by James Hanley
"I am not afraid."
"We will rest for a moment at the top of the stairs," Dr. Parette said. "He is on the second floor. It is a small room, and he is quite alone, since he is harmless, and very quiet. Nobody will bother him and he will bother nobody. When you go in you will see a man seated in a chair. There is nothing to fear. I will go in and speak to him, you will wait a moment at the door. When I come out you may go in. We are hoping he will recognise you, since he recognises nobody else."
They climbed again.
"To what blackness am I walking?" the old woman asked herself, "to see the ruin of a life, the end of my name. I pray to God he does not recognise me."
She hesitated a moment on the stair, and he waited for her.
She saw him suddenly as child, puling, cradle snug.
"After that nothing is safe."
She went on.
"God has drawn down the blind. That is only just. If there is nothing inside that head but the tallest ship and the roar of the sea then I am thankful, for thus the horror is shut out, and my day's end will be hidden and secret in me. Even now it is hard to believe."
They had reached the door.
"A moment," Dr. Parette said.
She heard him speak through the door.
"Captain Marius, a visitor has come to see you."
A moment's silence and then the louder voice. "Your mother is here."
She wanted to hear this voice, she dreaded to hear it. She leaned against the door. The doctor went in. She waited. When he came out again he drew the door after him but did not close it.
"It is as I said. He has been like that this past hour. Something out there attracts him, what we do not know. There is a chair behind the door. Sit there, but do not speak for a minute or two. He will hear you, and when he turns round you will tell him who you are."
Madame Marius looked at the doctor.
"If I were not to see him, perhaps it would be for the best," she said.
"Madame Marius. It would be humble for you to go in." Gently he pushed her through the door.
He closed it so quietly that she would never have heard it.
He sensed her fear, he even saw her hand trembling on the back of the chair. He listened.
"They've even dressed him in his Captain's suit," she said.
Marius, seated in the chair was slumped in such a way as to give the body an appearance of being boneless. Looking at him she saw her husband and her son.
"Look at the arm that struck, hanging at his side like the dead branch of a tree. Look at the length of him, fallen. How early he seemed to smell the gutter, Look at his life. Look at the Captain."
Mumbling, she lowered her head, and when she raised it again he was looking at her, he had turned round in his chair. Madame Marius buried her face in her hands.
"And he sat high, and imperious and alone in his high tower," the words came suddenly into her mind, moved across it, weighted as stones.
"I will go to him," she thought, "I will go to him," she said, willing herself to rise, to drag clear of the chair, and slowly she went towards her son.
He looked at her as she approached, but seeing his eyes, she realized that he would not know who this person was. She stood still, looking down at him.
"It is another person," she thought, "I do not know this man."
She spoke. "Who are you?"
His smile frightened her and she drew back a little.
"Lucy," Marius said, making to rise, not rising, falling back again.
"Who am I?"
"Lucy," Marius said.
She put out a hand to touch him, drew it back, she retreated slowly back to her chair and sat down.
Her head sunk forward, she clasped her hands, her finger twined and untwined.
"That fine forehead," she said. "I can yet see my husband there, and yet it is crushed. How horrible life can be. It is only by some visitation of grace that one endures it."
Gradually, and almost shyly she looked up, looked about this room. He was standing now, leaning against the window, his head touching the pane, his raised hands pressed against the sash. She might never have entered this room, she might never have existed.
"A bare room," she thought, "just like the rooms at the Home."
Against her very will she found herself staring at him again.
"I am looking at a wreck. He doesn't even know himself."
From where she sat, she could see, by craning her head forward, a patch of water. That would be the lake, she thought.
"The distance between us is greater than any sea. I shall go back. She will be there, who paid the most and never once opened her mouth to complain."
A whisper behind her made her start, and she exclaimed, "Oh!" Dr. Parette was behind her, bending over her chair.
She turned and looked at him.
"He thinks my name is Lucy. I have not denied it. Let it be."
She got up, said impatiently, yet with a curious, broken voice, "I want to go, doctor."
"He has not recognised you at all? You did speak to him?" She nodded her head.
"I once knew him when he was a man," she said.
"You agree then, that he should be removed to another place?"
She nodded her head, said slowly, "it is so hopeless. Will he recover?"
"I am unable to answer that," Dr. Parette said.
He saw that she was looking at her son. And then she said, almost under her breath.
"My husband, too, was a sailor. He drowned."
Then suddenly the doctor was not there. He was standing beside Marius. He was speaking to him.
"Are you ready?" he asked. "We will cast off."
The old woman moved forward. She could see the lake more clearly, how its waters suddenly darkened as it reached towards the heavy presence of tall trees, their branches laden.
Dr. Parette had taken her son's arm. He walked him slowly down to where Madame Marius was standing.
"Your mother," he said.
"Lucy," Marius said.
"You had better go, Madame. We will write to you again."
"Indeed I had better go."
And she stood looking at these two men, and at the taller of them who at this moment smiled so blandly at nothing but a great sheet of deadened water, moving now towards some invisible sea, and she tried to say "good morning" and did not, and turned and walked out of the room.
"We must be under way," Dr. Parette said, leading him out.
The Landmark Library
OLIVER ONIONS
In Accordance with the Evidence The Story of Ragged Robyn Widdershins
GEORGE MOORE
Celibate Lives Conversations in Ebury Street
ARNOLD BENNETT T. F. POWYS
Mr Prohack The Left Leg
MARGARET IRWIN—ANN BRIDGE
Still She Wished for Company The Ginger Griffin
CHARLES MORGAN C. E. MONTAGUE
The Gunroom Rough Justice
FR. ROLFE—T. H. WHITE
Don Tarquinio They Winter Abroad
S. BARING-GOULD SHANE LESLIE
Mehalah—The Oppidan
JOHN COLLIER—A. P. HERBERT
His Monkey Wife The Secret Battle
COMPTON MACKENZIE HERBERT READ
Extremes Meet The Green Child
ENID BAGNOLD
The Loved and Envied
ERIC LINKLATER
Mr Byculla
AUBREY MENEN
The Prevalence of Witch
WILLIAM PLOMER
The Case is Altered
L. A. G. STRONG The Brothers
ALFRED DUGGAN
Leopards and Lilies
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