MARADICK LEARNS THAT “GETTING A VIEW” MAY HAVE ITS
DANGERS AS WELL AS ITS REWARDS
Two days after the arrival of the Lesters Lady Gale arranged a picnic; a
comprehensive, democratic picnic that was to include everybody. Her
motives may be put down, if you will, to sociability, even, and you
involve a larger horizon, to philanthropy. “Everybody,” of course, was
in reality only a few, but it included the Lesters, the Maradicks, and
Mrs. Lawrence. It was to be a delightful picnic; they were to drive to
the top of Pender Callon, where there was a wonderful view, then they
were to have tea, and then drive back in the moonlight.
Dear Mrs. Maradick (the letter went)—
It would give me such pleasure if you and your husband could
come with us for a little Picnic at Pender Callon to-morrow
afternoon, weather permitting, of course. The wagonette will
come round about two-thirty.
I do hope you will be able to come.
Yours sincerely,
Beatrice Gale.
Mrs. Maradick considered it a little haughtily. She was sitting in the
garden. Suddenly, as she turned the invitation over in her mind, she saw
her husband coming towards her.
“Oh!” she said, as he came up to her, “I wanted to talk to you.”
He was looking as he always did—big, strong, red and brown. Oh! so
healthy and stupid!
She did feel a new interest in him this morning, certainly. His avoiding
her so consistently during the week was unlike him, was unusually
strong. She even felt suddenly that she would like him to be rude and
violent to her again, as he had been that other evening. Great creature!
it was certainly his métier to be rude and violent. Perhaps he would be.
She held Lady Gale’s invitation towards him.
“A picnic.” she said coldly. “To-morrow; do you care to go?”
“Are you going?” he said, looking at her.
“I should think that scarcely matters,” she answered scornfully,
“judging by the amount of interest you’ve taken in me and my doings
during the last week.”
“I know,” he said, and he looked down at the ground, “I have been a
brute, a cad, all these days, treating you like that. I have come to
apologise.”
Oh! the fool! She could have struck him with her hand! It was to be the
same thing after all, then. The monotonous crawling back to her feet,
the old routine of love and submission, the momentary hope of strength
and contradiction strangled as soon as born.
She laughed a little. “Oh, you needn’t apologise,” she said, “and, in
any case, it’s a little late, isn’t it? Not that you need mind about me.
I’ve had a very pleasant week, and so have the girls, even though their
father _hasn’t_ been near them.”
But he broke in upon her rapidly. “Oh! I’m ashamed of myself,” he said,
“you don’t know how ashamed. I think the place had something to do with
it, and then one was tired and nervy a bit, I suppose; not,” he hastily
added, “that I want to make excuses, for there really aren’t any. I just
leave it with you. I was a beast. I promise never to break out again.”
How could a man! she thought, looking at him, and then, how blind men
were. Why couldn’t they see that it wasn’t the sugar and honey that
women were continually wanting, or, at any rate, the right sort of
woman!
She glanced at him angrily. “We’d better leave the thing there,” she
said. “For heaven’s sake spare us any more scenes. You were
rude—abominably—I’m glad you’ve had the grace at last to come and tell
me so.”
She moved as though she would get up, but he put out his hand and
stopped her.
“No, Emmy, please,” he said, “let’s talk for a moment. I’ve got things I
want to say.” He cleared his throat, and stared down the white shining
path. Mrs. Lawrence appeared coming towards them, then she saw them
together and turned hurriedly back. “I’ve been thinking, all these days,
about the muddle that we’ve made. My fault very largely, I know, but I
have so awfully wanted to put it right again. And I thought if we
talked——”
“What’s the use of talking?” she broke in hastily; “there’s nothing to
say; it’s all as stale as anything could be. You’re so extraordinarily
dull when you’re in the ‘picking up the pieces’ mood; not content with
behaving like a second-rate bricklayer and then sulking for a week you
add to it by a long recital, ‘the virtues of an obedient wife’—a little
tiresome, don’t you think?”
Her nerves were all to pieces, she really wasn’t well, and the heat was
terrible; the sight of him sitting there with that pathetic, ill-used
look on his face, drove her nearly to madness. To think that she was
tied for life to so feeble a creature.
