第64章

She could hear his voice, too, as she knew it when he was flown with drink, thick, a little drawling.

"Gyp--let me in--Gyp!"

The blood burned up in her cheeks, and she thought: 'No, my friend;you're not coming in!'

After that, sounds were more confused, as if he were now at one door, now at the other; then creakings, as if on the stairs again, and after that, no sound at all.

For fully half an hour, Gyp continued to sit up, straining her ears. Where was he? What doing? On her over-excited nerves, all sorts of possibilities came crowding. He must have gone downstairs again. In that half-drunken state, where would his baffled frenzies lead him? And, suddenly, she thought that she smelled burning. It went, and came again; she got up, crept to the door, noiselessly turned the key, and, pulling it open a few inches, sniffed.

All was dark on the landing. There was no smell of burning out there. Suddenly, a hand clutched her ankle. All the blood rushed from her heart; she stifled a scream, and tried to pull the door to. But his arm and her leg were caught between, and she saw the black mass of his figure lying full-length on its face. Like a vice, his hand held her; he drew himself up on to his knees, on to his feet, and forced his way through. Panting, but in utter silence, Gyp struggled to drive him out. His drunken strength seemed to come and go in gusts, but hers was continuous, greater than she had ever thought she had, and she panted:

"Go! go out of my room--you--you--wretch!"

Then her heart stood still with horror, for he had slued round to the bed and was stretching his hands out above the baby. She heard him mutter:

"Ah-h-h!--YOU--in my place--YOU!"

Gyp flung herself on him from behind, dragging his arms down, and, clasping her hands together, held him fast. He twisted round in her arms and sat down on the bed. In that moment of his collapse, Gyp snatched up her baby and fled out, down the dark stairs, hearing him stumbling, groping in pursuit. She fled into the dining-room and locked the door. She heard him run against it and fall down. Snuggling her baby, who was crying now, inside her nightgown, next to her skin for warmth, she stood rocking and hushing it, trying to listen. There was no more sound. By the hearth, whence a little heat still came forth from the ashes, she cowered down. With cushions and the thick white felt from the dining-table, she made the baby snug, and wrapping her shivering self in the table-cloth, sat staring wide-eyed before her--and always listening. There were sounds at first, then none. A long, long time she stayed like that, before she stole to the door. She did not mean to make a second mistake. She could hear the sound of heavy breathing. And she listened to it, till she was quite certain that it was really the breathing of sleep. Then stealthily she opened, and looked. He was over there, lying against the bottom chair, in a heavy, drunken slumber. She knew that sleep so well; he would not wake from it.

It gave her a sort of evil pleasure that they would find him like that in the morning when she was gone. She went back to her baby and, with infinite precaution, lifted it, still sleeping, cushion and all, and stole past him up the stairs that, under her bare feet, made no sound. Once more in her locked room, she went to the window and looked out. It was just before dawn; her garden was grey and ghostly, and she thought: 'The last time I shall see you.

Good-bye!'

Then, with the utmost speed, she did her hair and dressed. She was very cold and shivery, and put on her fur coat and cap. She hunted out two jerseys for the baby, and a certain old camel's-hair shawl.

She took a few little things she was fondest of and slipped them into her wrist-bag with her purse, put on her hat and a pair of gloves. She did everything very swiftly, wondering, all the time, at her own power of knowing what to take. When she was quite ready, she scribbled a note to Betty to follow with the dogs to Bury Street, and pushed it under the nursery door. Then, wrapping the baby in the jerseys and shawl, she went downstairs. The dawn had broken, and, from the long narrow window above the door with spikes of iron across it, grey light was striking into the hall.

Gyp passed Fiorsen's sleeping figure safely, and, for one moment, stopped for breath. He was lying with his back against the wall, his head in the hollow of an arm raised against a stair, and his face turned a little upward. That face which, hundreds of times, had been so close to her own, and something about this crumpled body, about his tumbled hair, those cheek-bones, and the hollows beneath the pale lips just parted under the dirt-gold of his moustache--something of lost divinity in all that inert figure--clutched for a second at Gyp's heart. Only for a second. It was over, this time! No more--never again! And, turning very stealthily, she slipped her shoes on, undid the chain, opened the front door, took up her burden, closed the door softly behind her, and walked away.