Captivity Part 42

She felt cold with horror, but there was nothing she could do. Mrs. King said that she had seen him go out at two o'clock. And that was all she could learn. For the rest of the afternoon and evening she was almost frantic with fear. But the money was not touched. She could not imagine what had happened until Mrs. King told her that Mr. King had confessed to getting letters containing money from the Post Office for Louis, and buying him whisky. Marcella ran out of the house, almost crazed with fright, to look for him. When she had only gone a few hundred yards she ran back, afraid he might come in and need her. It was not until after midnight that a violent knocking on the front door roused Mrs. King and sent Marcella down the stairs in a panic.

It was Louis. His eyes were wild, his clothes muddy. He lurched past Mrs. King and, making a great effort, managed to get upstairs.

In the room, instinct made Marcella shut and lock the door. He had thrown himself on the bed, his muddy boots on the coverlet. He lay there breathing heavily for awhile until he was violently sick.

"Oh, Louis--my poor little boy!" she cried, forgetting that he was drunk in her fear that he was ill.

"You think I'm drunk, ole girl--not drunk 'tall, ole girl."

"Well, get undressed and get into bed," she said, trying to help. He struck her hand away from his collar fiercely and, holding her arms twisted them until she had to beg him to let her go.

"Aft' my papers," he cried fiercely. Then he seemed to recognize her and began to rave about his duty to England, and how England's enemies had given him poison.

"I'm poisoned, ole girl. I knew what it would be. But when they sent for me I had to go."

"Who sent for you?"

"They sent a note by King. It came in by the English mail. Th-th-they have t-t-to b-be s-so c-c-careful," he said, and that was all he would tell her. Soon he was fast asleep, breathing heavily, and she was wrestling with a sick disgust at his presence, a fright that he really had been in danger from enemies and the conviction that he was drunk and not poisoned. She lay on the floor again this time because she could not bring herself to touch him or go near him. His hands and face were dirty and he had definitely refused to wash them or let her wash them. But in the middle of the night he woke up and began to shout for her.

"I wan' my wife. Where's my wife?" he raved and groping till he found the candlestick knocked on the floor with it. She sprung up hastily.

"Louis--hush, dear. You're waking up all the poor boys who have to go to work at six o'clock," she whispered.

"I wan' my wife," he cried, groping for her with his muddy hands. She stood trembling by the bed.

"Louis, I can't--it isn't a bit of use asking me. I can't be in bed beside you like this."

"Glad 'nough to las' night!" he said, laughing into her face. She felt the hot blood pumping to her skin until it seemed to her that even her hair must be blushing. Then she went very cold as she walked blindly towards the door, only conscious that she must get anywhere away from him.

"I wan' my wife. She is my wife, isn't she? Dammit! Wha's a man's wife for? Marsh--Marshlaise! d.a.m.n Germ's playing Marshlaise! They're aft'

me--I knew they'd be aft' me! Marsh-sh.e.l.la? Where's my Marsh-ella?"

He pounded on the floor again, and she turned back, wrung by the terror in his voice. She lighted two candles and he saw that she was by his side.

"I thought you'd left me," he said, beginning to cry and streaking the tears about his face with his dirty hands. She was shivering as she bent over him, her tears mingling with his.

"I'm here with you, dear," she told him.

"Are you my wife? Wan' wom'n--beau-ful whi' shoulders! N'est ce pas?

Parlez-vous Franshay, mam-selle? Ah oui, oui."

"Louis, you mustn't, _mustn't_ talk that beastly French, please," she sobbed. He thumped on the floor, staring round wildly with glazed eyes.

There was a tap at the door. Marcella, glad of any diversion, went and opened it.

"I say, kid, keep your boss quiet if you can," whispered Mrs. King. "My young chaps down below can't get their proper sleep for that row, and they've got a hard day's work before them if he hasn't."

"Mrs. King, whatever am I to do with him?" she cried frantically. "I don't believe he knows it's me. And he's so horribly dirty."

"Oh, go an' sit on his knee a bit, kid, and make up to him. That's the best way to make them go quiet. He's at the vulgar stage to-night, your boss is. But do keep him quiet. Not that I'm not sorry for you, kid,"

she added, as she turned away. "They're beasts, men are. Mine's asleep as it happens."

He was still raving, saying disgusting things that, unfortunately, were in English this time. Looking at him in the candlelight she felt terrified of him and utterly unable to treat him as a sick man and not a wicked one. As she stood there stiff, unable through sheer disgust to get any nearer to him, he clutched at her nightgown and drew her nearer.

