The Rain-Girl. Herbert George Jenkins
mind was a chaos of absurdities. He had flown from the commonplace, and landed in a veritable Gehenna of interest. Within thirty hours of setting out, a modern Don Quixote, plus a temperament, he had encountered more incidents, pleasant and unpleasant, than most men have any right to expect in a decade. It was absurd, ridiculous, insane to overload a man's stomach with adventure in this way. It was like giving beef-steak pudding to some poor devil with gastritis. Perhaps after all he would be forced to return to London in search of quiet. The country was evidently packed with adventures too monstrously anti-climatic for him. And he fell asleep as a protest against the obvious mismanagement of his affairs by fate.
On the morrow the doctor came again, chatted for a quarter of an hour, then, like a breeze on a hot summer's day, departed. The nurse was negative: she was uncongenial, uncompanionable, uneverything.
On the second day the proprietor came to see the patient. He was a little man with a round figure and a round smile. He entered the room as if it had been a death-chamber, approached the bed on tip-toe, and smiled nervously. As a landlord he was all that could be desired. He would meet his guests at the door and welcome them as a good host should. He would enquire after their comfort, and in the mornings ask if they had slept well. He would gossip with them cheerfully if they showed themselves inclined for talk, and he personally superintended the kitchen, having once been a chef. In short, he strove to combine all that was most attractive in modern comfort with the best traditions of the old coaching days.
In a sick-room, however, the landlord of "The Two Dragons" was out of place. Rich in tact and amiability, he was bankrupt in all else. He spoke in a hushed whisper, sat on the extreme edge of his chair, and coughed nervously from time to time, raising the tips of his fingers to his lips. He was smiling, he was bland; but Beresford was thankful when he rose to go, promising to come in on the morrow.
The Rain-Girl continued to monopolise Beresford's thoughts. What had become of her? Where was she now? Should he ever see her again? To all these questions there was no answer, at least no answer that satisfied him.
During those dreary days of convalescence he chafed under the "dire compulsion of infertile days." Outside were the trees, the birds, the sunlight, with an occasional sudden rush of rain, followed by the maddening scent of moist earth. He fumed and fretted at the restraint put upon him, not only by the doctor; but by his own physical weakness. He longed for the open road once more.
The monotony of it all, of being a hotel-invalid; it was intolerable. The events of the day, what were they? Breakfast, the arrival of the morning paper, a visit of ceremony from the landlord, lunch, the doctor and tea—and, finally, dinner. Sometimes the doctor would spend an hour with him in the evening.
The nurse was an infliction. In herself she was sufficient to discourage any one from falling ill. She had neither conversation nor ideas, she whistled as she moved about the room, or else she talked incessantly, now that her patient was convalescent. Sometimes she appeared to talk and whistle at the same time, so swift were the alternations.
The landlord—a man rich in that which made a good landlord but in nothing else—exhausted his ideas within the space of five minutes. With great regularity he entered the sick-room each morning at eleven, at eleven-five he would take his departure, more genial, more amiable, and more obviously good-hearted than ever. The doctor was the most welcome visitor of all; but he was a busy man.
"If the microbes of this neighbourhood were only sociable," he would say, "I might spend more time with you. As it is they're wanderers to a germ, and get as far as possible from each other before descending upon my patients. The result is that I am kept rushing from place to place with phial and lancet, sedative and purge, all because of the nomadic habits of these precious bacilli."
These unprofessional visits from the doctor Beresford looked forward to as intellectual oases in the desert of his own thoughts. He had endeavoured to emulate Xavier Le Maistre; but he had to confess to himself that Voyages Autour de ma Chambre were impossible to him, so there remained only the doctor.
One evening towards the end of the month they sat charting beside the bedroom fire, Beresford wrapped in a heavy dressing-gown borrowed from the landlord. They had been talking of the war and the social upheaval that was following it.
"It was all so strange coming back here," said Beresford, "a lot of the fellows remarked upon it. Somehow or other we didn't seem to belong—we didn't seem to fit in, you know. When I came back on leave I noticed it particularly. I would go to a restaurant, hear the talk and laughter, listen to the music; yet twenty-four hours previously I—oh! it was all wrong, and is wrong, and will continue to be wrong," he broke off irritably.
"I know," said Tallis quietly.
"You were out there?" queried Beresford.
"For more than a couple of years, one part of the time at an advanced dressing-station."
"So you know," said Beresford with interest.
Tallis nodded, puffing methodically at his pipe.
"The strange thing is that some knew what was the matter with them, others were just like animals who were ill and couldn't understand it. You've seen a dog look up at you as if enquiring why it can't enjoy things as it used to?"
Tallis nodded again.
"Well, that's what some of the men reminded me of," continued Beresford, "especially those who had come back from leave. God!" he exclaimed, "it was an unequal distribution of the world's responsibilities."
For some time they smoked in silence. Presently the doctor bent towards the grate and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
"Talking of responsibilities," he said casually, "reminds me of my own. What's the next move after convalescence?"
"The next move?"
"You'd better try Folkestone."
"Folkestone!" cried Beresford, "I'll be damned if I do. I'd sooner go to—to——"
"Well, it'll probably be a choice between the two. I'd try Folkestone first, however, if I were you," he added drily. "It'll brace you up."
"But it's going back again——" He paused and regarded the doctor comically. "You see," he continued, "I've cut adrift from all that sort of thing. I escaped from London, and now you want to send me to a seaside-town—abomination of abominations. I won't go. I'll see the whole idiotic Faculty damned first. I've been free, and I won't go back to the collar. I know you think I'm a fool," he concluded moodily.
"No, merely an idealist," said Tallis, puffing imperturbably at his pipe.
"Where's the difference?" growled Beresford, petulantly.
"There is none," was the quiet reply. "What'll happen when your money's exhausted?" was the next question. Beresford had already told Tallis of what had led up to his adventure. "I take it that your means, like other things, have their limitations. What'll you do when the money's gone?"
"Oh, anything, everything. If fate sends me pneumonia on the first day of my adventure, on the last she'll probably send me——"
"A great desire for life," interrupted the doctor calmly.
Beresford sat up suddenly. "Good Lord!" he burst out. "How horrible! What a fiendish idea."
"Nature has an odd way of paying off old scores. She's a mistress of irony."
"And you appear to be a master of a peculiarly devilish kind of abominable suggestion," said Beresford irritably. "I thought you a dream-doctor at first—you're a nightmare-doctor! Do you think that Nature is a coquette, who appears to discourage a man in order to strengthen his ardour?"
After some hesitation the doctor replied:
"No: she's logical and even-tempered. There's nothing wayward about her: she represents abstract justice. Treat her well and she'll treat you well; abuse her and she's implacable. My professional experience tells me that if she ever deviates from the strict path of justice, it's on the side