by George Moore
‘Back! I feel like never coming back; I’ve seen about enough of this.’
‘Oh, Bill, don’t say that. If you knew how ill I am; how miserable I feel.’
He heard her throw herself back on the bed; he heard her scream as he closed the door, and he went downstairs thinking: ‘Well, if she does do for herself it’s her own look-out. I ain’t obliged to lock up everything. Besides, I can stand no more of it. We shall be turned out of that crib to-morrow.’... He quickened his pace, and to rid himself of unpleasant thoughts, he forced himself to notice the morning’s aspect of the town.
He wondered whether the day would turn out wet or dry. The tall Embankment buildings showed like shadows on the morning sky, and in the middle of the brown river little whiffs of fog trailed along the edges of the barges. The pavement echoed with the clink of hob-nails, and Dale bade a cheery good morning to the gangs of workmen hurrying to catch their early train. His work was in Westminster; there was no need for him to hurry, so he stopped, and leaning on the parapet, looked out on the river. When he left the razors on the table it seemed to him that he was merely forgetting to lock them up. But he was already beginning to find that he could no longer see the matter in so easy a light. He turned from the river and some of its gloom seemed to have caught on his face, and the cut he had given himself while shaving had opened afresh, and it was bleeding when he laid his hand on the ladder and mounted the scaffolding. The blood frightened him: it seemed to him like a warning and a sign; his mates, who knew of his wife’s failing, whispered, ‘Poor Bill, she’s been a-knocking of him about again. He stands it like a hangel; if she was my wife I’d have strangled her long ago.’
Dale was popular on every scaffolding he had ever worked on. His voice was cheery and his laughter hearty. He knew dozens of songs and his singing made the time pass pleasantly. So when his face was overcast his mates cursed Mrs Dale for their own sakes. He sang no song that morning, nor did he whistle or speak or notice the jests with which his mates sought to divert his thoughts from his home troubles. In a moody silence he worked steadily at the chimney he was building. When he had done a couple of hours’ work he laid down his trowel, and leaning against one of the scaffolding poles he looked into the void of the crowded street. The hauntings of his wife’s gashed neck were too much for him.
‘This is about the time,’ he thought, ‘she’ll be getting out of bed, and once she sees them razors she’ll go for them at once.’ Then whether he looked up or down he could see nothing but running blood. The white plaster he had taken from the board, and that was now drying in the chimney-stack, seemed to have a faint reddish tinge. There seemed to be red in the street below, on the necks of the passers by, and the white clouds sailing past seemed no longer white. His thoughts paused and turned suddenly in a different direction. Whether she was alive or dead his fate was equally wretched. If she were alive he would find her in some public-house, and would take her back amid the jeers of the neighbourhood, as he had done last night. It was beastly. He had borne with her as long as he could; he could put up with her no longer, and still less with the idea that he had murdered her. ‘There isn’t much difference,’ he thought, ‘between putting a razor into a drunken woman’s hand and cutting her throat from ear to ear.’ Escape, whether from sight of her, dead or alive, was necessary, and the way of escape lay down there. He wouldn’t feel it; it would be all over in a moment. A giddy, irresistible impulse to throw himself over besieged his brain.
‘What is it, Dale? not feeling well?’ said the foreman. ‘Come, pull yourself together and follow Smith down the ladder. There’s work for you below.’
Dale stared hard at the foreman. He wondered if he had guessed what was passing in his mind, or if the interruption had been entirely accidental. However, he followed Smith down the ladder, and when they got into the foundation he said - ‘I’m in a bit of trouble, Sir; could you spare me for an hour or two? - I dare say I could be back in less.’
