第70章

Her hands shook as she held the bottle,but with a supreme effort she controlled her muscles and drew the cork without a sound,an accomplishment that she had learned in the back parlour of the Angel.She poured out half a glass,and swallowed it neat.The fiery liquid burnt her throat and brought the tears to her eyes,but she endured it willingly for the sake of the blessed relief that always followed.A minute later she repeated the dose and lay down on the bed.In ten minutes the seductive liquid had calmed her nerves like oil on troubled waters.She listened to the familiar sounds of the shop and the street with a delicious languor and sense of comfort in her body.In an hour she had reached the maudlin stage,and the bottle was half empty.

She felt at peace with the world,and began to think kindly of Jonah.

Hazily she remembered her bitter speech to Miss Grimes,and wondered at her violence.There was nothing the matter with him.He had been a good husband to her,working day and night to get on in the world.She felt a sudden desire to be friendly with him.Maudlin tears of self-reproach filled her eyes as she thought how she had stood in his way instead of helping him.She would mend her ways,give up the drink which was killing her,and take her proper position,with a fine house and servants.With a fatuous obstinacy in her sodden brain,she decided not to lose a minute,but to go and surprise Jonah with her noble resolutions.

She got to her feet,and saw the brandy bottle.Ah!Jonah must not know that she had been drinking,and with the last conscious act of her clouded brain she staggered into the sitting-room and hid the bottle under the cushions of the sofa.Then,conscious of nothing but her resolve,she lurched to the top of the stairs.It was nearly dark,and she felt for the railing,but the weight of her body sent an atrocious pain through her leg,and to ease it she took a step forward to put her weight on the other.And then,without fear,and without the desire or the power to save herself,she stepped into space and fell headlong down the winding staircase that she had always dreaded,rolling and bumping with a horrible noise on the wooden steps down to the shop,where the electric lights had just been switched on.She rolled sideways,and lay,with a curious slackness in her limbs,in front of the cashier's desk.One of the shopmen,startled by the noise,turned,and then,with a look of horror on his face,ran to the door.He bumped into Jonah,who was coming from the ladies'department.

"Wot the devil's this?"cried Jonah.

The man turned and pointed to the huddled heap at the foot of the stairs.

"It's yer missis.She fell from the top.'Er face is looking the wrong way."Jonah ran forward and shouted for a doctor.Then he knelt down and tried to lift Ada into a sitting posture,but her head sagged on one side.And Jonah realized suddenly,with a curious feeling of detachment,that he was free.When the doctor arrived,he told them that death had been instantaneous,as she had broken her neck in the fall.

The next day the "Silver Shoe"was closed on account of the funeral.The Grimes family sent a wreath,but Jonah looked in vain for Clara among the mourners.He was disappointed but relieved,fearing that the exultation in his heart would betray him in the presence of strangers.He dwelt with rapture on the moment in which he would meet her face to face,free to love and be loved,willing to lose some precious hours for the sake of rehearsing schemes for the future in his mind.He listened without emotion to the conventional regrets of the mourners,agreeing mechanically with their empty remarks on his great loss,a mocking devil in his brain.

The day after the funeral the Silver Shoe returned to business,and Jonah spent the morning in the shop,too nervous to sit idle.He had spent a sleepless night debating whether he should go to Clara or wait till she came to him of her own accord.The shop was alive with customers,drawn by the red-letter sale,but there was no sign of the one woman above all he desired to see.Suddenly he decided,with a certainty that astonished him,that she would come in the afternoon.After dinner he stayed in the sitting-room,fidgeting with impatience.He looked for something to do,and remembered that he had still to clear up the mystery of Ada's drunken bout.All the shop-hands had denied lending her money,and the mystery was increased by his finding no bottle in the usual hiding places.Ray,when questioned about brandy,had stared at him with bewildered eyes.And to calm his nerves he made another search of the rooms.

He turned out the drawers and cupboards,meeting everywhere evidence of Ada's slovenly habits.And at the sight and touch of the tawdry laces and flaring ribbons he was surprised by an emotion of tenderness and pity for his dead wife.He realized that the last link had snapped that bound him to Cardigan Street and the Push.Something vibrated in him as he thought of the woman who had shared his youth,and he understood suddenly that no other woman could disturb her possession of the years that were dead.

Clara could share the future with him,but half his life belonged irrevocably to Ada.