He scrambled up and turned his face towards the westering sun. What was there in the stillness of its beautiful splendour that seemed to sharpen his horror and difficulty, and yet to stir him to such a daring and devilry as he had never known since he was a boy? There was little sound of life; somewhere an unknown bird was singing, and a few late bees were droning in the bracken. All these years he had, like an old blind horse, stolidly plodded round and round in a dull self-set routine. And now, just when the spirit had come for rebellion, the mood for a harmless truancy, there had fallen with them too this hideous enigma. He sat there with the dusky silhouette of the face that was now drenched with sunlight in his mind’s eye. He set off again up the stony incline.
Why not walk on and on? In time real wholesome weariness would come; he could sleep at ease in some pleasant wayside inn, without once meeting the eyes that stood as it were like a window between himself and a shrewd incredulous scoffing world that would turn him into a monstrosity and his story into a fable. And in a little while, perhaps in three days, he would awaken out of this engrossing nightmare, and know he was free, this black dog gone from his back, and (as the old saying expressed it without anyone dreaming what it really meant) his own man again. How astonished Sheila would be; how warmly she would welcome him!... Oh yes, of course she would.
He came again to a standstill. No voice answered him out of that illimitable gold and blue. Nothing seemed aware of him. But as he stood there, doubtful as Cain on the outskirts of the unknown, he caught the sound of a footfall on the lonely and stone-strewn path.
The ground sloped steeply away to the left, and slowly mounting the hillside came mildly on an old lady he knew, a Miss Sinnet, an old friend of his mother’s. There was just such a little seat as that other he knew so well, on the brow of the hill. He made his way to it, intending to sit quietly there until the little old lady had passed by. Up and up she came. Her large bonnet appeared, and then her mild white face, inclined a little towards him as she ascended. Evidently this very seat was her goal; and evasion was impossible. Evasion!... Memory rushed back and set his pulses beating. He turned boldly to the sun, and the old lady, with a brief glance into his face, composed herself at the other end of the little seat. She gazed out of a gentle reverie into the golden valley. And so they sat a while. And almost as if she had felt the bond of acquaintance between them, she presently sighed, and addressed him: “A very, very, beautiful view, sir.”
Lawford paused, then turned a gloomy, earnest face, gilded with sunshine. “Beautiful, indeed,” he said, “but not for me. No, Miss Sinnet, not for me.”
The old lady gravely turned and examined the aquiline profile. “Well, I confess,” she remarked urbanely, “you have the advantage of me.”
Lawford smiled uneasily. “Believe me, it is little advantage.”
“My sight,” said Miss Sinnet precisely, “is not so good as I might wish; though better perhaps than I might have hoped; I fear I am not much wiser; your face is still unfamiliar to me.”
“It is not unfamiliar to me,” said Lawford. Whose trickery was this? he thought, putting such affected stuff into his mouth.
A faint lightening of pity came into the silvery and scrupulous countenance. “Ah, dear me, yes,” she said courteously.
Lawford rested a lean hand on the seat. “And have you,” he asked, “not the least recollection in the world of my face?”
“Now really,” she said, smiling blandly, “is that quite fair? Think of all the scores and scores of faces in seventy long years; and how very treacherous memory is. You shall do me the service of REMINDING me of one whose name has for the moment escaped me.”
“I am the son of a very old friend of yours, Miss Sinnet,” said Lawford quietly “a friend that was once your schoolfellow at Brighton.”
“Well, now,” said the old lady, grasping her umbrella, ‘that is undoubtedly a clue; but then, you see, all but one of the friends of my girlhood are dead; and if I have never had the pleasure of meeting her son, unless there is a decided resemblance, how am I to recollect HER by looking at HIM?”
‘there is, I believe, a likeness,” said Lawford.
She nodded her great bonnet at him with gentle amusement. “You are insistent in your fancy. Well, let me think again. The last to leave me was Fanny Urquhart, that was—let me see—last October. Now you are certainly not Fanny Urquhart’s son,” she stooped austerely, “for she never had one. Last year, too, I heard that my dear, dear Mrs Jameson was dead. HER I hadn’t met for many, many years. But, if I may venture to say so, yours is not a Scottish face; and she not only married a Scottish husband, but was herself a Dunbar. No, I am still at a loss.”
