Thunder On The Left Part 12

"Well, you are a fool," he said slowly, in a dull voice that struck her deeper than any temper could have done. "You throw away love as if it was breadcrusts."

With a furious sweep he was about to hurl the neat piles of her handiwork on the floor. In one last salvage of decency he altered the course of his hand. He seized a fistful of the little brown strips of crust and flung them wildly across the room. The carving knife clattered off the table."You're frightening Virginia," was all she said.

Anger, the red and yellow clown, burst through the tight paper hoop of his mind and played grotesque unlaughable capers. Bewildered by his own ferocity he strode to the corner, swung open the door of the back stairs, and pointed savagely upward. She went without another word. Her blue eyes were very large and dark, they faced him with the unwavering defiance he detested and admired. Good old Phyl, he couldn't help thinking. She's unbeatable. Now, as usual, he had put himself in the wrong. He crashed the door behind her, and stood listening to her slow steps.

He soothed the cat with some sardine-tails, finished making the chicken sandwiches, wrapped them carefully as Phyllis had suggested. I wonder what we'll be thinking when we eat them? As he put them away in the ice box he noticed the cocoanut cake on a shelf. With a sense of retaliation he cut himself a thick slice. He became aware of the scrambling tick of the alarm clock on the dresser. A quarter past eleven. The house was thrillingly still. The serenely dormant kitchen slowly sobered the buffoon dancing in his brain.

He fetched his precious bottle of Sherwood and poured a minim dose. The golden drug saluted him gently. In this fluid too the flagrant miracle lay hidden, the privy atom of truth and fury. The guest of honour, he thought ironically, feeling his vitals play host to that courteous warmth. The guest of honour, always expelled. A spark falls into your soul. Shall you cherish it, shelter it to clear consuming flame; or shall you hurry to stamp it out? Can a man take a fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? The smell of burning cloth is mighty disagreeable. Vacantly he studied the label on the bottle. Manufactured prior to Jan. 17, 1920. These spirits were tax paid at the non-beverage rate for medicinal purposes only. Sale or use for other purposes will subject the seller or user to very heavy penalties. Well, certainly this is a Medicinal Use, he thought. "If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it's me."

Where did the phrase come from? . . . Yes, old Billy Bones, in Treasure Island.

Well, these foolishnesses would have blown over by tomorrow. Do a little work on the booklet and then turn in. He must get the thing done, earn some money. The gruesome burden of expenses. How little Phyllis realizes the load a man's mind carries. I suppose she carries one too, poor child. Every mind carries the weight of the whole world.

He was on hands and knees, picking up the sc.r.a.ps of crust that had fallen under the boiler. In a luxurious self-pity he found himself humming a hymn tune. Blessed solitude, where a man can sing to himself and admire the sweet sorrow of his own cadence! An almost forgotten poem came into his head and fitted pleasantly to the air.

The Silver Girl she came to me when spring was dancing green, She said, "I've come to wait on you and keep your cabin clean; To wash your face and hands and feet, and make your forehead cool - I'll get you into Heaven yet, you d.a.m.ned Old Fool!

Something in this appealed nicely to his mood. He allowed himself an encore. His voice, rising behind the stove, got a good resonance. Then he heard a footfall, a door opening. Ah, he thought, Phyl has come down to say she's sorry for being so crude. Well, I'll let her speak first. I'm tired of always being the one to make advances.

He waited, industriously gathering crusts, though he felt that the posture of Lazarus was not advantageous. There was no word.

"Well," he said impatiently, "have you had enough of your funny business?"He turned, and saw Nounou's amazed face in the aperture of the back door. With an incoherent murmur he rose, took his bottle, and stalked out of the kitchen.

