anybody without its interfering, like a stone and a pool, with
everything around it. Of course it’s your business, yours more than
anybody’s. And really, dear, I don’t think you’ll make things any better
by going away. Things seem far worse when you’ve got to look over ever
so many counties to see them at all. Stay here with Tony and live it
down. It will pass, like the measles or anything else.”
She paused. Then she suddenly put her arms round the girl and held her
close. “I want you, I want you, dear. I am very miserable. I feel that I
am losing Tony, perhaps for always. He will never be the same again, and
I can’t bear it. He has always been the centre of everything, always. I
scarcely know how I could have faced some things if it hadn’t been for
him. And now I’ve got to face them alone; but if you are here with me I
shan’t be alone after all.”
And Alice let her face rest in Lady Gale’s dress and she promised. There
was, as it happened, more in her promise than mere acquiescence. She had
her own curiosity as to the way it was all going to turn out, and
perhaps, deep in her heart, a hope that this girl down in the town would
be nothing after all, and that Tony would return, when the two or three
weeks were over, to his senses. But the real temptation that attacked
her was terribly severe. It would be fatally easy to talk to Sir
Richard, and, without saying anything either definite or circumstantial,
to put him unmistakably on the track. The immediate issue would, of
course, be instant marching orders for everybody, and that would be the
last that Tony would see of his rustic. Her thoughts lingered around the
girl. What was she like, she wondered? Coarse, with a face of beetroot
red and flaxen hair; no, Tony had taste, he would know what to choose.
She was probably pretty. Wild and uncouth, perhaps; that would be likely
to catch him. And now she, Alice Du Cane, must stand quietly by and play
the part of platonic friend. What fun life must be for the gods who had
time to watch.
Meanwhile Tony had found Maradick in a deserted corner of the garden and
had poured the afternoon’s history into his ears. It was a complete
manual on the way to make love, and it came out in a stream of
uninterrupted eloquence, with much repetition and a continual impulse to
hark back to the central incident of the story.
“And then, at last, I told her!” A small bird in a nest above their
heads woke for a moment and felt a little thrill of sympathy. “By
heaven, Maradick, old man, I had never lived until then. She and I were
swept into Paradise together, and for a moment earth had gone, rolled
away, vanished; I can’t talk about it, I can’t really. But there we were
on the sand with the sea and the sky! Oh, my word! I can’t make you feel
it, only now I am hers always and she is mine. I am her slave, her
knight. One always used to think, you know, that all the stuff men and
women put about it in books was rot and dreadfully dull at that, but now
it all seems different. Poetry, music, all the things that one loved,
are different now. They are new, wonderful, divine! and there we were in
the boat, you know, just drifting anywhere.”
Maradick played audience to this enthusiasm with a somewhat melancholy
patience. He had felt like that once about Mrs. Maradick. How absurd! He
saw her as he had seen her last with the bed-clothes gathered about her
in a scornful heap and her eyes half closed but flashing fire. She had
refused to speak to him! And he had kissed her once and felt like Tony.
“No, but a fellow can’t talk about it. Only, one thing, Maradick, that
struck me as awfully funny, the way that she accepted everything. When I
told her about my people, of course I expected her to be awfully
disappointed. But she seemed to understand at once and accepted it as
the natural thing. So that if it comes to running away she is quite
prepared.”
“If it comes to running away!” The words at once brought the whole
situation to a point, and Maradick’s responsibility hit him in the face
like a sudden blow from the dark. For a moment fear caught him by the
throat; he wanted, wildly, to fling off the whole thing, to catch the
next train back to Epsom, to get away from this strange place that was
dragging him, as it were, with a ghostly finger, into a whirlpool, a
quagmire; anything was treacherous and dangerous and destructive. And
then he knew, in the next instant, that though he might go back to Epsom
and his office and all the drudgery of it, he would never be the same
man again, he could never be the same man again. He knew now that the
only thing in the world worth having was love—this town had shown him
that—and that, for it, all the other things must go. This boy had found
it and he must help him to keep it. He, Maradick, had found it; there
were friends of his here—Tony, Mrs. Lester—and he couldn’t go back to
the loneliness of his old life with the memory of these weeks.