A miserable strife was in her chance companion’s mind, a strife of anger and recrimination. He turned his eyes wearily to the fast declining sun. “You will forgive my persistency, but I assure you it is a matter of life or death to me. Is there no one my face recalls? My voice?”
Miss Sinnet drew her long lips together, her eyebrows lifted with the faintest perturbation. “But he certainly knows my name,” she said to herself. She turned once more, and in the still autumnal beauty, beneath that pale blue arch of evening, these two human beings confronted one another again. She eyed him blandly, yet with a certain grave directness.
“I don’t really think,” she said, “you can be Mary Lawford’s son. I could scarcely have mistaken HIM.”
Lawford gulped and turned away. He hardly knew what this surge of feeling meant. Was it hope, despair, resentment; had he caught even the echo of an unholy joy? His mind for a moment became confused as if in the tumult of a struggle. He heard himself expostulate, “Ah, Miss Bennett, I fear I set you too difficult a task.”
The old lady drew abruptly in, like a trustful and gentle snail into its shocked house. “Bennett, sir; but my name is not Bennett.”
And again Lawford accepted the miserable prompting. “Not Bennett!... How can I ever then apologise for so frantic a mistake?”
The little old lady took firm hold of her umbrella. She did not answer him. ‘the likeness, the likeness!” he began unctuously, and stopped, for the glance that dwelt fleetingly on him was cold with the formidable dignity and displeasure of age. He raised his hat and turned miserably home. He strode on out of the last gold into the blue twilight. What fantastic foolery of mind was mastering him? He cast a hurried look over his shoulder at the kindly and offended old figure sitting there, solitary, on the little seat, in her great bonnet, with back turned resolutely upon him—the friend of his dead mother who might have proved in his need a friend indeed to him. And he had by this insane caprice hopelessly estranged her.
She would remember this face well enough now, he thought bitterly, and would take her place among his quiet enemies, if ever the day of reckoning should come. It was scandalous, it was banal to have abused her trust and courtesy. Oh, it was hopeless to struggle any more! The fates were against him. They had played him a trick. He was to be their transitory sport, as many a better man he could himself recollect had been before him. He would go home and give in; let Sheila do with him what she pleased. No one but a lunatic could have acted as he had, with just that frantic hint of method so remarkable in the insane.
He left the common. A lamplighter was lighting the lamps. A thin evening haze was on the air. If only he had stayed at home that fateful afternoon! Who, what had induced him, enticed him to venture out? And even with the thought welled up into his mind an intense desire to go to the old green time-worn churchyard again; to sit there contentedly alone, where none heeded the completest metamorphosis, down beside the yew-trees. What a fool he had been. There alone, of course, lay his only possible chance of recovery. He would go tomorrow. Perhaps Sheila had not yet discovered his absence; and there would be no difficulty in repeating so successful a stratagem.
Remembrance of his miserable mistake, of Miss Sinnet, faintly returned to him as he swiftly mounted the steps to his porch. Poor old lady. He would make amends for his disc
ourtesy when he was quite himself again. She should some day hear, perhaps, his infinitely tragic, infinitely comic experience from his own lips. He would take her some flowers, some old keepsake of his mother’s. What would he not do when the old moods and brains of the stupid Arthur Lawford, whom he had appreciated so little and so superficially, came back to him.
He ran up the steps and stopped dead, his hand in his pocket, chilled and aghast. Sheila had taken his keys. He stood there, dazed and still, beneath the dim yellow of his own fanlight; and once again that inward spring flew back. “Brazen it out; brazen it out! Knock and ring!”
He knocked flamboyantly, and rang.
There came a quiet step and the door opened. “Dr Simon, of course, has called?” he inquired suavely.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah, and gone”—as I feared. And Mrs Lawford?”
“I think Mrs Lawford is in, sir.”
Lawford put out a detaining hand. “We will not disturb her; we will not disturb her. I can find my way up; oh yes, thank you!”
