The Man Within · Part II · Chapter 9 (1/3)

IX

Andrews stood in the room where the previous night he had held Sir Henry’s mistress in his arms and watched with tired curiosity one star. He held in his hand a note which a winking waiter had given him. It was from Lucy and read “Henry has gone to bed. You can come to me. You know my room.” He had done what Elizabeth desired him to do, and in spite of the note he held, he told himself that it was for Elizabeth’s sake that he had done it. Didn’t I, he thought, renounce this morning with perfect sincerity this very reward? I did what I did then for Elizabeth and why should I not take any small benefits which come after? I had no thought for this when I stood in the witness box. It was an interesting moral point.

Carlyon now could come and go where he liked. Nothing, Andrews thought with apprehension, could prevent him strolling that very evening into the White Hart. It was so exactly the kind of thing for Carlyon to do that Andrews looked with a sudden start behind him. The door was shut. He longed to bolt it. As for this letter it could not be denied that he would be safer that night in Lucy’s bed than in his own. That was a reason which no one could deny. It would be to save myself, he told the star to which he instinctively addressed words meant for Elizabeth, for no other reason. I do not love her. Never will I love anyone but you. I swear to that. If a man loves one, he cannot help still lusting after others. But it was love not lust, I promise, that strengthened me this morning.

After all, he said to the star, I shall never see you again, and must I therefore never know another woman? I cannot come to you, for they will be watching for me there, and you do not love me. I should be a fool⁠ ⁠… and he stopped speaking to himself, struck by the astonishing knowledge of how deeply his heart longed to be a fool. Reason, reason, reason. I must cling to that, he thought. Reason and his body seemed to act together in a somewhat evil partnership. In fear of his own heart he began to play on fear for his own safety, and that fear seemed strangely less strong than was its wont. And then he turned to the thought of Lucy and the feel of her body pressed to him and her close promises the night before. He imagined her naked and in disgusting attitudes, and tried to whip his body into a blind lust which would forget for a time at least the dictates of his heart. Yet strangely even his lust seemed less strong. What have you done to me? he cried despairingly at the lonely star.

It was then that he heard someone twist cautiously the handle of the door. He forgot star, Elizabeth, Lucy, everything but his own safety. In one stride he reached the oil lamp which lit the room and turned it out. The room was still too light or seemed so to his hammering nerves from the wash of moonlight which entered at the window. It was too late to hide behind the door, so Andrews pressed his back against the wall and cursed himself for being weaponless. What a sentimental fool he had been to leave his knife behind him at the cottage. Where were the two runners, he wondered, who were supposed to guard him? Drunk in bed in all probability. He watched the door handle with fascination. It was of white marble and glimmered, touched by the crest of the moon’s wave, with deceptive distinctness. Again it twisted round with surprising silentness and then flew outwards like a thrown ball. An oil lamp stood in the passage outside and its light cast a kind of mocking halo round the head of the cockney Harry, who stood in the doorway, his face thrust forward and moving from side to side, like that of a snake.

Andrews pressed himself still harder against the wall, and Cockney Harry sidled into the room. As though he was aware that the light in the passage put him at a disadvantage he shut the door behind him. “Andrews,” he whispered. His eyes were not yet used to the dark, and the silence made him uneasy. He too put his back against the wall, opposite the place where Andrews stood, as if he feared attack. Then he saw Andrews. “So there you are,” he said. Andrews clenched his fists in preparation for an unexpected spring, but the smuggler saw the movement and flashed a knife warningly in the moon’s ray. “Stay where you are,” he whispered.

“There are runners in this hotel,” Andrews also lowered his voice. “What do you want?”

“I’m not afeared of the runners now,” the man said. “But look ’ere,” he added plaintively, “why d’you want to quarrel? I’m ’ere to do you a service, strite I am.”

“To do me a service?” Andrews repeated. “Do you forget who I am?”

“Oh, I don’t forget ’ow you squeaked on us, but one good turn deserves another. You didn’t squeak on me this afternoon, and you might ’ave done easy.”

“It wasn’t for love of that face of yours,” Andrews said. His fists remained clenched against any sudden attack.

“You ain’t very griteful,” Harry complained. “Don’t you want to ’ear my news?”

“What news?”

“Of Carlyon an’ the others.”

“No, I’ve finished with them,” he said and added, as always with a curious aching heart, slowly, as though in an effort to overcome with finality each ache, “I never want to see that man again.”

“Ah, but ’e ain’t finished with you. Nor with yer ladybird.”

Andrews started forward. “What do you mean?”

