The Stronger Influence Part 22

She drew him on towards the stairs. He took hold of the banister and mounted, stumbling, and kicking against each stair in his progress. She got him as far as the landing; but when she strove to draw him on towards the bedroom he resisted.

"You go on," he said. "I must go down and switch off the lights?"

"Never mind the lights," she urged. "Come with me, dear."

"I must go down," he repeated with irritable obstinacy. "I won't be a minute. Go on, and get into bed. I'll be up in a minute."

"No," she persisted, and got between him and the stairs, and put out a hand to hinder his descent. "Stay with me, Paul, I don't want you to go down again."

With darkening looks, and anger kindling in his resentful eyes, he endeavoured to push past her. He shook off her hold roughly, and made a clumsy movement forward, lurching against her heavily, with a force and suddenness which caused her to overbalance. She threw out a hand wildly to catch at the rail, missed it, and fell headlong down the stairs, landing with a crash upon the floor of the hall, where she lay, an inert and crumpled figure, with white upturned face showing deathlike in the artificial light.

Hallam swayed forward dizzily and clutched at the rail and leaned against it heavily.

"My G.o.d!" he muttered, and hid his eyes from the sight of the still white face.

There came the sound of doors opening behind him. He pulled himself together quickly, and stumbled down the stairs, and knelt on the floor beside his wife. The frightened faces of the servants peered at him from the landing. He did not look up: he was stroking his wife's hand and speaking to her softly and weeping. His tears splashed upon her hand and upon his own hand; they fell warm and wet: something else warm and wet touched his hand. Abruptly he became aware of a dark stain under Esme's head; it oozed slowly, and spread darkly over the polished floor. She was bleeding. That had to be stopped anyway.

The shock of the accident had sobered him; the cloud cleared away from his brain and he was able to think. Quickly he went to the telephone, hunted up a number and rang up the doctor. When he was satisfied that help would arrive speedily he returned to his post beside the unconscious figure of his wife, and slipped a pillow, which one of the servants fetched at his bidding, under her head. He moved her with infinite care. He would have lifted her and carried her upstairs, but he dared not trust himself with this task which in his sober moments he could have accomplished with the utmost ease. He sat beside her, holding her hand and crying uncontrollably, until the doctor arrived and took over the direction of affairs.

Hallam, stricken with remorse, shaken, and dazed with grief, wandered aimlessly between his study and the landing, and stood outside the bedroom door, which he dared not open, waiting in a terrible suspense for information of his wife's condition.

A nurse appeared upon the scene. He did not know how she came there; he did not know who admitted her. He heard the subdued noise of her arrival, and later met her on the stairs, a quiet-eyed, resourceful-looking woman, who watched him with interested curiosity as he pa.s.sed her and went down and shut himself in his study once more. In the cold light of the dawn the house seemed alive with movement, the stealthy rustling of people coming and going on tiptoe, and the occasional murmur of voices speaking in undertones.

After what appeared to Hallam an interminable time the doctor came downstairs. He accompanied Hallam into the study and sat down opposite to him and looked with keen, understanding eyes into the haggard face of the man whose agony of mind was written indelibly on every line of the strongly marked features. Hallam's only question was: "Win she live?"

"Oh, yes."

The relief of this a.s.surance was so tremendous that he scarcely took in anything else that was said. The doctor outlined the injuries. A fractured base was the most serious of these. He asked permission to remove the patient to a nursing-home. The case required skilled nursing; it was a matter of time and care; absolute quiet and freedom from worry were essential. The removal could be accomplished that morning, if he were agreeable. Hallam nodded.

"I leave everything in your hands," he said. "You know best."

He felt suddenly very tired. The strain of anxiety and his long night vigil began to tell. The doctor eyed him keenly, advised food and rest, and then rose and went out to his car. Hallam closed the front door after him, and turned towards the stairs which he climbed wearily.