XVIII

"It would be interesting to speculate," said page 38 of George's treatise, "how such a cheery little town obtained the name Dark Harbour. Perhaps it was due to the scenic background of rugged hills that overlooks the picturesque old fis.h.i.+ng port and reflects its invigorating pine woods in the water. At any rate, the future of the place is bright indeed. The Eastern Railroad's express service now stops there, and large metropolitan interests have pledged themselves to the erection of a modern caravansary which will supplement the long famous 'folksy' hospitality of the Bayview Hotel. Separated only by a lengthy trestle from the mainland, the Island spreads its varied allure of rolling sand dunes, pine groves, and broad shallow beaches. Shaped like a crescent, its outward curve is buffeted by the mighty ocean; on the inner side, sheltered from easterly gales by the unique sand hills, is the comfortable cottage colony where a number of wise people have been vacationing for many years. Many artists have discovered the pictorial charm of the region, and find in the forests or in the maritime life of the Bay subjects for their water colours and oils. Canvases that have later become famous in academies and exhibitions have first felt the brush in those s.h.i.+ngled studios cl.u.s.tered about the old inn, renowned for its savoury chowder. There is a brilliance in the air, an almost Italian richness of colour, in the Island's landscape. It will be many years before so vast a terrain can become crowded, but many new bungalows have been built lately, and the newcomers pay tribute to the good taste of those who, a generation agone, divined Dark Harbour's magic as a haven of summer tranquillity."

He felt a rational pride in this composition. It was in the genially fulsome vein esteemed by railroad companies. Even if people weren't tranquil, in a place so competently described, they ought to be. He thought there was a neatness in that touch about Dark Harbour and its bright future. Phyllis was probably right when she often said it was a shame Mr. Granville should spend his talents in mere publicity work when he might so easily write something famous - fiction, for instance. These are my fictions, he always replied, pointing to his private shelf of advertising pamphlets, neatly bound and gilded as his Works.

He had spread out his papers on the dining table, where he could write without seeing Joyce's door. But he couldn't seem to resume the flow of that slick treacly style, which the experienced brochurist can smoothly decant, like a tilted mola.s.ses barrel. The discomforting irony of the last word penetrated him.

He changed "Italian richness" to "Italian pa.s.sion," but that was as far as inspiration carried him. It was vain to remind himself that Walter Scott had written novels all night long, that Napoleon had planned campaigns in the agony of stomach-ache, that Elbert Hubbard was never at a loss for a Little Journey. In a nervous fidget he pared his nails, sharpened pencils, rearranged the gla.s.ses on the sideboard, emptied Ben's cigar debris from the living-room ash tray. He trod stealthily, in stocking feet, for fear of disturbing Joyce. Without his usual couch to sleep on, his usual table to work at, he felt homeless. There was a dull pain at the bottom of his ribs. He tried to remember whether he had unduly bolted his food at dinner.

Perhaps he was going to have appendicitis.

He had a sort of insane desire to justify his existence, to atone for a day of such incredible futility by getting some work done. If every possible extraneous trifle could be attended to perhaps his mind might be calmed. He crept upstairs to clean his teeth and found that Phyllis had put his dressing gown and pyjamas and slippers on the window seat. Was that a softening overture, or a hint that she did not want him in the bedroom? He tiptoed warily to the balcony to glance at the children. Even in sleep Sylvia was still the coquette: she lay with one hand curled against her cheek, the most ravis.h.i.+ng pose, her face a lovely fragile gravity. Janet was restless, muttering something about bathing.

He undressed, sitting on the window seat. With a vague notion of postponing the struggle with the pamphlet he went through his routine with unusual care, watching the details. He noticed for the first time his ingenious attempt to retain the tip of each sock, by curling his toes into it as he removed it. Thepurpose was evidently to turn the sock completely inside out in the one motion of stripping it off. For the first time in weeks, he decided to fold his trousers neatly instead of just throwing them on a chair. He gave them a preliminary shake and found that the sand lodged in the cuffs flew unerringly into his eyes.

He discovered that if he tried to put the left leg into his pyjamas first, instead of the right, it didn't feel as though he had them on at all. The laundress had managed to let the end of the waist-string vanish inside its little tunnel of hem. It required some very sharp work to creep it out again. What a good booklet could be written, for some pyjama and underwear manufacturer, on The Technique of Getting Undressed. How pleasant that if you lay out your clothes just in the order of their discarding they are exactly serialized in the correct sequence for dressing tomorrow.

All this, he felt with subtle horror, was just a postponement of something inevitable, something he knew was coming but could not identify. Some great beauty of retribution had him in its onward march. He was unworthy of the glory of living, he had niggled and haggled and somewhere in his bunglings he had touched some fatal spring. He had broken some seal, let the genie out of the bottle. The little whiff of fragrant vapour had flowed and spread until it darkened the whole sky. It hung terrible above him and the four tiny Georges cowered beneath it. And behind and within every other thought was Joyce. He could see her, perfect, inaccessible, afraid. This dear device of Nature, this gay, simple ingenuity of dividing life into halves and making them hanker for one another! Oh, Joyce, Joyce, it does matter. Joyce, I need you so.

