Short Stories 1927-1956 (81 page)

Aubrey had ventured further into his own fantastic, pitiless trap than he had intended. His mouth remained ajar, in spite of his intention to shut it; and yet again he found himself listening, though his eyes, reflected in the quicksilver of the glass, continued to watch, as Emily came near. She even persuaded herself to lay a hand on his sleeve, to touch him.

‘You are torturing me? You are beginning again? Well, even if – even if it should be for the last time. It was Dr McLechlan himself who told me that you went to see him. That you even sat with John that afternoon of the very
day before he – he died. Listen —’ Her eyes were scrutinizing his face as though in search of what until this moment she could never so much as imagine could be discoverable there – discoverable even there. ‘Listen!’ she repeated, ‘you
know
that you are hinting at what is absolutely untrue. You know that Dr McLechlan did his very best and… Oh, I can’t bear it. What has happened? Something has
happened,
I say. Unless you want to – well, to have done with me – you must tell me. You will have to tell me.’

‘Oh-ho,’ Aubrey scarcely more than muttered the words, breathing heavily, through distended nostrils, ‘so now we are coming down to the naked facts! Not very pleasant, either. So you couldn’t bear that little
taradiddle
, even now. Not even the mere hypothesis. Strange, though, it never even occurred to you. Wouldn’t it have clinched the – the …? But there, Emily, husbands after all
will
be husbands. You must have realized that long ago. And Fiskes will be Fiskes. “Fiskes”! – doesn’t that sound just awful? What kind of an animal, do you think, would a Fiske resemble? No. No. I am
not
questioning the death certificate. I was merely, well, making up. But just to clear things up a little further, more tidily, let me put it in another way. Not, mind you, that mistakes have never been made.
Sleeping-draughts
– that kind of thing. Even wrong identifications – that kind of thing. Bricks instead of bodies. The shockers are full of them. Why, there was a play produced, only about a month ago, on that very subject. But, there, let’s drop all that. Supposing, Emily,
not
what I said just now. But just supposing that
he
appeared –
appeared
to have come back, I mean? This Fiske of ours? What then? Not
himself,
of course, you know, but … You – you
liked
him?’

Emily had drawn back, and had huddled, rather than seated herself, at the foot of the bed, her hands, like a bird’s claws, clutching its edge.

‘I see,’ she replied, though her face at the moment revealed nothing but the mingled glooms and darknesses of doubt and horror. ‘I
see
you were only persecuting me. You were putting these vile and awful things into my mind, first, merely to watch their effect, and then – and with such gentle fingers! – and then to see the effect of taking them out again. And yet’ (she added the words almost pensively, as if a voice had whispered a little secret to her which there was now no immediate need either to explore or to ponder over), ‘and yet, the cruel memory of them remains to fester. No poor wretch, I suppose, forgets his torturers because they restored him to
consciousness
: only in order to begin again. Very well, then. Let us be quite, quite clear, and for the last time…

‘You ask me if I
liked
him. That question, and you know it, and though I detest saying it, came only out of the old malice and – and cynicism.
“Liked”
him? I liked him beyond words to tell! As one likes – well, being one’s self, and being happy. As one likes what has remained true and
familiar and of one’s very being ever since childhood. Also, I loved him. He was the all, the friend that I had never even dreamed of. Yes, have it all out now! There will be no other chance. Also, I was
in
love with him.
Everything
that that can imply, body, heart and soul. And you know that, too. And yet… No; you will never, never be able to grasp the true meaning of anything so simple. Not a vestige of that is in your nature. Never. Not at any rate until you break yourself on your own miserable rack. And now,
because
you had the best of it – and what a best! – you think you can go on and on having the best of me. Taunting me, mocking me, torturing me.
Lying
and laughing in my face. Who would have believed such lies were even thinkable. Well, now I have owned it. And you can persecute me no more.’

‘No? “Quoth the Raven,
Nevermore
!”’
A peculiar leer spread over his sallow face. ‘Ashamed of it?’

‘“Ashamed”! What is there to be ashamed of? What
was
there to be ashamed of? Have you
never
even supposed yourself to be in love? Not even as a child? Before you had the misfortune to meet
me
?’

