The Destroying Angel by Louis Joseph Vance
XVIII
BLIGHT
By the time he got back to the farm-house, the woman was up, dressed inthe rent and stained but dry remnants of her own clothing (for all theirdefects, infinitely more becoming than the garments to which she hadbeen obliged to resort the previous day) and busy preparing breakfast.
There was no question but that her rest had been sound and undisturbed.If her recuperative powers had won his envy before, now she was whollymarvellous in his eyes. Her radiant freshness dazzled, her elusive butabsolute quality of charm bewitched--and her high spirits dismayed him.He entered her presence reluctantly, yielding alone to the spur ofnecessity. To keep out of her way was not only an impossibility, butwould have served to rouse her suspicions; and she must not know:however difficult the task, he must dissemble, keep her in ignorance ofhis discovery. On that point he was resolved.
"Well, sir!" she called heartily over her shoulder. "And where, pray,have you been all this long time?"
"I went for a swim," he said evasively--"thought it might do me good."
"You're not feeling well?" She turned to look him over.
He avoided her eye. "I had a bad night--probably because I had too muchsleep during the day. I got up feeling pretty rusty--the weight of myyears. Cold water's ordinarily a specific for that sort of thing, but itdidn't seem to work this time."
"Still got the hump, eh?"
"Still got the hump," he assented, glad thus to mask his unhappiness.
"Breakfast and a strong cup of tea or two will fix that," she announcedwith confidence. "It's too bad there's no coffee."
"Yes," he said--"sorry!"
"No signs of a response to our C. Q. D.?"
"None as yet. Of course, it's early."
He lounged out of the kitchen with a tin bowl, a towel and a bar ofyellow soap, and splashed conscientiously at the pump in the dooryard,taking more time for the job than was really necessary.
From her place by the stove, she watched him through a window, her eyeslike a sunlit sea dappled with shadows of clouds speeding before thewind.
He lingered outside until she called him to breakfast.
His stout attempts to match her cheerfulness during the meal felldismally short of conviction. After two or three false starts he gave itup and took refuge in his plea of indisposition. She humoured him with acovert understanding that surmised more in a second than he could havecompressed into a ten-minute confession.
The meal over, he rose and sidled awkwardly toward the door.
"You'll be busy for a while with the dishes and things, won't you?" heasked with an air meant to seem guileless.
"Oh, yes; for some time," she replied quickly.
"I--I think I'll take a stroll round the island. There might besomething like a boat hidden away somewhere along the beach."
"You prefer to go alone?"
"If you don't mind."
"Not in the least. I've plenty to occupy my idle hands. If I can findneedle and thread, for instance...." She indicated her clothing with ahumorously rueful gesture.
"To be sure," he agreed, far too visibly relieved. Then his witsstumbled. "I want to think out some things," he added mostsuperfluously.
"You won't go out of sight?" she pleaded through the window.
"It can't be done," he called back, strolling out of the dooryard withmuch show of idle indecision.
His real purpose was, in fact, definite. There was another body to beaccounted for. It was quite possible that the sea might have given it upat some other point along the island coast. True: there was no secondgathering of gulls to lend colour to this grisly theory; yet the dangerwas one to be provided against, since she was not to know.
Starting from its northwestern extreme, he made a complete circuit ofthe island, spending the greater part of the time along the edges of thewestern and southern bluffs, where he had not seldom to pause andscrutinize carefully the beach below, to make sure he had been deceivedby some half-buried rock or curiously shaped boulder.
To his intense relief, he made no further discovery other than ascattering drift of wreckage from the motor-boats.
By the time he had finished, the morning was well advanced. He turned atlength and trudged wearily up from the northern beach, through thecommunity of desolation, back toward the farm-house.
Since breakfast he had seen nothing of the girl; none of the elaboratelycasual glances which he had from time to time cast inland had discoveredany sign of her. But now she appeared in the doorway, and after a slightpause, as of indecision, moved down the path to meet him.
He was conscious that, at sight of her, his pulses quickened. Somethingswelled in his breast, something tightened the muscles of his throat.The way of her body in action, the way of the sun with her hair...!
Dismay shook him like an ague; he felt his heart divided against itself;he was so glad of her, and so afraid.... He could not keep his eyes fromher, nor could he make his desire be still; and yet ... and yet....
Walking the faster of the two, she met him midway between the house andthe beach.
"You've taken your time, Mr. Whitaker," said she.
"It was a bit of a walk," he contended, endeavouring to imitate herlightness of manner.
They paused beside one of the low stone walls that meandered in ameaningless fashion this way and that over the uplands. With a satisfiedmanner that suggested she had been seeking just that very spot, the girlsat down upon the lichened stones, then looked up to him with a smileand a slight movement of the head that plainly invited him to a placebeside her.
He towered above her, darkly reluctant.
"Do sit down. You must be tired."
"I am."
Dubiously he seated himself at a little distance.
"And only your pains for your trouble?"
He nodded.
"I watched you, off and on, from the windows. You might have beenlooking for a pin, from your painstaking air, off there along thecliffs."
He nodded again, gloomily. Her comment seemed to admit of no morecompromising method of reply.
