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Chapter 12 · Idols

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  Chapter twelve of Idols by William John Locke. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  public domain recording by Simon Evs, Chapter twelve. When a human being has
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  not slept for five or six nights, especially if that human being is a
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  woman of romantic temperament, many queer things abound to happen. The sensory nerves
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  become susceptible to impression from all influences that exist and from many that do not.
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  The head swells to an enormous size, with its unrelieved stall bells and
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  music and the voice of an invisible person reading aloud and interminable and unintelligible book
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  frob on the tympanum. Men and women have an uncomfortable way of growing suddenly
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  large and then suddenly small. Before the eyes. The flesh seems disintegrated into
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  elemental and quivering molecules. A sixth sense raretously develops and makes the sufferer aware
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  of a murderous devil dogging the foot. Under these conditions to join in the
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  small talk of her family dinner table, do fancy work in the drawing room,
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  and play greg on the piano to a virtuoso argues a considerable reserve fund
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  of moral power, and this is found more commonly in women than in men.
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  Until the day of Hugh's trial at the Old Bailey, Minna had successfully
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  concealed her state from the friendly eyes of the Bebros. She looked wretchedly ill,
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  but a cunning shade of carmine relieved her haggardness and caused her to appear
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  nothing more than interestingly afflicted. When the pains of hell got more closely round
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  about her, she forced her lips into a photographic smile, thereby impressing the
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  motherly missus Bebrow with a sense of her patience under tribulation. It was a
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  gruesome comedy. At first, pure terror and avarice. Bitter resentment of the
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  wrongs Hugh had done her, and consequent blindness to the imminent peril in which
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  he stood had paralyzed the moral sense. But later, after she had given
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  evidence before the magistrates, she knew to the fool that she was playing the
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  most desperate game that ever woman played for money. The gambler's instinct kept her
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  mind clear. Strength of will saved her from collapse. Hugh acquitted all her
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  money would be her own, everything would be well she would seek fresh scenes,
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  blot this nightmare for ever from her life. Hugh condemned, she would
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  do some mad deed to save him. Summon Anna Cassaba from Syria, cast
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  herself at the feet of the Home Secretary, surrender her thousands, and throw
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  herself over Waterloo Bridge. This was a doom inevitable meeted out to her,
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  rather than a scheme which her brain had devised. All the passionate, yet
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  stubborn racial energies of her nature were concentrated upon the supreme effort of making her
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  last bid for fortune. It was a fixed idea, focusing the distempered mind
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  and magnetizing the exhausted flesh. Her last bid for fortune she had made it.
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  She found herself in Missus Bebrow's carriage, with a motherly lady by her
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  side. How she had been transported thither from the swaying reading court. She
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  did not know. Missus Bebrow, with veil raised above red eyes, was
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  holding her hand. Yet she had a vague knowledge that she had not fainted
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  thew There it is over now, dear, said her companion kindly. It
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  has been a trying time for you. We'll soon get home now, And
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  a cup of tea in a light arm will do you good, yes,
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  said mina horseby, it will do me good. Poor young man, said
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  missus bebrow I nearly cry my eyes out over him. It is a terrible
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  thing, said the girl with set teeth, clenching the armstrap with her free
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  hand. And I'm sure he's innocent, poor fellow. I met him once.
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  Do you remember such charming manners like a prince, and your poor dear
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  father so fond of him too. He can't have done it. I know
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  he is innocent, said Minna. Hitherto, missus Bebreau had been very considerate
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  in her allusions to the dreadful topic. But now human nature asserted itself.
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  She was anxious to sympathize, also to relieve pent up emotions, for the
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  fascination of a murder upon those intimately connected with it is intense. It is
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  a splash of blood upon the gray veil of decorous life, and cannot be
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  hidden. She took up her parable discoursed at length in a hushed voice,
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  such as he considered reverend upon the day of atonement, And as she talked
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  in the cramped space of the noiselessly gliding broom, the horrors gradually grew upon
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  the girl. We must buy an evening paper to see what happened before we
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  got there. But I asked the policeman, and he said things were going
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  very bad for the poor fellow when once I got in. I should have
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  liked to have heard it all from the beginning, but it would have been
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  too painful for you, dear child, to have done more than just given
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  your evidence. I am glad you were able to say what you did about
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  him. It may help him. Yes, I tried to help him,
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  said Minna. The sides of the broom seemed to be narrowing upon her,
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  like the inquisition torture chamber. She suddenly thrust out her arms to keep them
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  off, my dear child. The question suddenly restored her balance, but she
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  wanted to scream. Instead, she uttered a short laugh. I was thinking
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  what a screaming fast this would make in her, she said, gutthoroughly.
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  Missus Prebrow looked at her inquiringly. The conception was beyond her. Yes,
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  I am sure the evil one must have a hand in it, she said
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  at last, in a tone of assent. Circumstances are diabolically against him.
