“Yes.”
“All right. But I’ll meet you when it’s over. Half-past ten, I suppose?”
“Probably about then. You don’t mind me leaving you for a few hours, do you?”
“Oh, not at all. I hope you have a good time. I’m sure I can quite understand you being bored with Seacliffe. It’s the deadest hole I’ve ever struck.”
“But it’s doing you good, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, I daresay it is in that way.”
She added, after a pause: “When you get back to the lounge you’ll wonder where you put your half-written letter.”
“What do you mean?” He suddenly felt in his inside coat-pocket. “Why—where is it? I thought I put it in my pocket. Who’s got it? Have you?”
“Yes. You thought you put it in your pocket, I know. But you didn’t. You left it on the writing-table and I picked it up when you weren’t looking.”
“Then you have got it?”
“Yes, I have got it.”
He went red with rage. “Helen, I don’t want to make a scene in front of the servants, but I insist on you giving up to me that letter. You’ve absolutely no right to it, and I demand that you give it me immediately.”
“You shall have it after I’ve read it.”
“Good God, Helen, don’t play the fool with me! I want it now, this minute! Understand, I mean it! I want it now!”
“And I shan’t give it to you.”
He suddenly looked round the room. There was nobody there; the waitress was away; the two of them were quite alone. He rose out of his chair and with a second cautious glance round him went over to her and seized her by the neck with one hand while with the other he felt in her corsage for the letter. He knew that was where she would have put it. The very surprise of his movement made it successful. In another moment he had the letter in his hand. He stood above her, grim and angry, flaunting the letter high above her head. She made an upward spring for his hand, and he, startled by her quick retaliation, crumpled the letter into a heap and flung it into the fire at the side of the room. Then they both stared at each other in silence.
“So it’s come to that,” she said, her face very white. She placed her hand to her breast and said: “By the way, you’ve hurt me.”
He replied: “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I didn’t intend to. I simply wanted to get the letter, that’s all.”
“All right,” she answered. “I’ll excuse yon for hurting me.”
Then the waitress entered with the sweet and their conversation was abruptly interrupted.
After dinner he went back into the lounge and took up an illustrated paper. Somehow, he did not feel inclined to try to rewrite the letter to Clare. And in any case, he could not have remembered more than bits of it; it would have to be a fresh letter if he wrote at all.
Helen came downstairs to him with hat and coat on ready for outdoors.
“Good-bye,” she said, “I’m going.”
He said: “Hadn’t I better take you down to the place? I don’t mind a bit of a walk, you know.”
She answered: “Oh, no, don’t bother. It’s not far. You get on with your letter-writing.”
Then she paused almost at the door of the lounge, and said, coming back to him suddenly: “Kiss me before I go, Kenneth.”
He kissed her. Then she smiled and went out. An hour later he started another letter to Clare.
“MY DEAR, dear CLARE,:I’m so pleased it has not all come to an end!…All those hours we spent together, all the work we have shared, all our joy and laughter and sympathy together—it could not have counted for nothing, could it? We dare not have put an end to it; we should fear being haunted all our lives. We…”
Then the tired feeling came on him, and he no longer wanted to write, not even to Clare. He put the hardly-begun letter in his pocket—carefully, this time—and took up the illustrated paper again. He half wished he had gone with Helen to the kinema…A quarter to ten…It would soon be time for him to stroll out and meet her.
IV
Walking along the promenade to the beach kinema he solemnly reviewed his life. He saw kaleidoscopically his childhood days at Beachings Over, then the interludes at Harrow and Cambridge, and then the sudden tremendous plunge—Millstead! It seemed to him that ever since that glowering April afternoon when he had first stepped into Ervine’s dark study, events had been shaping themselves relentlessly to his ruin. He could see himself as a mere automaton, moved upon by the calm accurate fingers of fate. His meeting with Helen, his love of her and hers for him, their marriage, their slow infinitely wearisome estrangement—all seemed as if it had been planned with sinister deliberation. Only one section of his life had been dominated by his own free will, and that was the part of it that had to do with Clare. He pondered over the subtle differentiation, and decided at last that it was invalid, and that fate had operated at least as much with Clare as with Helen. And yet, for all that, the distinction remained in his mind. His life with Helen seemed to press him down, to cramp him in a narrow groove, to deprive him of all self-determination; it was, only when he came to Clare that he was free again and could do as he liked. Surely it was he himself, and not fate, that drew him joyously to Clare.