“No, please,” he said, “I know that I’m tiresome and stupid. But really
I’ve been seeing things differently these last few days. We might get
along better. I’ll try; I know it’s been largely my fault, not seeing
things and not trying——”
“Oh!” she broke in furiously, “for God’s sake stop it. Isn’t it bad
enough and tiresome enough for me already without all this stuff! I’m
sick of it, sick of it, I tell you. Sick of the whole thing. You spoke
your mind the other night, I’ll speak mine now. You can take it or leave
it.” She rose from her chair and stood looking out to sea, her hands
clenched at her sides. “Oh! these years! these years! Always the same
thing. You’ve never stuck up to anything, never fought anything, and
it’s all been so tame. And now you want us to go over the same old
ground again, to patch it up and go on as if we hadn’t had twenty long
dreary years of it and would give a good deal not to have another.” She
stopped and looked at him, smiling curiously. “Oh! James! My poor dear,
you’re such a bore. Try not to be so painfully good; you might even be a
little amusing!”
She walked slowly away towards the girls. She passed, with them, down
the path.
He picked up the broken pieces of his thoughts and tried to put them
slowly together. His first thought of her and of the whole situation was
that it was hopeless, perfectly hopeless. He had fancied, stupidly,
blindly, that his having moved included her moving too, quite without
reason, as he now thoroughly saw. She was just where they had both been
a week ago, she was even, from his neglect of her during these last
days, a little farther back; it was harder than ever for her to see in
line. His discovery of this affected him very little. He was very
slightly wounded by the things that she had said to him, and her
rejection of his advances so finally and completely distressed him
scarcely at all. As he sat and watched the colours steal mistily across
the sea he knew that he was too happy at all the discoveries that he was
making to mind anything else. He was setting out on an adventure, and if
she would not come too it could simply not be helped; it did not in the
least alter the adventure’s excitement.
It was even with a new sense of freedom that he went off, late that
afternoon, to the town; he was like a boy just out of school. He had no
very vivid intention of going anywhere; but lately the town had grown
before him so that he loved to stand and watch it, its life and
movement, its colour and romance.
He loved, above all, the market-place with its cobbled stones over which
rattled innumerable little carts, its booths, its quaint and delightful
chatter, its old grey tower. It was one of the great features of his new
view that places mattered, that, indeed, they were symbols of a great
and visible importance; stocks and stones seemed to him now to be
possessed of such vitality that they almost frightened him, they knew so
much and had lived so long a time.
The evening light was over the market-place; the sun, peering through a
pillar of cloudless blue, cut sharply between the straight walls of the
Town Hall and a neighbouring chimney, flung itself full upon the tower.
It caught the stones and shot them with myriad lights; it played with
the fruit on the stall at the tower’s foot until the apples were red as
rubies and the oranges shone like gold. It bathed it, caressed it,
enfolded it, and showed the modern things on every side that old friends
were, after all, the best, and that fine feathers did not always make
the finest birds.
The rest of the market-place was in shadow, purple in the corners and
crevices, the faintest blue in the higher air, a haze of golden-grey in
the central square. It was full of people standing, for the most part,
discussing the events of the day; in the corner by the tower there was a
Punch and Judy show, and Maradick could hear the shrill cries of Mr.
Punch rising above the general chatter. Over everything there was a
delicious scent of all the best things in the world—ripe orchards,
flowering lanes, and the sharp pungent breath of the sea; in the golden
haze of the evening everything seemed to be waiting, breathlessly, in
spite of the noise of voices, for some great moment.
Maradick had never felt so perfectly in tune with the world.
He passed across to the Punch and Judy show, and stood in a corner by
the fruit stall under the tower and watched Mr. Punch. That gentleman
was in a very bad temper to-night, and he banged with his stick at
everything that he could see; poor Judy was in for a bad time, and sank
repeatedly beneath the blows which should have slain an ox. Toby looked
on very indifferently until it was his turn, when he bit furiously at
Mr. Punch’s trousers and showed his teeth, and choked in his frill and
behaved like a most ferocious animal. Then there came the policeman, and
Mr. Punch was carried, swearing and cursing, off to prison, but in a
moment he was back again, as perky as before, and committing murders at
the rate of two a minute.
