Captivity Part 41

"I think it's a pity. You must be so cold and lonely," she said, seeing a resemblance between Mrs. King and Aunt Janet.

She had made the bed before she went down to cook the breakfast. Louis was reading the paper and smoking, looking very well. She hated to see him in bed now.

He ate his breakfast in silence, with the paper propped in front of him.

She pushed the window wide and, perched on the window-sill with a cup of tea outside and a piece of toast in her hand, she decided on what she was going to say to him.

"Louis," she said at last, "I am a wretchedly dissatisfied sort of person, dear."

He looked at her enquiringly and smiled.

"Louis, can you get up to-day and come out with me?"

He hesitated for a moment. Then he sighed.

"My dear--I don't think it's safe," he said in a low voice.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Well, then, it isn't. But I hate to see you lying here like this. I want us to go and explore. In that big garden by the waterside it's gorgeous. And--there's your work."

He flushed a little, struggling with himself. At last he said:

"After all, it's our honeymoon. We can afford to slack a little."

She laughed outright at that. He could not see anything to laugh at.

"It isn't enough for me--slacking. I hate it. I want to do things just all the time. I want to dig up fields and move hills about, and things like that. Louis, don't you think we might go up country and be squatters like uncle?"

"I wouldn't mind being a squatter like your uncle," he said, comfortably "with fifty quid notes to splash all over the shanty! But you're not getting tired of me, are you, darling--after last night?" he added gently. She flushed, and fidgeted perilously on the window-sill.

"No, Louis. But--after last night--I don't like to see you lying here like this," she began.

"I know it's boring for you, my pet. Marcella, come and sit on the edge of the bed. We can talk better if you're near me."

"No, I'll stay here," she said decidedly. "And it's not boring for me.

It's--" She was going to say "degrading" but stopped in time.

"You know, I think I'd be all right," he went on, "if I got up and went out now. But I can't be sure. I don't want to hurt you again, darling."

"I know, my dear. But I can't help thinking this is a negative thing. If you had something to do--something that would interest you so much you couldn't even think about whisky."

"I've got that something in you, when you're as sweet as you were last night," he said softly. She felt sickened for a minute. The Spear in her hand wavered; it seemed to be turning to a chain again. A chain for her, a Spear for him--she said quietly:

"I like taking care of you, Louis. I'm not thinking of myself at all.

Only I can't help wis.h.i.+ng you'd got pneumonia, or a broken leg or something, so that you could stay in bed sort of--honourably."

"It's worth while, if I get better, isn't it, my pet?" he said, slowly.

"_Anything's_ worth while--if you get better," she said.

And so the days wore on until they had been married six weeks. In all that time Louis never saw whisky. This, he confessed to her, was a miracle; except for when he was with the Maories in the Prohibition Country, and when he had been in hospital for various long stretches, he had never known three days to go by without his being drunk. So she felt that they had advanced steadily. Moods of depression came and went, charmed away by her. They spent a good deal of time on the roof. They had not many books to pa.s.s the slow hours, though Dr. Angus sent two every week. Louis began to lecture her on medicine; he really knew extraordinarily well what he had learnt: he was an excellent teacher of facts, but he had not one iota of deductive thought in his teaching and, like Andrew Lashcairn, was remarkably impatient if she did not understand or, understanding, ventured to express an opinion of her own about anything. They had many glamorous nights on the roof, nights that recalled the enchantment of those hours under the Aurora, nights of severe mental reservation on Marcella's part, all unsuspected by Louis.

He confessed to her that his ideas were getting modified; a great confession for so crusted a conservative as he.

One night they were kept awake by a tropical downpour which lashed against the windows and poured through the ceiling. Three times they had to get up and move the bed round to escape the stream of water. Marcella seemed to be spending all the night mopping up water.

"If Mrs. King sees all this mess I expect she'll say we mustn't go up on the roof again," said Louis. "I suppose we cracked the rusty old iron by walking about on it."

