Nightfall - Anthony Pryde (classic novels .txt) 📗

"No, oh no: I never can be angry with Berns because it—it isn't Berns really," she glanced up at Lawrence with her pleading eyes. "It's a possession of the devil. He suffers so frightfully, Lawrence: he never ceases to rebel, and no one can soothe him but me. So that I hadn't the heart to leave him. You'll think it poor-spirited of me, but I—I can't help loving the real Bernard, a Bernard you've never seen. So I waited because—I never can make Yvonne understand—I am so sorry for him: he hurts himself more than me—"

Lawrence started. The echo struck strangely on his ear. "I understand."

"You always understand. So I tried again; I said: would he at least let me go to my room and change my clothes and get some money. But he said it was your turn to buy my clothes now. When I'd convinced myself that he was unapproachable, I thought of trying to get in by a side door or through the kitchen. It would have been ignominious, but anything was better than standing on the steps; Bernard was talking at the top of his voice, and the maids were at the bedroom windows overhead. I didn't look up but I saw the curtains flutter."

"Servants don't matter much. But you did quite right. What happened?"

"He held me by the arm as I turned to go, and told me that all the doors and windows were locked and that he had given orders not to admit me: not to admit either of us."

"Either you or—?"

"Yourself. If we liked to stay out all night together we could stay out for ever."

"And then?"

"Don't ask me." She shuddered and drooped, and the colour came up into her face, a rose-pink patch of fever. "I can't remember any more."

"He must have gone raving mad."

"He is not mad, Lawrence. But he has indulged his imagination too long and now it has the mastery of him," said Laura slowly. "It's fatal to do that. 'Withstand the beginning: after-remedies come too late.' Ever since you came he's been nursing an imaginary jealousy of you: though he knew it was imaginary, he indulged it as though it were genuine: and now it has turned on him and got him by the throat. Oh, he is so unhappy? But what can I do?"

What, indeed? Lawrence, recalling Val's warning, subdued a curse or a groan. "A house full of the materials for an explosion." And he had lived in that house—blind fool!—week after week and had noticed nothing! "Why—why did no one warn me before?" he stammered. "My poor Laura! Why didn't you send me away?"

"But if it hadn't been you it would have been someone else!" said Mrs. Clowes simply. "At one time it was Val: then it was Dr. Verney's junior partner, who attended me for influenza while Dr. Verney was away: and once it was a young chauffeur we had, who happened to be a University man. I did get rid of him, because he found out, and that made everything so awkward. But I couldn't get rid of Val, and in many ways I was most unwilling to let you go,—you did him so much good. But I'd made up my mind to turn you out: Yvonne was at me—" she paused—"yes, it really was only yesterday! I promised her to speak to you this morning. Well, I've done it!"

"Did you explain to Bernard that Selincourt and Isabel were with us all the time?"

"He talked me down."

"He must be made to listen to reason."

"He won't: not yet. Later, perhaps, but not in time to save the situation. Never mind, you're not married, and if he does divorce me people will only say 'Another Selincourt gone wrong.'" A dreary and rather cynical gleam of humour played over Laura's lips. "I'm sorry mainly for Yvonne, Jack's people are so particular; they hated the marriage, and now, when she's lived it all down and made them fond of her, I must needs go and compromise myself and drag our wretched family into the mud again!"

"Good heavens! he can't propose to divorce you?"

"He said he would."

Bit by bit it was all coming out, the cruel and sordid drama played before an audience of housemaids, as one admission led to another and her strength revived for the ordeal. Lawrence shuddered and sat silent, trying to gauge the extent of the mischief. "What can I do?" said Laura. She looked down at herself and blushed again. "I do feel so—so disreputable in these clothes. I haven't even been able to wash my face and hands or tidy my hair since I left the hotel."

"Have you been wandering about in the drive all this time?"

"I suppose so. I was afraid to go into the road in such a pickle."

"These infernal clothes!" Lawrence burst out exasperated. Their wretched plight was reduced to farce by the fact that they were locked out of their bedrooms, unable to get at their wardrobes, their soaps and sponges and brushes, his collars, her hairpins, all those trifles of the toilette without which civilized man can scarcely feel himself civilized. Most of these wants the vicarage could supply; but to reach the vicarage they had to cross the road. Lawrence got up and stood looking down at Laura. "Can you trust your maid?"

"Trust her? I can't trust her not to gossip. She's a nice girl and a very good maid, but I've only had her a year."

"Silly question! One doesn't trust servants nowadays. My man's a scamp, but I can depend on him up to a certain point because I pay him well. Anyhow we must make the best of a bad job. If I cut straight down from here I shall get into the tradesmen's drive, shan't I?"

"But you can't go to the back door!"

"Apparently I can't go to the front," said Lawrence with his wintry smile. He promised himself to go to the front by and by, but not while Laura was shivering in torn clothes under a bush.

"But what are you going to do?"

