one of the largest flats on the fourth floor of hortons was taken in march, 1919, by a mrs. porter, a widow. the flat was seen, and all business in connection with it was done, by a miss allen, her lady companion. mr. nix, who considered himself a sound and trenchant judge of human nature, liked miss allen from the first; and then when he saw mrs. porter he liked her too. these were just the tenants for hortons—modest, gentle ladies with ample means and no extravagant demands on human nature. mrs. porter was one of those old ladies, now, alas, in our turbulent times, less and less easy to discover—"something straight out of a book," mr. nix called her. she was little and fragile, dressed in silver grey, forehead puckered a little with a sort of anticipation of being a trial to others, her voice cultured, soft, a little remote like the chime of a distant clock. she moved with gestures a little deprecatory, a little resigned, extremely modest—she would not disturb anyone for the world....
miss allen was, of course, another type—a woman of perhaps forty years of age, refined, quiet, efficient, her dark hair, turning now a little grey, waved decorously from her high white forehead, pince-nez, eyes of a grave, considering brown, a woman resigned, after, it[pg 133] might be, abandoning young ambitions for a place of modest and decent labour in the world—one might still see, in the rather humorous smile that she bestowed once and again upon men and things, the hint of defiance at the necessity that forced abnegation.
miss allen had not been in mrs. porter's service for very long. wearied with the exactions of a family of children whose idle and uninspiring intelligences she was attempting to governess, she answered, at the end of 1918, an advertisement in the "agony" column of the times, that led her to mrs. porter. she loved mrs. porter at first sight.
"why, she's a dear old lady," she exclaimed to her ironic spirit—"dear old ladies" being in those days as rare as crinolines. she was of the kind for which miss allen had unconsciously been looking: generous, gentle, refined, and intelligent. moreover, she had, within the last six months, been left quite alone in the world—mr. porter had died of apoplexy in august, 1918. he had left her very wealthy, and miss allen discovered quickly in the old lady a rather surprising desire to see and enjoy life—surprising, because old ladies of seventy-one years of age and of mrs. porter's gentle appearance do not, as a rule, care for noise and bustle and the buzz of youthful energy.
"i want to be in the very middle of things, dear miss allen," said mrs. porter, "right in the very middle. we lived at wimbledon long enough, henry and i—it wasn't good for either of us. find me somewhere within two minutes of all the best theatres."
miss allen found hortons, which is, as everyone[pg 134] knows, in duke street, just behind piccadilly and fortnum and mason's, and hatchard's and the hammam turkish baths and the royal academy and scott's hat-shop and jackson's jams—how could you be more perfectly in the centre of london?
then miss allen discovered a curious thing—namely, that mrs. porter did not wish to keep a single piece, fragment, or vestige of her wimbledon effects. she insisted on an auction—everything was sold. miss allen attempted a remonstrance—some of the things in the wimbledon house were very fine, handsome, solid mid-victorian sideboards and cupboards, and chairs and tables.
"you really have no idea, mrs. porter," said miss allen, "of the cost of furniture these days. it is quite terrible; you will naturally get a wonderful price for your things, but the difficulty of buying——"
mrs. porter was determined. she nodded her bright bird-like head, tapped with her delicate fingers on the table and smiled at miss allen.
"if you don't mind, dear. i know it's tiresome for you, but i have my reasons." it was not tiresome at all for miss allen; she loved to buy pretty new things at someone else's expense, but it was now, for the first time, that she began to wonder how dearly mrs. porter had loved her husband.
through the following weeks this became her principal preoccupation—mr. henry porter. she could not have explained to herself why this was. she was not, by nature, an inquisitive and scandal-loving woman, nor was she unusually imaginative. people did not,[pg 135] as a rule, occur to her as existing unless she saw them physically there in front of her. nevertheless she spent a good deal of her time in considering mr. porter.
she was able to make the horton flat very agreeable. mrs. porter wanted "life and colour," so the sitting-room had curtains with pink roses and a bright yellow cage with two canaries, and several pretty water-colours, and a handsome fire-screen with golden peacocks, and a deep turkish carpet, soft and luxurious to the feet. not one thing from the wimbledon house was there, not any single picture of mr. porter. the next thing that miss allen discovered was that mrs. porter was nervous.
although hortons sheltered many human beings within its boundaries, it was, owing to the thickness of its walls and the beautiful training of mr. nix's servants, a very quiet place. it had been even called in its day "cloistral." it simply shared with london that amazing and never-to-be-overlauded gift of being able to offer, in the very centre of the traffic of the world, little green spots of quiet and tranquillity. it seemed, after a week or two, that it was almost too quiet for mrs. porter.
