Fear Page 3

  “Nonsense,” said Lowry, but less briskly.

  “Be nice and say the world is an evil place, filled with evil spirits. Be nice and forget your knightly manner. And now be nice and go home and fill yourself with quinine and rest.”

  “And I came to you,” said Lowry with a smile, “for solace.”

  “To solace is to lie,” said Tommy. “I gave you something better than that.”

  “Devils and demons?”

  “Wisdom.”

  Lowry walked slowly into the hall, the chill making it difficult for him to speak clearly. Confound it, he was certain that he had an appointment somewhere this afternoon. He could almost recall the time as a quarter to three and the old clock was chiming that now. He reached toward the rack where his hat lay in a thick mass of coats and canes.

  Chapter Two

  It was dusk, at the twilight’s end; all along the street windows were lighted and people could be seen through some of them, people with talk and food in their mouths; the wind had picked up along the earth and brought a great gout of white scurrying out of the dark—a newspaper. High above, a cool moon looked out now and then through rifts of anxiously fleeing clouds, and now and again a star blinked briefly beyond the torn masses of blue and black and silver.

  Where was he?

  The street sign said Elm and Locust Avenues, which meant that he was only half a block from Tommy’s house and about a block from his own. He looked worriedly at his watch by the sphere of yellow in the middle of the street and found that it was a quarter to seven.

  A quarter to seven!

  The chill took him and his teeth castaneted briefly until he made his jaw relax. He felt for his hat, but it was gone; he felt panicky about the loss of his hat and cast anxiously about to see if it lay anywhere near.

  A group of students strolled by, a girl flattered by the teasing of the three boys about her; one of them nodded respectfully to Lowry.

  A quarter to three.

  A quarter to seven.

  Four hours!

  Where had he been?

  Tommy’s. That was it. Tommy’s. But he had left there at a quarter to three. And it was now a quarter to seven.

  Four hours!

  He had never been really drunk in his whole life, but he knew that when one drank indiscreetly there usually followed a thick head and a raw stomach; and as nearly as he could remember he had had only that one drink at Tommy’s. And certainly one drink was not enough to blank his mind.

  It was horrible, having lost four hours; but just why it was horrible he could not understand.

  Where had he gone?

  Had he seen anyone?

  Would somebody come up to him on the morrow and say, “That was a fine talk you gave at the club, Professor Lowry”?

  It wasn’t malaria. Malaria in its original state might knock a man out, but even in delirium a man knew where he was, and he certainly had no symptoms of having been delirious. No, he hadn’t been drunk and it wasn’t malaria.

  He began to walk rapidly toward his home. He had a gnawing ache inside him which he could not define, and he carried along that miserable sensation of near-memory which goes with words which refuse to come but halfway into consciousness; if he only tried a little harder he would know where he had been.

  The night was ominous to him and it was all that he could do to keep his pace sane; every tree and bush was a lurking shape which might at any moment materialize into—into— In the name of God, what was wrong with him? Could it be that he was afraid of the dark?

  Eagerly he turned into his own walk. For all that he could see, the ancient mansion slept, holding deep shadows close to it like its memories of a lost youth.

  He halted for a moment at the foot of the steps, wondering a little that he saw no light in the front of the house; but then perhaps Mary had grown alarmed at his failure to come home and had gone to his office—no, she would have phoned. A clamoring alarm began to go within him.

  Abruptly a shriek stabbed from the blackness:

  “Jim! Oh, my God! Jim!”

  He vaulted the steps and nearly broke down the door as he entered; for a moment he paused, irresolute, in the hall, casting madly about him, straining to catch the sound of Mary’s voice again.

  There was nothing but silence and memory in this house.

  He leaped up the wide stairway to the second floor, throwing on lights with hungry fingers as he went. He glanced into all the rooms on the second floor without result and sprang up the narrow débris-strewn stairs to the attic. It was dismal here and the wind was moaning about the old tower and trunks crouched like black beasts in the gloom; he lighted a match and the old familiar shapes leaped up to reassure him. She was not here!

