Nightfall - Anthony Pryde (classic novels .txt) 📗

Stafford was slowly taking account with himself.

"I'm not such a cautious moralist as you are," Lawrence pursued, "and so I don't hold a pistol to your head and give you ten minutes to clear out of Wanhope, as you did to mine. On the contrary, I hope you'll long continue to act as Bernard's agent. I'm sure he'll never get a better one. As for Laura, she won't discover your passion unless you proclaim it, which I'm sure you'll never do. She looks on you as a brother—an affectionate younger brother invaluable for running errands. And you'll continue to fetch and carry, enduring all things from her and Bernard much as you do from me. When I do go—which won't be just yet—I shan't feel the faintest compunction about leaving you behind. I'm sure Bernard's honour will be as safe in your hands as it is in mine."

And thus one paved the way to pleasant relations with ones brother-in-law. The civilized second self, always a dismayed and cynical spectator of Hyde's lapses into savagery, raised its voice in vain.

"You seem a little confused, Val—you always were a modest chap.
But surely you of all men can trust my discretion—?"

"That's enough," said Val. He touched Hyde's coat with his finger-tips, an airy movement, almost a caress, which seemed to come from a long way off. "Lawrence, you're hurting yourself more than me."

It was enough and more than enough: an arrest instant and final. Later Lawrence wondered whether Val knew what he had done, or whether it was only a thought unconsciously made visible; it was so unlike all he had seen of Val, so like much that he had felt.

It put him to silence. Not only so, but it flung a light cloud of mystery over what had seemed noonday clear. Since that first night when he had watched in a mirror the disentangling of Laura's scarf, Lawrence had entertained no doubt of Val's sentiments, but now he was left uncertain. Val had translated himself into a country to which Lawrence could not follow him, and the light of an unknown sun was on his way.

Lawrence drew back with an impatient gesture. "Oh, let's drop all this!" The civilized second self was in revolt alike against his own morbid cruelty and Val's escape into heaven: he would admit nothing except that he had gone through one trying scene after another in the last eighteen hours, and that Val had paid for the irritation produced successively by Mrs. Cleve, Isabel, a white night, and a distressed anxious consciousness of unavowed guilt. "We shall be at each other's throats in a minute, which wouldn't suit either your book or mine—you've no idea, Val, how little it would suit mine! I'm sorry I was so offensive. But you wrong me, you do indeed; I'm not in love with Laura, and, if I were, the notion of picking poor Bernard's pocket is absolutely repugnant to me. Social expediency be hanged! What! as his guest?— But let's drop recrimination; I had no right to resent what you said after forcing you to say it, nor, in any case, to taunt you . . . I beg your pardon: there! for heaven's sake let's leave it at that."

"Will you release me from my parole?"

"Yes, and wish to heaven I'd never extracted it. I had no right to impose it on you or to hold you to it. But don't give yourself away, Val, I can't bear to think of what you'll have to face. It will be what you once called it—crucifixion."

"No, freedom," said Val. "After all these years in prison." He put up his hand to his head. "The brand—the—What's the matter?" Lawrence had seized his arm. "Am I—am I talking rubbish? I feel half asleep. But one night's sitting up aughtn't to— Oh, this is absurd! . . ."

Lawrence waited in the patience of dismay. It was no excuse to plead that till then he had not known all the harm he had done; men should not set racks to work in ignorance of their effect on trembling human nerves.

"That's over," said Val, wiping his forehead. "Sorry to make a fuss, but it came rather suddenly. Things always happen so simply when they do happen."

"Are you going to confess?"

"Oh yes. I ought to have done it long ago. In fact last night I made up my mind to break my parole if you wouldn't let me off, but I'd rather have it this way. Remains only to choose time and place: that'll need care, for I mustn't hurt others more than I can help. But I wouldn't mind betting it'll all be as simple as shelling peas. The odds are that people won't believe half I say. They'll have forgotten all about the war by now, and they'll make far too much allowance for my being only nineteen."

"And for a voluntary confession: that always carries great weight. They would judge you very differently if it had come out by chance. Rightly, too: if you're going to make such a confession at your time of life, it will be difficult for any one to call you a coward."

"Thank you!" Val shrugged his shoulders with the old indolent irony. "But moral courage was always my long suit."

"How young you still are!" said Lawrence smiling at him, "young enough to be bitter. But you're under a delusion. No, let me finish— I'm an older man than you are, I've seen a good deal of life, and I had four years out there instead of six weeks like you. So far as I can judge you never were a coward. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of men broke down like you, but they were lucky and it wasn't known, or at all events it wasn't critical. Their failure of nerve didn't coincide with the special call to action. You would have redeemed yourself if you had been able to stick to your profession. You have redeemed yourself: and you'd prove it fast enough if you got the chance, only of course in these piping times of peace unluckily you won't." He coloured suddenly to his temples. "Good God, Val! if there were any weakness left in you, could you have mastered me like this?"