‘We are very behind-hand, and I expect the contractor round to-morrow. I was thinking of asking you if you’d like to do some overtime. You live close by; you can slip round during the dinner-hour.’ Dale did not dare to leave his work without leave; work was scarce, and if he fell out of employment he mightn’t get any again. So once more he tried to stifle his conscience with the reflection that if she cut her throat it was her own look-out. The wall he was building ran up at a prodigious rate; the hodman could hardly keep him supplied with bricks, and his mates said, ‘What is Bill a-getting at? Do ’e want to run up that ’ere ten foot of wall before the dinner-hour?’ Dale had resolved to slip round to see how she was getting on, and he was out of the building almost before the clock had finished striking; but he was followed by three or four of his mates. They knew of his trouble; he must think no more about it, but come along with them. Fearing troublesome questions if he refused, Bill went with them, and a couple of tankards of strong ale soon made him forget his wife. The clock struck one, and, very pleased with themselves, Bill’s mates brought him back to work as jolly as a sand-boy. Never, they said, did Bill sing better than he had done that afternoon.
It was not until about three or four o’clock that he began to look sad again. For as the fumes of the beer began to evaporate, his conscience began to take hold of him: his regret grew deeper, until at last it overpowered him, and he covered his face in his hands, unable to restrain his tears. She was gone from him; he would never see her again. He had begun to remember the days of his courtship. She was a pretty girl then, not unlike Annie, only not quite so tall; the same nose and the same look in the eyes. He thought of the evenings they spent sitting side by side, holding each other’s hands, in the gardens near the Embankment. It was there that they had planned out their future. How she used to talk, to be sure, about the home they would have. But things hadn’t planned out as he had expected. He thought of the evenings they had spent together at the theatre. She used to remember the plays they saw wonderful well, near as well as Annie. He had been twice to the theatre with Annie - her mother had had tickets given her, and had asked him to come with them. Coming back he had had Annie all to himself, Mrs Temple having met a friend on the way home. What a nice good girl she was! What a good wife she’d make! What a nice, clean, comfortable home she’d keep for a man! It would be pleasure to come back to a home that she had the looking after. He had always liked talking to her, and she had always had a nice, civil, pleasant word to say when he met her; a pretty girl, too, not unlike what Liz used to be. Poor Liz, it wasn’t her fault; she couldn’t help it. He found excuses for her; the wrong she had done him began to appear trivial and insignificant. Again he threw himself into his work, and hardly ceased to call to his hodman until work-time was done. His mates gathered up their tools, and swinging their baskets over their shoulders they left the building in gangs, hurrying to catch their trains. Two of his pals took Bill by the arm, but he asked them to let him be. They looked at him suspiciously, and then left him. Bill returned home alone along the Embankment. The twilight was just beginning to gather, and was fashioning the city and its river into a mystery of mist and starry light. Bill watched the brown tumbling water, hardly thinking at all, his mind crossed every now and then with a sensation of funeral flowers, and a quiet grave which he would not fail to visit. He was infinitely sad, and yet without the desire of suicide which had possessed him in the morning. Poor dear Liz, with all her faults, she was gone from him for ever. There couldn’t be much doubt about it; he knew her; she had gone and done it. Then suddenly a strange thought tumbled into his mind - he might be accused of murder. He was the last person who saw her alive. There had been a dispute overnight, and she had accused him of wanting to get rid of her, so that he might marry Annie Temple. He turned away from the Embankment and walked towards Westminster. But he had not taken many steps before he stopped. He remembered that flight was impossible. Flight would be taken as proof of his guilt. He saw his name on the newspaper placards, he felt the handcuff on his wris
ts, he was alone in the prison-cell, he stood in the crowded law-court amid the mummery of the law and the cruel curiosity of visitors. None would pity him, unless perhaps Annie. Her name would be mixed up in this ugly business. Then Bill experienced every abject agony of terror. He trembled like a caught animal; paralysed with fear he stood, quite unable to understand the infinite complexities of the net into which a simple unpremeditated act had precipitated him. Regret for the loss of his wife had given way in the bitter stress of personal fear, and for an hour he remained on the Embankment in a sort of stupor, unable either to return or to fly from home. At last he remembered that every hour’s delay would tell against him at the inquest. ‘Those lawyer-chaps are very clever in making much out of little things, and if he didn’t take care he’d swing for it.’ He must return at once to Lincoln-lane. But he had not gone very far before he stopped - he could not overcome the horror that the half-severed neck caused him, and the fear of an accusation of murder being preferred against him grew intolerably acute. Then he prayed that she had not seen the razors, that she had not killed herself, and that if she had, she had not forgotten to leave behind some paper absolving him of share in her death. He stopped to reflect on her character. She was a good sort when not in drink; kind-hearted, but a little thoughtless - and yet he didn’t know -
As he approached the lane his fears augmented, and he looked eagerly for some sign that would tell him the news. The doorsteps were as usual filled with children. Mrs Temple was coming from the mangling room with a basket of clothes. The moment she saw him she said - ‘What have you done with your wife, we haven’t seen her all day?’ He felt the irrevocable had happened. ‘Why, you’re as pale as a ghost, Mr Dale.’