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  Oh, it gives me the horrors to think of it, and how proud
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  and handsome he looked, standing there as if every one was the dirt under
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  his feet. Do you know, dear, about you and him? If
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  he be one of our people, I could offence it. She broke off.
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  The carriage was blocked and pickered in his curcus. A newspaper boy darted
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  up to the open window, flourishing an evening paper is only to murder,
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  that is details. Minner threw herself aside onto Missus Bedbrow with a piercing shriek.
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  There was a rush of startled and attracted bystanders. Missus Bredbrow stretched across
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  Minner and pulled up the glass. The carriage moved on. She took the
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  shaking girl in her arms and held it to her bosom, uttering motherly words
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  of soothing. But that sudden shriek was the beginning of things. All the
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  rest of the drive home she lay quite still, continuing the comedy and the
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  mystification of the worthy, single minded woman, but in order to do so,
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  she was forced to keep her gloved fingers between her teeth. There there
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  continued Missus Bedbrow, petting her, don't take on, so, dear,
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  we must take all the afflictions that the Lord sends us, bear up dear
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  under them like a Jewish maiden. We will put you to bed with something
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  hot and nice to take, and you will sleep and wake up strong to
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  morrow. And so the good woman went on, seeking to heat the bayonetted
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  body with housewifely sticking plaster. But the girl was too far gone for heeding.
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  The new horrors were upon her. As soon as they reached the house
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  and had entered. She fled upstairs to her room with the black things at
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  her heels. What passed then, when alone in her room she crouched before
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  her terror. It is neither profitable nor decent to say she had been strong
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  up to a certain point. The girl to whose attainment she had set the
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  marvelous mechanism of nerves and fibers. It was off her sex not to have
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  calculated upon the beyond. She paid her sexes penalty. The inevitable awe of
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  inconsistency dragged her out, a wild, half mad thing. An hour later,
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  into the street, a handsome cab chanced to have just put down a
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  fair at the next house. She entered, flung an address at the driver,
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  and a moment later was being carried through wording space. The first air
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  of Hughes trial was over. The streets rang with it. Reports were flashing
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  through the kingdom on a thousand wires. It was the theme of all men's
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  talk, a coarse s labor convulsing a vast society. The Attorney General had
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  delivered his opening address, One or two witnesses had been called in her heart
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  the last. The prisoner's prospects were damnably black. His friends regarded each other
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  with pale lips. In the quiet Hartfordshire timed it. Two gentle ladies clung
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  together in awful anguish of soul. The man himself lay in holloway jail,
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  mailed in a pride of steel. Ireni and Gerrard sat over their evening meal.
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  She had been in court all the gnawing day, and now leaning back
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  in her chair, dressed in a pink wrapper, a pretty cock tree of
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  happier times, she looked almost diaphanous in her exhaustion. It's no use you're
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  not eating, said Gerard. You'll make yourself ill. She shook her head.
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  I can't, Gerard. I'll have some beef tea or something presently.
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  You go on you are a man and have a big body to nourish.
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  She helped him from the dish in front of her, choosing, in her
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  wifely fashion, the nicest looking morsels, and then sat regarding him with the
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  great eyes, admiring the strength of will that could compel appetite on so sorrowful
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  an evening. She knew that rejection of food was silly, but the thought
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  of it turned her sick. I feel ill, she said. I always
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  prided myself on being strong minded and above affected feminine weaknesses. But now she
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  shrugged her shoulders and her lips moved in a wan smile. You'd better not
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  come to the court to morrow if you don't feel up to it, said
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  Gerard. Oh I should go if I were dying, said Irene. It's
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  the least thing we can do. Go and cheer and keep the brave heart
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  in him. For with all your efforts to this you have been able to
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  do nothing. There's nothing to be done. I did what I could.
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  Couldn't even get hold of your famous photograph. He must have destroyed that too,
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  so I couldn't trace the original. That cold, cruel and exquisitely chiseled
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  face, whose likeness she had seen in Hugh's rooms, had persistently assumed the
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  identity of the woman for whose sake he was maintaining this silence, even when
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  she doubted the probability of her conjecture. The mysterious woman gradually revealed herself as
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  as a possessor of those of fidian eyes. They haunted her night and day.
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  At last she doubted no longer that was the woman. She had the
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  face of one who could well see the man that loved her die before her
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  eyes. As a forlorn hope, Irene had set Gerald upon the track of
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  the photograph, but it had disappeared from Hugh's rooms. The disappearance, however,
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  confirmed her certainty. There was a silence. Gerard went on with his
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  dinner with the steadiness of a big framed man who must eat. Irene pressed
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  her hands over her burning eyeballs and leant forward on the table. She was
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  suffering greatly. Will you be able to bear it if the worst comes?
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  She asked after a while. The worst hasn't come yet, he replied,
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  so it's no good talking about it. His brow clouded. There was a
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  deep note in his wife's voice that troubled him. She noticed the shadow.
