by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER XIII.
LEWISHAM INSISTS.
Ethel Henderson sat at her machine before the window of Mr. Lagume'sstudy, and stared blankly at the greys and blues of the Novembertwilight. Her face was white, her eyelids were red from recentweeping, and her hands lay motionless in her lap. The door had justslammed behind Lagune.
"Heigh-ho!" she said. "I wish I was dead. Oh! I wish I was out of itall."
She became passive again. "I wonder what I have _done_," she said,"that I should be punished like this."
She certainly looked anything but a Fate-haunted soul, being indeedvisibly and immediately a very pretty girl. Her head was shapely andcovered with curly dark hair, and the eyebrows above her hazel eyeswere clear and dark. Her lips were finely shaped, her mouth was nottoo small to be expressive, her chin small, and her neck white andfull and pretty. There is no need to lay stress upon her nose--itsufficed. She was of a mediocre height, sturdy rather than slender,and her dress was of a pleasant, golden-brown material with the easysleeves and graceful line of those aesthetic days. And she sat at hertypewriter and wished she was dead and wondered what she had _done_.
The room was lined with bookshelves, and conspicuous therein were along row of foolish pretentious volumes, the "works" of Lagune--thewitless, meandering imitation of philosophy that occupied hislife. Along the cornices were busts of Plato, Socrates, and Newton.Behind Ethel was the great man's desk with its green-shaded electriclight, and littered with proofs and copies of _Hesperus_, "A Paper forDoubters," which, with her assistance, he edited, published, compiled,wrote, and (without her help) paid for and read. A pen, flung downforcibly, quivered erect with its one surviving nib in the blottingpad. Mr. Lagune had flung it down.
The collapse of the previous night had distressed him dreadfully, andever and again before his retreat he had been breaking into passionatemonologue. The ruin of a life-work, it was, no less. Surely she hadknown that Chaffery was a cheat. Had she not known? Silence. "Afterso many kindnesses--"
She interrupted him with a wailing, "Oh, I know--I know."
But Lagune was remorseless and insisted she had betrayed him,worse--made him ridiculous! Look at the "work" he had undertaken atSouth Kensington--how could he go on with that now? How could he findthe heart? When his own typewriter sacrificed him to her stepfather'strickery? "Trickery!"
The gesticulating hands became active, the grey eyes dilated withindignation, the piping voice eloquent.
"If he hadn't cheated you, someone else would," was Ethel's inadequatemuttered retort, unheard by the seeker after phenomena.
It was perhaps not so bad as dismissal, but it certainly lastedlonger. And at home was Chaffery, grimly malignant at her failure tosecure that pneumatic glove. He had no right to blame her, he reallyhad not; but a disturbed temper is apt to falsify the scales ofjustice. The tambourine, he insisted, he could have explained bysaying he put up his hand to catch it and protect his head directlySmithers moved. But the pneumatic glove there was no explaining. Hehad made a chance for her to secure it when he had pretended tofaint. It was rubbish to say anyone could have been looking on thetable then--rubbish.
Beside that significant wreck of a pen stood a little carriage clockin a case, and this suddenly lifted a slender voice and announced_five_. She turned round on her stool and sat staring at theclock. She smiled with the corners of her mouth down. "Home," shesaid, "and begin again. It's like battledore and shuttlecock....
"I _was_ silly....
"I suppose I've brought it on myself. I ought to have picked it up, Isuppose. I had time....
"Cheats ... just cheats.
"I never thought I should see him again....
"He was ashamed, of course.... He had his own friends."
For a space she sat still, staring blankly before her. She sighed,rubbed a knuckle in a reddened eye, rose.
She went into the hall, where her hat, transfixed by a couple ofhat-pins, hung above her jacket, assumed these garments, and letherself out into the cold grey street.
She had hardly gone twenty yards from Lagune's door before she becameaware of a man overtaking her and walking beside her. That kind ofthing is a common enough experience to girls who go to and from workin London, and she had had perforce to learn many things since heradventurous Whortley days. She looked stiffly in front of her. The mandeliberately got in her way so that she had to stop. She lifted eyesof indignant protest. It was Lewisham--and his face was white.
He hesitated awkwardly, and then in silence held out his hand. Shetook it mechanically. He found his voice. "Miss Henderson," he said.
"What do you want?" she asked faintly.
"I don't know," he said.... "I want to talk to you."
"Yes?" Her heart was beating fast.
He found the thing unexpectedly difficult.
"May I--? Are you expecting--? Have you far to go? I would like totalk to you. There is a lot ..."
"I walk to Clapham," she said. "If you care ... to come part of theway ..."
She moved awkwardly. Lewisham took his place at her side. They walkedside by side for a moment, their manner constrained, having so much tosay that they could not find a word to begin upon.
"Have you forgotten Whortley?" he asked abruptly.
"No."
He glanced at her; her face was downcast. "Why did you never write?"he asked bitterly.
