# All Sorts/The Bridge Across

pp. 136–167.

### V
#### THE BRIDGE ACROSS

I
Like a ghost the liner loomed up slowly through the soaking fog. A tug with the pilot on board put off from her side and ran shorewards, puffing noisily with an air of good-humoured self-importance. But its late charge gliding under invisible propulsion up the rain-speckled river had the aloof and tragic look of a fighter who has come back from unspeakable battle. The small fry, dancing on the backwash, eyed her with awe, and the dour, unlovely tramps that lay alongside the quays, with knowledge. They claimed no kinship, but they knew what lay out there beyond the veil of mist and silence.
On deck the crew, preoccupied and alert, wormed themselves in and out among the passengers who eddied ineffectually about the companion-ways, shifting their hand luggage from place to place in unappeasable restlessness. A few of them, with upturned collars, stood by the taffrail and watched their appointed landing-place glide nearer to them. They could already see the dock-workers standing by in readiness and a handful of idlers whose apathetic movements proclaimed the recurrence of something wearisomely commonplace. Behind these midget figures the customs and gaunt mast-heads emerged vaguely and with an air of flat and squalid melancholy.
And suddenly, in spite of himself one of the little group on deck broke the silence.
"Well, there she is," he said. "There she is at last! The old harridan!"
"Not changed, has she?"
"Not a bit."
"Good old England!"
They laughed at that, but quietly and rather grimly as men do who have made a joke at their own expense. Throughout the voyage they had been very silent, but now the barriers were lowered. It was as though the knowledge that in an hour their fellowship would be over and each of them would go his way in silence, permitted a last brief indulgence of a secret hunger.
"What didn't one expect!"
"Yes—especially at first. I remember I had a sort of idea that everybody in England was thinking about me—that Cabinet Ministers were talking about me—that the whole British Army was wetting its palms on my account I used to imagine the home-coming—brass bands and crowds, you know—people waving their hats and nudging each other and whispering, 'That's him!' Sounds a little bit light-headed now, doesn't it?"
"Oh, well, we all had it more or less. Perhaps it helped."
"And now here it is—the real thing."
"I don't hear the brass bands, though, do you?"
"No, thank God."
They grinned sardonically yet affectionately at the low shore-line.
"It's a queer business, all the same," the youngest of them went on. "I can't sort of get things clear—can't make up my mind what's real and what isn't—the old times or—this—or what's happened in between. I don't seem to know even who I am—or what I'm likely to do next One's life seems to have been cut into pieces—islands as it were—and no communication between 'em—not so much as a telephone."
"Why—I've got a son—running about—going to school—forming his own opinions. And I haven't set eyes on him—and he won't know me from Adam. What the deuce am I going to say to him?"
"I can beat that anyhow. My wife's married to someone else? You see I was missing—for two years. We were madly fond of each other. That's awkward, if you like."
They considered the situation gravely.
"Fact is—the Old Country may be the same, but we've changed—individually—every one of us. And they will have changed too. And how the devil are we going to fit in with them—with everything?"
"The Lord knows!"
"Perhaps we'll be wishing ourselves back before we're through."
"Perhaps—the unlucky ones. But on the whole people adjust themselves. I bet that in a fortnight's time most of us will be going about as though nothing had ever happened."
But the first speaker repeated his queer, staccato laugh.
"Anyhow, I never thought it would be like this," he said. "I never thought I'd feel—afraid."
There was one man who, though he remained aloof and silent, in some subtle yet unmistakable way belonged to them. He sat in the shelter of the deck-cabins, huddled up to the chin in wraps and so motionless that people jostled him and remained unconscious of his very existence. His head had fallen forward as though in sleep, but his eyes were wide open and fixed in an absorbed stare on something in the near distance. There was very little else to be seen of him but these peculiar, fascinated-looking eyes.
The great vessel touched the wooden pillars of her berth with a loving gentleness and the gangways, like eager tentacles, stretched across and laid fast hold of her. But even after the last stragglers had passed over, the man in the chair did not move, and a sailor coming upon him suddenly stumbled and cursed luridly.
"Isn't yer mother come to fetch yer?" he asked in conclusion and with elaborate sarcasm. "Want someone to carry yer?"
The man divested himself of his wraps, showing first his face and then his whole body. The action was deliberate, like that of a performer displaying something astonishing to his audience.
"As a matter of fact I want two people," he said. "You see, I'm a good weight."
"'Ow—ow in Gawd's name was I to know?" the sailor stuttered back. "I thought maybe you was asleep. Why didn't you make a row, sir?"
The eyes, lifted from their preoccupied stare to the man's aghast face, showed themselves light-coloured—almost yellow. And they gave an uncanny impression of having suddenly flared up with an indescribable impulse—akin to laughter.
"I didn't think of it," he said "Where I come from it wasn't healthy to—to make a row."
In the end two sailors carried him across—sedan-chair-wise and not easily, for as he had intimated, he was a big man. And in spite of their best efforts his legs trailed over the ground—grotesquely—like the legs of a broken marionette.
