of the death of myra stebbings’s husband and of her second appearance in pendish during his sojourn in the west country, triona knew nothing. again she had forbidden her sister-in-law to give him any information as to her doings. again she disclaimed interest in the young man. nor was he aware, a week after the funeral, that myra, who had stood by the graveside in the pouring rain, and had insisted on jogging back to pendish wet through, in the undertaker’s brougham, lay dangerously ill in the upstairs bedroom of the little georgian house. the increasing business of the quantock garage diverted his energies from polite tramps into pendish to enquire into mrs. pettiland’s state of health. also, he was growing morose, his soul feeding on itself, and beginning to develop an unwholesome misanthropy. like hamlet, man didn’t delight him; no, nor woman neither. when not working in the garage or driving the old touring-car, he retired to brood in his loft and eschewed the company of his kind.
“you’re overdoing it,” said radnor, a kindly person. “why not go away on a holiday and have a change?”
“only one change would do me any good,” he replied gloomily, “and that would be to get out of this particularly vile universe.”
radnor looked round his well ordered, bustling establishment and smiled.
“it isn’t as bad as all that.”
triona shrugged his shoulders and spanner in hand turned to the car he was doctoring, without a reply.
a few days afterwards radnor said:
“we’re going to be married in august, and i don’t mind saying it’s mostly thanks to you.”
“i’m glad to hear it,” said triona. “i’ll stick it out till then.”
“and then?”
“i’ll have the change you’ve been talking of.”
radnor laughed. “you’ll let me have a bit of a honeymoon first, won’t you?”
“oh, yes,” replied triona. “you can have your honeymoon.”
the weakening incentive to life would last till september. he would make it last. it was now the beginning of june. three months or so more wouldn’t matter. to carry on a meaningless existence further would be absurd. indeed, it would be immoral. of that, for some time past he had convinced himself.
england ran motor-mad that summer. it awoke to find war restrictions removed, roads free and petrol to be had for the buying. in its eagerness to race through a beloved land closed up for years and view or review historic spots of loveliness, and otherwise to indulge in its national vagabond humour it cared little for the price of petrol. the hiring garages, in anything like tourist centres, found their resources strained. radnor bought another car, and still had more orders than he could execute. he drove one car himself.
it was a soft june evening. triona sat at the wheel of the great antiquated touring-car to which he had given its new lease of life, driving homewards from the neighbourhood of the great junction town. he had taken a merry party that day some hundred and fifty miles through the tenderest greenery of early summer, through dark gorges with startling shadows, through cool lanes, over hills in the open sunshine; and, in the sweetness of the evening, he had put them down at the place whence they had started. for all his mood of despair, he had enjoyed the day. the poet in him had responded to the eternal call of the year’s life laughing in its gay insolence of youth. since nine in the morning the sweet wind of the hills had swept through his lungs and scenes of loveliness had shimmered before his eyes.
alone at the wheel, he thought of the passing day of beauty. was it not worth living—just to enjoy it? was it not worth living—just to translate into words, if only for the sake of the doing, the emotion of that enjoyment? he had passed through a beech wood, a world of pale emerald, like fairy seas, above, and a shimmer of blue-bells below as though the sky had been laid down for a carpet. . . .
he drove slowly and carefully. the car had done its good day’s work. it was knocking a bit, like an old horse wheezing in protest against over-estimation of its enduring powers. he had tried it perhaps too high to-day. he loved the re-created old car, as though it were a living thing. a valiant old car, which had raced over awful roads in flanders. it was a crazy irritation that he could not pat it into comfort. nursing it with the mechanician’s queer tenderness, he came to the straight mile, near home, of road on the mountain side, with its sheer drop into the valley, ending at the turn known as hell’s corner, at which the overwrought doctor, on the night of mad adventure, had lost his nerve. just past the corner branched the secondary road to fanstead, for the great road swept on by the expiring end of pendish village; but by walking from pendish, as he had done on the day of the aforesaid adventure, through lanes and fields, one cut off a great bend of road and struck it on the fair-mile beyond the turn. and now a few hundred yards from the corner the engine gave trouble. he descended from his seat and opened the bonnet. he discovered a simple matter, the choking of a plug. the knocking, he knew was in the cardan shaft. he would have to replace the worn pin. while cleaning out the choked plug with a piece of wire and blowing through it to clear it from the last fragment of grit, he wondered how long it would take to have the spare pin made. he was going out again the day after to-morrow. could he risk the old car? to-morrow he would take her down and see for himself the full extent of the trouble. meanwhile he screwed the plug on again, shut down the bonnet, cranked up the starting handle and jumped up beside the wheel.