"I wrote."
"Again, I mean."
"I did--in July."
"I never had it."
"It came back."
"But Mrs. Munday ..."
"I had forgotten her name. I sent it to the Grammar School."
Lewisham suppressed an exclamation.
"I am very sorry," she said.
They went on again in silence. "Last night," said Lewisham atlength. "I have no business to ask. But--"
She took a long breath. "Mr. Lewisham," she said. "That man yousaw--the Medium--was my stepfather."
"Well?"
"Isn't that enough?"
Lewisham paused. "No," he said.
There was another constrained silence. "No," he said lessdubiously. "I don't care a rap what your stepfather is. Were _you_cheating?"
Her face turned white. Her mouth opened and closed. "Mr. Lewisham,"she said deliberately, "you may not believe it, it may soundimpossible, but on my honour ... I did not know--I did not know forcertain, that is--that my stepfather ..."
"Ah!" said Lewisham, leaping at conviction. "Then I was right...."
For a moment she stared at him, and then, "I _did_ know," she said,suddenly beginning to cry. "How can I tell you? It is a lie. I _did_know. I _did_ know all the time."
He stared at her in white astonishment. He fell behind her one step,and then in a stride came level again. Then, a silence, a silence thatseemed it would never end. She had stopped crying, she was one hugesuspense, not daring even to look at his face. And at last he spoke.
"No," he said slowly. "I don't mind even that. I don't care--even ifit was that."
Abruptly they turned into the King's Road, with its roar of wheeledtraffic and hurrying foot-passengers, and forthwith a crowd of boyswith a broken-spirited Guy involved and separated them. In a busyhighway of a night one must needs talk disconnectedly in shoutedsnatches or else hold one's peace. He glanced at her face and saw thatit was set again. Presently she turned southward out of the tumultinto a street of darkness and warm blinds, and they could go ontalking again.
"I understand what you mean," said Lewisham. "I know I do. You knew,but you did not want to know. It was like that."
But her mind had been active. "At the end of this road," she said,gulping a sob, "you must go back. It was kind of you to come,Mr. Lewisham. But you were ashamed--you are sure to be ashamed. Myemployer is a spiritualist, and my stepfather is a professionalMedium, and my mother is a spiritualist. You were quite right not tospeak to me last night. Quite. It was kind of you to come, but youmust go back. Life is hard enough as it is ... You must go back at theend of the road. Go
back at the end of the road ..."
Lewisham made no reply for a hundred yards. "I'm coming on toClapham," he said.
They came to the end of the road in silence. Then at the kerb cornershe turned and faced him. "Go back," she whispered.
"No," he said obstinately, and they stood face to face at the cardinalpoint of their lives.
"Listen to me," said Lewisham. "It is hard to say what I feel. I don'tknow myself.... But I'm not going to lose you like this. I'm not goingto let you slip a second time. I was awake about it all last night. Idon't care where you are, what your people are, nor very much whetheryou've kept quite clear of this medium humbug. I don't. You will infuture. Anyhow. I've had a day and night to think it over. I had tocome and try to find you. It's you. I've never forgottenyou. Never. I'm not going to be sent back like this."
"It can be no good for either of us," she said as resolute as he.
"I shan't leave you."
"But what is the good?..."
"I'm coming," said Lewisham, dogmatically.
And he came.
He asked her a question point blank and she would not answer him, andfor some way they walked in grim silence. Presently she spoke with atwitching mouth. "I wish you would leave me," she said. "You arequite different from what I am. You felt that last night. You helpedfind us out...."
"When first I came to London I used to wander about Clapham lookingfor you," said Lewisham, "week after week."
They had crossed the bridge and were in a narrow little street ofshabby shops near Clapham Junction before they talked again. She kepther face averted and expressionless.
"I'm sorry," said Lewisham, with a sort of stiff civility, "if I seemto be forcing myself upon you. I don't want to pry into youraffairs--if you don't wish me to. The sight of you has somehow broughtback a lot of things.... I can't explain it. Perhaps--I had to come tofind you--I kept on thinking of your face, of how you used to smile,how you jumped from the gate by the lock, and how we had tea ... a lotof things."
He stopped again.
"A lot of things."
"If I may come," he said, and went unanswered. They crossed the widestreets by the Junction and went on towards the Common.
"I live down this road," she said, stopping abruptly at a corner. "Iwould rather ..."
"But I have said nothing."
She looked at him with her face white, unable to speak for aspace. "It can do no good," she said. "I am mixed up with this...."
She stopped.
He spoke deliberately. "I shall come," he said, "to-morrow night."
"No," she said.
"But I shall come."
"No," she whispered.
"I shall come." She could hide the gladness of her heart from herselfno longer. She was frightened that he had come, but she was glad, andshe knew he knew that she was glad. She made no further protest. Sheheld out her hand dumbly. And on the morrow she found him awaiting hereven as he had said.
