CHAPTER VII
On leaving his master's room Thalassa went swiftly downstairs anddisappeared into some remote back region of the lonely old house. He hadother duties to perform before his day's work was finished. There was woodto be chopped, coal to be brought in, water to be drawn. Nearly an hourelapsed before he reappeared, candle in hand, and entered the kitchen.
A little woman with a furtive face, sharp nose, and blinking eyes wasseated at one end of the kitchen table with playing-cards spread out infront of her. She looked up at the sound of the opening door, and fearcrept into her eyes. She was Thalassa's wife, but the relationship was socompletely ignored by Thalassa that other people were apt to forget itsexistence. The couple did the work of Flint House between them, but apartfrom that common interest Thalassa gave his wife very little of hisattention, leading a solitary morose life, eating and sleeping alone, andholding no converse with her apart from what was necessary for themanagement of the house.
How he had ever come to bend his neck to the matrimonial yoke was one ofthose mysteries which must be accounted a triumph for the pursuing sex--atribute to the fearlessness of woman in the ardour of the chase. On noother hypothesis was it possible to understand how such a feeble specimenof womanhood had been able to bring down such an untoward specimen of themasculine brute. Outwardly, Thalassa had more kinship with a pirate than ahusband. There was that in his swart eagle visage and moody eyes whichsuggested lawless cruises, untrammelled adventure, and the fierce wooingof brown women by tropic seas rather than the dull routine of marriedlife. As a husband he was an anomaly like a caged macaw in a spinster'sdrawing-room.
Mrs. Thalassa's victory had ended with bringing him down, and she soon hadcause to regret her temerity in marrying him. Thalassa repaid theindignity of capture by a course of treatment which had long since subduedhis wife to a state of perpetual fear of him--a fear which deepened intospeechless shaking horror when he stormed out at her in one of his blackrages. Some women would have taken to drink, others to religion. Mrs.Thalassa sought consolation in two packs of diminutive and dog-earedcards. Her shattered spirit found something inexpressibly soothing in theintricacies of patience: in the patchwork of colour, the array ofsequences, the sudden discovery of an overlooked move, the dear triumph ofa hard-won game.
It was thus she was occupied now, shuffling, cutting, and laying out herrows with quick nervous movements of her worn little hands. She glancedonce more at her husband as he entered, and then bent over her cardsagain.
The night had descended blackly, and the wind moaned eerily round the oldhouse. Thalassa sat in a straight-backed wooden chair listening to thewind and rain raging outside, and occasionally glancing at his wife, whoremained absorbed in her patience. Half an hour passed in silence, brokenonly by the rattling of rain on the window, and the loud ticking of theclock on the mantelpiece. Suddenly the bell of Robert Turold's room rangloudly in its place behind the kitchen door.
It was one of the old wired bells, and it sprang backwards and forwards soviolently under the impulse of the unseen pull that the other bells rangedalongside responded to the vibration by oscillating in sympathy.
Thalassa watched them moodily until the sound ceased. He then left thekitchen with deliberate tread, and stalked upstairs.
The door of his master's study was closed. He opened it without troublingto knock, but started back in astonishment at the sight which met hiseyes. Robert Turold was crouching by the table like a beaten dog,whimpering and shaking with fear. He sprang to his feet as Thalassaentered, and advanced towards him.
"Thank God you've come, Thalassa," he cried.
"What's the matter with you?" said Thalassa sternly.
"He's come back, Thalassa--he's come back."
"He? Who?"
"You know whom I mean well enough. It was--" His voice sank suddenly, andhe whispered a name in the man's ear.
Thalassa's brown cheek paled slightly, but he answered quickly androughly--
"What nonsense are you talking now? How can he have come back? How oftenmust I tell you that he is dead?"
"You mean that you thought he was dead, Thalassa. But he is alive."
"How do you know?"
"I heard him."
"Heard him! What do you mean?"
"I heard his footsteps pattering around the house, as clear and distinctas that night on that hellish island. Shall I ever forget the sound of hisfootsteps then, as he raced over the rocks, looking back at us with hiswild eyes, and the blood streaming down his face--running and runninguntil he stumbled and fell? The sound of his running footsteps as heclattered over the rocks have haunted me day and night ever since. I heardthem again to-night."
