The Dawn of Reckoning

by James Hilton

  After dinner he went to his study to work. She amused herself for an hour or so with the gramophone, and then, being tired, went up to bed. Yet she did not sleep well; her head was throbbing and unquiet. Once when she stirred out of a troubled sleep she heard Philip coming upstairs to his room. She looked at the radium clock at her bedside; the time was half-past one.

  II

  Philip was “busy.” He gave that as his reason for everything; for seeing so little of her, for shutting himself in his study till the early hours of the morning, for declining her suggested excursions with him, for his silence, his strangeness, his curious grim energy. Hard work (or perhaps something else which she did not understand) was certainly having its results. “Your husband is becoming a really good speaker,” said a friend whom she met one day in Chassingford. “He’s got a touch of what he never had before—emotion.”

  She wondered, and was puzzled, and suffered meanwhile the extremes of loneliness in the sombre old house. Music was her only consolation—music, and then, fortuitously, Roly. Roly was a black and white kitten that, rain-sodden and half-starved, had mewed on the window-sill one stormy December night. She had opened the window a few inches and Roly had promptly squeezed his way through. From that moment she felt she had a friend.

  She was rather stupid about Roly. During a party to which Philip had invited various political people, she spent most of the time holding out a piece of cotton for Roly to play with. “Surely rather childish,” as Philip remarked afterwards. “What must people have thought of you, sitting there all the time playing with a cat?”

  “A kitten,” she corrected. “Well, anyway, what must Roly have thought of you all, chattering nonsense and taking notice of neither him nor me?”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Is it? Perhaps it is.”

  Roly was certainly an intelligent creature, with a voluptuous fondness for having his belly rubbed and scratched. Wherever Stella went he followed; she used to take him in the car on shopping expeditions, and it was only through an intense fear of dogs that he would stay in the car while she went into the shops. And on the dark winter evenings when Philip was in his study working, the pressure of Roly asleep on her lap in front of the fire soothed her and made her less lonely.

  One night she was lying full-length on the hearth-rug, enjoying a fierce and exciting game with the kitten, when she looked up and saw a figure standing by the curtained doorway. She thought at first it was Philip, but as her eyes accustomed themselves to the shadows she saw something that startled her and made her scramble hastily to her feet.

  It was Ward.

  He was looking at her curiously, and as soon as he saw that she was looking at him, he went forward and held out his hand. “I rang the bell,” he said, “but I couldn’t get any answer. The front door was half-open, so I took the liberty of coming in on my own.”

  “Yes…” she replied nervously. “Venner’s very deaf.”

  “And Philip?”

  She said quickly: “Oh, Philip wouldn’t hear you. He’s had a sound-proof door put in his study. He works every night till late.”

  “While you amuse yourself with your cat.”

  “Yes, why not?—He’s a darling. Just look at him—do you like cats?”

  “I like all animals.”

  “Do you?—Oh, so do I. Philip doesn’t. He’s kind to them, of course, but they get on his nerves.”

  She made an attempt to secure Roly for Ward’s inspection, but the cat scampered away, afraid, no doubt, of the stranger.

  “Never mind; he’ll come back,” she said, laughing. “He doesn’t know you. And no wonder. I haven’t seen you since Philip was ill.”

  “That wasn’t very long ago,” he answered.

  “Two months.”

  “Well?—Do you call two months a long time?”

  “It’s seemed so to me.”

  Then, as if realising suddenly the interpretation of which her reply was capable, she blushed a fierce red, mercifully indistinct in the shadows.

  “To me,” he went on, either not noticing or else seeming not to notice, “the time has gone just like a busy day. I assure you this is the first opportunity I’ve had of leaving town even for a few hours. I wanted to see how Philip was getting on.”

  “He’s much better,” she replied. “And working tremendously hard. I suppose you are also. Still in Bethnal Green?”