“Now keep back,” Harry flashed his knife again. “What I mean is they feel they been cheated by ’er⁠—cheated shimeful.”

“Carlyon wouldn’t do anything to her, I know he wouldn’t.”

“Ah, but there’s Joe. ’E says she ought to ’ave a fright, an’ Carlyon agrees to that, but ’e don’t know what Joe and ’Ake calls a fright. They are all off to give it ’er tomorrer or the next dy.”

“You are lying, you know you are lying,” Andrews panted a little like a dog thirsty or out of breath. “This is a trap to get me to go back there, so that you’ll catch me. But I won’t, I won’t go back I tell you.”

“Why, that’s why I’m ’ere⁠—to warn yer against goin’, in case you were thinkin’ of it. They’ll all be there. Carlyon’ll kill you as soon as look at you. Though ’Ake says as killin’s too good. ’E says they oughter ’ave some fun with you first.”

“Well, you can tell them that I’m never going back there. It’s no use laying that trap for me.”

“Good. Now I’ve warned yer an’ we’re quits. Next time,” Harry spat on the floor expressively and again flashed the steel of his knife in the moonlight, “don’t you expect me to be friendly.” He gave the impression of sliding across the floor. The white marble handle again flew outwards and the smuggler disappeared. Up the street the clock of St. Anne’s Church beat out with irritating deliberation the half after eleven.

Like a dream the man had entered and like a dream he had gone. Why could he not have been one more degree a phantom and become a vision only? Now inevitably a turmoil was roused in the mind. Carlyon would not harm a woman, Andrews thought. It is only a trap to catch me. But then was it likely that they would plan such a trap for me, a coward? They could not expect to do anything but repel him by danger. Again he repeated to himself that she was safe, that Carlyon would see to that, but still he could not dispel from his mind the thought of Joe and Hake. Tomorrow or the next day. If he were to leave tonight he could warn her in time, and they could both escape. But that was only if it were not a trap. Perhaps even now Harry, Joe, Hake, Carlyon and the rest were preparing to meet him on the downs. And yet how good, how glorious it would be, to be coming down the hill at dawn, to wait perhaps for the first sign of smoke to show that she was awake, to tap on the door and see recognition lit in her eyes. She would have to welcome me, he thought. I have earned that, for I have done all that she told me to do. In a medley of the stories of his childhood he imagined⁠—“I have climbed the hill of glass and Gretel waits.” And then, he thought, I would help her get some breakfast and we would sit together in front of the fire. And I would tell her everything. His momentary exhilaration died and left the cold truth, danger to himself and her and more than that the knowledge that she would greet him as a not too welcome friend. Neither I nor any other man will ever approach her. What was the use of risking his life⁠—miserable, debased it might be, but only he knew how infinitely precious⁠—in return for what? A kind word. He did not want kind words. Let them give her a little pain. He had suffered. Why should not everyone in the world suffer? It was the common lot. Carlyon would see that they did not go too far.

As his fingers tightened in perplexity he felt still in his hand Lucy’s note. Here was someone who would give him more than kind words and yet exact no sense of responsibility. All his reason commanded him to go to her, only his heart, and that hard abstract critic for once allied to his heart, opposed. I shall be safe with her tonight, he thought, and tomorrow Carlyon and the others will have gone off over the downs and the road to London will be safe. Why, if he went to Elizabeth now, he would have no money for their escape. You mustn’t be dependent on her money, reason added, striking a noble attitude. That decided him. Why, even honour forbade the dangerous course.

He passed through the dark passage and up the stairs, slowly, still a little doubtful and reluctant. In one of the rooms which now faced him Sir Henry Merriman slept. There was even a little danger, he now realised, in this course, danger of being stranded without money in this perilous Sussex. He knew which was Lucy’s room and cautiously he turned the handle and went in. He still held her note, as though a passport, in his hand.

“Here I am,” he said. He could not see her, but one hand stumbled on the foot of a bed.

There was a small sigh, a yawn, and through the darkness a sleepy whisper, “How late you are.”

His hand felt down the bed till he reached a cool sheet and beneath it he felt her body. He snatched his hand away as though it had touched a flame. The note fell from it to the floor. O, if he could surrender to his heart for once and not his body, and if he could go now before it was too late. Three hours’ walk over the downs beneath the moon and he would be home again.

“Where are you?” she said. “I can’t see in the dark. Come here.”

“I only came to say⁠ ⁠…” he said and hesitated. His heart had spoken, given courage by an image of Elizabeth as she had faced Carlyon, his cup raised to her lips, and his body had cut his words short, for his hand retained the feel of her body.

