Chapter XIII: Part V: The Consolidation (4)

"How thankful I am that I didn't tell her--something! Oh, I don't think I could bear her to die for him as she said she would! And I do hope he's not been so foolish as to--leave anything about; anything that might tell her, I mean; she can't bear what I can bear. But he wouldn't. He wouldn't cover it all up so cleverly to go and uncover it himself. I always knew it would happen if that insect got in his way; Jim wouldn't think twice about it, except how to make himself safe.... Was it Kitty Windus who told me that about him--about his father having been an English merchant captain and his mother a Corsican woman he found dancing in a sailors' cafe in Marseilles? If it wasn't Kitty I dreamed it; mother's done a most foolish lot of dreaming; but it must have been Kitty. They say they do that kind of thing in Corsica. I shall never know.... Well, it doesn't matter.... Poor little Jimmy...."

She deliberately tried herself, to see whether she was capable of emotion about him. She seemed to be quite incapable. "I'm simply callous," she thought.... She tried several days later, on the day of his funeral; the words she repeated to herself had no meaning for her; "gone," was merely a thing of four letters, "never" one of five. The word "absence" she quite failed to understand. She heard that Mrs. Jeffries was prostrated, but quite as well as could be expected in the circumstances. Perhaps Mrs. Jeffries too was repeating the words "gone" and "never." Louie wondered whether she would marry again. It would not surprise her.

Well, if Evie Jeffries could live, Louie could live.

A piece of news, however, which she had from Billy Izzard one night--this was three weeks later, but her stony insensibility had not changed--filled her, she could not have told why, with a quite different disquietude. It appeared that Billy had felt himself permitted to call on Mrs. Jeffries, and had found her (so he told Louie) busy with her husband's private papers. Sir Julius also had been there, to advise if advice was necessary; and Sir Julius had been of opinion that the painful task would be more quickly over if Mrs. Jeffries would have a number of papers that were written in shorthand transcribed by a clerk, if a trustworthy one could be found. "In fact, he mentioned your name," said Billy. But it appeared that Mrs. Jeffries knew some shorthand, had other reasons, and so forth. She had refused to have the papers transcribed. Naturally they had not said much with Billy there, who, indeed, had not stayed many minutes; but he had gathered that the papers formed some sort of a journal.

Louie felt her flesh grow queerly crisp. This, by the way, was in a little restaurant not far from the Palace Theatre. Louie had had three consecutive nights at home, and felt that a fourth would kill her. She and Billy were going to the Palace afterwards.

"A journal?" she said slowly.

"Well, Pepper rather thought a novel of some sort; I'd a talk with him afterwards; but I suppose he only knows what Mrs. Jeffries tells him. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that poor old Jeff dabbled a bit in that sort of thing. I'm quite sure he'd have made a painter. One of the big sort he was, the Titian, Leonardo, Cellini sort--the big men, who can take an art or so in their stride."

"What made Sir Julius think it might be a novel?" Louie hoped that her new agitation did not show.

"My dear girl, you know as much about it as I do."

"And it was in shorthand?" she demanded.

"Yes."

"His own?"

"I'm sure I can't say. It was in his desk though. Why?"

"And you say Mrs. Jeffries is reading it herself?"

"Well, when Pepper suggested you--and a Miss Levey, I remember, whoever she is----"

"Miriam Levey? Yes?" Louie said, with a jerk.

Billy looked hard at her. "What's the matter?" he said abruptly. "You're as queer as Mrs. Jeffries herself was about it."

"She was queer? How, queer?"

"Oh, I don't know. How can one describe things like that--just impressions one gets?"

"Did she strike you as queer because she'd perhaps read some of it?"

"Well, I understand it was private----"

"You mean she _must_ have read some of it to find that out?"

"I suppose so."

Again Louie had that curious crawling of her flesh. She hesitated for a moment; then, slowly:

"What sort of terms are you on with Mrs. Jeffries, Billy?"

Billy stared. "Oh, quite all right--I don't understand----"

"Have you any influence over her?"

"What sort of influence?"

Louie hesitated again. After all, it might be only a fear. She went on. "Say influence enough to advise her about reading that journal, or novel, or whatever it is?"

"Lord, no!" said Billy. "I was his friend, hardly hers, you see."

"Well, if it could be put as a matter of friendship with him?" Louie was speaking almost feverishly now.

"I wish I knew exactly what you meant," said Billy.

"Order me another cup of coffee. That's what I can't tell you, because I don't know myself. But let me ask another question. Do you happen to know whether there are any real names in this thing, whatever it is?"

"Really, I----"

"Just a moment. I'll tell you why I asked. If this is a journal, and has names of people in it, the chances are mine's there."

Billy was quick enough. He nodded. "I see; at least I think I see. You mean about his coming in that night and Mrs. Jeffries possibly not liking it? Well, to tell the truth I don't think she did much. I could have bitten my tongue out when I'd told her; but I suppose everybody doesn't look on these things quite as we do. You mean in a word--excuse me for putting it rather stupidly--that she's jealous and thinks she can find out the truth? Supposing there was any 'truth' to find out, I mean?"

