And then you know, wonderfully gone--gone utterly, vanished as foam might vanish upon the sand.
Nonsense! The whole affair a noisy paroxysm of nonsense, unreasonable excitement, witless mischief, and waste of strength--signifying nothing. . . .
And one of those white parcels was the paper I held in my hands, as I sat with a bandaged foot on the steel fender in that dark underground kitchen of my mother"s, clean roused from my personal troubles by the yelp of the headlines. She sat, sleeves tucked up from her ropy arms, peeling potatoes as I read.
It was like one of a flood of disease germs that have invaded a body, that paper. There I was, one corpuscle in the big amorphous body of the English community, one of forty-one million such corpuscles and, for all my preoccupations, these potent headlines, this paper ferment, caught me and swung me about. And all over the country that day, millions read as I read, and came round into line with me, under the same magnetic spell, came round--how did we say it?--Ah!--"to face the foe."
The comet had been driven into obscurity overleaf. The column headed "Distinguished Scientist says Comet will Strike our Earth.
Does it Matter?" went unread. "Germany"--I usually figured this mythical malignant creature as a corseted stiff-mustached Emperor enhanced by heraldic black wings and a large sword--had insulted our flag. That was the message of the New Paper, and the monster towered over me, threatening fresh outrages, visibly spitting upon my faultless country"s colors. Somebody had hoisted a British flag on the right bank of some tropical river I had never heard of before, and a drunken German officer under ambiguous instructions had torn it down. Then one of the convenient abundant natives of the country, a British subject indisputably, had been shot in the leg. But the facts were by no means clear. Nothing was clear except that we were not going to stand any nonsense from Germany.
Whatever had or had not happened we meant to have an apology for, and apparently they did not mean apologizing.
"HAS WAR COME AT LAST?"
That was the headline. One"s heart leapt to a.s.sent. . . .
There were hours that day when I clean forgot Nettie, in dreaming of battles and victories by land and sea, of sh.e.l.l fire, and entrenchments, and the heaped slaughter of many thousands of men.
But the next morning I started for Checkshill, started, I remember, in a curiously hopeful state of mind, oblivious of comets, strikes, and wars.
Section 5
You must understand that I had no set plan of murder when I walked over to Checkshill. I had no set plan of any sort. There was a great confusion of dramatically conceived intentions in my head, scenes of threatening and denunciation and terror, but I did not mean to kill. The revolver was to turn upon my rival my disadvantage in age and physique. . . .
But that was not it really! The revolver!--I took the revolver because I had the revolver and was a foolish young lout. It was a dramatic sort of thing to take. I had, I say, no plan at all.
Ever and again during that second trudge to Checkshill I was irradiated with a novel unreasonable hope. I had awakened in the morning with the hope, it may have been the last unfaded trail of some obliterated dream, that after all Nettie might relent toward me, that her heart was kind toward me in spite of all that I imagined had happened. I even thought it possible that I might have misinterpreted what I had seen. Perhaps she would explain everything. My revolver was in my pocket for all that.
I limped at the outset, but after the second mile my ankle warmed to forgetfulness, and the rest of the way I walked well. Suppose, after all, I was wrong?
I was still debating that, as I came through the park. By the corner of the paddock near the keeper"s cottage, I was reminded by some belated blue hyacinths of a time when I and Nettie had gathered them together. It seemed impossible that we could really have parted ourselves for good and all. A wave of tenderness flowed over me, and still flooded me as I came through the little dell and drew towards the hollies. But there the sweet Nettie of my boy"s love faded, and I thought of the new Nettie of desire and the man I had come upon in the moonlight, I thought of the narrow, hot purpose that had grown so strongly out of my springtime freshness, and my mood darkened to night.
I crossed the beech wood and came towards the gardens with a resolute and sorrowful heart. When I reached the green door in the garden wall I was seized for a s.p.a.ce with so violent a trembling that I could not grip the latch to lift it, for I no longer had any doubt how this would end. That trembling was succeeded by a feeling of cold, and whiteness, and self-pity. I was astonished to find myself grimacing, to feel my cheeks wet, and thereupon I gave way completely to a wild pa.s.sion of weeping. I must take just a little time before the thing was done. . . . I turned away from the door and stumbled for a little distance, sobbing loudly, and lay down out of sight among the bracken, and so presently became calm again.
