Deluge: A Novel of Global Warming

by S. Fowler Wright

  She said: “It is a few days, but a great deal has happened. You must be tired with the child. Shall we rest?”

  They were in the park now, and they sat down at an oak’s foot. Claire realised that she was tired also. The day was advanced, and she had had neither food nor rest since Martin’s impatience had started the laden march in the early morning. She felt the apathy of exhausted nerves and tired muscles, and would have been glad to rest in silence. But she told the whole tale. Not only of the last few days, but of her first struggle for life in the night of a drowning world, of her horror of the men with whom fortune threw her, of her further challenge to death that she might escape them, of her life with the old shepherd and his daughter, of her further search, and of how Martin had found her; of their first companionship with its distrusts, and of how quickly they faded, of her capture by Bellamy and of the fight that followed, of the night among the brambles, of the fighting in the tunnel, of the killing of Bellamy, of the last attack that had so nearly destroyed them, and of how Tom’s party had rescued them without intending to do so. All this she told, and of the day that followed, with a convincing bareness, in short, clear sentences that made it real to Helen, who was always responsive to the spoken word.

  She understood, as she heard, the conditions of the outer life, of which Tom had told her so vaguely. For the first time it became vivid—and near. Little as Claire made of her own part, it did not need any great imagination to see what she had been to Martin in those tensions of conflict. She saw also—for Claire did not disguise it—that it was for her that he had run the risk, for her that he had fought so desperately. Claire rose in her regard as something that Martin had valued—and Martin judged well.

  Also she saw that Claire had a stronger case than she had attempted to set up. “For always and always.” It was not the kind of pledge which can be broken with honour. But it had been given in good faith. And Martin had not known. It was a pledge that, so she thought, he could not keep. Claire saw that. But it was hard on Claire.

  Her mind seeing many sides and with characteristic intellectual impartiality, saw questions yet to come which were not easy to answer. She looked ahead, and her mind was troubled. She longed for Martin to come. She wanted to talk it over with him. He would tell her what it would be right to do.

  She felt now that it was due to Claire to say more than she had yet done, but Claire did not invite it.

  Mary had been playing around them, and Claire had coaxed her to her arms at last, where she nestled confidently.

  Claire looked down at the sleeping face with a new tenderness in her eyes. She said: “Tell me how you saved them.”

  But the tale was not told then, for Helen had seen that Martin came to her through the bracken.

  CHAPTER XLVI

  Claire looked away. She had seen Helen in Martin’s arms. She had run to him, so that it was at some distance that they met, for Claire had not moved. She saw Helen in the arms of the man that was hers—and hers. She thought that she was weeping. It was abandon of emotion that she had not looked for in Helen. It was not her own way, and she had not thought it to be Helen’s. She saw that these two had a common life for years—common interests, children—the comradeship which is more than all in marriage, and is so often absent. It had seemed that the grave had closed between them, and miraculously it had opened again, and life was renewed—and dearer for the separation which had befallen.

  Beside this, what was she? The love of a summer night. The comrade of a tunnel fight. The episode of a mood—of a moment.

  It was so different from what it might have been, from what she had set out to win.

  She had dreamed of the solitudes and dangers of an empty world of the weight of the wilderness. She would have endured these with Martin. Endured? They would have been a joy beyond words.

  But fate had given her to him, and held her with a tie that she might ignore but which she could not break. It had brought her back from the clean solitudes, from sky, and grass, and sea to the commonness of the life of a new barbarity, for so she felt it.

  And there was no way to break loose. She was no longer free. No longer single. There might be a child.

  She became aware that she was very tired.

  She looked up, and they were standing before her. They were hand-in-hand, and Helen’s eyes were radiant.

  Martin was looking at the child. She lifted it to him, and as he took it, and as it half-woke and nestled down against him (as it had done in those so different days three months ago, and it would do again, with little thought for the interval), their eyes met, and she was aware that Martin understood: that in some way which she had not previously apprehended as possible, his reunion had not divided them.

  “How did you get them back?” he asked. She wondered how he knew or guessed, and he saw the question in her eyes, and added: “Oh, Davy told me. I didn’t know you could ride.”

  “It was really nothing,” she answered, with a recovered lightness in her tone which made ease for all of them, “it wasn’t really I. I simply rode him hard. I had the better horse. She’s a beauty! But he could ride better than I, which made it longer. It was the man you said was a jockey. I thought I should have him the next minute, and I suppose he thought the same. Anyway, he looked round, and just then an old woman threw a broom at his horse’s legs. He was thrown clear of the horse, with the child behind him. She wasn’t hurt—scarcely frightened. I left her with the old woman.” She added: “He had thrown Mary from his horse before then. Helen picked her up. I could have killed him for that.”

  “Didn’t you?” said Helen, guilelessly enough. But she had gained an impression that death was the routine experience of those who met her displeasure.

  “No,” said Claire,” “I left him in the road. He didn’t move, but I don’t think he could have been much hurt. It was a simple fall. But I brought his horse.”

