2
Whatever devastating happenings had been going on in his home, it was
plain a moment later that Gerald had managed to survive them: for there
came the sound of a dragging footstep, and the door opened. Gerald stood
on the threshold, the weak smile back on his face.
"Hullo, Sally!"
At the sight of him, disreputable and obviously unscathed, Sally's
brief alarm died away, leaving in its place the old feeling of impatient
resentment. In addition to her other grievances against him, he had
apparently frightened her unnecessarily.
"Whatever was all that noise?" she demanded.
"Noise?" said Gerald, considering the point open-mouthed.
"Yes, noise," snapped Sally.
"I've been cleaning house," said Gerald with the owl-like gravity of a
man just conscious that he is not wholly himself.
Sally pushed her way past him. The apartment in which she found herself
was almost an exact replica of her own, and it was evident that Elsa
Doland had taken pains to make it pretty and comfortable in a niggly
feminine way. Amateur interior decoration had always been a hobby of
hers. Even in the unpromising surroundings of her bedroom at Mrs.
Meecher's boarding-house she had contrived to create a certain
daintiness which Sally, who had no ability in that direction herself,
had always rather envied. As a decorator Elsa's mind ran in the
direction of small, fragile ornaments, and she was not afraid of
over-furnishing. Pictures jostled one another on the walls: china of all
description stood about on little tables: there was a profusion of lamps
with shades of parti-coloured glass: and plates were ranged along a
series of shelves.
One says that the plates were ranged and the pictures jostled one
another, but it would be more correct to put it they had jostled and had
been ranged, for it was only by guess-work that Sally was able to
reconstruct the scene as it must have appeared before Gerald had
started, as he put it, to clean house. She had walked into the flat
briskly enough, but she pulled up short as she crossed the threshold,
appalled by the majestic ruin that met her gaze. A shell bursting in the
little sitting-room could hardly have created more havoc.
The psychology of a man of weak character under the influence of alcohol
and disappointed ambition is not easy to plumb, for his moods follow one
another with a rapidity which baffles the observer. Ten minutes before,
Gerald Foster had been in the grip of a clammy self-pity, and it seemed
from his aspect at the present moment that this phase had returned. But
in the interval there had manifestly occurred a brief but adequate spasm
of what would appear to have been an almost Berserk fury. What had
caused it and why it should have expended itself so abruptly, Sally was
not psychologist enough to explain; but that it had existed there was
ocular evidence of the most convincing kind. A heavy niblick, flung
petulantly--or remorsefully--into a corner, showed by what medium the
destruction had been accomplished.
Bleak chaos appeared on every side. The floor was littered with every
imaginable shape and size of broken glass and china. Fragments of
pictures, looking as if they had been chewed by some prehistoric animal,
lay amid heaps of shattered statuettes and vases. As Sally moved slowly
into the room after her involuntary pause, china crackled beneath her
feet. She surveyed the stripped walls with a wondering eye, and turned
to Gerald for an explanation.
Gerald had subsided on to an occasional table, and was weeping softly
again. It had come over him once more that he had been very, very badly
treated.
"Well!" said Sally with a gasp. "You've certainly made a good job of
it!"
There was a sharp crack as the occasional table, never designed by its
maker to bear heavy weights, gave way in a splintering flurry of broken
legs under the pressure of the master of the house: and Sally's mood
underwent an abrupt change. There are few situations in life which do
not hold equal potentialities for both tragedy and farce, and it was the
ludicrous side of this drama that chanced to appeal to Sally at this
moment. Her sense of humour was tickled. It was, if she could have
analysed her feelings, at herself that she was mocking--at the feeble
sentimental Sally who had once conceived the absurd idea of taking this
preposterous man seriously. She felt light-hearted and light-headed, and
she sank into a chair with a gurgling laugh.
The shock of his fall appeared to have had the desirable effect of
restoring Gerald to something approaching intelligence. He picked
himself up from the remains of a set of water-colours, gazing at Sally
with growing disapproval.
"No sympathy," he said austerely.
"I can't help it," cried Sally. "It's too funny."
"Not funny," corrected Gerald, his brain beginning to cloud once more.
"What did you do it for?"
Gerald returned for a moment to that mood of honest indignation, which
had so strengthened his arm when wielding the niblick. He bethought him
once again of his grievance.
"Wasn't going to stand for it any longer," he said heatedly. "A
fellow's wife goes and lets him down... ruins his show by going off and
playing in another show... why shouldn't I smash her things? Why should
I stand for that sort of treatment? Why should I?"
"Well, you haven't," said Sally, "so there's no need to discuss it. You
seem to have acted in a thoroughly manly and independent way."
"That's it. Manly independent." He waggled his finger impressively.
"Don't care what she says," he continued. "Don't care if she never comes
back. That woman..."
Sally was not prepared to embark with him upon a discussion of the
absent Elsa. Already the amusing aspect of the affair had begun to fade,
and her hilarity was giving way to a tired distaste for the sordidness
of the whole business. She had become aware that she could not endure
the society of Gerald Foster much longer. She got up and spoke
decidedly.
"And now," she said, "I'm going to tidy up."
Gerald had other views.
"No," he said with sudden solemnity. "No! Nothing of the kind. Leave
it for her to find. Leave it as it is."
"Don't be silly. All this has got to be cleaned up. I'll do it. You
go and sit in my apartment. I'll come and tell you when you can come
back."
"No!" said Gerald, wagging his head.
Sally stamped her foot among the crackling ruins. Quite suddenly the
sight of him had become intolerable.
"Do as I tell you," she cried.
Gerald wavered for a moment, but his brief militant mood was ebbing
fast. After a faint protest he shuffled off, and Sally heard him go into
her room. She breathed a deep breath of relief and turned to her task.
A visit to the kitchen revealed a long-handled broom, and, armed with
this, Sally was soon busy. She was an efficient little person, and
presently out of chaos there began to emerge a certain order. Nothing
short of complete re-decoration would ever make the place look habitable
again, but at the end of half an hour she had cleared the floor, and the
fragments of vases, plates, lamp-shades, pictures and glasses were
stacked in tiny heaps against the walls. She returned the broom to the
kitchen, and, going back into the sitting-room, flung open the window
and stood looking out.
With a sense of unreality she perceived that the night had gone. Over
the quiet street below there brooded that strange, metallic light which
ushers in the dawn of a fine day. A cold breeze whispered to and fro.
Above the house-tops the sky was a faint, level blue.
She left the window and started to cross the room. And suddenly there
came over her a feeling of utter weakness. She stumbled to a chair,
conscious only of being tired beyond the possibility of a further
effort. Her eyes closed, and almost before her head had touched the
cushions she was asleep.
