John Powys - Ducdame

For the third time that night he stood hesitating. He would have liked to go straight home, run at top speed home, leap up the staircase, push Pandie and his mother aside, and embrace his wife and the new-born.

But at that moment another instinct in him contended with the desire to retrace his steps; namely, the instinct just to rush over to Marsh Alley and be the first to bring the news of his son’s birth to Lexie.

Oh, he must do that. Lexie had been associated with every crisis in his life; and now — in the medley of events that had occurred since he left him at Toll-Pike — he had made no sign. To let this night of all nights pass by without seeing Lexie, would it not be something that he would regret to the end of his days? Lexie would laugh at him — he could see at this moment the face he would make — but he would be touched and pleased, all the same, at this disordered midnight visit. He could hear his voice rallying him: “So brother Rook is all ‘alive-oh’ at last!” That was the way he would fool him; that was the way he would send him back post-haste; utterly refusing, no doubt, to believe that the child was yet born; scolding him even for being so superstitious!

It was characteristic of Rook Ashover that at this particular moment of his life he should be hesitating between these two quite irrational appeals: the tug at his heart that pulled him toward a brother who would only tease him when he appeared, and the tug at his heart that pulled him toward a child whose very existence was entirely problematical!

For the third time he brought his hesitation to an end. For the third time he plucked at those earthbound feet of his and strode forward.

“I’ll throw stones at his window,” he thought, “if he’s gone to bed.” And he walked rapidly on to the centre of Foulden Bridge.

While these events were proceeding in the lives of the Squire and Lady Ann, matters were not much more quiescent or peaceful within the narrow walls of Toll-Pike Cottage.

With the help of the muscular arms of Mr. Pod the two girls had succeeded in restraining the violent excitement of the unfortunate philosopher. His thoughts still full of his book, his mind full of wild fancies, the fixed idea had taken possession of him that it was to deliver his precious work into the hands of his enemy, Rook, that Lady Ann had stolen it.

Helpless under the sturdy guardianship of his sexton gaoler the poor wretch had relapsed into that sort of petrified passivity into which rabbits and hares are wont to sink when some immense danger menaces their life.

The girls, who kept opening the door to see how he was, became more and more reassured as night drew on, believing — because it was just that they especially wanted to believe — that he had fallen into a calm, refreshing sleep, from which he would finally awake, cured of his temporary dementia.

So reassured did they become that they even prepared for themselves a little supper in Nell’s kitchen and sat talking together there in low voices, while every now and then Netta would replenish a plate on the floor from which the Marquis of Carabas licked up the morsels his fastidious heart loved.

“We should have heard if she’d been seriously upset by going so far,” Nell was saying in reply to some remark of Netta.

The other shook her head. “I’m afraid a good many things could happen in Ashover House and we remain in the dark about them here. To tell you the truth, Nell, I feel as if anything might happen to any of us to-night!”

She moved her chair a little as she spoke, so as to get it away from the window, against which the rain had now begun to beat with extraordinary violence. Both the girls turned their heads toward the streaming pane; and there fell upon them that tremulous and not always unpleasant shudder such as children experience in large shadowy gardens when they play at hide-and-seek.

“If William isn’t better when he wakes up,” said Nell presently, “I shall ask Pod to stay the night. There’s no earthly reason why he shouldn’t do that. One of us can go round and tell his wife.”

Netta nodded. “I hope Lexie is safe home,” she said suddenly, turning quickly round with a new trouble in her eyes. “Pod says he left him in his cottage when he came here, too exhausted to walk any farther.”

Nell’s mouth opened pitifully and she clapped her hands together. “Oh, Netta,” she cried, “we forgot Lexie completely! How could we do that? Oh … oh … oh….” And she rose from her chair and looked helplessly at the flood of rain which made the window seem as if it were a porthole in a wave-deluged ship.

“There’s nothing we could have done, anyhow,” said Netta soothingly. “I don’t think Mrs. Pod would let him go unless he really felt better.”

Nell looked scrutinizingly at her, as a child looks at an older person, doubtful whether it is being honestly or treacherously comforted.

“I hope you are right,” she murmured, resuming her seat. “It would be horrible if anything happened to Lexie from our thoughtlessness. But I can’t believe it will! Oh, Netta, oughtn’t one of us to go to Ashover House and get William’s book? I don’t like to think of his waking up and wanting it and not finding it!” And once more she rose from her chair.

“Nell, sit down!”

The elder woman spoke with an authority far more weighty and unhesitating than would have been possible to the Netta of five months before. She had come to exercise, even in that short time, a sort of protective domination over the young girl.

“Don’t let’s work ourselves up into unnecessary agitation,” she said, smiling. “Not that I don’t feel just as you do,” she added a moment later. “It’s as if we two were locked up together in a fortress, isn’t it? With some great battle going on outside, in which all our people are engaged, on one side or the other!” She looked at her companion thoughtfully and sighed heavily. “My whole life has been a sort of waiting,” she murmured in a low voice. “But that ’ s at an end now.”

Nell hardly heard what she was saying. A nervous restlessness, beyond what she could quite account for, made her fidgety and preoccupied.

“I can just see Lexie describing his evening with Mrs. Pod, can’t you?” went on Netta. “Can’t you see him shutting first one eye and then the other in the way he does when he’s done something he’s pleased with? There’s nothing in the world delights him more than listening to the opinions of people like Mrs. Pod.”

“Why is it that I feel so funny and nervous, then?” demanded Nell. “I know it’s not about William. I can’t tell you just how I know; but I do know…. It’s about the others.” And she looked at her friend with an expression of puzzled exasperation, as if it were a sort of unkindness on Netta’s part not to relieve her anxiety.

“Hush! Didn’t you hear something?”

It was Netta who rose to her feet this time. She went to the door into the passage and opened it.

“I thought I heard the gate clicking,” she said.

Nell jumped up hastily and pushing past her ran upstairs.

A minute later Netta heard her voice calling her by name from the room above.

“Netta! Netta! Come here!”

It hardly surprised her when she did stand by her friend’s side in that littered room to see the figure of Mr. Pod lying fast asleep in the wicker chair, while the couch they had brought in for Hastings was untenanted and empty.

“He must have slipped out in his stockings!” whispered Nell. The girl was trembling from head to foot and her face was as white as the face of the marble clock on the mantelpiece which did nothing but point to half-past eleven with a malignant emphasis.