THE TERRACES OF NIGHT Page 17

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Kenworthy! Go and ring up Sir Sydney and tell him Mrs Kenworthy has had another rheumatic attack, and ask his advice. And you . . .’ she turned to the shivering servants clustering all together by the door, ‘you can go to bed. I will stay here with Mrs Kenworthy tonight, since she obviously can’t be moved, and tomorrow we will make permanent arrangements.’

  Even as she spoke, she knew she did not want to spend the night companioning that white-faced, suffering thing upon the couch, yet something beyond and above herself seemed to enforce it. It was as if she, and only she, could cope with the situation; could do something that must be done, or, perhaps, say something that must be said. It was a most curious and uncanny feeling, yet irresistibly strong, and when the door closed behind the last retreating figure, and the drawing-room, lit only by the amber-shaded reading lamp at the head of the divan, lay wrapped in silence and shadows, without a moment’s hesitation, as if compelled by something entirely outside herself, Grace Smith moved to the foot of the sofa, and spoke, at first falteringly, then with gathering assurance.

  ‘Mrs Kenworthy!’ She paused, but the silent figure made no movement, only lay and stared at her, and gathering up her courage, she went on, speaking steadily and quietly into the stillness. ‘I felt—when you had those rubies dug out of the ikon, but it wasn’t my business to say anything. But I had a feeling then that it wasn’t right—that it wouldn’t be lucky . . . and now I know I was right.’ She moistened her lips. ‘I know you will laugh at me, but do think back a minute. Every time you’ve worn those rubies you have had an attack of mysterious pain. . . .’ her voice fell to an awestricken whisper, ‘and think—oh, think a minute! Where have you had those pains? First round your head—where a Crown might have been worn. Then in hands and feet—and tonight in the side, like a knife-thrust . . . or . . . oh, think, Mrs Kenworthy! Like a—a spear. . . .’

  The suffused eyes glared into hers, the thick lips moved and set themselves in a thin line of obstinacy, the head moved slowly back and forth upon the satin pillow in stubborn dissent; she would not listen! Wringing her hands, the girl tried again.

  ‘Oh, can’t you see? I guessed it . . . even Minnie feels something of the truth now! Can’t you, won’t you give them up, let them be reset once more? Let them go back where they belong, and everything will be all right. . . .’

  She paused, helpless. She had said it. And now? With a colossal effort the figure on the bed spoke, clutching in its feverish energy at the ermine covering with two small over-jewelled hands. The voice came in a cracked whisper, like the voice of someone half-dead of thirst . . . so that had come too! The thirst. . . . ‘I thirst! Give me to drink. . . .’

  ‘Water—give me some water!’

  Quivering in every limb, the girl supported the staring head while the dried lips drank, then let it sink back again. From the pillow Rachel Kenworthy looked up at her secretary, her swollen lips curled in a derisive grin, the racking pain in her side for the moment forgotten.

  ‘Fool!’ The word was whispered but venomous. ‘Think I’d give your young man the chance of taking ’em and replacing ’em with bits of glass?’

  Well as she knew the mean suspiciousness of her employer’s mind, the girl drew back, shocked and wincing, as the wheezing voice rambled on.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re hinting at about “think” and “beware”, and so on, unless you’ve got the cracked idea that Christ is afflicting me with His pains because I got those rubies out of a picture of Him!’ She laughed hoarsely and writhed upon the couch. ‘If you are, you’re mad—and even if you weren’t, do you think I’d be scared or persuaded into doing what I don’t want to do, by anything in this world—or the next? No, no, my good girl. I’ve beaten Lady Dair—she told me tonight I had! Her stones can’t hold a candle to these . . . if my immortal soul hung on replacing the rubies in the ikon, I wouldn’t do it now. . . .’