Outside the door of Esme's room he halted to listen. There was no sound from within. The nurse was in charge he knew. He had no thought of entering; he did not desire to enter. He shrank from the idea of looking upon his wife's face: the memory of her face, still and white, with the dark fringes of her closed eyes resting on the deathlike pallor of her cheeks, haunted him; it would haunt him, he believed, all his life.

While he stood there outside her door, in the faint light that was creeping in wanly as the dawn advanced, he resolved that her life should no longer be darkened with his presence: he would go away somewhere-- anywhere,--he would become lost to the world until such time as he could feel certain that the curse which was ruining their married happiness was conquered finally and for ever. Never again should the horror of it cloud her peace.

With head sunk on his breast he turned away from the door and went into his dressing-room and threw himself, dressed as he was, upon the bed.

Book 3--CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

Following the departure of his wife in an ambulance, Hallam made his own preparations for leaving home for an indefinite time. He purposed going into the interior. He wanted to be alone, away from the influences of civilisation and the sight of European faces, away from the memory of the past and the nightmare of recent events.

Great mental anguish, particularly anguish which is accompanied by remorse, tends to a morbid condition of mind which renders the individual liable to act in a manner altogether unusual. Hallam made his preparations as a man might do who leaves his home with no thought of ever returning. He left quite definite and detailed instructions with his solicitor, and a letter for his wife, which was only to be given to her when she was strong enough to receive communications of a startling nature. In his letter he informed her that he had left her until such time as he could with confidence feel that he would never again cause her such distress as he had done in the past. He wrote with restraint but with very deep feeling of his undying love for her and of his remorse for what had happened, and ended by bidding her keep a brave heart and carry on until his return.

He posted this letter, with instructions as to its delivery, under cover to his lawyer, and completed his personal arrangements, and left by the train going north.

He had no clear idea as to his destination at the time of entraining; his one thought was to get as far away from civilisation as possible: he intended to make for the Congo. Besides a light kit, he was provided with sufficient money and his gun, which he carried in its case. The undertaking was adventurous; but it was in no spirit of adventure that he started; his heart was heavy and his mind clouded and depressed, preoccupied with thoughts of Esme lying ill and alone in a nursing-home--too ill to concern herself about him for the present; but later he knew she would ask for him and wonder why he did not come.

That could not be avoided: she would grow reconciled to his absence, and she would get well quicker without him to worry about.

Hallam had secured a compartment to himself, a fact which gave him immense satisfaction. He leaned with his arms on the window and surveyed the lively scene on the platform in gloomy abstraction in the interval before the train started. Other pa.s.sengers leaned from the windows also for a few last words with friends who were seeing them off.

But Hallam spoke to no one, and no one paid any attention to the solitary man looking from his compartment on the animated scene below.

Doors slammed noisily, and the guard raised his flag, and instantly lowered it again as, amid a confusion of bustle and excitement, two belated travellers arrived and were bundled unceremoniously into the carriage next to Hallam's. Their baggage was flung in through the windows after them. Then the whistle sounded and the train moved slowly out of the station.

Disturbed and singularly annoyed, Hallam drew back and sat down in the corner seat. The people whose tardy arrival had delayed the start by a couple of minutes were the Garfields. He had recognised them instantly; he believed that they had seen and recognised him. He felt oddly irritated. Had his flight been a criminal proceeding and the secrecy of his movements imperative, he could not have been more discomposed by the knowledge that these people, who were friends of his wife and with whom he was acquainted, were in the next compartment to his. He would probably encounter them later, almost certainly they would meet in the restaurant-car. They would regard it in the light of a social obligation to inquire for his wife. Mrs Garfield had already called both at the house and at the nursing-home for news of Esme. He had not seen her; he shrank from the thought of seeing her; but he knew that he would be compelled to face her sooner or later. She was one of the few people whose persistent friendship for his wife refused to be dismayed by an absence of response. She understood Esme's difficulties, and sympathised with and admired her tremendously.