II
The room, unlike most human dwelling-places whose silent language is a pitiless betrayal, spoke well of its owner. It declared a proud need of breadth and height and a passion for strong, abiding things. There was nothing in it that could have been called luxurious or ornamental or consciously beautiful. Much of the furniture was old and, taken individually, ugly. But the whole was young, vigorous, with the austere charm of a well-knit body stripped for battle.
The woman who sat at the big table by the window belonged to her surroundings so that she seemed almost lost amidst them, as a single note seems lost in a fine chord of music. She was not beautiful, judged by any conventional standard, yet she gave the same joy as beauty because of the victorious youth, the untainted health and pride of life which shone out of her.
She was very quiet. Only once she raised her eyes from the yellow strip of paper in her hands to the fading twilight and looked out over the city roofs to St. Paul's, floating like a great galleon on a dark, misty sea. The clamour of the streets rose up to her ceaselessly—the roar of 'buses, the hooting of taxis, the subdued, unbroken undertone of passing feet And involuntarily a faint smile dawned in her expression, as though the hubbub was to her something familiar, beloved, something attuned to her own spirit which even now she heard joyfully.
Her companion stood opposite her, leaning against the lintel of the window, his arms folded, and watched her. Seeing him, it was easy to understand why the room had had to be spacious and free from little things. For the man was big and dominant and powerful. Even here he had an air of being impatiently confined—of being still more impatiently silent and inactive.
"Well?" he jerked out at last. "Well—you were expecting it, weren't you?—Hoping for it?"
She seemed to start and shrink a little as though from a sudden, awakening blow.
"I have been expecting it every day," she answered—"every day for three years. It wasn't a hope any more. It wasn't real enough."
"It's real now," he said bluntly.
"It's like waking up from a dream," she said almost to herself, "——to find that the dream has come true——"
He bent towards her, peering at her through the dusk with a direct intentness that would have been brutal had it not been so utterly impersonal.
"I wish I could see your face," he said. "Then I should know what to say to you. But I can't. And I'm not the man to stand here guessing. Nor are you the woman to play a humbugging game with a friend. What does it mean to you—this return—what do you feel?"
She stirred as though, indeed, she had been a sleeper on the brink of consciousness. Her capable, very beautiful hands fluttered out on the table in a gesture that in her was oddly helpless.
"I don't know—I can't tell——"
"That's not like you. I don't even recognise your voice. Of course, one ought to be glad. Mackay was—is a decent fellow. And a first-class secretary. I can remember how savage I was when I heard that he was going. It was such an infernal nuisance—after I had licked him into shape too. And when you offered yourself in his place I took you on in a fit of sheer bad temper. One woman would be as bad as another, I thought Besides—it was the patriotic thing to do. I would have laughed in anyone's face if they had told me how it would pan out."
She got up and began to arrange her papers with a mechanical exactitude.
"And I did it to keep things going for him—when he came back. I didn't know that it was the chance I had been waiting for—all my life."
"Jean—why did you marry him?"
She lifted her eyes to his, half in pain, half in resentment, but he did not flinch.
"Why——?"
"I mean—you hardly knew him. How long did you know each other? He told me. Was it a month?"
"Nearly. But it all happened in a few days. He had just got his commission and was expecting to go out any minute. And one was so reckless. One snatched at a day's happiness—for fear it might be the last. We snatched too. Afterwards I was glad——"
"Are you glad now?" It was almost dark. He could only see her as a shadow moving across the room to the cupboard where she kept her things. "You're not glad." His big, unmodulated voice pursued her relentlessly. "You're afraid. Then why, in God's name, did you marry him?"
She stopped short, her white hands lifted to her hair, pressing it back from her face as though it troubled her. Even to his blunt fancy there was something forlorn about her—something of a lost child.
"I have forgotten," she said simply and almost humbly. "It is such a long time ago. So much has happened. But I think it was because he was so young and gay and ambitious—so in love with life—so intoxicatingly in love. Yes, I think it must have been just that. And life seemed to love him too. He was like a strong, beautiful young god—I can remember thinking that quite well—it made one happy just to see him move——"
"And you will always love strong, beautiful things," he said. He did not speak again until she had reached the door. Then suddenly he strode across to her. "This—this has got to make no difference to us," he blurted out, between fear and a nascent anger. "You know—you've got to stand by me—you've got to see this business through. It's not a personal matter. It's bigger than any single human being—than a whole herd of human beings. It's our job—yours and mine—and you dare not fail."
She lifted her head eagerly. The victorious look of youth and hope brightened through her pallor like a flame.
"I'll not leave the ship in the storm," she said, "I couldn't—I promise you—I'd rather die——"
She gave him her hand in a quick strong pressure and then turned and was gone.
III
The taxi-driver and the passer-by who had been called in to assist set their burden down in the arm-chair gingerly and rather doubtfully. They had the true Cockney's passion for sentimental romance and they felt cheated. They had expected something different and with such certainty that even now, with a satisfactory tip in hand, they stood there, awkward and open-mouthed, waiting for the drama to unroll itself.
"Thank you," the woman said gravely, "thank you. Good-night."
After that there was nothing for it but to go. They went, slamming the door of the little flat behind them.
