VII
Strangely, when he was back again and alone in his own bedroom, he felt different. His gas-jet was burning again, evidently as a result of his protest; the victory gave him a curious, childish pleasure. Nor did his burdens weigh so heavily on him; indeed, he felt even peaceful enough to try to sleep. He undressed and got into bed.
And then, slowly, secretly, dreadfully, he discovered that he was thinking about Clare! It frightened him—this way she crept into his thoughts as pain comes after the numbness of a blow. He knew he ought not to think of her. He ought to put her out of his mind, at any rate, for the present. Helen dead this little while, and already Clare in his thoughts! The realisation appalled him, terrified him by affording him a glimpse into the depths of his own dark soul. And yet—he could not help it. Was he to be blamed for the thoughts that he could not drive out of his mind? He prayed urgently and passionately for sleep, that he might rid himself of the lurking, lurking image of her. But even in sleep he feared he might dream of her.
Oh, Clare, Clare, would she ever come to him now, now that he was alone and Helen was dead? God, the awfulness of the question! Yet he could not put it away from him; he could but deceive himself, might be, into thinking he was not asking it. He wanted Clare. Not more than ever—only as much as he had always wanted her.
He wondered solemnly if the stuff in him were rotten; if he were proven vile and debased because he wanted her; if he were cancelling his soul by thinking of her so soon. And yet—God help him; even if all that were so, he could not help it. If he were to be damned eternally for thinking about Clare, then let him be damned eternally. Actions he might control, but never the strains and cravings of his own mind. If he were wrong, therefore, let him be wrong.
He wondered whether, when he fell asleep, he would dream about Helen or about Clare. And yet, when at last his very tiredness made him close his eyes, he dreamed of neither of them, but slept in perfect calm, as a child that has been forgiven.
In the morning they brought his breakfast up to him in bed, and with it a letter and a telegram. The chambermaid asked him dubiously if he were feeling better and he replied: “Oh yes, much better, thanks.” Only vaguely could he remember what had taken place during the night.
When the girl had gone and he had glanced at the handwriting on the envelope, he had a sudden paralysing shock, for it was Helen’s!
The postmark was: “Seacliffe, 10.10 p.m.”
He tore open the envelope with slow and awful dread, and took out a single sheet of Beach Hotel notepaper. Scribbled on it in pencil was just:
“DEAR KENNETH (“Dear” underlined),—Good-bye, darling. I can’t bear you not to be happy. Forget me and don’t worry. They will think it has been an accident, and you mustn’t tell them anything else. Leave Millstead and take Clare away. Be happy with her.—Yours, HELEN.”
“P.S.—There’s one thing I’m sorry for. On the last night before we left Millstead I said something about Clare and Pritchard. Darling, it was a lie—I made it up because I couldn’t bear you to love Clare so much. I don’t mind now. Forgive me.”
A moment later he was opening the telegram and reading:
“Shall arrive Seacliffe Station one fifteen meet me Clare.”
It had been despatched from Millstead at nine-five that morning, evidently as soon as the post office opened.
He ate no breakfast. It was a quarter past eleven and the sun was streaming in through the window—the first spring day of the year. He re-read the letter.
Strange that until then the thought that the catastrophe could have been anything at all but accidental had never even remotely occurred to him Now it came as a terrible revelation, hardly to be believed, even with proof; a revelation of that utmost misery that had driven her to the sea. He had known that she was not happy, but he had never guessed that she might be miserable to death.
And what escape was there now from his own overwhelming guilt? She had killed herself because he had not made her happy. Or else because she had not been able to make him happy. Whichever it was, he was fearfully to blame. She had killed herself to make room for that other woman who had taken all the joy out of her life.
And at one-fifteen that other woman would arrive in Seacliffe.
In the darkest depths of his remorse he vowed that he would not meet her, see her, or hold any communication with her ever again, so long as his life lasted. He would hate her eternally, for Helen’s sake. He would dedicate his life to the annihilation of her in his mind. Why was she coming? Did she know? How could she know? He raved at her mentally, trying to involve her in some share of his own deep treachery, for even the companionship of guilt was at least companionship. The two of them—Clare and himself—had murdered Helen. The two of them—together. Together. There was black magic in the intimacy that that word implied—magic in the guilty secret that was between them, in the passionate iniquity that was alluring even in its baseness!
He dressed hurriedly, and with his mind in a ferment, forgot his breakfast till it was cold and then found it too unpalatable to eat. As he descended the stairs and came into the hotel lobby he remarked to the proprietress: “Oh, by the way, I must apologise for making a row last night. Fact is, my nerves, you know…Rather upset…”
“Quite all right, Mr. Speed. I’m sure we all understand and sympathise with you. If there’s any way we can help you, you know…Shall you be in to lunch?”
