Part 15

He remembered with a feeling of relief that she was going to his brother William; of course she would then, among greater renunciations, be compelled to return the two keys, for they--that is, his brother and himself--would have her in their power. They would not behave unkindly to her--far from it; in fact, they would arrange for her to live with some quiet, religious lady in a country town a few hours from London. Mr. Tapster had not evolved this scheme for himself; it had been done in a similar case--one of those cases which, in the long ago, when he was still a single man, had aroused his pitying contempt for husbands who allow themselves to be deceived.

Then Mr. Tapster began going over each incident of the strange little interview, for he wanted to tell his brother William exactly what had taken place.

His conscience was quite clear except with regard to one matter, and that, after all, needn't be mentioned to William. He felt rather ashamed of having asked the question which had provoked so wild an answer--so unexpected a retort.

Mad? What had Flossy meant by asking him if he had ever been mad? No one had ever used the word in connection with James Tapster before--save once. Oddly enough, that occasion also had been connected with Flossy in a way; for it had happened when he had gone to tell William and Maud of his engagement.

It was on a fine day nine years ago come this May, and he had found William and William's wife walking in their garden on Haverstock Hill. His kind brother, as always, had been most sympathetic, and had even made a suitable joke--Mr. Tapster remembered it very sadly to-night--concerning the spring and a young man's fancy; but Maud had been really disagreeable. She had said, "It's no use talking to you, James, for you're mad--quite mad!" He had argued the matter out with her good-temperedly, and William had supported him in pointing out that he was doing an eminently sane thing in marrying Flossy Ball. But Maud again and again had exclaimed, in her determined, aggravating voice, "I say you are mad. They don't let lunatics marry--and just now you _are_ a lunatic, James!"

Strange that he should remember all this to-night; for, after all, it had nothing to do with the present state of affairs.

Mr. Tapster felt rather shaken and nervous; he pulled out his repeater watch; but, alas! it was still very early--only ten minutes to nine. He couldn't go to bed yet. Perhaps he would do well to join a club. He had always thought rather poorly of men who belonged to clubs,--most of them were idle, lazy fellows; but still, circumstances alter cases.

Suddenly he began to wish that Flossy had remained a little longer.

He thought of all sorts of things--improving, kindly remarks--he would have liked to say to her. He blamed himself for not having offered her any refreshment; she would probably have refused to take anything, but still, it was wrong on his part not to have thought of it. A pound a week for everything! No wonder she looked half starved. Why, his own household bills, exclusive of wine or beer, had worked out, since he had had this new expensive housekeeper, at something like fifteen shillings a head--a fact which he had managed to conceal from Maud, who "did" her William so well on exactly ten shillings and nine-pence all round!

* * * * *

It struck nine from the neighbouring church where Mr. Tapster had sittings,--but where he seldom was able to go on Sunday mornings, for he was proud of being among those old-fashioned folk who still regard Sunday as essentially a day of rest,--and there came a sudden sound of hoarse shouting from the road outside.

Though he was glad of anything that broke the oppressive silence with which he felt encompassed, Mr. Tapster found time to tell himself that it was disgraceful that vulgar street brawlers should invade so quiet a residential thoroughfare as Cumberland Crescent. But order would soon be restored, for the sound of a policeman's whistle cut sharply through the air.

The noise, however, continued. He could hear the tramp of feet hurrying past his house, and then leaving the pavement for the other side of the road. What could be the matter? Something very exciting must be going on just opposite his front door--that is, close to the Enclosure railings.

Mr. Tapster got up from his chair, and walked in a leisurely way to the wide window; he drew aside the thick red rep curtains, and lifted a corner of the blind.

Then, through the slightly foggy haze, he saw that which greatly surprised him and made him feel actively indignant, for a string of people, men, women, and boys, were hurrying into the Enclosure garden--that sacred place set apart for the exclusive use of the nobility and gentry who lived in Cumberland Crescent and the adjoining terraces.