“Look here,” he gripped Tony’s arm, “I don’t suppose I ought to have
anything to do with it. Any man in his senses would tell your people,
and there’d be an end of the whole thing; but I gave you my word before
and I’ll go on with it. Besides, I’ve seen the girl. I’d fall in love
with her myself, Tony, if I were your age, and I don’t want you to miss
it all and make a damned muddle of your life just because you weren’t
brave enough or because there wasn’t anyone to help you.”
“By Jove, Maradick, you’re a brick. I can’t tell you how I feel about
it, about her and you and everything, a chap hasn’t got words; only, of
course, it’s going forward. You see, you couldn’t tell my people after
all that you’ve done—you wouldn’t, you know; and as I’d go on whether
you left me or no you may just as well help me. And then I’m awfully
fond of you; I like you better than I’ve ever liked any man, you’re such
an understanding fellow.”
Tony took breath a moment. Then he went on—
“The mater’s really the only thing that matters, and if I wasn’t so
jolly sure that she’d like Janet awfully, and really would want me to
carry the thing through, I wouldn’t do it at all. But loving Janet as I
do has made me know how much the mater is to me. You know, Maradick,
it’s jolly odd, but there are little things about one’s mater that stick
in one’s mind far more than anything else. Little things . . . but she’s
always been just everything, and there are lots of blackguards, I know,
feel just the same . . . and so it sort of hurts going on playing this
game and not telling her about it. It’s the first thing I’ve not told
her . . . but it will be all right when it’s over.”
“There are other people,” said Maradick; “your father——”
“Oh, the governor! Yes, he’s beginning to smell a rat, and he’s
tremendous once he’s on the track, and that all means that it’s got to
be done jolly quickly. Besides, there’s Alice Du Cane; she saw us, Janet
and me, on the beach this afternoon, and there’s no knowing how long
she’ll keep her tongue. No, I’ll go and see Morelli to-morrow and ask
him right off. I went back with her to-night, and he was most awfully
friendly, although he must have had pretty shrewd suspicions. He likes
me.”
“Don’t you be too sure about him,” said Maradick; “I don’t half like it.
I don’t trust him a yard. But see here, Tony, come and see me at once
to-morrow after you’ve spoken to him, and then we’ll know what to do.”
Tony turned to him and put his hand on his shoulder. “I say. I don’t
know why you’re such a brick to me. I’ll never forget it”; and then
suddenly he turned up the path and was gone.
Maradick climbed the dark stairs to his room. His wife was in bed,
asleep. He undressed quietly; for an instant he looked at her with the
candle in his hand. She looked very young with her hair lying in a cloud
about the pillow; he half bent down as though he would kiss her. Then he
checked himself and blew out the candle.
CHAPTER XIII
MORE OF THE ITINERANT OPTIMIST; ALICE DU CANE
ASKS MARADICK A FAVOUR
Maradick awoke very early on the next morning. As he lay in his bed, his
mind was still covered with the cobwebs of his dreams, and he saw the
room in a fantastic, grotesque shape, so that he was not sure that it
was his room at all, but he thought that it might be some sea with the
tables and chairs for rocks, or some bare windy moor.
The curtain blew ever so slightly in the wind from the crevice of the
door, and he watched it from his bed as it swelled and bulged and shrunk
back as though it were longing to break away from the door altogether
but had not quite courage enough. But although he was still confused and
vague with the lazy bewilderment of sleep, he realised quite definitely
in the back of his mind that there was some fact waiting for him until
he should be clear-headed enough to recognise it. This certainty of
something definite before him that had to be met and considered roused
him. He did not, in the least, know what that something was that awaited
him, but he tried to pull himself together. The sea receded, the beating
of its waves was very faint in his ears, and the rocks resolved into the
shining glass of the dressing-table and the solemn chairs with their
backs set resolutely against the wall, and their expressions those of
self-conscious virtue.
He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes; he knew with absolute certainty
that he should not sleep again. The light was trying to pierce the blind
and little eyes of colour winked at him from the window, the silver
things on the dressing-table stood out, pools of white, against the dark
wood.
He got out of bed, and suddenly the fact stared him in the face: it was
that he was committed, irrevocably committed, to help Tony. He had, in a
way, been committed before, ever since Lady Gale asked him for his help;
but there had always been a chance of escaping, the possibility, indeed,
of the “thing” never coming off at all. But now it was coming off, and
very soon, and he had to help it to come.
