The Finishing Stroke (2 page)

Then he saw her.

She had been hurled out of the auto and it had fallen on her. She was lying almost, but not quite, clear; the heavy machine had her left leg pinned down, and part of her thigh.

She was moaning.

‘Claire!' he cried, thankfully.

He scrambled over to her, Fighting the treacherous footing.

She was unconscious; there was a smear of blood on the ice where the back of her head had struck. Sebastian seized the auto and heaved with all his strength. The fabric was stuck fast to the ice. Rage flooded him. He strained until he felt something tear and give. But then he stopped. He could not lift the machine and pull her out from under at the same time.

‘Claire.' He stared down at her blueing face, Fighting panic.

Then he began to run up the deserted road. Once he slipped, falling heavily. He got up, his right elbow and hip burning, and ran on.

And there, a few hundred feet up the road, miraculously, were a white picket fence decorated with snow, a stand of big ice-covered trees, and behind them a lamplit little house. At the fence stood an iron standard, with a swinging black sign on which some gilt lettering glistened in the moonlight.

Sebastian peered, breathing in long white gasps.

Cornelius F. Hall
, the sign said.
MD.

A great joy seized him. He wrenched the little gate open, floundered up the walk, and began to punch the doctor's door.

‘I'm afraid it's more serious than a broken leg and a head wound, Mr. Sebastian,' Dr. Hall said. He was a slow-moving little man of perhaps forty with bristly red hair and tired brown eyes. ‘I've set the leg and treated the wound, although I won't know the extent of the concussion for some time. But just now that's the least of it.'

John Sebastian heard the little doctor dimly. The noise in his head had become a dull roar through which the real world had difficulty making itself heard. He could hardly remember how they had managed to free Claire and carry her to the doctor's house. He had crouched in the chilly parlour before the smoky little fire for over two hours while the doctor and his thin-lipped, untalking wife – a trained nurse, he recalled Dr. Hall's assuring him – worked mysteriously over Claire beyond the closed door. The tea Mrs. Hall had given him had grown cold between his hands.

‘The least of what?' he asked stupidly.

The doctor gave him a sharp glance. ‘Are you sure you're all right, Mr. Sebastian? I'd better look you over now, while I have the chance.'

‘No. My wife, take care of my wife. Don't stand here jawing, man! What's the matter with her?'

‘Her injuries, the shock of the accident, they've induced labour, Mr. Sebastian. She's going to give birth prematurely.' Dr. Hall looked unhappy. ‘Mrs. Hall is getting things ready now. Will you excuse me, please?'

‘Wait, wait, I don't follow,' the publisher muttered. One of the several Gibson-Collier's drawings on the parlour walls was lopsided; it kept distracting him. ‘You mean my wife is going to have her baby – now, here?'

‘Yes, Mr. Sebastian.'

‘But she can't. She mustn't!'

Dr. Hall's fair skin reddened. ‘Man proposes and God disposes, sir. I'm afraid you have no choice.'

‘I won't permit it!' The blood vessels in Sebastian's temples jumped. ‘Her own doctor – Rye … Where's your telephone?'

‘I don't have one, Mr. Sebastian,' Dr. Hall said.

‘Then an auto – sleigh – anything. What kind of quack are you, anyway? I'll go for him!'

‘I have no auto, sir, and my sleigh cracked a runner this afternoon on my way back from a sick-call. My rig is in the barn, but on that ice neither you nor my horse would get fifty yards.' The little doctor's voice hardened. ‘Every moment you delay me is endangering your wife's life, Mr. Sebastian. She's your wife, but I suggest you don't take too long making up your mind.'

Sebastian sank into a Morris chair. Dr. Hall stared down at him with some bitterness. The mysterious door opened. Mrs. Hall called urgently to her husband, ‘Doctor.'

Sebastian gaped beyond her. Claire was stretched out on a bed like a corpse, a corpse that whimpered in a doglike way. Mrs. Hall vanished. And there was the door again.

‘Hurry, Mr. Sebastian. Do I go ahead, or don't I?'

‘Yes,' the publisher whispered. ‘You'll do everything you can, Doctor?'

‘You understand, Mr. Sebastian, your wife is in a seriously weakened condition.'

‘I understand. Go on, man. For God's sake, go to her!'

Ages passed.

