A Diversity of Creatures

'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-eight-I beg your pardon.'

'Not in the least. I always pretend I've dropped a stitch of my knitting. I count the days till the last day, then the hours, then the minutes. Do you?'

'I don't think I've done very much else for the last-' said Conroy, shivering, for the night was cold, with a chill he recognised.

'Oh, how comforting to find some one who can talk sense! It's not always the same date, is it?'

'What difference would that make?' He unbuttoned his ulster with a jerk. 'You're a sane woman. Can't you see the wicked-wicked-wicked' (dust flew from the padded arm-rest as he struck it) unfairness of it? What have I done?'

She laid her large hand on his shoulder very firmly.

'If you begin to think over that,' she said, 'you'll go to pieces and be ashamed. Tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine. Only be quiet-be quiet, lad, or you'll set me off!' She made shift to soothe him, though her chin trembled.

'Well,' said he at last, picking at the arm-rest between them, 'mine's nothing much, of course.'

'Don't be a fool! That's for doctors-and mothers.'

'It's Hell,' Conroy muttered. 'It begins on a steamer-on a stifling hot night. I come out of my cabin. I pass through the saloon where the stewards have rolled up the carpets, and the boards are bare and hot and soapy.'

'I've travelled too,' she said.

'Ah! I come on deck. I walk down a covered alleyway. Butcher's meat, bananas, oil, that sort of smell.'

Again she nodded.

'It's a lead-coloured steamer, and the sea's lead-coloured. Perfectly smooth sea-perfectly still ship, except for the engines running, and her waves going off in lines and lines and lines-dull grey. All this time I know something's going to happen.'

'I know. Something going to happen,' she whispered.

'Then I hear a thud in the engine-room. Then the noise of machinery falling down-like fire-irons-and then two most awful yells. They're more like hoots, and I know-I know while I listen-that it means that two men have died as they hooted. It was their last breath hooting out of them-in most awful pain. Do you understand?'

'I ought to. Go on.'

'That's the first part. Then I hear bare feet running along the alleyway. One of the scalded men comes up behind me and says quite distinctly, "My friend! All is lost!" Then he taps me on the shoulder and I hear him drop down dead.' He panted and wiped his forehead.

'So that is your night?' she said.

'That is my night. It comes every few weeks-so many days after I get what I call sentence. Then I begin to count.'

'Get sentence? D'you mean this?' She half closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and shuddered. '"Notice" I call it. Sir John thought it was all lies.'

She had unpinned her hat and thrown it on the seat opposite, showing the immense mass of her black hair, rolled low in the nape of the columnar neck and looped over the left ear. But Conroy had no eyes except for her grave eyes.

'Listen now!' said she. 'I walk down a road, a white sandy road near the sea. There are broken fences on either side, and Men come and look at me over them.'

'Just men? Do they speak?'

'They try to. Their faces are all mildewy-eaten away,' and she hid her face for an instant with her left hand. 'It's the Faces-the Faces!'

'Yes. Like my two hoots. I know.'

'Ah! But the place itself-the bareness-and the glitter and the salt smells, and the wind blowing the sand! The Men run after me and I run… I know what's coming too. One of them touches me.'

'Yes! What comes then? We've both shirked that.'

'One awful shock-not palpitation, but shock, shock, shock!'

'As though your soul were being stopped-as you'd stop a finger-bowl humming?' he said.

'Just that,' she answered. 'One's very soul-the soul that one lives by-stopped. So!'

She drove her thumb deep into the arm-rest. 'And now,' she whined to him, 'now that we've stirred each other up this way, mightn't we have just one?'

'No,' said Conroy, shaking. 'Let's hold on. We're past'-he peered out of the black windows-'Woking. There's the Necropolis. How long till dawn?'

'Oh, cruel long yet. If one dozes for a minute, it catches one.'

'And how d'you find that this'-he tapped the palm of his glove-'helps you?'

'It covers up the thing from being too real-if one takes enough-you know. Only-only-one loses everything else. I've been no more than a bogie-girl for two years. What would you give to be real again? This lying's such a nuisance.'

'One must protect oneself-and there's one's mother to think of,' he answered.

'True. I hope allowances are made for us somewhere. Our burden-can you hear? – our burden is heavy enough.'

She rose, towering into the roof of the carriage. Conroy's ungentle grip pulled her back.

'Now you are foolish. Sit down,' said he.

'But the cruelty of it! Can't you see it? Don't you feel it? Let's take one now-before I-'

'Sit down!' cried Conroy, and the sweat stood again on his forehead. He had fought through a few nights, and had been defeated on more, and he knew the rebellion that flares beyond control to exhaustion.

She smoothed her hair and dropped back, but for a while her head and throat moved with the sickening motion of a captured wry-neck.

'Once,' she said, spreading out her hands, 'I ripped my counterpane from end to end. That takes strength. I had it then. I've little now. "All dorn," as my little niece says. And you, lad?'

'"All dorn"! Let me keep your case for you till the morning.'

'But the cold feeling is beginning.'

'Lend it me, then.'

'And the drag down my right side. I shan't be able to move in a minute.'

'I can scarcely lift my arm myself,' said Conroy. 'We're in for it.'

'Then why are you so foolish? You know it'll be easier if we have only one-only one apiece.'