The House by the River Part 6

Stephen thought rapidly. Had he sent Emily out on a "herrand," or had he not seen her at all?

He said, "No, Mrs. Beach, I didn't see her; I went straight out on to the river. No doubt she went out for a little walk and met a friend, as you say. She'll be back soon, no doubt, and I'm afraid you'll have to let her in ... very naughty of her to stay out so late. Nothing to be done, I fear. Good night, Mrs. Beach."

Mrs. Beach caught sympathetically at Stephen's meaning suggestion of Emily's naughtiness. "Good night, sir," she puffed; "she always was a one for the young men, though I says it myself, but there youth will 'ave its fling, they say, and sorry I am to disturb you, sir, but I thought as I'd best speak, it was that late, sir."

"Quite right, Mrs. Beach. Good night."

"Good night, sir."

Mrs. Beach sighed herself ponderously down the dark stairs. Stephen went back into his room with a startling sense of elation. He had done that well. It would be marvellously easy if it was all like that. That word "naughty" had been a masterpiece; he was proud of it. Already he had set moving a plausible explanation of Emily's disappearance--Emily's frailty--Emily's "friend." Cook would do the rest. Mentally he chuckled.

Suddenly then he appreciated the vileness on which he was congratulating himself, and the earlier blackness settled upon him. Something like conscience, something like remorse, had room to stir in place of his abated fears. It was going to be a wretched business, this "easy" lying and hypocrisy and deceit--endless stretches of wickedness seemed to open out before him. What a mess it was! How the devil had it happened--to him, Stephen Byrne, the reputed, respectable young author?

Suddenly--like the lights fusing ... What, in Heaven's name, had made him do it? Emily Gaunt, of all people.... Curse Emily! He wasted no pity on her, no sentimental sorrow for the wiping out of a warm young life.

Emily had brought it on herself, the little fool. It was her fault--really.... Stephen was too self-centred to be gravely disturbed by thoughts of Emily, except so far as she was likely to affect his future peace of mind. And he had seen too much of death in the war to be much distressed by the fact of death. His inchoate remorse was more of a protest than a genuine regret for wrong--a protest against the wounding of self-respect, against the coming worries and anxieties and necessary evasions, and all the foreseen unpleasantness which this d.a.m.nable night had forced upon him. It must not happen again, this kind of thing. Too upsetting. Stephen began to make fierce resolutions, as sincere as any resolutions can be that rest on such unsubstantial foundations. He was going to be a better fellow in future--a better husband.... People thought a lot of him at present--and they were deceived. In future he would live up grandly to "people's" conception of him, to Margery's conception of him.

When he thought of Margery he was suddenly and intensely ashamed. That aspect of his conduct he had so far managed to ignore. Now he became suddenly hot at the thought of it. He had behaved d.a.m.nably to Margery.

Supposing she had come back earlier, discovered Emily. "A--a--ah!" A strangled exclamation burst from him, as men groan in spite of themselves at some story of brutality or pain. Sweat stood about his temples. Poor Margery, so patient and loving and trustful. What a swine he had been! The resolutions swelled enormously ... no more drinking ...

the drink had done it ... he would knock it off altogether. No, not altogether--that was silly, unnecessary. In moderation. He slipped his trousers to the floor.

Margery thought too much of him, believed in him too well. It was terrible, in a way, being an idol; life would be easier if one had a bad reputation, even an ordinary "man-of-the-world" reputation. A character of moral perfection was a heavy burden, if you were not genuinely equal to it. Never mind, in future, he _would_ be equal to it; he _would_ be perfect. Tender and chivalrous thoughts of Margery invaded him; the resolutions surged wildly up, an almost religious emotion glowed warmly inside him; he felt somehow as he used to feel at Communion, walking back to his seat. He used to pray in those days, properly.... He felt like praying now.

He tied the string of his pyjamas and knelt down by the small bed. It was a long time since he had prayed. During the war, in tight corners, when he had been terribly afraid, he had prayed--the sick, emergency supplications of all soldiers--the "O G.o.d, get me out of this and I will be good" kind of prayer. The _padres_ used to preach sermons about such prayers, and sometimes Stephen had determined to pray always at the safe times as well as the dangerous, but this had never lasted for long. Now his prayers were on the same note, wrung out of him like his resolutions by the urgent emotions of the moment, sincere but bodiless.

He prayed, "O G.o.d, I have been a fool and a swine. O G.o.d, forgive me for this night's work and get me out of the mess safely, and I will--I will be good." That was the only way of expressing it--"being good," like a child. "In future I will be a better man and pray more often. O G.o.d, keep this from Margery, for her sake, not mine. O G.o.d, forgive me, and make me better. Amen."