"Then you've nothing to tell me?"
He pursed his lips, depreciatory, lifted his shoulders not quitehappily, and swung one lanky leg across the other as he slouched,morosely eyeing the sheets of sapphire that made their prison walls.
"No. There's no good news yet."
"And you've no inclination to talk to me, either?"
"I've told you I don't feel--well--exactly light-hearted this morning."
There was a little silence. She watched him askance with her fugitive,shadowy, sympathetic and shrewd smile.
"Must I make talk, then?" she demanded at length.
"If we must, I suppose--you'll have to show the way. My mind's hardlyequal to trail-breaking to-day."
"So I shall, then. Hugh...." She leaned toward him, dropping her handover his own with an effect of infinite comprehension. "Hugh," sherepeated, meeting his gaze squarely as he looked up, startled--"what'sthe good of keeping up the make-believe? You _know_!"
The breath clicked in his throat, and his glance wavered uneasily, thensteadied again to hers. And through a long moment neither stirred, butsat so, eye to eye, searching each the other's mind and heart.
At length he confessed it with an uncertain, shamefaced nod.
"That's right," he said: "I do know--now."
She removed her hand and sat back without lessening the fixity of herregard.
"When did you find it out?"
"This morning. That is, it came to me all of a sudden--" His gaze fell;he stammered and felt his face burning.
"Hugh, that's not quite honest. I know you hadn't guessed, last night--I_know_ it. How did you come to find it out this morning? Tell me!"
He persisted, as unconvincing as an unimaginative child trying toexplain away a mischief:
"It was just a little while ago. I was thinking things over--"
"Hugh!"
He shrugged sulkily.
"Hugh, look at me!"
"How did you find out?"
He was an inexpert liar. Under the witchery of her eyes, his resourcefailed him absolutely. He started to repeat, stammered, fell still, andthen in a breath capitulated.
"Before you were up--I meant to keep this from you--down there on thebeach--I found Drummond."
"Drummond!"
It was a cry of terror. She started back from him, eyes wide, cheekswhitening.
"I'm sorry.... But I presume you ought to know.... His body ... I buriedit...."
She gave a little smothered cry, and seemed to shrink in upon herself,burying her face in her hands--an incongruous, huddled shape of grief,there upon the gray stone wall, set against all the radiant beauty ofthe exquisite, sun-gladdened world.
He was patient with her, though the slow-dragging minutes during whichshe neither moved nor made any sound brought him inexpressible distress,and he seemed to age visibly, his face, settling in iron lines, graywith suffering.
At length a moan--rather, a wail--came from the stricken figure besidehim:
"Ah, the pity of it! the pity of it!... What have I done that thisshould come to me!"
He ventured to touch her hand in gentle sympathy.
"Mary," he said, and hesitated with a little wonder, remembering thatthis was the first time he had ever called her by that name--"Mary, didyou care for him so much?"
She sat, mute, her face averted and hidden.
"I'd give everything if I could have mended matters. I was fond ofDrummond--poor soul! If he'd only been frank with me from the start, allthis could have been avoided. As soon as I knew--that night when Irecognized you on the stage--I went at once to you to say I would clearout--not stand in the way of your happiness. I would have said as muchto him, but he gave me no chance."
"Don't blame him," she said softly. "He wasn't responsible."
"I know."
"How long have you known?" She swung suddenly to face him.
"For some time--definitely, for two or three days. He tried twice tomurder me. The first time he must have thought he'd done it.... Then hetried again, the night before you were carried off. Ember suspected,watched for him, and caught him. He took him away, meaning to put him ina sanitarium. I don't understand how he got away--from Ember. It worriesme--on Ember's account. I hope nothing has happened to him."
"Oh, I hope not!"
"You knew--I mean about the cause--the morphine?"
"I never guessed until that night. Then, as soon as I got overthe first awful shock, I realized he was a madman. He talkedincoherently--raved--shouted--threatened me with horrible things. Ican't speak of them. Later, he quieted down a little, but that was afterhe had come down into the cabin to--to drug himself.... It was veryterrible--that tiny, pitching cabin, with the swinging, smoking lamp,and the madman sitting there, muttering to himself over the glass inwhich the morphine was dissolving.... It happened three times before thewreck; I thought I should go out of my own mind."
She shuddered, her face tragic and pitiful.
"Poor girl!" he murmured inadequately.
"And that--that was why you were searching the beach so closely!"
"Yes--for the other fellow. I--didn't find him."
A moment later she said thoughtfully: "It was the man you saw watchingme on the beach, I think."
"I assumed as much. Drummond had a lot of money, I fancy--enough to hirea desperate man to do almost anything.... The wages of sin--"
"Don't!" she begged. "Don't make me think of that!"
"Forgive me," he said.
For a little she sat, head bowed, brooding.
"Hugh!" she cried, looking up to search his face narrowly--"Hugh, you'venot been pretending--?"
"Pretending?" he repeated, thick-witted.
"Hugh, I could never forgive you if you'd been pretending. It would betoo cruel.... Ah, but you haven't been! Tell me you haven't!"
"I don't understand.... Pretending what?"
