The Dawn of Reckoning (19 page)

There was not a trace of excitement in her voice.

“Mad?” he echoed, and then shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Oh, that’s
an absurd word to use, Mrs. Monsell. Now, now, since you’ve mentioned the
subject, I may as well give you a little lecture about it. First of all, let
me tell you this—that there’s nothing seriously the matter, either with
you or with Philip. It’s entirely a question of nerves. You’re run down, you
need a change and a holiday, you—”

But she had sprung to her feet with clenched fists and wildly flashing
eyes.

“It’s
me
?” she cried fiercely. “It’s
me
, is it?
I’m
all wrong, and
he’s
all right!—You really think that?
Do
you?—Are
you
against me also?”

He rose and faced her sternly.

“Sit down and be quiet. Don’t make a scene.”

“Thinking of the servants?—There aren’t any, except Venner, and an
earthquake wouldn’t wake him.”

“I’m not thinking of the servants. I’m thinking of you yourself. It’s
dangerous for you to get excited like this. Sit down and keep calm.”

She sat down, sobbing convulsively. He took her hand and gave it a
friendly pressure.

“Now, Mrs. Monsell, I want you to understand that I’m not against you.
I—I…” He stopped; her eyes were searching his with a look he had
never seen in them before. “I’m your true friend,” he finished up hastily. He
went on after a pause: “You’re unhappy here. That’s very certain. The place
worries you—gets on your nerves. You think—”

Her eyes, still searching his, brought him to a stop. Into the pause she
interjected sadly and without vehemence: “I don’t think at all. I
feel
. And I feel—that there’s evil brooding.
Can
you
understand? I hoped you could. There’s too much thinking in this house and
not enough feeling. Philip thinks…He’s all thought…And you—I
thought you were like me—
feeling
. Oh, God, I
am
miserable. I wasn’t made for a man like him. I want warmth and sunshine
and—and love…and he hasn’t any of them to give me.”

She felt his grip on her arm tighten like a vice.

And meanwhile, in some crowded village hall, miles away,
Philip was delivering thunderous platitudes and receiving thunderous
applause…The thought occurred to Ward as he sat there in the darkly-glowing
room, his senses tingling with a new and curious excitement. Philip’s
activities seemed vague and unreal; it was he himself who was at the core of
things, touching a human soul.

She was only a girl, even yet, and she was hungry for love. But the love
he thought of was that of a mother for her child; for that, he knew, was the
love she had had for Philip during his illness. She was so pitiful and
lonely, with this newly-grown, self-reliant Philip.

“You love children?” he heard himself saying.

He saw her dark-lashed eyes fill suddenly with tears. “Why do you ask me
that?” she whispered. “Do
you
love children?”

He answered: “I do.”

She went on: “When you are very lonely you love anything—a kitten,
an old book, a doll, a half-faded flower that somebody has thrown away. But
children…”

“Yes?

“It hurts so much to want them that one tries to forget.
Do
you
understand?” She paused, glanced down at the wrist which he still held and
was hurting, and then continued: “I had a baby once…It was born
dead…Perhaps you knew?”

He started violently, as at a physical shock. She had been
this
in
his mind, and now he had to make her
that
…It seemed to him that the
room was growing smaller, that the walls were closing in upon
them—stooping to hear what she was saying. How young and girlish she
was…and how her brown eyes stared at him, calmly, mystically. They stole
the years from him, made him a boy again, shy and almost afraid in the
presence of some beautiful, unknown thing.

“No, I didn’t know.” His words were hardly audible.

Still her eyes were fixed on his in that same calm, tranquil stare. “That
was because of a fall I had…It was while you were away on your expedition.
Philip came to me one morning with the newspaper. He said—there was bad
news of your party—many killed—and—and he didn’t tell me
that—that you were safe…And I fell down…and hurt myself…”

He felt as if his brain were whirling round in his head at a maddening
pace. “Because—” he ejaculated harshly, without knowing what or why he
spoke.

“Because,” she answered, with almost unearthly serenity, “because I didn’t
want any harm to come to you.”

He knew then that he loved her. The knowledge was like a spear of flame
burning into him; he closed his eyes and could not speak.