What an abominable thing! Why, the grass would be all trampled down; and these dirty people, these slum folk who seem to spring out of the earth when anything of a disagreeable or shameful nature is taking place--a fire, for instance, or a brawl--might easily bring infectious diseases on to those gravel paths where the little Tapsters and their like run about playing their innocent games. Some careless person had evidently left the gate unlocked, and the fight, or whatever it was, must be taking place inside the Enclosure!

Had this been an ordinary night, Mr. Tapster would have gone back to the fire, but now the need for human companionship was so strong upon him that he stayed at the window, and went on staring at the curious shadow-filled scene.

Soon he saw with satisfaction that something like order was to be restored. A stalwart policeman--in fact, his friend the officer who was always at point duty some yards from his house--now stood at the gate of the Enclosure, forbidding any further passing through.

Mr. Tapster tried in vain to see what was going on inside the railings, but everything beyond the brightly-lighted road was wrapped in grey darkness. Someone suddenly held up high a flaming torch, and the watcher at the window saw that the shadowy crowd which had managed to force its way into the Park hung together, like bees swarming, on the further lawn through which flowed the ornamental water. With the gleaming of the yellow, wavering light there had fallen a sudden hush and silence, and Mr. Tapster wondered uneasily what those people were doing there, and what it was they were pressing forward so eagerly to see.

Then he realised that it must have been a fight after all, for now the crowd was parting in two, and down the lane so formed Mr. Tapster saw coming towards the gate, and so in a sense towards himself, a rather pitiful little procession. Someone had evidently been injured, and that seriously, for four men, bearing a sheep-hurdle on which lay a huddled mass, were walking slowly towards the guarded gate, and he heard distinctly the gruffly uttered words: "Stand back, please--stand back there! We're going to cross the road."

The now large crowd suddenly swayed forward; indeed, to Mr. Tapster's astonished eyes, they seemed to be actually making a rush for his house; and a moment later they were pressing round his area railings.

Looking down on the upturned faces below him, Mr. Tapster was very glad that a stout pane of glass stood between himself and the sinister-looking men and women who seemed to be staring up at him, or rather at his windows, with faces full of cruel, wolfish curiosity.

He let the blind fall to gently. His interest in the vulgar, sordid scene had suddenly died down; the drama was now over; in a moment the crowd would disperse, the human vermin--but Mr. Tapster would never have used, even to himself, so coarse an expression--would be on their way back to their burrows. But before he had even time to rearrange the curtains in their right folds, there came a sudden, loud, persistent knocking at his front door.

Mr. Tapster turned sharply round, feeling justly incensed. Of course he knew what it was,--some good-for-nothing urchin finding a vent for his excited feelings. While it was quite proper that the police should have hurried on with their still burden to the nearest hospital or workhouse infirmary, they should have left at least one constable to keep order. His parlour-maid, who was never in any hurry to open the door--she had once kept him waiting ten minutes when he had forgotten his latch-key--would certainly take no notice of this unseemly noise, but he, James Tapster, would himself hurry out and try and catch the delinquent, take his name and address, and thoroughly frighten him.

As he reached the door of the dining-room Mr. Tapster heard the front door open--open, too, and this was certainly very surprising, from the outside! In the hall he saw that it was a policeman--in fact, the officer on point duty close by--who had opened his front door, and apparently with a latch-key.

In the moment that elapsed before the constable spoke, Mr. Tapster's mind had had time to formulate a new theory. How strange he had never heard that the police have means of access to every house on their beat! The fact surprised but did not alarm him, for our hero was one of the great army of law-abiding citizens in whose eyes a policeman is no human being, subject to the same laws, the same temptations and passions which afflict ordinary humanity. No, no; in Mr. Tapster's eyes a constable could do no wrong, although he might occasionally stretch a point to oblige such a man as was Mr. Tapster himself.

But what was the constable saying--speaking, as constables always do to the Mr. Tapsters of this world, in respectful and subdued tones?

"Can I just come in and speak to you, sir? There's been a sad accident--your lady fallen in the water; we found these keys in her pocket, and then someone said she was Mrs. Tapster,"--and the policeman held out the two keys which had played a not unimportant part in Mr. Tapster's interview with Flossy.

