The Trespasser

'It's after half past ten--aren't you going to get up?' she called.

She waited again. Two letters lay unopened on a small table. Suddenly

she put down her pail and went into the bathroom. The pot of

shaving-water stood untouched on the shelf, just as she had left it. She

returned and knocked swiftly at her husband's door, not speaking. She

waited, then she knocked again, loudly, a long time. Something in the

sound of her knocking made her afraid to try again. The noise was dull

and thudding: it did not resound through the house with a natural ring,

so she thought. She ran downstairs in terror, fled out into the front

garden, and there looked up at his room. The window-door was

open--everything seemed quiet.

Beatrice stood vacillating. She picked up a few tiny pebbles and flung

them in a handful at his door. Some spattered on the panes sharply; some

dropped dully in the room. One clinked on the wash-hand bowl. There was

no response. Beatrice was terribly excited. She ran, with her black eyes

blazing, and wisps of her black hair flying about her thin temples, out

on to the road. By a mercy she saw the window-cleaner just pushing his

ladder out of the passage of a house a little farther down the road. She

hurried to him.

'Will you come and see if there's anything wrong with my husband?' she

asked wildly.

'Why, mum?' answered the window-cleaner, who knew her, and was humbly

familiar. 'Is he taken bad or something? Yes, I'll come.' He was a tall thin man with a brown beard. His clothes were all so

loose, his trousers so baggy, that he gave one the impression his limbs

must be bone, and his body a skeleton. He pushed at his ladders with

a will.

'Where is he, Mum?' he asked officiously, as they slowed down at the

side passage.

'He's in his bedroom, and I can't get an answer from him.' 'Then I s'll want a ladder,' said the window-cleaner, proceeding to lift

one off his trolley. He was in a very great bustle. He knew which was

Siegmund's room: he had often seen Siegmund rise from some music he was

studying and leave the drawing-room when the window-cleaning began, and

afterwards he had found him in the small front bedroom. He also knew

there were matrimonial troubles: Beatrice was not reserved.

'Is it the least of the front rooms he's in?' asked the window-cleaner.

'Yes, over the porch,' replied Beatrice.

The man bustled with his ladder.

'It's easy enough,' he said. 'The door's open, and we're soon on the

balcony.' He set the ladder securely. Beatrice cursed him for a slow, officious

fool. He tested the ladder, to see it was safe, then he cautiously

clambered up. At the top he stood leaning sideways, bending over the

ladder to peer into the room. He could see all sorts of things, for he

was frightened.