"open a window, lucy dear, won't you," she said. "i like to hear the omnibuses."
it was a chill evening in early april, but miss allen threw up the window. they sat there listening. there was no sound, only suddenly, as though to accentuate the silence, st. james's church clock struck the quarter. then an omnibus rumbled, rattled, and was gone. the room was more silent than before.
[pg 136]
"shall i read to you?" said miss allen.
"yes, dear, do." and they settled down to martin chuzzlewit.
mrs. porter's apprehensiveness became more and more evident. she was so dear an old lady, and had won so completely miss allen's heart, that that kindly woman could not bear to see her suffer. for the first time in her life she wanted to ask questions. it seemed to her that there must be some very strange reason for mrs. porter's silences. she was not by nature a silent old lady; she talked continually, seemed, indeed, positively to detest the urgency of silence. she especially loved to tell miss allen about her early days. she had grown up as a girl in plymouth, and she could remember all the events of that time—the balls, the walks on the hoe, the shops, the summer visits into glebeshire, the old dark house with the high garden walls, the cuckoo clock and the pictures of the strange old ships in which her father, who was a retired sea-captain, had sailed. she could not tell miss allen enough about these things, but so soon as she arrived at her engagement to mr. porter there was silence. london shrouded her married life with its thick, grey pall. she hated that miss allen should leave her. she was very generous about miss allen's freedom, always begging her to take an afternoon or evening and amuse herself with her own friends; but miss allen had very few friends, and on her return from an expedition she always found the old lady miserable, frightened, and bewildered. she found that she loved her, that she cared for her as she had cared for no human being[pg 137] for many years, so she stayed with her and read to her and talked to her, and saw less and less of the outside world.
the two ladies made occasionally an expedition to a theatre or a concert, but these adventures, although they were anticipated with eagerness and pleasure, were always in the event disappointing. mrs. porter loved the theatre—especially did she adore plays of sentiment—plays where young people were happily united—where old people sat cosily together reminiscing over a blazing fire, where surly guardians were suddenly generous, and poor orphan girls were unexpectedly given fortunes.
mrs. porter started her evening with eager excitement. she dressed for the occasion, putting on her best lace cap, her cameo brooch, her smartest shoes. a taxi came for them, and they always had the best stalls, near the front, so that the old lady should not miss a word. miss allen noticed, however, that very quickly mrs. porter began to be disturbed. she would glance around the theatre and soon her colour would fade, her hands begin to tremble; then, perhaps at the end of the first act, perhaps later, a little hand would press miss allen's arm:
"i think, dear, if you don't mind—i'm tired—shall we not go?"
after a little while miss allen suggested the cinema. mrs. porter received the idea with eagerness. they went to the west-end house, and the first occasion was a triumphant success. how mrs. porter loved it! just the kind of a story for her—mary pickford in[pg 138] daddy long legs. to tell the truth, mrs. porter cried her eyes out. she swore that she had never in her life enjoyed anything so much. and the music! how beautiful! how restful! they would go every week....
the second occasion was, unfortunately, disastrous. the story was one of modern life, a woman persecuted by her husband, driven by his brutality into the arms of her lover. the husband was the customary cinema villain—broad, stout, sneering, and over-dressed. mrs. porter fainted and had to be carried out by two attendants. a doctor came to see her, said that she was suffering from nervous exhaustion and must be protected from all excitement.... the two ladies sat now every evening in their pretty sitting-room, and miss allen read aloud the novels of dickens one after the other.
more and more persistently, in spite of herself, did curiosity about the late mr. porter drive itself in upon miss allen. she told herself that curiosity itself was vulgar and unworthy of the philosophy that she had created for herself out of life. nevertheless it persisted. soon she felt that, after all, it was justified. were she to help this poor old lady to whom she was now most deeply attached, she must know more. she could not give her any real help unless she might gauge more accurately her trouble—but she was a shy woman, shy, especially, of forcing personal confidences. she hesitated; then she was aware that a barrier was being created between them. the evening had many silences, and miss allen detected many strange, surreptitious[pg 139] glances thrown at her by the old lady. the situation was impossible. one night she asked her a question.
"dear mrs. porter," she said, her heart beating strangely as she spoke, "i do hope that you will not think me impertinent, but you have been so good to me that you have made me love you. you are suffering, and i cannot bear to see you unhappy. i want, oh, so eagerly, to help you! is there nothing i can do?"
mrs. porter said nothing. her hands quivered; then a tear stole down her cheek. miss allen went over to her, sat down beside her and took her hand.