‘I pale? Not I!’ He felt that he must not give himself away, but his tongue clove to his mouth. Speech seemed impossible, the words caught in his throat. It was with difficulty that he got them out at last.
‘Why, what’s happened? What about my wife. Why do you ask what I have done with her?’
‘Only because we haven’t seen her all day. We thought she might have gone after you.’
‘No, she ain’t been after me to-day.’
‘Well, we don’t know where she is; her door’s locked. We was up there about a couple of hours ago, and we hammered, fearing that something had gone wrong, but we couldn’t get in.’
‘That’s odd. I left her this morning - the drink had made her a bit ill. I dare say you heard her; you know the way she carries on after a drink?’
‘No, I didn’t hear her; maybe the others did. She was very drunk last night; we was all very sorry for you. A terrible trial a wife like that is to a man.’
‘As long as I don’t grumble I don’t see what affair it is of other folk. I’m very fond of my wife. If she do take a drop too much sometimes, who is it that don’t - none in this lane.’
‘If that’s the way you’re going to take it when we says we is sorry for you - good evening.’
‘Stop, Mrs Temple; one moment. You said that you had hammered at the door and wasn’t able to get in. Do ye mind coming up with me?’
‘What do you want me to go up with you for?’
Dale felt that he was giving himself away, but he couldn’t help it now; words came faster than his thoughts, and he begged Mrs Temple to lay her basket in the doorway and go up with him. Her round, fat, kindly face was full of compassion for her unfortunate neighbour. She liked him better for having taken his wife’s part, and she put down her basket and went upstairs with him. He did not hear what Mrs Temple was saying; his heart was dead within him, and he thought only of the spectacle that would meet his eyes when they got the door open. Not many knocks or words were wasted; he put forth his shoulder and burst the door. They went in, and he saw what he had seen many times during the day - his wife huddled up in the right corner. He did not dare go near her; it seemed to him that if he were to touch her that the head would roll from the shoulders. He knew that Mrs Temple stood waiting for him to go to his wife, but he could not go. Then he saw a piece of paper on the floor, and he doubted not that these were her last words to him - her farewell. He felt that he would give the whole world to have her back again, and when he went forward to pick up the paper he felt that he had never really loved her till now, but as he examined it his face changed expression, and he said to Mrs Temple -
‘It’s only a pawn-ticket. She’s gone and pawned the razors.
I thought she was dead, and had written me a word of good-bye. I left the razors out this morning, and all the day I’ve been thinking that she would make away with herself. I couldn’t get through my work with thinking how I should find her in that corner covered with blood, and all through my fault.’
‘And she’s gone and pawned the razors,’ said Mrs Temple, looking at the ticket which he held to her, ‘and she has got drunk on what they gave her on them. They must have been good ones. She’s ten times worse than she was last night.’
‘And I was thinking all day that I had as good as murdered her.’
‘Well, that’s about the best bit I’ve heard this long while! You breaking your heart, fit to throw yourself from the scaffolding! Well, that is -’ and Mrs Temple’s fat body shook with laughter.
‘You wouldn’t laugh if she lay there with her throat cut, would you? Well, I don’t see that is much better as it is. She’s a nice sort of wife to help a man through life, and this is a nice sort of room to live in. A nice sort of ‘ome that a man can be ‘appy and comfortable in, ain’t it? It looks uncommon cheerful, and it smells sweet, don’t it?’