Stephen rose from his knees, a little relieved, but with an uncomfortable sense of bargaining. It was difficult to pray without driving a bargain, somehow ... like some of those wretched hymns:

"And when I see Thee as Thou art I'll praise Thee as I ought,"

for instance, a close, inescapable contract. The old tune sang in his head. But if one prayed properly, no doubt one learned to exclude that commercial flavour.--How hot it was!

He turned out the light and crept slowly under the sheets. For a long time he lay staring at the dark, thinking now of Emily's night-dress....

Probably it was marked--in neat red letters--Emily Gaunt. Probably the sacking would wear away where the rope went through it, dragging with the tide. Probably.... Hideous possibilities crowded back and gloom returned to him. And what was it he had said to John? He had forgotten about that. Something silly had slipped out, when John had looked so shocked, something intended to soothe John's terrible conscience, something about "doing the right thing afterwards"--after the baby had safely come. "I'll put things right then," he remembered saying. What the devil had he meant by that? What did John think he had meant? h.e.l.l!

Stephen threw off the blanket; he was sweating again.

When the cold chime of St. Peter's struck three he lay still maddeningly awake in a feverish muddle of thought. Then at last he slept, dreaming wildly.

Emily Gaunt s.h.i.+fted uneasily in her oozy bed, tugging at her anchor, as the tide rolled down.

V

Every misfortune which can happen to a man who travels Underground in London had happened to John Egerton. Worn and irritable with a sultry day at the Ministry he had jostled with a shuffling mult.i.tude on to the airless platform at Charing Cross. From near the bottom of the stairs he saw that an Ealing train was already in; more important, the train was stopping at Stamford Brook. Stamford Brook was a "non-stop station," so that if you missed your train in the busy hours you might wait for an intolerable time. On this sweltering evening it was urgent to escape as quickly as possible from the maddening crowd of sticky citizens and simpering girls. It was urgent to catch that train. Already they were slamming home the doors. John made a nightmare attempt to hurry down the last few steps and across to that train. His way was blocked by a mob of deliberate backs, unaccountably indifferent to the departure of the Ealing train, and moving with exasperating slowness. John, with mumbled and insincere apologies, dived through the narrow alley between a portly man and a portly woman. Whistles were blowing now, but once down the stairs the way would be fairly clear to the desirable train. Only round the foot of the stairs hovered a bewildered family, a shoal of small children clinging to their expansive mother and meagre sire, wondering stupidly what they ought to do next in this strange muddle of a place.

They were back from some country jaunt and bristled with mackintoshes and small chairs and parcels and spades and other impa.s.sable excrescences.

John governed himself and said, "Excuse me, please," with a difficult a.s.sumption of calm. None of them moved. John longed to seize the little idiots by the throat and fling them aside, to knock down the meagre man and trample upon him. Instead, he shouted aggressively, "Let me pa.s.s, please!"--the train was moving now. The large woman looked back, with a frightened air, shot out an arm with a sharp "Mabel!" and plucked her first-born daughter aside by the flesh of her arm pinched painfully between finger and thumb. The child screeched, but the way was clear, and John flung forward. An open door was moving almost opposite him; he had only to swing himself in. Then from nowhere appeared a youthful uniformed official, who barred the way with an infuriating aspect of authority, and slammed fast the receding door. The train slid clattering past and vanished with a parting flicker of blue flashes. The boy walked off with an Olympian and incorruptible air, not looking at John, as who should say, "Tamper not with me." Interfering a.s.s! John had an impulse to go after and abuse him, demonstrate with fierce argument the folly of the youth. The waiting crowd observed him with the heartless amus.e.m.e.nt of crowds, hoping secretly that he would lose his temper, provide entertainment. John saw them and controlled himself, thinking with a conscientious effort, "His duty, I suppose," and contented himself with a long glower at the obstructive family.

The next train was a Wimbledon one; the next an Inner Circle; the next a Richmond, not stopping at Stamford Brook. The endless people shuffled always down the stairs, drifted aimlessly along the platform, jostled and barged good-humouredly about the teeming trains. Government flappers congregated giggling in small groups, furtively examined by ambulant young men. In spite of the heat and the stuffy smell of humanity and the exasperation of crowded travelling there was a pleasant atmosphere of contentment and goodwill. Only here and there were the fretful and distressed, mainly countryfolk, unaccustomed to the hards.h.i.+ps of London.

Tonight the equable John was among these petulant ones, which was unusual. He was worried and depressed--in no mood for a prolonged entanglement with a hot crowd. Never had he waited so long. Number 1 on the indicator now was a Putney train; Number 2 another Inner Circle--what the devil did they want with so many Circle trains? And why was Stamford Brook a non-stop station? Hundreds of people used it--far more than Sloane Square, for example, or St. James' Park. He would write a letter to the Company about these things. The terms of his letter began to frame themselves in his mind--conceived in the best Civil Service style: "It is evident ... convenience of greatest number of pa.s.sengers ... revised program ... facilities ... volume of traffic ..."