There was a fat baby, held aloft in its mother’s arms, who watched the
proceedings with the closest attention; it was intensely serious, its
thumb in its mouth, its double chin wrinkling with excitement. Then a
smile crept out of its ears and across its cheeks; its mouth opened, and
suddenly there came a gurgle of laughter. It crowed with delight, its
head fell back on its nurse’s shoulder and its eyes closed with ecstasy;
then, with the coming of Jack Ketch and his horrible gallows, it was
solemn once more, and it watched the villain’s miserable end with stern
approval. There were other babies in the crowd, and bottles had to be
swiftly produced in order to stay the cries that came from so sudden an
ending. The dying sun danced on Punch’s execution; he dangled
frantically in mid-air, Toby barked furiously, and down came the
curtain.
The old lady at the fruit stall had watched the performance with great
excitement. She was remarkable to look at, and had been in the same
place behind the same stall for so many years that people had grown to
take her as part of the tower. She wore a red peaked hat, a red skirt, a
man’s coat of black velvet, and black mittens; her enormous chin pointed
towards her nose, which was hooked like an eagle; nose and chin so
nearly met that it was a miracle how she ever opened her mouth at all.
She nodded at Maradick and smiled, whilst her hands clicked her needles
together, and a bit of grey stocking grew visibly before his eyes.
“It’s a fine show,” she said, “a fine show, and very true to human
nature.” Then suddenly looking past him, she screamed in a voice like
the whistle of a train: “A-pples and O-ranges—fine ripe grapes!”
Her voice was so close to his ear that it startled him, but he answered
her.
“It is good for the children,” he said, shadowing his eyes with his
hand, for the sun was beating in his face.
She leaned towards him and waved a skinny finger. “I ought to know,” she
said, “I’ve buried ten, but they always loved the Punch . . . and that’s
many a year back.”
How old was she, he wondered? He seemed, in this town, to be continually
meeting people who had this quality of youth; Tony, Morelli, Punch, this
old woman, they gave one the impression that they would gaily go on for
ever.
“People live to a good old age here,” he said.
“Ah! it’s a wonderful town,” she said. “There’s nothing like it. . . .
Many’s the things I’ve seen, the tower and I.”
“The tower!” said Maradick, looking up at its grey solemnity now
flushing with the red light of the sun.
“I’ve been near it since I was a bit of a child,” she said, leaning
towards him so that her beak of a nose nearly touched his cheek and her
red hat towered over him. “We lived by it once, and then I moved under
it. We’ve been friends, good friends, but it wants some considering.”
“What wants considering mother?” said a voice, and Maradick turned
round; Punch was at his elbow. His show was packed up and leant against
the wall; by his side was Toby, evidently pleased with the world in
general, for every part of his body was wagging.
“Good evening, sir,” said Punch, smiling from ear to ear. “It’s a
beautiful evening—the sea’s like a pome—what wants considering mother?
and I think I’ll have an apple, if you don’t mind—one of your rosiest.”
She chose for him an enormous red one, which with one squeeze of the
hand he broke into half. Toby cocked an ear and raised his eyes; he was
soon munching for his life. “What wants considering mother?” he said
again.
“Many things,” she answered him shortly, “and it’ll be tuppence,
please.” Her voice rose into a shrill scream—“A-pples and O-ranges and
fine ripe grapes.” She sat back in her chair and bent over her knitting,
she had nothing more to say.
“I’ve been watching your show,” Maradick said, “and enjoyed it more than
many a play I’ve seen in town.”
“Yes, it went well to-night,” Punch said, “and there was a new baby.
It’s surprisin’ what difference a new baby makes, even Toby notices it.”
“A new baby?” asked Maradick.
“Yes. A baby, you know, that ’asn’t seen the show before, leastways in
this world. You can always tell by the way they take it.” Then he added
politely, “And I hope you like this town, sir.”
“Enormously,” Maradick answered. “I think it has some quality, something
that makes it utterly different from anywhere else that I know. There is
a feeling——”
He looked across the market-place, and, through the cleft between the
ebony black of the towering walls, there shone the bluest of evening
skies, and across the space floated a pink cushion of a cloud; towards
the bend of the green hill on the horizon the sky where the sun was
setting was a bed of primroses. “It is a wonderful place.”