I lay there some time. I had half a mind to desist, and then my emotion pa.s.sed like the shadow of a cloud, and I walked very coolly into the gardens.
Through the open door of one of the gla.s.s houses I saw old Stuart.
He was leaning against the staging, his hands in his pockets, and so deep in thought he gave no heed to me.
I hesitated and went on towards the cottage, slowly.
Something struck me as unusual about the place, but I could not tell at first what it was. One of the bedroom windows was open, and the customary short blind, with its bra.s.s upper rail partly unfastened, drooped obliquely across the vacant s.p.a.ce. It looked negligent and odd, for usually everything about the cottage was conspicuously trim.
The door was standing wide open, and everything was still. But giving that usually orderly hall an odd look--it was about half-past two in the afternoon--was a pile of three dirty plates, with used knives and forks upon them, on one of the hall chairs.
I went into the hall, looked into either room, and hesitated.
Then I fell to upon the door-knocker and gave a loud rat-tat-too, and followed this up with an amiable "Hel-lo!"
For a time no one answered me, and I stood listening and expectant, with my fingers about my weapon. Some one moved about upstairs presently, and was still again. The tension of waiting seemed to brace my nerves.
I had my hand on the knocker for the second time, when Puss appeared in the doorway.
For a moment we remained staring at one another without speaking.
Her hair was disheveled, her face dirty, tear-stained, and irregularly red. Her expression at the sight of me was pure astonishment.
I thought she was about to say something, and then she had darted away out of the house again.
"I say, Puss!" I said. "Puss!"
I followed her out of the door. "Puss! What"s the matter? Where"s Nettie?"
She vanished round the corner of the house.
I hesitated, perplexed whether I should pursue her. What did it all mean? Then I heard some one upstairs.
"Willie!" cried the voice of Mrs. Stuart. "Is that you?"
"Yes," I answered. "Where"s every one? Where"s Nettie? I want to have a talk with her."
She did not answer, but I heard her dress rustle as she moved. I Judged she was upon the landing overhead.
I paused at the foot of the stairs, expecting her to appear and come down.
Suddenly came a strange sound, a rush of sounds, words jumbled and hurrying, confused and shapeless, borne along upon a note of throaty distress that at last submerged the words altogether and ended in a wail. Except that it came from a woman"s throat it was exactly the babbling sound of a weeping child with a grievance. "I can"t," she said, "I can"t," and that was all I could distinguish.
It was to my young ears the strangest sound conceivable from a kindly motherly little woman, whom I had always thought of chiefly as an unparalleled maker of cakes. It frightened me. I went upstairs at once in a state of infinite alarm, and there she was upon the landing, leaning forward over the top of the chest of drawers beside her open bedroom door, and weeping. I never saw such weeping. One thick strand of black hair had escaped, and hung with a spiral twist down her back; never before had I noticed that she had gray hairs.
As I came up upon the landing her voice rose again. "Oh that I should have to tell you, Willie! Oh that I should have to tell you!" She dropped her head again, and a fresh gust of tears swept all further words away.
I said nothing, I was too astonished; but I drew nearer to her, and waited. . . .
I never saw such weeping; the extraordinary wetness of her dripping handkerchief abides with me to this day.
"That I should have lived to see this day!" she wailed. "I had rather a thousand times she was struck dead at my feet."
I began to understand.
"Mrs. Stuart," I said, clearing my throat; "what has become of Nettie?"
"That I should have lived to see this day!" she said by way of reply.
I waited till her pa.s.sion abated.
There came a lull. I forgot the weapon in my pocket. I said nothing, and suddenly she stood erect before me, wiping her swollen eyes.
"Willie," she gulped, "she"s gone!"
"Nettie?"
"Gone! . . . Run away. . . . Run away from her home. Oh, Willie, Willie! The shame of it! The sin and shame of it!"