The Prelude to Adventure Part 10

There was nothing in that. But Olva, as he stood in the middle of his room with the note in his hand, was frightened.

The result of it was that about five o'clock on that afternoon Olva paid his second visit to the dark house in Rocket Road. His motives for going were confused, but he knew that at the back of them was a desire that he should find Margaret Craven, with her grave eyes, waiting for him in the musty little drawing-room, and that Mrs. Craven, that mysterious woman, should not be there. The hall, when the old servant had admitted him, once again seemed to enfold him in its darkness and heavy air with an almost active purpose. It breathed with an actual sound, almost with a melody . . . the "Valse Triste" of Sibelius, a favourite with Olva, seemed to him now to be humming its thin spiral note amongst the skins and Chinese weapons that covered the walls. The House seemed to come forward, on this second occasion, actively, personally. . . . His wish was gratified. Margaret Craven was alone in the dark, low-ceilinged drawing-room, standing, in her black dress, before the great deep fireplace, as though she had known that he would come and had been awaiting his arrival.

"I know that you will excuse my mother," she said in her grave, quiet voice. "She is not very well. She will be sorry not to have seen you."

Her hand was cool and strong, and, as he held it for an instant, he was strangely conscious that she, as well as the House, had moved into more intimate relation with him since their last meeting.

They sat down and talked quietly, their voices sounding like low notes of music in the heavy room. He was conscious of rest in the repose of her figure, the pale outline of her face, the even voice, and above all the grave tenderness of her eyes. He was aware, too, that she was demanding from him something of the same kind; he divined that for her, too, life had been no easy thing since they last met and that she wanted now a little relief before she must return. He tried to give it her.

All through their conversation he was still conscious in the dim rustle that any breeze made in the room of that thin melody that Sibelius once heard. . . .

"I hope that Mrs. Craven is not seriously ill?

"No. It is one of her headaches. Her nerves are very easily upset. There was a thunder-storm last night. . . . She has never been strong since father died."

"You will tell her how sorry I am."

"Thank you. She is wonderfully brave about it. She never complains--she suffers more than we know, I think. I don't think this house is good for her. Father died here and her bedroom now is the room where he died.

That is not good for her, I'm sure. Rupert and I both are agreed about it, but we cannot get her to change her mind. She can be very determined."

Yes--Olva, remembering her as she sat so sternly before the fire, knew that she could be determined.

"And I am afraid that your brother isn't very well either."

She looked at him with troubled eyes. "I am distressed about Rupert. He has taken this death of his friend so terribly to heart. I have never known him morbid about anything before. It is really strange because I don't think he was greatly attached to Mr. Carfax. There were things I know that he didn't like."

"Yes. He doesn't look the kind of fellow who would let his mind dwell on things. He looks too healthy."

"No. He came in to see us for an hour last night and sat there without a word. I played to him--he seemed not to hear it. And generally he cares for music."

"I'm afraid"--their eyes met and Olva held hers until he had finished his sentence--"I'm afraid that it must seem a little lonely and gloomy for you here--in this house--after your years abroad."

She looked away from him into the fire.

"Yes," she said, speaking with sudden intensity. "I hate it. I have hated it always--this house, Cambridge, the life we lead here. I love my mother, but since I have been abroad something has happened to change her. There is no confidence between us now. And it is lonely because she speaks so little--I am afraid she is really very ill, but she refuses to see a doctor. . . ."

Then her voice was softer again, and she leant forward a little towards him. "And I have told you this, Mr. Dune, because if you will you can help me--all of us. Do you know that she liked you immensely the other even big? I have never known her take to any one at once, so strongly.

She told me afterwards that you had done her more good than fifty doctors--just your being there--so that if, sometimes, you could come and see her----"

He did not know what it was that suddenly, at her words, brought the terror back to him. He saw Mrs. Craven so upright, so motionless, looking at him across the room--with recognition, with some implied claim. Why, he had spoken scarcely ten words to her. How could he possibly have been of any use to her? And then, afraid lest his momentary pause had been noticeable, he said eagerly---

"It is very kind of Mrs. Craven to say that. Of course I will come if she really cares about it. I am not a man of many friends or many occupations. . . ."

She broke in upon him--

"You could be if you cared. I know, because Rupert has told me. They all think you wonderful, but you don't care. Don't throw away friends, Mr.

Dune--one can be so lonely without them."

Her voice shook a little and he was suddenly afraid that she was going to cry. He bent towards her.