"A man on the bridge saw her go in," went on the policeman, "so she wasn't in the water long--something like a quarter of an hour--for we soon found her. I suppose you would like her taken upstairs, sir?"

"No, no," stammered Mr. Tapster, "not upstairs. The children are upstairs."

Mr. Tapster's round, prominent eyes were shadowed with a great horror and an even greater surprise. He stood staring at the man before him, his hands clasped in a wholly unconscious gesture of supplication.

The constable gradually edged himself backwards into the dining-room. Realising that he must take on himself the onus of decision, he gave a quiet look round.

"If that's the case," he said firmly, "we had better bring her in here. That sofa that you have there, sir, will do nicely, for her to be laid upon while they try to bring her round. We've got a doctor already----"

Mr. Tapster bent his head; he was too much bewildered to propose any other plan; and then he turned--turned to see his hall invaded by a strange and sinister quartette. It was composed of two policemen and of two of those loafers of whom he so greatly disapproved; they were carrying a hurdle, from which Mr. Tapster quickly averted his eyes.

But though he was able to shut out the sight he feared to see, he could not prevent himself from hearing certain sounds--those, for instance, made by the two loafers, who breathed with ostentatious difficulty as if to show they were unaccustomed to bearing even so comparatively light a burden as Flossy drowned.

There came a sudden short whisper-filled delay; the doorway of the dining-room was found to be too narrow, and the hurdle was perforce left in the hall.

An urgent voice, full of wholly unconscious irony, muttered in Mr. Tapster's ear: "Of course you would like to see her, sir," and he felt himself being propelled forward. Making an effort to bear himself so that he should not feel afterwards ashamed of his lack of nerve, he forced himself to stare with dread-filled yet fascinated eyes at that which had just been laid upon the leather sofa.

Flossy's hat--the shabby hat which had shocked Mr. Tapster's sense of what was seemly--had gone; her fair hair had all come down, and hung in pale, gold wisps about the face already fixed in the soft dignity which seems so soon to drape the features of those who die by drowning. Her widely-opened eyes were now wholly emptied of the anguish with which they had gazed on Mr. Tapster in this very room less than an hour ago. Her mean brown serge gown, from which the water was still dripping, clung closely to her limbs, revealing the slender body which had four times endured, on behalf of Mr. Tapster, the greatest of woman's natural ordeals. But that thought, it is scarcely necessary to say, did not come to add an extra pang to those which that unfortunate man was now suffering; for Mr. Tapster naturally thought maternity was in every married woman's day's work--and pleasure.

* * * * *

It might have been a moment, for all that he knew, or it might have been an hour, when at last something came to relieve the unbearable tension of Mr. Tapster's feelings. He had been standing aside helpless, aware of and yet not watching the efforts made to restore Flossy to consciousness.

The doctor raised himself and straightened his cramped shoulders and tired arms. With a look of great concern on his face he approached the bereaved husband.

"I'm afraid it's no good," he said; "the shock of the plunge in the cold water probably killed her. She was evidently in poor health, and--and ill-nourished. But, of course, we shall go on for some time longer, and----"

But whatever he had meant to say remained unspoken, for a telegraph boy, with the impudence natural to his kind, was forcing his way into and through the crowded room.

"James Tapster, Esquire?" he cried in a high, childish treble.

The master of the house held out his hand mechanically. He took the buff envelope and stared down at it, sufficiently master of himself to perceive that some fool had apparently imagined Cumberland Crescent to be in South London; before his eyes swam the line, "Delayed in transmission." Then, opening the envelope, he saw the message for which he had now been waiting so eagerly for some days, but it was with indifference that he read the words:

"_The Decree has been made Absolute._"

* * * * *

_BY MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES_

THE UTTERMOST FARTHING

THE PULSE OF LIFE

BARBARA REBELL

THE HEART OF PENELOPE

STUDIES IN WIVES

End of Project Gutenberg's Studies in Wives, by Marie Belloc Lowndes