The Woman at The Door

by Warwick Deeping

“Mustn’t stand there. I think some breakfast is the thing of the moment. Let’s go down.”

  She suffered him to draw her away from the window, and in surrendering for the moment she was conscious of the bitter-sweetness of such surrender. But—how weak of her! He was still holding her gently by the arm. He was looking down at her feet.

  “No shoes.”

  She too glanced at her stockinged feet.

  “It was so silly of me——.”

  “Hardly that.”

  She felt compelled to glance up at his face. Almost, there was a smile on it, a gleam of satisfaction. Was he thinking that she could not walk to Brandon without shoes?

  “That’s another problem, my dear. I can lend you slippers, but would they stay on?”

  “I could try.”

  “As a matter of fact they are downstairs. We’ll try them.”

  He did not let go her arm until they were in the room below. It was she who noticed that the kettle was boiling over; he had forgotten that he had left it on the lighted stove. She made a movement towards the oil stove, the instinctive reaction of a woman who had had to do things for herself, but he warned her away.

  “My job. You’ll get scalded.”

  He picked up a poker and inserting it under the handle lifted the spluttering vessel from the stove.

  “One forgets things in a crisis. Wait a moment, here are the slippers. Pretty monstrous. Well, try.”

  He handed her the slippers, old red leather sabots in which her small feet floated. He watched her put them on.

  “The crockery is in the cupboard. We had better make use of the boiling water. Excuse me a moment.”

  He went out, and making sure that the green door was locked, he withdrew the key and put it in his pocket.

  Those slippers of his might have been the two clowns of the show, but she shuffled about in them, with her Cassandra eyes looking at cups and saucers as though they were the trappings of tragedy. Luce had lit the stove’s second burner, and collected a couple of eggs from a paper bag. Two boiled eggs! As he dipped a saucepan into a bucket he found himself challenged by a crowd of material factors, for if the tower was to stand a siege, it would have to be provisioned for a garrison of two. Yes, and food was but a part of the problem. How was she to be provided with shoes, a hat, all the essential feminine accessories? But was he not assuming that the situation was too completely in his hands?

  He dropped the two eggs into the saucepan and glanced at the clock.

  “Like yours hard or soft?”

  What a question at such a moment, but she met it with a seriousness that might have associated itself with the solemnity of a credo. Did she prefer a hard-boiled egg? Did she believe in God?

  “Not too hard.”

  He had replaced the kettle on the stove, and she came forward with the brown teapot in her hands.

  “Shall I warm it?”

  “Yes, I think we should.”

  He heard his secret self exclaiming, “Strangest of strange meals!” And yet, to both of them, it was a mute, and pregnant interlude, a correlation of consciousnesses, almost mystical, yet starkly simple. She ate as though being willed to it by her companion, though he could divine the spirit of her busy with other food. What next? Would she again insist upon surrender? Probably. And he, consuming bread and butter and marmalade, and aware of her poignant pallor and tragic eyes, was becoming more and more the rebel. No, he was not going to let her be taken.

  2

  Standing by the window he filled and lit a pipe, and the silence between them hung on the lip of circumstance like water brimming in a bowl. Both of them were sensitives, gentle and honest creatures, essentially ungreedy, capable of great generosities. That they should have found themselves involved together in this human tangle was—just—tragedy. Irony is for lesser imbroglios, nor was Rachel Ballard capable of irony.

  She was the first to speak, sitting there with her hands in her lap, her eyes looking at the breakfast table as though its material objects did not exist for her at the moment.

  “You were not serious, were you?”

  “Utterly.”

  She gave him a sudden tragic look.

  “But, my dear, think.”

  “I have been doing that—for hours.”

  “But don’t you see?”

  “Many things.”

  “But you can’t. It is not possible. Don’t you understand that it would mean your being involved?”

  “O, yes, but that makes no difference.”

  “My dear, it must.”

  His blue eyes were set in a stare. He seemed to be biting at the stem of his pipe. She saw the bowl of it disappear into the hollow of a big fist.

  “Listen,—Rachel. Society has always demanded victims. Why should you be one of the victims, because you were caught in a sordid, human tangle not of your own making. That’s how I look at it, my dear. Justice isn’t always justice; it’s just—revenge—dressed up in a wig and robes. Why should society be allowed to perpetrate a double wrong?”

  “My dear!”

  “Wait. I challenge society’s right to torture you, for shutting up is torture, because in a moment of fear and of horror—you——. Yes,—I want that horror forgotten. Even a dog is allowed his bite, and man can be more merciful to a dog than to his neighbour. I have never been much of an admirer of man’s justice. It’s too mechanical, too much concerned with putting the real human problem away in a cupboard and getting back to its dinner. And the man who has refused to conform has always been nailed on a cross, or hanged, or shut up in a prison. I confess that I have always conformed—to a point, for the sake of one’s personal peace, and because nothing had drawn blood from me. Just as we English did not fight in the war as the Serbs fought, because there was no real blood rage or bitterness in us. But this—is different.”

  She made a movement as though to rise from her chair.

  “It can’t be. You are mad, dear.”

