He had heard her story during one of the intervals in the course of the night, and it seemed to him that he had a tolerably accurate theory of the whole affair--if, that is to say, her interpretation of the noises she had heard was at all correct.
The Major must have made an unexpected attack, probably by a kick that had temporarily disabled Frank, and must then, with Mr. Partington"s judicial though amused approval, have proceeded to inflict chastis.e.m.e.nt upon Frank as he lay on the floor. This must have gone on for a considerable time; Frank seemed to have been heavily kicked all over his body. And the thing must have ended with a sudden uncontrolled attack on the part of the Major, not only with his boots, but with at least one of the heavy bottles. The young man"s head was cut deeply, as if by gla.s.s, and it was probably three or four kicks on the head, before Mr.
Partington could interfere, that had concluded the punishment. The doctor"s evidence entirely corroborated this interpretation of events.
It was, of course, impossible to know whether Frank had had the time or the will to make any resistance. The police had been communicated with, but there was no news yet of the two men involved.
It was one of those bleak, uncomfortable dawns that have no beauty either of warmth or serenity--at least it seemed so here in Turner Road.
Above the torn and dingy strip of lace that shrouded the lower part of the window towered the black fronts of the high houses against the steely western sky. It was extraordinarily quiet. Now and then a footstep echoed and died suddenly as some pa.s.ser-by crossed the end of the street; but there was no murmur of voices yet, or groups at the doors, as, no doubt, there would be when the news became known.
The room, too, was cheerless; the fire was long ago gone out; the children"s bed was still tumbled and disordered, and the paraffin lamp had smoked itself out half an hour ago. Overhead the clergyman could hear now and again a very gentle footstep, and that was all.
He was worn out with excitement and a kind of terror; and events took for him the same kind of clear, hard outline as did the physical objects themselves in this cold light of dawn. He had pa.s.sed through a dozen moods: furious anger at the senseless crime, at the hopeless, miserable waste of a life, an overwhelming compa.s.sion and a wholly unreasonable self-reproach for not having foreseen danger more clearly the night before. There were other thoughts that had come to him too--doubts as to whether the internal significance of all these things were in the least a.n.a.logous to the external happenings; whether, perhaps, after all, the whole affair were not on the inner side a complete and perfect event--in fact, a startling success of a nature which he could not understand.
Certainly, exteriorly, a more lamentable failure and waste could not be conceived; there had been sacrificed such an array of advantages--birth, money, education, gifts, position--and for such an exceedingly small and doubtful good, that no additional data, it would appear, could possibly explain the situation. Yet was it possible that such data did exist somewhere, and that another golden and perfect deed had been done--that there was no waste, no failure, after all?
But at present these thoughts only came to him in glimpses; he was exhausted now of emotion and speculation. He regarded the pitiless facts with a sunken, unenergetic attention, and wondered when he would be called again upstairs.
There came a footstep outside; it hesitated, then the street door was pushed open and the step came in, up to the room door, and a small face, pinched with cold, its eyes all burning, looked at him.
"Come in, Jimmie," he whispered.
And so the two sat, huddled one against the other, and the man felt again and again a shudder, though not of cold, shake the little body at his side.
(V)
Ten minutes later a step came down the stairs, a little hurriedly, though on tip-toe; and Mrs. Partington, her own thin face lined with sleeplessness and emotion, and her lips set, nodded at him emphatically.
He understood, and went quickly past her, followed closely by the child, and up the narrow stairs.... He heard the street-door close behind him as the woman left the house.
It seemed to him as he came into the room as if he had stepped clean out of one world into another. And the sense of it was so sudden and abrupt that he stood for an instant on the threshold amazed at the transition.
First, it was the absolute stillness and motionlessness of the room that impressed him, so far as any one element predominated. There were persons in the room, but they were as statues.
