Captivity Part 26

"I n-never thought of that before. Of course you're right--I ought to have thought of it--even from the point of view of a psychologist."

"I don't think it's anything to do with any 'ologists at all. It's just common sense. Louis, I've been thinking a lot this week. You know, when father used to get--ill--no, drunk (Why should I be afraid to tell the truth, in spite of your sneers about poor father?) I was too wee to know very much. But knowing him as I do, I'm certain he tried and tried again. After mother died he left whisky alone, though he still had it in the house. He took to reading philosophy instead. You see, he was not like you. There was a hardness, a bravery in him that you haven't got.

You have cussedness instead and cussedness is a thing you can never be sure of. You see," she went on, flushing a little, and suddenly tossing her head proudly, "you don't understand this, and it may sound most appalling sn.o.bbishness to you. But my father's people have always been rulers--little kings--fighters, while yours have been just ordinary, protected folk. My people have had to fight for everything, even their food, their lands, their home. Yours have had shops and investments and policemen round every corner--there is a difference--Louis, am I offending you?" she asked anxiously.

"Go on!" he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"Well, father tried. But trying wasn't any use. He read philosophy to get himself interested in something. But philosophy wasn't gripping enough. It seems we've all got to find something to anchor on, and it's different for almost everyone. That's where we can help each other by trying to understand each other's needs and offering suggestions. Like sailors do--with charts and things. All this philosophy of father's! It reminds me of a horse I saw once at Carlossie Fair. It had a most horrible ulcer on its shoulder and they'd tried to hide it up by plaiting its mane and tying it with a great heap of ribbons. That doesn't cure anything! You know there's a phrase we use often about people who are miserable--we say, 'Oh, he needs to be taken out of himself.' Isn't that a vivid way of putting it, if you stop to think?"

He nodded, and still stared fascinated at her, drinking in every slow, halting word.

"I suppose father brooded just like you do. He used to get very grumpy, and very, very unhappy. He begged and pleaded with me for understanding, and I couldn't give it to him. Then one day he got dreadfully drunk, after a whole year away from it. And mother's cousin came. He talked to father for five or six hours while Aunt and I kept shivering and thinking father would murder him. Our people usually do murder people who annoy them. But Cousin came out of the room and said, 'Andrew has cast his burden on the Lord.' He said it as if he was saying, 'Andrew has sneezed, or put some coal on the fire'--the most ordinary way you can imagine. And that was the end of whisky for father. After that he tried to make everyone he knew cast their burden on the Lord. I rather felt like laughing at the time. It seemed rather silly, and just a bit vulgar--most religion is, isn't it? But since I've been worrying myself to death about you I've understood all about poor father."

"I don't see it," he said hopelessly.

"Listen. Until father gave up trying himself and realized that he was weak, he was--was--sort of hiding the ulcer with a bunch of ribbons. But the minute he gave up, everything was different. He didn't say any more, 'I'm Andrew Lashcairn, the son of generations of drunkards and madmen.'

He changed it and said, 'I'm G.o.d's man--I've given Him my homage and made Him the Captain of my life.' And then, don't you see, he stopped being shut in inside himself any longer. He began to love me and be gentle to me. Louis, do you know, I believe you're tackling this worry in the wrong way. It can't be right--being rude to me, growling all the time about your father and mother--thinking, thinking, thinking all the time about yourself and your weakness until the whole universe is yourself and your weakness. Can't you see how bad it is, you who are a doctor? You know the old saying about giving a dog a bad name and hanging him. Louis, you're giving yourself a bad name, and hanging yourself."

"Oh, I say, Marcella," he gasped. "Do you think--" he broke off, and groaned again.

"Louis, I _know_. I don't _think_ anything about it! The other day I was reading a most extraordinary book the schoolmaster lent me. It was about St. Francis of a.s.sisi. It said that, by contemplation of the wounds of Christ, in time he came to feeling pain in his hands and feet and side--"

"Balderdash!" muttered Louis impatiently. "Auto-suggestion!"

"Auto--what's that?" she asked. He explained and she cried out eagerly:

"Well, can't you see you're doing exactly the same thing? And you call it balderdash when other people do it! Those wounds of St. Francis were called the Stigmata--can't you see that you're giving yourself the stigmata of drunkenness?"

"I've got them," he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "I'm done. I'm even a thief."

"Oh, you idiot! How sorry I am for my father! He used to call me an idiot, and have me to put up with. And now I've got you, and you're a thousand times denser than ever I was! You're neither a drunkard nor a thief, Louis. Look here, to begin with, how much do you owe Fred? You shall have all I've got. If I give it to you you can't be a thief any more."

Between them they had just enough money for Fred and a few shillings left. He wept as she fastened it in an envelope and asked him to take it along to Fred's cabin at once.

"I--I s-say, Marcella. I--I--d-daren't," he groaned. "He'll ask me to wet it. And I'll not be able to say no. And oh my G.o.d, I don't want to do it any more."