The mist that had hovered over Seacliffe all day was now magically lifted, and out of a clear sky there shone a moon with the slightest of yellow haloes encircling it. The promenade was nearly deserted, and in all the tall cliff of boarding-houses along the Marine Parade there was hardly a window with a light in it. The solitary redness of the lamp on the end of the pier sent a soft shimmer over the intervening water; the sea, at almost high tide, was quite calm. Hardly a murmur of the waves reached his ears as he strolled briskly along, but that was because they were right up against the stone wall of the promenade and had no beach of pebbles to be noisy with. He leaned over the railings and saw the water immediately beneath him, silvered in moonlight. Seacliffe was beautiful now…Then he looked ahead and saw the garish illuminations of the solitary picture-palace that Seacliffe possessed, and he wondered how Helen or anybody could prefer a kinema entertainment to the glory of the night outside. And yet, he reflected, the glory of the night was a subjective business; it required a certain mood; whereas the kinema created its own mood, asking and requiring nothing. Poor Helen! Why should pity for her have overwhelmed him suddenly at that moment? He did not love her, not the least fraction; yet he would have died for her if such had need to be. If she were in danger he would not stay to think; he would risk life or limb for her sake without a premonitory thought. He almost longed for the opportunity to sacrifice himself for her in some such way. He felt he owed it to her. But there was one sacrifice that was too hard—he could not live with her in contentment, giving up Clare. He knew he couldn’t. He saw quite clearly in the future the day when he would leave Helen and go to Clare. Not fate this time, but the hungering desire of his heart, that would not let him rest.
And yet, was not this same desire fate itself, his own fate, leading him on and further to some inevitable end? Only that he did not fear it. He opened wide his arms, welcoming it, longing for and therefore unconscious of its domination.
He stood in front of the gilded dinginess of the picture-palace, pondering on his destiny, when there came up to him a shabby little man in a long tattered overcoat, who asked him for a light. Speed, who was so anxious not to be a snob that he usually gave to strangers the impression of being one, proffered a box of matches and smiled. But for the life of him he could not think of anything to say. He felt he ought to say something, lest the other fellow might think him surly; he racked his brain for some appropriate remark and eventually said: “Nice night.” The other lit the stump of a cigarette contemplatively and replied: “Yes. Nice night…Thanks…Waiting for somebody?”
“Yes,” replied Speed, rather curtly. He had no desire to continue the conversation, still less to discuss his own affairs.
“Rotten hole, Seacliffe, in winter,” resumed the stranger, showing no sign
of moving on.
“Yes,” agreed Speed.
“Nothing to do—nowhere to go—absolutely the deadest place on God’s earth. I live here and I know. Every night I take a stroll about this time and tonight’s bin the first night this year I’ve ever seen anything happen at all.”
“Indeed?”
The stranger ignored the obvious boredness of Speed’s voice, and continued: “Yes. That’s the truth. But it happened all right to-night. Quite exciting, in fact.”
He looked at Speed to see if his interest was in any way, aroused. Such being not yet so he remarked again: “Yes, quite exciting.” He paused and added: “Bit gruesome perhaps—to some folks.”
Speed said, forcing himself to be interested:
“Why, what was it?”
And the other, triumphant that he had secured an attentive audience at last, replied: “Body found. Pulled up off the breakwater…Drowned, of course.”
Even now Speed was only casually interested. “Really? And who was it?”
“Don’t know the name…A woman’s body.”
“Nobody identified her yet?”
“Not yet. They say she’s not a Seacliffe woman…See there!” He pointed back along the promenade towards a spot where, not half an hour ago, Speed had leaned over the railings to see the moonlight on the sea. “Can you see the crowd standing about? That’s where they dragged her in. Only about ten minutes ago as I was passin’. Very high tide, you know, washes all sorts of things up…I didn’t stay long—bit too gruesome for me.”
