Ellis beat a tattoo on the door with his knuckles. A shrill yapping broke out somewhere inside the house, and was hushed by the closing of a door. Then, after an interval of silence, soft footsteps advanced timidly to the door. It opened, and a scared-looking girl of about thirteen stared up into his face.
“Good-evening,” Ellis cried, in loud tones. “May I see Mr. Rattray, please?”
“He isn’t in,” the girl whispered timidly. “He’s out.”
“Out? I understood in the village that he would be here soon after nine.”
She shook her head.
“He isn’t in,” she repeated.
“Well then,” Ellis said, “perhaps I can come in and wait for him. Is Mrs. Rattray in? Maybe she’ll see me. If not, I’ll wait in his study.” He stepped into the hall. “Ask Mrs. Rattray, will you, please?”
She closed the door, stared at him doubtfully, whispering something he could not hear, and started off on her errand.
“Who shall I say it is, please?”
“Mr. Ellis McKay.”
“Mr. Ellis McKay,” she repeated dutifully, and, still staring, backed out of the hall.
Ellis waited. The atmosphere of the house closed in around him. A clock in the corner ticked heavily, slowly. What went on here? What form of life, what secrets, what hopes, what agonies and fears? A stuffy tension, a taut respectability: or was he imagining it? Would not any such gimcrack hallway breathe forth the same on a hot June evening?
“Will you come this way, please, sir?”
She led Ellis down a short passage and into a room at right angles to the hall. The shaded light revealed Ursula Rattray lying on a sofa, with the air of exhaustion shown by cross-channel passengers who have just been sick, and expect soon to be sick again.
“How do you do, Mr. McKay.” She hung a limp hand at him. “How nice of you to call.”
“How nice of you to receive me.” He sat down, his thick legs apart, and beamed at her. “I just dropped in to see your husband for a moment. I expect he won’t be long.”
“Ten.” Her eyes wandered to the clock. “He is always in by ten.”
“Can you put up with me till then? I won’t be keeping you up, or anything?”
“Oh no. I never go to bed till David’s back. He always carries me to my room.” She gave a hideous, coquettish smile. “It’s a little ceremony we’ve kept ever since our honeymoon.”
Ellis repressed the shiver that ran up his spine.
“Very nice and romantic,” he said heartily. “A pity more people don’t keep up those things. I’m all for the little ceremonies of life, myself. The ritual.”
“The ritual,” she echoed him, her large eyes staring into his. “That’s just it. You like it. You understand. So many men don’t. They don’t realise what these little things mean to a woman.”
“No, indeed. They study a woman at first, and then they take her for granted.”
She did not react to this. Ellis soon saw that she followed an unbroken train of thought, and took no notice of any remark that led away from it.
“The little things of life mean so much. To any woman. But particularly to a woman like me.”
Ellis inclined his head, gravely sympathetic.
“We sick women need them so much more than other women. We need them continually. If David were the ordinary uncomprehending sort of man, I—I couldn’t live.”
“You are lucky, Mrs. Rattray, to have such a devoted husband.”
“Yes, yes, I am, indeed. I know.”
The faint gleam left her face, as she wondered whether she might not be putting herself in too happy a light. Guessing her thought, Ellis hastened to put matters right.
“You need that, Mrs. Rattray. Life owes you so much. You have enough to bear as it is. A devoted husband is the least that can be granted to you. We must have some justice, even in this world.”
She gazed at him.
“How well you understand! Your wife must be a very happy woman.”
“Oh, I’m not at all a good husband. Understanding is one thing. Performance is another.”
She gave her horrible little sickly smile.
“Now you’re abusing yourself. I won’t believe you.”
“You’re too kind. Your own life makes you too indulgent to other people’s faults.”
Then he felt ashamed of himself, for she shook her head.
“Oh no. I don’t think that’s true. I’m often horribly cross and fault-finding.”
“That’s your health,” he assured her.
“It is, partly. But I mustn’t put all the blame on that. Some of it is just me, being horrid.”
He looked at her more kindly, seeing in her a pathetic struggle towards honesty and self-knowledge. The horror of her appearance, the emaciated, paint-encrusted face, the gash of a mouth, the claw-like hands, blurred into the softer outline of a victim trying still to present an appearance to the world.
“It’s so hard to tell,” he said, looking away over her head. “I had a bad illness once, and took months to get over it. Not till I was over it, and quite recovered, did I realise that my mind had been affected with my body. I didn’t go dotty, or anything like that. But just as I had a sick body, I had a sick mind, and I thought sick thoughts. But, at the time, I didn’t realise it. I thought I was thinking straight.”
She screwed her mouth up into a wrinkled crimson ring.
“I don’t think I like that thought. It frightens me. Because I’m sick all the time. So I might never think straight.”
“I shouldn’t worry too much about that. How do any of us know we’re thinking straight? I’m always making a fool of myself. I’m never sure.”
“You’re only saying that to cheer me up.”
“Oh no, I’m not. I think something stupid every day of my life, and don’t find out till afterwards.”
She smiled faintly, and looked at the clock.
“David will be here soon,” she said.
“It’s a shame he has to be away so much. That’s the worst of a man that does good works. But then, he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t, would he?”
“He’s out so many evenings now.”
“Everybody wants him. He’s a most popular man.”
“Yes,” she agreed listlessly. The opinion in which other people held him did not interest her. Ellis pressed on.
“I heard a wonderful tribute to him, only this morning.”
“People do like him.”
“This was from poor Joan Baildon.”
Her thin body tightened on the instant. Ellis proceeded without a pause. “She said he was the kindest person she had ever met. She couldn’t say too much for him. She’d naturally be grateful, after all he had done to help her. But this was more than gratitude. Evidently he has made a very deep impression on her.”
Her face lengthened. She was looking at him with an. expression he could not read.
“Joan is perfectly loyal,” she said, in almost fierce assertion. (She pronounced it “loyle.”) “She’s one of the most loyal people I’ve ever met.”
“I’m sure she is. She’d never hear a word against anyone she was fond of.”
“I don’t mean in that way. I mean——”
It was all too plain what she meant. Ellis stifled a feeling of nausea.
“She’s only a child,” he said. “And a handicapped child at that. I think it is wonderfully kind of your husband to take so much trouble with her.”
“David is perfectly sensible, of course. Even if she did get silly, the way young girls do. Some men aren’t sensible. No matter how young the girl is. In fact, it often makes them all the sillier. The men, I mean.”
“Well—with him so sensible, and her so loyal——” The words stuck in Ellis’s mouth: he couldn’t go on.
“Yes.”
She looked at him earnestly, anxiously. He put his elbows on his knees, and resolutely changed the subject.