‘Oh, very, very funny!’ cried Aubrey, his face wreathed in grimaces. ‘
Misfortune
! Misfortune!’ – he barked it out so loudly in the room that a thin glass ornament on the dressing-table fairly tinkled with amusement. ‘But, see here, my pretty romantic bird, what I am saying is – not so much that you
were
in love with the departed gentleman, who, having failed in securing his dot-and-carry-one,
may
have passively accepted his wretched failure and indulged in a sort of go-slow strike against life – but that you still are! Answer me that! And if, living or dead, he came back now… Well,
are
you? Answer me
that
!’

The rasp of his half-suffocated voice seemed to corrode the air. And it appeared as if every contour, every line and edge of her face had altered as he looked at her. Every drop of blood seemed to have withdrawn its last faint red from her cheeks. She had even grown thinner and older, and she was bent almost double, crying.

‘Am I?
Am
I? Is that what you ask?’

The sound of her voice was as toneless and drear as some black stagnant pool fringed with muttering rushes in the flats of a marsh where a lost bird is lamenting what never can be uttered or understood. ‘Well, what if I am? It’s not
you
I am concerned with now. Not even
you
can divorce one’s very soul from its memories. He is dead. And that – for you – is all that matters.’

‘All? Indeed, poppet! And yet, supposing, I say, that being dead he yet speaketh?’

Fair, sleek face, rather long and partially hairless smooth head, glossy as dull brass, Aubrey continued to examine the human creature before him as carefully and coldly as if, ardent naturalist, he had brought down a bird of a rare species and was admiring its plumage. Well, it had always been a
relief and refreshment to persecute her; even though this time he had gone far nearer the edge, and that irrevocably, than he had intended. Her misery was a kind of dog-like joy to him. And why not? He was being persecuted himself! For jealousy, even if it is concerned with the despised and
valueless
, can be a bitter draught. Especially if one keeps on secretly sipping at the cup. Especially if … Yes, but – jealousy thrown in or not – would he never, never know whether or not this ‘Mr Hamilton’ of his had, or had
not,
decided to knock.

‘You see, my dear Emily,’ he went on, ‘at the very mention – and, for God’s sake, don’t keep on crying, you know how it infuriates me – at the very mention of his name you let your emotions get the better of you. There’s a word for it – hysteria. It’s a sort of delayed green-sickness – chlorosis. Ask Dr McLechlan. I don’t blame you; though I am not so easy a victim myself to such little aberrations. Not
so
easy, I say. To be quite truthful. It merely occurred to me to ask the question. You see, you had already been brooding, preening your woes. I have lived with you long enough – oh, how long! – to recognize the aeolian strains. And now a whole year has gone by; yes, to the very day. Surely that should have given you time enough to get really and truly used to things.’

The words were little more than sluggishly creeping out of his mouth as though he were talking in his sleep.

‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he went on, ‘that I am seething with any
particular
emotion. Envy, hatred, even uncharitableness; that kind of thing. I don’t care a tinker’s curse whether you were then, or are now, in love with him. These women! I don’t
care,
I say. I was never anything more than “second thoughts” and then became Enemy No.1. And yet, darling, I couldn’t have let you go. Now, could I? Just headlong to your own ruin. Better the sop of sentimental memories after a year than, well, an even worse
débâcle.
You have no notion what a canker a heartsick woman can be. Nor, darling, had he. And, unfortunate! He left us too early to find out. So be happy with your treasured woes. Why, he looks in on you with every mouthful of bread you eat. He flavours every sip of water. We don’t wear empty faces, sigh at nothing, look over our shoulder when there is nobody, nothing there – just for fun. Bless you, no! You can take that from
me…
But – but, yet again, supposing there had been love enough? As that pimp of futility ejaculated: “It is the cause, my soul; it is the cause.” Did you by any chance ever read the Plays together – and then “read no more”?’

Her face slowly turned in his direction, like a snail’s groping from its shell in search of its way. It was mottled and distorted with weeping.