but just as he put in the low gear, his eyes were riveted on a familiar figure some twenty yards away, walking towards him. for a moment or two he remained paralysed, while the old-fashioned gears crunched horribly. there she advanced slim, erect, in tussore silk coat and skirt, a flash of red bow at the opening of her blouse. the car began to move. at that instant their eyes met. olivia staggered back, and he read in her bewildered gaze the same horror he had last seen in her eyes.
what she was doing here, on this strip of remote road, he could not understand. obviously she had not expected to find him, for she looked at him as though he were some awful ghost. he changed gear, went full speed ahead and passed her in a flash. then suddenly, the command of doom shot through his brain. this was the end. now was the end that should have come, had he not been a coward, months ago. he deliberately swerved off the road and went hurtling over the hill-side.
olivia staring, wide-eyed, wondering, at the racing car, saw it happen. it was no accident. it was deliberate. her brain reeled at the sudden and awful horror. she swayed to the bank and fainted.
a two-seater car, a young man and woman in it, came upon her a few moments later and drew up. the woman ministered to her and presently she revived.
“there has been a horrible accident,” she explained haggardly. “a car went over—you can see the wheel marks—oh my god!”
she pointed. a column of smoke was rising from the valley into the still evening air. she scrambled to unsteady feet, and started to run. the young man detained her.
“the car will take us quicker. maggie, you drive. i’ll stand on the footboard.”
they swiftly covered the hundred yards or so to the scene of the catastrophe. and there thirty feet below in the ravine the old car was burning amid the heavy vapour of petrol smoke.
“quick,” cried olivia, “let us get down! he may still be alive.”
the young man shook his head. “not much chance, poor devil.”
“did you know him?” asked the lady.
“it was my husband,” cried olivia tragic-eyed.
they all plunged down the slope, the young man going straight in the ruts of the leaping car. olivia, after a fall or two, ran gropingly to side levels, catching hold of bushes to aid her descent, her brain too scorched with the terror of that which lay below, for coherent thought.
again her light, high-heeled shoes tripped her on the smooth grass and she slithered down a few yards. and then, as she steadied herself once more on her feet, she heard a voice from behind a clump of gorse:
“just my damned luck!”
her knees shook violently. she wanted to shriek, but she controlled herself and, staggering round the gorse bush, came upon alexis, seated on a hummock, his head between his hands. he looked up at her stupidly; and she, with outspread fingers on panting bosom:
“thank god, you’re not dead.”
“i don’t know so much about that,” said he, rising to his feet.
the young woman of the car who had been following olivia more or less in her descent, appeared from behind the bush.
she, too, thanked god. he had been saved by a miracle. how had he escaped?
“a providence which looks after idiots caused me to be hurled out of the car at the first bump. i fell into the gorse. i’m not in the least bit hurt. please don’t worry about me.”
“you must let us drive you home—i’ll call my husband,” said the young woman.
“thank you very much,” said he, “but i’m perfectly sound and i’d rather walk; but this lady seems to have had a shock and no doubt——”
the young woman, perplexed, turned to olivia. “you said this—gentleman—” for alexis stood trim in brass-buttoned and legginged chauffeur’s livery—“you said he was your husband.”
“a case of mistaken identity,” he replied suavely. olivia, her brain in a whirl, said nothing. the young woman advanced a few steps and coo-eed to the young man who had just reached the ravine. as he turned on her hail, she halloed the tidings that all was well.