"I tell you again that he is dead. What! Do you think that you could hearfootsteps on a night like this?" The man stepped quickly across to thenearest window and flung it open. The room was filled with rushing wind,and the window curtains flapped noisily. "And where would he be runningto? Do you suppose he could climb up here from outside?"
"It might have been his spirit," murmured the other.
"Spirits don't cross the ocean, and their footsteps don't clatter,"responded Thalassa coldly. "The house is all locked up, and there is noother house near by. Come, what are you afraid of? You are worrying andupsetting yourself over nothing. I'll bring you up your supper, and somewhisky with it. And the sooner you leave this cursed hole of a place, thebetter it will be."
He crossed over to the fireplace and poked the coal into a red glow, andthen turned to leave the room. It was plain that his words had some effecton Robert Turold, and he made an effort to restore his dignity before thewitness of his humiliation left him.
"No doubt you are right, Thalassa," he said in his usual tone. "My nervesare a little overstrung, I fancy. You said the house was locked up for thenight, I think?"
"Everything bolted and barred," said Thalassa, and left the room.
He returned downstairs to the kitchen, where he wandered restlessly about,occasionally pausing to look out of the window into the darkness of thenight. The rain had ceased, but the wind blew fiercely, and the seathundered at the foot of the cliffs. The gloom outside was thinning, andas Thalassa glanced out his eye lighted on a strange shape among therocks. To his imagination it appeared to have something of the semblanceof a man's form standing motionless, watching the house.
Thalassa remained near the window staring out at the object. While hestood thus, a faint sound reached him in the stillness. It was the muffledyet insistent tap of somebody apparently anxious to attract attentionwithout making too much noise, and coming, as it seemed, from the frontdoor. Thalassa glanced at his wife, but she appeared to have heardnothing, and her grey head was bent over her cards. He walked noiselesslyout of the kitchen, closing the door gently behind him.
His wife remained at the table, unconscious of everything but the lay ofher cards; shuffling, dealing, setting them out afresh in perpendicularrows, muttering at the obstinacy of the kings and queens as though theirpainted faces were alive and sensitive to her reproof. The old housecreaked and groaned in the wind, then became suddenly silent, like a manovertaken by sleep in the midst of stretching and yawning. Time sped on.Thalassa did not return, but she did not notice his absence. More rainfell, beating against the window importunately, as if begging admission,then ceased all at once, as at a hidden command, and again there was aprofound silence.
A piece of coal jumped from the fire with a hissing noise, and fell atMrs. Thalassa's feet. She got up to replace it, and observed that she wasalone.
She thought she heard her husband's footsteps in the passage, and openedthe door. But there was nobody there. The lower part of the house wasgloomy and dark, but she could see the lamp glimmering on the hall stand.She was about to return to her seat when the hall lamp suddenly mooned up,cast monstrous shadows, and went black out.
This fantastic trick of the lamp frightened her. What had made it flare uplike that and go out? And whose footsteps had she heard? With a chillfeeling of
fear she shut the door and turned again to her game. But foronce the charm of the cards failed her. Where was Jasper, and why did henot return? Silence held oppressive empire; her fears plucked at her likeghostly hands. The lamp and the footstep--what did they mean? Had shereally heard a footstep?
She thought she saw something white in the uncurtained space of thewindow. She buried her face in her hands, lacking the courage to cross theroom and pull down the blind.
Mysterious noises overhead, like somebody creeping on all-fours, drew hereyes back to the door opening into the passage. With dismay she saw it wasnot properly shut. She wondered if she dared go and lock it. Suppose itwas her husband, after all? And the noises? Were they real, or had sheimagined them?
There came to her ear an unmistakable sound like the slamming of a doorabove her. A sudden accession in the quality of her fear sent her flyingto the passage door to lock it. Before she could get there the door flewopen violently, as though hit by a giant's hand, and then the wind blewcoldly on her face. The lamp on the kitchen table sent up a straighttongue of flame in the draught, and also went out. As she stood there withstraining eyes a cry rang out overhead, followed in a space immeasurableto the listener in the gulf of blackness, by a shattering sound whichseemed to shake the house to its foundations. Then the external blacknessentered her own soul, shrouding her consciousness like the sudden swiftfall of a curtain.