At first John Sebastian thought that if the screams did not stop his head would explode. But when they stopped, he found himself praying that they would begin again.

He had no thoughts that made sense. He saw everything through a blur – the droopy rubber plant, the bearded chromo over the mantelpiece, the ball-fringed runner on the upright piano, the stereoscope with its box of views on the table, the green rope portieres masking the dingy hall. Once he got out of the Morris chair to straighten the Gibson girl, who had become intolerable. There were other prints on the walls, Frederic Remington reproductions, orange-coloured violent scenes of the old West. But a moment after he turned away he could not have said what they depicted.

And then, like an apparition, there was Dr. Hall again. He had come in with noiseless little steps, sipping hurriedly from a cup of tea and eyeing Sebastian over the rim as he came. Long red smears stained his smock, as if he had had to wipe his hands on it in haste.

The husband stared at the stains, fascinated.

‘You have a son, sir. The time was one-o-nine a.m. My congratulations.'

‘
A.M.,
' Sebastian said in a loud voice. ‘Which day is this?'

‘You can put it down as Friday, January the sixth, since it's past midnight.' Dr. Hall sounded hearty, but his tired brown eyes remained alert. ‘He's a small one, Mr. Sebastian. I judge about four pounds.'

‘Where are we?' the publisher muttered. ‘Where is this house?'

‘On the outskirts of Mount Kidron, not far from the Pelham Manor line. Four pounds isn't bad for a premature baby, and he's sound as a dollar. Mr. Sebastian, as soon as this is over I really should examine you.'

‘Mount Kidron,' Sebastian tore his glance from the bloody smock. ‘And my wife?'

Dr. Hall said rapidly, ‘Under the circumstances, I must be frank. Your wife's condition is critical. In fact … Well, sir, I'll do all I can.'

‘Yes,' Sebastian said. ‘Dear God, yes.'

‘You ought to know, too, sir – she's going to have another child.'

The big man said hoarsely, ‘What? What did you say?'

‘You see, the first delivery weakened her to the danger point. A second …' The little doctor's red hair seemed to be flying off in all directions. But he was only shaking his head. ‘Now you'd better relax while I see to my patient. Here, drink the rest of this tea.'

‘But it will kill her!' Sebastian was on his feet, pulling at his collar, eyes distended in an enormous glare.

‘Let us hope not, Mr. Sebastian.'

‘Take him from her! Let him die. Just save her life!'

‘In your wife's condition, surgery would be almost certainly fatal. Besides, the child is coming naturally.'

‘I want to see my wife!'

Dr. Hall looked at John Sebastian with his sad brown eyes.

‘Mr. Sebastian,' he said clearly, ‘she doesn't want to see you.'

And he was gone again.

Sebastian sagged into the Morris chair, clawing for some handhold to his old masterful self. He was unconscious of the hot tea slopping onto his thigh from the cup the doctor had placed in his hand.

A twin …

Damn him.

‘She doesn't want to see you.'

Damn him
,
damn him!

The cup slipped from Sebastian's grasp, shattering on the hearth and sending a long splash into the fire, which hissed with hate.

But he heard only the reproachful echo of his folly, and the guilt-ridden man sat cracking his knuckles in an agony of despair.

Sebastian raised his head. ‘Well?' he said harshly.

Mrs. Hall remained by the closed door. She was wrapped in her own sexless plainness, her thin lips all but invisible. The hand on the blue china knob was so tense it looked bleached, like an old bone.

Dr. Hall approached the seated man slowly. He had removed his smock; his shirtsleeves were folded back above the elbow. The freckled hands were puckered white, as if he had washed over and over to cleanse them of mortality.

‘Well?' Sebastian asked in a higher key.

‘Mr. Sebastian.' The little doctor paused. ‘The second child, an identical twin boy, was born at two-seventeen …'

‘Never mind that! How is my wife?'

Dr. Hall said stiffly, ‘I'm sorry, sir. She has died.'

There was the emptiest silence.

‘If you wish to see her –'

Sebastian shook his head twice, violently.

‘Well, then, the babies –' the doctor said.

‘
No
.' The big man jumped to his feet. His face had settled into stone. ‘What time is it, please?'

Dr. Hall pulled a nickeled watch from his vest. ‘Two minutes of four.' He cleared his throat. ‘Mr. Sebastian,' he began again.

