The Return Part 8

'I didn't mean anything. Don't listen to what I say. It's only--it's just Alice knowing, that was all; I mean at once.'

'Don't for a moment suppose I am not perfectly aware that it is only Alice you think of. You were particularly anxious about my feelings, weren't you? You broke the news to me with the tenderest solicitude. I am glad our--our daughter shares my husband's love.'

'Look here,' said Lawford densely, 'you know that I love you as much as ever; but with this--as I am; what would be the good of my saying so?'

Mrs Lawford took a deep breath.

And a voice called softly at the door, 'Mother, are you there? Is father awake? May I come in?'

In a flash the memory returned to her; twenty-four hours ago she was asking that very question of this unspeakable figure that sat hunched-up before her.

'One moment, dear,' she called. And added in a very low voice, 'Come here!'

Lawford looked up. 'What?' he said.

'Perhaps, perhaps,' she whispered, 'it isn't quite so bad.'

'For mercy's sake, Sheila,' he said, 'don't torture me; tell the poor child to go away.'

She paused. 'Are you there, Alice? Would you mind, father says, waiting a little? He is so very tired.'

'Too tired to.... Oh, very well, mother.'

Mrs Lawford opened the door, and called after her, 'Is Jimmie gone?'

'Oh, yes, hours.'

'Where did you meet?'

'I couldn't get a carriage at the station. He carried my dressing-bag; I begged him not to. The other's coming on. You know what Jimmie is.

How very, very lucky I did come home. I don't know what made me; just an impulse; they did laugh at me so. Father dear--do speak to me; how are you now?'

Lawford opened his mouth, gulped, and shook his head.

'Ssh, dear!' whispered Sheila, 'I think he has fallen asleep. I will be down in a minute.' Mrs Lawford was about to close the door when Ada appeared.

'If you please, ma'am,' she said, 'I have been waiting, as you told me, to let Dr Ferguson out, but it's nearly seven now; and the table's not laid yet.'

'I really should have thought, Ada,' Sheila began, then caught back the angry words, and turned and looked over her shoulder into the room.

'Do you think you will need anything more, Dr Ferguson?' she asked in a sepulchral voice.

Again Lawford's lips moved; again he shook his head.

'One moment, Ada,' she said closing the door. 'Some more medicine--what medicine? Quick! She mustn't suspect.'

'"What medicine?"' repeated Lawford stolidly.

'Oh, vexing, vexing; don't you see we must send her out? Don't you see?

What was it you sent to Critchett's for last night? Tell him that's gone: we want more of that.'

Lawford stared heavily. Oh, yes, yes,' he said thickly, 'more of that....'

Sheila, with a shrug of extreme distaste and vexation, hastily opened the door. 'Dr Ferguson wants a further supply of the drug which Mr Critchett made up for Mr Lawford yesterday evening. You had better go at once, Ada, and please make as much haste as you possibly can.'

'I say, I say,' began Lawford; but it was too late, the door was shut.

'How I detest this wretched falsehood and subterfuge. What could have induced you....?'

'Yes,' said her husband, 'what! I think I'll be getting to bed again, Sheila; I forgot I had been ill. And now I do really feel very tired.

But I should like to feel--in spite of this hideous--I should like to feel we are friends, Sheila.'

Sheila almost imperceptibly shuddered, crossed the room, and faced the still, almost lifeless mask. 'I spoke,' she said, in a low, cold, difficult voice--'I spoke in a temper this morning. You must try to understand what a shock it has been to me. Now, I own it frankly, I know you are--Arthur. But G.o.d only knows how it frightens me, and--and--horrifies me.' She shut her eyes beneath her veil. They waited on in silence a while.

'Poor boy!' she said at last, lightly touching the loose sleeve; 'be brave; it will all come right, soon. Meanwhile, for Alice's sake, if not for mine, don't give way to--to caprices, and all that. Keep quietly here, Arthur. And--and forgive my impatience.'

He put out his hand as if to touch her. 'Forgive you!' he said humbly, pushing it stubbornly back into his pocket again. 'Oh, Sheila, the forgiveness is all on your side. You know I have nothing to forgive.' A long silence fell between them.

'Then, to-night,' at last began Sheila wearily, drawing back, 'we say nothing to Alice, except that you are too tired--just nervous prostration--to see her. What we should do without this influenza, I cannot conceive. Mr Bethany will probably look in on his way home; and then we can talk it over--we can talk it over again. So long as you are like this, yourself, in mind, why I--What is it now?' she broke off querulously.

'If you please, ma'am, Mr Critchett says he doesn't know Dr Ferguson, his name's not in the Directory, and there must be something wrong with the message, and he's sorry, but he must have it in writing because there was more even in the first packet than he ought by rights to send.

What shall I do, if you please?'