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  I must not pay you, Gerard. I've only known Hugh for a few
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  years. He has been your friend all your life. I can't feel it
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  all as you do. We don't mend matters by dwelling upon them, he
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  said. Besides, if there really is a woman, oh, she must
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  be in hell far now, exclaimed Irene fiercely, A foretaste of the future,
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  Yes, he said he grimly. I shouldn't like to be in her
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  shoes and not. The silence, this time broken by the rattle and sudden
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  drag of a carriage drawing up at the front door. A moment later the
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  faint whir of the electric bell downstairs. Who can that be? Cried Irene
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  nervously. Hugh, dear, let me listen, she strained, her ears,
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  rather overwrought. It is a woman, if it should be the woman,
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  Oh nonsense, reni said Gerrard, with the man's contempt for the feminine
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  fanciful. The maid servant entered Misshart. Sir, whish is to speak to
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  you, Miss Hart, echoed Irene with a shade of disappointment, then succeeded
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  quick scorn for the silliness of her fluttering hope. A natural interest in the
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  visitor's errand what can she want? Gerard rose from the table and went out
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  into the hall. It was a broad passage, softly carpeted, well warmed,
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  furnished with oak settles and tables. Here and there a great indoor plant,
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  all brightly lighted from a great central cluster of electric globes. Minna was
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  standing near the door. As Gerard approached. She advanced hurriedly to meet him,
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  her veil off, her dark hair disordered over her forehead, a fashionable
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  beefeathered and beribboned hat. Or rye, I've come, I want to She
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  stopped dead, stared at in open mouths. He was somewhat bewildered, yes,
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  he said, in lame inquiry. But she stood before him, trembling,
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  uttering little sharp noises like a terrier, wistful to make his wants known.
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  A horror in her eyes. Good God, what is the matter?
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  She could not reply. The horror faded into mere helpless fright. She raised
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  her hands and twitched her fingers somewhat horridly in the air, and continued the
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  little staccato moans. Reenie cried Gerard, sharply, Reenie, come here.
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  Irene started at her husband's summons and ran out into the hall. But as
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  soon as the girl saw her, she utter a long, shivering moan and
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  shrank against the wall. What is it? The girl's got a fit hysterics
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  and something said a couple of words, and then gasped at me, poor
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  child, said Irene. Touched she approached her, but Minna waved her away
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  with unreasoning terror, and, edging backward, met an settle, on which
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  she instinctively sat and crouching. Continued her inarticulate cries. She evident that he
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  doesn't want Irene, said Gerard, what the devil shall I do with her?
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  I'll go away for a minute. You must try and quieter. I'll
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  send Jane to you. Then I'll come back and see if she'll bear me
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  to touch her. It's hysteria. The whole thing has been too much for
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  her to day, poor little thing. Irene made one more attempt, but
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  seeing that her ministrations would perhaps render the girl varlent, she retired and sent
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  the maid in her place. Irene gone men I grew less excited, but
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  she trembled and moaned, and was apparently incapable of understanding words. Jerard arranged
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  some cushions, and the servant of ministered smelling salts on trying to pull off
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  her gloves so as to chafe her hands. They found the fingers of one
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  hand for swollen. The kid was cut and bloody at the edges where she
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  had bitten. Gerard left the two women, and, going into the dining
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  room, explained matters hurriedly to Irene, what the deuce is the meaning of
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  it? She's ever all, poor child? Think what a terrible ordeal she
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  went through in the witness box to day? Here was very friendly at the
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  Lindons. You know, do you think she was in love with you?
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  Perhaps? Said Irene rather wearily. What does she want be? For all
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  hysterical, dear? She knew you were Hugh's dearest friend. Came to ask
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  whether you thought him likely to be condemned, then broke down. You see
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  what poor silly stuff we women are made of. At any rate, you
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  don't fall to gibbering like a monkey at the sight of a snake, said
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  Gerard, accepting his wife's explanation. And now what are we to do with
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  her? She won't let me come near her, or else I would nurse
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  her, said Irene. What do you think her cab is still waiting.
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  I could take her home to her friends. Will it hurt her? No,
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  said Irene. It might do her good the drive. But you are
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  so tired, dear, Oh Lord, I'd sooner take her away than have
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  her foony about here, said Gerard, and he went back again to the
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  hall. Thus mine was restored to the scared and anxious Bebros, who put
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  her to bed and sent for a doctor. The hysteria on whose brink she
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  had long been trembling, had at last engulfed her. An hour by hour
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  she sank deeper into the abyss, where all the horrors fought for her.
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  The significance of her foiled errand did not reach her consciousness, and that night,
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  as Gerard slept thoriously by her side, Irene lay throbbingly awake, aching
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  with suspense the awful peril of the man whom Gerard loved, darled her reminiscence
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  of the strange visit of the hysterical girl. It never crossed our mind that
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  the Lord had delivered her enemy into her hands. End of Chapter twelve