  “Very well, call it madness.”

  “But till last night, you and I——”

  “Strangers,—were we? And yet—perhaps—nearer to each other than either of us knew. I’m not going to let them take you, if I can help it.”

  She was standing now.

  “No, my dear, no. Let me go. I’ll give you anything, anything you want,—but let me go.”

  She was aware of him putting his pipe down on the window-sill. He came round the table to her, and laid his big hands gently on her shoulders.

  “My dear, you must not say such things. Look at me, Rachel. What did you say just now? That you would give. My dear, is the thing that has happened to me no better than that? Look at me.”

  “Yes,—John.”

  “And don’t tremble so, child. This business is in my hands now.”

  He saw her eyes close.

  “Hold me,—just for one moment, dear.”

  He put his arms round her.

  “Don’t tremble.”

  “O, my dear, how good you are. I wish——.”

  “What do you wish?”

  “John, when I looked out of the window this morning everything seemed so beautiful, sunlight and green leaves and peace. And I thought—“What a beautiful clean world, and here—I have this horror in me.” It seemed so cruel, my dear, that I could not enjoy one beautiful day.”

  “And you wish—for——?”

  “Just one day. It would not matter—to them, would it? They need never know I have been here.”

  Her eyes were still closed, and he put his lips to her forehead.

  “You shall have that day.”

  The lover in him dissembled. He was to use all his strength and cunning to win for her many such days.

  3

  There was method in his madness.

  “I want you to stand by the table, Rachel. You will understand—in a moment.”

  He unlocked the green door and went out and down into the garden. The boundary fence was some fifty yards from the tower, and he walked as
far as the fence, and faced about. He had raised the lower sash of the window before leaving her posted by the table, for he wanted to discover whether she would be visible to anyone standing by the fence. She was wearing black, and her figure could not be distinguished, but he could make out the white oval of her face.

  He returned to the tower. She was still standing where he had placed her.

  “I could just see your face. I’m not going to rig up any sort of screen. It might be too obvious.”

  His solution of the problem was a very simple one. He drove two nails into the walls, and stretched a length of stout string between them to mark the danger line. It left her two-thirds of the room to move about in.

  “That will keep you from—forgetting.”

  For the first time he smiled at her.

  “Now, we’ll put all the furniture in the safety zone. That’s it. The table two feet back. The stove had better stand by the fireplace. I’m the only one who can be allowed in no man’s land. On the next floor you will be pretty safe, unless you go and stand at the window.”

  She had helped him to move the table and the stove, nor did she question this dressing of the stage. She had chosen to grant herself a day’s reprieve, and she realized the need for secrecy. No one must know that she had passed a whole day in the tower.

  “Can I wash up, John?”

  “Want to?”

  “Yes.”

  He understood her desire to do things. In the doing of simple things there is peace, and perhaps he divined the inward meaning of her mood. This was to be her own, intimate day, and the work of her hands might be symbolical, but he was not sufficiently the trousered egoist to reflect that she might find pleasure in doing things for him.

  “I’ll leave you in charge.”

  Was he going out? He was, but though she felt herself suddenly afraid of being left alone, she did not question his purpose.

  “If anyone should come?”

  “The door will be locked. Keep absolutely still. And if you feel—that there is any danger, creep up the stairs.”

  “Will you be long?”

  “Perhaps—an hour.”

  She saw him collect a jug from the cupboard. He glanced at the clock, took his hat from a peg, turned and smiled at her.

  “Not afraid?”

  “Just a little, John.”

  “There’s a reason for this, my dear, or I wouldn’t go. I won’t leave you longer than I can help.”

  Did she guess that he was going to the farm? She did, and though something shuddered in her, she did not ask for his reasons. This illusion of forgetting! Standing close to the string that he had stretched across the room, she watched him disappear into the woods, and when he was no longer visible her thoughts followed him. She ran the tips of her fingers along the string. His reasons for this precaution? Had he been thinking of her or of himself? Of her, most certainly. Then, why this string? If her ultimate surrender had been agreed upon, then how could the secrecy of her presence here be of such profound importance? Would it matter if she was seen? That he had given her shelter for a few hours could hardly involve him in her tragedy. She would be able to say, “I was almost out of my senses. I wanted to tell someone. I went to the Signal Tower and told Mr. Luce. He gave me shelter for the night. How could I have gone back to that house?”

  Her fingers played along that string. What was its ultimate significance? Had he been humouring her when he had agreed to one day’s reprieve? But she could not suffer him to become entangled in her tragedy. What would be said? That he had been her lover, that he had been interested in her husband’s death? How horrible! She must take care to safeguard him; she must not stay too long here.

  What if she went now, in his absence? Would it be easier for both of them? The inspiration carried her into the vestibule; she put her fingers to the handle and turned it. The door was locked. She remembered then that the window was ten feet or more above the ground.

