The Destroying Angel Part 43

The diversion of thought reminded him of their helpless and forlorn condition. He went out and swept the horizon with an eager and hopeful gaze that soon drooped in disappointment. The day had worn on in unbroken calm: not a sail stirred within the immense radius of the waters. Ships he saw in plenty--a number of them moving under power east and west beyond the headland with its crowning lighthouse; others--a few--left shining wakes upon the burnished expanse beyond the farthest land visible in the north. Unquestionably main-travelled roads of the sea, these, so clear to the sight, so heartbreakingly unattainable....

And then his conscience turned upon him, reminding him of the promise (completely driven out of his mind by his grim adventure before dawn, together with the emotional crisis of mid-morning) to display some sort of a day-signal of distress.

For something like half an hour he was busy with the task of nailing a turkey-red table-cloth to a pole, and the pole in turn (with the a.s.sistance of a ladder) to the peak of the gabled barn. But when this was accomplished, and he stood aside and contemplated the drooping, shapeless flag, realizing that without a wind it was quite meaningless, the thought came to him that the very elements seemed leagued together in a conspiracy to keep them prisoners, and he began to nurse a superst.i.tious notion that, if anything were ever to be done toward winning their freedom, it would be only through his own endeavour, una.s.sisted.

Thereafter for a considerable time he loitered up and down the dooryard, with all his interest focussed upon the tidal strait, measuring its greatest and its narrowest breadth with his eye, making shrewd guesses at the strength and the occasions of the tides.

If the calm held on and the sky remained un.o.bscured by cloud, by eleven there would be clear moonlight and, if he guessed aright, the beginning of a period of slack water.

Sunset interrupted his calculations--sunset and his wife. Sounds of some one moving quietly round the kitchen, a soft clash of dishes, the rattling of the grate, drew him back to the door.

She showed him a face of calm restraint and implacable resolve, if scored and flushed with weeping. And her habit matched it: she had overcome her pa.s.sion; her eyes were glorious with peace.

"Hugh"--her voice had found a new, sweet level of gentleness and strength--"I was wondering where you were."

"Can I do anything?"

"No, thank you. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am."

"For what, in Heaven's name?"

She smiled.... "For neglecting you so long. I really didn't think of it until the sunlight began to redden. I've let you go without your lunch."

"It didn't matter--"

"I don't agree. Man must be fed--and so must woman. I'm famished!"

"Well," he admitted with a short laugh--"so am I."

She paused, regarding him with her whimsical, indulgent smile. "You strange creature!" she said softly. "Are you angry with me--impatient--for this too facile descent from heroics to the commonplace? But, Hugh"--she touched his arm with a gentle and persuasive hand--"it _must_ be commonplace. We're just mortals, after all, you know, no matter how imperishable our egos make us feel: and the air of the heights is too fine and rare for mortals to breathe long at a time. Life is, after all, an everyday affair. We've just got to blunder through it from day to day--mostly on the low levels. Be patient with me, dear."

But, alarmed by his expression, her words stumbled and ran out. She stepped back a pace, a little flushed and tremulous.

"Hugh! No, Hugh, no!"

"Don't be afraid of me," he said, turning away. "I don't mean to bother.

Only--at times--"

"I know, dear; but it must _not_ be." She had recovered; there was cool decision in her accents. She began to move briskly round the kitchen, setting the table, preparing the meal.

He made no attempt to reason with her, but sat quietly waiting. His role was patience, tolerance, strength restrained in waiting....

"Shall you make a fire again to-night?" she asked, when they had concluded the meal.

"In three places," he said. "We'll not stay another day for want of letting people know we're here."

She looked down, shyly. Coquetry with her was instinctive, irrepressible. Her vague, provoking smile edged her lips:

"You--you want to be rid of me again, so soon, Hugh?"

He bent over the table with a set face, silent until his undeviating gaze caught and held her eyes.

"Mary," he said slowly, "I want _you_. I mean to have you. Only by getting away from this place will that be possible. You must come to me of your own will."

She made the faintest negative motion of her head, her eyes fixed to his in fascination.

"You will," he insisted, in the same level tone. "If you love me, as you say, you must.... No--that's nonsense I won't listen to! Renunciation is a magnificent and n.o.ble thing, but it must have a sane excuse.... You said a while ago, this was a commonplace world, life an everyday affair.

