The Prelude to Adventure Part 15

2

That night the Shadow was nearer, more insistent; the closer it came the more completely was the real world obscured. This obscurity was now shutting oil from him everything; it was exactly as though his whole body bad been struck numb so that he might touch, might hold, but could feel nothing. Again it was as though he were confined in a damp, underground cell and the world above his head was crying out with life and joy. In his hand was the key of the door; he had only to use it.

Submission--to be taken into those arms, to be told gently what he must do, and then--Obedience--perhaps public confession, perhaps death, struggling, ignominious death . . . at least, never again Margaret Craven, never again her companions.h.i.+p, her understanding, never again to help her and to feel that warm sure clasp of her hand. What would she say, what would she do if she were told? That remained for him now the one abiding question. But he could not doubt what she would do. He saw the warmth fading from the eyes, the hard stern lines settling about the mouth, the cold stiffening of her whole body. No, she must never know, and if Rupert discovered the truth, he, Olva, must force him, for his sister's sake, to keep silence. But if Rupert knew he would tell his sister, and she would believe him. No use denials then.

And on the side of it all was the Shadow, with him now, with him in the room.

All things betray Thee Who betrayest Me.

The line from some poem came to him. It was true, true. His life that had been the life of a man was now the life of a Liar--Liar to his friends, Liar to Margaret, Liar to all the world--so his shuddering soul cowered there, naked, creeping into the uttermost corner to escape the Presence.

If only for an hour he might be again himself---might shout aloud the truth, boast of it, triumph in it, be naked in the glory of it. Day by day the pressure had been increased, day by day his loneliness had grown, day by day the pursuit had drawn closer.

And now he hardly recognized the real from the false. He paced his room frantically. He felt that on the other side of the bedroom door there was terror. He had turned on all his lights; a furious fire was blazing in the grate; beyond the windows cold stars and an icy moon, but in here stifling heat.

When Bunning (the clocks were striking eleven) came blinking in upon him he was muttering--"Let me go, let me go. I killed him, I tell you. I'm glad I killed him. . . . Oh! Let me alone! For pity's sake let me alone!

I _can't_ confess! Don't you see that I can't confess? There's Margaret.

I must keep her---afterwards when she knows me better I'll tell her."

As he faced Bunning's staring gla.s.ses, the thought came to Him, "Am I going mad?--Has it been too much for me?---Mad?"

He stopped, wheeled round, caught the table with both hands, and leaned over to Bunning, who stood, his mouth open, his cap and gown still on.

Olva very gravely said: "Come in, Bunning. Shut the door. 'Sport' it.

That's right. Take off your gown and sit down."

The man, still staring, white and frightened, sat down.

Olva spoke slowly and very distinctly: "I'm glad you've come. I want to talk to you. I killed Carfax, you know." As he said the words he began slowly to come back to himself from the Other World to this one. How often, sleeping, waking, had he said those words! How often, aloud, in his room, with his door locked, had he almost shouted them!

He was not now altogether sure whether Bunning were really there or no.

His spectacles were there, his boots were there, but was Bunning there?

If he were not there. . . .

But he _was_ there. Olva's brain slowly cleared and, for the first time for many weeks, he was entirely himself. It was the first moment of peace that he had known since that hour in St. Martin's Chapel.

He was quiet, collected, perfectly calm. He went over to the window, opened it, and rejoiced in the breeze. The room seemed suddenly empty.

Five minutes ago it had been crowded, breathless. There was now only Bunning.

"It was so awfully hot with that enormous fire," he said.

Bunning's condition was peculiar. He sat, his large fat face white and streaky, beads of perspiration on his forehead, his hands gripping the sides of the armchair. His boots stuck up in the most absurd manner, like interrogation marks. He watched Olva's face fearfully. At last he gasped--

"I say, Dune, you're ill. You are really--you're overdone. You ought to see some one, you know. You ought really, you ought to go to bed." His words came in jerks.

Olva crossed the room and stood looking down upon him.

"No, Bunning, I'm perfectly well. . . . There's nothing the matter with me. My nerves have been a bit tried lately by this business, keeping it all alone, and it's a great relief to me to have told you."

The fact forced itself upon Bunning's brain. At last in a husky whisper: "You . . . killed . . . Carfax?" And then the favourite expression of such weak souls as he: "Oh! my G.o.d! Oh! my G.o.d!"

"Now look here, don't get hysterical about it. You've got to take it quietly as I do. You said the other day you'd do anything for me. . . .

Well, now you've got a chance of proving your devotion."

"My G.o.d! My G.o.d!" The boots feebly tapped the floor.