She heard him say, ‘A real drunkard’s ‘ome,’ as she went out - and that just about what it was. He was deserving of something better, but it was always the way. The good men get the bad wives, and the bad wives get the good husbands. She’d like to see Annie married to such a man. She was sorry she laughed at him, but it was that funny, say what you will. Mrs Temple leaned against the wall and held her sides, and when she related what had happened in the mangling room the house shook with laughter. The joke was clearly to the taste of the neighbourhood, and Dale knew that in a few minutes the whole street would be in roars. He felt in his pockets; he had a few coppers; what should he do, go and get drunk or throw himself into the Thames?
Several girls came out to meet him in the passage, and they besieged him with jeering inquiry. What did he feel like all day, as if he would like to chuck his little self over the scaffolding? The poor dear lying there with her throat cut, whereas she had just popped the razors and got drunk again. They could hardly speak for laughing.
Annie stood apart, and Bill saw that there were tears in her eyes. He held out his hands to her; they grasped each other’s hands, their souls looked out of their eyes. Then he rushed out of the house without a word. Afterwards Annie regretted that she had not obeyed her instinct and followed him. But it was all so sudden; fate had decided too quickly.
AN EPISODE IN BACHELOR LIFE
MR BRYANT WAS tall, slim, and not many years over thirty; his features were regular, but no one had ever mentioned him as a good-looking man. He lived with his mother in Bryapston Square, but he had chambers in Norman’s Inn, where he wrote waltzes, received his friends, and practised woodcarving.
The service in Norman’s Inn was performed by a retinue of maidservants, working under the order of the porter and his wife; but these girls were idle, dirty, and slovenly: the porter’s wife was an execrable cook, and Mr Bryant was very particular about what he ate, and could not bear the slightest speck of dust on the numerous knick-knacks that filled his sitting-room. So, after many complaints, he resolved to have a servant of his own. His mother had procured him one Clara Thompson, from King Edward’s School, a young girl just turned seventeen, pale-complexioned, delicate features, and blue eyes, which seemed to tell of a delicate, sentimental nature.
She stood now watching Mr Bryant eat his breakfast. He did not require her service, and wondered why she lingered.
‘I’m thinking of leaving
, Sir. If you don’t mind, I should like to go at the end of the week.’
Mr Bryant looked up, surprised. ‘Why do you want to leave, Clara?’
She told him she did not like Norman’s Inn, and little by little he drew the story of her trouble from her. The porter’s nephew had come to take the watchman’s place until the old soldier returned from the hospital. Almost from the first he had begun to plague her with his attentions. Last week Fanny had asked her to come to the Turk’s Head, a music-hall at the other end of the lane. Harry had sat with his arm round Fanny the whole time, and Mr Stokes’s nephew had put his hand on her knee. She could,’t get away from him, and didn’t want to make a fuss. At last she had to get up, but Harry had pulled her back and told her to drink some beer. The beer was poison; she thought they must have put something in it; she had only had a mouthful, and that made her feel quite giddy.
‘And the singing you heard at the Turk’s Head?’ asked Mr Bryant.
‘It wasn’t very nice, Sir; but it wasn’t quite so bad as what goes on in the kitchen of an evening when all the girls are there. I do all I can, Sir, to keep out of his way, but he follows me down to the kitchen and kisses me by force. The others only laugh at me, and I’m insulted because I won’t dance with him.’
‘But what are these dances like?’
‘Oh, Sir! I can’t tell you, Sir! I try to see as little of it as I can. The other evening I said I’d stop there no longer, and walked up and down the inn until bedtime. That’s how I got my cold.’
‘I don’t like to lose you, Clara. I can speak to Mr Stokes, and tell him that you must be let alone.’
‘Oh, no, Sir! don’t do that - it would only set them more than ever against me. It isn’t for me to find fault, but I’m not used to such company - it was so different in the school.’ Tears started to her eyes; she turned aside to hide them.