  “Yes. Not at all a dull place to live in. A hundred thousand people all packed together within a few hundred acres, so one doesn’t lack company.”

  “It sounds better to me than Chassingford. I’d like to go and see it. Can I visit you some time?”

  He seemed to throw off the question without giving a direct answer. “Yes, you certainly ought to visit a place like Bethnal Green. It would teach you things.”

  She looked at him, quick to perceive his evasion of her question. “Philip…” he began, and she went on, as if glad of the lead he had given her: “Yes, I’ll fetch him. He’ll be in his study writing. Do you mind waiting here for a moment?”

  III

  She left him standing with his back to the fire, his overcoat still on, but loosely unbuttoned. And when she returned, a few minutes later, he was still in the same place, as if he had scarcely moved a muscle during the whole interval.

  But her scampering return roused him, and her face, when in the flickering fire-glow he could glimpse it, made him step forward and catch sharply at her bare arm. “What’s happened?” he said quickly. “You’re looking scared. What’s the matter?”

  She stared up at him and for a long moment could not speak. Through the tears that streamed from her eyes there gleamed a light that he had never seen in them before; she spoke at last with slow sobbing passion. “They’ve drowned my kitten,” she said, brokenly. “They’ve—drowned—Roly…What for?—Oh, why on earth should they have done it?—I can’t understand—I can’t understand…”

  She would have fallen had not he supported her, and after that she lay helplessly in his arms, her whole body rocking and shaking with sobs.

  Ward’s voice was calm but grim. “Who’s the ‘they’ you’re talking about?”

  “The gardeners.”

  “They drowned your kitten?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “Yes—why—why? That’s what I can’t understand…They wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Didn’t they know it was your kitten?”

  “Perhaps not…But why—why—?”

  “Look here.” He pushed her gently away from him and made her sit down in a chair. “I’ll go out and talk to those fellows. Then we shall see what’s happened.”

  He went out and returned in about ten minutes. His face was grimmer than ever then; he walked over to the window and stood looking out upon the grey wintry twilight for some time without speaking. Then he came towards the fire and began quietly: “This is a peculiar business. Those fellows wouldn’t tell me the truth at first. They said they’d merely done it because they thought it was a stray, and they always drown strays…But at last I got them to talk differently. And they said—it seems queer, I’ll admit—that Philip ordered them to drown the kitten.”

  “What!”

  She stood up with clenched fists and flashing eyes. “You say Philip ordered them to—”

  “Don’t shout!” he commanded. He put both his hands on her arms as if to calm her excitement. But she would not be calmed. “You say Philip—” she went on, in a furious torrent of words, and then stopped suddenly.

  For in the shadow of the doorway stood Philip himself, thin-faced and stooping.

  IV

  Ward was the first to speak. He began, briskly: “Good evening, Philip. Mrs. Monsell is rather upset because the gardeners have drowned her kitten. I went out to make inquiries and the men say that you gave them orders to do so. Surely that can’t be true?”

  Philip stepped forward and held out his hand to Ward. “Delighted to see you…What an extrao
rdinary thing for the men to say…My poor Stella…good heavens, why on earth should I give them such an order?”

  He tried to put his arm round her shoulders but she shrank away from him.

  He went on: “I must certainly enquire into this business. I can’t understand why they have done such a thing, and still less why they say I ordered them to. An absurd story…Doesn’t it seem so to you?” He looked at Ward.

  The latter did not reply, and Philip went on, shrugging his shoulders: “Well, anyway, I’ll go and see the men about it straight away. It’s a scandalous thing.”

  When he had gone Stella said: “What does it all mean? Can you understand it?”

  And Ward replied: “No, I can’t…I can’t…I can’t at all…”

  They stood together in silence, as if faced with the presence of something uncanny. The firelight stirred the silence with cracklings,’ and every now and then some beam or joist in the old house gave a faint creak, like a thing hardly alive. After a few moments Philip returned, and they noticed that he was very pale. But he addressed them calmly enough.

