The Kingdom Round the Corner Part 37

Going to the window, he leant out. The quaint village street was sleeping. The night was so still that, it scarcely breathed; it lay like a tired child in the firm white arms of the moonlight. Coming smoothly to a halt before the hostel was a powerful car. It was a landaulet and the hood was lowered. Lady Dawn must have altered her plans at the last moment; instead of sending for him, she had come herself! Catching sight of him, she waved her hand. His heart became quiet. Like the night without, his being was flooded with a drifting whiteness that robbed the darkness of its terror.

VIII

As he stood by the side of the car talking to her while his bag was being stowed away, her manner was chillingly conventional. It was so conventional that it bordered on the unfriendly. About the unfriendliness of the chauffeur there could be no doubt. The elaborate care with which he tucked the robe about her Ladyship had a distinct air of alert possessiveness.

When Tabs had taken his place beside her and the village was left behind, she relaxed and laughed softly. "Such a trouble I've had! They all disapproved of our expedition--I mean the servants. Their eyes accused me of---- Perhaps it's better not to be explicit. But that was why I called for you, instead of letting you come to the Castle. Did you notice anything queer about Witherall?"

"Your chauffeur? I thought he rather overdid his superciliousness and that he treated you a little as if he were your husband. Apart from that----"

"Apart from that," she laughed, "he made you feel entirely welcome. You mustn't mind him. My servants aren't used to seeing me with an escort.

And then---- Well, an all-night ride would be a little difficult to explain to anybody."

"I suppose it would."

They relapsed into silence. It was jolly to be so near to her and, after the fears he had had, to know himself so trusted. She sat quite close to him, so that he could feel the warmth of her body. Her shoulders touched him; sometimes she leant against him with a gentle pressure. Her fragrance was all about him. The robe spread across their knees gave an added touch of intimacy. He glanced down at her sideways.

She was wearing a moleskin coat with a deep collar of silver-fox. She had on a moleskin hat, close fitting to her glossy head. Her face was partly hidden by a smart veil. She was immaculate as ever--as composed and stylish as if she were going to a theater-party instead of on an all-night ride to London. But it wasn't her stylishness that impressed him; it was her littleness. She looked very tender and pale as she sat beside him. The moral back of her chauffeur, as seen through the gla.s.s, condemned him of unkindness. He had had no right to ask her to accompany him. Why should he have burdened her with his troubles? She must have plenty of her own, with her boy to care for and her estate to manage.

"I've been selfish," he said. "You ought to be in bed and sleeping now."

She smiled. "Always blaming yourself, aren't you? I shouldn't be here unless I'd wanted."

"But why did you want?"

Beneath the robe her hand commenced to grope. It stole into his own and lay there quietly. "Because I couldn't bear to see you hurt. You're so good. In some ways you're so strong; in others you're just as tiny as my Eric. I felt you needed me for the moment."

"For the moment! I shall always need you."

"I wish you might." She shook her head slowly. "But you won't. You'll go away. I shall hear about you--all the big things you're accomplishing and planning. And then I shall remember that for just one night I had you for my very own."

"But we're always going to be friends. I shall be always coming back to you."

"Men don't come back, Lord Taborley. A man of your temperament is least likely to come back. You press forward. You're eager. Wherever you go you form new affections. I'm not like that. I'm cold. You don't think so, but then I'm treating you as I never treated any other man. You slipped under my reserve and reached my heart before I could stop you.

Do you know how I'm treating you? Just the way I'd like some good woman to treat my little Eric one day, when I'm not here and he's a man."

"But you're going to be here for a long time--just as long as I am."

There was alarm in his a.s.sertion. "I couldn't bear to think of your not being in the world. It wouldn't matter so much whether I saw you; it would be the knowledge that I could see you; that would make all the difference."

"Would it?"

"Yes, I'm sure. You mustn't think that because there was Terry and--I'm ashamed to have to own it--a pa.s.sing fancy for your sister, that I'm fickle."

"I don't. I never thought it for a moment. What I thought was that you were unhappy. People do a lot of foolish things when they're unhappy."

"It seems so long since I was unhappy," he said gently. "You've healed everything."

She was shaken as though with a storm of sobbing. No sound escaped her.

She did a thing which was as amazing as it was beautiful. Raising his hand which she had been holding, she hugged it against her breast.

IX

During the night he nodded. Once when he wakened, he found her tucking the robe more closely about him. "Go to sleep. You're tired," she whispered, patting his shoulder.

A strange woman--strangely maternal and beautiful! She never seemed to think of herself. The women whom he had known had always demanded that men should do all the giving. Even Terry had been like that. His conception, of love had been of a continual bestowing with no hope of reciprocity. To be allowed to give throughout one's life to the woman beloved had seemed to him to be the maximum of married blessedness. He knew better now. Lady Dawn had given so generously that she had established a new standard; he would never again ask so little from any woman. He began to perceive that all his approaches to love had been self-abasing. In the true sense of the word he had never been in love.

Dream-intoxicated, yes! But all that he had experienced had been desire.

It was a new thought to him that a man must respect, even more than he desires, the woman whom he covets.

His feeling for Lady Dawn was one of worship. When he wakened to find her watching over him, it seemed to him that the Mother of G.o.d sat beside him. When G.o.d's Mother is symbolized in a living woman, love is reborn into the world.

