XV + 

And now began the darkest period in all Annie Marble’s unhappy life, the last few weeks before its unhappy end. The shadows had massed about 53 Malcolm Road, and as they clustered round ready for the last act of the tragedy poor Annie grew more and more conscious of their presence. + 

Winnie was gone; of that they could be sure now. They had waited a week in suspense; then they had begun to advertise for her. Discreet little advertisements in the personal columns of the papers⁠—“Winnie. Come back to 53. Everything forgiven. Father and Mother.” That was the most they could do. For a brief half-second while they had been debating what to do there had arisen a hint that they might call in the police, but it vanished at once like a breath of cold air, leaving them looking dumbly at each other without meeting each other’s eyes. + 

Poor Annie spent anxious hours wondering what had happened to her daughter. There was only one thing that she thought possible, and that was that she was leading “a life of shame” with one or other of the finely-dressed men she knew. At this late period Annie remembered the flocks of men who had hovered⁠—and more than hovered⁠—about them during those days at the Grand Pavilion Hotel. She was sure that it was this that had happened. Neither she nor her husband knew that Winnie had had all that money with her when she left; nor, thinking the worst as they inevitably did, did they give her credit for her coolness of head that she could summon to her aid if necessary. Annie Marble thought she had driven her daughter into prostitution. It was the bitterest drop she had to swallow. + 

It was spring, and drifting through the air came the plague. Perhaps it was the selfsame plague that had swept across England during the last years of the reign of Edward III; certainly the same plague that had killed its thousands in war-torn France in 1814, and claimed the life of an empress; the same plague that had decimated Europe the last spring of the war, taking more victims than had the war itself; the same plague that, sometimes virulent, sometimes almost negligible, had shown itself every spring since. The disease at which some people still scoff, but which is, nevertheless, deadly: influenza. + 

It was in the air, and seeking victims. Those who troubled too little about their health; those who were for the moment out of sorts; those who were depressed, or worn with anxiety⁠—they were the victims the plague sought. + 

And Annie Marble was depressed and worn with anxiety. She was fretting about Winnie, and this was the last straw added to the intolerable burden under which she laboured. Will had returned almost entirely to his old ways; once again he passed his time in the sitting-room, peering drearily through the windows into the backyard. The whisky bottle was continually at his side; the words he had for his wife grew fewer and fewer. Sometimes he could still rouse himself sufficiently to pay her a little attention, and bring a flash of sunshine into her life, but the occasions were rare. Poor Annie! + 

Then one morning Annie was not well. She had a headache, and she was thirsty. At first she was able to let it pass unheeded; it would go away during the morning, she thought, or at least it would be gone by tomorrow. So she began her day’s work, but when it was half completed she felt that she had to sit and rest for a space. The rest seemed to do her good, and she thought to complete the cure by going out to do her shopping. She put on her coat and hat, but even as she went downstairs dizziness came over her and she was forced to acknowledge herself beaten. With an effort of will she went into the sitting-room, where her husband was staring gloomily through the panes. + 

“Will,” she said, collapsing into a chair, “I don’t feel very well.” + 

That roused her husband a little, to ask what he could do, and what was the matter. It ended in Mr. Marble going forth to do the shopping, leaving her to rest. It was tacitly understood between them, before he left her, that she was to rest in the sitting-room, whence she could keep an eye through the windows. + 

And the next day Annie felt worse than ever. But even in her illness she found something to comfort her. Marble was a little alarmed, and he showed it in the concern he evinced about her. He asked how she was very gently, and he tried to minister to her in a clumsy man’s fashion. Poor Annie was quite fluttered and pleased, despite her sickness, by the attention he paid her. As he guided her to a chair and propped her back with cushions where it hurt, and asked what else he could do, she was almost glad she was ill. For she had refused to stay in bed. That was like her. If she could stand, she would get out of bed. And she could not only stand, but she could walk, when her dizziness permitted it. She was in a high fever, but to that she did not pay much attention. But she agreed, nevertheless, that it might perhaps be advisable that Will should do the shopping that day. He even volunteered that he should, and sallied out, shopping basket in hand, and a little list of things that were needed. He had forgotten one or two items the day before. + 

While he was gone, Annie sat in the drawing-room. Her mouth was dry, and there was an unpleasant taste in it, and her head felt queer, and there was a strange sort of doubtfulness about things when she looked at them. There were pains in her body and joints, too. But, for all that, she still felt the joy of her husband’s loving attention. + 

