Chapter XVI: Mr. Lemon Wakes Up

"I was that impatient that I hardly knew what to do. Minutes was like dymens, and there Lemon lay like a log. Couldn't I bring him to his senses somehow or other? I tried. I walked about heavy. I threw down things. I even turned Lemon over, but it had no more effect on him than water on a duck's back. He never give so much as a murmur, and I don't think a earthquake would have roused him. I had to give it up as a bad job, but I felt that it would be a mockery for me to go to bed, because in the state I was in it wasn't likely I could git a wink of sleep. Then I knew, too, that there wouldn't be a minute to lose when Lemon opened his eyes, and that it was my duty to git everything ready. So I spread out Lemon's clothes in regular order, not forgetting his clean Sunday shirt, and I put on my bonnet and cloak, and set down and waited all through that blessed night, looking at Lemon. I didn't hear a sound in the room up-stairs, so I supposed that Devlin was asleep, and I thought how dreadful it was to have a man like that in the house, a man as spoke of murder as though he enjoyed it. The only sound that come to my ears two or three times in the night was the policeman on his beat outside as he passed through the square, and you may guess, sir, I didn't get any comfort out of that. I had my fancies, but I shook 'em off, though they made me shake and shiver. One of 'em was that all of a sudden, jest as the policeman had passed by, there rung through the square shrieks of 'Murder! murder!' and millions of people seemed to be battering at the street-door and crying that they'd tear Lemon and me to pieces. It didn't seem as if they wanted to hurt Devlin, for there he was, standing and grinning at us and the people, with that aggravating look on his face that makes me burn to fly at him, if I only had the courage. Of course it was all fancy, sir; but how would you like to pass sech a night?

"At nine o'clock this morning, and not a minute before, Lemon woke up. I had a cup of tea ready for him in the bedroom, and a slice of bread and butter. He's gone off his breakfast for a long time past, and one slice of bread and butter is as much as he can git down, if he can do that. Before I took Devlin as a lodger, Lemon used to eat a big breakfast, never less than a couple of rashers, and a couple of boiled eggs on the top of that, and four or five slices of bread and butter cut thick. It is a bad sign when a man begins to say he's got no appetite for breakfast. If his stomach ain't going all to pieces, it's something worse, perhaps.

"'Why, Fanny,' said Lemon, seeing me with my bonnet on, 'have you been out? What's the time?'

"He spoke quite calm and cheerful; the sleeping draught had done him good, and had made him forgit.

"'The time's nine o'clock, Lemon,' I answered, 'and I ain't been out.'

"'What's to-day?' he asked.

"'Sunday,' I answered.

"'Sunday!' he exclaimed. 'It's funny. Everything seems mixed. Sunday, is it? But, I say, Fanny, if you ain't been out, what have you got your bonnet on for?'

"'I'm waiting for you,' I said. 'Git up, quick, you must come with me at once.'

"'Come with you at once,' he said, rubbing his eyes, to make sure whether he was awake or asleep; and then he must have seen something in my face, for he looked at me strange, and left off rubbing his eyes, and began to rub his forehead. 'I can't understand it. Has anything gone wrong?'

"'Lemon,' I said, speaking very solemn, and speaking as I felt, 'you know too well what has gone wrong, and I only hope you may be forgiven.'

"I shouldn't have stopped short in the middle if it hadn't been that we heard Devlin moving about in the room up-stairs. I looked up at the ceiling, and so did Lemon, and when I saw his face grow white I knew that mine was growing white as well; and I knew, too, that Lemon was gitting his memory back.

"'Speak low, speak low,' he whispered. 'Devlin mustn't hear a word we say. You hope I may be forgiven! For what? What have I done? O, my head, my head! It feels as if it was going to burst!'

"His face begun to get flushed, and the veins swelled out. I thought to myself, I must be careful with Lemon; I mustn't be too sudden with him, or he'll have another fit. I was going to speak soothing, when he clapped his hand on my mouth and almost stopped my breath.

"'Don't say nothing yet,' he said. 'You must tell me something first that I want to know. I feel so confused--so confused! What's been the matter with me? I don't remember going to bed last night.'

"'You fell down in a fit, Lemon,' I said, 'and I had to get the doctor to you.'

"'Yes, yes,' he said eagerly. 'Go on--go on.'

"'We carried you up-stairs here, the doctor and me, and undressed you and put you to bed; and when you come out of your fit he give you a sleeping draught.'

"'It's not that I want to know,' he said. 'What _made_ me go into a fit? I never had a fit before, as I remember. O Fanny, is it all a dream?'

"'Lemon,' I answered, 'you must ask your conscience; I can't answer you. You come home with a evening paper in your pocket, a-moaning and crying, and you ketches hold of me, and looks round as if a ghost had follered you into the room, and then you falls down in your fit.'

"'And him?' he said, pointing to the ceiling. 'Him--Devlin? Was he with me? Did he see me while I was in the fit?'

"'No,' I answered. 'He come home after we'd got you to bed, and said he wanted to see you; but I wouldn't let him. I whipped up-stairs here, and turned the key, so as he shouldn't git at you.'

"'You did right, you did right. Was he angry?'