"I had to tell somebody. It was getting on my nerves. I suppose it gives you a kind of horror of me. Don't mind saying so if it does."

Bunning, taking out a grimy handkerchief, wiped his forehead. He shook his head without speaking.

Olva sat down in the chair opposite him and lit his pipe.

"I want to tell somebody all about it. You weren't really, I suppose, the best person to tell. You're a hysterical sort of fellow and you're easily frightened, but you happened to come in just when I was rather worked up about it. At any rate you've got to face it now and you must pull yourself together as well as you can. . . . Move away from the fire, if you're hot."

Bunning shook his head.

Olva continued: "I'm going to try to put it quite plainly to you, the Carfax part of it I mean. There are other things that have happened since that I needn't bother you with, but I'd like you to understand why I did it."

"Oh! my G.o.d!" said Bunning. He was trembling from head to foot and his fat hands rattled on the woodwork of the chair and his feet rattled on the floor.

"I met Carfax first at my private school---a little, fat dirty boy he was then, and fat and dirty he's been ever since. I hated him, but I was always pleasant to him. He wasn't worth being angry with. He always did rotten things. He knew more filthy things than the other boys, and he was a bully--a beastly bully. I think he knew that I bated him, but we were on perfectly good terms. I think he was always a little afraid of me, but it's curious to remember that we never had a quarrel of any kind, until the day when I killed him."

Olva paused and asked Bunning to have a drink. Bunning, gazing at him with desperate eyes, shook his head.

"Then we went on to Rugby together. It's odd how Fate has apparently been determined to hammer out our paths side by side. Carfax grew more and more beastly. He always did the filthiest things and yet out of it all seemed to the world at large a perfectly decent fellow. He was clever in that way. I am not trying to defend myself. I'm making it perfectly straightforward and just as it really was. He knew that I knew him better than anybody, and as we went on at Rugby I think that his fear of me grew. I didn't hate him so much for being Carfax, but rather as standing for all sorts of rotten things. It didn't matter to me in the least whether he was a beast or not, I'm a beast myself, but it did matter that he should smile about it and have damp hands. When I touched his hand I always wanted to hit him.

"I've got a very sudden temper, all my family are like that--calm most of the time and then absolutely wild. I hated him more up here at College than I'd hated him at school. He developed and still his reputation was just the same, decent fellows like Craven followed him, excused him; he had that cheery manner. . . . Hating him became a habit with me. I hated everything that he did--his rolling walk down the Court, his red colour, his football . . . and then he ruined that fellow Thompson. That was a poor game, but no one seemed to think anything of it . . . and indeed he and I seemed to be very good friends. He used to sneer at me behind my back, I know, but I didn't mind that. Any one's at liberty to sneer if they like. But he was really afraid of me . . .

always.

"Then at last there was this girl that he set about destroying. He seduced her, promised her marriage. I knew all about it, because she used to be rather a friend of mine. I warned her, but she was absolutely infatuated--wouldn't hear of anything that I had to say, thought it all jealousy. She wasn't the kind of girl who could stand disgrace. . . .

She came to him one day and told him that she was going to have a baby.

He laughed at her in the regular old conventional way . . . and that very afternoon, after he had seen her, he met me--there in Sannet Wood.

"He began to boast about it, told me jokingly about the way that he'd 'shut her mouth,' as he called it . . . laughed . . . I hit him. I meant to hit him hard, I hated him so; I think that I wanted to kill him.

All the acc.u.mulated years were in that blow, I suppose; at any rate, I caught him on the chin and it broke his neck and he dropped . . . that's all."

Olva paused, finished his drink, and ended with--

"There it is--it's simple enough. I'm not in the least sorry I killed him. I've no regrets; he was better out of the world than in it, and I've probably saved a number of people from a great deal of misery. I thought at first that I should be caught, but they aren't very sharp round here and there was really nothing to connect me with it. But there were other things--there's more in killing a man than the mere killing.

I haven't been able to stand the loneliness---so I told you."

The last words brought him back to Bunning, a person whom he had almost forgotten. A sudden pity for the man's distress made his voice tender.

"I say, Running, I oughtn't to have told you. It's been too much for you. But if you knew the relief that it is to me. . . . Though, mind you, if it's on your conscience, if it burdens you, you must 'out' with it. Don't have any scruples about me. But it needn't burden you. _You_ hadn't any-thing to do with it. You were here and I told you. That's all. I've shown you that I want you as a friend."

For answer the creature burst suddenly into tears, hiding his face in his sleeve, as small boys hide their faces, and choking out desperately--

"Oh! my G.o.d! Oh! my G.o.d!"