"Pretending you didn't know who I was--pretending to fall in love withme just because you were sorry for me, to make me think it was _me_ youloved and not the woman you felt bound to take care of, becauseyou'd--you had--"
"Mary, listen to me," he interrupted. "I swear I didn't know you.Perhaps you don't understand how wonderfully you've changed. It's hardfor me to believe you can be one with the timid and distracted littlegirl I married that rainy night. You're nothing like.... Only, thatnight on the stage, as _Joan Thursday_, you _were_ that girl again. Maxtold me it was make-up; I wouldn't believe him; to me you hadn't changedat all; you hadn't aged a day.... But that morning when I saw you firston the Great South Beach--I never dreamed of associating you with mywife. Do you realize I had never seen you in full light--never knew thecolour of your hair?... Dear, I didn't know, believe me. It was you whobewitched me--not the wife for whose sake I fought against what Ithought infatuation for you. I loved--I love you only, you as youare--not the poor little girl of the Commercial House."
"Is it true?" she questioned sadly, incredulous.
"It is true, Mary. I love you."
"I have loved you always," she said softly between barely partedlips--"always, Hugh. Even when I thought you dead.... I did believe thatyou were drowned out there, Hugh! You know that, don't you?"
"I have never for an instant questioned it."
"It wouldn't be like you to, my dear; it wouldn't be you, my Hugh....But even then I loved the memory of you.... You don't know what you havemeant in my life, Hugh. Always, always you have stood for all that wasfine and strong and good and generous--my gentlest man, my knight _sanspeur et sans reproche_.... No other man I ever knew--no, let me sayit!--ever measured up to the standard you had set for me to worship.But, Hugh--you'll understand, won't you?--about the others--?"
"Please," he begged--"please don't harrow yourself so, Mary!"
"No; I must tell you.... The world seemed so empty and so lonely, Hugh:my Galahad gone, never to return to me.... I tried to lose myself in mywork, but it wasn't enough. And those others came, beseeching me,and--and I liked them. There was none like you, but they were all goodmen of their kind, and I liked them. They made love to me and--I wasstarving for affection, Hugh. I was made to love and to be loved. Eachtime I thought to myself: 'Surely this time it is true; now at last am Icome into my kingdom. It can't fulfil my dreams, for I have known thebravest man, but'--"
Her voice broke and fell. Her eyes grew dull and vacant; her visionpassed through and beyond him, as if he had not been there; the bitterdesolation of all the widowed generations clouded her golden face. Herlips barely moved, almost inaudibly enunciating the words that wereshaken from her as if by some occult force, ruthless and inexorable:
"Each time, Hugh, it was the same. One by one they were taken from me,strangely, terribly.... Poor Tom Custer, first; he was a dear boy, but Ididn't love him and couldn't marry him. I had to tell him so. He killedhimself.... Then Billy Hamilton; I became engaged to him; but he wastaken mysteriously from a crowded ship in mid-ocean.... A man namedMitchell Thurston loved me. I liked him; perhaps I might have consentedto marry him. He was assassinated--shot down like a mad dog in broaddaylight--no one ever knew by whom, or why. He hadn't an enemy in theworld we knew of.... And now Drummond...!"
"Mary, Mary!" he pleaded. "Don't--don't--those things were allaccidents--"
She paid him no heed. She didn't seem to hear. He tried to take herhand, with a man's dull, witless notion of the way to comfort adistraught woman; but she snatched it from his touch.
"And now"--her voice pealed out like a great bell tolling over themagnificent solitude of the forsaken island--"and now I have it to livethrough once again: the wonder and terror and beauty of love, the agonyand passion of having you torn from me!... Hugh!... I don't believe Ican endure it again. I can't _bear_ this exquisite torture. I'm afraid Ishall go mad!... Unless ... unless"--her voice shuddered--"I have thestrength, the strength to--"
"Good God!" he cried in desperation. "You must
This time he succeeded in imprisoning her hand. "Mary," he said gently,drawing closer to her, "listen to me; understand what I say. I love you;I am your husband; nothing can possibly come between us. All these otherthings can be explained. Don't let yourself think for another instant--"
Her eyes, fixed upon the two hands in which he clasped her own, hadgrown wide and staring with dread. Momentarily she seemed stunned. Thenshe wrenched it from him, at the same time jumping up and away.
"No!" she cried, fending him from her with shaking arms. "No! Don'ttouch me! Don't come near me, Hugh! It's ... it's death! My touch isdeath! I know it now--I had begun to suspect, now I _know_! I amaccursed--doomed to go through life like pestilence, leaving sorrow anddeath in my wake.... Hugh!" She controlled herself a trifle: "Hugh, Ilove you more than life; I love you more than love itself. But you mustnot come near me. Love me if you must, but, O my dear one! keep awayfrom me; avoid me, forget me if you can, but at all cost shun me as youwould the plague! I will not give myself to you to be your death!"
Before he could utter a syllable in reply, she turned and fled from him,wildly, blindly stumbling, like a hunted thing back up the ascent to thefarm-house. He followed, vainly calling on her to stop and listen tohim. But she outdistanced him, and by the time he had entered the housewas in her room, behind a locked door.