But Will had hardly gone when the postman dropped a letter through the door with his double knock. It was the eleven o’clock postman⁠—he who brought the continental mail. Annie walked weakly to the door and picked up the letter, and went back weakly to the drawing-room. Not until she had sat down did she look at the envelope⁠—she was not sure enough of her legs to read it standing up. But she was very interested as to what it might be. For perhaps it might be news of Winnie. + 

The envelope was addressed most queerly. The writing was large and sprawling. The first letter of the address was a big A. The second was an M. The third was a W. The letter was obviously from foreign parts, for the address ended “Angleterre” and Annie knew that meant “England” in a foreign tongue. Thus⁠— + 

A.M.W. Marble, + 

53 Malcolm Road, + 

Dulwich, + 

Londres, + 

Angleterre. + 

Annie looked at the envelope a long time. Clearly the A and the M referred to her⁠—was she not Ann Mary Marble? The W and the absence of any “Mrs.” bothered her. But it might be usual in letters from abroad to leave out the “Mrs.” and being from abroad it might contain news about Winnie just as much as if it had been posted in England. Annie opened it, and took out the letter. It took several seconds for the import of the first few words to pierce home to her, but as soon as she had grasped their meaning she sank back half fainting in her chair. The letter was in English, and it began “My dearest, darling Will.” + 

Recovering herself, Annie read the remainder of the letter. She could not understand some of it⁠—the cruel satire of it was beyond her, dulled as her mind was by her fever, and what she did understand left her heartbroken. All through the letter the writer addressed Will in terms of the most flamboyant affection; it made some reference which she did not understand to her, Annie, and it ended by asking for money⁠—“The same as you sent me before, darling.” + 

Annie sat still, the letter crumpled up in her hand. There was no address on the letter, and the signature was rather illegible and consisted of a French word. But she knew from whom the letter came. It might have been instinct, or it might have been recognition of the style, but she knew. The tears which might have helped her were denied her by the fever. All she could do was to sit and think distortedly over everything. So Will did not love her, after all her dreams and hopes. Instead, he was writing to this Frenchwoman, and sending her money. All this tenderness of his, and the passion he had shown a little while back⁠—just after she had gone, Annie realized with a sob in her throat⁠—were mere pretences. With strange prescience she guessed that it was to keep her in a good temper when he found that she knew about his secret. A half-formed resolution rose in the maelstrom of her thoughts that she would betray him at the first opportunity, but she put it aside unconsidered. She loved him too much. Her heart was broken, and she was very, very unhappy. + 

She sat there alone, for what seemed like hours. + 

Later came Marble, but she roused herself at the sound of the key in the door sufficiently to thrust the letter into the bosom of her dress, and when he came to ask how she was she managed to gasp out “I think I’m ill. Oh⁠—” Then she fell forward in the chair. She was ill, very ill. Marble helped her up to bed, to the big gilt bed where the cupids climbed eternally, with its lavish canopy-rail and bulging ornament. But when she had recovered sufficiently to undress she thrust the letter into her little private drawer before calling to him in her cracked, fevered voice for his help. + 

Next day she was worse. Marble bent over her anxiously as she lay there in the gaudy bed. She tossed about, from side to side, and she hardly knew him. There were only those two in the house, and he was worried. Worried to death. Of sick nursing he knew nothing. There was not even a clinical thermometer in the house. If she were to die⁠—! But he refused to consider her dying. There would be one fewer in the secret, it is true, but the disadvantages would be overwhelming. And there would be questions asked if she were to die without receiving medical attention. Come what might, he must fetch a doctor. He must bring a stranger into his house, the house that he guarded so urgently. There was no help for it, no help for it at all. He saw that she had all his intelligence could suggest that she might want, and then slipped away quietly downstairs and out to where the nearest brass plate hung at a gate. A white-capped maidservant took his message and told him that the doctor would be round shortly. + 

Dr. Atkinson was a thin rat of a man, with sandy hair and eyebrows, neither young nor old, with a keen glance behind his pince-nez. He felt her pulse, took her temperature; he noticed her troubled breathing and the way she tossed and turned in the bed. She was nearly delirious: indeed, her speech was confused, and twice she muttered something that he just did not catch. He turned and looked keenly at Marble. + 

“Who’s looking after her?” he asked. + 

“I am,” said Marble⁠—a trifle sullenly, Atkinson thought, later. + 

“Are you alone?” + 

“Yes. My daughter’s⁠—away at present.” + 

“Well, you’d better get somebody in. Some neighbour or somebody. She’ll need careful attention if we’re to avoid pneumonia.” + 

Marble looked at him blankly. Get somebody in? Have someone else in the house, poking and prying about? And Annie, there, nearly delirious! Marble had caught a word or two of what she had muttered, of what Atkinson had not heard, and it set him trembling. + 

