第25章

She dragged herself painfully across the shop, and had to hold on to the handle of the door before she found the necessary fortitude to open it.The street frightened her, since it led either to the gallows or to the river.She floundered over the doorstep head forward, arms thrown out, like a person falling over the parapet of a bridge.This entrance into the open air had a foretaste of drowning; a slimy dampness enveloped her, entered her nostrils, clung to her hair.It was not actually raining, but each gas lamp had a rusty little halo of mist.The van and horses were gone, and in the black street the curtained window of the carters' eating-house made a square patch of soiled blood-red light glowing faintly very near the level of the pavement.Mrs Verloc, dragging herself slowly towards it, thought that she was a very friendless woman.It was true.It was so true that, in a sudden longing to see some friendly face, she could think of no one else but of Mrs Neale, the charwoman.She had no acquaintances of her own.Nobody would miss her in a social way.It must not be imagined that the Widow Verloc had forgotten her mother.This was not so.Winnie had been a good daughter because she had been a devoted sister.Her mother had always leaned on her for support.No consolation or advice could be expected there.Now that Stevie was dead the bond seemed to be broken.

She could not face the old woman with the horrible tale.Moreover, it was too far.The river was her present destination.Mrs Verloc tried to forget her mother.

Each step cost her an effort of will which seemed the last possible.

Mrs Verloc had dragged herself past the red glow of the eating-house window.

`To the bridge - and over I go,' she repeated to herself with fierce obstinacy.

She put out her hand just in time to steady herself against a lamp-post.

`I'll never get there before morning,' she thought.The fear of death paralysed her efforts to escape the gallows.It seemed to her she had been staggering in that street for hours.`I'll never get there,' she thought.`They'll find me knocking about the streets.It's too far.' She held on, panting under her black veil.

`The drop given was fourteen feet.'

She pushed the lamp-post away from her violently, and found herself walking.But another wave of faintness overtook her like a great sea, washing away her heart clean out of her breast.`I will never get there,' she muttered, suddenly arrested, swaying lightly where she stood.`Never.'

And perceiving the utter impossibility of walking as far as the nearest bridge, Mrs Verloc thought of a flight abroad.

It came to her suddenly.Murderers escaped.They escaped abroad.Spain or California.Mere names.The vast world created for the glory of man was only a vast blank to Mrs Verloc.She did not know which way to turn.

Murderers had friends, relations, helpers - they had knowledge.She had nothing.She was the most lonely of murderers that ever struck a mortal blow.She was alone in London: and the whole town of marvels and mud, with its maze of streets and its mass of lights, was sunk in a hopeless night, rested at the bottom of a black abyss from which no unaided woman could hope to scramble out.

She swayed forward, and made a fresh start blindly, with an awful dread of falling down; but at the end of a few steps, unexpectedly, she found a sensation of support, of security.Raising her head, she saw a man's face peering closely at her veil.Comrade Ossipon was not afraid of strange women, and no feeling of false delicacy could prevent him from striking an acquaintance with a woman apparently very much intoxicated.Comrade Ossipon was interested in women.He held up this one between his two large palms, peering at her in a business-like way till he heard her say faintly `Mr Ossipon!' and then he very nearly let her drop to the ground.

`Mrs Verloc!' he exclaimed.`You here!'

It seemed impossible to him that she should have been drinking.But one never knows.He did not go into that question, but attentive not to discourage kind fate surrendering to him the widow of Comrade Verloc, he tried to draw her to his breast.To his astonishment she came quite easily, and even rested on his arm for a moment before she attempted to disengage herself.Comrade Ossipon would not be brusque with kind fate.He withdrew his arm in a natural way.

`You recognized me,' she faltered out, standing before him, fairly steady on her legs.

`Of course I did,' said Ossipon with perfect readiness.`I was afraid you were going to fall.I've thought of you too often lately not to recognize you anywhere, at any time.I've always thought of you - ever since I first set eyes on you.Mrs Verloc seemed not to hear.`You were coming to the shop?' she said, nervously.

`Yes; at once,' answered Ossipon.`Directly I read the paper.'

In fact, Comrade Ossipon had been skulking for a good two hours in the neighbourhood of Brett Street, unable to make up his mind for a bold move.

The robust anarchist was not exactly a bold conqueror.He remembered that Mrs Verloc had never responded to his glances by the slightest sign of encouragement.Besides, he thought the shop might be watched by the police, and Comrade Ossipon did not wish the police to form an exaggerated notion of his revolutionary sympathies.Even now he did not know precisely what to do.In comparison with his usual amatory speculations this was a big and serious undertaking.He ignored how much there was in it and how far he would have to go in order to get hold of what there was to get - supposing there was a chance at all.These perplexities checking his elation imparted to his tone a soberness well in keeping with the circumstances.

`May I ask you where you were going?' he inquired in a subdued voice.

`Don't ask me!' cried Mrs Verloc with a shuddering, repressed violence.

All her strong vitality recoiled from the idea of death.`Never mind where 1 was going...'

Ossipon concluded that she was very much excited but perfectly sober.