The last time he awoke, dawn was breaking. The moon had grown feeble. A chill was in the air. He sat up. "What! Still awake! I don't believe you've slept a wink all night."

"I haven't. I didn't want. I've been enjoying myself."

"You look tired."

He commenced to pile cushions behind her and tried to coax her to take some rest. "If you insist," she a.s.sented. "But I'd much rather not. I'm like a child at a party; I want to last out every moment."

"Then let's talk. We're nearing London. We sha'n't get much chance for being alone after we arrive. We don't know what we'll find. We may be whisked away in opposite directions. Before we're separated, I want to acknowledge what I owe you."

"It's cold," she shuddered, drawing closer to him. And then, "You owe me nothing."

He was tempted to place his arm about her, but the cowardice of past failure was strong upon him. He was afraid lest the ordinary gestures of affection would cheapen him in her eyes; he was still more afraid that they might mean to her that he valued her too lightly. He held himself in hand, staring straight before him and speaking quietly.

"I'm the only judge of what I owe you. I came to you broken. Life had made a fool of me. I'd fallen through placing my ideals too high.

Everything was slipping. Every belief I'd ever had was open to doubt.

Most of all I'd lost faith in the goodness of women. To explain my state of mind I have to tell you that the war had made me fanatical. Like millions of men who went out to die, I'd persuaded myself that I was fighting more than Germans--I was fighting to bring about the new heaven and the new earth. Our politicians promised us as much. You remember their phrases. 'A world safe for democracy! A land fit for heroes to live in.' When all the muck and the heartbreak were ended, we found that outwardly it was the same old world. Heaven was as far away as ever.

There were no signs that any one wanted a new earth. Nations which had been comrades, began to wrangle. Soldiers came home to find their jobs held by slackers. The glorious promises had been a death-bed repentance; their insincerity was proved when the world recovered. But our worst disappointment was utterly personal--that despite the magnanimity we had shared and witnessed, we ourselves were no less selfish. For me all these disillusions were epitomized in Terry. I'd fought for her. I'd carried her in my heart. If I'd died, my last thoughts would have been of her. I came back hungry and she disowned me. That she should have done that made humanity a Judas and G.o.d a mocker. I don't mean you to believe that I gave way at once to this wholesale injustice. At first I made an effort to struggle against it. I'd always held that great living was a matter of pressing forward, of wearing an air of triumph when you knew you were defeated, of believing, in spite of every proof to the contrary, that further up the road your kingdom waited for you."

He felt the pressure of her friendly hand. "It does," she a.s.sured him.

"That's what you've taught me. It's what you taught Maisie; it's almost as though you'd willed her husband to come back. You're a great believer. All great believers have been doubters. They give away so much of their faith that at times they have none left for themselves. You limp. Don't flinch; with me there's no need to be sensitive. When you entered my room for the first time, you made me think of another lame man. Do you remember how Jacob wrestled all night with an unknown a.s.sailant? When dawn was breaking his thigh was out of joint, but he refused to let his a.s.sailant go until he had asked his name. The stranger would not tell him--instead he blessed him. And then Jacob knew it was with G.o.d he had wrestled. When the sun rose and he went upon his way, he halted upon his thigh. You have the look that I think he must have had--the look of a man who has been maimed in trying to make G.o.d answer questions. It's that look and your very lameness that have given me back something that Lord Dawn took from me--something that he knew, when he sent you, you could give me back: my faith in men, without which a woman can have no happiness."

The ghostly world streamed by, silent-footed and mist-m.u.f.fled. It was the hour when children are born and weary people die--the hour of new beginnings and ancient endings, when life and death, like soldiers changing guard, salute at the cross-roads of the new day as friends.

At last he broke the silence. "I thought I had nothing to give you. I felt so empty. You seemed so strong and immovable, like a still tree in a forest that was storm-shaken. You made me feel that however the wind raged, beneath your branches there would be always rest. I never knew----" He paused as though he had forgotten what he had set out to say. "I never guessed that a woman could be so good."

"Nor I that there was so good a man."

They clasped hands so tightly that it hurt. The sun was rising as they entered London. Trees dripped gold and birds were chattering as they drove into Brompton Square. It was only when they had halted before the sleeping house, gay with flaming window-boxes, that she released his hand. With the severance of contact he awoke from his trance and remembered the errand that had brought them.

X

He had opened the door with his latch-key and had stood aside to allow her to pa.s.s into the hall, when suddenly he clutched her arm and drew her back. He signed to her to make no sound. Together they stood listening. The early morning stillness was broken by a door shutting smartly at the top of the house, a cheerful whistling and then the unmistakeably firm step of a man descending.

Tabs had no man in his employ, so what was a man doing in his house?

There was no secretiveness about the stranger's movements; on the contrary, there was an airy boldness.

The sunlight danced and nickered on the wall as if it shared the excitement of their suspense. The footsteps drew nearer. They paused dramatically. The whistling ceased abruptly. Had the stranger taken warning? A match was struck. He was only lighting a cigarette. The footsteps came on again. At the final bend of the stairs the intruder came in sight. He halted, mirroring their surprise, and stood staring down at them with a bleak, hard look. He was the man whom they had least expected.