  Her impulse died away, or rather—she became absorbed in wondering about his purpose. Gould he be so mad as to think that he could save her from the consequences of that fatal moment? And why——? She pressed her hands to her breasts. Dear, exquisite madness, but she would not suffer him to be mad in that way. When he returned she would tell him that she had made up her mind; she would ask him to go with her to Brandon. Meanwhile, the breakfast table and its crockery became a reality. She had promised to wash up those things. It was the last thing she would do for him; it would be one of her memories.

  4

  Luce had come within a furlong of the farm lane when he saw something lying in the middle of the path. The track curved here, and Luce came upon that something unexpectedly, a brown animal crouching in the shadow of a thorn tree. Peter, her dog!

  The beast had his front legs tucked under him. He was breathing in little jerks like a creature whose ribs had been crushed in. Obviously, he had dragged himself along the path, to lie down and die here. His filmy eyes looked up at the man; he whimpered.

  More tragedy! Had some strange instinct driven the dog to try and follow his mistress—but how had Peter known that she had taken this path? Luce put his jug down on the ground and bent over the animal. He spoke to him very gently. He touched the dog’s head.

  “Poor old man, poor old Peter.”

  The dog licked his hand.

  What was he to do? Leave the dog to die here? That would be both heartless and short-sighted, in that Peter’s body might be found here on the way to the tower. Carry the dog down to the farm and pretend that he did not know to whom Peter belonged? But then he would have to say where he had found the dog. Should he take Peter to his mistress? More anguish for Rachel! And yet he had a feeling that it was the most wise and human thing to do, and that though the dying dog would bring pain to her, she would understand his compassion and thank him for it.

  Yes, the dog should go to the tower and Luce took off his coat, spread it, and very gently lifted the dog on to it. Peter made a little moaning, but there was no growl of resentful pain. Luce spoke to him in a low voice. He wrapped the coat round the dog, and lifting him very carefully, stood for a moment looking into the woods. If he were seen carrying her dog to the tower the inference might be fatal, but he saw nothing but tree trunks and young fern and sun-splashed foliage.

  He was within sight of the tower when the thing in his arms began to struggle. The dog’s legs moved spasmodically. Luce paused in his stride, looked at the dog’s filmy eyes, and then hurried on. Well, if the poor beast was dying——. And it seemed to him that there was a mute appeal in the dog’s eyes. When he reached the steps, he had to hold Peter in one arm, while he felt for the key in his pocket.

  Should he let her see this other victim of a man’s brute rage? But she had heard the key turning in the lock, and he saw her standing in the other doorway when he pushed the green door open.

  Her eyes were fixed on the bundle in his arms. She stood very still, her eyes big and black.

  “I’m sorry, dear.”

  “Peter!”

  “Yes, I found him down there. Yes,—I’m afraid——.”

  He pushed the green door to with a foot.

  “No, let me put him down. It’s kinder.”

  She moved back quickly into the room, and pushed one of the basket chairs forward, and Luce laid the dog and his coat on the cushion. She was down on her knees by the chair. She put her face close to the dog’s.

  “O,—Peter!”

  The dog struggled to raise his head. A tongue came out and licked her face. Then, his head fell back.

  5

  It was as though some new mood had entered into her when she rose from her knees. She stood there looking down at the dead dog. His little tragedy was other than her own, and with his passing she too had heard within herself a cry of anger and revolt. Why should such things happen? And why, because of one man’s brutality, should she find the hand of Man upon her shoulder, demanding payment of the blood fee?

  “I’m glad y
ou brought him here.”

  He said, “I was afraid it would hurt you, and yet—it would have hurt you more if I had left him. He must have been trying to get to you.”

  She was looking through the window at the sunlight on the trees.

  “Thank you, John. I suppose we are sentimental people, but a dog does grow into one’s life. And Peter had one queer prejudice.”

  “I have many.”

  “He never would say good-bye. If I had to go out and leave him, he used to walk off into a corner of his own. But—I’m glad—we said good-bye.”

  It struck him that her emotion had discovered a new quality in itself. She had discarded his red slippers and stood up more solidly on her stockinged feet. He would have said that she looked less resigned and helpless.

  “But, you haven’t finished, John.”

  “No.”

  He looked at her questioningly, and she understood.

  “You can leave him here. You’ll bury him for me, presently?”

  “Where would you like him buried?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “It had better be in the woods. I can spread some leaf-mould over the place. Yes, after dark.”

  He was conscious of watching her face. Would she consent to this burial by starlight in some place where the dog’s body would leave no clue? She accepted his choice.

  “Yes, I think that will please me.”

  “Good.”

  He turned to go, but she made a sudden movement.

  “You’ll need your coat, John.”

  She drew it from under the dead dog’s body, and held it out to him, and without a word he put it on.

  X

  Luce found himself back at the spot where he had left the milk-jug. He collected it, and with a definite conception of the pattern he proposed to produce in his own space-time scheme, he went on and down towards the lane. Chiefly, he was conscious of the morning’s stillness, of the freshness of the rain-soaked earth, and of the impersonal and passive splendour of the great trees. Did they quiver a leaf over any human happening? But he had an inward eye on the clock. He judged it to be the hour for the country world to set forth upon its affairs, unlock stable doors and water horses, and get ready for the day’s work.