"I think, perhaps, we are alike in that, Miss Craven. We do not make our friends easily, but they mean a great deal to us when they come. Yes, I _am_ lonely and I _am_ a little tired of bearing my worries alone, in silence. Perhaps I can help you to stand this life a little better if I tell you that--mine is every bit as hard."

She turned to him eyes that were filled with grat.i.tude. Her whole body seemed to be touched with some new glow. Into the heart of their consciousness of the situation that had arisen between them there came, sharply, the sound of a shutting door. Then steps in the hall.

"That's Rupert," she said.

They both rose as he came into the room. He stood back in the shadow for a moment as though surprised at Olva's presence. Then he came forward very gravely.

"I've found something of yours, Dune," he said. It lay, gleaming, in his hand. "Your matchbox."

Dune drew a sharp breath. Then he took it and looked at it.

"Where did you find it?"

"In Saunet Wood. Bunker and I have been for a walk there. Bunker found it."

As the three of them stood there, motionless, in the middle of the dark room, Olva caught, through the open door, the last sad fading breath of the "Valse Triste."

CHAPTER VII

TERROR

1

That night the cold fell, like a plague, upon the town. It came, sweeping across the long low flats, crisping the dark ca.n.a.ls with white frosted ice, stiffening the thin reeds at the river's edge, taking each blade of gra.s.s and holding it in its iron hand and then leaving it an independent thing of cold and s.h.i.+ning beauty. At last it blew in wild gales down the narrow streets, throwing the colour of those grey walls against a sky of the sharpest blue, making of each glittering star a frozen eye, carrying in its arms a round red sun that it might fasten it, like a frosted orange, against its hard blue canopy.

Already now, at half-past two of the afternoon, there were signs of the early dusk. The blue was slowly being drained from the sky, and against the low horizon a faint golden shadow soon to burn into the heart of the cold blue, was hovering.

Olva Dune, turning into the King's Parade, was conscious of crowds of people, of a gaiety and life that filled the air with sound. He checked sternly with a furious exercise of self-control his impulse to creep back into the narrow streets that he had just left.

"It's an Idea," he repeated over and over, as he stood there. "It's an Idea. . . . You are like any one else--you are as you were . . . before . . . everything. There is no mark--no one knows."

For it seemed to him that above him, around him, always before him and behind him there was a grey shadow, and that as men approached him this shadow, bending, whispered, and, as they came to him, they flung at him a frightened glance . . . and pa.s.sed.

If only he might take the arm of any one of those bright and careless young men and say to him, "I killed Carfax--thus and thus it was." Oh!

the relief! the lifting of the weight! For then--and only then--this pursuing Shadow, so strangely grave, not cruel, but only relentless, would step back. Because that confession--how clearly he knew it!--was the thing that G.o.d demanded. So long as he kept silence he resisted the Pursuer--so long as he resisted the Pursuer he must fly, he must escape--first into Silence, then into Sound, then back again to Silence.

Somewhere, behind his actual consciousness: there was the knowledge that, did he once yield himself, life would be well, but that yielding meant Confession, Renunciation, Devotion. It was not because it was Carfax that he had killed, but it was because it was G.o.d that had spoken to him, that he fled.

A fortnight ago he would have been already defeated--the Pursuer should have caught him, bound him, done with him as he would. But now--in that same instant that young Craven had looked at him with challenge in his eyes, in that instant also he, Olva, had looked at Margaret.

In that silence, yesterday evening, in the dark drawing-room the two facts had together leapt at him--he loved Margaret Craven, he was suspected by Rupert Craven. Love had thus, terribly, grimly, and yet so wonderfully, sprung into his heart that had never, until now, known its lightest touch. Because of it--because Margaret Craven must never know what he had done--he must fight Craven, must lie and twist and turn. . . . His soul must belong to Margaret Craven, not to this terrible, unperturbed, pursuing G.o.d.

All night he had fought for control. A very little more and he would rush crying his secret to the whole world; slowly he had summoned calm back to him. Rupert Craven should be defeated; he would, quietly, visit Sannet Wood, face it in its naked fact, stand before it and examine it--and fight down once and for all this imagination of G.o.d.

Those glances that men flung upon him, that sudden raising of the eyes to his face . . . a man greeted him, another man waved his hand always this same suspicion . . . the great grey shadow that bent and whispered in their ears.

He saw, too, another picture. High above him some great power was seated, and down to earth there bent a mighty Hand. Into this Hand very gently, very tenderly, certain figures were drawn--Mrs. Craven, Margaret, Rupert, Bunning, even Lawrence. Olva was dragging with him, into the heart of some terrible climax, these so diverse persons; he could not escape now--other lives were twisted into the fabric of his own.