An hour later she was sitting by the fire alone. Venner had
brought in a heaped-up scuttle, and the new coal crackled fiercely on its bed
of living embers. In the light of the flames the dark copper-brown of her
hair kindled almost to gold.

Ward had gone—was now, no doubt, miles westward over the
country-side, passing without heed the black fields and sleeping farmsteads.
She could not think or remember anything that had happened; but she could
feel
—could
feel
more intensely than she had ever felt
before. The spell of his manliness—his manliness that was half
boyishness—was still on her, calming her passion and making it sweet
and clear.

The night grew quieter, and the hours lengthened to midnight. She was
happy until she heard the harsh hooting of the car in the lane. Philip’s
car…Then all her fears swooped down upon her again, more agonisingly after
the short respite. She stumbled to her feet and rushed out of the room and up
the wide staircase. She would not—
could
not see him.

One Friday at twilight in Bethnal Green, when the streets
were crowded with shoppers, and the flaming pageant of the slums was just
beginning, a sudden shower smeared all the pavements with a brown and greasy
mud. And on this mud, glistening in the rosy light of the naptha-flares, a
lady chanced to slip and fall. She picked herself up immediately, smiled, and
said that she was not hurt, but the usual kindly crowd gathered round her,
asking kindly questions and giving kindly advice, and being, in short, a very
kindly nuisance. They noticed, both from her dress and from her voice, that
she was comfortably well-to-do; they guessed therefore that only some queer
business could have brought her alone to Bethnal Green.

In her fall she had dropped her handbag, and some money had escaped from
it, chiefly coppers. A small boy rescued the hand-bag, and another small boy,
assisted by stall-keepers and passers-by of all kinds, began a search for the
vagrant coins. Meanwhile, a man wiped the mud off her fur coat with his
handkerchief. The crowd became larger and larger, until it was composed
chiefly of people who did not know what was the matter.

She tried to go her way, but the crowd were uncertain whether all her
money had been recovered, and when she said that the rest of it, if there
were any, did not matter, they seemed incredulous, almost resentful of her
nonchalance. “‘Ere’s another penny, missis,” said an unshaven,
shabbily-dressed man, thrusting himself forward. She smiled at him, and he
gaped back at her. For she was very beautiful.

But at last a watcher on the fringe of the crowd reported that police were
coming. And the crowd, true to the ingrained instinct of generations,
prepared to dissolve. “Clear out before they come…Don’t want any
trouble…” were the general exclamations, as if anybody could get into
trouble for falling down on a greasy pavement. “‘Ere, missis, where d’ you
wanter go to?”

He was a young, dark-haired, and intelligent Jew boy. She answered: “Clay
Street…Doctor Ward…Do you know him?”

“Oh, yers, I know ‘im. You jes’ foller me.”

She followed him out of the glare of the main highway into a forlorn and
dismal side turning, the crowd making way for her and murmuring together in a
sombre bedraggled chorus…“She wants Doctor Ward…Doctor Ward…Wot she
want ‘im for?…Doctor Ward…Clay Street…”

After walking a few yards she knew that she had received several bad
sprains. But no matter; she followed her guide unswervingly, content that she
was nearing her destination at last.

The streets became darker and more slimy and the occasional
lamps paler and sallower; leering gin-palaces and stench-laden fried-fish
shops bathed the pavements in sudden arcs of light that emphasised the gloom
of the intervals. Her guide led her swiftly from street to street, solemnly
and without speaking. And at last he halted in front of an old-fashioned
three-storeyed house that opened directly on to the pavement. “‘Ere y’are,
m’m. Sh’ll I ring?”

She nodded, and he gave a tug at the bell-pull that must have been
deafening within. She opened her hand-bag and gave him a shilling, and he ran
off smiling delightedly. So far so good; she was here at last, and one stage
of her necessary adventure was complete.

The door of the house opened with silent suddenness, and an elderly
competent-looking nurse stood on the threshold.

“Can I see Doctor Ward, please?

“Have you an appointment?”

“No, but—”

“Well, you see, I’m afraid he’s very busy to-night, but perhaps I could
help you. Will you come inside?”

