Captivity Part 61

"Because I'm not--not a d.a.m.ned adulterer!" the words were torn from her.

"But I can't clean my thoughts of wanting to be. My dear--after so long--I've helped you and been patient. Can't you do something--now, to make me able to bear it?"

"Now _you_ know what it is to--" he began with an ugly laugh. Then rage seized him. "I'll break his d.a.m.ned neck," he cried.

"That's no use! What will that do to me? You can't kill the love that's tearing me up, by smashing his body to bits! You see, Louis, I've got him, for ever and ever. The shining, knightly side of me has. But it's the greedy side of me--the side that makes you grab out for whisky--that's sticking teeth into me now. And you know how it hurts."

"G.o.d! I'll break his d.a.m.ned neck," he cried again, and raged off into the Bush.

She crept into the house. A wild thought came to her that, if there were any killing it would be Kraill who would do it. And he and she would run away for awhile, right into the Bush, before people came to hang them.

She stopped breathing at the gloriousness, the primitive full-bloodedness of it, and then writhed in horror at the greed of such thoughts, and prayed pa.s.sionately that a sentry might be put at the door of her mind.

And she knew, very well, that presently Louis would be back--that he would say once again all the foul things he had said before, now with some glimmering of truth in them: that he would get money from somewhere and be drunk to-night, for now, at least, he had excuse. Then he would grin foolishly, and cry weakly, and rage and be futilely violent, and she would have to take this quivering thing that housed her armoured soul and make it do his service; she would have to undress him and wash him so that Andrew, trotting in in the morning, should not see his father in bed dirty; she would have to kiss away his ravings, soothe his fears. Presently she shook her head many times. She knew that she could never do that any more.

An hour, two hours pa.s.sed. She sat quite still. Then a shadow crossed the window and steps came on to the verandah. She did not move. Louis stood by the door. Kraill was beside him. Louis looked quite sane, and very unusually young and boyish. There was a queerly different look about him. She stared at him for a moment; almost it seemed as though she could see a shine about him for an instant. Then she looked at Kraill, and he at her. She did not move, but her soul was on its knees worshipping his beautiful, still eyes that were tragic no longer, but very wise and sad. He read all that she did not say.

Louis coughed.

"Marcella--I'm sorry, old girl. Kraill has talked to me about it. He's been--or rather--we've been bucking each other up."

He coughed awkwardly.

"Bucking each other up--no end, old lady," he added, and ran his hand through his hair, making it wild, and rough.

She smiled faintly with her lips. For another moment she could not s.n.a.t.c.h her eyes away from Kraill's.

Then she said faintly:

"It's all very well, Louis. You're always being sorry! Aren't you?"

"This is the last time, Marcella, that there'll be any need to be very sorry," he said solemnly. "I was going to clear out for good, but Kraill made me come back."

"That's all very well, too. Professor Kraill is going away. He doesn't have to put up with you. He doesn't have to sleep with you. You will be drunk to-night, and every night when there's any money. And next day you'll be whining about it. I've lost hope now. I'm tired, tired of to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow."

Kraill's eyes were on her. The echo of a c.o.c.k that crowed outside a door in Jerusalem nineteen hundred years ago came to her and her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh I'm so sorry! You asked me for my courage," she said to Kraill.

"There's no need for it now--on Louis's account, Marcella. You believe what I say to you, don't you?"

He smiled at her; he looked very friendly, very kindly.

"You know I believe you!" she cried.

"Then I tell you that Louis is quite better now. He is going to take care of you and Andrew. I can't prove it to you, yet. But you will see it as time goes on."

"I don't want him any more," she cried, "I want you--Oh no--no--!"

His eyes held hers again, tragic and terrible. Then again he smiled, and she felt that she had failed him.

"No, of course not, Marcella," he said gently. "These slinking greeds of ours--"

He turned to Louis.

"We'd better be getting along to the station, don't you think?" He stood looking at Marcella, who seemed stunned.

"Don't you think you could make us some tea before we go?" he said casually. She stared at him dully.

"Tea?" she said dazedly, and began to laugh shrilly. "Tea? Oh, men are funny! You're both so funny! _'The greatest of human triumphs is to read the need in another's eyes and be able to fulfil it.'_ Tea! Oh Louis, isn't it funny--making tea--now."

She laughed and laughed, and then Kraill and Louis began to dance about before her eyes most erratically, until a black curtain all shot with fires came down and hid them, and waves of cold, green water went over her. She felt someone lift her out of the water and then she went to sleep.

CHAPTER x.x.x

In the months that followed Marcella often tried to find out what had caused the Miracle--for Miracle it seemed to her. The desire for whisky that had obsessed him for ten years seemed to have died: he frankly admitted that it gave him no trouble now at all. When she seemed inclined to praise him for his bravery he laughed at her; there was no bravery in doing a thing that was perfectly easy and natural to him. He looked different: he was just as different as Saul of Tarsus after he saw the blinding light on the Damascus road. His nerves never cracked now; the little meannesses of which both she and the boy had been victims had disappeared; he gave her a kind of wistful, protecting love that proved to her, more even than his frequent safe visits to the township, that something radical had happened that day in the Bush--something so radical that, if it were taken from him, he would not be there at all. She felt that he was safe now; she felt that the boy was safe; she felt that in everyone on earth who was sick and sad and unhappy was the capacity for safety. But she did not know how they might come by it.

But she knew, incontrovertibly, that she could never love Louis again with any degree of happiness or self-satisfaction. That much Kraill had shown her. She and Louis had no part in each other's spiritual nights and days; the typhoon of physical pa.s.sion that had swept her up for a few minutes she saw now as a very cheap subst.i.tute for the apotheosis Kraill had indicated. It was Louis's weakness that had been their strongest bond in the past: now that that was gone there was little left in him for her. But peace after pain was very beautiful.

It was not until after six months of sanity that he told her all about the miracle. One evening, after the child had gone to bed, they were sitting on the verandah. Louis had been talking of going home to start afresh in England.

"The voyage would do you good, Marcella. My diagnostic eye has been on you lately," he said as he lighted a cigarette and pa.s.sed it to her.

"You're looking f.a.gged, and it's unnatural to see you looking f.a.gged.

You're getting thin. I don't want to see you suddenly evaporate, old girl."

She shook her head and stared unseeingly over the soft green of springing life that, before they came, had been devastating gorse.

"Yes, clearly a trip to England is indicated," he said. "You're alone too much. Marcella, I believe you're thinking every minute about Kraill."

"I--can't help it," she said in a low voice. "They're--good thoughts, now."

He looked at her, and something about the droop of her shoulders contracted his throat, made a pain at his heart.

"It's hard--" he began.

"It's a hunger, Louis. You understand it, don't you? But I can't buy it in a bottle!"

"Marcella!" he cried pa.s.sionately. "I'll--I'll come into your thoughts in time. Lord knows I'm trying hard enough."

"Oh my dear, don't I know?" she said gently. "And has it occurred to you what a mercy it is for me that you're like this now? If I had to hide everything up, like I used to, I couldn't bear it--never seeing him again--if you didn't help me to."

"It's queer," he said slowly. "Most people--husband and wife--would not be able to talk about this sort of thing to each other. They'd hide and lie to each other."

"We've both been weak--and we've both been helped. And these demands we make of each other teach us so much. If Kraill had not demanded courage of me I'd--he'd have had me. It's no use lying about it, is it? Why should you be so frank about your whisky, and give yourself away to me every time about it, and I hide up my weakness from you?"

"You're--weirdly honest, old girl," he said with a short laugh.