"'If he was, he didn't show it. He kep with me a long time, talking about the--the----'

"'About the what?' asked Lemon, the perspiration breaking out on him.

"'About the murder! Well may you shiver! It was in the newspaper you brought home with you, and he read it out loud, and talked about it in a way as froze my blood.'

"'Blood!' groaned Lemon, 'Blood! O Fanny, Fanny!'

"He is my husband, sir, and he was suffering, and I ain't ashamed to say that I took him in my arms, and tried to comfort him.

"'One word, Lemon,' I said, 'only one word before we go on. You ain't guilty, are you?'

"'Guilty?' he answered, but speaking quite soft; we neither of us raised our voices above a whisper 'My God, no! How could I be? Wasn't I at home and abed when it was done? O, it's horrible! horrible! and I don't know what to think.'

"'Thank God, you're innocent!' I said, and I was so grateful in my heart that my eyes brimmed over. 'And you didn't have nothing to do with the planning of it? Tell me that.'

"'No, Fanny,' he said. '_Him_ up-stairs there--did _he_ sleep at home last night?'

"'Unless there's something going on too awful to think of,' I said, 'he did. I ain't been in bed, Lemon, since home you come yesterday and had your fit. And here in this room I've been setting with you from the time I put the chain on the street-door last night till now. I've only left you once--to take in the milk at seven o'clock this morning, and then the chain was on; it hadn't been touched. No one went out of this house last night by the street-door.'

"'They couldn't have gone out no other way,' said Lemon.

"'I don't see how they could,' I said, though I had my thoughts.

"'And the night before, Fanny,' said Lemon, and now he looked at me as if life and death was in my answer, 'the night it was done, did he sleep at home then?'

"'To the best of my belief he did,' I said. 'You may put me on the rack and tear me with red hot pinchers, and I can't say nothing but the truth. He _did_ sleep here the night that awful murder was done in Victoria Park. Drag me to the witness-box and put me in irons, and I can't say nothing else. I saw him go to his room after I'd put up the chain; he called out 'Good night;' and the next morning the chain was up jest as I left it. You can't put the chain on the street-door from the outside; it must be done from the in. And now, Lemon, listen to me.'

"'What do you want?' he groaned. 'O, what do you want? Ain't I bad enough already that you try to make me worse?'

"'I _must_ say, Lemon, what is on my mind.'

"'Won't it keep, Fanny?' he asked.

"'It won't keep,' I answered. 'You know the man as committed the murder, and you'll come with me to the police-station, and put the police on his track.'

"'_Me_ know the wretch!' Lemon cried, his eyes almost starting out of his head. 'Have you gone mad?'

"'No, Lemon,' I answered, 'I'm in my sober senses. Whatever happens afterwards, we've got to face the consequences, or we shall wake up in the middle of the night and see that poor girl standing at our bedside pointing her finger at us. It's no use trying to disguise it. I _know_ you know the wretch, and deny it you shan't.'

"'O,' he said, speaking very slow, as if he was choosing words, 'you know I know him!'

"'I do,' I answered.

"'Perhaps,' he said, with something like a click in his throat, 'you will tell me how that's possible, when it's gospel truth I've never set eyes on him all my born days.'

"'Lemon,' I said, 'be careful, O, be careful, how you speak of gospel truth! Remember Ananias! You may beat about the bush as much as you like, but I'm determined to do what I've made up my mind to, and nothing shall drive me from it.'

"'Of course,' he said, upon that, and speaking flippant, 'if you've made up your mind to the egstent you speak of, I'd best shut my mouth. I'll keep it shut till you tell me how you know what you say you know.'

"'Lemon,' I said, 'light you speak, but sech you don't feel. You can't deceive me. When we was first married, you slep the sleep of innocence, and your breathing was that regular as showed you had nothing on your mind to take egsception to. But since that Devlin come into the house, the way you've gone on of a night is simply awful. Jumping about in bed as you've been doing night after night, and screaming and talking in your sleep----'

"'Talking in my sleep!' he cried, and I saw that I'd scared him. 'You shouldn't have let me! Call yourself a wife? You should have stopped me!'

"'I couldn't help letting you, and I couldn't have stopped you, Lemon, and I'm not sure whether it would have been right to do it if sech was in my power.'

"'What have I said, what have I said?' he asked.

"'The night before last as ever was,' I said, 'when that dreadful deed was done as was printed in the paper you brought home yesterday, you said, while you was laying asleep on the very bed you're laying on now, words as chilled my blood, and it's a mercy I'm alive to tell it. You spoke of Victoria Park; you spoke of a beautiful young girl with hair the colour of gold; you spoke--O, Lemon, Lemon!--you spoke of her being stabbed to the heart; you spoke of a bunch of white daisies as she wore in her belt, and you said there was blood on 'em----'

"I had to stop myself, sir; for Lemon had hid his face in the bedclothes, and was shaking like a man with Sam Witus's dance in his marrer. I let him lay till he got over it a bit, and then he uncovered his face; it was as white as a sheet.

"'Fanny,' he said--and he was hardly able to get his words out--'there's the Bible on the mantelshelf, there. Bring it to me.'"