Still looking at her husband. Sheila listened quietly to the end, and then, as if in inarticulate disdain, she deliberately shrugged her shoulders, and went out to play her part unaided.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Her husband turned wearily once more, and drawing up a chair sat down in front of the cold grate. He realised that Sheila thought him as much of a fool now as she had for the moment thought him an impostor, or something worse, the night before. That was at least something gained.

He realised, too, in a vague way that the exuberance of mind that had practically invented Dr Ferguson, and outraged Miss Sinnet, had quite suddenly flickered out. It was astonishing, he thought, with gaze fixed innocently on the black coals, that he should ever have done such things. He detested that kind of 'rot'; that jaunty theatrical pose so many men prided their jackdaw brains on.

And he sat quite still, like a cat at a cranny, listening, as it were, for the faintest remotest stir that might hint at any return of this--activity. It was the first really sane moment he had had since the 'change.' Whatever it was that had happened at Widderstone was now distinctly weakening in effect. Why, now, perhaps? He stole a thievish look over his shoulder at the gla.s.s, and cautiously drew finger and thumb down that beaked nose. Then he really quietly smiled, a smile he felt this abominable facial caricature was quite unused to, the superior Lawford smile of guileless contempt for the fanatical, the fantastic, and the bizarre: He wouldn't have sat with his feet on the fender before a burnt-out fire.

And the animosity of that 'he,' uttered only just under his breath, surprised even himself. It actually did seem as if there were a chance; if only he kept cool and collected. If the whole mind of a man was bent on being one thing, surely no power on earth, certainly not on earth, could for long compel him to look another, any more (followed the resplendent thought) than vice versa.

That, in fact, was the trick that had been in fitful fashion played him since yesterday. Obviously, and apart altogether from his promise to Sheila, the best possible thing he could do would be to walk quietly over to Widderstone to-morrow and like a child that has lost a penny, just make the attempt to reverse the process: look at the graves, read the inscriptions on the weather-beaten stones, compose himself once more to sleep on the little seat.

Magic, witchcraft, possession, and all that--well, Mr Bethany might prefer to take it on the authority of the Bible if it was his duty. But it was at least mainly Old Testament stuff, like polygamy, Joshua, and the 'unclean beasts.' The 'unclean beasts.' It was simply, as Simon had said, mainly an affair of the nerves, like Indian jugglery. He had heard of dozens of such cases, or similar cases. And it was hardly likely that cases even remotely like his own would be much bragged about, or advertised. All those mysterious 'disappearances,' too, which one reads about so repeatedly? What of them? Even now, he felt (and glanced swiftly behind him at the fancy), it would be better to think as softly as possible, not to hope too openly, certainly not to triumph in the least degree, just in case of--well--listeners.

He would wrap up too. And he wouldn't tell Sheila of the project till he had come safely back. What an excellent joke it would be to confess meekly to his escapade, and to be scolded, and then suddenly to reveal himself. He sat back and gazed with an almost malignant animosity at the face in the portrait, comely and plump.

An inarticulate, unfathomable depression rolled back on him, like a mist out of the sea. He hastily undressed, put watch and door-key and Critchett's powder under his pillow, paused, vacantly ruminated, and then replaced the powder in his waistcoat pocket, said his prayers, and got shivering to bed. He did not feel hurt at Sheila's leaving him like this. So long as she really believed in him. And now--Alice was home. He listened, trying not to shiver, for her voice; and sometimes heard, he fancied, the clear note. It was this beastly influenza that made him feel so cold and lifeless. But all would soon come right--that is, if only that face, luminous against the floating darkness within, would not appear the instant he closed his eyes.

But legions of dreams are Influenza's allies. He fell into a chill doze, heard voices innumerable, and one above the rest, shouting them down, until there fell a lull. And another, as it were, from afar said quite clearly and distinctly, 'But surely, my dear, you have heard the story of the poor old charwoman who talked Greek in her delirium? A little school French need not alarm us.' And Lawford opened his eyes again on Mr Bethany standing at his bed.

'Tt, tt! There, I've been and waked him. And yet they say men make such excellent nurses in time of war. But you see, Lawford, what did I tell you? Wasn't I now an infallible prophet? Your wife has been giving me a most glowing account. Quite your old self, she tells me, except for just this--this touch of facial paralysis. And I think, do you know' (the kind old creature stooped over the bed, but still, Lawford noticed bitterly, still without his spectacles)--'yes, I really think there is a decided improvement. Not quite so--drawn. We must make haste slowly.

Wedderburn, you know, believes profoundly in Simon; he pulled his wife through a dangerous confinement. And here's pills and tonics and liniments--a whole chemist's shop. Oh, we are getting on swimmingly.'

Flamelight was flickering in the candled dusk. Lawford turned his head and saw Sheila's coiled, beautiful hair in the firelight.