“Yes,” agreed Speed. “And for me too…By the way d’you happen to know when this picture-house shuts up?”
“About half-past ten, mostly.”
“Thanks.”
“Well—I’ll be gettin’ along…Much obliged for the light…Good night…”
“Good night,” said Speed.
A few minutes later the crowd began to tumble out of the kinema. He stood in the darkness against a blank wall, where he could see without being seen. He wondered whether he had not better take Helen home through the town instead of along the promenade. It was a longer way, of course, but it would avoid the unpleasant affair that the stranger had mentioned to him He neither wished to see himself nor wished Helen to see anything of the sort.
Curious that she was so late? The kinema must be almost empty now; the stream of people had stopped. He saw the manager going to the box-office to lock up. “Have they all come out?” he asked, emerging into the rays of the electric lights. “Yes, everybody,” answered the other. He even glanced at Speed suspiciously, as if he wondered why he should be waiting for somebody who obviously hadn’t been to the kinema at all.
Well…Speed stood in a sheltered alcove and lit a cigarette. He had better get back to the Beach Hotel, anyway. Perhaps Helen hadn’t gone to the picture-show after all. Or, perhaps, she had come out before the end and they had missed each other. Perhaps anything…Anything!…
Then suddenly the awful thought occurred to him. At first it was fantastic; he walked along, sampling it in a horrified fashion, yet refusing to be in the least perturbed by it. Then it gained ground upon him, made him hasten his steps, throw away his cigarette, and finally run madly along the echoing promenade to the curious little silent crowd that had gathered there, about halfway to the pier entrance. He scampered along the smooth asphalt just like a boisterous youngster, yet in his eyes was wild brain-maddening fear.
V
Ten minutes later he knew. They pointed to a gap in the railings close by, made some while before by a lorry that had run out of control along the Marine Parade. The Urban District Council ought to have repaired the railings immediately after the accident, and he (somebody in the crowd) would not be surprised if the coroner censured the Council pretty severely at the inquest. The gap was a positive death-trap for anybody walking along at night and not looking carefully ahead. And he (somebody else in the crowd) suggested the possibility of making the Seacliffe Urban District Council pay heavy damages…Of course, it was an accident…There was a bad bruise on the head: that was where she must have struck the stones as she fell…And in one of the pockets was a torn kinema ticket; clearly she had been on her way home from the Beach kinema…Once again, it was the Council’s fault for not promptly repairing the dangerous gap in the railings.
They led him back to the Beach Hotel and gave him brandy. He kept saying: “Now please go—I’m quite all right…There’s really nothing that anybody can do for me…Please go now…”
When at last he was alone in the cheerless hotel bedroom he sat down on the side of the bed and cried. Not for sorrow or pity or terror, but merely to relieve some fearful strain of emotion that was in him. Helen dead! He could hardly force himself to believe it, but when he did he felt sorry, achingly sorry, because there had been so many bonds between them, so many bonds that only death could have snapped. He saw her now, poor little woman, as he had never seen her before; the love in her still living, and all that had made them unhappy together vanished away. He loved her, those minutes in the empty, cheerless bedroom, more calmly than he had ever loved her when she had been near to him. And—strange miracle!—she had given him peace at last. Pity for her no longer overwhelmed him with its sickly torture; he was calm, calm with sorrow, but calm.