“he’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said.
they stood an embarrassed trio. alexis explained how the steering-rod, which had given him trouble all day, had suddenly snapped. it had been the affair of a moment. as for the car, it was merely a kind of land ark fitted with a prehistoric internal combustion engine. insured above its value. the proprietor would be delighted to hear the end of it.
the young man joined them, out of breath. explanations had to be given da capo. again good samaritan offers to put their two-seater at the disposal of the derelicts. with one in the back seat they could crowd three in front. they were going to cullenby, twenty miles on, but a few miles out of their way, if need be, were neither here nor there. a very charming, solicitous, well-run young couple. olivia scarcely knew whether to shriek at them to go away, or to beg them to remain and continue to save a grotesque situation.
presently triona repeated his thanks and declined the proffered lift. walking would do him all the good in the world; would steady his nerves after his calamitous bump. the young man eyed him queerly. it was a strange word for a chauffeur.
“but if you would take this lady,” said triona again.
olivia recovered her wits.
“i will walk too, if you don’t mind. i’m only a mile from home. and this gentleman is really my husband.”
“if we can really do nothing more?” the young man raised his hat.
“a thousand thanks for all your kindness,” said olivia.
the very mystified young couple left them and remounted the hill.
the subjects of their mystification stood for a while in silence. presently olivia, whose limbs not yet recovered from the shock trembled so that her knees seemed to give her no support, said:
“don’t you think we might sit down for a little?”
“as you will,” said alexis, seating himself on his hummock.
she cast herself down on the slope and closed her eyes for a moment.
“you did that on purpose,” she said at last. “you don’t suppose i believe the story of the broken steering-rod?”
he smiled with some bitterness. fate was for ever against him. the moment they met in this extravagant way, there started up the barrier of a lie.
“i couldn’t very well scare those young folks with a confession of attempted suicide, could i? after all, the naked truth may at times be positively indecent.”
“then you intended to do it?”
“oh, yes,” said he. “but it ended, like every other great adventure i’ve attempted in my life, in burlesque. i assure you, that when i found myself pitched into this clump of gorse and able to pick myself up with nothing worse than a gasping for breath, i—well—the humiliation of it!—i cursed the day i was born.”
“why did you do it?” she asked.
she had scarcely regained balance. the situation seemed unreal. but a few minutes ago he had been far from her thoughts, which were concerned with the woman to whose possibly dying bed she had been summoned, with the dreary days at medlow now that blaise olifant had gone, with the still beauty of the hills and their purple sunset shadows. and now, here she was, alone with him, remote from the world, conversing as dispassionately as though he had returned from the dead—as indeed he had almost returned. at her question, he threw his chauffeur’s cap on the grass and passed his hand over his hair. the familiar gesture, the familiar nervous brown hand brought her a step nearer to reality.
“if you can’t guess, it is useless for me to tell you,” he said. “you wouldn’t believe me.”
he took out a cigarette. she noted a trembling of the fingers.
“do you mind?” she nodded, he lit the cigarette. “i thought here, at any rate, i was hidden from you for the rest of my life. it wouldn’t have been very long anyway. i had made up my mind some day soon to set you free of me—and to-day or to-morrow—what did it matter? i don’t ask you to believe that either. i don’t see how you can believe a word i say. i gave you to understand, that i was in poland—you find me here. when did myra tell you i was here?”
returning sanity had corrected his first mad impression. how could she be a mile from pendish if she had not heard from myra? but she regarded him open-mouthed.
“myra? what has myra to do with it? of course i had no conception you were here? i knew you were not in poland. a man—a pole—i forget his name—wrote to major olifant, last year, wondering what had become of you. you had never joined him——”
“boronowski,” said triona.
“that was the name——”
“and you took it for granted i had lied to him too.” her eyes dropped beneath his half sad, half ironic gaze. she made a little despairing gesture.
“what would you have?”
“and myra never told you anything about me?”
“you haven’t answered my question,” she said, straightening herself: “where does myra come in?”
“that’s rather a long story. i should prefer her to tell it to you. myra knows everything about me since the day after you received my last letter over a year ago.”
she leaned forward, an angry spot burning on both cheeks. “myra has been hiding you here all the time and has told me nothing about it!”
“she has her excellent reasons. she will tell you in a very few words——”
“she can’t. at any rate not now. she has been very ill with pneumonia. they thought she was dying and sent for me. why otherwise should i be here?”
“are you staying at mrs. pettiland’s?”
“of course.”
