‘No,’ said Haynes. ‘It isn’t that sort of science. That book is about birds and animals and electricity and so on.’
Benoit put it back on the bed.
‘A man with your intelligence, if you read books on science you would do well. See now, about two o’clock, all the spirits of the air passing up and down. And if you know what to do you can compel them and make them do what you like.’
Haynes stared at him. Was the man mad?
‘How can you control them?’ he asked.
But Benoit, usually so outspoken, laughed uneasily. ‘Not today. Another time. I hear you was in charge last night, nursing the sick.’
He chuckled low down in his throat.
‘No, I just went in to see what had happened.’
‘She is a stupid woman. She only making things worse for herself … Let her go on …’
‘What will you do? Marry the nurse?’
Benoit guffawed. ‘Marry the nurse? Not me. Take it from an experienced man. Never marry a nurse. As soon as a sick man getting better the first woman he want to live with is his nurse. She right on the spot, you see. And that one in particular, she’ll do anything, man. I living with her, but I know what she is … But this one, I can’t understand her, she so stupid. I am still here, helping with the cake; I checking the book; I doing everything as before. All men go out. What she making such a fool of herself for?’
‘She is jealous,’ said Haynes, student of human nature. ‘She wants you for herself alone. And you treat her very badly, Benoit. If you went down once or twice a week to the nurse. In the night— But going as you do makes her ashamed. And you neglect her.’
‘Neglect her? I don’t neglect her, man. Don’t think so. I don’t neglect any woman belonging to me, man.’
‘Don’t go so often and so openly.’
‘I not going to give up the other one. Rouse can do what she like.’
He didn’t go that afternoon: at five o’clock he checked the book, but after supper he was off again.
On the Tuesday, during lunch, the smothered fires blazed. Mrs. Rouse shrieked at him to take his things and leave the damn house and go. Either he was to stay with the nurse altogether or leave off going there. Benoit said that she could do what she liked, he was going to do as he pleased. Mrs. Rouse seemed to go mad.
‘You leave me, a decent woman like me, for a whore, a woman who used to carry on her whoring in this very house. You dirty dog!’ Her voice cracked with the strain she had put on it and with passion.
Somehow Miss Atwell, whose affairs had been settled now and was out again, had been drawn, or entered of her own accord, into the quarrel, under the pretext of pacifying Mrs. Rouse. From the hour she came out of her confinement, she took Mrs. Rouse’s side and fought for her valiantly.
‘If Jesus Christ came down and ask me, I not giving up the nurse,’ said Benoit.
Miss Atwell professed great respect for religion and had a wide if inaccurate knowledge of Biblical story and aphorism.
‘Mrs. Rouse, I has to leave you,’ she said in a grave important voice. ‘I has to leave you. I can’t put up with this … this … blasphemous rebel.’
Maisie’s mocking laughter underscored the gibe.
‘Who ask you to put up with me, you dried up old broomstick? Why don’t you shut your mouth? You have a man and weeks pass you don’t see him. So what have you to quarrel about?’
Maisie laughed again.
Miss Atwell’s door slammed. But she continued the quarrel from inside her fortress.
‘Let me keep far from you, man,’ she said. ‘God goin’ to strike you down. ’Cause you see me as I am here you think I am your sex. In my day, you think I would have looked at anything like you? You has had no upbringin’. I has been brought up – good education and religious trainin’ in my Sunday school. I know what’s what. I know what’s respect. If Jesus Christ come down! When God take a turn in your skin you goin’ to know something. Dragging the name of the Saviour into your dirty goings-on. I am a sinner, but I know my place. Go on, Mr. Benoit, go on rejoicin’ in you’ evil deeds. You’ Calvary is awaitin’ you.’
Gradually the yard grew quiet. The quarrel seemed over. Miss Atwell remained in her room.
Haynes came outside to start for the office, but before he left the yard Maisie called to him.
‘You see anything strange in the room this morning?’
‘Anything strange? Like what?’
‘Whole morning a dried-up old broomstick was in the yard and now I looking for it everywhere and I can’t find it.’
Haynes rolled his bicycle away as quickly as he could, but before he reached the street he could hear Mrs. Rouse thumping Maisie and Maisie swearing that she hadn’t meant anything.