‘I haven’t any notion,’ she said, ‘what has happened. What horror. Why you are talking like this; what – what insanity has come over you. All this vileness. It is never only what you say, but the insinuations, the poisonous
things underneath the words.’ A shuddering breath shook her whole body. ‘Well, then, listen to me. I know that, while we are together, I am at your mercy. We are husband and wife. That was – and that, Heaven help me, still is and must be – the end of
that.
But you have no right, before God or man, to question me like this. Still, here I am, and, as far as I know, in my right mind, and I will be quite candid with you. If, only
yesterday,
he
had
come back, and had wanted me – are you listening? – then, whether he was living or dead, I should have refused to see him.
Why,
you will ask. Because
then,
I was past bearing it. Ours is ours, his is his, and mine is mine. You merely filthed and made vile the most sacred misfortune the heart can suffer and endure. You dragged it through your mud. For your own poor shifty ends. Ends – though not from my choosing – unattainable now. We had said
our
good-bye, for ever. At least, for any ever known on earth. And now, well … I take it back.’

‘Take
what
back?’ shouted Aubrey, as if the contempt and fury now writhing on his dead-alive face were also almost past endurance. ‘Take
what
back? With your rubber water bottles and your furry slippers and your grizzlings and your grousings? Haven’t I a right to speak? Haven’t I a word to say? Take
what
back?’ He had this time – as if under the very blackness of the dry frozen forests – wolfishly yelled the question; and suddenly at sound of it had been seized with a sort of mental rigor. Good God! came the whisper – had his bodiless enemy actually planned and timed his visit for this?

Emily had continued to look at, to watch him; her dark eyes, stupefied with crying, shining out as if from a mask of bone. ‘That “for
ever
”,’
she managed to whisper. ‘I take
that
back. If now I thought he wanted me, I’d … No,’ she cried, pushing up her hands to her face, ‘I cannot bear very much more. I know now that something awful has happened. What is it? Who is it?’

In the pause that followed, a quiet tapping on the panel of the closed door interrupted them. Aubrey wheeled about as abruptly as an animal that has detected in its nocturnal ravagings the snapping of a withered twig. He turned, and by a few inches gently opened the door.

‘What is it?’ he said. He was blankly searching the cold impassive face beyond it, sharply lit by the lamps of both bedroom and landing.

‘If you please, sir,’ said Mary, ‘a Mr
Hamilton
has called. And, as you told me, I suppose it is “about a picture”. He stood there; and didn’t speak. And after I had inquired – well, I couldn’t understand. The mouth moved, but I was not sure if… He seemed to have been waiting in the porch. Perhaps he had knocked before, and was listening. But there’s of course, the
bell.
And of course, Madam, I shut the door. You never know…’

In spite of her ‘Madam’, her black eyes were fixed on Aubrey’s –
wide-open
and stonily pale-blue – while he tried in vain to keep his lips from trembling. It was as if she had accepted his challenge, even though her attention appeared to be elsewhere. He continued to scrutinize that queer facial chart, this human woman’s, which, because of its strength of purpose, because of its honesty and integrity perhaps, he had never been able to
decipher
. Was this merely a trick? Was this merely a vindictive Mary
resenting
his pretences? Was
anyone there? Was it merely some advertising tout? Some ticket-seller? An idiotic coincidence? Had he…?

‘As a matter of fact,’ Mary began again, ‘I had a feeling that he meant he wished to see, not you, sir, but Madam.’

A remote yet devilish smile, expressing something between fear,
astonishment
, hatred, relief and incredulity, was on Aubrey’s face as he called back over his shoulder, ‘Did you hear that, Emily? Someone for
you.
Someone has come for
you.’
Then he looked again; but there was no answer.

‘Thank you, Mary,’ he managed to mutter at her, but not quite
coherently
. ‘You were perfectly right to shut the door.
That
was no Mr Hamilton. Some wretched whining tramp, perhaps. He may be gone – by now. If not, say there is illness. No’ – he violently shook his head – ‘don’t open. Don’t open, I say. No good, now. It is impossible.’

He said no more, but slowly shut the door on her, listened for the last rumour of her receding footsteps, and then, with exquisite caution, he
carefully
turned the key.