Atkinson was looking round the room, with its queer furnishing of gilt. He was trying to estimate the income of this man who apparently did not go to work. + 

“What about a nurse?” he said. “I’ll send one in, shall I?” + 

Marble found his tongue. + 

“No,” he said, with overmuch vehemence⁠—he was sadly overtried. “I won’t have a nurse. I can do all the nursing myself. I won’t have a nurse.” + 

Atkinson shrugged his shoulders. + 

“Well, if you won’t, you won’t. But she’ll need very careful nursing, I tell you that. You must⁠—” he went on to outline all that Marble must do. But all the time he was debating within himself over this strange man who lived alone with his wife in a poky house furnished like Buckingham Palace, whose daughter was⁠—away, at present, who did no work, and who was violently opposed to having anyone nurse his wife. + 

And Marble guessed at his curiosity, and cursed at it within himself, with the sweat running cold under his clothes. + 

“Right, I’ll look in again this afternoon,” said Atkinson. + 

He did. He looked in again twice a day during all the next week. + 

And during that week Marble fretted and wore himself to pieces under the burden of his troubles. Everything was madly worrying. Atkinson alone, with his sharp eyes everywhere, was enough to madden him, yet to add to it all the great worry of his life returned to him and nagged at him more than ever he had known it before. Marble found his harassed mind returning continually to work out hateful possibilities; whether or no Atkinson might find something out; whether he had heard anything of what Annie was continually muttering; what the neighbours, as well as Atkinson, thought of his refusing to call in the assistance of anyone else. He knew that they were all interested in what went on in his house, he knew how they sneered enviously at all his fine possessions, and at Annie’s clothes and Winnie’s grand manner⁠—and they were probably burningly interested in what had happened to Winnie, though by good luck they might think she was still at school. + 

Annie herself worried him, too. She was a “difficult” patient. She would hardly speak to him, and would turn from him in horror on those occasions when she was most nearly delirious. She needed a great deal of attention. Marble had to struggle to do invalid cookery for her⁠—he, who had never so much as touched a saucepan in his life. He had to do it well, too, for that brute Atkinson was continually coming in, and more than once he demanded to see and taste the concoctions he had prepared for her. Marble struggled along with Mrs. Beeton, the same Mrs. Beeton as Annie had lingered over for his sake, and attended to the tradesmen who once more came calling⁠—Marble had to allow that; Atkinson was too sharp for him to attempt to do the shopping and leave his patient. Rushing from the kitchen to the door, and from the door to the bedroom, whenever Annie rang the handbell that stood by the bed, and from the bedroom back to the kitchen, Marble wore himself out. It was rare that even two attempts brought success to his unskilful cookery; he seemed to be cooking all the time. + 

And as a crowning worry came the fear that he would be taken ill, too. In that case Atkinson, the interfering busybody, would step in and have them taken away to hospital. If he were delirious like Annie! He shuddered at the thought. So it was wildly necessary that he should retain his health. Marble had never worried about his health before, but now he paid for it in full. He took his temperature every few minutes, he studied his body attentively, and he stopped drinking the whisky for which his nerves shrieked. + 

The strain told on him. The worrying days and the broken nights⁠—for he had to attend to Annie frequently during the nights⁠—broke his already strained nerves to pieces. And he could not forget about the garden. That was continuously in his thoughts, too. If anything, it was worse now. Marble found himself, whenever the jangle of Annie’s bell roused him out of his sleep, and after he had done what she wanted, creeping downstairs to peer out into the dark garden to see that all was secure. He even began to wake on his own during the night and go down, and he had never done that before. + 

Strange to tell, Annie recovered. It was more really than Atkinson expected, and it seems stranger still when it is remembered that she did not want to recover. For she did not. Annie wanted to die. + 

But she recovered. The fever left her, very thin, very pale, with the shining pallor of the invalid, and she was able to leave off the pneumonia jacket that Marble had hurriedly contrived, and sit up in bed dressed in one of her opulent, overlaced nightdresses and a dressing-jacket and boudoir cap. Atkinson told Marble that she was not yet quite out of danger. There was always a risk after a bad attack of influenza. There might be grave heart trouble, or even now pneumonia might intervene if she were to get up too soon. + 

“But, of course,” said Atkinson, “there’s not much chance of her getting up for a bit yet. She’s too weak to stand at present.” + 

