第9章

She was alone.She realised her loneliness in a great flash of bewilderment and cold terror as though the ground had suddenly broken away from her and she was on the edge of a vast pit.There was no one in the house to help her.Her father was dead.The cook and the maid were sunk in heavy slumber at the other end of the house.There was no one to help her.She was alone, and it seemed to her that in the shock of that discovery she realised that she would always be alone now, for the rest of her life.

"What is it, Uncle Mathew?" she said again.Her voice was steady, although her heart hammered.Some other part of her brain was wondering where it was that he had got the drink.He must have had a bottle of whisky in his room; she remembered his shyness when he said good-night to her.

He stood in the middle of the floor, swaying on his feet and smiling at her.The flame of the light rose and fell in jerks and spasms.

"I thought," he said, "I'd come--to see m'little Maggie, m'little niece, jus' to talk a lill bit and cheer her up--up." He drew nearer the bed."She'll be lonely, I said--lonely--very--aren't you--lonely Maggie?""It's very late," she said, "and you're dropping grease ail over the floor with that candle.You go back to bed, uncle.I'm all right.

You go back to bed."

"Go back? No, no, no.Oh no, not back to bed.It'll soon be mornin'.

That'll be jolly-jolly.We'll talk--together till mornin'."He put the candle on a chair, nearly falling as he did so, then came towards her.He stood over her, his shirt, open at the neck, protuberating over his stomach, his short thick legs swaying.His red, unshaven face with the trembling lips was hateful to her.

Suddenly he sat on the edge of her bed and put his hands out towards her.He caught her hair.

"My little Maggie--my little Maggie," he said.

The fright, the terror, the panic that seized her was like the sudden rising of some black figure who grew before her, bent towards her and with cold hard fingers squeezed her throat.For an instant she was helpless, quivering, weak in every bone of her body.

Then some one said to her:

"But you can manage this."

"I can manage this," she answered almost aloud.

"You're alone now.You mustn't let things be too much for you."She jumped out of bed, on the farther side away from her uncle.She put on her dressing-gown.She stood and pointed at the door.

"Now, uncle, you go back to your room at once.It's disgraceful coming in the middle of the night and disturbing every one.Go back to bed."The new tone in her voice startled him.He looked at her in a bewildered fashion.He got up from the bed.

"Why, Maggie--I only--only--"

He stared from her to the candle and from the candle back to her again.

"Now go," she repeated."Quick now."

He hung his head."Now you're angry--angry with your poor ole uncle--poor ole uncle." He looked at her, his eyes puzzled as though he had never seen her before.

"You're very hard," he said, shaking his head.He stumbled towards the door--"Very hard," he repeated, and went out, his head still hanging.

She heard him knock his foot against the stairs.Soon there was silence.

She blew out the candle and went back to bed.She lay there, her heart, at first, throbbing, her eyes straining the darkness.Then she grew more tranquil.She felt in her heart a strange triumph as though already she had begun life and had begun it with success.She thought, before she sank deep into sleep, that anything would yield to one did one only deal sensibly with it...After all, it was a fine thing to be alone.