It is. The only thing that lifts it out of the deadly, intolerable rut is this wonderful thing man has invented and named Love. Without it we are as Nature made us--brute things crawling and squabbling in blind squalor. But love lifts us a little above that: love _is_ supernatural, the only thing in all creation that rises superior to nature. There's no such thing as a life accursed; no such thing as a life that blights; there are no malign and vicious forces operating outside the realm of natural forces: love alone is supreme, subject to no known laws. I mean to prove it to you; I mean to show you how little responsible you have been in any way for the misfortunes that have overtaken men who loved you; I shall show you that I am far more blameworthy than you.... And when I have done that, you will come to me."

"I am afraid," she whispered breathlessly--"I am afraid I shall."

He rose. "Till then, my dearest girl, don't, please don't ever shrink from me again. I may not be able to dissemble my love, but until your fears are done away with, your mind at rest, no act of mine, within my control, shall ever cause you even so much as an instant's annoyance or distress."

His tone changed. "I'll go now and build my fires. When you are ready--?"

"I shan't be long," she said.

But for long after he had left her, she lingered moveless by a window, her gaze following him as he moved to and fro: her face now wistful, now torn by distress, now bright with longing. Strong pa.s.sions contended within her--love and fear, joy and regret; at times crushing apprehensions of evil darkened her musings, until she could have cried out with the torment of her fears; and again intimations possessed her of exquisite beauty, warming and enn.o.bling her heart, all but persuading her.

At length, sighing, she lighted the lamp and went about her tasks, with a bended head, wondering and frightened, fearfully questioning her own inscrutable heart. Was it for this only that she had fought herself all through that day: that she should attain an outward semblance of calm so complete as to deceive even herself, so frail as to be rent away and banished completely by the mere tones of his mastering voice? Was she to know no rest? Was it to be her fate to live out her days in yearning, eating her heart alone, feeding with sighs the pa.s.sing winds? Or was she too weary to hold by her vows? Was she to yield and, winning happiness, in that same instant encompa.s.s its destruction?...

When it was quite dark, Whitaker brought a lantern to the door and called her, and they went forth together.

As he had promised, he had built up three towering pyres, widely apart.

When all three were in full roaring flame, their illumination was hot and glowing over all the upland. It seemed impossible that the world should not now become cognizant of their distress.

At some distance to the north of the greatest fire--that nearest the farm-house--they sat as on the previous night, looking out over the black and unresponsive waters, communing together in undertones.

In that hour they learned much of one another: much that had seemed strange and questionable a.s.sumed, in the understanding of each, the complexion of the normal and right. Whitaker spoke at length and in much detail of his Wilful Missing years without seeking to excuse the wrong-minded reasoning which had won him his own consent to live under the mask of death. He told of the motives that had prompted his return, of all that had happened since in which she had had no part--with a single reservation. One thing he kept back: the time for that was not yet.

A listener in his turn, he heard the history of the little girl of the Commercial House breaking her heart against the hardness of life in what at first seemed utterly futile endeavour to live by her own efforts, asking nothing more of the man who had given her his name. To make herself worthy of that name, so that, living or dead, he might have no cause to be ashamed of her or to regret the burden he had a.s.sumed: this was the explanation of her fierce striving, her undaunted renewal of the struggle in the face of each successive defeat, her renunciation of the competence his forethought had provided for her. So also--since she would take nothing from her husband--pride withheld her from asking anything of her family or her friends. She cut herself off utterly from them all, fought her fight alone.

He learned of the lean years of drifting from one theatrical organization to another, forced to leave them one by one by conditions impossible and intolerable, until Ember found her playing ingenue parts in a mean provincial stock company; of the coming of Max, his interest in her, the indefatigable pains he had expended coaching her to bring out the latent ability his own genius divined; of the initial performance of "Joan Thursday" before a meagre and indifferent audience, her instant triumph and subsequent conquest of the country in half a dozen widely dissimilar roles; finally of her decision to leave the stage when she married, for reasons comprehensible, demanding neither exposition nor defence.

"It doesn't matter any longer," she commented, concluding: "I loved and I hated it. It was deadly and it was glorious. But it no longer matters.

It is finished: Sara Law is no more."

"You mean never to go back to the stage?"

"Never."

"And yet--" he mused craftily.

"Never!" She fell blindly into his trap. "I promised myself long ago that if ever I became a wife--"

"But you are no wife," he countered.

"Hugh!"