Chapter Twelve
That outbreak took place on Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday night Benoit went away as usual, Wednesday afternoon and again Wednesday night. It was not Haynes’s business at all, but he felt irritated with the man. After all he still lived at No. 2, and it would cost him nothing to exercise a little restraint. Every time, as soon as he left, the talk broke out in the yard. ‘But you ever see a thing like this!’ ‘The man ain’t got no shame.’ ‘If was me I’d throw all his clothes in the canal.’
On Thursday morning he did not turn out to work. At seven o’clock he came into Haynes’s room dressed in his new brown suit and asked Haynes to give him a recommendation.
‘A recommendation!’
‘Yes, a recommendation. I am going to look for a job. Down at the West Indies Trading Company. The manager know the nurse. She attend to his wife and they like her – they make her a nice present – and she ask him about a job for me.’
Haynes said no: the idea of his giving a recommendation was absurd. He was a person of no consequence and could not give any recommendation.
‘But, Haynes, man, don’t let me down. All you have to say is that I am your landlord, and you know me to be trustworthy and so on. You know how to wield the pen, man.’
‘But I have no right—’
‘Nonsense, man. Here is the pen. Here is a piece of paper. This is to certify … Come on, Haynes. It costs you nothing. Oblige a friend.’
Haynes sat down and wrote.
‘Read it,’ he said, giving it to Benoit.
‘No need to read it,’ said Benoit, folding the sheet of notepaper and taking up an envelope from the table. ‘Yes, man. I am going down. The nurse told me that a man of my appearance have no right making cakes. She says she will help me to get a good job. Right-o, Haynes.’
He left, but he came back quickly.
‘This is between us, eh!’ he said, and winked knowingly.
‘As you say,’ said Haynes.
‘Honour bright?’
‘You can depend on me.’
Benoit had not gone five minutes when there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Rouse, thought Haynes, and it was.
‘Come in, madam,’ he said, and offered her a chair.
‘No, Mr. Haynes. I am not for long.’
The difference between her appearance today and before when she had led Haynes into that very room made him realize more than imagination could what she had gone through. Then she was a stout housewife, slightly care-worn, but cheerful, hopeful of the future if even things were not as bright as she wished. Today she was a defeated woman – in her eyes a hunted look which she no longer took the trouble to disguise, sustained merely by the necessity to keep the wheels of her business going. And Haynes felt deeply sorry for her; and felt, too, that by talking and laughing with Benoit he was doing Mrs. Rouse a great wrong; and was aware that it was stupid of him to feel that way; but could never entirely rid himself of the feeling whenever he stood face to face with Mrs. Rouse. He waited for her to speak.
‘You must excuse me interrupting you, Mr. Haynes,’ she began and her voice was thin and quavering, ‘but I hope Mr. Benoit has not been worrying you about anything.’
‘No, Mrs. Rouse, he hasn’t
worried me at all.’
‘I saw him with an envelope. I hope you didn’t endorse any promissory note for him.’
‘No, Mrs. Rouse. It wasn’t that.’
‘Never do anything like that for him, Mr. Haynes. He is not a man to trust.’ She looked searchingly at Haynes. ‘He didn’t ask you to lend him money?’
‘No, Mrs. Rouse, he didn’t … He didn’t, really.’
‘All right, Mr. Haynes. I believe you. But I wonder what that man is up to now? God have mercy on me.’
‘It is nothing important, Mrs. Rouse,’ said Haynes.
‘What was it, Mr. Haynes? I want to know. Tell me, Mr. Haynes. Don’t mind any promises you made to him. I am the woman who, with all my troubles, have to bear the burden of this house.’
‘He asked me for a recommendation. He said he was going to look for a job.’
‘Going to look for a job! Today he going to look for a job. Seventeen years we have been together, he never went to look for work, and today—’ She stopped short.
There was an awkward pause.
She broke it.