"As though we'd brought 'er up a bloomin' sack of coals!" the taxi-man grumbled indignantly. "'Wot's wimming comin' to? "
The passer-by, who was a great reader of current fiction, was more hopeful.
"Perhaps they're the strong, silent sort," he said. "Can't let 'emselves go in public as it were. You bet, they're carryin' on no end now "
"'T'aint natural," the taxi-man persisted, "—'Taint natural—not to stare like that——"
For he was obsessed by the picture he had left behind him—of the tall, wonderful- looking girl and of the sinister cripple whom they had brought home to her—confronting one another in utter silence.
And oddly enough the taxi-man's metaphor had flashed through Jean Mackay's mind in the moment when she had tipped him. And there had been something so hideously comic about it that she could have laughed out loud.
And now they were alone.
The man sat stiffly upright in the chair, just as they had placed him, his thin hands clasped on the arms, his head lifted in an attitude of listening. He had not removed his travelling cap and his face was in shadow. But she felt that he was shooting furtive little glances about him—at herself—and that he was waiting for something—some signal. And she could not move. Her first warm impulse had been killed at its birth. She had not recognised him—and she knew by his instinctive recoil that she too was a stranger—at most someone faintly remembered. But to her knowledge she had never seen this man before. And she could only stand there, stammering and helpless.
"Oh, Chris, I'm so awfully sorry. I would have come to meet you—it's too terrible that you should have come home like this—but we—I only got your telegram half an hour ago—it was sent to the old address——"
"I didn't know of any other," he said, "I have just come from there—they sent me on——"
"Then you didn't get my letters——"
"Oh, yes—I got one two years ago——"
"I've only had three from you—all the time—we didn't know——"
"They weren't keen on our writing letters," he said smiling to himself. "They discouraged us. One didn't like to annoy them."
He was staring at her directly again and suddenly to her own horror she laughed.
"Oh, Chris—it's so absurd—so horrible—to stand here—like this—looking at one another—I don't know what's the matter with me. I waited so long for you—and now—in a few minutes—you're there—and I can't realise it. My dear—take your things off—then I shall see you—and—and realise—and—and—welcome you——"
He lifted his cap.
"I'm sorry, I forgot. I'm not so civilised as I was. Is that better? "
But she did not answer. For she had had for one fleeting instant an intense vision of him as he had been on that last day—it was in Regent Street, she remembered. He had just come out of the Goldsmiths' Company where he had bought her his regimental badge in an extravagant setting. He was standing on the step—in the sunlight—smiling down at her. He had never seemed so young and splendid.
And now this uncouth man—grizzled, bearded, broken, with the narrowed wolfish eyes, who watched her, waiting for something at which she could not even guess.
She mastered herself desperately. She tried to think of him as a refugee from a distant catastrophe—a stranger claiming her help and pity. Then surely it Would be easier. She would find words and gestures less intolerably false. But she could only think of him as her husband and her voice sounded unfamiliar in her own ears. She listened horror-stricken to her own jerky, stilted sentences.
"Chris—poor Chris—I never knew. You never even gave me a hint. You said it was just a little wound——"
He smiled, the same, faint, secretive smile.
"It was—a very little wound. Only unfortunately I caught cold on the top of it with this touch of paralysis as a result. One day I may unexpectedly take up my bed and walk—so a kindly Turkish doctor told me—but it's not likely." He waited for a moment but she did not answer, and his morose, amber-coloured eyes resumed their furtive scrutiny of his surroundings. "So we've neither of us anything to complain of. You've done well for yourself too. I can see that. You've grown even—there's more colour about you. And the place—it's bigger than—than our old rabbit-hutch—much bigger——"
"Yes—it's brighter—there's more light——"
"And more money——"
"I thought I told you in one of my letters—Mr. Tudor had raised my salary——"
"So you're still working with him. You've kept my job, after all. You've managed it——"
She could not have masked the joyful, eager flush that answered him. She spoke quietly, but the thrill of those three years was in her voice——
"Yes. I've worked hard. You know, Tudor is Member of Parliament now. And yesterday he introduced a Bill for Reconstruction—for the care of the returned men. It's only a private bill, but they can see that it's the right thing and the Government may take it up. They will have to in the end. And we worked it out together——"
"That's grand!" he whispered, "that's grand!"
But now she recognised the look that leapt into his eyes. It brought her down as a shot brings down a bird in full flight. It filled her with a sense of personal shame so that instinctively she ran to take him in her arms, to hide his distorted face against her breast. But before she touched him his rigidity broke. He shrank back in his chair, away from her—with a sound like a stifled scream.
"No—no. Don't touch me. I don't want that—do you understand—I don't want it. Leave me alone—for God's sake, leave me alone."
She stood still, aghast and incredulous. More and more the scene was becoming unreal. In a minute she would wake up to her cool, rare peace and loneliness.
"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to trouble you——"
"Oh, it's for me to apologise." He put up his shaking hand to his mouth as though to hide it. "You did the correct thing——"
"I did not do it because it was correct," she answered proudly, "but because it was natural——"
"The thing that was natural three years ago is not natural now," he said. "That's all there is to it. Still, you meant well. You tried hard and I offer my best thanks."