A craven impulse tempted him to turn in at once, on the window seat; but its curved shape was not comfortable; moreover, how could he possibly sleep? Downstairs the big couch had a lamp by it; he could read, and while reading, think. The princ.i.p.al pleasure of reading, he had always found, is to fix the attention of the coa.r.s.e outer mind, allowing the inner faculty to slip free. As he went down the clock startled him by counting midnight. He timed his step on the creaky treads so that the chime would cover them. But that settled it, he thought. One can continue working after twelve, but one can't possibly begin work at that hour. Besides, it's impossible to be conscientious in dressing gown and slippers. Morals, conscience, ambition, all the cunning artifice of custom, are laid aside with the garments of the day. The sophistries of virtue avail you nothing now. The thing in your heart that you are angriest at and most ashamed of, that is G.o.d. And that's what G.o.ds are invented for: to be despised and rejected. A G.o.d who was honoured and welcomed, how unhappy he would be.

He lay down on the couch with a book, but his mind ran wild behind the printed lines. The weight and breathing of the silent house pressed about him. How well he knew that feeling of a house at night. All the others, broken at last by the day's long war of attrition, lost in their silence; himself the sole survivor, gleaning stupidly over the battlefield. Matching his lonely wit against destiny, aware of a shuddering compa.s.sion for these unruly lives under his charge. What was it that kept them all going? Only his dreams, his poor busy ideas. For the moment he could feel the whole fabric transfigured with truth and tenderness; with love that was furious and clean, with work that was sane and absorbing. What did he really care whether thousands of people did or did not spend their summer on the Great Scenic Route of the Eastern Railroad? Or whether they bedded on the Morrison Mattress, that Makes Sleep a Career?

He slipped to his knees beside the sofa, but he could not even pray. He was aware of the door behind him, and of Phyllis in the room overhead. How terrible if any one should find him on his knees. Praying is only respectable if done in congregations. He remembered those cold evenings long ago, when he and Phyllis couldn't sleep unless she were pressed close behind him, her arm across his chest. And now he was living among strangers. I'll do whatever you tell me, I'll do whatever you tell me. But by heaven he had glimpsed it: he had seen beauty within breath and grasp: too close to mar it by selfishness. No, said his demon, you shan't even have the consolation of fine words. You shall have all the mockery and none of the bliss.I suppose biology's pulling my leg, he reflected. . . .

He must have been kneeling there a long time. His forehead was numb from pressing on the ridged tapestry of the couch. At least you don't need the light on when you're trying to pray. The bills are big enough as it is. He rose stiffly and snicked off the current.

At the foot of the stair he paused. If Joyce were awake he might hear her stir. His hand gripped the carved newel, then slid onto the smooth ascent of the banister rail. He stood a moment, and turned away.

The bedroom was dim. The blinds were not all the way down, dregs of that sparkling moonlight flowed underneath. Phyllis was asleep, he could see her head against the white linen. She lay as she always did, at the far side of the bed, turned away from the door, her arms crossed, one hand perching on her shoulder, the other tucked under the pillow. He went softly round the foot of the bed, stepping aside to avoid her slippers. He knew by instinct exactly where they would be.

Crouched at the bedside, he slid one arm under the pillow to find her hand. His fingers met a small damp handkerchief.

He gathered her into his arms. Out of some far-off vacancy she moved drowsily and welcomed him home. They knew every curve of their old embrace. Here was no fear and no doubting. Here was his consolation. Who was ever more beautiful? The tiny flattened handkerchief, was it not a pathetic symbol of the bruised mercies of love? Ah, be slow to mock the plain, simplest things: good-byes, angers, fidelities, renunciations.

He held her close and more close. Then, with a gruesome pang, he checked the name that was on his lips. In the poor comedy of his heart there was room for but one thought: grat.i.tude to Joyce; Joyce who in the unstained bravery of her spirit had taught him anew the worth and miracle of love and whose only reward had been suffering. Her name, so long echoed in his unuttered voice, now filled his mind and terrified him. Here, with Phyllis in his arms, he was thinking of her; this frail ghost of pa.s.sion came between them. In physical sickness his embrace grew faint. It could not be: the last scruple of his manhood revolted against this consummate deceit.

Still half in dream, Phyllis divined him laggard. She crept closer. "Oh, Martin, Martin," she whispered. "I knew you'd come."