"Then I'll take it," she said promptly, and darted along with it to Number Fifteen, listened while Ole Fred said every insulting thing he could about Louis and all Louis's ancestors and then calmly asked him for a receipt for the money.

Louis was still sitting on the floor. He looked up, his bloodshot eyes appealing as he looked at her.

"I say, M-m-marcella. I'm sorry I said all those nasty things about your father."

"There you are again, Louis! Forget them all! Forget everything but the future now. I can't imagine where I've got this conviction from, but it's absolutely right, I know. If you'll wipe out all your memory and start clean, you'll be cured."

"I could never do as your father did--all that religion business."

"I don't think I could, Louis. Father saw G.o.d as a militant Captain, someone outside himself. I'd never get thinking that about G.o.d. But it seems to me, in your case, you want to find someone you could trust, someone who would take the responsibility from you. Just as G.o.d did for father. Even if we say there is no G.o.d at all, he thought there was and acted on his thought--I suppose it's when we feel weak as father did that we get the idea of G.o.d at all."

"It all seems rot to me," he told her. "I laugh at G.o.d--as a relic of fetishism."

There was a long, hopeless silence. At last he said dully:

"There are some doctors--our old Dean at St. Crispin's, that I could throw myself upon as your father threw himself upon G.o.d. But they're not here."

As she sat, frowning, trying most desperately to help him, finding her unready brain a blank thing like the desert, realizing that, in all her reading there was nothing that could help, since there was no strong helper in the world save that Strong Man G.o.d who had gripped her father's imagination and could never grip Louis's, a whole pageant of dreams pa.s.sed before her; dreams, intangible ideas which she grasped eagerly--visions--she saw herself John the Baptist, "making straight the way of the Lord"--she saw Siegfried, King Arthur--and, with a heart-leaping gasp she asked herself, "Why should not I be Louis's Deliverer? Why should not I be G.o.d's pathway to him? Why should not I be Siegfried?" And all the time her brain, peopled with myths, saw only the shining armour, the glittering fight; she did not see the path of G.o.d deeply rutted by trampling feet, burnt by the blazing footsteps of G.o.d.

She heard herself as John's great crying voice and heeded the prison and the martyrdom not at all: it was a moment's flash, a moment's revelation. Then she turned to him. Her eyes were very bright. She spoke rapidly, nervously.

"Louis--that doctor you know--the Dean. Do you think they are the only wise folks on earth? I mean, do you think wisdom begins and ends with wise people? I don't, you know." she paused, frowning, not quite sure where this thought was going to lead her.

"They're the best chaps on earth," he murmured. "I c-could have b-been like them."

"But what is it makes them wise and fine? It's--I think--because they get rid of themselves, and let G.o.d shine through them to other people."

He turned impatiently. She caught his hot, damp, dirty hand in hers.

"Louis, I don't know very much. I've proved I can't hold you very well already, but I care an awful lot. Louis--how would it be if you threw it all on to me for a while till either you believe in G.o.d or in yourself?

And I've a sort of belief that, whichever you believe in first, you'll believe in the other automatically--I'm not a bit clever, Louis. I never was. Always I get puzzled, always I realize how utterly unlearned I am.

Always father called me an idiot and threw things at me for it. But in spite of being a duffer I'm sure I can help you."

"You could if you were with me every minute. I'd rather be with you than most people. But the minute I'm away from you I get dragged."

"Well, why shouldn't I stop with you the whole time, never leave you a minute? Let's be married, and then I could."

She looked at him anxiously. There was not a glimmer of shyness or excitement about her. She was still in her dream world; she knew that marriage would keep them together always. So she suggested marriage. She was not, yet, consciously in love.

He stared at her, stammered a little as he tried to speak and then, suddenly sobered, s.n.a.t.c.hed at her hand.

"Do you mean it, knowing what I am? I'm an awful waster, Marcella--there's nothing on earth I can do for a living."

She frowned a little.

"But that's nothing to do with it. We'll find some way of living. You know that. We'd have to if we were not married, wouldn't we? And stop all this about being a waster. You're not anything of the sort. You're not anything but what you're going to be."

"And you really, really, won't go back on it? I make so many promises and break them. I can't believe other people much."

"Of course I won't go back on it. I want to stay with you. I never want to be with anyone else at all on earth."

"But why?" he asked, humble for the first time in his life.

"I haven't the slightest idea. You seem very clever to me. That's one thing. And--and the way you _depend_. Oh dear, I feel I've got to kidnap both you and Jimmy and run away with you to some safe place."

"Good Lord!" he said, laughing harshly. "I'm just thinking of Violet."

"Why? She can't mind, now she's married."

"No. It was the idea of Violet's trying to kidnap me, and loving me because I depended on her. Lord, she did the depending."

"That was why she wasn't any use to you, I suppose. Besides, Louis, you know, I love you when you're not--not ill. And I love the way your eyes look."

"Good Lord," he cried again, and started up sharply. "I say, Marcella, I'm off to have a bath. Wait here for me--" He peeped into her mirror.