"I love the roof," said Marcella, patiently mopping. It was three o'clock: the shrill hum of mosquitoes made them afraid to put out the light, since they had no mosquito nets. After a while they stood by the window watching the water running along the street as high as the kerb stones.

"I love the roof, too. A few months ago I'd have fainted at the thought of doing anything so unconventional as sleeping on a roof. You are changing me, Marcella. I'm getting your ideas of not caring what people think, of being my own censor. And--do you know something else, Marcella?" he added, looking at her with adoration. Her eyes asked questions.

"I believe I've got it beat at last."

"The whisky?"

"Yes. I don't want the bally stuff now. I want you instead. I hate you away from me for an instant. If you went away now, dearie, I'd be raving with d.t. next day!"

"Oh Louis!"

"I would! I wors.h.i.+p you, Marcella. You're life itself to me. I can't get on two minutes without you."

"But just supposing I did die--seriously, Louis! People get knocked down in streets and all that. Why shouldn't it be me?"

"I shouldn't attempt to live. I know exactly what I'd do. I've got it all worked out! I shall just get blind, roaring drunk and then throw myself in the harbour. My life is useless without you."

To his amazement she wrung her hands hopelessly, and looked at him with tragic eyes.

"Can't you see, you utter idiot, that that's just all wrong? It's no use doing things for someone else! You've got to do them for yourself!

What's the good of it? Do you think I want to make you a flabby thing hanging on to my ap.r.o.n strings all the time? You've got drunk on whisky in the past. Louis, I'm simply not going to have you getting drunk on me! What on earth's the use of conquering drink hunger and getting woman-hunger? It's only another--what you call neurosis, and what I call kink! If that's all the use my love and the whole wicked struggle is going to be, I might as well give up at once?"

He caught her wet face between his hands. In the light of the candle he looked at her earnestly.

"If, at the end of all this, I've to go on being a prop to you, we need not go on trying any more. Props are rotten and cowardly, whether they are props of love or not. I want to see you grow so that, if I go out of life, you'll stand up straight with your head in the sun and the wind.

Not propped, my dear! Father was all wrong, I think now. When he'd killed the whisky he leaned on a great big man G.o.d outside him, a s.h.i.+eld and defence. Can't you see that we've to stand up alone without G.o.d or anything except ourselves? Can't you see that unless our strength is in ourselves we'll never stand? That's what I'm trying to do--and I know how hard it is."

"You? You're not a drunkard, Marcella," he said.

She smiled a little as she looked at him.

"You know, Louis, you're an awful duffer!" she said, and turned away.

But he lifted her over the wet floor into bed and, as he blew out the candle, told the mosquitoes to go to h.e.l.l, and kissed her face and her hands, he thought he had effectually stilled her queer ethical doubtings. And she felt very much alone and unguided, and not at all able to stand up straight without a prop as she had preached to him.

For the next few days Louis was depressed and restless. She did not understand him. She was not yet aware that his hunger came on in periodic attacks and thought that she must have hurt him in some way to make him so wretched. She tried to be especially gentle to him, but he was rather difficult to please. He developed a habit of womanish, almost shrewish, nagging that astounded her; he grumbled at his food, he grumbled at the discomforts of living in one room; he made her feel cheap when she kissed him by turning away and saying, "There, that's enough, now!"; he found fault with her clothes and, one morning as she was dressing, said he was tired of seeing her cleaning the room; she seemed to think that that was all he needed--a nurse and a servant, since she never troubled to make herself attractive to him. Several times, coming from doing her cooking in the bas.e.m.e.nt, she found Mr. King slinking along the top landing, but did not a.s.sociate him with Louis.

Several times she thought she smelt whisky, but told herself angrily that she was dreaming. Then, one day, coming in from the Post Office, she found Louis gone. One thing she noticed as she came along the landing was an empty bottle in the dark corner behind the door. As soon as she opened the door she saw three whisky bottles, empty, on the mantelpiece. On a piece of paper he had written:

"Get all the satisfaction you can out of these, old girl. I'm off."