“Lunch? Oh yes—er—I mean, no. No, I don’t think I shall—not to-day. You see there are—er—arrangements to make—er—arrangements, you know…”
He smiled, and with carefully simulated nonchalance, commenced to light a cigarette! When he got outside the hotel he decided that it was absolutely the wrong thing to have done. He flung the cigarette into the gutter. What was the matter with him? Something,—something that made him, out of very fear, do ridiculous and inappropriate things The same instinct, no doubt, that always made him talk loudly when he was nervous. And then he remembered that April morning of the year before, when he had first of all entered the Headmaster’s study at Millstead; for then, through nervousness, he had spoken loudly, almost aggressively, to disguise his embarrassment. What a curious creature he was, and how curious people must think him.
He strolled round the town, bought a morning paper at the newsagent’s, and pretended to be interested in the contents. Over him like a sultry shadow lay the disagreeable paraphernalia of the immediate future: doctors, coroner, inquest, lawyers, interviews with Doctor and Mrs. Ervine, and so on. It had all to be gone through, but for the present he would try to forget it. The turmoil of his own mind, that battle which was being waged within his inmost self, that strife which no coroner would guess, those secrets which no inquest would or could elicit; these were the things of greater import. In the High Street, leading up from the Pierhead, he saw half a dozen stalwart navvies swinging sledge-hammers into the concrete road-bed. He stopped, ostensibly to wait for a tram, but really to watch them. He envied them, passionately; envied their strength and animal simplicity; envied above all their lack of education and ignorance of themselves, their happy blindness along the path of life. He wished he could forget such things as Art and Culture and Education, and could become as they, or as he imagined them to be. Their lives were brimful of real things, things to be held and touched—hammers and levers and slabs of concrete. With all their crude joy and all their pain, simple and physical, their souls grew strong and stark. He envied them with a passion that made him desist at last from the sight of them, because it hurt.
The town-hall clock began the hour of noon, and that reminded him of Clare, and of the overwhelming fact that she was at that moment in the train hastening to Seacliffe. Was he thinking of her again? He went into a café and ordered in desperation a pot of China tea and some bread and butter, as if the mere routine of a meal would rid his mind of her. For desire was with him still, nor could he stave it off. Nothing that he could ever discover, however ugly or terrible, could stop the
craving of him for Clare. The things that they had begun together, he and she, had no ending in this world. And suddenly all sense of free-will left him, and he felt himself propelled at a mighty rate towards her, wherever she might be; fate, surely, guiding him to her, but this time, a fate that was urging him from within, not pressing him from without. And he knew, secretly, whatever indignant protests he might make to himself about it, that when the 1:15 train entered Seacliffe station he would be waiting there on the platform for her. The thing was inevitable, like death.
But inevitability did not spare him torment. And at last his remorse insisted upon a compromise. He would meet Clare, he decided, but when he had met her, he would proceed to torture her, subtly, shrewdly—seeking vengeance for the tragedy that she had brought to his life, and the spell that she had cast upon his soul. He would be the Grand Inquisitor.
He was very white and haggard when the time came. He had reached the station as early as one o’clock, and for a quarter of an hour had lounged about the deserted platforms. Meanwhile the sun shone gloriously, and the train as it ran into the station caught the sunlight on its windows. The sight of the long line of coaches, curving into the station like a flaming sword into its scabbard, gave him a mighty heartrending thrill. Yes, yes—he would torture her…His eyes glinted with diabolical exhilaration, and a touch of hectic colour crept into his wan cheeks. He watched her alight from a third-class compartment near the rear of the train. Then he lost her momentarily amidst the emptying crowd. He walked briskly against the stream of the throng, with a heart that beat fast with unutterable expectations.
But how he loved her as he saw her coming towards him!—though he tried with all his might to kindle hate in his heart. She smiled and held out her tiny hand. He took it with a limpness that was to begin his torture of her. She was to notice that limpness.
“How is Helen?” was her first remark.
Amidst the bustle of the luggage round the guard’s van he replied quietly: “Helen? Oh, she’s all right. I didn’t tell her you were coming.”
“You were wise,” she answered.
A faint thrill of anticipation crept over him; this diabolical game was interesting, fascinating, in its way; and would lead her very securely into a number of traps. And why, he thought, did she think it was wise of him not to have told Helen?
In the station-yard she suddenly stopped to consult a time-table hoarding.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m looking for the next train back to Millstead.”
“Not the next, surely?”
“Why not? What do you think I’ve come for?”
“I don’t know in the least. What have you come for?”
She looked at him appealingly. He saw, with keen and instant relish, that she had already noticed something of hostility in his attitude towards her. The torture had begun. For the first time, she was subject to his power and not he to hers.
“I’ve come for a few minutes’ conversation,” she answered, quietly. “And the next train back is at 3:18.”
“You mean to travel by that?”
“Yes.”
“Then we needn’t stay in the station till then, need we? Let’s walk somewhere. We’ve two whole hours—time enough to get right out of the town and back again. I hate conversations in railway-stations.”
But his chief reason was a desire to secure the right scenic background for his torture of her.