Now he knew where the dark current of the hours had been bearing him. Nothing else was possible.

Quietly, without anger or surprise, in the relief of one free to face his destiny, he left the room and went down the stair. His hand was out to turn the k.n.o.b when he saw that Joyce's door was opening toward him.

XIX

Joyce lay in a trance of weariness. A nervous tremolo s.h.i.+vered up and down from her knees to her stomach; her spirit seemed lost and dragged under into the strange circling life of the body, stubborn as that of a tree, that goes on regardless of the mind. I don't care, she thought, I'm glad I'm alive. She was too inert to close her hot eyes or turn over into the pillow to shut out sounds from her sharpened ears.

She heard George's step on the garden path, Phyllis come downstairs and go to the kitchen. Beneath everything else was the obbligato of the house itself; twinges of loose timbers, the gurgle and rush of plumbing, creak of beds, murmuring voices, soft shut of doors. Tenacious life reluctantly yielding itself to oblivion. Then into this fading recessional came the low sough in the pines, the slackening volleys of the crickets like a besieging army that had withdrawn its troops. And the far-away cry of a train. She imagined it, trailing panes of golden light along the sh.o.r.e, or perhaps darkly curtained sleeping cars part.i.tioned into narrow kennels where mysterious people lay alone: and the bursting silver plume of its whistle, spiriting into the cool night, tearing a jagged rent in silence, shaking the whole membrane of elastic air that enveloped them all, a vibration that came undulating over the glittering bay, over the lonely beaches, trembled beside her and went throbbing away. . . . She hadn't been down to the beach yet, past the rolling dunes that gave her childhood a first sense of fatal solitude. She tried to remember how that sh.o.r.e looked: wideness, sharp air, the exact curved triangle of sails leaning into unseen sweetness of breeze, steep slides of sand over-tufted above by toppling clumps of gra.s.s. If one could escape down there and go bathing in moonlight; come back cleansed, triumphant.

The whisper at the window sill startled her. She knew Bunny at once.

"You must get him away. Before it's too late, before he knows."

Joyce understood perfectly; so perfectly it didn't seem necessary to say anything. This was just what she had been telling herself.

She nodded.

"I kept calling him while you were all in the living room. I was here at this window. He won't listen. He thinks I'm just teasing him."

Joyce remembered Martin closing the door.

"Then I called you. I was so afraid you wouldn't hear me. It's awful to be helpless."

"Bunny, you're not helpless. Tell me what to do."

"What room is he in?"

"I don't know. Yes, I do, I think it's at the end of the pa.s.sage, next the bath."

"The old nursery. Oh, if I could come indoors. I can't; they've forgotten me."

"We'll manage," Joyce whispered. "I always knew you and I would have to help each other."

"He must find something to take him back. You are the one who can help."

Joyce knew there was some secret here too beautiful to be said. Bunny could not tell her, it must be guessed.

"Is it something I gave him?""Something you'd like to keep."

"Is it the mouse? Bunny, how can we find it? That was a lifetime ago."

"Perhaps it's in the nursery. In the old toy cupboard."

"I'll get it in the morning."

"That may be too late. Now, tonight."

"Oh Bunny, tell me plainly. Is it the mouse you mean?"

She was tugging fiercely to raise the screen, jammed in its grooves. Her fingers still tingled from the sharp edges of the shallow metal sockets. Only the empty garden, the sinking candy-peel moon beyond the black arc of hill. The impression was vivid upon her. There was only one thing to do, she must go through the sleeping house to Martin's room, rouse him, tell him at once. She rose from bed and opened the door.

He was there, holding out his hand; motionless as though he had been waiting so all the s.h.i.+ning night. She took it mechanically.

"Who is it?" she said.

"Who else could it be?"

But at first she had thought it was Martin, somehow warned by Bunny. They stood aghast of one another, in silence, awkwardly holding hands. It was not like a meeting, it was like a good-bye.

The declining moonlight limned her cloudily. But this was no silly dream. He saw her revealed in all her wistful beauty, meant from the beginning for him.

"George, we must get Martin out of the house - "

Martin again. Evidently, he thought, the G.o.ds intend to wring the last drop of comedy out of me.

"d.a.m.n Martin," he said softly. "Joyce, I didn't find you at last to talk about him. Dear, I told you we'd know it if the time came."