‘Thank you for telling me, Mr. Haynes. And, Mr. Haynes, since the other day I was to tell you. Since you come here to live there is only noise and quarrelling in the place. That woman has broken up my house. I put up with her long enough. And now when I finish with her the man start. I hope all this don’t disturb you too much. This isn’t a house like that, Mr. Haynes … And all the noise I made the other morning, and all the bad words—’
‘It’s quite all right, Mrs. Rouse. I know how worried you must be. I am sure that everything will turn out well in the end.’
‘I heard them saying that you wanted to leave.’
‘Not at all, Mrs. Rouse. I am quite comfortable here.’
She looked brighter.
‘We have to trust in God, Mr. Haynes.’
‘Yes, Mrs. Rouse,’ answered devoutly that confirmed heretic, and hurried off to work.
Haynes took his meals in town that day, for Ella was not well and he had told her to stay at home. Ella suffered from bronchitis, which was not a thing to play with when the rainy season is on. It was after ten when Haynes returned, but Maisie was standing by the gate talking to a young man – a rather unusual thing at that hour: Mrs. Rouse had generally sent a peremptory message to her long before that. The energetic and hard-worked Philomen was still moving about in the kitchen. Philomen hadn’t spoken to Haynes since that night, but the warmth of her smile and her greetings were more radiant than ever. She was a simple soul with a golden disposition. Haynes went quickly to his room, locked the door and getting into bed blew out the light: he did not feel inclined for any talking, and Philomen’s ‘Good night, Mr. Haynes,’ and the way she had come to the kitchen door had indicated clearly that she was willing.
He dropped off to sleep.
He was deep in his dreams when he was awakened by a loud screaming and yelling – Philomen’s voice, and an insistent shouting of ‘Mr. Haynes!’ ‘Murder!’ ‘Mr. Haynes!’ and again ‘Murder!’ He sat up in bed and listened. He distinguished another voice – Benoit’s – but could not make out what he was saying. The voices were quite near. In the yard. By Mrs. Rouse’s doorstep. Philomen had ceased to call, but she still screamed. With Ella’s warning in his mind, Haynes unlocked his door and looked out. There was no moon, but the night was bright with starlight, and at the bottom of the doorstep there was an arresting group. Mrs. Rouse sat on the ground limp and supported in Philomen’s arms. Maisie stood near looking rather detached and leaning against the same young man she had been speaking to at the gate. On the bottom step stood Benoit, dusting his shoulder with one hand while in the other he held the long kitchen knife. Haynes’s first thought was that Mrs. Rouse had been murdered and his heart gave a great leap.
‘Shut your damn mouth,’ said Benoit to Philomen. ‘What the hell you making all that row for?
‘This is the end of it, though,’ he continued, and stamped into the house.
Haynes went out to Philomen’s assistance and found to his relief that Mrs. Rouse had only fainted. Philomen began to explain what had happened, but Haynes cut her short.
‘Come, let us get her in.’ Mrs. Rouse showed no signs of coming to and Haynes was a boy scout of many badges. ‘Come on, Maisie. And you, sir, please help.’
Meanwhile from inside came two or three resounding cracks as of some heavy article of furniture being smashed to pieces. They lifted Mrs. Rouse in. She may have lost weight during the last few weeks but was still uncommonly heavy. They got her into the drawing-room and placed her on the very sofa on which she had lain the Sunday night. Then Miss Atwell appeared, as timely as if she was a character in a play, for Philomen could hardly see to do anything, being blinded by the streams of tears which flowed down her face.
‘Come, Miss Atwell,’ said Haynes. ‘Come quickly.’ He was frightened, for Mrs. Rouse lay stiff and quiet. He recalled horrifying instances of people who had fainted and never recovered. And if anything happened he was in it to the neck.
‘What’s all this?’ said Miss Atwell. ‘I went to see Ella—’
The bedroom door opened. Benoit came out with a bundle of clothes on his arm and two boxes. He went to the front door, wrenched it open with a powerful jerk and was gone without a look or word to anybody. Maisie ran to the door and followed him down the steps.
‘What the—’ began Miss Atwell.
‘Don’t mind that,’ said Haynes anxiously. ‘See about Mrs. Rouse.’