"you must let me help you," she said. "dismiss me if i am asking you questions that i should not. but i would rather leave you altogether, happy though i am with you, than see you so miserable. tell me what i can do."
"you can do nothing, lucy dear," said the old lady.
"but i must be able to do something. you are keeping from me some secret——"
mrs. porter shook her head....
it was one evening in early may that miss allen was suddenly conscious that there was something wrong with the pretty little sitting-room, and it was shortly after her first consciousness of this that poor old mrs. porter revealed her secret. miss allen, looking up for a moment, fancied that the little white marble clock on the mantelpiece had ceased to tick.
she looked across the room, and for a strange moment fancied that she could see neither the clock nor the mantelpiece—a grey dimness filled her sight. she shook herself, glanced down at her hands, looked up[pg 140] for reassurance, and found mrs. porter, with wide, terrified eyes, staring at her, her hands trembling against the wood of the table.
"what is it, lucy?"
"nothing, mrs. porter."
"did you see something?"
"no, dear."
"oh, i thought ... i thought...." suddenly the old lady, with a fierce impetuous movement, pushed the table away from her. she got up, staggered for a moment on her feet, then tumbled to the pink sofa, cowering there, huddled, her sharp, fingers pressing against her face.
"oh, i can't bear it.... i can't bear it.... i can't bear it any more! he's coming. he's coming. oh, what shall i do? what shall i do?"
miss allen, feeling nothing but love and affection for her friend, but realising strangely too the dim and muted attention of the room, knelt down beside the sofa and put her strong arms around the trembling, fragile body.
"what is it? dear, dear mrs. porter. what is it? who is coming? of whom are you afraid?"
"henry's coming! henry, who hated me. he's coming to carry me away!"
"but mr. porter's dead!"
"yes...." the little voice was now the merest whisper. "but he'll come all the same.... he always does what he says!"
the two women waited, listening. miss allen could hear the old lady's heart thumping and leaping close[pg 141] to her own. through the opened windows came the sibilant rumble of the motor-buses. then mrs. porter gently pushed miss allen away. "sit on a chair, lucy dear. i must tell you everything. i must share this with someone."
she seemed to have regained some of her calmness. she sat straight up upon the sofa, patting her lace cap with her hands, feeling for the cameo brooch at her breast. miss allen drew a chair close to the sofa; turning again towards the mantelpiece, she saw that it stood out boldly and clearly; the tick of the clock came across to her with almost startling urgency.
"now, dear mrs. porter, what is it that is alarming you?" she said.
mrs. porter cleared her throat. "you know, lucy, that i was married a great many years ago. i was only a very young girl at the time, very ignorant of course, and you can understand, my dear, that my father and mother influenced me very deeply. they liked mr. porter. they thought that he would make me a good husband and that i should be very happy.... i was not happy, lucy dear, never from the very first moment!"
here mrs. porter put out her hand and took miss allen's strong one. "i am very willing to believe that much of the unhappiness was due to myself. i was a young, foolish girl; i was disturbed from the very first by the stories that mr. porter told me, and the pictures he showed me. i was foolish about those things. he saw that they shocked me, and i think that that amused him. from the first it delighted him to[pg 142] tease me. then—soon—he tired of me. he had mistresses. he brought them to our house. he insulted me in every way possible. i had years of that misery. god only knows how i lived through it. it became a habit with him to frighten and shock me. it was a game that he loved to play. i think he wanted to see how far i would go. but i was patient through all those many years. oh! so patient! it was weak, perhaps, but there seemed nothing else for me to be."
"the last twenty years of our married life he hated me most bitterly. he said that i had scorned him, that i had not given him children, that i had wasted his money—a thousand different things! he tortured me, frightened me, disgusted me, but it never seemed to be enough for him, for the vengeance he felt i deserved. then one day he discovered that he had a weak heart—a doctor frightened him. he saw perhaps for a moment in my eyes my consciousness of my possible freedom. he took my arm and shook me, bent his face close to mine, and said: 'ah, you think that after i'm dead you will be free. you are wrong. i will leave you everything that i possess, and then—just as you begin to enjoy it—i will come and fetch you!' what a thing to say, lucy, dear! he was mad, and so was i to listen to him. all those years of married life together had perhaps turned both our brains. six months later he fell down in the street dead. they brought him home, and all that summer afternoon, my dear, i sat beside him in the bedroom, he all dressed in his best clothes and his patent leather shoes, and the band playing in the square outside. oh! he was dead,[pg 143] lucy dear, he was indeed. for a week or two i thought that he was gone altogether. i was happy and free. then—oh, i don't know—i began to imagine ... to fancy.... i moved from wimbledon. i advertised for someone, and you came. we moved here.... it ought to be ... it is ... it must be all right, lucy dear; hold me, hold me tight! don't let me go! he can't come back! he can't, he can't!"