VI
Then, slowly, grimly, as to some fixed and inevitable thing, his torture returned. He tried to persuade himself that the worst was over, That tragedy had spent its terrible utmost; but even the sad calm of desperation was nowhere to be found. He paced up and down the bedroom long and wearisomely; shortly after midnight the solitary gas jet faltered and flickered and finally abandoned itself with a forlorn pop. “Curse the place!” he muttered, acutely nervous in the sudden gloom; then for some moments he meditated a sarcastic protest to the hotel-proprietress in the morning. “I am aware,” he would begin, tartly, “that the attractions of Seacliffe in the evenings are not such as would often tempt the visitor to keep up until the small hours; but don’t you think that is an argument against rather than for turning off the gas-supply at midnight?” Rather ponderous, though; probably the woman wouldn’t know what he meant. He might write a letter to the Seacliffe Gazette about it, anyway. “Oh, damn them!” he exclaimed, with sudden fervour, as he searched for the candle on the dressing-table. Unfortunately he possessed no matches, and the candlestick, when at last his groping had discovered it, contained none, either. It was so infernally dark and silent; everybody in the place was in bed except himself. He pictured the maids, sleeping cosily in the top attics, or perhaps chattering together in whispers about clothes or their love-affairs or Seacliffe gossip or—why, of course!—about him. They would surely be talking about him. Such a tit-bit of gossip! Everyone in Seacliffe would be full of the tragedy of the young fellow whose wife, less than a year married, had fallen accidentally into the sea off the promenade! He, not she, would be the figure of high tragedy in their minds, and on the morrow they would all stare at him morbidly, curiously…Good God in Heaven! Could he endure it?…Lightly the moonlight filtered through the Venetian blinds on to the garish linoleum pattern; and when the blinds were stirred by the breeze the light skipped along the floor like moving swords; he could not endure that, anyway. He went to the windows and drew up the blinds, one after the other. They would hear that, he reflected, if they were awake; they would know he was not asleep.
Then he remembered her as he had seen her less than a twelvemonth before; standing knee-deep in the grasses by the river-bank at Parminters. Everywhere that he had loved her was so clear now in his mind, and everywhere else was so unreal and dim. He heard the tinkle of the Head’s piano and saw her puzzling intently over some easy Chopin mazurka, her golden hair flame-like in the sunlight of the afternoon. He saw the paths and fields of Millstead, all radiant where she and he had been, and the moonlight lapping the pavilion steps, where, first of all, he had touched her lips with his. And then—only with an effort could he picture this—he saw the grim room downstai
rs, where she lay all wet and bedraggled, those cheeks that’ he had kissed ice-cold and salt with the sea. The moon, emerging fully from behind a mist, plunged him suddenly in white light; at that moment it seemed to him that he was living in some ugly nightmare, and that shortly he would wake from it and find all the tragedy untrue. Helen was alive and well: he could only have imagined her dead. And downstairs, in that sitting-room—it had been no more than a dream, fearful and—thank God—false. Helen was away, somewhere, perfectly well and happy—somewhere. And downstairs, in that sitting-room…Anyhow, he would go down and see, to convince himself. He unlocked the bedroom door and tiptoed out on to the landing. He saw the moon’s rays caught phosphorescently on a fish in a glass case. Down the two flights of stairs he descended with caution, and then, at the foot, strove to recollect which was the room. He saw two doors, with something written on them. One was the bar-parlour, he thought, where the worthies of Seacliffe congregated nightly. He turned the handle and saw the glistening brass of the beer-engines. Then the other door, might be? He tried the handle, but the door was locked. Somehow this infuriated him. “They lock the doors and turn off the gas!” he cried, vehemently, uniting his complaints. Then suddenly he caught sight of another door in the wall opposite, a door on which there was no writing at all. He had an instant conviction that this must be the door. He strode to it, menacingly, took hold of its handle in a firm grasp, and pushed. Locked again! This time he could not endure the fury that raged within him. “Good God!” he cried, shouting at the top of his voice, “I’ll burst every door in the place in!” He beat on the panels with his fists, shouting and screaming the whole while…
Ten minutes later the hotel-porter and the barman, clad in trousers and shirt only, were holding his arms on either side, and the proprietress, swathed in a pink dressing-gown, was standing a little way off, staring at him curiously. And he was complaining to her about the turning off of the gas at midnight. “One really has a right to expect something more generous from the best hotel in Seacliffe,” he was saying, with an argumentative mildness that surprised himself. “It is not as though this were a sixpenny doss-house. It is an A.A. listed hotel, and I consider it absolutely scandalous that…”