“All right,” she answered, and looked at him again appealingly. The tears almost welled into his own eyes because of the deep sadness that was in hers. How quick she was to feel his harshness!—he thought. How marvellously sensitive was that little soul of hers to the subtlest gradations of his own mood! What fiendish torture he could put her to, by no more, might be, than the merest upraising of an eyebrow, the faintest change of the voice, the slightest tightening of the lips! She was of mercury, like himself; responsive to every touch of the emotional atmosphere. And was not that the reason why she understood him with such wonderful instinctive intimacy—was not that the reason why the two of them, out of the whole world, would have sought each other like twin magnets?
He led her, in silence, through the litter of mean streets near the station, and thence, beyond the edge of the town, towards the meadows that sloped to the sea. So far it had been a perfect day, but now the sun was half-quenching itself in a fringe of mist that lay along the horizon; and with the change there came a sudden pink light that lit both their faces and shone behind them on the tawdry newness of the town, giving it for once a touch of pitiful loveliness. He took her into a rolling meadow that tapered down into a coppice, and as they reached the trees the last shaft of sunlight died from the sky. Then they plunged into the grey depths, with all the freshly-budded leaves brushing against their faces, and the very earth, so it seemed, murmuring at their approach. Already there was the hint of rain in the air.
“It’s a long way to come for a few minutes’ conversation,” he began.
She answered, ignoring his remark: “I had a letter from Helen this morning.”
“What!” he exclaimed in sharp fear. He went suddenly white.
“A letter,” she went on, broodingly. “Would you like to see it?”
He stared at her and replied: “I would rather hear from you what it was about.”
He saw her brown eyes looking up curiously into his, and he had the instant feeling that she would cry if he persisted in his torture of her. The silence of that walk from the station had unnerved her, had made her frightened of him. That was what he had intended. And she did not know yet—did not know what he knew. Poor girl-what a blow was in waiting for her! But he must not let it fall for a little while.
She bit her lip and said: “Very well. It was about you. She was unhappy about you. Dreadfully unhappy. She said she was going to leave you. She also said—that she was going to leave you—to—to me.”
Her voice trembled on that final word.
“Well?”
She recovered herself to continue with more energy: “And I’ve come here to tell you this—that if she does ‘leave you, I shan’t have you. That’s all.”
“You are making large assumptions.”
“I know. And I don’t mind your sarcasm, though don’t think any more of you for using it…I repeat what I said—if Helen leaves you or if you leave Helen, I shall have nothing more to do with you.”
“It is certainly kind of you to warn me in time.”
“You’ve never given Helen a fair trial. I know you and she are ill-matched. I know you oughtn’t to have married her at all, but that doesn’t matter—you’ve done it, and you’ve got to be fair to her. And if you think that because I’ve confessed that I love you I’m in your power for you to be cruel to, you’re mistaken!” Her voice rose passionately.
He stared at her, admiring the warm flush that came into her cheeks, and all the time pitying her, loving her, agonisingly!
“Understand,” she went on, “You’ve got to look after Helen—you’ve got to take care of her—watch her—do you know what I mean?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“I mean you must try to make her happy. She’s sick and miserable, and, somehow, you must cure her. I came here to see you because I thought I could persuade you to be kind to her. I thought if you loved me at all, you might do it for my sake. Remember I love Helen as well as you. Do you still think I’m hard-hearted and cold? If you knew what goes on inside me, the racking, raging longing—the—No, no—what’s the good of talking of that to you? You either understand or else you don’t, and if you don’t, no words of mine will make you…But I warn you again, you must cure Helen of her unhappiness. Otherwise, she might try to cure herself—in any way, drastic or not, that occurred to her. Do you know now what I mean?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, even yet.”
“Well”—her voice became harder—“it’s this, if you want plain speaking. Watch her in case she kills herself. She’s thinkin
g of it.”
He went ashen pale again and said quietly, after a long pause. “How do you know that?”
“Her letter.”
“She mentioned it?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what you’ve come to warn me about?”
“Yes. And to persuade you, if I could—”
“Why did you decide that a personal visit was necessary?”
“I shouldn’t have cared to tell you all this by letter. And besides, a letter wouldn’t have been nearly as quick, would it? You see I only received her letter this morning. After all, the matter’s urgent enough. One can easily be too late.”
He said, with eyes fixed steadily upon her: “Clare, you are too late. She drowned herself last night.”
He expected she would cry or break down or do something dramatic that he could at any rate endure. But instead of that, she stared vacantly into the fast-deepening gloom of the coppice, stared infinitely, terribly, without movement or sound. Horror tore nakedly through her eyes like pain, though not a muscle of her face stirred from that fearful, statuesque immobility. Moments passed. Far over the intervening spaces came the faint chiming of the half-hour on the town-hall clock, and fainter still, but ominous-sounding, the swirl of the waves on the distant beach as the wind rose and freshened.
He could not bear that silence and that stillness of hers. It seemed as though it would be eternal. And suddenly he saw that she was really suffering, excruciatingly; and he could not bear it, because he loved her. And then all his plans for torturing her, all his desires for vengeance, all his schemes to make her suffer as he had suffered, all the hate of her that he had manufactured in his heart—all was suddenly gone, like worthless dust scoured by the gale. He perceived that they were one in suffering as in guilt-fate’s pathetic flotsam, aching to cling together even in the last despairing drift.