«I say, I do admire your books-I've read-«What's the situation?» I said to Arnold. I thought he looked as if he was drunk, and immediately after I could smell drink.
Arnold, making some sort of effort, said slowly, «She locked herself into our bedroom. After it-happened-She was bleeding a lot – I thought-I don't quite know what-the injury was-At any rate-At any rate-« He stopped.
«Go on, Arnold. Look, you'd better sit down. Hadn't he better sit down?»
«Arnold Baffin,» said Francis, to himself.
Arnold leaned back against the hall stand. He leaned his head back into a coat that was hanging there, closed his eyes for a moment, and then went on. «Sorry. You see. She was sort of crying and wailing in there for a time. I mean in the bedroom. Now it's all quiet and she doesn't answer at all. I'm afraid she may be unconscious or-«
«Can't you break open the door?»
«I tried to, I tried to, but the chisel, the-outside woodwork just broke away and I couldn't get any-«Sit down, Arnold, for Christ's sake.» I pushed him onto a chair.
«And you can't see through the keyhole because the key-«She's probably just upset and won't answer out of-you know-«
«Yes,» he said, «I didn't want to-If it's all a-I don't know quite what-You go and try, Bradley-«
«Where's your chisel?»
«Up there. But it's a small one. I can't find-«Well, you two stay here,» I said. «I'll just go up and see what's going on. I bet you anything-Arnold, stay here and sit down!»
I stood outside the bedroom door, which had been mildly disfigured by Arnold's efforts. A lot of paint had flaked off and lay like white petals upon the fawn carpet. The chisel lay there too. I tried the handle and called, «Rachel. It's Bradley. Rachel!»
Silence.
«I'll get a hammer,» I could hear Arnold, invisible, saying downstairs.
«Rachel, Rachel, please answer-« The real panic had got inside me now. I pressed all my weight on the door. It was solid and well made. «Rachel!»
Silence.
I hurled myself at the door, shouting, «Rachel!» Then I stopped, and listened very carefully.
There was a tiny sound from within, a sort of little creeping mouse-like sound. I said aloud, «Oh let her be all right, let her be all right.»
More creeping. Then very softly in a scarcely audible whisper. «Bradley.»
«Rachel, Rachel, are you all right?»
Silence. Creeping. Then a little hissing sigh. «Yes.»
I shouted to the others, «She's all right! She's all right!»
I heard them saying something behind me on the stairs. «Rachel, let me in, can you? Let me in.»
There was a scuffling sound, then Rachel's voice, breathy and low down, close against the door, «You come in. Not anyone else.»
I heard the key turn in the lock and I pushed quickly into the room, catching a glimpse of Arnold who was standing on the stairs with Francis behind him a little lower down. I saw the two faces very clearly, like faces in a crucifixion crowd which represent the painter and his friend. Arnold's face was distorted into a sort of sneer of anguish. Francis's was bright with malign curiosity. Suitable expressions for a crucifixion. Inside I nearly fell over Rachel who was sitting on the floor. She was moaning softly now, trying frantically to turn the key again in the lock. I turned it for her and then sat down on the floor beside her.
Since Rachel Baffin is one of the main actors, in a crucial sense perhaps the main actor, in my drama I should like now to pause briefly to describe her. I had known her for over twenty years, almost as long as I had known Arnold, yet at the time that I speak of I did not really, as I later realized, know her well. There was a sort of vagueness. Some women, in fact in my experience many women, have a sort of «abstract» quality about them. Is this a real sex difference? Perhaps this quality is really just unselfishness. (In this respect, you know where you are with men!) In Rachel's case it was certainly not lack of intelligence. There was a vagueness which womanly affection and the custom of my quasi-family friendship with the Baffins did not dispel, even increased. Of course men play roles, but women play roles too, blanker ones. They have, in the play of life, fewer good lines. This may be to make a mystery of what had simpler causes. Rachel was an intelligent woman married to a famous man: and instinctively such a woman behaves as a function of her husband, she reflects, as it were, all the light onto him. Her «blankness» repelled even curiosity. One does not expect such a woman to have ambition: whereas Arnold and I were both, in quite different ways, tormented, perhaps even defined, by ambition. Rachel was (in a way in which one would never think this of a man) a «good specimen,» a «good sport.» One relied on her. There she was. She looked (then) just like a big handsome sweet contented woman, the efficient wife of a well-known charmer. She was a large smooth-faced, slightly freckled, reddish-blond person, with straight– ish gingery wiry hair and a pale complexion, a bit tall for a woman and generally on a larger scale physically than her husband. She had been putting on weight and some might have called her fat. She was always busy, often with charities and mild left-wing politics. (Arnold cared nothing for politics.) She was an excellent «housewife,» and often referred to herself by this title.
«Rachel, are you all right?»
«Rachel, are you hurt? I've got a doctor here-She began awkwardly to get up, again pushing away my assisting hand. I got a whiff of alcohol from her panting breath. She knelt upon her dress and I heard it tear. Then she half ran half fell across the room to the disordered bed, where she flopped on her back, tugging at the bedclothes, ineffectually because she was half lying on them, then covering her face with both hands and crying in an appalling wailing manner, lying with her feet wide apart in a graceless self-absorption of grief.
«Rachel, please control yourself. Drink some water.» The sound of that abandoned weeping was scarcely bearable, and something far too intense to be called embarrassment, yet of that quality, made me both reluctant and anxious to look at her. A woman's crying can sicken one with fright and guilt, and this was terrible crying.
Arnold outside shouted, «Please let me in, please, please-«Stop it, Rachel,» I said. «I can't bear this. Stop it. I'm going to open the door.»
«No, no,» she whispered, a sort of voiceless whine. «Not Arnold, not-« Was she still afraid of him?
«I'm going to let the doctor in,» I said.
«No, no.»
I opened the door and placed my hand on Arnold's chest. «Go in and look at her,» I said to Francis. «There's some blood.»
Arnold began to call out, «Let me see you, please, darling, don't be angry, oh please-I pushed him back towards the head of the stairs. Francis went inside and locked the door again, whether out of delicacy or professional caution.
Arnold sat down on the stairs and began to moan. «Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear-« My awkward appalled embarrassment mingled now with a horrible fascinated interest. Arnold, beyond caring about what impression he made, was running his hands again and again through his hair. «Oh I am a bloody fool, I am a bloody fool-I said, «Steady on. What happened exactly?»
«Where are the scissors?» shouted Francis from within.
«Top drawer dressing table,» Arnold shouted back. «Christ, what does he want scissors for? Is he going to operate or something?»
«What happened? Look, better move down a bit.»
I pushed Arnold and he hobbled stooping, holding the banisters, past the turn of the stair, and sat on the lowest step, holding his head in his hands and staring at the zigzag design of the hall carpet. The hall was always a bit dim because of the stained glass in the door. I went down past him and sat on a chair, feeling very odd, upset, excited.