Book Three—Chapter Twenty Five.
Midnight struck and still the wind raged without, while inside the house complete silence reigned. One o’clock struck. The gale was at its height; the noise of the wind was terrific: it swept past the lighted window of Hallam’s study and shook the glass as though something alive were out in the storm and seeking refuge from the fury of the wind. But the occupant of the room neither stirred nor looked round: he sat with a book open on the table before him, and a glass at his elbow towards which his shaking hand reached forth at regular and frequent intervals. He had forgotten his promise to his wife, had forgotten the hour; he sat in a semi-stupor, and took no heed of time or place. Whether he read, and, if he did read, whether his drugged brain took hold of the sense of the printed matter on which his eyes rested, was uncertain; but every now and again he turned a page of the book without raising his glance even when his hand reached out for the glass from which he drank: he only looked up to refill the glass from a decanter on the table.
The minutes ticked on relentlessly, and the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour after one. A light footfall descending the stairs, so light that it could not be heard above the noise of the wind, did not disturb the reader; nor did he appear to see when the door of the room was pushed wider and Esmé with a dressing-gown worn over her nightdress and her hair in a heavy plait over her shoulder, stood framed in the doorway, a shrinking slender figure, looking towards him with wide, anguished eyes. She advanced swiftly and stood beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Paul!” she said.
He looked up at her slowly, stupidly, his dull eyes scrutinising her, a frown contracting his brows: then his gaze travelled to the hand on his shoulder and stayed there. He moved his shoulder impatiently.
“What’s the matter?” he said in thickened tones. “I thought you were asleep.”
“You promised that you would not be long,” she said. “I waited for you. Come to bed, Paul; it’s late.”
“I shan’t be long,” he muttered. “You’ll take cold.” He stared at her deshabille. “Don’t be silly, Esmé; go back to bed.”
“Dear.” She put her hand under his arm and attempted to raise him. “Come with me. I am afraid.”
She looked frightened; her face was blanched and tense; her whole body trembled. He stared at her, amazed. Then clumsily he got on to his feet and stood unsteadily before her, assisted by her supporting hand. Slowly she led him towards the door. He appeared reluctant to go with her; and at the door he halted irresolutely and attempted, without success, to free himself from her hold. Her grasp on his arm tightened.
“Come with me,” she urged.
“I’ve never known you to be so foolish before,” he said. “Why should a little wind make you nervous? It blows hard often enough to have accustomed you to it.”
“I don’t feel well, Paul,” she pleaded. “I want you with me.”
She drew him on towards the stairs. He took hold of the banister and mounted, stumbling, and kicking against each stair in his progress. She got him as far as the landing; but when she strove to draw him on towards the bedroom he resisted.
“You go on,” he said. “I must go down and switch off the lights?”
“Never mind the lights,” she urged. “Come with me, dear.”
“I must go down,” he repeated with irritable obstinacy. “I won’t be a minute. Go on, and get into bed. I’ll be up in a minute.”
“No,” she persisted, and got between him and the stairs, and put out a hand to hinder his descent. “Stay with me, Paul, I don’t want you to go down again.”
With darkening looks, and anger kindling in his resentful eyes, he endeavoured to push past her. He shook off her hold roughly, and made a clumsy movement forward, lurching against her heavily, with a force and suddenness which caused her to overbalance. She threw out a hand wildly to catch at the rail, missed it, and fell headlong down the stairs, landing with a crash upon the floor of the hall, where she lay, an inert and crumpled figure, with white upturned face showing deathlike in the artificial light.
Hallam swayed forward dizzily and clutched at the rail and leaned against it heavily.
“My God!” he muttered, and hid his eyes from the sight of the still white face.
There came the sound of doors opening behind him. He pulled himself together quickly, and stumbled down the stairs, and knelt on the floor beside his wife. The frightened faces of the servants peered at him from the landing. He did not look up: he was stroking his wife’s hand and speaking to her softly and weeping. His tears splashed upon her hand and upon his own hand; they fell warm and wet: something else warm and wet touched his hand. Abruptly he became aware of a dark stain under Esmé’s head; it oozed slowly, and spread darkly over the polished floor. She was bleeding. That had to be stopped anyway.
The shock of the accident had sobered him; the cloud cleared away from his brain and he was able to think. Quickly he went to the telephone, hunted up a number and rang up the doctor. When he was satisfied that help would arrive speedily he returned to his post beside the unconscious figure of his wife, and slipped a pillow, which one of the servants fetched at his bidding, under her head. He moved her with infinite care. He would have lifted her and carried her upstairs, but he dared not trust himself with this task which in his sober moments he could have accomplished with the utmost ease. He sat beside her, holding her hand and crying uncontrollably, until the doctor arrived and took over the direction of affairs.
Hallam, stricken with remorse, shaken, and dazed with grief, wandered aimlessly between his study and the landing, and stood outside the bedroom door, which he dared not open, waiting in a terrible suspense for information of his wife’s condition.
A nurse appeared upon the scene. He did not know how she came there; he did not know who admitted her. He heard the subdued noise of her arrival, and later met her on the stairs, a quiet-eyed, resourceful-looking woman, who watched him with interested curiosity as he passed her and went down and shut himself in his study once more. In the cold light of the dawn the house seemed alive with movement, the stealthy rustling of people coming and going on tiptoe, and the occasional murmur of voices speaking in undertones.
After what appeared to Hallam an interminable time the doctor came downstairs. He accompanied Hallam into the study and sat down opposite to him and looked with keen, understanding eyes into the haggard face of the man whose agony of mind was written indelibly on every line of the strongly marked features. Hallam’s only question was: “Win she live?”
“Oh, yes.”
The relief of this assurance was so tremendous that he scarcely took in anything else that was said. The doctor outlined the injuries. A fractured base was the most serious of these. He asked permission to remove the patient to a nursing-home. The case required skilled nursing; it was a matter of time and care; absolute quiet and freedom from worry were essential. The removal could be accomplished that morning, if he were agreeable. Hallam nodded.
“I leave everything in your hands,” he said. “You know best.”
He felt suddenly very tired. The strain of anxiety and his long night vigil began to tell. The doctor eyed him keenly, advised food and rest, and then rose and went out to his car. Hallam closed the front door after him, and turned towards the stairs which he climbed wearily.
Outside the door of Esmé’s room he halted to listen. There was no sound from within. The nurse was in charge he knew. He had no thought of entering; he did not desire to enter. He shrank from the idea of looking upon his wife’s face: the memory of her face, still and white, with the dark fringes of her closed eyes resting on the deathlike pallor of her cheeks, haunted him; it would haunt him, he believed, all his life.
While he stood there outside her door, in the faint light that was creeping in wanly as the dawn advanced, he resolved that her life should no longer be darkened with his presence: he would go away somewhere—anywhere,—he would become lost to the world until such time as he could feel certain that the curse which was ruining their married happiness was conquered finally and for ever. Never again should the horror of it cloud her peace.
With head sunk on his breast he turned away from the door and went into his dressing-room and threw himself, dressed as he was, upon the bed.