Part 3 (2/2)

He was expecting at every moment that Foster would enter, and yet he knew that he would not. He continued to turn his head toward the door, but it was so dark there that you could not see. The whole room was dark except just there by the fireplace, where the two candlesticks went whining with their miserable twinkling plaint.

He went into the dining-room and sat down to his meal. But he could not eat anything. It was odd - that place by the table where Foster's chair should be. Odd, naked, and made a man feel lonely.

He got up once from the table and went to the window, opened it and looked out. He listened for something. A trickle as of running water, a stir, through the silence, as though some deep pool were filling to the brim. A rustle in the trees, perhaps. An owl hooted. Sharply, as though someone had spoken to him unexpectedly behind his shoulder, he closed the window and looked back, peering under his dark eyebrows into the room.

Later on he went up to bed.

Had he been sleeping, or had he been lying lazily as one does, half dozing, half luxuriously not thinking? He was awake now, utterly awake, and his heart was beating with apprehension. It was as though someone had called him by name. He slept always with his window a little open and the blind up. Tonight the moonlight shadowed in sickly fas.h.i.+on the objects in his room. It was not a flood of light nor yet a sharp splash, silvering a square, a circle, throwing the rest into ebony darkness. The light was dim, a little green, perhaps, like the shadow that comes over the hills just before dark.

He stared at the window, and it seemed to him that something moved there. Within, or, rather, against the green-gray light, something silver-tinted glistened. Fenwick stared. It had the look, exactly, of slipping water.

Slipping water! He listened, his head up, and it seemed to him that from beyond the window he caught the stir of water, not running, but rather welling up and up, gurgling with satisfaction as it filled and filled.

He sat up higher in bed, and then saw that down the wallpaper beneath the window water was undoubtedly trickling. He could see it lurch to the projecting wood of the sill, pause, and then slip, slither down the incline. The odd thing was that it fell so silently.

Beyond the window there was that odd gurgle, but in the room itself absolute silence. Whence could it come? He saw the line of silver rise and fall as the stream on the window-ledge ebbed and flowed.

He must get up and close the window. He drew his legs above the sheets and blankets and looked down.

He shrieked. The floor was covered with a s.h.i.+ning film of water. It was rising. As he looked it had covered half the short, stumpy legs of the bed. It rose without a wink, a bubble, a break! Over the sill it poured now in a steady flow, but soundless. Fenwick sat up in the bed, the clothes gathered up to his chin, his eyes blinking, the Adam's apple throbbing like a throttle in his throat.

But he must do something, he must stop this! The water was now level with the seats of the chairs, but still was soundless. Could he but reach the door!

He put down his naked foot, then cried again. The water was icy cold. Suddenly, leaning, staring at its dark, unbroken sheen, something seemed to push him forward. He fell. His head, his face was under the icy liquid; it seemed adhesive and, in the heart of its ice, hot like melting wax. He struggled to his feet. The water was breast-high. He screamed again and again. He could see the looking-gla.s.s, the row of books, the picture of Durer's ”Horse,” aloof, impervious. He beat at the water, and flakes of it seemed to cling to him like scales of fish, clammy to his touch. He struggled, plowing his way toward the door.

The water now was at his neck. Then something had caught him by the ankle. Something held him. He struggled, crying, ”Let me go! Let me go! I tell you to let me go! I hate you! I hate you! I will not come down to you! I will not -”

The water covered his mouth. He felt that someone pushed in his eyeb.a.l.l.s with bare knuckles. A cold hand reached up and caught his naked thigh.

In the morning the little maid knocked and, receiving no answer, came in, as was her wont, with his shaving-water.

What she saw made her scream. She ran for the gardener.

They took the body with its staring, protruding eyes, its tongue sticking out between the clenched teeth, and laid it on the bed.

The only sign of disorder was an overturned water jug. A small pool of water stained the carpet.

It was a lovely morning. A twig of ivy idly, in the little breeze, tapped the pane.

JOHN COLLIER.

LITTLE MEMENTO.

A young man who was walking fast came out of a deep lane onto a wide hilltop s.p.a.ce, where there was a hamlet cl.u.s.tered about a green. The setting encompa.s.sed a pond, ducks, the Waggoner Inn, with white paint and swinging sign; in fact, all the fresh, clean, quiet, ordinary appurtenances of an upland Somerset hamlet.

The road went on, and so did the young man, over to the very brink of the upland, where a white gate gave upon a long garden well furnished with fruit trees, and at the end of it a snug little house sheltered by a coppice and enjoying a view over the vast vale below. An old man of astonis.h.i.+ngly benevolent appearance was pottering about in the garden. He looked up as the hiker, Eric Gaskell, approached his gate.

”Good morning,” said he. ”A fine morning!”

”Good morning,” said Eric Gaskell.

”I have had my telescope out this morning,” said the old man. ”I don't often get down the hill these days. The way back is a little too steep for me. Still, I have my view and my telescope. I think I know all that goes on.”

”Well, that's very nice,” said Eric.

”It is,” said the old man. ”You are Mr. Gaskell?”

”Yes,” said Eric. ”I know. We met at the vicarage.”

”We did,” said the old man. ”You often take your walk this way. I see you go by. Today I thought, Now this is the day for a chat with young Mr. Gaskell! Come in.”

”Thanks,” said Eric. ”I will, for a spell.”

”And how,” said the old man, opening his gate, ”do you and Mrs. Gaskell like Somerset?”

”Enormously,” said Eric.

”My housekeeper tells me,” said the old man, ”that you come from the East Coast. Her niece is your little maid. You don't find it too dull here? Too old-fas.h.i.+oned?”

”We like that part of it best,” said Eric.

”In these days,” said the old man, ”young people like old-fas.h.i.+oned things. That's a change from my day. Now most of us who live about here are old codgers, you know. There's Captain Felton, of course, but the Vicar, the Admiral, Mr. Coperus, and the rest - all old codgers. You don't mind that?”

”I like it,” said Eric.

”We have our hobbies,” said the old man. ”Coperus is an antiquarian; the Admiral has his roses.”

”And you have your telescope,” said Eric.

”Ah, my telescope,” said the old man. ”Yes, yes, I have my telescope. But my princ.i.p.al pastime - what I really plume myself on - is my museum.”

”You have a museum?” said Eric.

”Yes, a museum,” said the old man. ”I should like you to have a look at it and tell me what you think.”

”I shall be delighted,” said Eric.

”Then come right in,” said the old man, leading him toward the house. ”I seldom have the chance of showing my collection to a newcomer. You must bring Mrs. Gaskell one of these days. Does she find enough entertainment in this quiet part, do you think?”

”She loves it,” said Eric. ”She can't see too much of the country here. She drives every day in her red roadster.”

”All by herself,” said the old man. ”Does she like the house?”

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