  Tremblingly he made his way down, to again examine the rooms of the second floor. He was beginning to feel sick at his stomach and his blood was two sledgehammers knocking out his temples from within. He had lighted everything as he had come up, and the light itself seemed harsh to him, harsh and unkindly in that it revealed an empty house.

  Could she have gone next door?

  Was there a dinner somewhere that she had had to attend without him? Yes, that must be it. A note somewhere, probably beside his chair, telling him to hurry and dress and stop disgracing them.

  On the first floor again he searched avidly for the note, beside his chair, on the dining-room table, in the kitchen, on his study desk, on the mantelpiece— No, there wasn’t any note.

  He sank down on the couch in his study and cupped his face in his hands; he tried to order himself and stop quivering; he tried to fight down the nausea which was, he knew, all terror. Why was he allowing himself to become so upset? She must not have gone very far, and if she had not left a note, why, then she intended to be back shortly.

  Nothing could happen to anyone in this lazy, monotonous town.

  Her absence made him feel acutely what life would mean without her. He had been a beast, leaving her and running away to far lands, leaving her to this lonely old place and the questionable kindness of faculty friends. Life without her would be an endless succession of purposeless days lived with a heavy hopelessness.

  For minutes he sat there, trying to calm himself, trying to tell himself that there was nothing wrong, and after a little he did succeed in inducing a state of mind which, if not comfortable, at least allowed him to stop shivering.

  The outer door slammed and quick footsteps sounded in the hall. Lowry leaped up and ran to the door.

  She was hanging up her new fur wrap.

  “Mary!”

  She looked at him in surprise, so much had he put into the word.

  “There you are, Jim Lowry! You vagabond! Where were you all this time?”

  But he wasn’t listening to her; his arms were almost crushing her and he was laughing with happiness. She laughed with him, even though he was completely ruining the set of her hair and crumpling the snowy collar of her dress.

  “You’re beautiful,” said Lowry. “You’re lovely and wonderful and grand and if I didn’t have you I would walk right out and step over a cliff.”

  “You better not.”

  “You’re the only woman in the world. You’re sweet and loyal and good!”

  Mary’s face was glowing and her eyes, when she pushed him back a little to look up at him, were gentle. “You’re an old bear, Jim. Now account for yourself. Where have you been?”

  “Why—” and he stopped, feeling very uneasy. “I don’t know, Mary.”

  “Let me smell your breath.”

  “I wasn’t drunk.”

  “But you’re shivering. Jim! Have you gotten malaria again? And here you are walking around when you should be in bed—”

  “No. I’m all right. Really, I’m all right, Mary. Where were you?”

  “Out looking for you.”

  “I’m sorry I worried you.”

  She shrugged. “Worry me a little now and then and I’ll know how much I worship you. But here we are gabbing and you ha
ven’t had anything to eat. I’ll get you something immediately.”

  “No! I’ll get it. Look. You just sit down there by the fire and I’ll light it and—”

  “Nonsense.”

  “You do as I tell you. You sit there where I can look at you and be your most beautiful and I’ll rustle up my chow. Now don’t argue with me.”

  She smiled as he forced her down into the chair and giggled at him when he dropped the sticks he had picked up from the basket. “Clumsy old bear.”

  He got the fire going and then, putting out his hand as a protest against her moving, he sped through the dining room and into the kitchen, where he hurriedly threw together a sandwich from yesterday’s roast beef and poured himself a glass of milk. He was so frightened that she would be gone before he could get back that he resisted all impulse to make coffee.

  Presently he was again in the living room, sighing in relief that she was still there. He sat down on the lounge opposite from her and held the sandwich in front of his face for a full minute, just looking at her.

  “Go on and eat,” said Mary. “I’m no good at all to let you sup on cold food.”

