_ PART I CHAPTER XXI. ON THE BRINK
"Is that you, Allegro? There is no one with you?"
Violet raised herself from her pillows, turning a haggard face to meet her friend. She looked as if years had passed over her. Her great eyes shone out of dark circles. They looked beyond Olga in evident apprehension.
"It's only me, darling," said Olga, going swiftly to her.
Feverish hands caught and held her. "Goodness, child! How cold you are!" exclaimed Violet. "Mrs. Briggs, I can do without you now. You had better go and look after Briggs." She broke into a brief laugh. "He always gets up to mischief as soon as your back is turned."
"He can very well look after 'imself," said Mrs. Briggs austerely. "And I'm not a-goin' to leave you like this, my dearie. But I'll tell you what I will do. I'll go down to the kitchen and make them lazy hussies stir themselves and get you a meal of some sort."
In the days when Mrs. Briggs had been Violet's nurse she had reigned supreme in the Priory kitchen, and she still regarded it as an outlying portion of her dominions.
Violet leaned back upon her pillows with exhaustion written plainly on her pale face. "Oh, do as you like, Nanny! But I don't want anything. I've got my cigarettes."
Mrs. Briggs grunted, and turned to go. The patient Cork here seized the opportunity to assert himself, and gently but firmly pressed into the room.
"Drat the dog!" said Mrs. Briggs.
"Leave him alone!" Violet commanded. "He knows how to take care of me."
As Cork was fully determined to enter, no effort on Mrs. Briggs's part would have availed to stop him, and Mrs. Briggs, realizing this, sniffed and departed.
The huge animal lay down by the foot of the bed and heaved a sigh of satisfaction as he dropped his nose upon his paws.
And then Violet turned her face to Olga, sitting on the bed, and whispered, "Does he know?"
"Who?" whispered back Olga.
"Max, of course! Who else?"
Olga hesitated. Violet's hands were gripping her very tightly. "Know what, dear?" she said at last.
A quick frown drew Violet's forehead. "Oh, you know what I mean. Does he know about my going mad? Have you told him?"
"My dearest,"--keen distress rang in Olga's voice--"don't--don't talk like that! You're not mad! You're not mad!"
Violet's frown changed into a very strange smile. "Oh yes, but I am," she said. "I've been mad for some time now. It's been gradually coming on, but to-day--to-day it is moving faster--much faster." Her low voice quickened. "I haven't much sanity left, Allegro. I can feel it slipping from me inch by inch like a paid-out rope. Only enough left now to know that I am mad. When I don't know that any longer, I shall have lost it all."
"Dearest! Dearest!" moaned Olga. "Won't you try to forget it--try to think of other things for a little?"
Violet continued as if she had not heard her. "You know, it's curious that it never occurred to me before. I've had such queer sensations--all sorts of funny things going on inside me. It began like a curious thirst--a very horrible sort of craving, Allegro. That was what made me take to those cigarettes. I never felt it when I was smoking them. They made me so deliriously sleepy. It was terrible when--he--took them away. I felt as if he had pushed me over a deep abyss. I really can't do without them. They make me float when I'm going to sink."
She paused, and passed a weary hand across her brow. "Why have I been crying so, Allegro? I hardly ever cry. Was I sorry for someone? Was it my mother? Fancy her doing--that!" The heavy eyes grew suddenly wide and bright. "I wonder if she would have killed me too if she had lived. I know exactly what made her do it. I should have done it myself--yes, and revelled in it. Can't you imagine it? The night and the darkness, and oneself lying there pretending to be asleep and waiting--waiting--for the man one hated." Suddenly the wide eyes glowed red. "Think of it--think of it, Allegro!--how one would feel for the point of the knife when one heard his step, and hide it away under the pillow when at last he came in. How one's flesh would creep when he lay down! How one's ears would shout and clamour while one waited for him to sleep! And then--and then--when he began to breathe slowly and one knew that he was unconscious--how inch by inch one would draw out one's hand with the knife and raise the bedclothes, and plunge it hard and deep into his breast! Would he struggle, Allegro? Would he open his eyes to see his own life-blood spout out? Would he be frightened, or angry, or just surprised? I think he would be surprised, don't you? He wouldn't give his wife credit for hating him so much. Men don't, you know. They never realize how far hatred will drive a woman until it pushes her over the edge. I think he would hardly believe his own eyes even then, unless he saw her laughing!" A burst of wild laughter broke from Violet's lips, but she smothered it with her handkerchief.
"I mustn't laugh," she said, "though I'm sure she did. And I want to talk to you seriously, Allegro."