The sneer had been delivered like a daggert-hrust, but as she turned the bitter answer died on her lips. For she saw a strange new thing in him. She saw that in a moment he had shrunk and shrivelled, that he cowered before her, flinching like a whipped dog. And as though he read her horror in her eyes he beat the arms of his chair, his face all puckered, whimpering in a paroxysm of fretful rage. "Oh, why in God's name, do you keep me sitting here—staring at me? Let me go, can't you? I'm tired. I'm tired I tell you. I want to sleep—to sleep—I want to go to bed. Why don't you help me——?"
She did not answer. She felt strangely numb, as men do who have received mortal hurt, but also very calm and clear of purpose. She called the servant and between them they half-dragged, half-carried him to her room where she undressed him like a child.
It was only when the task was finished and she looked back for a moment from the threshold at the sleeping man that the numbness left her. And she understood then that it was a stranger who slept there and that he would be with her all her life.
IV.
She opened the door to him and after one glance at her white face he went past her into the sitting-room where Chris Mackay lived every day of his return. He was there now, brooding in his chair by the empty fire-place, but as the newcomer entered he jerked up violently, spasmodically, as though the string of the marionette had been pulled by accident, and then dropped back into a limp heap.
"I can't get up," he said, "I can't——"
"I know," Tudor answered. "It's rotten bad luck. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I hadn't an idea. Your wife told me——"
"Did she tell you that I did not want to see you?" Mackay asked.
Tudor shrugged good-humouredly and let the unaccepted hand fall. He stood between Mackay and the window and his big shoulders cut a black square out of the evening light. They threw a shadow over Mackay's face——
"Yes, she did—among other things," he admitted. He smiled across to her where she stood mutely, watching. "And I told her I'd come round at once. What nonsense! What have I done to be ostracized? I rather reckon myself a member of the family. Why, I was your best man——"
"Oh, yes. I remember, people thought it was very condescending of you——"
"Oh, humbug! You're hipped! You've got a bee in your bonnet You've had a rotten time, of course——"
"No, I have not had a rotten time. I did very well. I want you both to get that into your heads—once and for all. I had an infernally good time. Turkish delight and Turkish baths ad lib. And no beastly fighting. Just lounging about all day in one's best clothes. The Turks are decent fellows—fine fellows. I—I tell you—I don't need any of your infernal pity." He looked from one to the other with his yellow, piercing eyes. A little sinister smile lifted the corners of his mouth. "I suppose you've come to offer me my old job," he said abruptly.
Tudor turned away from the crouching figure in the chair. He went over to the mantelshelf and picked up an ornament as though for the moment it had arrested his attention. But the eyes followed him, pitilessly amused.
"Oh, Lord, man, you won't want to think of work yet awhile——"
"Oh, but why not—why not? I've been loafing for three years. I've been longing to work. I used to cheer myself up with what you said just before I went out. 'Mac- kay, your job will be kept open for you—even if I have to put up with your wife as a stop-gap——'"
Tudor laughed out, boisterously.
"Was I so unchivalrous? Well, I didn't know what I was talking about. Your wife has been wonderful. I couldn't have done without her. She's been my partner——!"
"That's splendid—splendid——" He rubbed the arms of his chair with his thin hands in a subdued ecstasy. "Your partner——!"
"I could not have done without her," Tudor repeated heavily and significantly, "and I'm afraid I can't do without her. That's the whole case."
There was a moment's silence. The woman watching in the shadow had exclaimed under her breath as though something that she had seen frightened her. But now she too was quite still. Mackay glanced in her direction.
"I understand," he said, "I understand everything you mean. Yet I prefer to think that you are being just a little flattering. Because my wife and I are leaving London. We shall have nothing but our pension. We have to choose somewhere quiet—very quiet and inexpensive——"
"Your wife will not be poor," Tudor interrupted roughly. "You will have money enough to live here——"
"I do not choose to live here——" His voice had taken a vicious leap forward. He caught it back to a subdued level whilst his eye watched Tudor, smiling. "My wife and I have a great deal of lost time to make up for," he said. "We want to be alone——"
"Oh, for a time—of course—I understand——"
"Not for a time—for always." He continued after a moment with an increased gentleness—"There is a place up in the Fens—an old mill where I lived years ago—when I ran about. Still, I shall be able to see the water from my window. So we are going back there, for good."
The elder man made a last bid for self-mastery. He spoke with the heavy patience which his enemies knew and dreaded.
"I don't think you do understand, Mackay. Your wife isn't my secretary. She is more than that. I said that she and I were partners and it was less than the truth. Anything that I have been able to do in the last years is due to her. She is the brain—I am the limbs. And we have a big fight before us. It's not an individual matter. It concerns the whole country. It is so big that every sacrifice is justified——"
"Ah—sacrifice——!" He stopped again. He was like an animal that again and again holds itself back from the final spring. "My wife is free to choose," he said at last.
Tudor turned towards her. She did not speak and the man who had fought his way victoriously through the heat and tumult of a dozen battles knew that in her silence lay defeat.
