I
Peter's child was born on a night of frost when the stars were hard and fierce and a full moon, dull gold, flung high shadows upon the town.
During the afternoon the fear that had been in Clare's eyes for many weeks suddenly flamed into terror—the doctor was sent for and Peter was banished from the room.
Peter looked ludicrously, pitifully young as he sat, through the evening, in his room at the top of the house, staring in front of him, his face grey with anxiety, his broad shoulders set back as though ready for a blow; his strong fingers clutched the things on his writing-table, held them, dropped them, just like the hands of a blind man about the shining surface, tapping the wood.
He saw her always as he had seen her last night when she had caught his arm crying—“If I die, Peter.... Oh, Peter, if I die!”... and he had comforted and stroked her hair, warming her cold fingers.
How young she was, how tiny for this suffering—and it was he, he who had brought it upon her! Now, she was lying in her bed, as he had once seen his mother lie, with her hair spread about the pillow, her hands gripping the sheets, her eyes wide and black—the vast, hard bed-room closing her in, shutting her down—
She who loved comfort, who feared any pain, who would have Life safe and easy, that she should be forced—
The house was very still about him—no sound came up to him; it seemed to him that the hush was deliberate. The top branches of the trees in the little orchard touched his window and tapped ever and again; a fire burnt brightly, he had drawn his curtains and beyond the windows the great sheet of stars, the black houses, the white light of the moon.
And there, before him—what mockery! the neat pages of “The Stone House” now almost completed.
He stared into the wall and saw her face, her red-gold hair upon the pillow, her dark staring eyes—
Once the nurse came to him—Yes, she was suffering, but all went well ... it would be about midnight, perhaps. There was no cause for alarm....
He thought that the nurse looked at him with compassion. He turned fiercely upon Life that it should have brought this to them when they were both so young.
At last, about ten o'clock, able no longer to endure the silence of the house—so ominous—and the gentle tap-tap of the branches upon the pane and the whispering crackle of the fire, he went out....
A cold hard unreal world received him. Down Sloane Street the lines of yellow lamps, bending at last until they met in sharp blue distance, were soft and misty against the outline of the street, the houses were unreal in the moonlight, a few people passed quickly, their footsteps sharp in the frosty air—all the little painted doors of Sloane Street were blind and secret.
He passed through Knightsbridge, into the Park. As the black trees closed him in the fear of London came, tumbling upon him. He remembered that day when he had sat, shivering, on a seat on the Embankment, and had heard that note, sinister, threatening, through the noise and clattering traffic. He heard it again now. It came from the heart of the black trees that lined the moonlit road, a whisper, a thread of sound that accompanied him, pervaded him, threatened him. The scaly beast knew that another victim was about to be born—another woman was to undergo torture, so that when the day came and the scaly beast rose from its sleep then there would be one more to be devoured.
He, Peter, was to have a child. He had longed for a child ever since he could remember. He had always loved children—other people's children—but to have one of his own!... To have something that was his and Clare's and theirs alone, to have its love, to feel that it depended Upon them both, to watch it, to tend it—Life could have no gift like that.
But now the child was hidden from him. He thought of nothing but Clare, of her suffering and terror, of her waiting there so helplessly for the dreadful moment of supreme pain. The love that he had now for Clare was something more tender, more devoted, than he had ever felt for any human being. His mind flew back fiercely to that night of his first quarrel when she had told him. Now he was to be punished for his heartlessness and cruelty ... by her loss.
His agony and terror grew as he paced beneath the dark and bending trees. He sat down on a seat, at the other end of which was a little man with a bowler hat, spectacles and his coat collar turned up. He was a shabby little man and his thin bony hands beat restlessly upon his knees.
The little man said, “Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening,” said Peter, staring desperately in front of him.
“It's all this blasted government—”
“I beg your pardon—”
“This blasted government—This income tax and all—”
“It's more than that,” said Peter, wishing that the man would cease beating his knees with his hands—
“It's them blasted stars—it's Gawd. That's what it is. Curse Gawd—that's what I say—Curse Gawd!”