CHAPTER XVII

The quickest way to Wanhope was by High Street and field path. But Lawrence to avoid the village entered the drive by the lodge, through iron gates over which Bernard had set up the arms and motto of his family: FORTIS ET FIDELIS, faithful and strong. Winding between dense shrubs of rhododendron under darker deodars, the road was long and gloomy, but Lawrence was thankful to be out of sight of Chilmark. He hurried on with his light swinging step—light for his build—his tired mind vacant or intent only on a bath and a change of clothes, till in the last bend, within a hundred yards of Wanhope he came on Mrs. Clowes.

He never could clearly remember his first sight of her, the shock was too great, but as he came up she put out her hands to him and he took them in his own. She was still in her evening dress but without cloak or fur, which had probably slipped off her shoulders: they were bare, and her beautiful bodice was torn. "Oh, here you are," she said with her faint smile. "I was afraid you would come by the field." She looked down at herself and made a weak and ineffective effort to gather her loosened laces together. "I'm—I'm not very tidy, am I?"

Lawrence was carrying an overcoat on his arm. He put her into it, and, as she did not seem able to cope with it, buttoned it for her. "What has happened, dear?"

"Bernard has turned me out," said Laura with the same piteous, bewildered smile. "Indeed he never let me in. I went home soon after you left me. The door was shut, I tried the window, but that was shut too, so I had to go back to the door. I couldn't open it and I rang. He answered me through the door, 'Who's there?'" She ended as if the motive power of speech had died down in her.

"And you—?"

"Oh, I said, 'It's I—Laura.'"

"Go on, dear," Lawrence gently prompted her.

"I said 'I'm your wife.' He said 'I have no wife.' And he called me—coarse names, words I couldn't repeat to any one. I couldn't answer him. Then he said 'Where's Hyde? Are you there, Hyde?' and that you were a coward or you wouldn't stand by and hear him calling me a—what he had called me. So I told him you weren't there, that you had gone back with Isabel and Val. He said: after you had had all you wanted out of me—I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing. Go on, dear: tell me all about it."

"But ought I to?" said Laura, raising her dimmed eyes to his face. "It's such a horrible story to tell a man, especially the very man who—I feel so queer, Lawrence: don't let me say anything I ought not!"

"Laura dear, whatever you say is sacred to me. Besides, I'm your cousin by marriage, and it's my business to think and act for you: let me help you into this alley." A little further on there was a by-path through the shrubberies, and Lawrence drew her towards it, but her limbs were giving way under her, and after a momentary hesitation he carried her into it in his arms. "There: sit on this bank. Lean on me," he sat down by her. "Is that better?"

"Oh yes: thank you: I'm so glad to be out of the drive," said Laura, letting her head fall, like a child, on his shoulder. "I seem to have been there such a long while. I didn't know where to go. Once a tradesman's cart drove by, the butcher's it was: you know Bernard gets so cross because they will drive this way to save the long round by the stables. He stared at me, but I didn't know what to do." Lawrence repressed a groan: it would be all over the village then, there was no help for it. "Where was I to go in these clothes? I did wish you would come, I always feel so safe with you."

Lawrence silently stroked her hair. His heart was riven. "So safe?" and this was all his doing.

"Was the door locked?"

"Yes."

"And he refused to open it?"

"No, he did open it."

"He did open it, do you say?"

"Yes, because—oh, my head."

"You aren't hurt anywhere, are you?" asked Lawrence, feeling cold to his fingertips.

"No, no," she roused herself, dimly sensible of his anxiety, "it's only that I feel faint, but it's passing off. No, I don't want any water! I'd far rather you stayed with me. It's such a comfort to have you here." Lawrence was speechless. Her hands went to her hair. "Oh dear, I wish I weren't so untidy! Never mind, I shall be all right directly: it does me more good than anything else just to tell you about it."

"Well, tell me then."

"The door was locked," she continued languidly but a thought more clearly, "and the chain was up and Bernard's couch was drawn across inside. He must have got Barry to wheel it over. When I begged him to let me in he unlocked the door but left it on the chain so that it would only open a few inches. I tried to push my way in, but he held me back."

"Laura, did he strike you?"

"No, no," said Laura with greater energy than she had yet shown. Lawrence drew a breath of relief. He had felt a horrible fear that her faintness might be the result of a blow or a fall. "Oh, how could you think that? All he did was to put his hand out flat against my chest and push me back."

"But your dress is torn" said Lawrence, sickening over the question yet feeling that he must know all.

"His ring caught in it. These crepe de chine dresses tear if you look at them."

"Well, did