"That's the idea. Of course there was no 'truth.'"

"Well? Why not let her discover that and make her happy, poor thing? You see, he was her husband."

Louie winced, but continued. "That's all right as far as it goes; but if there's one name there are probably others."

Billy looked sharply at her. "Other women? Jeffries? Don't you believe it!"

"I didn't say women."

"What then?"

"I can't tell you. And perhaps I'm altogether wrong. But if I'm not wrong, Billy," she said earnestly, "and you've any interest in Mrs. Jeffries at all--say interest enough to want to spare her a shock--she oughtn't to be allowed to read that journal--always supposing it is a journal."

Billy gave a short laugh. "Really, Louie! Is this the Surrey or Sadlers Wells?... You're not serious, are you? Of course it's bound to be painful for her at the best, but she's getting on very well--better than we could have hoped."

Louie made a little despairing gesture. "Well, I can't tell you any more."

"Well, if it's as important as all that, why don't _you_ tell her?"

"I couldn't do that either. Look here, Billy, couldn't you find out about this for me?"

"Oh, dash it all--how can I?"

The saucer of Louie's coffee cup was full of ashes; she added another butt and reached for Billy's case. She looked Billy full in the eyes as he struck a match for her.

"Do you go much to Iddlesleigh Gate?"

"Well, just at present, you see----"

"I mean, _could_ you go? Where does all this take place? In that library? (Yes, I've been once.)"

"Yes. At least that's where we were that night."

Still Louie looked steadily into his eyes. "Now this really _is_ Surrey and Sadlers Wells," she said. "Could you get those papers out of her way--anyhow--so that she doesn't read them?"

Billy twinkled a little. "It takes a woman to do these things, Louie."

"Suppose without asking any questions, if you did I'd--marry Roy?" After all, to marry Roy would be no worse than anything else now.

The twinkle disappeared. Billy was grave again.

"I'd like you to marry Roy, Louie."

"Well ... is it a bet?"

But Billy only shook his head. This was all very well at the Surrey and Sadlers Wells, but----

"It's a physical impossibility," he said. "And if it wasn't, I wouldn't."

"That's final?" said Louie, looking into his eyes for the last time.

"My dear girl----"

Louie rose. "All right. Then we may as well get across to the Palace and see Marie Lloyd."

Could she have said more? She did not see that she could. The chance loomed tremendously large now that Jim _had_ been fool enough to write things after all, and perhaps his wife was reading that journal, if it was a journal, even then----

Louie could not stop her--no power on earth could stop her. What Jim had evidently not told her during his life she would read for herself now that he had gone.

He would have done better to tell her.

But there: perhaps it was not a journal----

ENVOI

"Er--Miss Causton," Sir Julius called--"can you stay for an hour or so? No, a private affair; I hope it's not inconvenient; thanks."

He was sickly white and tired-looking; Louie's feet dragged, and her brain was as stupid as clay. She was sorry for Sir Julius; _he_ had had no preparation; as for Louie, it seemed to her now that she had been passing from preparation to preparation for such things for the whole of her life. This of the morning paper was only the latest of her fulfilments. The prophets, she thought dully, must have been very weary men.... But on second thoughts perhaps Sir Julius ought to have been sorry for _her_. Even shock is better than foreknowledge.

For of course Sir Julius wanted her to stay in connection with this of Mrs. Jeffries.

She had put on her hat and coat for departure; as if she walked in her sleep, she passed out of Sir Julius's room and removed them again. She bathed her face, but felt little fresher; then she returned.

It was about Mrs. Jeffries. It was about them both. Then Louie seemed to remember that Sir Julius had said something about an article on his deceased colleague for a Review. She supposed that was why he wanted her to take down his words in shorthand. Unless it was for the inquest. Gas-taps turned on, doors and windows sealed, and so forth usually meant an inquest; and they would not have far to look for her motive--suicide through natural grief. It was only that morning, but it seemed an old, old story already.

"'_Tragic Death of a Lady_,'" Sir Julius read out from a newspaper....

Well, he wouldn't want that part taken down; indeed, if he had only known what Louie knew, he would not have asked her to take anything down at all. But her notebook was on her knee and her pencil sharpened, and when Sir Julius had finished reading her hand began to write, purely functionally, of itself. It was no trouble to Louie whatever; nay, her hand was hardly called upon more than her mind; the pencil itself did it. After all, foreseeing minds could be put to better uses than the mere recording of things after the event.... "Sad business, sad business," Sir Julius was saying; and "Sad business, sad business," the obedient pencil wrote. But Louie wondered whether it was so sad after all. Evie Jeffries had had a sort of foreknowledge too; "I could die for him; you couldn't do more," Louie remembered she had once said; yet it was doubtful whether she had died for love of him after all. Call it gas-taps, or the shock of discovering that Jim had been her lover's executioner....