  Martin said: “He had cleared off before we came that way; I expect he was shamming. He would have been better dead.”

  They walked back to the lodge together. The conversation on the way did not exclude Claire; Martin was adroit to prevent it, but she realised, though without bitterness, that it would have been better that they should have been alone together. She resolved that that should come very quickly.

  After arrival there was a difference. The limited space of the little room, the slender resources of the tiny larder, must provide rest and refreshment. Helen felt the responsibility of a hostess, though the place was scarcely hers. She felt almost in the same relation both to Claire and Martin, and exerted herself accordingly. Mary Wittels took the invasion good-humouredly. She was reluctant to occupy her accustomed chair until assured that seats (of some kind or other) were available for her visitors, whose status (by her own standards, which were not entirely foolish) was plain in spite of the dirt and disorder of the quaint attires in which they were dressed, by their own caprice, or by that of fortune.

  But they could not stay in the lodge. They had realised that, before Tom came with his plans for their deliverance.

  There was but one room and one bed, on which Helen had slept with the children, and another which Tom had improvised for the old woman when it became evident that Helen’s lengthened stay would make it unreasonable for her to continue with nothing better than the chairs which she had first utilised.

  It was a physical impossibility to trespass upon her more than Helen had done already. But Tom had thought of that.

  He had thought of many things during the last few hours.

  There had been dim dreams in his mind for many weeks of what might be done to bring light and order into the wrecks of a social system which had itself been chaotic. But he had sufficient wisdom to know that he would not be wise enough to achieve it. Some things he had done. Some things he had influenced. To have attempted more would have been to have failed entirely.

  But in Martin he believed that they had found the man that was needed. And he was one in whom he had an exce
ptional confidence, acquired in an exceptional way.

  He had sat in the dock while a hired advocate struggled, with all the ingenuity of one of the subtlest brains in a profession that makes a trade of subtlety, to interpret evidence in such a way as would procure his destruction. That was how such matters were conducted in the England of that day. A man accused of murder, however innocent—which Tom was not—would at once have all the wealth of the country and its legal ability directed against him. The police would make exhaustive inquiries without regard to the expenditure incurred. They would unearth persons who would exhibit incredible memories of the colour of the man’s shoes, or of the shape of his necktie. Advocates would be hired at huge fees to practise the extremity of human ingenuity in constructing a case against him.

  Being so attacked, his ability to defend himself on the same plane must depend upon the amount of money which could be collected among his relatives to hire lawyers of equal skill and of a corresponding rapacity. Cases occurred of persons accused of crime being proved innocent after they had been reduced to beggary in defending the proceedings successfully. But for them there was no restitution.

  Only if a man could prove that he had no means whatever the law would contemptuously provide him with an advocate so that the game against him could be played with an aspect of outer decency. But if he had anything to lose, the lawyers stripped him bare.

  That was the law and the practice. The results would have been even worse but for the fact that the individuals concerned were often better than the system which they had been trained to serve.

  Tom had faced this ordeal with the simplifying knowledge of his own guilt (for in many ways a true charge is more easily endured, and in some cases more easily rebutted, than one that is false) and with a well-founded belief that there would be little hope for mercy should a verdict be obtained against him.

  He had relied, during those hours of tension, upon the man who had undertaken his defence, and had watched his battle fought, as he could never have fought it, with a stubborn, patient tenacity that did not attempt to minimise the strength of the case against him, but declined to admit that it could not be conquered. He had not been over-anxious or over-despondent during that ordeal. Strange though it may sound, he had not been very miserable. He was not himself of the disposition that finds trouble too easily, and he had gained confidence from the support of the man who had made him feel that he was as concerned as himself in the issue which they were fighting.

  In that strange intimacy, when Martin Webster’s brain and will had stood between him and death as literally as he stood, in fact, between the dock and the judge’s seat, he had, perhaps, learnt more of the character of his advocate than Martin had learnt of the prisoner that he was defending.

  He knew that Martin was not of those who go lightly into battle, who face odds gaily and in a confidence of overcoming. Rather would he calculate his opponent’s forces to the last ounce they could offer, estimating them at their full value and judging with a cool discretion the possibility of defeating them. He might lead a forlorn hope very skilfully, certainly with courage, if he should undertake it at all, but he would know it for what it was.

  As he looked unflinchingly at his opponent’s strength, so would he look unflinchingly at his own weakness. He would not disguise the truth. And, though a lawyer, he had no natural reverence for convention or respect for precedent. He had a singularly open and sometimes unexpected mind.

  Tom had the wit that can appreciate qualities of mind and character beyond its own capacity. He believed Martin to be the man that could save them.

  Confused with these dreams and with this personal loyalty was his desire for Helen and his uncertainty as to the issue which had arisen.

  He had fulfilled his promise to Helen. He had found her husband. He would have recognised this as fatal to his own hopes and having the effect of finality, but for the presence of Claire, a confusing and unexpected factor.