"Have you chosen?" She nodded and suddenly he broke out in a blaze of thwarted purpose and indignation. "She is not free to choose. She is being driven. You are making a damnable use of your infirmity, Mackay——"
"John—for pity's sake——"
"I say it—and it's true——"
Mackay beat his hands on the chair arms. He leant forward, his dark, bearded face terribly convulsed.
"And you take a damnable advantage of your strength," he stammered. "If I could stand upright you would not have dared——" His voice broke, rising to a scream. "Go—go—if you have a shred of decent feeling left in you—get out here before I want to kill you—you—you cur!"
Instinctively Tudor's clenched hand went up. But in the same instant he saw what Jean Mackay had seen once before—the sudden abject cringing—the utter pitiful collapse. He turned away calmed and contemptuous. "God pity you!" he said to her.
She followed him to the outer door. She did not speak to him. She had a shattered, humbled look which stung him to one savage reproach. "You broke your promise for that," he said. "You've turned traitor for that thing. As though the world could stand still for that!" He shook himself as a big dog shakes off the water of a dirty, stagnant pool "But you'll not bear it," he exulted. "You're too young and fine and keen. You'll come back. You've got to and you know it. One day, when you've had your fling, I'll send for you and you'll come. We belong together——"
He went on down the stairs. He knew that she had not closed the door—that she still stood there in the dusk. And he knew too, with a thrill of triumph, that she was crying bitterly.
V
For six months she had held out. Yet every day had seemed inevitably the last. She had never risen and gone over to her window and looked out over the desolate waste of flat, wet, shimmering land but she had told herself that to-morrow she would be gone. And at night-time, through the incessant murmur of the river as it flowed past, she heard the old blood-stirring call of life and action—the bustle of the beloved streets, the harsh clamour of a lusty, striving world, claiming her power and youth, and knew that to-morrow she would answer.
And the next day she would go across to the stranger's room, and wash and dress him and drag him across in his wheel-chair to the sitting-room window from whence he could watch the river slipping away between its low banks. And all day long she waited in the drear silence for his querulous demands and for the hour when she should drag him back to his room and wash and undress him and leave him sleeping.
They rarely spoke to one another. He sat there throughout the day, sunk in a black brooding from which sometimes he would wake to watch her. And she herself would start out of her dreams to the consciousness of his scrutiny and to an uneasy questioning. What lay behind those furtive eyes? Madness—terror or sheer hatred? She did not know. But more and more often an answering flame of revolt burnt up in her.
"A servant is all he needs," she told herself, "and he chains me here. He is a devil. If I stay I shall become mad and bad. I shall want to kill him."
She began to wish that he would die. In the stifling silence strange and awful thoughts came to her and would not be denied. She fought them and in the struggle they became more definite. And all her stifled youth and joy of life and endeavour clamoured to her to be gone—to save her soul alive.
And at such times when the urge was most passionate she noticed that his hands tightened on the arms of his chair till the knuckles were white as ivory and that his eyes never let go their hold on her
As though he knew——
VI
"It was like that, once, when I was a boy," he said suddenly. "The clouds hung just as they are now, so that you felt you could touch them with your hand. And it rained. The next day the river burst its banks up at Erey and swept the whole countryside. In the hollow here it was like a maelstrom. The old mill shook so that my father thought our last hour had come. But I laughed, I was just a boy. To me it was an adventure."
She left her thoughts to listen to him. She knew that to-day a definite summons would come to her. It seemed to her that already she heard the footsteps of a great event coming to her through the grey, rain-soaked silences. But something in his voice startled her. It was vaguely familiar—it was as though she had heard a bar of an old, half-forgotten song—as though for a moment obscuring mists had thinned and she had caught a glimpse of a place where she had once been happy.
She looked at him and then past him out of the window.
"It hasn't stopped raining for three days now," she said. "The wooden bridge is awash already."
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"Oh, no," she smiled palely. "I am a strong swimmer, I am not afraid——"
He laughed to himself.
"That is fortunate for you at any rate. Perhaps it would be a way out for you."
"When the time comes I shall find my own way," she answered.
He looked up sharply. She stood far back in the gloomy room, deep in the black tide of shadow, but at that moment she seemed to shine out radiantly like a bright, cold flame. He flinched, drawing back into himself.
"Yes, you are very strong," he muttered. "Young and fine—and ruthless. Yes—that's what he meant. And so when he calls, you will go back——"
She frowned a little, catching an echo in his words. But then again her attention slipped away from him. For she had seen old Andrews, the postman, fighting his way through the deluge. He looked like a poor, half-drowned scarecrow as he clambered up the wooden steps of the mill, his dripping trousers flapping against his thin legs, the rain running off his cap in rivulets. Jean Mackay went out into the passage and the man seated by the window heard the bolts drawn and the sound of voices. He leant forward in his chair so that he could hear them better. Old Andrews sounded querulous and overwrought with fatigue.
"Why, yes, it isn't often I comes these ways—and for a bit of a letter like that too! But maybe, as you don't get many, you'll be glad of it. I hope so. Three miles through this rain comes hard on an old man——"
He did not hear her answer. But his hands clenched themselves bloodless as he listened to her silence. Then old Andrews broke in again.
"Well—I'll be getting along, Missus, unless you've an answer you'd like me to take with me."