“That you were going again?” she asked. “You fool.”

He felt his flesh rising to her whisper.

“Will you ever get a chance like this again?” she murmured with an air of unfeigned carelessness. “You know what you are missing, don’t you?”

He took a step away from the bed. “How common you are,” he said. His hand felt behind him for the door handle, but he could not find it.

“You know you enjoy that,” she answered. She did not seem to argue but rather to advise him gently and dispassionately for his own good. Her quiet irritated and attracted him at the same time. “I’d like to make her squeal,” he thought.

“At least before you go,” she said, “strike a light and see what you miss. Put out your hand.” He obeyed her reluctantly. He felt her fingers touch his. “How symbolical,” she laughed a little. “Here’s a flint and steel. Now strike a light. There is a candle here,” and she guided his hand to a table beside her bed.

“I won’t,” he said.

“Are you afraid?” she asked curiously. “You’ve turned very pure since last night. Have you fallen in love?”

“Not fallen,” he replied more to himself than her.

“And you boasted so of all the women you’ve known. Surely you aren’t afraid. You ought to be more used to us.”

He turned his back on her. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll strike a light and then I’ll go. I know your sort. You won’t leave a man alone.” Without looking in her direction he struck a light and lit the candle. It made a small yellow patch on the opposite wall and in that radiance he suddenly saw with extraordinary clarity the face of Elizabeth creased by fear till it was ugly, almost repulsive. Then it was blotted out by two other faces, that of Joe, the black bearded mouth open in a laugh, and that of the mad youth Richard Tims, red and angry. Then there was only the yellow radiance again.

“I can’t stay,” Andrews cried, “she’s in danger,” and he swung round candle in hand.

The girl was stretched on the outside of the bed. She had flung her nightdress on the floor. She was slim, long legged with small firm breasts. With a modesty which had no pretence of truth she spread her hands over her stomach and smiled at him.

“Run away then,” she said.

He came a little nearer and with his eyes fixed on her face, so as not to see her body, he began to make excuses, reason, even plead. “I must go,” he said, “someone came to warn me tonight. A girl⁠—I’ve got her into danger. I must go to her. Just now on that wall I thought I saw her scream.”

“You are dreaming.”

“But sometimes dreams come true. Don’t you see⁠—I must go. I got her into this danger.”

“Well go. I’m not stopping you am I? But listen. What difference will it make if you stay here just for half an hour?” She turned over on her side, and his eyes could not help but follow her body as it moved. “She’s cool now,” he thought, “but I could make her warm.”

“Go then,” she said. “You won’t have another chance, but I don’t care. I’m feeling restless⁠—this damn spring. I’ll go into Harry. He’s old and tired, but I believe he’s more of a man than you.” Although she spoke of going she did not go, but watched him with faintly amused eyes. Andrews moistened his lips, which were dry. He felt thirsty. He no longer tried to keep his eyes off her body. He knew now that he could not move away.

“I’ll stay,” he said. He put his knee on the bed, but her hands held him away.

“Not like that,” she said. “I’m not a harlot. Take off those things.” He hesitated for a moment and glanced at the candle.

“No there must be a little light,” she whispered, a little run of excitement in her tone, “so that we can see each other.”

He obeyed her unwillingly. He felt that he was raising a barrier of time between Elizabeth and any help which he might bring. Even now he could not forget the dream, vision, fantasy, what you will, which he had seen in the candle’s light, it was conquered only when he felt the girl’s body stretched along his own.

“Closer,” she said. His fingers closed on her, pinching the flesh. He buried his mouth between her breasts. He could see nothing but he heard her laugh a little. “You cannot hurt me like that,” she said⁠ ⁠…

He opened his eyes and thought at first how strange it was that a candle should burn with a silver flame. Then he saw that the candle was out and the light was the first of day. He sat up and looked at his companion. She slept with her mouth slightly open, breathing hard. He eyed first her body and then his own with disgust. He touched her shoulder gingerly with his hand, and she opened her eyes. “I should cover that,” he said, and turning his back, put his feet over the side of the bed.

From her voice he judged that she was smiling, but her smile which in the dark had seemed the beckoning of a passionate mystery, he considered now a shallow mechanical thing. He was disgusted with himself and her. He had been treading, he felt, during the last few days on the border of a new life, in which he would learn courage and even self forgetfulness, but now he had fallen back into the slime from which he had emerged.

“Have you enjoyed yourself?” she asked.

“I’ve wallowed,” he said, “if that’s what you mean.”

He could imagine her pouting at him and he hated that pout. “Am I pleasanter than all the other women you’ve boasted about?”