The Putney train racketed away; Number 2 was an Ealing now. John edged up to the glaring bookstall and stood with a row of men staring idly at the dusty covers of old sevenpennies--price two s.h.i.+llings. None of these men bought anything, only stood silent and gazed, as if in wonder at such a mult.i.tude of unbuyable books. On the cover of one of them--_Three Years with the Hapsburgs: the Thrilling Chronicle of an English Governess_--the gaudy picture of a young woman caught his eye. It reminded him somehow of Emily Gaunt, and he turned away. He did not want to be reminded of Emily.

The Ealing train came in, and John was swept in with a tight ma.s.s of people through the middle doors of a smoking carriage. The atmosphere was a suffocating mixture of hot breath and evil tobacco-smoke. The carriage was packed. Men and women stood jammed together like troops in a communication-trench. Here and there a clerk stood up with a sheepish mumble and a sallow woman sank thankfully into his seat. John stared with increasing resentment at the rows of men who did not get up--tired labourers in corduroy trousers who sat on in unmoved contentment, or gross men with cigars who screened themselves behind evening papers, pretending they did not notice the standing women.

The train stopped, and there was a fierce squeezing and struggling at the doors. A man behind John remembered suddenly that he wanted to get out, and began with much heaving and imprecation to hew a pa.s.sage, treading violently on John's ankle. But by now there were more people surging inwards, clinging precariously to the fringe of the mob. The train rushed on, and the man was left within it, cursing feebly. John felt glad, maliciously, ridiculously glad. But when he looked again at the sedentary gross men, the placid labourers, and at the short, pale women swaying in the centre he became righteously furious with the evil manners of the men. He felt that he would like to address them, curse them about it--that fat one with the insolent leer and the cap all c.o.c.k-eye, especially; he would say loudly at the next station, "Why don't you give one of these ladies your seat?" Then the man would _have_ to get up, would stand shamed before the world, while some grateful female--that nurse there--took his seat. Perhaps all the others would follow.

Or perhaps it would happen quite differently. The man would not hear, or pretend not to hear; and he, John, would have to repeat his remark, losing greatly in dramatic force. And every one would stare at him, as if he were a madman! Or the man would surrender his seat with a sweet smile and an apology, "Very sorry, I didn't see"; and then the fools of women would refuse to take the seat. They would all say they were getting out at the next station; they would all simper and deprecate and behave like lunatics. The man would hover with a self-righteous, ingratiating smirk and sit down again. And John Egerton would look a fool. No--it couldn't be done. What cowards men were!

A very hot and spotty man breathed disgustingly in John's face; unable to move his body, he turned his head away to the left. On that side stood a robust young woman, with hatpins menacingly projecting from a red straw hat. Her head rocked as the train jolted: the cherries on her hat bobbed ridiculously, the naked hatpin-points swung backwards and forwards in front of John's eye. He turned back to the disgusting breath of the spotty man.

At Earl's Court the crowd melted a little; there were no seats, but there was room to breathe--room to stand by oneself, free from pressure of strange bodies. At Baron's Court he crept into a seat. At Hammersmith a noisy mob of shop-girls and hobble-dehoys surged in, and he surrendered his seat to a young woman, who was munching something. She sat down with a giggle and took her sister on her lap. Together they eyed him, with whispered jocularities. Only two more stations.

The lights were out now. The train ran out through the daylight on to a high embankment, past an interminable series of dingy houses. There was more air. The filthy smoke eddied out of the narrow windows. The train rocked enormously--a bad piece of line. Looking down the car from his place by the door, John saw through the haze an interminable vista of uniform right hands fiercely clinging to uniform straps, of right arms uniformly crooked, of bowed heads uniformly bent over evening papers, of endless backs uniformly enduring and dull. And as the train gave a lurch, all the elbows swung out together towards the windows, and all the bodies bent outward like willows in the wind, and all the heads were lifted together in a mute and uniform protest. It was all like some fantastic physical drill. Then he fell into the weary stupor of the habitual Underground traveller, listening semiconsciously to the insane chatter of the chuckling girls. Ravenscourt Park shot by unnoticed. The train ran on for ever.

