'What made her bring me the letters?' he asked himself. It was a very unusual attention. His heart replied, very sullen and shameful: 'She wanted to know; she wanted to make sure I was all right.'

Siegmund forgot all his speculations on a divine benevolence. The discord of his immediate situation overcame every harmony. He did not fetch in the letters.

'Is it so late?' he said. 'Is there no more time for me?'

He went to look at his watch. It was a quarter to nine. As he walked across the room he trembled, and a sickness made his bones feel rotten.

He sat down on the bed.

'What am I going to do?' he asked himself.

By this time he was shuddering rapidly. A peculiar feeling, as if his belly were turned into nothingness, made him want to press his fists into his abdomen. He remained shuddering drunkenly, like a drunken man who is sick, incapable of thought or action.

A second knock came at the door. He started with a jolt.

'Here is your shaving-water,' said Beatrice in cold tones. 'It's half past nine.'

'All right,' said Siegmund, rising from the bed, bewildered.

'And what time shall you expect dinner?' asked Beatrice. She was still contemptuous.

'Any time. I'm not going out,' he answered.

He was surprised to hear the ordinary cool tone of his own voice, for he was shuddering uncontrollably, and was almost sobbing. In a shaking, bewildered, disordered condition he set about fulfilling his purpose. He was hardly conscious of anything he did; try as he would, he could not keep his hands steady in the violent spasms of shuddering, nor could he call his mind to think. He was one shuddering turmoil. Yet he performed his purpose methodically and exactly. In every particular he was thorough, as if he were the servant of some stern will. It was a mesmeric performance, in which the agent trembled with convulsive sickness.

_Chapter 28_

Siegmund's lying late in bed made Beatrice very angry. The later it became, the more wrathful she grew. At half past nine she had taken up his shaving-water. Then she proceeded to tidy the dining-room, leaving the breakfast spread in the kitchen.

Vera and Frank were gone up to town; they would both be home for dinner at two o'clock. Marjory was despatched on an errand, taking Gwen with her. The children had no need to return home immediately, therefore it was highly probable they would play in the field or in the lane for an hour or two. Beatrice was alone downstairs. It was a hot, still morning, when everything outdoors shone brightly, and all indoors was dusked with coolness and colour. But Beatrice was angry. She moved rapidly and determinedly about the dining-room, thrusting old newspapers and magazines between the cupboard and the wall, throwing the litter in the grate, which was clear, Friday having been charwoman's day, pa.s.sing swiftly, lightly over the front of the furniture with the duster. It was Sat.u.r.day, when she did not spend much time over the work. In the afternoon she was going out with Vera. That was not, however, what occupied her mind as she brushed aside her work. She had determined to have a settlement with Siegmund, as to how matters should continue. She was going to have no more of the past three years' life; things had come to a crisis, and there must be an alteration. Beatrice was going to do battle, therefore she flew at her work, thus stirring herself up to a proper heat of blood. All the time, as she thrust things out of sight, or straightened a cover, she listened for Siegmund to come downstairs.

He did not come, so her anger waxed.

'He can lie skulking in bed!' she said to herself. 'Here I've been up since seven, broiling at it. I should think he's pitying himself. He ought to have something else to do. He ought to have to go out to work every morning, like another man, as his son has to do. He has had too little work. He has had too much his own way. But it's come to a stop now. I'll servant-housekeeper him no longer.'

Beatrice went to clean the step of the front door. She clanged the bucket loudly, every minute becoming more and more angry. That piece of work finished, she went into the kitchen. It was twenty past ten. Her wrath was at ignition point. She cleared all the things from the table and washed them up. As she was so doing, her anger, having reached full intensity without bursting into flame, began to dissipate in uneasiness.

She tried to imagine what Siegmund would do and say to her. As she was wiping a cup, she dropped it, and the smash so unnerved her that her hands trembled almost too much to finish drying the things and putting them away. At last it was done. Her next piece of work was to make the beds. She took her pail and went upstairs. Her heart was beating so heavily in her throat that she had to stop on the landing to recover breath. She dreaded the combat with him. Suddenly controlling herself, she said loudly at Siegmund's door, her voice coldly hostile:

'Aren't you going to get up?'

There was not the faintest sound in the house. Beatrice stood in the gloom of the landing, her heart thudding in her ears.

'It's after half past ten--aren't you going to get up?' she called.

She waited again. Two letters lay unopened on a small table. Suddenly she put down her pail and went into the bathroom. The pot of shaving-water stood untouched on the shelf, just as she had left it. She returned and knocked swiftly at her husband's door, not speaking. She waited, then she knocked again, loudly, a long time. Something in the sound of her knocking made her afraid to try again. The noise was dull and thudding: it did not resound through the house with a natural ring, so she thought. She ran downstairs in terror, fled out into the front garden, and there looked up at his room. The window-door was open--everything seemed quiet.

Beatrice stood vacillating. She picked up a few tiny pebbles and flung them in a handful at his door. Some spattered on the panes sharply; some dropped dully in the room. One clinked on the wash-hand bowl. There was no response. Beatrice was terribly excited. She ran, with her black eyes blazing, and wisps of her black hair flying about her thin temples, out on to the road. By a mercy she saw the window-cleaner just pushing his ladder out of the pa.s.sage of a house a little farther down the road. She hurried to him.

'Will you come and see if there's anything wrong with my husband?' she asked wildly.

'Why, mum?' answered the window-cleaner, who knew her, and was humbly familiar. 'Is he taken bad or something? Yes, I'll come.'

He was a tall thin man with a brown beard. His clothes were all so loose, his trousers so baggy, that he gave one the impression his limbs must be bone, and his body a skeleton. He pushed at his ladders with a will.

'Where is he, Mum?' he asked officiously, as they slowed down at the side pa.s.sage.

'He's in his bedroom, and I can't get an answer from him.'

'Then I s'll want a ladder,' said the window-cleaner, proceeding to lift one off his trolley. He was in a very great bustle. He knew which was Siegmund's room: he had often seen Siegmund rise from some music he was studying and leave the drawing-room when the window-cleaning began, and afterwards he had found him in the small front bedroom. He also knew there were matrimonial troubles: Beatrice was not reserved.

'Is it the least of the front rooms he's in?' asked the window-cleaner.

'Yes, over the porch,' replied Beatrice.

The man bustled with his ladder.

'It's easy enough,' he said. 'The door's open, and we're soon on the balcony.'

He set the ladder securely. Beatrice cursed him for a slow, officious fool. He tested the ladder, to see it was safe, then he cautiously clambered up. At the top he stood leaning sideways, bending over the ladder to peer into the room. He could see all sorts of things, for he was frightened.

'I say there!' he called loudly.

Beatrice stood below in horrible suspense.

'Go in!' she cried. 'Go in! Is he there?'

The man stepped very cautiously with one foot on to the balcony, and peered forward. But the gla.s.s door reflected into his eyes. He followed slowly with the other foot, and crept forward, ready at any moment to take flight.

'Hie, hie!' he suddenly cried in terror, and he drew back.

Beatrice was opening her mouth to scream, when the window-cleaner exclaimed weakly, as if dubious:

'I believe 'e's 'anged 'imself from the door-'ooks!'

'No!' cried Beatrice. 'No, no, no!'

'I believe 'e 'as!' repeated the man.

'Go in and see if he's dead!' cried Beatrice.

The man remained in the doorway, peering fixedly.

'I believe he is,' he said doubtfully.

'No--go and see!' screamed Beatrice.