The Claw Part 32

"Why did you take his charm, Maurice?" I asked, not from curiosity but from a wild desire to keep talking.

"Oh, never mind about _that_! There is one thing I must ask you, Deirdre--never interfere with me and my boys."

For the second time that night I flushed hotly at the tone he used, resenting its unpardonable rudeness. It was on my tongue to answer him proudly that he would not need to make the request twice; but remembering all the plans and resolutions I had taken to the altar a few hours before, I bit the words back before they could escape, and found courage to say instead, with as much gentleness as I could conjure:

"Of course not. You know that my wish is to help, not hinder you, or interfere in any way."

"_That's_ all right then," said he in a tone so extremely domineering and self-satisfied, that my spirits drooped even a little lower than before. But I picked them up again, I forced myself to be gay and sociable, I laughed (like Saba Rookwood), and talked of anything and everything that could have any possible interest for him, even while the knowledge began to push itself into my mind that there were strangely few subjects of common interest between us; and the wonder began to make itself felt that I had never before noticed how little he had to say on any subject. He had always been so quiet, so chivalrously, gently silent, that I had perhaps given him credit for depth and feeling that were not there. No, no, I struggled against that thought, and jested on, occupying my tongue with incessant remarks.

At last the lights of our temporary home beaconed across the veldt and the interminable drive came to an end.

Water-lily Farm consisted of three thatched rooms, and a few straggling huts dumped on the wide and rolling plain with horizon all round. As we drove up in the chilly gloom we saw that the beaconing lights came from lamps with green gla.s.s shades that gleamed like anaemic stars from the windows of the bungalow. A dog barked fretfully in the verandah, and a boy came running out with some information in the native language.

"He says there's a letter from Bingham on the table," remarked Maurice.

"Wait a moment, I'll go and see." He sprang from the cart, catching his coat on some projection and sending a shower of papers and things flying from his over-crammed pockets. I collected them as best I could in the darkness, while he went within, and found the letter. He presently came out again calling to me:

"_That's_ all right. It's only to say he is sorry he had to go off on duty and couldn't wait to welcome us; but our boxes of provisions have arrived and everything is O.K. Go inside, dear, while I see about the horses with the boy. If anything happens to them I shall have to pay."

He helped me down, and I went into the homely little living-room lighted by the pale-green lamps. The supper-table was carefully laid out with an attempt at grace that was more touching than successful. As I looked at the clumsy little bunches of wild flowers arranged in tumblers, I felt that Bingham was a pleasant fellow. There was an honest, serene air about the simple room with its canvas deck-chairs, cane lounge, white-wood book shelves and framed photographs of English people on the walls. The woman who was coming from England to her man here should be very happy, I thought.

A light from the door of an adjoining room drew me thither, but before I reached it I pa.s.sed some boxes piled against the wall--open packing cases full of provisions: canned beef, biscuits, bottles of preserved fruits, loose potatoes, a case of champagne. There was another case also, nailed up and branded with the name of John Dewar and Sons. I had lived long enough in Rhodesia to know that these were not the names of gentlemen-philanthropists who lived in the Imperial Inst.i.tute and provided packing-case seats in the open air for the public. I now recognised a case of whiskey when I saw one. I fled from the room and from my thoughts.

The next room had nothing in it but a wholesome smell of pipe-tobacco, a rough desk with many papers piled on it, some racks of shelves, and a chair: obviously Mr Bingham's office.

More simplicity in the bedroom: white mats, a white dressing-table of unpainted wood, a sheet of mirror in a white frame, a large white double bed. I gazed at that large white bed, fascinated, while the knowledge crept slowly over me that there was no other bed in the house. At last I turned away, and then I saw that in the mirror there was a woman who matched all the other white things in the room--a deathly white woman with a gay-tragic face, standing very still, her clutching hands full of papers. I stared at the papers for a moment wondering what they were, then remembered picking them up in the cart. I was holding a little green leather case too, that I had gathered up with them--something Maurice had dropped. I recalled having heard the little dull thud of it as it fell. It was a jewel-case, a small, new-looking, green leather box, and when I saw that it was half open I wondered if anything had been lost out of it. My mind turned to that question as though it was of importance far greater than the one that was blanching my cheeks and chilling my blood. It was imperative that I should fasten my mind on something outside itself, and I fastened it with avidity on the little green jewel-case half open in my hand.

"Perhaps something is lost out of it," I repeated mechanically; something of Maurice's--something of my husband's!

I opened it entirely, looked in, and found that it contained one blue turquoise ear-ring.

It was a very new little box, with the name of the same Durban jeweller to whom I had sold my rings, printed in bright gold letters on the white satin lid. (Of course! I remembered it was Maurice who had given me the man's address.)