Stooping suddenly, he saw the familiar letters of Stamford Brook das.h.i.+ng past at an astonis.h.i.+ng speed. Surely--surely the train was stopping. The porters' room--the ticket collector--the pa.s.senger-shelter--the Safety First pictures--the advertis.e.m.e.nt of What Ho!--the other name-board of the station--the whole station--shot maddeningly past. The train rushed on to the intolerable remoteness of Turnham Green. h.e.l.l! John Egerton uttered an audible groan of vexation. _Two_ non-stop trains running! It was unpardonable. He had not even thought to look at the non-stop labels on the train at Charing Cross. It was too bad. Another matter for the letter to the Company! The women looked at his scowling face and giggled again, whispering behind their hands.

From Turnham Green you might walk home; but it took nearly twenty minutes. Or if you were lucky you caught a train quickly back to Stamford Brook. As they came into the station, John saw an up-train gliding off on the other side of the same platform. Of course! just missed it! And no doubt the next one would decline to stop at Stamford Brook! Once you began having bad luck on the Underground you might as well give up all hope of improving it that day. You might as well walk.

He _would_ walk. But how d.a.m.nable it all was!

He waited with the thick crowd at the ticket gate, fumbling for his ticket in his waistcoat pocket. That was where he had put it--he always did. Always in the same place--as a methodical man should do. But it was not there. It was not in the other waistcoat pocket--nor in his right-hand trouser pocket. "Now, then," said an aggressive voice behind, and he stepped aside. Lost his place in the queue, now! He put down his dispatch-case and felt furiously in his pockets with both hands. The pa.s.sengers dwindled down the stairs; he was left alone, regarded indifferently by the bored official. This was a fitting climax to an abominable journey.

He found it at last, lurking in the flap of a tobacco-pouch, and because he had come too far he was forced to pay another penny. There was a preposterous argument. "Putting a premium on inconvenience!"

He walked home at last, cursing foolishly, and adding new periods to his letter to the Company. All over London men and women walked back to their homes that evening through the hot streets, bitter and irritated and physically distressed, ruminating on the problem of over-population and the difficulties of movement in the hub of the world--only a small proportion, it is true, as bitter and irritated as John, but every night the same proportion, every night a thousand or two. Historians, it is to be hoped, and scientists and statisticians, when they write up their estimates of that year, will not fail to record the mental and physical fatigue, the waste of tissue and nervous energy, imposed upon the citizens of our great Metropolis by the simple necessity of proceeding daily from their places of work to their places of residence. Small things, these irritations, an odd penny here, an odd ten minutes there, the difference between just catching and just missing a train, the difference between just standing for twenty minutes, and just sitting down--but they mounted up! They mounted up into vast excrescences of discourtesy and crossness; they made calm and equable and polite persons suddenly and amazingly abrupt and unkind.

John Egerton was seldom so seriously ruffled; but then it was seldom that so peculiarly unfortunate a journey concluded so peculiarly painful a day. A sticky and intolerable day. A "rushed" and ineffectual day.

"Things" had shown a deliberate perversity at the office, papers had surprisingly lost themselves and thereafter surprisingly discovered themselves at the most awkward moments; telephone girls had been pert, telephone numbers permanently engaged. The Board of Trade had behaved execrably. John's own Minister had been unusually curt--jumpy.

And hovering at the back of it all, a kind of master-irritation, which governed and stimulated every other one, was the unpleasant memory of Emily Gaunt.

So that he walked down the Square in a dark and melancholy temper. And Emily Gaunt met him on the doorstep. The skinny successor of Emily Gaunt in the household of the Byrnes stood at the doorway of his house, talking timidly to Mrs. Bantam. She had come for "some sack or other,"

Mrs. Bantam explained. "And there's no sack in this house--that I _will_ swear." She spoke with the violent emphasis of all Mrs. Bantams, as if the presence of a sack in a gentleman's house would have been an almost unspeakable offence against chast.i.ty and good taste. The skinny maid turned from her with relief to the less formidable presence of John.

"If you please, sir, Cook says as the missus says as Mrs. Byrne says as--as"--the skinny maid faltered in this interminable forest of "as's"--"as you 'as the big sack that was in the scullery, sir, and if you've done with it, sir, could we 'ave it back, sir, as the man's come for the bottles?"

The sack! Emily's sack! John had no need of the young woman's exposition. He remembered vividly. He remembered now what Stephen had said about it--in the boat--under the wall. John had "borrowed" it. He remembered now. But what the devil had he borrowed it for? And why--why should he have to stand on his own doorstep this terrible day and invent lies for a couple of women?

And what had the man coming for the bottles to do with it, he wondered?

But a lie must be invented--and quickly. He said, "Will you tell Mrs.

Byrne, I'm very sorry--I took the sack out in my boat--to--to collect firewood--and--and--lost it--overboard, you know? Tell her I'm very sorry, will you, and I'll get her another sack?" He tried to smile nicely at the young woman; a painful smirk revealed itself.

"Thank you, sir."