"Dear, do lie down and rest!" Olga urged her gently. "That hateful story has given you a shock. Do try and remember that there's nothing new about it. It all happened years ago. And you are no different now than you were this morning before you heard it."
Violet leaned her head back again upon the pillows, but her eyes roved unceasingly. "But then I was mad this morning," she said, "only I didn't know it. Do you know, I think madness is a sort of state in which people lose their souls and yet go on living. Or else the soul goes blind. I've thought of that too. But I think my soul has gone on. I shall go and find it presently. You must help me."
"Of course I will help you, darling," Olga promised soothingly.
"Yes. But it won't be easy," said Violet, frowning upwards. "I've got to go into a great space of lost souls, and I shan't find it very easily. It was his fault. He never ought to have brought me back that night. That's the worst of doctors. They are so keen about the body, but they don't study the soul at all. They behave exactly as if the soul weren't there."
"Look here, dear," said Olga, with sudden inspiration, "wouldn't you like to talk to Nick about it? He's so clever. I always ask him about puzzling things."
"Nick?" Violet's eyes came round to her. "He's a soldier, isn't he? He has killed people."
"I don't know. I suppose so," said Olga. "He is just outside. May I fetch him?"
"Oh, yes, I don't mind Nick. He's got some sense. But I won't have Max, Allegro. He is not to come near me. I've found him out, and I hate him!" The deep voice suddenly grew deeper. A flame of fierce resentment leaped up in the roving eyes. "I know now exactly why he has been so attentive all this time. I thought--I used to think--he was in love with me--like other men. But I know now that he was only making a study of me, because he knew that I was going mad. Bruce must have told him that. I've often wondered why he and Bruce were so friendly. I know now that they were in league against me. Bruce never liked me--naturally. No one ever liked me but you, Allegro."
"Shall I call Nick?" said Olga, gently bringing her back to the point.
"Oh, if you like. But no! Cork would never let any man come in here. I will come downstairs. We'll have some lunch, and then smoke." Violet sprang from the bed with sudden decision. "Heavens!" she exclaimed, as she caught a glimpse of herself in her glass. "What a hag I look! I can't go down in this. It looks like a bedgown. Find me something, Allegro! That red silk will do. I believe everything else is at Weir. You will have to send my things back, for I am going to stay here now. I've had enough of Max Wyndham's tyranny. I must have my own way or I shall rave."
With impulsive hands she tore off her tumbled muslin dress, and arrayed herself in the flaming evening robe which Olga had once condemned. Olga raised no protest now. She gave her silent assistance. The horrors of that day had so closed in upon her that she felt fantastically convinced that nothing she did or left undone could make any difference, or hinder for the fraction of an instant the fate that so remorselessly pursued them and was surely every moment drawing nearer. The fear at her heart had so wound itself into her very being that she was no longer conscious of it. It possessed her like an evil spell.
So she stood by, sometimes helping, always watching, while her friend's tragedy leaped from point to point like a spreading forest-fire breeding destruction.
"You are not afraid of me, Allegro?" Violet asked her suddenly, as she arranged her black hair with swift, feverish movements.
And Olga answered with truth. "No, dear. I should never be that."
"Not whatever happened? That's right. I'm not really dangerous--so long as you keep Max out of my way. But, mind--I must never see him again, never--never--while I live!" She turned from the glass, facing Olga with eyes in which an awful fire had begun to burn. "I know him!" she said. "I know him! He will want to shut me up--to keep me as a specimen for him--and men like him--to study. He and Bruce will do it between them if they get the chance. But they won't--they won't! Allegro--darling, you must help me to get away. I can't--can't--be imprisoned for life. You will help me? Promise me! Promise!"
"I promise, dearest!" Olga made answer very earnestly.
Something of relief softened the agony in the dark eyes. Very suddenly Violet took her friend's face between her hands and passionately kissed her on the lips.
"I love you, Allegro!" she said. "And I trust you--and you only--till death."
It was then--at first but dimly--that Olga began to realize that the burden laid upon her might be heavier than she could bear, and yet that she alone must bear it even if it crushed her to the earth.
Passing out at length into the passage, she felt Violet's hand close with a convulsive pressure upon her arm, and she knew that here was fear such as she had never before encountered or imagined,--the deadly, unfathomable fear of a mind that hovered on the brink of the abyss.
She caught the hand warmly, protectingly, into her own. And she swore then and there a solemn, inward oath that, cost what it might, the trust reposed in her should not be in vain. When her friend turned to her for help in extremity, she should not find her lacking.
For of such stuff was Olga Ratcliffe fashioned, and her loyalty was that same loyalty which moves men even unto the sacrifice of their lives. _