The Magician Part 22

Arthur Burdon spent two or three days in a state of utter uncertainty, but at last the idea he had in mind grew so compelling as to overcome all objections. He went to the Carlton and asked for Margaret. He had learnt from the porter that Haddo was gone out and so counted on finding her alone. A simple device enabled him to avoid sending up his name. When he was shown into her private room Margaret was sitting down. She neither read nor worked.

'You told me I might call upon you,' said Arthur.

She stood up without answering, and turned deathly pale.

'May I sit down?' he asked.

She bowed her head. For a moment they looked at one another in silence.

Arthur suddenly forgot all he had prepared to say. His intrusion seemed intolerable.

'Why have you come?' she said hoa.r.s.ely.

They both felt that it was useless to attempt the conventionality of society. It was impossible to deal with the polite commonplaces that ease an awkward situation.

'I thought that I might be able to help you,' he answered gravely.

'I want no help. I'm perfectly happy. I have nothing to say to you.'

She spoke hurriedly, with a certain nervousness, and her eyes were fixed anxiously on the door as though she feared that someone would come in.

'I feel that we have much to say to one another,' he insisted. 'If it is inconvenient for us to talk here, will you not come and see me?'

'He'd know,' she cried suddenly, as if the words were dragged out of her.

'D'you think anything can be hidden from him?'

Arthur glanced at her. He was horrified by the terror that was in her eyes. In the full light of day a change was plain in her expression. Her face was strangely drawn, and pinched, and there was in it a constant look as of a person cowed. Arthur turned away.

'I want you to know that I do not blame you in the least for anything you did. No action of yours can ever lessen my affection for you.'

'Oh, why did you come here? Why do you torture me by saying such things?'

She burst on a sudden into a flood of tears, and walked excitedly up and down the room.

'Oh, if you wanted me to be punished for the pain I've caused you, you can triumph now. Susie said she hoped I'd suffer all the agony that I've made you suffer. If she only knew!'

Margaret gave a hysterical laugh. She flung herself on her knees by Arthur's side and seized his hands.

'Did you think I didn't see? My heart bled when I looked at your poor wan face and your tortured eyes. Oh, you've changed. I could never have believed that a man could change so much in so few months, and it's I who've caused it all. Oh, Arthur, Arthur, you must forgive me. And you must pity me.'

'But there's nothing to forgive, darling,' he cried.

She looked at him steadily. Her eyes now were s.h.i.+ning with a hard brightness.

'You say that, but you don't really think it. And yet if you only knew, all that I have endured is on your account.'

She made a great effort to be calm.

'What do you mean?' said Arthur.

'He never loved me, he would never have thought of me if he hadn't wanted to wound you in what you treasured most. He hated you, and he's made me what I am so that you might suffer. It isn't I who did all this, but a devil within me; it isn't I who lied to you and left you and caused you all this unhappiness.'

She rose to her feet and sighed deeply.

'Once, I thought he was dying, and I helped him. I took him into the studio and gave him water. And he gained some dreadful power over me so that I've been like wax in his hands. All my will has disappeared, and I have to do his bidding. And if I try to resist ...'

Her face twitched with pain and fear.

'I've found out everything since. I know that on that day when he seemed to be at the point of death, he was merely playing a trick on me, and he got Susie out of the way by sending a telegram from a girl whose name he had seen on a photograph. I've heard him roar with laughter at his cleverness.'

She stopped suddenly, and a look of frightful agony crossed her face.

'And at this very minute, for all I know, it may be by his influence that I say this to you, so that he may cause you still greater suffering by allowing me to tell you that he never cared for me. You know now that my life is h.e.l.l, and his vengeance is complete.'

'Vengeance for what?'

'Don't you remember that you hit him once, and kicked him unmercifully? I know him well now. He could have killed you, but he hated you too much.

It pleased him a thousand times more to devise this torture for you and me.'

Margaret's agitation was terrible to behold. This was the first time that she had ever spoken to a soul of all these things, and now the long restraint had burst as burst the waters of a dam. Arthur sought to calm her.

'You're ill and overwrought. You must try to compose yourself. After all, Haddo is a human being like the rest of us.'

'Yes, you always laughed at his claims. You wouldn't listen to the things he said. But I know. Oh, I can't explain it; I daresay common sense and probability are all against it, but I've seen things with my own eyes that pa.s.s all comprehension. I tell you, he has powers of the most awful kind. That first day when I was alone with him, he seemed to take me to some kind of sabbath. I don't know what it was, but I saw horrors, vile horrors, that rankled for ever after like poison in my mind; and when we went up to his house in Staffords.h.i.+re, I recognized the scene; I recognized the arid rocks, and the trees, and the lie of the land. I knew I'd been there before on that fatal afternoon. Oh, you must believe me!

Sometimes I think I shall go mad with the terror of it all.'

Arthur did not speak. Her words caused a ghastly suspicion to flash through his mind, and he could hardly contain himself. He thought that some dreadful shock had turned her brain. She buried her face in her hands.

'Look here,' he said, 'you must come away at once. You can't continue to live with him. You must never go back to Skene.'

'I can't leave him. We're bound together inseparably.'

'But it's monstrous. There can be nothing to keep you to him. Come back to Susie. She'll be very kind to you; she'll help you to forget all you've endured.'

'It's no use. You can do nothing for me.'

'Why not?'

'Because, notwithstanding, I love him with all my soul.'

'Margaret!'

'I hate him. He fills me with repulsion. And yet I do not know what there is in my blood that draws me to him against my will. My flesh cries out for him.'

Arthur looked away in embarra.s.sment. He could not help a slight, instinctive movement of withdrawal.

'Do I disgust you?' she said.

He flushed slightly, but scarcely knew how to answer. He made a vague gesture of denial.