The Helpmate Part 79

An agony of love and grief shook him as he thought of the dead child.

He thought, with his hot brain, of Anne, and his anger flared like hate.

It was through the child that she had always struck him. She was a fool to refuse to have more children, to sacrifice her boundless opportunities to strike.

There was a light in the upper window. He thought of Maggie, walking up and down in the back alley behind the garden, watching the lights of his house burning to the dawn. The little thing had loved him. She had given him all she had to give; and he had given her nothing. He had compelled her to live childless; and he had cast her off. She had been sacrificed to his pa.s.sion, and to his wife's coldness.

Up there he could see Anne's large shadow moving on the lighted window-blind. She was dressing for dinner.

Kate was standing on the step, looking for him. As he came to the study window he saw Nanna behind her, going out of the room. His servants had been watching him. Kate was frightened. Her voice fluttered in her throat as she told him dinner was served.

He sat opposite his wife, with the little oblong table between them.

Twice, sometimes three times a day, as long as they both lived, they would have to sit like that, separated, hostile, horribly conscious of each other.

Anne talked about the Gardners, and he stared at her stupidly, with eyes that were like heavy burning b.a.l.l.s under his aching forehead. He ate little and drank a good deal. Half an hour after dinner he followed her to the drawing-room, dazed, not knowing clearly where he went.

Anne was seated at her writing-table. The place was strewn with papers.

She was absorbed in the business of her committee, working off five weeks of correspondence in arrears.

He lay on the sofa and dozed, and she took no notice of him. He left the room, and she did not hear him go out.

He went to the Hannays. They were out. He went on to the Ransomes and found them there. He found Canon Wharton there, too, drinking whiskey and soda.

"Here's Wallie," some one said. Mrs. Hannay (it _was_ Mrs. Hannay) gave a cry of delight, and made a little rush at him which confused him. Ransome poured out more whiskey, and gave it to him and to the Canon. The Canon drank peg for peg with them, while he eyed Majendie austerely. He used to drink peg for peg with Lawson Hannay, in the days when Hannay drank; now he drank peg for peg with Majendie, eyeing him austerely.

Then the Hannays came between them. They closed round Majendie and hemmed him in a corner, and kept him there talking to him. He had no clear idea what they were saying or what he was saying to them; but their voices were kind and they soothed him. d.i.c.k Ransome brought him more whiskey. He refused it. He had a sort of idea that he had had enough, rather more, in fact, than was quite good for him; and ladies were in the room. Ransome pressed him, and Lawson Hannay said something to Ransome; he couldn't tell what. He was getting drowsy and disinclined to answer when people spoke to him. He wished they would let him alone.

Lawson Hannay put his hand on his shoulder, and said, "Come along with us, Wallie," and he wished Lawson Hannay would let him alone. Mrs. Hannay came and stooped over him and whispered things in his ear, and he tried to rouse himself so far as to stare into her face and try to understand what she was saying.

She was saying, "Wallie, get up--Come with us, Wallie, dear." And she laid her hand on his arm. He took her hand in his, and pressed it, and let it drop.

Then Ransome said, "Why can't you let the poor chap alone? Let him stay if he likes."

That was what he wanted. Ransome knew what he wanted--to be let alone.

He didn't see the Hannays go. The only thing he saw distinctly was the Canon's large grey face, and the eyes in it fixed unpleasantly on him. He wished the Canon would let him alone.

He was getting really _too_ sleepy. He would have to rouse himself presently and go. With a tremendous effort he dragged himself up and went. Ransome walked with him to the club and left him there.

The club-room was in an hotel opposite the pier. He could get a bedroom there for the night; and when the night was over he would be able to think what he would do. He couldn't go back to Prior Street as he was. He was too sleepy to know very much about it, but he knew that. He knew, too, that something had happened which might make it impossible for him to go back at all.

Ransome had told the manager of the hotel to take care of him. Every now and then the manager came and looked at him; and then the drowsiness lifted from his brain with a jerk, and he knew that something horrible had happened. That was why they kept on looking at him.

At last he dragged himself to his room. He rang the bell and ordered more whiskey. This time he drank, not for lucidity, but for blessed drunkenness, for kind sleep and pitiful oblivion.

He slept on far into the morning and woke with a headache. At twelve Hannay and Ransome called for him. It was a fine warm day with a southerly wind blowing and sails on the river. Ransome's yacht lay off the pier, with Mrs. Ransome in it. The sails were going up in Ransome's yacht. Hannay's yacht rocked beside it. d.i.c.k took Majendie by the arm.

d.i.c.k, outside in the morning light, looked paler and puffier than ever, but his eyes were kind. He had an idea. d.i.c.k's idea was that Majendie should run up with him and Mrs. Ransome to Scarby for the week-end.

Hannay looked troubled as d.i.c.k unfolded his idea.

"I wouldn't go, old man," said he, "with that head of yours."

d.i.c.k stared. "Head? Just the thing for his head," said d.i.c.k. "It'll do him all the good in the world."

Hannay took d.i.c.k aside. "No, it won't. It won't do him any good at all."

"I say, you know, I don't know what you're driving at, but you might let the poor chap have a little peace. Come along, Majendie."

Majendie sent a telegram to Prior Street and went.

The wind blew away his headache and put its own strong, violent, gusty life into him. He felt agreeably excited as he paced the slanting deck.

He stayed there in the wind.

Downstairs in the cabin the Ransomes were quarrelling.

"What on earth," said she, "possessed you to bring him?"

"And why not?"

"Because of Sarah."

"What's she got to do with it?"

"Well, you don't want them to meet again, do you?"

d.i.c.k made his face a puffy blank. "Why the devil shouldn't they?" said he.

"Well, you know the trouble he's had with his wife already about Sarah."

"It wasn't about Sarah. It was another woman altogether!"

"I know that. But she was the beginning of it."

"Let her be the end of it, then. If you're thinking of _him_. The sooner that wife of his gets a separation the better it'll be for him."

"And you want my sister to be mixed up in _that_?"

Mrs. Ransome began to cry.

"She can't be mixed up in it. He's past caring for Sarah, poor old girl."

"She isn't past caring for him. She isn't past anything," sobbed Mrs.

Ransome.

"Don't be a fool, Topsy. There isn't any harm in poor old Toodles.

Majendie's a jolly sight safer with Toodles, I can tell you, than he is with that wife of his."

"Has she come home, then?"

"She came yesterday afternoon. You saw what he was like last night. If I'd left him to himself this morning he'd have drunk himself into a fit.