The Captives Part 45

"My G.o.d, Thou art come." Some other words followed but were caught up and m.u.f.fled. He fell forward, collapsing in a heap against the desk.

His head struck the wood and then he lay there perfectly still.

Maggie could only dimly gather what happened after the sound of that fall. There seemed to her to be a long and terrible silence during which the clock continued remorselessly to strike. The Chapel appeared to be a place of shadows as though the gas had suddenly died to dim haloes; she was conscious that people moved about her, that Aunt Anne had left them, and that Aunt Elizabeth was saying to her again and again: "How terrible! How terrible! How terrible!"

Then as though it were some other person, Maggie found herself very calmly speaking to Aunt Elizabeth.

"Are we to wait for Aunt Anne?" she whispered.

"Anne said we were to go home."

"Then let's go," whispered Maggie.

They went to the door, pus.h.i.+ng, it seemed, through shadows who whispered and forms that vanished as soon as one looked at them.

Out in the open air Maggie was aware that she was trembling from head to foot, but a determined idea that she must get Aunt Elizabeth home at once drove her like a goad. Very strange it was out here, the air ringing with the clamour of bells. The noise seemed deafening, whistles blowing from the river, guns firing and this swinging network of bells echoing through the fog. Figures, too, ran with lights, men singing, women laughing, all mysteriously in the tangled darkness.

They were joined at once by Aunt Anne, who said:

"G.o.d has called him home," by which Maggie understood that Mr. Warlock was dead.

They went home in silence. Inside the hall Aunt Elizabeth began to cry.

Aunt Anne put her arm around her and led her away; they seemed completely to forget Maggie, leaving her standing in the dark hall by herself.

She found a candle and went up to her room. The noise in the streets had ceased quite suddenly as though some angry voice had called the world to order.

Maggie undressed and lay down in her bed. She lay there staring in front of her without closing her eyes. She watched the grey dawn, then the half-light, then, behind her blind, bright suns.h.i.+ne. The fog was no more.

The strangest fancies and visions pa.s.sed through her brain during that time. She saw Mr. Warlock hanging forward like a sack of clothes, the blood trickling stealthily across his beard. Poor old man! What were the others all thinking now? Were they sorry or glad? Were they disappointed or relieved? After all, he had, perhaps, spoken the truth so far as he was himself concerned. G.o.d had come for him. He was now it might be happy somewhere at peace and at rest. Then like a flash of lightning across the darkness came the thought of Martin. What had he said? "If anything happened to his father--"

The terror of that made her heart stop beating. She wanted instantly to go to him and see what he was doing. She even rose from her bed, stumbled in the darkness towards her dressing-table, then remembered where she was and what time and went back and sat upon her bed.

She sat there, her fingers tightly pressed together, staring in front of her until the morning came. She felt at her heart a foreboding worse than any pain that she had ever known. She determined that, directly after breakfast, whatever the aunts would say, she would go to his house and demand to see him. She did not mind who might try to prevent her, she would fight her way through them all. Only one look, one word of a.s.surance from him, and then she could endure anything. That she must have or she would die.

At last Martha knocked on the door; she had her bath, dressed, still with this terrible pain at her heart.

She was alone at breakfast, she drank some coffee, then went up to the drawing-room to think for a moment what course she should pursue. The room was flooded with sunlight that struck the fire into a dead, lifeless yellow.

As she stood there she heard through the open door voices in the hall.

But before she had heard the voices she knew that it was Martin.

Martha was expostulating, her voice following his step up the hall.

"I shall go and tell my mistress," Maggie heard.

Then Martin came in.

When she saw him she stood speechless where she was. The change in him terrified her so that her heart seemed to leap into her throat choking her. The colour had drained from his face, leaving it dry and yellow.

He had an amazing resemblance to his father, his eyes had exactly the same bewildered expression as though he were lost and yet he seemed quite calm, his only movement was one hand that wandered up and down his waistcoat feeling the b.u.t.tons one after the other.

He looked at her as though he did not know her, and yet he spoke her name.

"Maggie," he said, "I've come to say good-bye. You know what I said before. Well, it's come true. Father is dead, and I killed him."

With a terrible effort, beating down a terror that seemed personally to envelop her, she said:

"No, Martin. I saw him die. It wasn't you, Martin dear."

"It was I," he answered. "You don't know. I came into the house drunk and he heard what I said to Amy. He nearly died then. The doctor in the evening said he must have had some shock."

She tried to come to him then. She was thinking: "Oh, if I've only got time I can win this. But I must have time. I must have time."

He moved away from her, as he had done once before.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter," he said. "I've killed him by the way I've been behaving to him all these months. I'm going away where I can't do any harm."

She desperately calmed herself, speaking very quietly.

"Listen, Martin. You haven't done him any harm. He's happier now than he's been for years. I know he is. And that doesn't touch us. You can't leave me now. Where you go I must go."

"No," he answered. "No, Maggie. I ought to have gone before. I knew it then, but I know it absolutely now. Everything I touch I hurt, so I mustn't touch anything I care for."

She put her hands out towards him; words had left her. She would have given her soul for words and she could say nothing.

She was surrounded with a hedge of fright and terror and she could not pa.s.s it.

He seemed to see then in her eyes her despair. For an instant he recognised her. Their eyes met for the first time; she felt that she was winning. She began eagerly to speak: "Listen, Martin dear. You can't do me any harm. You can only hurt me by leaving me. I've told you before. Just think of that and only that."

The door opened and Aunt Anne came in.

He turned to her very politely. "I beg your pardon for coming, Miss Cardinal," he said. "I know what you must think of me, but it's all right. I've only come to say good-bye to Maggie. It's all right.

Neither you nor Maggie will be bothered with me again."

He turned to the open door. Aunt Anne stood aside to let him pa.s.s.

Maggie said:

"Martin, don't go! Martin, don't leave me! Don't leave me, Martin!"

He seemed to break then in his resolution.

"It's better. It's better," he cried, as though he were shouting himself down, and then pus.h.i.+ng Aunt Anne with his arm he hurried out almost running, his steps stumbling down the stairs.

Maggie ran to the door. Her aunt stopped her, holding her back.

"It's better, Maggie dear," she said very gently, repeating Martin's words.

The sound of the hall door closing echoed through the house.

Maggie struggled, crying again and again: "Let me go! Let me go! I must go with him! I can't live without him! Let me go!"