  The voice died away, and shuddering, Grace Smith stood staring down upon the figure on the couch, now silent once more, but still stubborn, bitter, unrepentant. There had been a note of terror behind the scoffing voice despite its hardihood, but not even terror could kill that brutal greed . . . with a curious sense of weakness, the girl shrank back against the great Chinese screen that had been drawn about the end of the couch, and stood, her hands to her mouth, wondering, quaking. What to do now? She had shot her bolt; said what that strange mysterious force had impelled her to say, and now she felt oddly emptied; weak, helpless as a child—with some vague idea of breathing the fresh air she went towards the French windows, and at the same moment Rachel Kenworthy turned her suffering head slowly upon the pillows and looked in the same direction.

  * * * * *

  The funeral of the wealthy Mrs Kenworthy was well attended and the flowers impressive enough to have satisfied even her vain heart, as was likewise the company. Even the Countess of Dair sent condolences to the forlorn widower, wandering blank and dazed about the empty Manor House—unable as yet to appreciate the greatness of his relief at being free at last from the grim dominance that had ruled him so long, and clinging with a pathetic, childlike persistency to little Grace Smith. Young Mr Felstead, taking possession of his betrothed in a way that both fluttered and impressed her, so new it was and so delicious, took up his abode, pro tem. at the Manor House, since the girl would not leave it until, as she put it, her job was properly tied up and put on the shelf. . . .

  So it came to pass that it was not until the funeral was well over, the guests departed, and the little master of the great house, placing a shy hand upon the girl’s shoulder, had thanked her in a shaking voice for all that she had done, that young Mr Felstead had a chance of getting his legitimate curiosity satisfied. Sitting beside the fire the night after the funeral, fortified by a very excellent dinner, some more than excellent port, and a big cigar, he had opened the discussion . . . but found curiously little, apparently, to discuss. All Kenworthy knew, he already knew himself, although the little man was not loth to repeat the story . . . how, in answer to two piercing shrieks from the drawing-room he had rushed in from the telephone, to find his wife dead, and Grace Smith holding on to the curtains and staring out into the mist-filled garden, white and startled, her eyes bulging. Speechless, unable to say a word. . . .

  ‘Except,’ said little Kenworthy, knocking out the dottle of the pipe he felt himself at last at liberty to use, ‘you whispered something like, “it’s Him, it’s Him”, over and over again. But I couldn’t see no “him” at all, nor could nobody else. Nor I can’t see why you should ’a been so scared if one of the gardeners was crossing the lawn a bit late. . . .’

  He laid a wistful hand upon her knee.

  ‘You been a good girl to my poor Rachel, though she wasn’t easy to live with, as I ought to know. You tried to stop her diggin’ out those rubies . . . I didn’t like it, I’ll say!’ He glanced apologetically towards young Felstead. ‘But there, Rachel was always one to have her way. But I wouldn’t a’ had ’em touched if I’d ’a had my way. Anyway, kid, I’ll have ’em put back and give you the ikon for a wedding present. You’ll know how to treat it—the way poor Rachel never did.’

  He shambled slowly out of the room, a pathetic figure. As the door closed behind him young Felstead slipped a tender arm about the slim shoulders of his betrothed, crouched on a cushion at his feet in the firelight, and dropped a kiss upon her curly hair.

  ‘Darling—what does the funny old buffer mean? And won’t you tell me what you really did see? A figure in the mist?’

  Grace nodded, her hands clasped under her chin.

  ‘Just that,’ she whispered. ‘A figure . . . in the mist. . . . No wonder she died of heart failure!’

  A coal fell with a soft, crisp sound. A red flame filled the room, and for a moment the girl shivered suddenly; yet her eyes held awe—awe, and a strange rapt happiness that would never leave them now. Faintly impressed, against his robustly common-sense will, the young man tried again.

&
nbsp; ‘But, darling! It can only have been a gardener, you know? Probably the mist exaggerated him . . . made him look funny, and frightened you both. . . .’

  The girl looked up at him, and at the look in her eyes, he was instantly silent.

  ‘It was a tall, dark figure in the mist—silhouetted, like a shadow. Only just a bent shape, walking. But Tom . . . he carried a cross. . . .’

