“And Wrayburn?”
She did not reply.
“Well?”
“He’s dead.”
I went nearer to her.
“When?”
“He was buried yesterday. He committed suicide.”
“Wrayburn?”
“Yes.”
I felt her hand on my arm.
“How?”
“Do you think you’d better——”
“How?” I repeated. “A newspaper—the inquest! Get me the newspaper.”
I did not hear her go or return. I found a newspaper in my hand, and flattened it on the desk—but I could not read it.
“You read it,” I said to her.
A gas-filled room . . . even the cracks in the floor plugged. . . . Rendell.
“Read again what Rendell said.”
Elsa read slowly.
“‘I blame myself bitterly for not seeing him more often. I knew he was lonely, but I failed him. As I said earlier, Wrayburn, apparently, had no relatives, but I shall, of course, make myself responsible for the funeral.’”
I do not know how long the silence continued after she stopped reading, but at last I heard her say:
“I must go now.”
“Have you talked to Rendell?”
“No.”
“See him—tell him about us.”
“Very well, and now I must go.”
She turned and walked towards the door.
Just as she reached it, I said:
“So you will come with me when I leave here?”
“Yes.”
“You will tell no one, and come with me?”
“Yes, whenever you like.”
She went out, closing the door noiselessly.
J
Next Sunday, I leave here with Elsa.
It will be eight weeks next Sunday since I came to this house: since I collapsed when Mrs. Frazer opened the front door: since I saw Him loom out of the fog on the Embankment.
I remember every detail of that Sunday—eight weeks ago.
I left my flat soon after six o’clock. For an hour I had stood by the window in the sitting-room, looking down at the fog-shrouded street. No one was to be seen. Every sound was muffled. The city had become its own ghost.
I stood motionless, watching my thoughts.
I had told everyone I was going abroad for a year to write a book. Rosalie had begged me not to leave her. She was certain she would tell Vivian, if I went. Her fear made her almost hysterical, but I scarcely heard what she said.
For over a year a theme for a novel had challenged my imagination. For months, the bee-hive of my subconscious mind had been at work on it. The period of inner elaboration was over. Now I must write it.
I was excited, eager to escape to solitude, but, nevertheless, I was afraid. I knew that, unless a miracle happened, it would be my last book. I had reached a final frontier. I stood at the end of a cul-de-sac.
Also, I had been ill recently. The tension of my nerves had become unendurable. I could feel the foundation of my will trembling.
These were some of the thoughts I watched—as I stood motionless, looking down into the fog.
But they were followed by other thoughts—fantastic projects which flashed across my mind, each offering a final intoxication before I went to Potiphar Street and to solitude.
One suggested I should ring up Vera and tell her to come to the flat. I had not seen her for months. I should hear her gasp of astonishment when she recognised my voice on the telephone. She would indignantly refuse to come—and half an hour later she would arrive.
Or I would ring Rosalie, see her once more, and tell her how wholly I had deceived her. Or I would make Rosalie and Vera both come to the flat, and then I would tell them everything. I would telephone Vivian—and Wrayburn. I would make them all come. Or I would ring up people I had not seen for years, who had reason to remember me.
These were some of the projects which flashed and faded in my mind as I stood by that window—eight weeks ago.
But, deeper than all, was the knowledge that I had reached the end of a road—the beginning of which had been my desertion of Elsa.
But the remnant of my will rebelled against this knowledge. My plans were made and I was determined to execute them. My luggage was piled in the hall. I was to leave at about six o’clock.
I remember the church bells beginning to ring out over the spectral city.
Suddenly someone said the taxi was waiting. I started violently, for I had not heard the servant enter the room.
I went into the hall, put on my overcoat, then looked round the flat for the last time. Just as I was going the telephone bell rang. I told the servant to say I was away, then I went down to the street.
I told the driver to take the luggage to 77 Potiphar Street, and to tell Mrs. Frazer that I should arrive at about nine o’clock.
I watched the taxi disappear, then groped through the fog to Piccadilly. Soon after I reached Leicester Square I lost myself in a desert of drifting desolation.
At last, I found myself in the Strand, and, some minutes later, I reached that tavern.
It was empty, but before long two men entered.
Marsden . . . Rendell . . . the sound of my own name . . . the story of Two Lives and a Destiny.
I overheard every word they said, as I sat huddled in my corner, too weak to move. Then, directly I could, I stumbled out into the fog and groped my way to Chelsea.
Sentences from the conversation I had overheard drifted through my mind, but they seemed to relate to someone else—some stranger who had stolen my name.
A new consciousness seemed to possess me, a strange terrible clarity which lit mysterious horizons.
And then, at last, I stopped outside the street leading to the Frazers’ house.
I leaned over the low Embankment wall and gazed into the vapoury void below, listening to the life of the swiftly-flowing invisible river. In the near distance, the blast of a siren suddenly gave desolation a voice. A moment later, a ruby-coloured light slowly emerged, glowed for a second, and vanished. Then all was still and dark again.
Gradually, a trance-like stupor possessed me. Then slowly, ceaselessly, a sentence began to circle in my mind. It was Marsden’s final statement to Rendell.
“He’s convinced that man contains the potentiality of a new being.”
And then I turned and saw—You!
Your figure was shrouded, but your face was fully revealed. It was the countenance of a new order of Being. I knew that a man from the Future stood before me.
Terror overwhelmed me—then. But I do not fear you—now.
I stretch out my arms and invoke you:—
Come!
I do not know whether you stand on the threshold, or whether unnumbered ages separate us from you. I only know that you must be: that you are the spiritual consciousness made flesh: that you are the risen man and that we are the dead men. Yet, in us, is the possibility of you.
We are the Old—the dying—Consciousness. You are the New—the living—Consciousness. We have violated earth. You will redeem it. We descend the darkening valley of knowledge. You stand on the uplands of wisdom. We are an end. You are a beginning.
If you are a dream, all else is a nightmare. But I have seen God’s signature across your forehead.
Come!
More and more fiercely we deny our need of you. We say you are a fantasy, a lie, an illusion. We madden ourselves with sensation; drug ourselves with work, pleasure, speed; herd in the vast sepulchres of our cities; blind our eyes; deaden our ears; cling to our creed of comfort (Comfort! the last of the creeds!) sink day by day in deeper servitude to our inventions—hoping to numb the knowledge of our emptiness; striving to ease the ache of separation; trying to evade your challenge; seeking to deny our destiny.