“What's He done?” said Peter.
“I've just broken in my wife's 'ead with a poker. Killed 'er I expect—I dunno—going back to see in a minute—”
“Why did you do it?”
“'Ad to—always nagging—that's what she was—always nagging. Wanted things—all sorts o' things—and there were always children coming—So we 'ad a blasted argyment this evening and I broke 'er 'ead open—Gawd did it—that's what I say—”
Peter said nothing.
“You can call a bloomin' copper if you want to,” the little man said.
“It's no business of mine,” said Peter and he got up and left him. All shadows—only the sinister noise that London makes is real, that and Clare's suffering.
He left the Park turned into Knightsbridge and came upon a toyshop. The shutters had not been put up and the lights of a lamp shone full upon its windows. Against the iron railings opposite and the high white road these toys stood with sharp, distinct outline behind the slanting light of the glass. There were dolls—a fine wedding doll, orange blossom, lace and white silk, and from behind it all, the sharp pinched features and black beady eyes stared out.... There was a Swiss doll with bright red cheeks, red and green clothing and shoes with shining buckles. Then there were the more ordinary dolls—and gradually down the length of the window, their clothing was taken from them until at last some wooden creatures with flaring cheeks and brazen eyes kicked their limbs and defied the proprieties.
He would be a Boy ... he would not care about dolls....
There were soldiers—rows and rows of gleaming soldiers. They came from a misty distance at the top of the shop window, came marching from the gates of some dark, mediæval castle. Their swords caught the lamplight, shining in a line of silver and the precision with which they marched, the certainty with which they trod the little bridge ... ah, these were the fellows! He would be a Boy ... soldiers would enchant him! He should have boxes, boxes, boxes!
There were many other things in the window; teddy bears and animals with soft woolly stomachs and fat comfortable legs—and there were ugly, modern Horrors with fat bulging faces and black hair erect like wire; there were little devils with red tails, there were rabbits that rode bicycles and monkeys that climbed trees. There were drums—big drums and little drums—trumpets with crimson tassels, and in one corner a pyramid of balls, balls of every colour, and at the top of the pyramid a tiny ball of peacock blue, hanging, balancing, daintily, supremely right in pose and gesture.
It had gesture. It caught Peter's eye—Peter stood with his nose against the pane, his heart hammering—“Oh! she is suffering—My God, how she is suffering!”—and there the little blue ball caught him, held him, encouraged him.
“I will belong to your boy one day” it seemed to say.
“It shall be the first thing I will buy for him—” thought Peter.
He turned now amongst the light and crowds of Piccadilly. He walked on without seeing and hearing—always with that thought in his heart—“She is in terrible pain. How can God be so cruel? And she was so happy—before I came she was so happy—now—what have I done to her?”
Never, before to-night, had he felt so sharply, so irretrievably his sense of responsibility. Here now, before him, at this birth of his child, everything that he had done, thought, said—everything that he had been—confronted him. He was only twenty-seven but his shoulders were heavy with the confusion of his past. Looking back upon it, he saw a helpless medley of indecisions, of sudden impulses, sudden refusals; into the skeins of it, too, there seemed to be dragged the people that had made up his life—they faced him, surrounded him, bewildered him!
What right had he, thus encompassed, to hand these things on to another? His father, his grandfather ... he saw always that dark strain of hatred, of madness, of evil working in their blood. Suppose that as his boy grew he should see this in the young eyes? Suppose, most horrible of all, that he should feel this hatred for his son that his grandfather had felt for his father, that his father had felt for him.
What had he done?... He stopped, staring confusedly about him. The people jostled him on every side. The old devils were at him—“Eat and drink for to-morrow we die.... Give it up ... We're too strong for you and we'll be too strong for your son. Who are you to defy us? Come down—give it up—”
His white face caught attention. “Move along, guv'nor,” some one shouted. A man took him by the arm and led up a dark side street. He turned his eyes and saw that the man was Maradick.