The news of the accident, which no one a.s.sociated with Hallam, had genuinely distressed her. If by her presence she could have been of service during Esme's illness she would have put off her journey to the Falls; but her visit to the nursing-home had convinced her that Esme was not in a condition to need any one; she might be of some use later during the period of convalescence.

Her surprise at seeing Hallam on the train was great. That he should be leaving Cape Town then occurred to her as little short of amazing.

While her husband was engaged in stowing their baggage away on the racks she asked him if he had noticed who was in the next compartment to theirs. Apparently he had. He looked down at her and nodded.

"Odd chap?" he said. "Most men would prefer to remain on the spot, even if their presence wasn't actually needed."

"The journey may be a matter of necessity," she said.

"It may be, of course." He lifted the last bag up to the rack and sat down opposite to her and unrolled a bundle of papers. "We ran it rather fine, old girl. The next time I take you on a holiday I hope you'll get forrader with your preparations."

"You old Adam, you!" she said, smiling, and leaned forward to pat his knee.

And the man in the next compartment sat and smoked and meditated gloomily, while the train ran on through fertile gra.s.s-veld towards the mountains and the sterile plain which lay beyond them.

In the vexation of seeing people he knew on the train, Hallam's first thought had been to leave it at a convenient stopping place and wait for the next train and so resume his journey; but on reflection this idea seemed a little absurd. Of what interest could his movements possibly be to the Garfields? They would leave the train in all probability long before he did, and the greatest inconvenience their presence would cause him would be an occasional and brief encounter.

The first encounter occurred very speedily: Mr Garfield came to his compartment and stood in the corridor and inquired after his wife. He expressed much sympathy with Hallam.

"We were shocked," he said, "when we heard. My wife called at the nursing-home, but she wasn't allowed to see Mrs Hallam. I trust she is doing well?"

"The doctor tells me so," Hallam answered, with what the other man considered a curious lack of feeling. "She is too ill at present to see any one."

The talk hung for a while. Mr Garfield, who never felt at his ease with Hallam, was none the less profoundly sorry for the man. He believed that the callous manner was a.s.sumed to cloak his real feelings.

The haggard face and sombre eyes betokened considerable mental anguish.

"It is rather an awkward time for you to have to get away," he ventured.

"It is." Hallam's tone became more constrained. He moved restlessly, and looked beyond the speaker out at the changing scenery. "But at least I can't help by remaining," he added. Abruptly he brought his gaze back again and looked steadily into the other's eyes with an expression that was faintly apologetic. "I haven't recovered from the shock yet," he said. "I'm worried."

Garfield nodded sympathetically.

"My dear fellow, of course. It's not surprising that you should be. If we can do anything, let us know. And if you want a chat come along to our compartment; we're only next door. I'm taking the wife to the Falls. It's her first visit. I expect we'll put in about a couple of weeks there. Do you go as far?"

"I'm going farther," Hallam answered briefly. But, although Garfield looked inquiry, he did not give him any more definite information in regard to his destination.

Hallam had started on his journey with no thought of deserting his wife and leaving his home for ever: he had come away simply because he felt the imperative necessity for change and solitude. The man's mind was dark with despair. This feeling of despair deepened with every pa.s.sing hour. Fear held him in its grip. He mistrusted himself. The horror of what had happened haunted him night and day; he could not sleep for thinking of it. Always before his mind's eye was the picture of his wife--falling--falling headlong--striking the ground with a thud--lying still and white at the foot of the stairs, with the dark stain under her head slowly spreading on the darker wood of the floor...

How had this thing happened? How had he come to lose control of himself completely? He ought not to have married her. He had done her an irreparable injury by tying her life to his...

Throughout the long hot days he sat in his compartment and brooded, and when the gold merged with the evening purple, and the purple deepened to night, he stretched himself on his bunk, and lay looking out at the star-strewn sky through the unshuttered windows, and brooded still with a mind too distraught to rest.