Part 43

The burden of action was, it seemed, to be laid upon her. She would accept it calmly, dutifully. So the summer waned, drawing towards autumn. The atmosphere grew heavy and mellow. The garden was languid with its weight of bearing plants and with its fruits. Mists rose at evening in the woods, clouding the trunks of the trees, and spreading melancholy as a sad tale that floats, like a mist, over those who hear it. And, one day, the book was finished.

Berrand came to tell Catherine. He was radiant. While he spoke he never noticed that she closed her hands tightly as one who prepares to face an enemy.

"We are going to London this afternoon," he added. "Mark must see his publisher."

"He is taking up the manuscript?" said Catherine hastily.

"No, no. There are one or two finishing touches to be put. But he must arrange about the date of publishing. He will return by the midnight train, but I shall stay in town for the night."

Mark locked up the manuscript in a drawer of his writing table, the key of which he carried about him on a chain. And the two men took their departure, leaving Catherine alone.

So the time of her duty was fully come. She had waited till now, because, till now, she had not been absolutely sure that she was to be the agent through whom Fate was to work. But she could no longer dare to doubt. The book was finished. Mark had been allowed to finish it. But its deadly work was not accomplished till it was given to the world. It must never be given to the world.

The day was not cold. Yet Catherine ordered the footman to light a fire in Mark's study. When he had done so she told him not to allow her to be disturbed. Then she went into the room and shut the door behind her. She walked up to the writing table, at which Mark had spent so many hours, labouring, thinking, imagining, working out, fashioning that shell which was to burst and maim a world. The silence in the room seemed curiously intense. The fire gleamed, and the sun gleamed too; though already it was slanting to the West. Catherine stood for some time by the table. Then she tried the drawer in which Mark kept his manuscript and found it locked. The resistance of the drawer to her hand roused her.

Two or three minutes later one of the maids in the servant's hall said,

"Whatever's that?"

"What?" said the footman who had lit the study fire.

"Listen!" said the maid.

They listened and heard a sound like a blow struck on some hard substance.

"There it is again," said the maid. "What ever can it be?"

The footman didn't know, but they both agreed that the noise seemed to come from the study. While they were still gossiping about it Catherine stood at Mark's writing table, and drew out from an open drawer the manuscript of the book. She lifted it in her hands slowly and her face was hard and set. Then she turned and carried it to the hearth, where the fire was blazing. By the hearth she paused. She meant to destroy the book in the fire. But now that she saw the book, now that she held it in her hands, the deed seemed so horribly merciless that she hesitated. Then she knelt down on the hearth and leaned towards the flames. Their light played upon her face, their heat scorched her skin. She held the book towards them, over them. The flames flew up towards it eagerly, seeming to desire it. Catherine tantalised them by withholding from them their prey. For now, in this crisis of action, doubts assailed her. She remembered that she had never read the book, though she had heard much of it from Berrand. He was imaginative and essentially mischievous. Perhaps he had exaggerated its tendency, drawn too lurid a picture of its horrible power. Catherine turned a page or two and glanced at the clear, even writing. It fascinated her eyes.

At eight the footman opened the door, announcing dinner.

Catherine started as if from a dream. Her face was white and her eyes were ablaze with excitement. She put the manuscript back in the drawer, went into the dining-room and made a pretence of dining. But very soon she was back again in the study. She sat down under a lamp by the fire and went on reading the book. She knew that Mark would not be home till midnight; there was plenty of time. She turned the leaves one by one, and presently she forgot the passing of time, she forgot everything in the evil fascination of the book. She was enthralled. She was horror-stricken. But she could not cease from reading. Only when she had finished she meant to burn the book. No one else should ever come under its spell. She never heard the clock striking the hours. She never heard the sound of carriage wheels on the gravel of the drive. She never heard a step in the hall, the opening of the study door. Only when Mark stood before her with an exclamation of keen surprise did she start up. The manuscript dropped from her hands on to the hearth. The drawer in the writing table, broken open, gaped wide.

"Catherine," Mark said, and he bent hastily and picked up the book. "Catherine, what is the meaning of this? You have--you have----"

He stopped, struck dumb by flooding astonishment. She stared up at him without a word and with a dazed expression in her eyes. He looked towards the drawer.

"You have dared to break open my writing table!"

"Yes," she said, finding a voice. "I have dared."

"And to read--to read----"

She nodded. Mark seemed utterly confused by surprise. He looked almost sheepish, as men do in blank amazement. She got up and stood before him and laid her hands on his, which held the book.

"You see that fire?" she said in a low voice.

He looked at it, as if he had not noticed it before.

"What's it for?" he said, also in a low voice.

"Don't you know?"

They looked into each other's eyes for a moment.