‘If it's your fee you're concerned about, name it and I'll write out a cheque.'

‘No, no, sir, it's not that –'

‘Have you made out the death certificate?'

‘Not yet. Sir –'

‘Please do so. I'll see that an undertaker gets here as soon as possible. As for the child, I must ask you and Mrs. Hall to care for him until I can arrange to have him called for. Mrs. Sebastian's doctor will undoubtedly wish to send a trained nurse for the child's removal to Rye.'

‘The child?' Dr. Hall blinked. ‘You mean the children, of course.'

‘I said the child,' John Sebastian said. ‘The first-born.'

‘But, sir – !'

‘My wife has given me only one son, Doctor. The second murdered her; he can never be a son of mine. I want nothing to do with him. In fact, it will be extremely difficult for me … even the first …' He turned away.

Dr. Hall's glance met his wife's across the parlour. ‘You cannot be serious, Mr. Sebastian.'

Sebastian laughed. ‘Where can I rent or buy a sleigh and a horse?'

‘You can turn your back on your own flesh and blood this way, sir? Without a qualm?'

‘You don't understand,' the publisher said with contempt. ‘The little monster killed my wife.'

The doctor was silent. At the door, Mrs. Hall stirred cautiously.

‘Surely you have some plan about the … second child,' the doctor said at last. ‘What do you intend to do with him?'

‘I'll pay you to keep him here until my attorneys can arrange to place him somewhere or other. If you can't be bothered, of course –'

Mrs. Hall said quickly, ‘Oh, it wouldn't be a bother.'

‘No.' Her husband's voice was eager. ‘Perhaps the hand of Providence has been in this after all, Mr. Sebastian. Mrs. Hall and I have never had a child. It's been a source of great unhappiness to us. If Mrs. Sebastian's unfortunate death has really determined you to accept only the son who was born first –'

‘Are you trying to say, Doctor, that you and Mrs. Hall would like to have the other one for yourselves?'

‘If you will give him to us.'

Sebastian waved bitterly. ‘He's yours. And may he bring you better luck than he did me.'

Mrs. Hall uttered a very small cry. Then, like a mouse, she disappeared.

‘It would have to be made legal,' Dr. Hall said. ‘So that you can't change your mind. That would be too damnably cruel. You understand me, sir? Papers – you'll have to give us papers.'

‘You'll get your papers. I'll even set up a trust fund for him. Anything, Doctor, within reason. I'll talk to my attorneys about it at the first opportunity.'

‘Thank you, Mr. Sebastian. I thank you for Mrs. Hall as well as myself.'

‘You're entirely welcome.' Sebastian's tone was dry. Suddenly he lurched and groped for the back of the Morris chair.

‘Mr. Sebastian!' Dr. Hall sprang forward.

‘No, no, I'm all right – just dizzy – brain-fag …'

‘You'd better lie down, sir.'

‘No.' The big man took hold of himself. ‘You haven't answered my question. Where can I procure a sleigh?'

Dr. Hall stared at him. Then he murmured, ‘Yes, perhaps that would be best. Up the Post Road a mile or so …'

The elderly maidservant said in a weepy voice, ‘Mr. Sebastian, Mr. Muncie is here. You oughtn't to see anybody, sir. If you'd only let us call the doctor –'

Sebastian said from the bed, ‘Oh, stop gibbering and show Muncie in.'

It was January 11, 1905, a Wednesday afternoon. From the four-poster in which he was lying John Sebastian could see the breakers rolling in on the Rye beach, looking as cold as he felt. As cold as Claire … if she could feel …

‘Well, Mr. Sebastian,' a hearty voice said.

‘Come in, Muncie, have a chair –'

‘They tell me you're a sick man, Mr. Sebastian.' The lawyer seated himself beside the bed. ‘They haven't exaggerated. You don't look at all well.'

Sebastian looked impatient. ‘Muncie –'

‘I understand that even before the funeral you had attacks of vertigo, and that they've persisted. Apparently, too, you've had lapses of memory these past five days. Why won't you let them call a doctor?'

‘I don't need a doctor! Muncie, I want to write a new will.'

‘Now?' The lawyer looked uneasy.

‘Of course now! Don't you understand English?'

‘Wouldn't it be more sensible, Mr. Sebastian, to wait until you've fully recovered from the accident?'