But Ada still palely barred the way. “I think, sir,” she said, “Mrs Lawford would prefer to see you herself; she told me most particularly "all callers." And Mr Lawford was not to be disturbed on any account.”
“Disturbed? God forbid!” said Lawford, but his dark eyes failed to move these lightest hazel. “Well,” he continued nonchalantly, “perhaps—perhaps it—WOULD be as well if Mrs Lawford should know that I am here. No, thank you, I won’t come in. Please go and tell—” But even as the maid turned to obey, Sheila herself appeared at the dining-room door in hat and veil.
Lawford hesitated an immeasurable moment. In one swift glance he perceived the lamplit mystery of evening, beckoning, calling, pleading—Fly, fly! Home’s here for you. Begin again, begin again. And there before him in quiet and hostile decorum stood maid and mistress. He took off his hat and stepped quickly in.
‘so late, so very late, I fear,” he began glibly. “A sudden call, a perfectly impossible distance. Shall we disturb him, do you think?”
“Wouldn’t it,” began Sheila softly, “be rather a pity perhaps? Dr Simon seemed to think.... But, of course, you must decide that.”
Ada turned quiet small eyes.
“No, no, by no means,” he almost mumbled.
And a hard, slow smile passed over Sheila’s face. “Excuse me one moment,” she said; “I will see if he is awake.” She swept swiftly forward, superb and triumphant, beneath the gaze of those dark, restless eyes. But so still was home and street that quite distinctly a clear and youthful laughter was heard, and light footsteps approaching. Sheila paused. Ada, in the act of closing the door, peered out. “Miss Alice, ma’am,” she said.
And in this infinitesimal advantage of time Dr Ferguson had seized his vanishing opportunity, and was already swiftly mounting the stairs. Mrs Lawford stood with veil half raised and coldly smiling lips and, as if it were by pre-arrangement, her daughter’s laughing greeting from the garden, and from the landing above her, a faint “Ah, and how are we now?” broke out simultaneously. And Ada, silent and discreet, had thrown open the door again to the twilight and to the young people ascending the steps.
Lawford was still sitting on his bed before a cold and ashy hearth when Sheila knocked at the door.
“Yes?” he said; “who’s there?” No answer followed. He rose with a shuddering sigh and turned the key. His wife entered.
‘that little exhibition of finesse was part of our agreement, I suppose?”
“I say—” began Lawford.
‘to creep out in my absence like a thief, and to return like a mountebank; that was part of our compact?”
“I say,” he stubbornly began again, “did you wire for Alice?”
“Will you please answer my question? Am I to be a mere catspaw in your intrigues, in this miserable masquerade before the servants? To set the whole place ringing with the name of a doctor that doesn’t exist, and a bedridden patient that slips out of the house with his bedroom key in his pocket! Are you aware that Ada has been hammering at your door every half-hour of your absence? Are you aware of that? How much,” she continued in a low, bitter voice, “how much should I offer for her discretion?”
“Who was that with Alice?” inquired the same toneless voice.
“I refuse to be ignored. I refuse to be made a child of. Will you please answer me?”
Lawford turned. “Look here, Sheila,” he began heavily, “what about Alice? If you wired: well, it’s useless to say anything more. But if you didn’t, I ask you just this one thing. Don’t tell her!”
“Oh, I perfectly appreciate a father’s natural anxiety.”
Her husband drew up his shoulders as if to receive a blow. “Yes, yes,” he said, “but you won’t?”
The sound of a young laughing voice came faintly up from below. “How did Jimmie Fortescue know she was coming home today?”
“Will you not inquire of Jimmie Fortescue for yourself?”
“Oh, what is the use of sneering?” began the dull voice again. “I am horribly tired, Sheila. And try how you will, you can’t convince me that you believe for a moment that I am not myself, that you are as hard as you pretend. An acquaintance, even a friend might be deceived; but husband and wife—oh no! It isn’t only a man’s face that’s himself—or even his hands.” He looked at them, straightened them slowly out, and buried them in his pockets. “All I care about now is Alice. Is she, or is she not going to be told? I am simply asking you to give her just a chance.”