"I shall take it myself," she answered slowly.
"Well—I'd have an eye on that boat of yours, if I were you. Maybe you'll be wanting it before the night's out. The river has a nasty look and this is a rickety old place. I mind when it was nearly swept away—like a matchbox. That was when Master Chris was a little boy—runnin' and leapin'—as pretty a little chap as you could wish. And when we came to fetch them off on the raft he laughed and splashed the water with his hands. He wasn't afraid—no more than a trout in a stream——"
"That's a long time ago, Andrews."
"Aye, I'm an old man now. And three miles back through the rain——! Well, thank 'ee, missus. And have an eye to that there boat of yours——"
He went down the wooden steps, stiff-kneed and awkward, and the ceaseless downpour swept him away like straw into the greyness.
Chris Mackay listened. He sat stiffly upright, his uncouth, savage-looking head lifted. He heard the rip of a torn envelope and once the rustle of a turned leaf. And then again silence. He could see her, standing with her back to the closed door—staring ahead. He could see the heave of her breast with the quick-drawn breath.
Presently she went upstairs to her room. Overhead she moved to and fro, to and fro, ceaselessly, monotonously like some trapped, caged thing of the forest
"Jean"—he muttered—" Jean——"
The time stole by leadenly. Though it was still early, the room was full of twilight. He looked about him, his eyes wide open. They were not furtive now but full of a shameless desperate fear. They were the eyes of a child in the clutch of hysterical night terrors. And strange, broken sounds escaped his compressed lips. "Jean—Jean—you mustn't go—listen—I've something I want to tell you—I never told you before—but now—I've got to-for you mustn't go——"
The pacing overhead had stopped. There was something final in the silence—something decisive. The man sank his face in his shaking hands. "Jean—Jean—listen——"
The footsteps began again. They hurried now—as if the door of the cage had been opened and the trapped forest thing came out into freedom.
Chris Mackay started upright. He tried to turn the wheels of his chair with his hands, but it was a stiff, old-fashioned contrivance and moreover he had never tried before. The chair moved a little and then ran him grotesquely against the wall. He pushed himself free and sliding out on to the floor began to crawl forward on his hands, his pitiful legs trailing behind him like the legs of an injured dog. He was sobbing harshly—and once he lay still face downwards as though hiding from his own shame. But in the end he reached the bureau in the corner of the room and like a drowning man dragged himself up and tugged open the lower drawer. His hand was groping in its depths when the footsteps came on down the stairs, resolute and strong and eager. He turned—gasping. He seemed to make one supreme effort to rise up and face her. But he could not. She stood in the doorway, looking about her, frowning.
"Chris! Where are you, Chris?" She saw him then and the moment's trouble died out of her face. She laughed. It was a nervous, mirthless laugh enough, but it fell on the man huddled against the wall like a whip of ridicule. "Why, what are you doing—how did you get there——?" He did not answer. The grey sweat ran down his cheeks like tears. His right hand was hidden under him. "Let me help you," she said coldly and quietly. "You oughtn't to try and do things like that. You might have hurt yourself——"
"Keep back!" he whispered.
"But you can't stay there——"
"Where are you going?"
She stopped mid-way. For she saw that now he neither cringed nor flinched. He had become terrible. He lay there crouching, waiting like a hunted animal driven to a last desperate stand.
"I'm going to the village."
"In this storm——?"
"I am not afraid of the storm."
"What do you want there?"
"I have business——"
"You are going to Tudor——"
"I am going to see him."
"He sent for you and you are going—as he said you would——"
"I must see him——"
"And you will not come back——"
She paused an instant.
"For a time at least——"
"But in the end—you'll leave me—to rot here——"
She made a proud gesture of denial
"You know I wouldn't do that. I'd find someone——"
"A servant——"
"Why not? It's all you need——"
A muffled cry broke from him.
"By God—you shan't go—you shan't go——"
Then suddenly the flood that had been rising stealthily in the dark silence of these months burst its dam. The feverish eager flush in her cheeks blazed into flaming anger.
"You can't stop me again, Chris. You stopped me once because I was dazed—I couldn't see clear. Now I know. You can't stop me. I've tried to stay. But it's no good. It's not even right. You're one man—and I've got my work—out there. I've got to do it. It's my work—and I know it—and that's why I'm going mad here—with you. If we'd loved each other it might be different—you would be different—you wouldn't have claimed so much—you would have played fair. But we don't love each other. It's all dead and gone. We're strangers—tied together like galley-slaves—we hate each other——"
"You did love me," he cried out. "Don't you remember—that last day——"
"Chris—we're different people now——"
"Yes—I'm different. I'm a cripple. I make you laugh——"
"Hush—you have no right to say that——"
"I have a right. It's true. I've heard you laugh—you lived in ease and content whilst I festered in hell—you took my job from me—you are strong and young, whilst I—I am this—you are leaving me as you wouldn't leave a dog—for that man—and you laugh——" He dragged himself up, his back to the wall. "But you shan't go—by God, you shan't——"
"You can't stop me, Chris——"
His hand jerked up. She was at the door when the thing he had held concealed exploded with a sharp, deafening report. The noise of it seemed to fill the room with a dull cloud which thinned slowly, leaving them face to face, staring at one another. At first only bewilderment—sheer incredulity were in her eyes—but in the end, horror. She turned. He heard her stumble along the passage—the rasp of bolts—the clang of the outer door as it swung to.