  August

  The Poet’s Tale

  The Dream

  It seemed she had always been with him. Ever since he could remember anything, he remembered her face, smiling at him with that wistful, half-shy smile he loved. He knew, of course, that she did not belong to the world of men as he did, but by the time he was of an age to analyse the strangeness of this she had become so much a part of his life that the strangeness did not seem to matter; did not even seem strange at all to him . . . yet quite early in his childish days he learnt that it was useless to try and ‘explain’ her to other people.

  She came, he remembered, always in a patch of brilliant light of some kind; in some round, glittering thing that held the eye for a moment, till, staring fixedly into the shining focus, her face would dawn gradually in the centre of the brilliance, like a star emerging clear from an enclouding mist. A face small, pointed, elf-like, set in a cloud of dusky hair, and centred with two great, grey-green eyes, wistful, smiling, elusive. The first time he distinctly remembered seeing her was when he was a baby. It had been the sunlight shining upon the round brass bed-knob at the foot of the great bed on which he lay sprawling, playing with his toes, sucking his fingers, gurgling to himself happily as babies do, that had attracted him, and staring attentively at it, he saw her face slowly form in the very heart of the light, smiling at him as she always smiled. A shy, welcoming smile—at that moment, he vaguely remembered, she had seemed a child but little older than himself, nodding and laughing to him as if, from her own mysterious place, she waved a hand to him in greeting.

  Later she came again, and yet again, sometimes daily, sometimes missing a week, but never longer—she had grown with his growth, it seemed, until now, a slim, dark lad of twenty-three, she stood beside him in the spirit, a girl whose youth matched his youth, a girl who was real. Indeed, more real and far more dear than flesh and blood could be, and yet a dream. A dream wonderful, tender, magical beyond words, yet a dream indeed, according to the world of men.

  It was, of course, largely owing to this strange and amazing secret that he carried hidden in his breast, that young Tom Harrison lived, from childhood until the year of grace that saw him twenty-three, a singularly isolated, yet contented life. His parents dying while he was still a schoolboy of eleven, a dour old aunt took charge of his further upbringing and education—alien among his school-friends, who, vaguely sensing something odd and unusual about the quiet, dreaming lad, voted him discontentedly ‘no sport’, and left him severely alone; more alien still to the stern old Scotchwoman, whose narrow, bigoted, religious views hampered and irked every fibre of his being, the lad grew slowly from a freckled boy to a long-legged youth, and so to young manhood, solitary, alone, companioned only by the Girl who grew beside him, growing with his growth, like a graceful flower beside a sturdy sapling.

  Night after night he would shut himself up in his tiny attic under the stars, take out the round silver witchball he had long ago discovered to be her favourite ‘focus’, and, holding it in a shaft of moonlight, or if the moon was coy, beside the humble candle flame that was all the light the rigid economy of Aunt Lilith permitted, would wait in a state of tremulous, delicious expectancy for her face to dawn upon him—and never did he wait in vain! She was faithful as the ideal woman of whom every man dreams in his secret heart—to her he confided every detail of his days.

  He told her of his hopes and plans; of his longings for self-expression, his dreams of success as writer, artist, actor—those large, vague dreams of adolescence the world over—to her he confided his few joys, his many youthful sorrows. There was no moment of his life into which she did not enter. The exact method of their communication would have been difficult to define, and, indeed, he himself would have found it impossible to define actually, since he was so accustomed to it as to take it for granted—their speech was silent, yet eloquent and fluent as spoken words. More so, indeed, since words are at best a poor, clumsy method of translating into concrete form the swift and lovely thought that is real speech.

  So she companioned him as he grew to young manhood, friend and mother, playmate and sweetheart, counsellor and sympathiser all in one—when his aunt abruptly informed him, the day after his leaving school for good, that she had found a position for him, albeit a humble one, in a large merchant’s office in Gracechurch Street, Tom fled precipitately upstairs, after a mumbled word of thanks, to convey the amazing news to his Companion . . . with, it must be admitted, the secret, panic-stricken wonder as to whether, now he was a man, grown up and going into business, she would stay with him still.

