I canremember was finding myself on the pavement in the street--sitting downon it, if I do not err. They did not lock us up; personally, I shouldrather have preferred their doing so; it would have relieved me of afeeling of responsibility. Having, I believe, helped me up, MacCulloch,slipping his arm through mine, suggested that we should go upon thespree. I did not, and do not, know what he meant, nor what he supposedwe had been doing up to then. Anyhow, I strenuously objected. Iinsisted upon a cab and home. He, or some one else, put me into one,and off I went.
The presumption is that directly the cabman started I fell asleep. WhenI awoke I found him bending over me, pulling at the collar of my coat.
"Now then, sir, wake up; this is Hackney."
I stared at him. I did not understand. "Hackney! What do you mean?"
"The gentleman told me to drive you to Hackney, and this is MareStreet. What part of Hackney do you want?"
I supposed the man was joking. I had never been to Hackney in my life.I did not even know, exactly, in what part of town it was situated. Myhouse is in West Kensington. Why he imagined that I wished to pay afirst visit to Hackney at that hour of the night I was at a loss tounderstand. I told him so. In return, his bearing approached toinsolence. He wanted to know if I was having a lark with him. I, on myside, wanted to know if he was having a lark with me. He declared thatthe gentleman who had put me into the cab had instructed him to driveme to Hackney. Then it dawned on me that MacCulloch, or his friends,might have been having a little joke at my expense, and not the cabman.
When I desired to be taken to West Kensington in the shortest possiblespace of time, Jehu did not altogether appear to see it. He observedthat his horse was tired, that he ought to have been in the stablebefore now, and that the stable was on the Surrey side of WaterlooBridge. We compromised. He was to drive me to the Strand. When there, Iwas to find another cab to take me the remainder of the distance. Whenwe did reach the Strand the man demanded a most extortionate sum forhis fare. But, as I did not feel in a fit frame of mind to conductanother heated argument, I gave him what he asked, none the lessconscious that I was enjoying myself in a most expensive kind of way,as I was aware that Lucy, if she ever came to hear of it, would think.
I was wide awake during the remainder of my journey. Having foundanother cab, I made a point of seeing that its driver did not go wrong.I did not want this time to find myself, say, at New Cross or HampsteadHeath. When he drew up in front of my house--at last!--I was lookingforward, with a morbid sense of expectation and a bad headache, to thesort of greeting I might expect to receive inside. But--I repeat it--Iwas wide awake.
Directly the cab stopped, I got out. As I stepped upon the pavement,something came at me, through the darkness--a woman. It was a darknight--it all happened very suddenly. The details of the figure and thecostume I could not, or at least I did not, make out. That I own. Butabout the face I have not the slightest doubt. I saw it as plainly asever I saw a face in my life. It looked at me with wide, staring eyes.There was a look in them which I had never seen before. The lips wereparted--I saw that the teeth were clenched. It was very white, and itstruck me, just in the moment during which I saw it, as lookingstrangely white.
But it was none of these things which made my heart stand still, whichmade me, with a gasp of horror, reel backwards against the cab. I carednothing for what the face looked like. What I did care for was that Ishould have seen that face at all. That it should have come to me, likean accusing spirit, all in an instant, out of the darkness of thenight. For it was the face of the woman whom, like a coward, I had leftlying dead on the Brighton line. It was the face of Ellen Howth.