“i didn’t even know myra was in pendish—i’m grieved to hear she’s ill. i’m afraid i’ve neglected mrs. pettiland of late. she was very kind to me.” he paused and added with a smile, “i see myra’s loyalty. she forbade mrs. pettiland to mention the name of the young man called briggs. you’ve never heard of such a person at pendish.”
“not a word,” said olivia. “but i shall never forgive myra. never, never,” she cried indignantly. “to fool me like that!”
he caught sudden hope from the flash in her dark eyes.
“would you have liked to know where i was?”
“i hate duplicity. i thought that myra, at least—my god! is there anybody in the world one can trust?”
suddenly she turned on him. “what are you doing in that absurd livery?”
“i’ve been earning my living in it, since last august. i’ve done it before. it’s an honester way than many others.”
“forgive me, if i don’t understand,” she said, still half-bewildered. “you have no need to earn your living by driving a car—a common chauffeur—unless——”
she checked herself with a little gasp—but his quick brain divined her impulsive thought.
“unless i had taken to drink and gone to the bad, etcetera, etcetera——”
she interrupted him quickly. “no, no. i never thought that. it was a reductio ad absurdum. but on what other hypothesis——? you’ve still your brain, your talent, your genius. your pen——”
“which is mightier than the wheel,” he remarked.
“i don’t know why you didn’t go to poland. perhaps you’ll explain. anyhow you didn’t. you came here—to the absolute quiet of the country. why haven’t you gone on writing?”
“for the simple reason,” said he, “that alexis triona and all his works are dead. washed out from the book of life. that side of me is all over and done with. you who know everything, can’t you understand?”
she caught the note of truth in his words and gradually there began to dawn on her the immensity of his artist’s sacrifice.
“do you mean that you’re never going to write again?”
“never,” said he. “does this look like it?” and he touched the brass buttons on his livery.
she weakened through impatience at his aloofness, craving to know all that had happened to him, to get to the roots of myra’s mysterious intrigue. his fatalistic attitude was maddening. the whole crazy combination of tragedy and farce that had set them down in the gorse-enclosed hollow of the hill-side, as though they were the only people on god’s earth, was maddening. the brass buttons were maddening. she flung sudden arms out wide.
“for god’s sake tell me everything that has happened to you.”
“if you’ll believe it,” said he.
she sat silent for a moment, feeling as though she were under his rebuke, and gazed over the valley at the hills black beneath the dying green and faded orange of the sunset. the thin smoke of the burned car mounted into the windless air faint with the smell of petrol fumes and scorched woodwork. and triona looked down too and saw the end of the creation of his resurrection. he pointed to it.
“that was one of my little dreams,” he said gently. “a sort of rat trap on wheels—the most hopeless box of antiquated imbecility you can imagine. i took it into my head to recreate it. for a time i devoted my soul to it—and i made it a thing of life and speed and obedience. and there it lies dead, a column of smoke, like all dreams and, all my deliberate fault. every system of philosophy, since the world began, has overlooked the ironical symbolism of life. that’s one; and my dream—smoke.”
she fell under the spell of his voice, although her brain revolted. yet his note rang sincere in her heart—she knew not what to say. the sunset colours over the ridge of hills died into iron blue of the sky. a faint breeze stirred. she shivered with cold in her thin tussore silk. he, watching her, saw the shiver.
“you’re cold, you must be getting back.” he rose.
she sprang to her feet before he could help her to rise.
“i’ll see you to mrs. pettiland’s.”
they scrambled to the high road above them, and began to walk, in constrained silence. suddenly she cried:
“you’ve hurt yourself. you’re limping dreadfully. you told me you were unhurt——” she clutched his arm. “you can’t go on like this.”
“i’ll go on like this,” said he, thrilling under her touch, “to the day of my death. it has nothing to do with this evening’s entertainment. i was smashed up by a motor-lorry over a year ago, as myra will tell you. that’s what knocked me out of poland.”
she echoed his words—“smashed up by a motor-lorry?—it might have killed you—and i should have never known.”
“myra would have told you. as a matter of fact it very nearly did kill me.”
she turned her head away with a shudder.