  “No, no! I won’t have you do a thing. Just sit there and be beautiful.” He ate slowly, relaxing little by little until he was half sprawled on the lounge. And then a thought brought him upright again. “When I came in here I heard screams.”

  “Screams?”

  “Certainly. You sounded like you were calling to me.”

  “Must be the Allison radio. Those kids can find the most awful programs and they haven’t the least idea of tuning them down. The whole family must be deaf.”

  “Yes, I guess you are right. But it gave me an awful scare.” He relaxed again and just looked at her.

  She had very provocative eyes, dark and languorous, so that when she gave him a slow look he could feel little tingles of pleasure go through him. What a fool he was to go away from her! She was so young and so lovely— He wondered what she had ever seen in an old fool like himself. Of course, there were only about ten years between them and he had lived outdoors so much that he didn’t look so very much over thirty-one or thirty-two. Still, when he sat like this, studying her sweet face and the delicate rondures of her body and seeing the play of firelight in her dark hair and feeling the caress of her eyes, he could not wholly understand why she had ever begun to love him at all; Mary, who could have had her choice from fifty men, who had even been courted by Tommy Williams— What did she see in a burly, clumsy granite-being like himself? For a moment he was panicky at the thought that some day she might grow tired of his silences, his usual lack of demonstrativeness, his long absences—

  “Mary—”

  “Yes, Jim?”

  “Mary, do you love me a little bit?”

  “A lot more than a little bit, Jim Lowry.”

  “Mary—”

  “Yes?”

  “Tommy once asked you to marry him, didn’t he?”

  A slight displeasure crossed her face. “Any man that could carry on an affair with a student and still ask me to marry him— Jim, don’t be jealous again; I thought we had put all that away long ago.”

  “But you married me instead.”

  “You’re strong and powerful and everything a woman wants in a man, Jim. Women find beauty in men only when they find strength; there’s something wrong with a woman, Jim, when she falls in love with a fellow because he is pretty.”

  “Thank you, Mary.”

  “And now, Mr. Lowry, I think you had better get yourself to bed before you fall asleep on that couch.”

  “Just a little longer.”

  “No!” She got up and pulled him to his feet. “You’re half on fire and half frozen, and when you get these attacks the best thing for you is bed. I couldn’t ever see what pleasure a man could get out of wandering off to some land just so he could roast in the sun and let a bug bite him. To bed with you, Mr. Lowry.”

  He let her force him up the stairs and into his room and then he gave her a long kiss and a hug sufficient to break her ribs before he let her return to the living room.

  He felt very comfortable inside as he undressed and was almost on the verge of singing something as he hung up his suit when he noticed a large tear on the collar. He inspected it more closely. Yes, there were other tears and the cloth was all wrinkled and stiff in spots as if from mud. Why, good grief! The suit was ruined! He puzzled over it and then, in disgust for having destroyed good English tweeds, he crammed jacket and trousers into the bottom of a clothes hamper.

  As he got into his pajamas he mused over what a lovely person Mary really was. She hadn’t called his attention to it and yet he must have looked a perfect wreck.

  He washed his hands and face in an absent sort of way, musing over how he could have wrecked his suit. He dried himself upon a large bath towel and was about to slip on his pajama coat when he was shocked to see something which looked like a brand upon his forearm.

  It was not very large and there was no pain in it; interested, he held his arm closer to the light. The thing was scarlet! A scarlet mark not unlike a tattoo. And what a strange shape it had, like the footpads of a small dog; one, two, three, four—four little pads, as though a small animal had walked there. But there were few dogs that small. More like a rabbit—

  “Strange,” he told himself.

  He went into his room and turned out the light. “Strange.” He eased in between the covers and plumped up his pillow. A mark like the footprint of a rabbit. How could he have torn his suit and stained it with mud? What could have put this stamp upon his arm? A chill came over him and he found it difficult to stop his jaw muscles from contracting.