Annie lay in bed, thinking. She was thinking with the clearness of thought, harsh and raw as a winter’s morning, that comes after a period of high fever. Over her brooded the dreadful depression following influenza, the poisonous depression which darkens the most hopeful outlook. And Annie’s outlook was anything but hopeful. Downstairs she could hear her husband moving about on one of his endless household tasks, and her lips writhed at the thought of him. She did not hate him, she could not hate him, even now. But she felt she hated herself. And she had lost her husband’s love, the love which for a brief space had made the whole world seem a wonderful place. Looking ahead, as far as she was able to look ahead, she could see nothing to hope for. She was tormented by the hideous knowledge of what lay in the barren flowerbed in the backyard; the whole future held out no promise for her. She would have faced the peril that hung over her husband⁠—and over herself as well, she realized⁠—gladly, had she only been sure that her husband wished her to do so. But instead she was only sure of the opposite. He would be glad to have her out of the way, and she⁠—? She would be glad to be out of the way. + 

That set her thoughts moving swiftly on another tack. It might be easy enough. But if only she had died during this illness! She tried to piece together in her mind what that book of Will’s had said about the stuff⁠—that⁠—that⁠—the stuff that still stood on the locked shelves in the bathroom. Death is practically instantaneous. Death is practically instantaneous. + 

That meant an easy death, a quick death. There would be no trouble about it, none at all. Oh, it would be the best way. That clearness of thought was in evidence at present. Will was downstairs, and he was unlikely to disturb her for some time. It could be done, and better do it now, and save trouble, save trouble. + 

Annie threw off the bedclothes and set her feet to the floor. Even as she did so she found how unsteady she was. The room seemed to swing round her in a great arc; she nearly fell to the floor, and she would have done had she not, by a vast effort, seized the bed and collapsed across it. It took several minutes for her to recover. She tried again, more tentatively, and again she had hard work to save herself from falling. She could not walk, that was certain. But that would not prevent her. + 

Slowly, with infinite precaution, she lowered herself to the floor. Then she crawled across the floor towards the window. It was dreadfully hard work; she could only move slowly. The cold air and the coldness of the linoleum bit deep into her, and she shuddered as she moved. + 

She reached the chest of drawers, and clutching the knobs she pulled herself to her feet, standing there swaying. It took several seconds for her to grow used to this position. Once she swayed dangerously, but her grip on the drawer-knobs saved her. Then she pulled open one of the drawers and did what she had been wanting to do all through her illness. She pulled out the strange letter, and read it through, as closely as her swimming eyes would allow. She was right. There was no hope for her in it. It began “My dearest, darling Will” sure enough. Once again the satire was lost on her. She reeled as she stood. Then she thrust the letter back into the drawer and closed it. + 

Somehow she was still able to think clearly. The next thing she wanted was the key. All Will’s keys were on a ring on the dressing-table. She had to crawl there to get them. Then she crawled⁠—oh, so slowly⁠—out through the door to the bathroom. The effort of standing up again when she reached the shelves was almost too much for her, but she achieved it. She stood listening for a brief space, just to make sure that Will was still busy downstairs. It would never do for him to come up now and find her there. But it was all quiet. She could just hear him, pottering about in the kitchen. The key fitted easily, and she opened the glass door. There on the shelf, just as she had seen it so long ago, stood the bottle⁠—potassium cyanide. She took it in her hand, fondled it, she almost smiled as she looked at it. + 

On the edge of the bath stood one of her medicine glasses. She filled it half full, the neck of the bottle chattering on the rim of the glass, and replaced the bottle. As it stood there on the shelf she tried to bow to it; she tried to say “thank you” to it. And she locked the shelf door again tidily. + 

She stood hesitating for a space, holding on to the edge of the bath. She did not want to die here, in this cold place. She would much rather die in her splendid great bed with the cupids twined about it. It would be risky trying to get back, but she thought she would run the risk. Oh, but it was so hard. She crawled along the floor, pushing the medicine glass in front of her, the keys trailing by their ring from one finger. Very hard it was, but she succeeded in the end. She hardly spilt a drop on the way. + 

The medicine glass stood on the floor beside the bed. It was as much as she could manage to pull herself half erect and fall across the bed. She had to lie and rest again, after that. But now at last she was ready. She must make everything neat and tidy first. With fumbling fingers she drew the bedclothes round her, and set her boudoir cap straight and settled the lace at her throat. Then she leaned over the side of the bed and took the glass in her hand. There was no hesitation in her raising it to her lips. She drained it, and the glass fell from her fingers to the floor and rolled under the bed. + 

But even now things went hardly for her. That cyanide had been kept in solution for over a year, slowly reacting with itself and with the atmosphere. It was not an easy death, not a quick death. + 