The nurse carefully closed the door behind her and led the way down the
dimly-lit hall. “If you’ll come into the surgery—” she began.

She was obviously misapprehending.

“But—but I haven’t come as a patient. I’m a friend—a personal
friend of the doctor’s, and I want to see him—on—on private
business.”

“Oh, I see.” The nurse glanced at her shrewdly, and went on, if anything,
rather less cordially: “The doctor’s very busy to-night. Perhaps you’d prefer
to wait in the office. There’ll be callers here, you see. I’ll ring through
to the hospital and tell the doctor you’ve come. What name shall I say?

“Monsell,” came the reply, almost inaudibly. And then, as if to make
amends, a shrill repetition: “Monsell. Mrs. Monsell. From
Chassingford…Doctor Ward will understand as soon as you give him my
name.”

“Very well,” replied the nurse imperturbably. She led the way into a
further room, switched on the light and an electric fire and retired.

As soon as she was left alone in the room Stella was the cringing prey of
all her fears. The room was rather bleak, and the single high-powered
electric light in the ceiling added a glare that made the bleakness more
terrible. The window was wide open, and a draught of chilly air swept in from
outside. The night was almost dark, and through the gloom she could see a
wide-tiled courtyard, and on the other side of it the many-storeyed hospital,
its tiers of windows glowing more brightly as the darkness deepened. At the
further end the glass-roofed operating theatre shone like an immense
silver-blue conflagration, dazzling the night with an awful radiance. As the
last faint grey of twilight left the sky the radiance blazed more fiercely;
it hypnotised her as she gazed at it; it seemed to her the huge malevolent
eye of something monstrously evil. A humming was in her ears; she staggered
to a chair and sank into it almost fainting.

But a cool gust of air quickly revived her, and she heard footsteps
outside. She hoped—was sure that it was Ward. But when the door opened
only the nurse entered. “I’ll pull down the blinds for you,” she said
quietly.

“Did you ring through to the hospital as you said?”

“Yes. But I couldn’t speak to the doctor. He’s still operating.”

“Oh, operating?” Something made her shiver.

“Yes.”

“A long operation?”

“Some are.”

The words, casual and non-committal, chilled her. In the hard white light
she saw a ruthlessly competent woman—cold, passionless, almost superb.
The woman reminded her of Mrs. Monsell, of Chassingford, of all that was and
had been terrible in her recent life.

Something impelled her to keep up the conversation while the nurse was
attending to the blinds “I suppose—I suppose you haven’t any sort of
idea how long it will last?

“What—the operation?

“Yes.”

“No, I haven’t. It’s impossible to say.”

“Is it a bad—a difficult operation?”

The nurse walked calmly to the door. “All operations are bad,” she said
simply. And she added, as if throwing out the information as a
half-contemptuous tit-bit for the curious: “It’s a cancer case…A woman, I
believe.”

The door closed again and all was silent. She looked carefully round the
room, trying to save her thoughts from panic. It seemed to be a sort of
office and store-room combined. Glass-lidded cases of surgical instruments
lay on a large table in the middle, and there was a book-case in an alcove,
filled with scientific and medical text-books. One corner of the room was
tiled, and contained a neat porcelain wash-basin. The walls exhibited nothing
but a large map of England and Wales, another of London, and an eye-testing
card. She noticed all these details because her mind was comparing this room
with Philip’s study at Chassingford. Comparing, and also contrasting.
Philip’s room was luxurious and complicated; it suggested the naturally
indolent man who likes to think himself busy. Ward’s room was stark and
simple…She worked out the contrast and the comparison until both broke
down. She had to do something to occupy her mind…Would Ward never come?
Could
an operation take so long to perform? How long had she been
waiting? Half an hour? A clock somewhere clanged the hour of seven
o’clock…Only seven?

Faintly in the distance came the shrill cries of children playing in the
street. The white glare of the room seemed to strain harder and harder until
it suddenly burst before her eyes into a cataract of stars. She closed her
eyes tightly, and then she could see only the blue blaze of the theatre,
clearly as if there had been nothing else in the world.