Miss Atwell began to open Mrs. Rouse’s clothes and the modest Haynes betook himself to the dining-room and stood by the door ready to go for the doctor at the slightest word. Maisie had got rid of her cavalier and came and stood by Haynes. But Haynes was not concerned with Maisie, nor worried that she had been all those hours outside with the young man, a fact which in recent days would have given him some concern. He was thinking of himself in the witness-box explaining how he had held Mrs. Rouse’s hand and Miss Atwell had told him to comfort her. But in five minutes Mrs. Rouse had come to herself. They lifted her into her bedroom, which was in disorder, the whole front of a big wardrobe being broken into and clothes scattered all over the floor. They put her on the bed and Haynes went back into his room at once. It was only the next morning he learnt how near No. 2 had been to a nasty tragedy.
Mrs. Rouse, goaded to the point of desperation, had made up her mind to kill Benoit. She told Maisie and Philomen that they were not to come into the house until Benoit returned, and Maisie had settled herself unconcernedly by the gate, knowing that she could pass the time away if Mrs. Rouse never opened till morning. Philomen, however, was uneasy, and fiddled about in the kitchen, oppressed with a vague premonition that Mrs. Rouse intended to do something desperate. That her mistress would kill herself was the thought uppermost in her mind. She had wanted to speak to Haynes about it. ‘But the way you passed and locked the door frightened me off’ – a stab into Haynes’s sensitive conscience. Meanwhile, Mrs. Rouse dressed herself and sat by the back door with her hat, her little handbag and the kitchen knife on the table near to her; and her Prayer Book in her hand. As he opened the door she would stab him and then give herself up at the police station. The place was almost in darkness, the only light being the light of the chapelle in her bedroom and the small candle by which she was reading. From eight o’clock she sat waiting, and it was after twelve when Benoit came. He did not see Maisie, for she and her young man had wandered down the alley. Faithful Philomen, worn out by her anxieties and the labours of the day, had fallen asleep in the kitchen, her head on the dresser. When Mrs. Rouse heard Benoit’s footsteps she rose, gripping the knife. He opened the door and she raised the weapon to ‘stab him to his black heart’. But, poor distracted woman, she knew little of how to stab anybody.
‘Take this, McCarthy Benoit,’ she said, but McCarthy Benoit took nothing. Surprised though he was, he caught her raised arm. They struggled for two or three seconds, and then both pitched down the step
s. How no bones were broken was a mystery. Mrs. Rouse remembered nothing else until she came to herself on the sofa.
Chapter Thirteen
That night Haynes decided to move as soon as Ella could find a room. He would be sorry to go, but when it came to knives and stabbing, however much his leaving would hurt Mrs. Rouse, he would have to go elsewhere.
Miss Atwell knocked at his door next morning and asked him about his tea.
‘Ella’s parting words to me, Mr. Haynes, was to see that you had everything you want. She was more worried about you than her sickness. But, Mr. Haynes, did you ever see such a thing as last night?’ She seated herself without being invited and it was twenty minutes by his clock before Haynes could finally shut her off.
For tea he gave her a shilling, from which she brought back change, accounting minutely. She came in herself and laid the table, and wanted to wait on Haynes all through it, despite his protestations that he could manage by himself. He was able to stave off conversation only by pretending while he ate to be busy with a book, on the pages of which he made pencil notes even while he chewed. Mrs. Rouse was too ill to come out to work and Miss Atwell was in charge in the kitchen; and all through the morning she was up and down, in and out, giving orders, assisting here, fixing there; though Maisie said that Philomen did the bulk of the work. This, however, might have been prejudice. Haynes forestalled her offer to prepare his lunch, saying that he had business in town and would lunch there.
On his return he heard that Mrs. Rouse had asked for him and he felt that it was his duty to pay her a visit. He spoke to Maisie, who went in first, and then came back to say that he could come.
The bedroom was quite tidy now, except for the wardrobe, which, with its gaping mouth, was a significant reminder of last night’s passions and violence.
Maisie stood at the head of the bed. Miss Atwell, who received him, put him to sit down on a rocking chair and seated herself near Mrs. Rouse’s feet. Mrs. Rouse herself lay on the bed covered to her neck, her eyes red and swollen, her face puffed and distorted like one of her own pastries before it was baked.
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