The one ear-ring was stuck into a dent in the white velvet cus.h.i.+on; by its side was another little dent--empty.

"The other ear-ring must have been lost," I said to the woman in the gla.s.s. She made no reply.

"The other--must have been lost!" I repeated, but I did not hear my voice, and though I saw that the lips of the woman in the gla.s.s were moving, no sound came from them.

Then I noticed an odd thing. The woman in the gla.s.s was tearing open the front of her gown: tearing it open with shaking frantic hands to get at something that she wore against her heart in a little silken bag.

I did not see her again for a long while. When I looked up at last she was still standing there: only the white lips in the gay-tragic face were smiling, a brooding subtle smile, that had in it a strange mingling of triumph, despair, hatred--and some other desperate element that might have been hope or madness; and the little leather jewel-box in her hands contained two ear-rings. _The lost one had been found_.

Steps in the verandah dragged me away from the gla.s.s and the fascinating things I saw there. I crossed the room swiftly, and closing the door locked it; there was also a wooden b.u.t.ton to turn, and a large bolt which slid into its socket soundlessly.

I returned to the dressing-table and my contemplation of the contents of the pretty new box from Durban. I examined them as carefully as if I were a jeweller; as if I had never seen a turquoise ear-ring before and might never see one again. The gold setting of one was tarnished with mud; tiny particles of dirt were still clinging to it; but the stone was undimmed blue, and resembled in every particular its radiant mate which had plainly never left a white velvet bed to make acquaintance with mud.

They were screw earrings, meant to pa.s.s through a hole in the ear and screw behind the lobe with a little gold washer like a miniature bicycle-nut. Both nuts were in place and the hold wire thread on which they were screwed was quite unworn. When I had removed all traces of mud and stain from the one and polished it with a handkerchief, they were both as flawless and new as when they left the jeweller's; you could not tell one from the other.

The only interruptions I suffered in my engrossing occupation were the sounds of tins and bottles being opened and occasional shouts to me to hurry up and come to supper. To these I paid no attention until they were accompanied by thumpings on the door.

"What have you locked yourself in for? Do hurry up, for G.o.d's sake!

I'm as hungry as the devil. Deirdre! what on earth are you doing?"

I was considering with her the fate of the woman in the gla.s.s.

"Are we or are we not going to eat anything to-night?"

"You may eat without me," I called out in a clear voice. "I do not need any food."

"The devil you don't!" There was a pause.

"But--What on earth is the matter with you, my dear girl. Of course you must eat--what's the matter? Are you angry about anything?--d.a.m.n it!

what kind of behaviour is this? Open the door."

"I do not intend to open the door, Maurice, until--I have come to a decision. You had better go away and not waste your breath speaking to me."

He wasted a good deal more breath, however, before he went away. The next sound was the pop of a champagne cork hitting the ceiling, and the little water-fall rush of wine into a gla.s.s. Afterwards the boy was roughly and loudly told to "_Hambeela_ and get out." Later a knife and fork clattered on plates, and there were more pops and water-fall rushes. At length a silence. The scent of a cigarette crept into the room.

"What now?" I wondered dully. Having finished considering the problem of the future with my reflection, I went and sat on the large white bed which no longer had any terrors for me. I heard the front door being locked, then steps across the room to my door once more.

"Is this a game, Deirdre?"

I did not answer.

"If you do not unlock the door I will break it in!" he said in the same loud bullying voice he had used to the boy, but which did not alarm me at all. I knew now that it was a coward's voice--a coward's and a liar's: my husband's!

I looked at the stout, unpainted deal door and then at some kaffir curios fastened to the wall on either side of it in rather picturesque groups. There was quite a collection of strangely shaped knives and a.s.segais.

"Do you hear? I shall break in the door."

"You may do what you wish. But if you come in here I will kill you."

My voice was very low and quiet, but the hatred in it carried through the door like a dagger aimed at his heart, and he drew away as if it had reached him. A moment later he laughed--a coward's laugh--uncertain at the beginning, then, taking courage from its own loud sound, bl.u.s.tering at the end. Afterwards he sought in more champagne courage to fulfil his threat: but he found what was better for him at that time--oblivion.

As for me, I lay on the great white bed with crushed face and clenched hands, and asked G.o.d for death. At first I was a woman in agony, a tortured and tricked woman whose sorrows were too many for her, whose right was death as the only solution of the sordid problem. But afterwards I was only a weeping child, sobbing over the wreckage of my life, and crying out in the words of my childhood's prayers:

"Oh, gentle Jesus!... Oh, Mary!... have pity on me!"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

WHAT THE DAWN HEARD.

"The means of a man's ruin are on his tongue."