She felt frantic; her nails cut into her hands as she gripped them together as if for the comforting feel of a hand in hers.

"Why should I have this disgust happen to me? It's too dirty to ask women to get men to sleep like this."

Then, amidst all the searing things he was saying, came the memories of those cries in the night at the farm and she wondered breathlessly if this sort of thing could have happened to her mother. And, at that moment she knew that it had not. Her father might, quite possibly, have almost killed her mother by his violent rages. But he could never have been merely disgusting. She looked at him again and felt murderous; a pa.s.sion to put him out of life, to stamp upon him and finish him flooded up and burst and died all in an instant. She realized in that quiet instant that this pa.s.sionate disgust was utterly selfish; if he had been loathsome with any other disease than this she would have nursed and soothed him tenderly; if he had been clean and charming, as on the night of the aurora.

"Oh, what a hypocrite you are, Marcella Lashcairn!" she said. "With all your high-falutin' ideas of balance and coolness! You've been luxuriating in the thought of martyrdom all the time you've been fighting the enchantment of this wretched love-making! You've not been fighting it a bit, really! It's only now, when it's disgusting and beastly and--not a bit enchanting, that you're fighting it! What a liar you've been!"

"I wan' my wife," he muttered, quietened a little by Mrs. King's voice.

"'Sall very well, ole girl."

"Be quiet, Louis, or I'll shake your head off!" she said, quietly. He stared at her, and cowered down in the bed. She watched him for a moment. Then she spoke softly.

"Now you're going to sleep--you're going to put your head down on Marcella's shoulder and go to sleep. You're quite safe with Marcella."

He shivered a little, and then lay still. She pinched out the candle with fingers that did not feel the flame.

For a whole fortnight he drank steadily, using remarkable cleverness in getting money. He joined forces with Mr. King: for the first week they obtained money from some unknown source and only came home at night when they were put out of the hotels at closing time, and even then they brought whisky or gin--which was much cheaper--home with them. Marcella had not known there were distinctions in alcohol; she found during that fortnight that whisky made him mad and then terrified, gin made him horribly disgusting and beer made him simply silly and very sick. The second week Louis tricked and lied to Marcella, using any excuse to get her out of the room. At the end of three days he had sold everything he possessed except his least reputable suit, which he had to keep to wear.

The last day of the fortnight he came home without the waistcoat: whether he had sold that, or given it away in maudlin generosity, or lost it in some fantastic fashion she could never gather. He had not taken any of her money. On Mrs. King's advice she had gone up on the roof one day, crept along three other roofs and hidden it in a gully.

"You've got to be up to all the dodges," said Mrs. King.

"I loathe dodges," said Marcella.

She got down to the depths in this fortnight. Louis scarcely slept at all, nor did she. Soothing him at night sickened her beyond endurance; she read the New Testament much during the day while he was away, and the story of the Grail. One day St. Paul said something to her that brought her up sharp.

"Though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing; love suffereth long, and is kind: love--beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

"I don't believe I love him. I don't believe I ever loved him. That madness wasn't love, or it would have endured all things," she said.

Then Parsifal told her that without love pity might still endure all things. By the time she had been married two months her pity for him was an overwhelming ache. He pretended penitence to win it: he had no need to pretend....

At last he had no money. Everything portable he had sold, including some of her clothes. His drink hunger was tearing him. She was going about the room with big, mournful eyes and white face, making a meal for him.

He had scarcely eaten for the whole fortnight; she did not understand that he was too poisoned to eat; she tried to persuade him to take food until he was irritated beyond endurance and threw it on the floor. As she pa.s.sed him, quiet footed, he noticed her purse in the pocket of the big cooking ap.r.o.n Mrs. King had lent her.

"Dearie," he said presently, "leave that silly mess and come here to me."

She came immediately, and sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders drooping.

"Your little Louis's so sorry," he whispered.

"Are you really sorry, Louis? Not like you were last time?" she asked, suddenly hoping all things again on the slightest provocation.

"My darling, I'm heartbroken to think of the way I've treated you," he said. "I think I'd better throw myself in the harbour."

He took her hand in his and held it shakily. Her loose sleeve slipped up; on the white arm he saw blue marks of fingers; this jerked him a little. He had not known he had got to that yet. Suddenly he kissed them and began to cry.

"When did I do that?"