Still, she had died, from whatever reason, and she had been quite right in saying that Louie could have done no more.

It was strange the way the pencil wrote of itself. "A page of notes in her husband's shorthand has been found under one of the pillars of the writing-table," it wrote, and it omitted, as if it had been endowed with Louie's own intelligence, Sir Julius's interpolated remark, "I've got that page of notes, by the way." Mr. Whitlock had described to Louie one day a contrivance called a tele-writer; a pen dipped itself into a bottle of ink and wrote, unassisted, a telegraphed message; they were new, and they hadn't got them at the Consolidation yet; but they were putting them into some of the post offices, Mr. Whitlock had said. Her pencil moved like the pen of a tele-writer. She watched it, fascinated. It was writing as Sir Julius talked, about Jim now.

"--lived an intense crowded life too. I should say at a guess there weren't many things he hadn't done at one time and another, short of a murder or a matrimonial infidelity. Don't think he could have been tempted to do that. One woman could do anything she liked with him, but the others wouldn't have much chance----"

Very little chance, Louie thought. That, in a sense, had been the tragedy of it all. Louie knew more about that than Sir Julius; Louie had once said, "Come, come!" to him, in tones that might have brought angels from above and devils from below running for love, but it had not made a ha'p'orth of difference to Jim. Sir Julius seemed to be praising him for it; Louie was not sure that she could exactly do that; she could almost as soon have mocked him for it; but you neither mock nor praise a blind man merely because he is blind. It was funny that Sir Julius, with not very much to boast about himself, should set up an idol of faithfulness; and not just for somebody else to worship either; that was the funny part; men did that kind of thing; sinned, and yet worshipped, and called it "the maintenance of an ideal." They honoured Joseph, and winked when his back was turned. Perhaps they made much of him because of his rarity. Well, it was all the same to Potiphar's wife....

But all at once something seemed to have happened to the pencil. It was tele-writing very furiously. Sir Julius was reading from another piece of paper; Louie fancied, somehow, that it might be the piece that had got wafted under the pillar of Jim's desk.

"_--show him that red thing on the floor and that curved thing on
the door._"

_But now Archie in his turn seemed to have become divided. He had
turned suddenly white. But an habitual pertness still persisted
in his tongue. I don't think this had any relation whatever to
the physical peril he seemed at last to have realised he was in.
I stood over him huge and black as Fate.... "Spare him if you
can," that generous bloodthirsty devil in me muttered
quickly...._

"_Merridew," I said heavily, "you'll disappear to-morrow
morning--or----_"

"_Shall I?" he bragged falteringly...._

He seemed to have hanged him, then; "that curved thing on the door" evidently meant a hook. That was rather revolting; these were the things about murder that Louie had not wanted to know.

"Sort of grim tale he would write," said Sir Julius to the pencil; "and of course--_de mortuis_ and so on--but he did marry the wrong woman. I suppose they're together again now."

Suddenly Louie put down her notebook and pencil. Her voice, too, as she spoke, seemed to her a sort of tele-voice.

"Will you excuse me just a moment?" she said. "I'm thirsty."

She went out. When she returned, three or four minutes later, Sir Julius sniffed once or twice and asked her if she had a toothache. She took up the pencil and notebook again. Sir Julius resumed.

"What was I saying? Oh yes, about his marrying the wrong woman.... But he was a mass of contradictions, and one of 'em was that he merely idealised her. Pretty, of course, but poor Jeffries could have done better for himself than that. She never could bear me...."

Louie felt no difference yet; she did not know how long these things took. For a moment she wondered what would happen after ... and then it struck her as foolish to wonder about a thing she would know so soon. She fastened her eyes on the pencil again. It went on writing, and Louie was thinking of her loved little Jimmy now.... She could not have done very much for him; he might even have grown up to bear her some sort of a grudge; Roy would adopt him; he would be far, far better with Roy. There was a pony out at grass for him now; he would ride and shoot and fish, and his father would send him into the army; and perhaps there was already a baby girl somewhere in the world who would one day be his wife--the right wife. "Was die Mutter traeumt, das vollbringt der Sohn...."

It was far, far better....

"Well," the pencil wrote, "there's nothing to be said now, poor creatures.... Funny smell in here, Miss Causton; I'll smoke if you don't mind."

Sir Julius lighted a cigar. Its penetrating odour mingled with that of the sweet, releasing stuff.

Ah! It was coming! The pencil wrote no less quickly, but it looked a little smaller and farther away.

"But sometimes it made me almost angry that he hadn't married the woman he ought...."

Louie felt her head sinking.... Yes, the woman he ought....

That had been the real fatality....

Her lids dropped for a moment, and then heavily lifted again; but she could still see the pencil--mistily--dreamily--as if endued with a life not her own--flying on.

THE END