Part 58 (1/2)

She caught her breath sharply.

”And I don't see how I can,” she added.

”One might pretend,” he said slowly, looking reflectively at her face.

”I couldn't. I can't pretend anything. That's the worst of me. And it seems so wrong to me that, to make one human being strong, another must be weak. And it seems to me that the weak thing kills the strong in the end. Like ivy, you know, choking out the life of an oak.”

”I don't think he is likely to kill you.”

”I very much wish he would, except that I dare not leave him. I have weighed it all up very carefully, and I feel it would be better to die than live this way. Sometimes I feel I shall get unclean--right inside.

I can't explain it. There are things in Louis I can't bear--little meannesses, and selfishnesses. He locks things up--even here, where no one ever comes. That's a horrible spirit of selfishness, isn't it?”

She told him calmly, uncomplainingly, impersonally as one talks to a doctor, of his locking up his cigarettes, his tobacco, his writing paper; of how he carried the only pencil about in his pocket and hid away the papers from his mother, the books from Dr. Angus until he had read them. One day last week they had been short of milk, and Marcella had been anxious about the boy's food. The breakfast was on the table; she had to run to her bedroom for a bib for Andrew. When she got back Louis had already poured all the milk into his tea, saying that he had done it by accident. Another time she had thrown away the boy's tablet of soap by accident, and could not find it anywhere. Louis had his own tablet, locked away; there was no other nearer than Klond.y.k.e except the home-made stuff composed of mutton fat and lye, very cruel to tender skin. And he had made a scene when she asked him for his soap for Andrew and, when she, too, made a scene threw it away into the scrub where she could not find it. Little things--little straws that showed the way of the hurricane.

”You see,” she said calmly. ”It wouldn't do for me to die, and leave Andrew to that sort of love, would it? I knew a little boy once who had to look after his father,” and she told him of Jimmy Peters on the s.h.i.+p.

”I think if it came to dying, the only thing would be to take Andrew along too.”

”Don't you think you're being rather conceited?” he said suddenly. ”Has it occurred to you that you're taking too much on yourself? You admit that you're keeping your husband a parasite. Are you going to do the same to your child? Are you the ultimate kindliness of the world? You tell me of your own stern childhood. Has it hurt you? You must be logical, you know!” he added, smiling at her.

”I think I want Andrew to be happy rather than heroic. Heroism is such a cold fierce thing. I'm only just realizing what a coward I've been, and how utterly unheroic my hope in Louis has been. But it's so natural, isn't it? I didn't dare face the rest of life without the belief that some day we should be happy. Every time he gets drunk I've told myself, very decidedly, that this was the last time. And I know I've been lying to myself because I daren't face the truth.”

Kraill smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes.

”I suppose it never occurred to you that, without the drink to consider, you would not be happy with him?” he said at last.

”Oh yes. We are quite happy in between,” she said with a sigh.

”On the edge of things? Always with reservations?” he said quickly.

”Only on the edge of things,” she said slowly. ”How well you know!”

”I know all about it. I have never been past the edge of things myself.

But always I think I shall be some day. I suppose I am quite twice your age, and still I am romantic, still I think there's a miracle waiting for me round the corner of life.”

”I used to think that until just a little while ago. I used to think there would be a day when I should s.h.i.+ne. Now I daren't think of it because I know I never shall. After all, stars and suns and things must be lonely, don't you think?”

”I don't know.”

The moon sank, the dawn wind ruffled the gra.s.s and whispered in the tops of the rustling trees, making soft, eerie sounds.

She stood up suddenly. Unconsciously she held out her hand to help him up. Then she laughed bitterly, and twisted her hands in each other behind her.

”I'm sorry. I forgot you didn't need helping up,” she said. He looked at her curiously.

”This is an appalling way to treat a guest,” she said as they walked slowly towards home. ”To sit out with him in the middle of the night and keep him awake. You make me selfish. I've never talked about Louis to anyone before. You make me dependent, Professor Kraill.”

”And that, you say, is what you need.”

Louis was calling out thickly, wildly, as they came within distance. She started and began to hurry. ”I wouldn't go in there!” said Kraill sharply.