  “I’ve paid the men a week’s wages and told them to go,” he announced. “They must have had some unaccountable grudge against you, Stella. Anyhow, after the lies they told, it didn’t seem to me to be a case for leniency…Well now, don’t let’s make ourselves unhappy about it.” He turned to Ward. “You’ll stay to dinner, of course?”

  “Sorry, but I’ve an appointment in town again this evening. I just took the only opportunity I had of running up to see how you were.”

  “Oh, I’m much better. Don’t I look it?”

  He stepped into the firelight, revealing cheeks no longer pale but flushed with excitement.

  “I’m not sure that you do.” Ward gave him a curious glance, and then, with a final shrug of the shoulders, turned towards the door. “Well, I must get along to catch the train. Just a flying visit, that’s all…Good-bye…”

  Philip shook hands with him cordially and left him alone with Stella in the hail.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Monsell,” he said quietly, taking her hand.

  “It’s an excuse to get away, isn’t it?” she whispered: “You don’t want to stay?

  “Well? Can you blame me? Wouldn’t it be uncomfortable for all of us if I did stay?”

  “Perhaps…” She added softly: “But I shall be frightened when you’ve gone.”

  “Frightened? Why? Of what? Of whom?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I can feel something terrible growing up all around me. When I was a little girl my father used to beat me, and I was always frightened when he went towards the corner where he kept his stick. I feel like that now.”

  “Don’t be silly…” He gave her hand a quick, clumsy pressure, as if her words had stirred him suddenly and uncomfortably. “Don’t be silly…Good-bye. You’ll be all right.”

  “You don’t think so yourself,” she urged. “You’re full of doubts. I can feel that from your voice. You’re puzzled, aren’t you?”

  “Look here.” His tone was severe. “You know my address. Write to me if you want any help or advice. Don’t ‘phone, because I’m very rarely on the spot to answer. See? And now, go back and try not to fret about the kitten. I’m sure there must have been some mistake about it. Good-bye.”

  “You’re not sure,” she whispered, but he either did not hear or else pretended not to.

  She gave him a strange farewell smile and closed the heavy door after him.

  V

  That was in December.

  Upon a certain evening of the following February, Stella waited by the main bookstall at Liverpool Street Station. Her slim, girlish body was oddly at variance with her nervous pacings to and fro and glancings at the clock. She could hardly see it, however, for there was a thick fog outside, and sufficient had penetrated under the glass roof to obscure in a dull yellow haze everything more than a few yards off.

  As the minute-hand jerked itself further from the position of seven o’clock she became more and more restless, peering through the gloom at strangers who passed by, and continually walking the length of the bookstall and back again.

  She waited till a few minutes to eight and then was on the point of going away when a tall, heavily-coated figure approached her and touched her lightly on the arm.

  “Mrs. Monsell.”

  “Doctor Ward.”

  They looked at each other with puzzled recognition, as if expectant of some explanation.

  He began: “Sorry I’m late. The fog at Bethnal Green is so bad that I feared I shouldn’t get here at all.”

  She answered: “And if you hadn’t, I think—I really mean this—I think I should have gone out and killed myself.”

  He clutched quickly at her arm. “Oh, nonsense. You mustn’t talk like that. Come now, let’s go somewhere out of this fog. How are things getting on at Chassingford—all right, I suppose so—It’s over two months since I saw or heard from you—”

  She interrupted him excitedly. “You didn’t get any of my letters, then?”

  “Letters?” He stared at her in blank astonishment. “Certainly not. I never received any letters until the one this morning. Did you write before that?”

  “I can see I shall have to tell you quite a lot,” she said, with suddenly achieved calmness. “Where can we go? Somewhere where we shan’t be seen. Philip, of course, doesn’t know I’ve come.”

  “Why not?”