  The cool moon, blanked out for seconds by the racing clouds, laid a window pattern across the foot of his bed. He flung the covers back, annoyed that he had forgotten to open the window, and raised the sash. An icy belt was thrown about him by the wind and he threw himself hurriedly back between the covers.

  Well, tomorrow was quite another day, and when the sun came he would feel better; still, malaria had never given him this sick feeling in his stomach.

  The cool moon’s light was blue and the wind found a crack under the door and began to moan a dismal dirge; the sound was not constant, but built slowly from a whisper into a round groan and then into a shriek, finally dying again into a sigh. And lying there Jim Lowry thought there was a voice in it; he twisted about and attempted to cover up his right ear, burrowing his left in the pillow.

  The wind was whimpering and every few seconds it would weep, “Where?” And then it would mutter out and grumble and come up again as though tiptoeing to his bedside to cry, “Why?”

  Jim Lowry turned over and again pulled the covers down tight against his ear.

  “Where?”

  A whimpering complaint.

  “Why?”

  The window rattled furiously as though something was trying to get in; with tingling skin, Lowry came up on his elbow and stared at the pattern of light. But the cool moon’s light was only marred by the speeding clouds. Again the window was beaten and again there was only moonlight.

  “I’m a fool,” said Lowry, pulling up the covers again.

  A sigh.

  “Why?”

  A whimpering complaint.

  “Where?”

  The curtain began to beat against the glass and Lowry flung out to raise it all the way so that it could not move. But the string and disk kept striking against the pane and he had to locate a pin so that he could secure them.

  “I’m a fool,” said Lowry.

  He had listened to drums off somewhere in the black. He had slid into dark caverns to feel tarantulas and snakes running over or striking his boots; he had once awakened with a moccasin slithering out from under his top blanket; he had mocked at curses; he had once taken a cane knife away from an infuriated and drunken native—

  A sigh.

  “Why?”

  A whimpering complaint.

  “Where?�
��

  Fear’s sadistic fingers reached in and found his heart and aped its regular rhythm to send his blood coursing in his throat. Just the moan of the wind under a door and the protest of the curtains and the rattle of the sash and the moon’s cold blue light upon the bottom of his bed—

  The door opened slowly and the curtain streamed straight out as the wind leaped into the room from the window. The door banged and the wall shivered. And a white shape was moving slowly toward him on soundless feet and a white face gleamed dully above a glittering knife. Nearer and nearer—

  Lowry sprang savagely at it and knocked the knife away.

  But it was Mary.

  Mary stood there, looking at him in hurt amazement, her hand empty but still upheld. “Jim!”

  He was shaking with horror at the thought he might have hurt her; weakly he sank upon the edge of the bed, and yet there was relief in him, too. A broken glass lay upon the rug when she turned on the light and a white pool of warm milk steamed in the cold air. She held her hand behind her and, with sudden suspicion, he dragged it forth. He had struck the glass so hard that it had cut her.

  He pulled her small hand to the light and anxiously extracted a broken fragment from the cut and then applied his lips to it to make it bleed more freely. He opened a drawer and took out his expedition first-aid kit and found some antiseptic and bandages. She seemed to be far more anxious about him than about her hand.

  “Mary.”

  “Yes?”

  He pulled her down to the edge of the bed and threw part of the spread about her shoulders.

  “Mary, something awful has happened to me. I didn’t tell you. There are two things I didn’t tell you. Jebson found that Newspaper Weekly article and at the end of this term I am going to be dismissed. We . . . we’ll have to leave Atworthy.”

  “Is that all, Jim? You know that I don’t care about this place; anywhere you go, I’ll go.” She was almost laughing. “I guess you’ll have to drag me along, no matter how deep the jungles are, Jim.”

  “Yes. You can go with me, Mary. I was a fool never to have allowed it before. You must have been terribly lonely here.”