“Ah, I tell you sir,” said Punch, stroking one of Toby’s ears, “there’s
no place like it. . . . I’ve been in every town in this kingdom, and
some of them are good enough. But this!”
He looked at Maradick a moment and then he said, “Forgive my mentioning
it, sir, but you’ve got the feeling of the place; you’ve caught the
spirit, as one might say. We watch, folks down here, you strangers up
there at the ‘Man at Arms.’ For the most part they miss it altogether.
They come for the summer with their boxes and their bags, they bathe in
the sea, they drive on the hill, and they’re gone. Lord love you, why
they might have been sleepin’.” He spat contemptuously.
“But you think that I have it?” said Maradick.
“You’ve got it right enough,” said Punch. “But then you’re a friend of
young Mr. Gale’s, and so you couldn’t help having it; ’e’s got it more
than anyone I ever knew.”
“And what exactly is—It?” asked Maradick.
“Well, sir,” said Punch, “it’s not exactly easy to put it into words, me
bein’ no scholar.” He looked at the old woman, but she was intent over
her knitting. The light of the sun had faded from the tower and left it
cold and grey against the primrose sky. “It’s a kind of Youth; seeing
things, you know, all freshly and with a new colour, always caring about
things as if you’d met ’em for the first time. It doesn’t come of the
asking, and there are places as well as people that ’ave got it. But
when a place or a person’s got it, it’s like a match that they go round
lighting other people’s candles with.” He waved his arm in a
comprehensive sweep. “It’s all here, you know, sir, and Mr. Gale’s got
it like that . . . ’e’s lit your candle, so to speak, sir, if it isn’t
familiar, and now you’ve got to take the consequences.”
“The consequences?” said Maradick.
“Oh, it’s got its dangers,” said Punch, “specially when you take it
suddenly; it’s like a fever, you know. And when it comes to a gentleman
of your age of life and settled habits, well, it needs watchin’. Oh,
there’s the bad and good of it.”
Maradick stared in front of him.
“Well, sir, I must be going,” said Punch. “Excuse me, but I always must
be talking. Good night, sir.”
“Good night,” said Maradick. He watched the square, stumpy figure pass,
followed by the dog, across the misty twilight of the market-place.
Violet shadows lingered and swept like mysterious creeping figures over
the square. He said good night to the old woman and struck up the hill
to the hotel.
“Consequence? Good and bad of it?” Anyhow, the man hadn’t expressed it
badly. That was his new view, that strange new lightness of vision as
though his pack had suddenly been rolled from off his back. He was
suddenly enjoying every minute of his life, his candle had been lighted.
For a moment there floated across his mind his talk with his wife that
afternoon. Well, it could not be helped. If she would not join him he
must have his fun alone.
At the top of the hill he met Mrs. Lester. He had seen something of her
during the last two days and liked her. She was amusing and vivacious;
she had something of Tony’s quality.
“Hullo, Mr. Maradick,” she cried, “hurrying back like me to dinner?
Isn’t it wicked the way that we leave the most beautiful anything for
our food?”
“Well, I must confess,” he answered, laughing, “that I never thought of
dinner at all. I just turned back because things had, as it were, come
to an end. The sun set, you know.”
“I heard it strike seven,” she answered him, “and I said Dinner.
Although I was down on the beach watching the most wonderful sea you
ever saw, nothing could stop me, and so back I came.”
“Have you been down here before?” he asked her. “To stay, I mean.”
“Oh yes. Fred likes it as well as anywhere else, and I like it a good
deal better than most. He doesn’t mind so very much, you know, where he
is. He’s always living in his books, and so real places don’t count.”
She gave a little sigh. “But they do count with me.”
“I’m enjoying it enormously,” he said, “it’s flinging the years off from
me.”
“Oh, I know,” she answered, “but I’m almost afraid of it for that very
reason. It’s so very—what shall I say—champagney, that one doesn’t
know what one will do next. Sometimes one’s spirits are so high that one
positively longs to be depressed. Why, you’d be amazed at some of the
things people, quite ordinary respectable people, do when they are down
here.”
As they turned in at the gate she stopped and laughed.
“Take care, Mr. Maradick,” she said, “I can see that you are caught in
the toils; it’s very dangerous for us, you know, at our time of life.”
And she left him, laughing.