she broke into passionate sobbing, cowering back on to the sofa as she had done before. the two women sat there, comforting one another. miss allen gathered the frail, trembling little body into her arms, and like a mother with her child, soothed it.
but, as she sat there, she realised with a chill shudder of alarm that moment, a quarter of an hour before, when the room had been dimmed and the clock stilled. had that been fancy? had some of mrs. porter's terror seized her in sympathy? were they simply two lonely women whose nerves were jagged by the quiet monotony and seclusion of their lives? why was it that from the first she, so unimaginative and definite, should have been disturbed by the thought of mr. porter? why was it that even now she longed to know more surely about him, his face, his clothes, his height ... everything.
"you must go to bed, dear. you are tired out. your nerves have never recovered from the time of mr. porter's death. that's what it is.... you must go to bed, dear."
mrs. porter went. she seemed to be relieved by her outburst. she felt perhaps now less lonely. it seemed,[pg 144] too, that she had less to fear now that she had betrayed her ghost into sunlight. she slept better that night than she had done for a long time past. miss allen sat beside the bed staring into the darkness, thinking....
for a week after this they were happy. mrs. porter was in high spirits. they went to the coliseum and heard miss florence smithson sing "roses of picardy," and in the cinema they were delighted with the charm and simplicity of alma taylor. mrs. porter lost her heart to alma taylor. "that's a sweet girl," she said. "i would like to meet her. i'm sure she's good." "i'm sure she is," said miss allen. mrs. porter made friends in the flat. mr. nix met them one day at the bottom of the lift and talked to them so pleasantly. "what a gentleman!" said mrs. porter afterwards as she took off her bonnet.
then one evening miss allen came into the sitting-room and stopped dead, frozen rigid on the threshold. someone was in the room. she did not at first think of mr. porter. she was only sure that someone was there. mrs. porter was in her bedroom changing her dress.
miss allen said, "who's there?" she walked forward. the dim evening saffron light powdered the walls with trembling colour. the canaries twittered, the clock ticked; no one was there. after that instant of horror she was to know no relief. it was as though that spoken "who's there?" had admitted her into the open acceptance of a fact that she ought for ever to have denied.
[pg 145]
she was a woman of common sense, of rational thought, scornful of superstition and sentiment. she realised now that there was something quite definite for her to fight, something as definite as disease, as pain, as poverty and hunger. she realised too that she was there to protect mrs. porter from everything—yes, from everything and everybody!
her first thought was to escape from the flat, and especially from everything in the flat—from the pink sofa, the gate-legged table, the bird-cage and the clock. she saw then that, if she yielded to this desire, they would be driven, the two of them, into perpetual flight, and that the very necessity of escaping would only admit the more the conviction of defeat. no, they must stay where they were; that place was their battle-ground.
she determined, too, that mr. porter's name should not be mentioned between them again. mrs. porter must be assured that she had forgotten his very existence.
soon she arrived at an exact knowledge of the arrival of these "attacks," as she called them. that month of may gave them wonderful weather. the evenings were so beautiful that they sat always with the windows open behind them, and the dim colour of the night-glow softened the lamplight and brought with it scents and breezes and a happy murmurous undertone. she received again and again in these may evenings that earlier impression of someone's entrance into the room. it came to her, as she sat with her back to the fireplace, with the conviction that a pair of eyes were[pg 146] staring at her. those eyes willed her to him, and she would not; but soon she seemed to know them, cold, hard, and separated from her, she fancied, by glasses. they seemed, too, to bend down upon her from a height. she was desperately conscious at these moments of mrs. porter. was the old lady also aware? she could not tell. mrs. porter still cast at her those odd, furtive glances, as though to see whether she suspected anything, but she never looked at the fireplace nor started as though the door was suddenly opened.
there were times when miss allen, relaxing her self-control, admitted without hesitation that someone was in the room. he was tall, wore spectacles behind which he scornfully peered. she challenged him to pass her guard and even felt the stiff pride of a victorious battle. they were fighting for the old lady, and she was winning....