Was this what Bunny meant by giving? I have nothing to give. The Me he loves has gone somewhere.

How can I tell him? Instead of the imagined joy and communion there's only horror. And I want so to love him.

He had carried her to the couch and was kneeling beside her. Oh, if I could lay down the burden of this heavy, heavy love. If I could love him gladly, not just bitterly. Is this the only way to save him from knowing? Such a little thing, that I wanted to keep for myself. She turned from him convulsively and buried her face in the pillow. He mustn't see my tears. The cruellest thing is, he'll think I don't love him.

No man was ever so loved. But I gave myself, long ago, to the dream of him. I can't mix it with the reality.

She turned, in a mercy of pure tenderness.

"George, dear George, I meant what I said."

I'll do whatever you tell me, I'll do whatever you tell me. But he divined her misery. The brave words trembled. She lay before him, white, inaccessible, afraid. Exquisite, made for delight, with every gracethat the brave l.u.s.t of man has dreamed; and weariness, anxiety, some strange disease of the spirit, frustrated it. Their love too was a guest of honour, a G.o.d to be turned away. She lay there, her sweet body the very sign and symbol of their need, and he knew nothing but pity, as for a wounded child. In that strange moment his poor courage was worthy of hers. G.o.d pity me for a fool, he thought. But I love her best of all because I shall never have her.

"I'm going to tell you the truth," he began - A jarring crash shook the house, followed by a child's scream. He rose heavily to his feet, tightened and nauseated with terror. He knew exactly what must have happened. The railing on the sleeping porch, which he had forgotten to mend. One of the children had got out of bed, stumbled against it, the rotten posts had given way. If she had fallen from that height . . . he pictured a broken white figure on the gravel. This was his punishment for selfishness and folly. Oh, it is always the innocent who suffer.

With heaviness in his feet he hurried through the dining room and veranda. All was still: looking up he could see the balcony unaltered. Then, through the open windows above he heard the unmistakable clang of metal on a wooden floor. Ben's bed.

Unable to shake off his conviction of disaster he ran upstairs. Phyllis was crouching in the pa.s.sage, comforting Janet. "I had a bad dream," the child sobbed, "then there was that awful noise."

"There, there, darling, you're all right now. We all have dreams sometimes. You can come into bed with Mother."

There was the bleat of one of the talking dolls. "Maaa-Maa!" it cried, and Sylvia appeared, sleepily stolid. "Is it tomorrow?" she asked.

"I thought the porch had broken down," said Phyllis hysterically. "George, did you fix that railing?"

"Nonsense. The porch is all right. Get back to sleep, little toads."

"What was it, Ben's bed?"

"Ben's! No such luck, it's mine," said Ruth, opening the door. "Where does the light turn on? I can't find the b.u.t.ton." She saw George and gave a squeak of dismay.

She needn't be so d.a.m.ned skittish, he thought angrily. Nightgowns don't seem to be any novelty in this house. "Phyl, you take Janet into bed, I'll put Sylvia on the window seat. Keep them off that porch till I've mended the railing in the morning."

Ben was grumbling over the wreckage. "George, what's the secret of this thing? Lend a hand."

"I'm frightfully sorry," said George. "I ought to have warned you. Here, I can fix it, there's a bit of clothes line - "

"For Heaven's sake, don't start tinkering now," said Ruth, who had dived into the other bed. "I'm all right here, and Ben can sleep on the mattress."

Her door was open, she stood anxiously waiting as he came downstairs at last. She had put on her wrapper, he noticed with a twinge.

"Ruth's bed had a blow-out," he said. "At least I thought she was safe when she's between the sheets."

He felt that he ought to want to laugh, but he had no desire to. I suppose it's because I've got no sense of humour. "Mr. Martin seems the only one who knows that night is meant to forget things in. Well, let himsleep. He'll be on his way early in the morning."

She did not answer at once, searching for the words that would help him most.

"I must go too. George, you must let me. I'd only spoil your Picnic."

"You'll miss a lot of nice sandwiches," he said bitterly. "I made them myself, white meat."

With divine perception she saw the nature of his wound, the misery of his shame and self-abas.e.m.e.nt. It was not love of her he needed now, but love of himself, to keep life in him.

"We wouldn't have any chance to be us, we couldn't talk, we must say it now."

He remembered that once they had promised themselves they would never say it.

"It's better so, I suppose. Then there won't be even one sorrow that we haven't shared."