On the farther side of the bed, decent now and arranged and standing out across the room, kneeled the two men, Jack Kirkby and d.i.c.k Guiseley, but they neither lifted their eyes nor showed the faintest consciousness of his presence as he entered. Their faces were in shadow: behind them was the cold patch of the window, and a candle within half an inch of extinction stood also behind them on a table in the corner, with one or two covered vessels and instruments.
The nurse kneeled on this side, one arm beneath the pillow and the other on the counterpane.
And then there was Frank.
He lay perfectly still upon his back, his hands clasped before him (and even these were bandaged). His head lay high on three or four pillows, and he wore what looked like a sort of cap, wholly hiding his hair and ears. His profile alone showed clear-cut and distinct against the gloom in the corner behind. His face was entirely tranquil, as pale as ivory; his lips were closed. His eyes alone were alive.
Presently those turned a little, and the man standing at the door, understanding the look, came forward and kneeled too by the bed.
Then, little by little, he began, in that living stillness, to understand rather better what it was that he was witnessing.... It was not that there was anything physical in the room, beyond the things of which his senses told him; there was but the dingy furniture, the white bed, august now with a strange dignity as of a white altar, and the four persons beside himself--five now, for Jimmie was beside him. But that the physical was not the plane in which these five persons were now chiefly conscious was the most evident thing of all.... There was about them, not a Presence, not an air, not a sweetness or a sound, and yet it is by such negatives only that the thing can be expressed.
And so they kneeled and waited.
"Why, Jack--"
It shook the waiting air like the sound of a bell, yet it was only whispered. The man nearest him on the other side shook with a single spasmodic movement and laid his fingers gently on the bandaged hands.
And then for a long while there was no further movement or sound.
"Rosary!" said Frank suddenly, still in a whisper.... "Beads...."
Jack moved swiftly on his knees, took from the table a string of beads from where they had been laid the night before, and put them into the still fingers. Then he laid his own hands over them again.
Again there was a long pause.
Outside in the street a footstep came up from the direction of Mortimer Road, waxed loud and clear on the pavement, and died again down towards the street leading to the marshes. And, but for this, there was no further sound for a while. Then a c.o.c.k crew, thin and shrill, somewhere far away; a dray rumbled past the end of the street and was silent.
But the silence in the room was of a different quality; or, rather, the world seemed silent because this room was so, and not the other way. It was here that the center lay, where a battered man was dying, and from this center radiated out the Great Peace.
It was no waste then, after all!--this life of strange unreason ending in this very climax of uselessness, exactly when ordinary usefulness was about to begin. Could that be waste that ended so?
"Priest," whispered the voice from the bed.
Then d.i.c.k leaned forward.
"He has been," he said distinctly and slowly. "He was here at two o"clock. He did--what he came for. And he"s coming again directly."
The eyes closed in sign of a.s.sent and opened again.
He seemed to be looking, as in a kind of meditation, at nothing in particular. It was as a man who waits at his ease for some pleasant little event that will unroll by and by. He was in no ecstasy, and, it seemed, in no pain and in no fierce expectation; he was simply at his ease and waiting. He was content, whatever those others might be.
For a moment it crossed the young clergyman"s mind that he ought to pray aloud, but the thing was dismissed instantly. It seemed to him impertinent nonsense. That was not what was required. It was his business to watch, not to act.
So, little by little, he ceased to think actively, he ceased to consider this and that. At first he had wondered how long it would be before the doctor and the priest arrived. (The woman had gone to fetch them.) He had wished that they would make haste.... He had wondered what the others felt, and how he would describe it all to his Vicar. Now, little by little, all this ceased, and the peace grew within and without, till the balance of pressure was equalized and his attention floated at the perfect poise.
Again there was no symbol or a.n.a.logy that presented itself. It was not even by negation that he thought. There was just one positive element that included all: time seemed to mean nothing, the ticks of the clock with the painted face were scarcely consecutive; it was all one, and distance was nothing, nor nearness--not even the nearness of the dying face against the pillows....
It was so, then, that something of that state to which Frank had pa.s.sed communicated itself to at least one of those who saw him die.
A little past the half hour Frank spoke again.