  His voice, grown stern, had the effect of making her cry softly. “Please be kind to me,” she whispered. “Until I’ve told you everything, at any rate. Please don’t be cross with me for anything I’ve done. Not for anything.”

  “I didn’t mean to be unkind,” he answered gruffly. And there in the thick evening fog, as completely isolated from the rest of the world as if they had been on a lonely moorland instead of on a busy railway platform, he slipped his arm protectingly round her waist.

  VI

  They managed to reach a small café in Broad Street—not the kind they would have ordinarily have chosen, but a welcome shelter on such a night. Its red plush seats and gilt-framed mirrors and odour of steak and onions combined to give an atmosphere of good cheer if not of good taste. Stella, however, insisted that she was not hungry, so Ward ordered tea and cakes, after choosing a seat in the least blatantly conspicuous corner of the establishment.

  “Now,” he began, when the greasy-looking, white-aproned waiter had taken their order. “Please remember that I’m completely in the dark. Tell me everything from the beginning. You say you wrote me letters. How many?”

  “Five,” she answered. “And I got no answer to any of them. So at last I decided I’d see you in person. And when you didn’t come I thought—I thought—”

  “Well?”

  “I thought of walking on to the Embankment and throwing myself over.”

  “Now, now—” He stared at her acutely for a moment, and then added quietly, almost professionally: “It’s quiet evident you’re in a highly nervous condition. Will you please tell me exactly what’s made you so. I give you my solemn word I will help you all I can. There!”

  The waiter appeared with the tea, and while he laid it on the table Stella stared vacantly about her. They were sitting next to a window, not one fronting Broad Street, but a smaller one that overlooked some side entry or warehouse yard. As soon as the waiter had gone, Stella leaned forward excitedly across the table and whispered: “A man put his face to the window just now and looked at us. He did! I saw him!—While the waiter was laying the tea things…And I saw him before on the platform while I was waiting for you!—Oh—my God—my God—I’ve been followed!”

  She almost collapsed, spilling her tea into the saucer and attracting the curious attention of the waiter. Ward seized her wrist in a grip that must have hurt. “Stop it!” he cried, in a loud whisper. “You’re a silly girl—to frighten yourself like that. Your nerves are all unstrung. It’s absurd—how could anybody—how should anybody want to follow you—on
such a night, as well? Here, drink some tea…I’ll send you a tonic to-morrow morning…”

  Perhaps the pain in her wrist where he had held her exercised a calming effect. She began to talk very slowly and quietly, drinking her tea in gulps every now and then. “It would be Philip who had sent somebody to follow me,” she said. “You don’t understand Philip. He’s different since you knew him. And he frightens me.”

  “Frightens you? How?”

  “The things he does…The house itself frightens me. I’m so lonely in it…And he hardly ever speaks to me. But he goes walking about so softly and mysteriously, and sometimes in the middle of the night I hear his footsteps pacing about the rooms…And one night…I sleep in one of the top rooms and there’s a big wardrobe at the side of my bed. It was bright moonlight and I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake for hours, and then must have gone to sleep for a while and wakened again. I remember opening my eyes and wondering for the moment if the moonlight were dawn. On one side of the bed, as I told you, is the wardrobe, and on the other there’s a full-length cheval-glass. Now—now—” her voice became slightly unsteady—“I could see the wardrobe door through the mirror…You understand…And I saw—I saw the door open slowly and a man stepped out of it.”

  “Well? Being a brave little woman you immediately got out of bed, tackled him, gave the alarm, and sent for the police. Isn’t that right?”

  “Don’t you be silly,” she said scathingly. “It wasn’t a burglar. It was Philip. He just walked quietly to the bedroom door and went out…But it wasn’t what he did; it was the way he looked—his face…It was all twisted…”

  The danger light was in her eyes again, and he put a calming hand over her wrist. “Yes. I understand. Now I don’t want you to tell me any more about that. Lock your bedroom door in future. That’s a very simple remedy.’