‘“simply asking me to give Alice a chance"; now isn’t that really just a little...?”
Lawford slowly shook his head. “You know in your heart it isn’t, Sheila; you understand me quite well, although you persistently pretend not to. I can’t argue now. I can’t speak up for myself. I am just about as far down as I can go. It’s only Alice.”
“I see; a lucid interval?” suggested his wife in a low, trembling voice.
“Yes, yes, if you like,” said her husband patiently, ‘“a lucid interval." Don’t please look at my face like that, Sheila. Think—think that it’s just lupus, just some horrible disfigurement.”
Not much light was in the large room, and there was something so extraordinarily characteristic of her husband in those stooping shoulders, in the head hung a little forward, and in the preternaturally solemn voice, that Sheila had to bend a little over the bed to catch a glimpse of the sallow and keener face again. She sighed; and even on her own strained ear her sigh sounded almost like one of relief.
“It’s useless, I know, to ask you anything while you are in this mood,” continued Lawford dully; “I know that of old.”
The white, ringed hands clenched, ‘“Of old!’“
“I didn’t mean anything. Don’t listen to what I say. It’s only—it’s just Alice knowing, that was all; I mean at once.”
“Don’t for a moment suppose I am not perfectly aware that it is only Alice you think of. You were particularly anxious about my feelings, weren’t you? You broke the news to me with the tenderest solicitude. I am glad our—our daughter shares my husband’s love.”
“Look here,” said Lawford densely, “you know that I love you as much as ever; but with this—as I am; what would be the good of my saying so?” Mrs Lawford took a deep breath.
And a voice called softly at the door, “Mother, are you there? Is father awake? May I come in?”
In a flash the memory returned to her; twenty-four hours ago she was asking that very question of this unspeakable figure that sat hunched-up before her.
“One moment, dear,” she called. And added in a very low voice, “Come here!”
Lawford looked up. “What?” he said.
“Perhaps, perhaps,” she whispered, “it isn’t quite so bad.”
“For mercy’s sake, Sheila,” he said, “don’t torture me; tell the poor child to go away.”
She paused. “Are you there, Alice? Would you mind, father says, waiting a little? He is so very t
ired.”
‘too tired to.... Oh, very well, mother.”
Mrs Lawford opened the door, and called after her, “Is Jimmie gone?”
“Oh, yes, hours.”
“Where did you meet?”
“I couldn’t get a carriage at the station. He carried my dressing-bag; I begged him not to. The other’s coming on. You know what Jimmie is. How very, very lucky I did come home. I don’t know what made me; just an impulse; they did laugh at me so. Father dear—do speak to me; how are you now?”
Lawford opened his mouth, gulped, and shook his head.
‘ssh, dear!” whispered Sheila, “I think he has fallen asleep. I will be down in a minute.” Mrs Lawford was about to close the door when Ada appeared.
“If you please, ma’am,” she said, “I have been waiting, as you told me, to let Dr Ferguson out, but it’s nearly seven now; and the table’s not laid yet.”
“I really should have thought, Ada,” Sheila began, then caught back the angry words, and turned and looked over her shoulder into the room. “Do you think you will need anything more, Dr Ferguson?” she asked in a sepulchral voice.
Again Lawford’s lips moved; again he shook his head.
“One moment, Ada,” she said closing the door. ‘some more medicine—what medicine? Quick! She mustn’t suspect.”
‘“What medicine?’“ repeated Lawford stolidly.
“Oh, vexing, vexing; don’t you see we must send her out? Don’t you see? What was it you sent to Critchett’s for last night? Tell him that’s gone: we want more of that.”
Lawford stared heavily. Oh, yes, yes,” he said thickly, “more of that....”
Sheila, with a shrug of extreme distaste and vexation, hastily opened the door. “Dr Ferguson wants a further supply of the drug which Mr Critchett made up for Mr Lawford yesterday evening. You had better go at once, Ada, and please make as much haste as you possibly can.”
“I say, I say,” began Lawford; but it was too late, the door was shut.
The Altar of the Dead And Other Morbid Tales Page 20