Then he fired—again and again—wildly, purposelessly, till the last shot was gone, and in silence he pitched forward, his face buried in his arms.
VII
At first she did not know what had happened. The river was at her feet before a blind instinct of self-preservation released her, giving her over to full consciousness. She stopped then and looked back the way she had come. For a minute the rain had ceased and a transient gleam of sunlight merged land and sky and water into a glittering deceptive mist, through which grey wraiths drifted with a fantastic semblance of realities. Amidst them she seemed to see the desolate, tragic house she had left for ever, the shadowy room—the minister figure of hate and madness, coiled in the dusk, waiting to fling itself upon her. She had not been afraid—she was not afraid now. But the strong earth had been torn from under her feet She had been flung down from the clear, serene heights from which she had viewed life into the seething mysteries of human degradation. Men could become like that—men who had been chivalrous and generous and brave could become like that—— The gulf between good and evil could be taken in a man's stride.
She went on slowly. The water slushed over her feet. She knew now that she was hurt. There was a dull, hot sensation in her right shoulder and the mists were closing in about her, weaving themselves into her thoughts. But as yet no pain. She crossed over the wooden bridge to where the boat lay moored to the dwarf willow-tree. Her strength seemed to be flowing from her like the stream. But she knew that if she got into the boat it would be carried down to the village—and there Tudor waited for her. Then it would be all right She would go back to her work—to her ambitions—and forget.
She was struggling with the mooring rope when she knew that the night was coming. It became dark so that she could not see her hands—her very purpose went down in darkness. She could only hear the murmur and gurgle of the water—the first sigh of a suddenly risen wind. Then these, too, faded and went out.
When she awoke it was to the knowledge of pain.
In her night Pain flickered. It was a great red burning torch and by its light she saw that she was lying in the midst of a vast desert—alone. Her loneliness ate at her very heart. It was so awful that the tears that came to her were red-hot. They scalded the rims of her eyes and would not flow. It was a loneliness that separated her from all life. For there were people in the desert. They came and looked at her curiously and laughed and went away again. Sometimes when they came they took the red torch and drove it against her shoulder, and when she screamed they laughed.
"It is only a little wound," they said—"only a little wound——"
Her limbs were twisted up underneath her. They were bound with ropes so that she could not move and the men who came tightened the knots so that her struggles availed her nothing. The ropes gnawed into her flesh, and her tongue grew dry and swollen with thirst and her soundless screaming.
In all the desert place there was no pity.
And the torch grew redder. From her shoulder the flame of it spread over her whole body. It was burning her up, mind and soul. Her courage shrivelled in it so that she cringed and whimpered. All the fineness and pride in her was dead. There was nothing left of her but an animal terror.
Then they cut her bonds. They put water just beyond her reach. She tried to struggle towards it, but her limbs were lifeless. She went crawling and writhing over the ground like a wretched, half-dead grass-snake—grotesquely, comically. And the strange men stood by and laughed. And always they pushed the water a little further off, till at last she dropped on her face, crying her red-hot tears of degradation and despair.
She woke to the rain which was beating down on her and to the sound of water and a great rushing wind. But it was only for a moment. Then she was back in the desert again with the light from the torch blazing stronger and higher. The strange men had gone. The faces that came and peered at her were the faces of people whom she had known and loved. There was Chris among them. He seemed to have grown taller—finer-looking, and there was a puzzled, hurt expression on his handsome face.
"But she is quite different," he said. "We're different people now——"
"We can't wait," John Tudor said in a towering rage. "The world can't stand still for that!"
He went off indignantly, but Chris lingered. He seemed to be trying to subdue his look of horror and distress. He tried to smile at her. But his smile was a grimace. It awakened murder in her heart. And when he brought the water to her cracked lips she pushed it away. Because of the shame of her broken, useless body, she tried to dig herself into the sand to escape the pity in his eyes. But she could not. She sat up and laughed and gibed at him.
"It's only a little wound—and I've had a good time—I don't need your pity——"
And then it all began again—the night—the strange faces—the flaming anguish in the desert—an endless, pitilessly revolving wheel.
VIII
The mingled thunder of wind and water was like the shout of an army that has flung down the last defence and rushes headlong to victory. Everything had been swept away—all but the boat which swung madly from its submerged moorings, its gunwales awash, the furious stream leaping from its prow like flying, phosphorescent ghosts. And it was almost dark. Night, crawling stealthily over the Fens began to blot out the shimmer of endless water.
Jean Mackay undid the rope that still held the boat to the willow tree. The rope was sodden and she was very weak so that it took her a long time, and when it was done the torrent seized her, and swinging her round dizzily, swept her headlong down stream. She took out one of the oars and with her left arm forced her way across the torrent. The bridge had vanished. She could only guess her direction from the drowning trees. And pain devoured her. But it was no longer an enemy. It was a voice speaking to her out of the storm.