"Simply to get us a few necessaries of life. You can't be seen like this, and you can't stand here forever, catching cold with next to nothing on: besides, you've had no food since five o'clock this morning—and not much then."

"But the servants—if they have orders—"

"Servants!" He laughed.

"But you don't mean to force your way in?"

"Not past Bernard, dear. Don't be afraid: I shall skulk in by the rear."

It was easy to say "Don't be afraid": doubly easy for Lawrence, who had never known Bernard's darker temper. But there was no coward blood in Mrs. Clowes, and she steadied herself under the rallying influence of Hyde's firm look and tone.

"Go, then, but don't be long. And, Lawrence promise me. . ."

"Anything, dear."

"You won't touch Bernard, will you?" Lawrence was dumb, from wonder, not from indecision. "No one can do that," said Laura under her breath. "Oh, I know you wouldn't dream of it. But yet—if he insulted you, if he struck you . . . if he insulted me. . . ?"

"No, on my honour."

He touched her hand with his lips—a ceremony performed by Lawrence only once beforehand in what different circumstances!— and left her: more like a winter butterfly than ever, with her shining hair, pale face, and gallant eyes, and the silver threads of her embroidered skirt flowing round her over the sunburnt turf.

Wanhope was an old-fashioned house, and the domestic premises were much the same as they had been in the eighteenth century, except that Clowes had turned one wing of the stables into a garage and rooms for the chauffeur. He kept no indoor menservants except Barry, the groom and gardener living in the village, while three or four maids were ample to wait on that quiet family. Pursuing the tradesman's drive between coach-house, tool shed, coal shed, and miscellaneous outbuildings, Lawrence emerged on a brick yard, ducked under a clothes-line, made for an open doorway, and found himself in the scullery. It was empty, and he went on into a big old-fashioned kitchen, draughty enough with its high roof and blue plastered walls. Here, too, there was not a soul to be seen: a kettle was furiously boiling over on the hob, a gas ring was running to waste near by, turned on but left unlit and volleying evil fumes. His next researches carried him into a flagged passage, on his right a sunlit pantry, on his left a dingy alcove evidently dedicated to the trimming of lamps and the cleaning of boots. He began to wonder if every one had run away. But no: a sharp turn, a couple of steps, and he came on an inner door, comfortably covered with green baize, through which issued a perfect hubbub of voices all talking at once. He listened long enough to hear himself characterized by a baritone as a stinking Jew, and by a treble as not her style and a bit too gay but quite the gentleman, before he raised the latch and stepped in.

His appearance produced a perfect hush. Except Barry and his own valet they were all there, the entire domestic staff of Wanhope: and to face them was not the least courageous act that Lawrence had ever performed. It was a large, comfortable room, lit by large windows overlooking the kitchen garden; a cheerful fire burnt in the grate this autumn morning, and in a big chair before it sat a cheerful, comely person in a print gown, in whom he recognized Mrs. Fryar the cook. Gordon the chauffeur, a pragmatic young man from the Clyde, in this levelling hour was sitting on the edge of the table with a glass of beer in his hand. Caroline, the Baptist housemaid, held the floor: she was declaiming, when Lawrence entered, that it was a shame of Major Clowes and she didn't care who heard her say so, but apparently Lawrence was an exception, for like all the rest she was instantly stricken dumb as the grave.

Lawrence remained standing in the open doorway. He would have given a thousand pounds to be in morning attire, but no constraint was perceptible in the big, careless, impassive figure framed against the sunlit yard.

"Are you Mrs. Clowes's maid?" he singled out a tall, rather stiff, quiet-looking girl in the plain black dress of her calling. "Is your name Catherine? I want to speak to you."

She stood up—they were all standing by now except Gordon—but she looked at him very oddly, as if she were half frightened and half inclined to be familiar. "I suppose you can tell me where my lady is, sir?"

"She is waiting for you," said Lawrence. "I say that I want to speak to you by yourself. Come in here, please." Catherine continued to look as if she felt inclined to flounce and toss her head, but under his cold and steady eyes she thought better of it and followed him into the pantry. Lawrence shut the door.

"I'd have gone to my lady, sir, if I'd known where she was."

"You're going to her now," said Lawrence. "I want you, please, to run up to her room and fetch some clothes, the sort of clothes she would wear to go out walking: you understand what I mean? A jacket and dress and hat, walking boots, a veil—" Catherine intimated that she did understand: much better than any gentleman, her smile implied.

"Perhaps," she suggested, "what you would like is for me to pack a small box for her, sir? My lady will want a lot of things that gentlemen don't think of: underskirts and—"

"Good God, what do I care?" said Lawrence impatiently. "No, nothing of that sort: take just what she wants to change out of evening dress into morning dress. It'll be only for a few hours. Go and get them, and be as quick and quiet as you can. Say nothing to Major Clowes." He laid his hand on her shoulder. "Are you a decent girl, I wonder?"

She drew up and for the first time looked him straight in the eyes. "If you mean, sir, that you're going