  His desire for Helen was real, and his claim substantial. He had saved her life, he had protected her through very difficult times so completely that she had been scarcely aware of the peril in which she lived, and by claiming her for himself he had not only saved her from others, he had shut himself out from competition for the favours of the remaining women of the community. In the result, he might have lost all and gained nothing.

  He deserves sympathy, though his love for Helen, with whom he may have had less in common than he supposed, and which was the result of a fortuitous intimacy (though that is the basis of many lifelong unions), may not have been very deeply rooted, and his subsequent proceedings may be condoned, though they may not be entirely defended.

  He came now with the news of a suitable asylum for their necessities of the night, and, more than that, of a place which Martin might consider suitable for his headquarters at the commencement of his new authority. So far, Tom’s conduct had been beyond criticism. He had been industrious to distribute the news of the adherence to Martin, to which the members of the expedition had pledged themselves, and of his qualities of leadership, and to enlist the support of other friends who had not been with them. In this he had been successful beyond any reasonable anticipation. In making inquiries for a suitable home for their new leader he had only faced an obvious necessity, and relieved a difficulty which Martin had already realised. If it be true also that he supposed that there might be awkwardness as to who should accompany Martin to the proposed location, the problem was not of his making.

  He came into the little crowded room and saw at the first glance that there was a degree of freedom and harmony which he might be excused for not having anticipated. He had scarcely entered before Helen’s hand was out, and she was thanking him for his successful search with a voice and manner which left no doubt of her happiness.

  He had heard something of Claire’s ride after Joe Harker, and his inquiry after the children’s safety brought an enthusiastic account of her successful rescue, which gave an equal evidence of Helen’s gratitude and admiration. It was confusing to Tom.

  He may be excused if he doubted whether Helen knew of the relations which had existed between Claire and her recovered husband.

  He turned to Martin to report the activities in which he had been occupied. He ended by saying that the raiders had murdered Stacey Dobson, and that his house would be available for Martin’s residence. It would be advisable to occupy it as quickly as possible, though there was little risk that anyone would attempt to seize it, as it would be supposed that Stacey’s servants would now hold it, but he had arranged with them.

  This involved some explanations. Stacey Dobson, whose death we have observed after three months of unclouded happiness in his garden hammock, had occupied a comfortable country residence with a south-western aspect and a rise of ground in its rear. It may have been already observed that most of the buildings which had escaped entire destruction were in such situations. They were substantially built, they were isolated, and they were protected by their position from the direct fury of the storm which had preceded the earthquake. Not all or most of such buildings escaped destruction, but they were the only conditions under which it was possible that they should have even partially survived.

  Stacey was in his library when the storm commenced; he was still there when the earthquake ended. He did not expect to survive. He observed that he was involved in a world catastrophe, but he was not over-greatly perturbed. He had no inclination to join the hurrying crowd that screamed and jostled on the road without. He hated dirt. He hated discomfort. He hated contact with his fellowmen. He was invincibly indolent. He waited the caprice of fate in an entirely gentlemanly manner.

  He would have displayed a similar detachment toward the visit of the bailiffs, whom he had good reason to expect on the following morning when the storm broke. Remembering that probability, he observed compensations in the course which events had taken. He reflected on the wisdom which had led him to continue his leisurely existence unperturbed by
the cloud of debt which had been enveloping him during the last few years.

  He heard the roar of the storm and the crash of falling timber. He heard his chimneys descend, and he had good reason to suppose that the major part of his residence was in ruins. He was not insensitive to these events. He composed a sonnet on Mutability. He wrote it out with a neat precision. He considered the finer points of punctuation with a fastidious care.

  His housemaid, Betty, survived, with a bruised head and with some other minor injuries which we need not investigate.

  She came to seek her master as soon as circumstances rendered it possible for her to do so.

  She told him of much which he had only been able to imagine, but which confirmed the judgement which he had formed already.

  Mr. Dobson went to the safe. He counted Treasury notes to an amount of twenty-two pounds ten shillings, and handed them to her. He remembered that her wages were about six months in arrears. “I don’t think,” he said, “that we need trouble to deduct the insurance.”

  He went to his desk, and from a drawer in which his papers were very neatly ordered, he selected some writs and various other legal documents of a kindred kind, including a Bankruptcy Notice and a Poor-Rate Summons.

  “I think, Betty,” he said, “you can burn these.”

  He felt quietly cheerful.

  He called Betty’s attention to the few articles of a fragile nature which the room contained, which he had removed to the floor at the first shock of the earthquake, to a spilling of ink on his desk, which he had been too late to avert, and to a crack which was developing in the ceiling.

  The last was the most serious. “I should like Phillips to see it,” he said definitely; and then: “What about lunch?”

  For the next three months Stacey had found the world go very smoothly. All necessity for work (even congenial work) has ceased. The brief article on Etruscan Mythology intended for the Birmingham Post (which had become a reliable market for his single-column reflections on miscellaneous subjects) remained unfinished. The books which had been sent to him for (eulogistic) review by The Bookman remained unread, unless his own caprice should desire them.