"Oh, God!" she prayed in her anguish, "oh, God!"
Through the dusk a light glimmered. It was the lamp in his window where he sat day after day, watching.
She took up the second oar and rowed with her last strength. She felt the blood leap from her wound like a living thing.
IX
The shattered, bullet-riddled door swung open in the gale. The storm shook the old rafters as a cat shakes its prey, and the walls creaked and groaned as the flood swirled against them, seeking their entry.
She stood for a moment, leaning against the lintel, looking at him. He had dragged himself back to his table and had been writing. A sheet of half-covered paper had fallen on the floor as though swept away by a movement of despair. But now he lay face downwards, his arms outstretched, and cried. And his crying was no longer pitiable and contemptible. It was very terrible. It was a laying bare of the man's soul.
"Chris!" she whispered, "Chris——"
He did not answer—did not lift his head. But suddenly the heaving shoulders were still—she saw his hands clench themselves in incredulous tension. She stumbled towards him, holding to the table in her weakness. "Chris—Chris—I've come back——"
He lifted his head now and she saw that the madness, the sullen, sneering bitterness had gone. As death wipes out all trace of evil so his face had been swept clear. And they looked at one another as though they saw each other for the first time after many years.
"I am not fit to live," he said quietly—"not fit to live——"
"How you have suffered, Chris——"
His eyes searched hers with a simple wonder.
"How do you know——?"
"A door opened," she murmured, almost to herself, "and I saw through——"
"I can tell you now——"
"Because I know. They tortured you, Chris."
"That was nothing. It is what they made of me——"
She had dropped down in the chair opposite him and he looked across at her, and she saw what had lain hidden behind his eyes. It was as though he threw down his last defence before her. "It is terrible to become a murderer and a coward," he said.
"They tortured you," she repeated out of her pain.
Suddenly he began to speak with a new eagerness—with the same tragic simplicity.
"I could not live without you," he said. "I had nothing left but the things you did for me—your touch—the sound of your voice—your step. However much I seemed to reject them, they were the things I dreamed of—clung to as to my last little shred of decency—of humanity. And when I knew that they were going too—that I should never hear them or see them again—my brain snapped. I went mad. I am not mad any more——"
She stretched out her hands towards him.
"How you suffered, Chris!"
He did not seem to see her gesture. He drew himself up a little.
"I want you to know one thing before you go," he said. "You thought I was bitter and jealous because you had taken my job from me—you thought I took you away from it to satisfy my spite. I let you think so because it hurt me less. But it wasn't that. I—I used to be a sportsman, Jean—long ago—and you are the better man. I'd—I'd be proud to follow you—to give place to you—to watch you climb. It was because I loved you—because I had held you so long between me and madness—out there in the desert—that I could not let you go. And when you looked at me that first night I knew that I had lost you—that it was all dead in you—that I was only something terrible and hideous that had come into your life. You were sorry. You tried to hide it from me. But I knew. And I could not tell you what was in my heart for fear of your pity——"
Her eyes widened with remembrance.
"I know."
"And I hated him," he went on humbly, "because he was all that I had been and because I knew that you loved him and were going to him. And I could not bear it. Perhaps years ago I could have been brave and generous—but they—they crippled me out there—and I could not—even my love was a poor, distorted thing——"
"There was never any love between John and me," she answered, "only our work. And I have come back."
"I tried to tell you often," he said, "but I knew that you would not understand. You would not remember. To you it would have been as though a wretched, loathsome beggar had come whining to you for your love. I could see the disgust in your eyes—and that silenced me. Now it is all different. It is finished between us. You will not be offended at my telling you—perhaps you will be glad. Even if you were not going—even if I could keep you—I give you free——"
There was a faint, mysterious smile about her grey lips.
"I have come back, Chris," she repeated.
The sound of the rising water had grown louder. The advance guard had broken through. It muttered at its work beneath their feet. And suddenly the man heard——
"What is it——?" he whispered.
"The flood!" she answered with subdued triumph.
"And you?"
"I was in the boat. I rowed back——"
For the first time his eyes rested on the dark spreading stain upon her dress.
"Oh, God—I hurt you——"
She shook her head doggedly—proudly.
"It is nothing—it is only a little wound. I thought at first I might save us both—but I am not strong any more——"
"You came back!" he cried out. "You knew that I was helpless—that I could save neither of us—that I must sit here—and wait—What have you done?"
"Some people seek understanding all their lives, Chris," she said dreamily—"and find it in a minute—sometimes in the last minute of all——" Suddenly she slipped to her knees, leaning against him—"as I have done."
"Why did you came back?" he repeated.
She did not answer. But she lifted his hands slowly, one by one, and kissed them. Before the night closed on her a second time she looked up at him. It seemed to her that in that moment, weakness and suffering dropped from him like a husk—that he grew young and splendid again before her eyes.
He sat with his arm about her, listening. He heard the pitiful creaking of the old floors—the deeper murderous rush of the river. His head was thrown back in an attitude of tense expectancy. The sweat of effort was about his mouth. He was very still as Samson may have been still before the great resurrection of his manhood.
Then suddenly he stood up.
He stood up and gathering the woman in his arms carried her to the door.