Grey Mask

CHAPTER XVI

Margot Standing ran out into the street. Her heart was thumping so hard that it shook her; her legs shook under her as she ran. Her world had been so violently shaken that it seemed to be falling about her. She was really only conscious of two things-that she was frightened, oh, dreadfully frightened; and that it was dreadfully difficult to get her breath. She didn’t feel as if she could go on running; but she must go on running, because if she didn’t, the man might come out of the house and catch her. The thought terrified her so much that she went on running even after it seemed as if she could not breathe at all.

It was quite dark and foggy, and she did not know in the least where she was going; she only ran, and went on running until her outstretched hands came up hard against a wall. The shock upset her balance. Her left shoulder hit the wall. She swung half round and then fell in a heap. She had not breath enough to cry out. She lay at the foot of the wall with a sense of having come to the end of anything she could do. There was nothing but fog, and darkness, and cold wet stones.

After a few minutes her breath began to come back. Presently she moved and sat up. She wasn’t hurt, but her bare hands were scraped. She had run out of the house in Gregson Street without any gloves on; her gloves were on the table where the cocktails were. When she thought about the gloves, she could smell the strong sickly smell, and she could see Mr. Percy Smith standing there and holding out a little glass full of yellow stuff with a cherry and a grape bobbing about in it.

Sitting there on rough, wet cobblestones, Margot began to cry. She cried with all her might for ten minutes, and then began to feel better. She had got away. If he hadn’t gone out of the room-Margot dabbed her eyes with her very wet handkerchief and saw herself sitting there quite stupid and dumb with the cocktail in her hand, and Mr. Percy Smith going out of the room and saying he wouldn’t be a minute.

She scrambled up on to her knees because she didn’t want to see that picture any more. It made her feel exactly like she had felt when Mrs. Beauchamp took her to the top of the Eiffel Tower and told her to look over. Margot had looked for a moment; and then she wouldn’t have looked again for anything in the world. To stand on the edge of a frightful drop and to think how easily one might fall over it-

Margot got right up on to her feet and began to walk blindly forward over the cobblestones. The lights of a car flashed in front of her. Sounds of traffic came through the fog. Her foot struck against the kerb at the edge of a pavement. She turned to the right and walked along slowly without the least idea of where she was going.

She had been walking for half an hour before her mind really began to work again. Someone knocked against her, and a shrill cockney voice said, “Look out! Where are you going?”

Margot moved on, startled. The question repeated itself: “Where are you going? Where-are-you-going?” It was this question that woke her up: “Where are you going?”- “I haven’t anywhere to go.” “Where are you going?”-“I don’t know.” “Where are you going?”-“Oh, I haven’t got anywhere to go.”

She had cried so violently that no more tears came into her eyes, but she felt as if she were crying deep inside her. It was a frightful thing not to have anywhere to go to. She couldn’t possibly go back to Grange Square, where Egbert and somebody else-somebody who had answered the bell that William ought to have answered-were waiting to get their orders about removing her. Even after being so dreadfully frightened by Mr. Percy Smith she could still shake and turn cold when she remembered that vague, suggestive word.

What was she going to do? What did you do when you were a girl and you hadn’t got anywhere to go to, and you didn’t know anyone who would help you, and you only had a shilling in the world. If Papa had only let her have friends like other girls. But he had never let her know anyone except at school. And Mrs. Beauchamp was on her way to Australia. It had been her business to see that Margot didn’t pick up acquaintances in the holidays. Margot would have given a great many things that she did not possess to have had just one acquaintance now.

Mr. Hale-but if it were Mr. Hale who was giving those orders-perhaps it was-perhaps it was Mr. Hale who was going to tell Egbert and William-no, it couldn’t be William- to remove her.

She couldn’t go home. Oh, it wasn’t home anymore; it was only a house where people were planning horrible things. It was Egbert’s house; it wasn’t hers. She hadn’t got anywhere to go-she hadn’t got a home-she hadn’t got anything.

These things kept coming into her mind like a lot of aimless people struggling into a room and drifting out again; they didn’t do anything, they just came in and drifted out, and went away.

Margot went on walking, and the aimless thoughts kept on coming and going. The thick moisture that filled the air with fog began to condense and come down in rain. Soon she was very wet. The rain became heavier; it soaked through her blue serge coat and began to drip from the brim of her hat. The coat had a collar of grey fur. The rain collected on it and trickled down the back of her neck.

Only that afternoon Margot had written to Stephanie that there was something frightfully romantic about being a penniless orphan. It didn’t feel a bit romantic now; it felt cold, and frightening, and desperately miserable.