  Perhaps she could only live with youth, with the springtime of life, like the daffodil she so much resembled—but he need have had no fear. Her faint sweet laughter greeted his inner ear even as he picked up the witchball, before her smiling face nodded at him from the centre of the gleaming patch upon it. He went to sleep content, happy—it was utterly sweet and satisfying, this strange companionship, destined, so he happily felt, after this new and profound assurance of it, to last throughout life and into the beyond that is a greater life yet. He was too young, too ignorant of the ways of the world and men, for either to have impinged as yet upon his delicately austere nature, still dreaming in its childhood’s purity—yet no man can escape the curse of the flesh to which he is shackled, and the awakening, although late and reluctantly, of young Tom Harrison’s long-sleeping manhood was stealing upon him fast.

  Rather to his own astonishment, he did not dislike the office-work and atmosphere—there was a certain stimulation about earning a small but regular income, taking his place among his fellows as a man should do. He rapidly learnt the superficial catchwords, the poses, the general attitude of his new friends, and to his further astonishment, found himself rather popular, on the whole, with them. He still retained his boyish habit of blushing and stumbling in his speech when discomfited, and for this, of course, was unmercifully chaffed, but more than all, his colleagues teased him for his physical purity, for his obvious utter and complete ignorance of woman—for Tom Harrison at twenty-three was a very handsome lad, tall and slender as a faun, with a head of curly, dark-brown hair and a pair of dreaming, hazel eyes that had already drawn the demure interest of several of the young lady typists in the office.

  Even Miss Sallie Ryan, the Boss’s secretary, and a notable heartbreaker, went out of her haughty way to make eyes at him—but Tom, unconscious, as always, of women and women’s ways, totally ignored her, thereby administering a snub unintentional, but very complete. So complete that the young lady flushed and retired in a huff, while the male staff, secretly rejoicing at seeing Miss Sallie for once treated after the manner in which she was given to treating them, opened their arms to the new arrival, and welcomed him as a Rum Chap, Too Young for words, but O.K.!

  Bob Darley, the head clerk of the Department in which he worked, having been badly bitten by the fair Sallie, decided that to take up young Harrison under the lady’s nose would be a neat revenge—and proceeded accordingly to take him up. Not at first, it must be admitted, greatly to Tom’s enthusiasm, since he was both shy and a little afraid of the dashing Darley, hero, so the office said, of a whole string of love affairs. But obviously, it was not for the youngest and newest of the clerks to hang back when the head clerk intimated his inclination to be friendly, and so the acquaintance ripened into an odd, somewhat one-sided sort of friendship . . .one-sided, for though Tom grew to like Darley at last in a half-reluctant way, it was a liking hedged about with so many reservations that it could scarcely be called a true liking at all. Truth to tell, the man fascinated and repelled him
at the same time—entirely innocent of life as he was, Darley’s obvious worldly wisdom awed him, made him faintly envious and irritated. To hear the older man’s easy talk of girls and their ways, of taking them out, teasing them, making love to them, at first revolted him—yet, as his late-developing manhood grew stronger, more vigorous, the feeling of disgust gave place to a half-ashamed curiosity, a flushed interest, a restless, nervous eagerness at last that he tried hard to repress, dimly sensing, as the new feeling grew and took possession of him, that it brought with it a threat, vague but growing, to this Other Thing that had hitherto ruled supreme in his life. This Soul Love that until now had been the very core and centre of his tiny world.

  She sensed it, too, even more quickly than he did, and although she gave no sign, said no word of warning, of protest, he could tell, from her wistful look in her grey-green eyes, from the sad droop of her mouth, that she did not like the new atmosphere about him. Her silent disapproval was most marked when he had just come from Darley, from listening to some bawdy tale of amorous adventure. Thereafter he tried always to avoid seeing Darley the last thing at night, just before he went home to his own quarters—now a room in a boarding house near the City, to Aunt Lilith’s grim disapproval—but he was not always successful. His youth and charm and diffidence had aroused a quite genuine affection in the older man, and he imagined with the greatest sincerity that in trying to ‘take young Tom out of himself’, ‘bring him down to earth’ as he phrased it, he was doing the boy a service. Making a Man of him, as he proudly declared. Well, well—he is not the first man to think that the gutters of the world are a better place to live in than the hills of dreamland. . . .