The Road by Warwick Deeping

Author:Warwick Deeping
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, romance
Publisher: Distributed Proofreaders Canada
Published: 1931-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

3

It grew dark, and Mrs. Binnie hurried in.

“Rachie—you’d like a light?”

“Don’t bother. I’m quite happy here—in the dark.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. But I would like the window open.”

“You won’t feel cold?”

“No.”

Mrs. Binnie raised the lower sash.

“I’ll be in again presently, Rachie. Rho has a headache, and I’ve sent her to bed.”

She lay in the darkness, watching the stars come out and ever and again the foliage of the chestnut tree was lit by the headlights of a passing car. The wet freshness of the night was pleasant to her. It was growing late, and yet she had a feeling that he would come and stand at her window, even though it was unlit; and in the darkness she would talk to him.

She waited and listened. The leaves of the chestnut dripped and dripped. A car passed, and in passing seemed to leave behind it some other sound. She heard a table creak as though someone had pushed against it. She was aware of a presence, a faint crepitation as of a sleeve rubbing against the wall. She held her breath and listened.

Yes, someone was there just outside the window, but hidden from her as yet. She fancied that she could hear the sound of breathing.

A voice startled her.

“Hallo, Rache.”

The upper part of her went rigid. Her head lay turned on the pillow, and she saw the dim outline of a head and body at the window, a kind of dark bulk.

“Who’s that?”

“Guess.”

She was silent.

“You ought to know without guessing. Well—how’s life? Finding things a bit dull?”

She lay and stared. She was frightened, for it seemed to her that a large animal was rubbing itself against the wall, tail and hair erect, and that its movements had a lascivious slyness. Almost, the creature purred, and gloated, and sleeked itself.

“It’s Stanley—Stanley Shelp.”

She felt a kind of horror of him and of herself, because—in the darkness—he seemed to suggest some of those cravings that vexed her. He was life at her window, solicitous, suggestive, sex symbolized in its hot breathing and surreptitious eagerness. She wanted to cry out.

He leaned in.

“Damned bad luck—Rache. Sorry. Thought you might like a little gossip on the quiet.”

And suddenly she understood. She divined his impulse. Her very helplessness piqued him, the inert shape of her in bed. Yes, probably she would be less pixsome now, less wayward. She might even welcome sex, the insidious smell of the male thing, sensual tenderness, pawings, provocations. She lay rigid.

“What did you come here for?”

“Feeling friendly, my dear. Nice dark night. Give a chap a hand.”

She could distinguish a groping arm. She had a sudden feeling that if she humoured him—even for a moment—he would slip in through the window. She would have him on her bed.

She cried out.

“Go away.”

She called to those others.

“Mother—Rhoda—I want you.”

The bulk of him hung there for a moment. He sneered at her.

“All right, all right! Don’t howl. I suppose if some other fellow came——”

“Go away.”

He disappeared, and there was no sound but the dripping of the chestnut leaves. No one had heard her.

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