“and just now——”
“i ought to have waited till i had turned the corner—” he pointed out the bend a few yards in front of them. “hell’s corner, they call it hereabouts. then you wouldn’t have seen me go over, and i might have had better luck.”
he saw her turn deadly white, reel, and he tried to support her; but she slipped away from him and sat by the wayside. she thought she was going to faint again.
“for god’s sake, don’t talk like that. it’s inhuman. it’s unlike you. even if you were a stranger it would be horrible.”
“i’m only apologising for my existence,” he said. “fate has been against me—but, believe me, i have done my best.”
after a while she rose, declaring herself better, and they struck off the road down the twisting lane that led to pendish. the air was fragrant in the dusk.
“tell me about that accident—how myra came to know of it. i suppose you sent her word?”
“perhaps when you have talked to myra, you’ll credit me at least with sincere intentions. if i had informed her, it would have been an indirect appeal to you.”
“perhaps it would have been wiser to appeal to me direct,” said olivia tonelessly. “i’m not devoid of common humanity.”
“i couldn’t have done that,” he said gently. “i lay unconscious for weeks. when i came to my senses i found myra had come the second morning i was in hospital. i had better begin with my meeting with the pole, boronowski—it’s a simple matter.”
to him, walking with this lost wife of his dreams, in the lovers’ lane, the hour seemed fantastic. his voice sounded unreal in his ears. his heart lying heavy as lead within him was not the heart that he had thought would beat furiously at the ravishing sight of her. he told his story badly; just the salient facts, uninspired by the dramatic instinct which had made him colour so vividly the narration, a year ago, to mrs. pettiland, of his ridiculous adventure. this he barely sketched. for truth’s sake he must tell her of the robbery and account for his penniless condition. it was not himself talking. it was not olivia to whom he talked. one stranger’s personality was talking through him to another’s. at the end of the tale:
“you have changed greatly,” she said.
“that’s very possible.” there was a pause. he continued. “and you? forgive me. i haven’t even asked whether you are well——”
“oh, i’ve been all right. i spent the winter abroad, and now i’m staying with mrs. woolcombe at ‘the towers.’ major olifant is away.”
they came up suddenly against the wicket-gate of mrs. pettiland’s garden. a light shone through the yet undrawn curtains in his old bedroom. he raised an enquiring hand.
“myra?”
“yes. i’m in mrs. pettiland’s room in the front. she would give it up to me. i’ve been helping to nurse—as well as i can. i’ve been in all day. that’s why i came out for a walk this evening.”
“you must be tired.”
“i am.”
he waited, hoping against hope, for a word revoking his sentence. none came. the steel sinew that ran through him, and was answerable for all his accomplishment, stiffened. he would make no appeal ad misericordiam. he had suffered enough in expiation. he had come to the end of his tether. for pity masking the last year’s hatred and contempt he had no use. he opened the gate for her. she passed in and he closed it and the click of the latch sounded like the crack of finality; for olivia, taken almost unawares, as for triona. they stood for a while, the wooden barrier between them, in the gathering darkness.
impulsively she exclaimed: “we can’t part like this, with a thousand things unexplained.”
“i’m at your orders, olivia,” he replied.
she caught her breath and stiffened. “we must talk to-morrow—when we have both recovered.”
“i’ll be here any hour you name,” said alexis. radnor and his garage could go to the devil.
“nine o’clock?”
“nine o’clock,” said he. “good night, olivia.”
“wait.”
the memory of the scandal crashed down on her. . . .
“i may as well tell you now—the night may bring counsel—i’m in a terrible position. wedderburn and onslow—you remember?”
“i do,” he said.
she told him rapidly of her pledge.
“it doesn’t matter a scrap to me, but it’s a damnable thing for you,” said he.
“what answer would you make?”
“a clean breast of everything. could you wish me to do anything else?”
“i don’t know,” she replied. “give me time to think.”
“my time is yours, olivia.”
she paused for a moment irresolute. there was a question she wished to put, but the thought of it made her feel sick and faint again.
“you’ll not do anything foolish, till i see you?”
“nor anything wise,” said he. “i promise.”
again there came between them a long embarrassed silence. at last——
“good night,” she said.
“good night, olivia.”
she flung an angry hand in the darkness and slipped away into the house.