at all other moments she scorned herself for this weakness. mrs. porter's nerves had affected her own. she had not believed that she could be so weak. then, suddenly, one evening mrs. porter dropped her cards, crumpled down into her chair, screamed, "no, no ... lucy!... lucy! he's here!..."
she was strangely, at the moment of that cry, aware of no presence in the room. it was only when she had gathered her friend into her arms, persuading her that there was nothing, loving her, petting her, that she was conscious of the dimming of the light, the stealthy withdrawal of sound. she was facing the fireplace; before the mantelpiece there seemed to her to hover a shadow, something so tenuous that it resembled a film of dust[pg 147] against the glow of electric light. she faced it with steady eyes and a fearless heart.
but against her will her soul admitted that confrontation. from that moment mrs. porter abandoned disguise. her terror was now so persistent that soon, of itself, it would kill her. there was no remedy; doctors could not help, nor change of scene. only if miss allen still saw and felt nothing could the old lady still hope. miss allen lied and lied again and again.
"you saw nothing, lucy?"
"nothing."
"not there by the fireplace?"
"nothing, dear.... of course, nothing!"
events from then moved quickly, and they moved for miss allen quite definitely in the hardening of the sinister shadow. she led now a triple existence: one life was mrs. porter's, devoted to her, delivered over to her, helping her, protecting her; the second life was her own, her rational, practical self, scornful of shadow and of the terror of death; the third was the struggle with henry porter, a struggle now as definite and concrete as though he were a blackmailer confining her liberty.
she could never tell when he would come, and with every visit that he paid he seemed to advance in her realisation of him. it appeared that he was always behind her, staring at her through those glasses that had, she was convinced, large gold rims and thin gold wires. she fancied that she had before her a dim outline of his face—pale, the chin sharp and pointed, the ears large and protuberant, the head dome-shaped and[pg 148] bald. it was now that, with all her life and soul in the struggle for her friend, she realised that she did not love her enough. the intense love of her life had been already in earlier years given. mrs. porter was a sweet old lady, and miss allen would give her life for her—but her soul was atrophied a little, tired a little, exhausted perhaps in the struggle so sharp and persistent for her own existence.
"oh, if i were younger i could drive him away!" came back to her again and again. she found too that her own fear impeded her own self-sacrifice. she hated this shadow as something strong, evil, like mildew on stone, chilling breath. "i'm not brave enough.... i'm not good enough.... i'm not young enough!" incessantly she tried to determine how real her sensations were. was she simply influenced by mrs. porter's fear? was it the blindest imagination? was it bred simply of the close, confined life that they were leading?
she could not tell. they had resumed their conspiracy of silence, of false animation and ease of mind. they led their daily lives as though there was nothing between them. but with every day mrs. porter's strength was failing; the look of horrified anticipation in her eyes was now permanent. at night they slept together, and the little frail body trembled like a leaf in miss allen's arms.
the appearances were now regularised. always when they were in the middle of their second game of "patience" miss allen felt that impulse to turn, that singing in her ears, the force of his ironical gaze. he was now almost complete to her, standing in front of[pg 149] the japanese screen, his thin legs apart, his hostile, conceited face bent towards them, his pale, thin hands extended as though to catch a warmth that was not there.
a sunday evening came. earlier than usual they sat down to their cards. through the open window shivered the jangled chimes of the bells of st. james's.
"well, he won't come yet ..." was miss allen's thought. then with that her nightly resolve: "when he comes i must not turn—i must not look. she must not know that i know."
suddenly he was with them, and with a dominant force, a cruelty, a determination that was beyond anything that had been before.
"four, five, six...." the cards trembled in mrs. porter's hand. "and there's the spade, lucy dear."
he came closer. he was nearer to her than he had ever been. she summoned all that she had—her loyalty, her love, her honesty, her self-discipline. it was not enough.
she turned. he was there as she had always known that she would see him, his cruel, evil, supercilious face, conscious of its triumph, bent toward them, his grey clothes hanging loosely about his thin body, his hands spread out. he was like an animal about to spring.
"god help me! god help me!" she cried. with those words she knew that she had failed. she stood as though she would protect with her body her friend. she was too late.
mrs. porter's agonised cry, "you see him, lucy!... you see him, lucy!" warned her.
[pg 150]
"no, no," she answered. she felt something like a cold breath of stagnant water pass her. she turned back to see the old woman tumble across the table, scattering the little cards.
the room was emptied. they two were alone; she knew, without moving, horror and self-shame holding her there, that her poor friend was dead.