He had turned the whole situation over in his mind so very often, and
looked at it from so very many points of view, with its absurdities and
its tragedies and its moralities, that there was nothing more to be said
about the actual thing at all; that was, in all conscience, concrete
enough. He saw it, as he sat on the bed swinging his feet, there in
front of him, as some actual personality with whom he had pledged
himself in league. He had sworn to help two children to elope against
everybody’s wishes—he, Maradick, of all people the most law-abiding.
What had come over him? However, there it was and there was nothing more
to be said about it. It wasn’t to be looked at again at all with any
view of its possible difficulties and dangers, it had just to be carried
through.
But he knew, as he thought about it, that the issue was really much
larger than the actual elopement. It was the effect on him that really
mattered, the fact that he could never return to Epsom again with any
hope of being able to live the life there that he had lived before.
The whole circle of them would be changed by this; it was the most
momentous event in all their lives.
Maradick looked again at the morning. The mists were rising higher in
the air, and all the colours, the pale golden sand, the red roofs, the
brown bend of the rocks, were gleaming in the sun. He would go and bathe
and then search out Punch.
It was a quarter past five as he passed down the stairs; the house was
in the most perfect stillness, and only the ticking of innumerable
clocks broke the silence. Suddenly a bird called from the garden; a
little breath of wind, bringing with it the scent of pinks and roses,
trembled through the hall.
When he reached the cove the sea was like glass. He had never bathed
early in the morning before, and a few weeks ago he would have laughed
at the idea. A man of his age bathing at half-past five in the morning!
The water would be terribly cold. But it wasn’t. He thought that he had
never known anything so warm and caressing as he lay back in it and
looked up through the clear green. There was perfect silence. Things
came into his mind, some operas that he had heard, rather reluctantly,
that year in London. The opening of the third act of Puccini’s “Tosca,”
with the bell-music and the light breaking over the city. He remembered
that he had thought that rather fine at the time. The lovers in “Louise”
on Montmartre watching the lights burst the flowers below them and
saluting “Paris!” He had appreciated that too. A scene in “To Paradise,”
with a man somewhere alone in a strange city watching the people
hurrying past him and counting the lamps that swung, a golden chain,
down the street. Some picture in the Academy of that year, Sim’s “Night
Piece to Julia.” He hadn’t understood it or seen anything in it at the
time. “One of those new fellows who just stick the paint on anyhow,” he
had remarked; but now he seemed to remember a wonderful blue dress and a
white peacock in the background!
How funny it was, he thought, as he plunged, dripping, back on to the
beach, that the things that a fellow scarcely noticed at all at the time
should be just the things that came into his mind afterwards. And on the
sand he saw Toby, the dog, gravely watching him. Toby came courteously
towards him, sniffed delicately at his socks, and then, having decided
apparently that they were the right kind of socks and couldn’t really be
improved on, sat down with his head against Maradick’s leg.
Maradick tickled his head and decided that pugs weren’t nearly so ugly
as he had thought they were. But then there was a world of difference
between Toby and the ordinary pug, the fat pug nestling in cushions on
an old lady’s lap, the aristocratic pug staring haughtily from the soft
luxury of a lordly brougham, the town pug, over-fed, over-dressed,
over-washed. But Toby knew the road, he had seen the world, he was a dog
of the drama, a dog of romance; he was also a dog with a sense of
humour.
He licked Maradick’s bare leg with a very warm tongue and then put a paw
on to his arm. They were friends. He ratified the contract by rolling
over several times on the sand; he then lay on his back with his four
paws suspended rigidly in the air, and then, catching sight of his
master, turned rapidly over and went to meet him.
Punch expressed no surprise at finding Maradick there at that hour of
the morning. It was the most natural thing in the world. People who came
to Treliss were always doing things like that, and they generally spent
the rest of their lives in trying to forget that they had done them.
“I’ve been wanting to see you, Mr. Maradick, sir,” he said, “and I’m
mighty glad to find you here when there’s nothing to catch our words
save the sea, and that never tells tales.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, Garrick,” said Maradick, “I came down after
you. I meant to have gone up to your rooms after bathing, but as you are
here it’s all the better. I badly want to talk to you.”
Punch sat down on the sand and looked quite absurdly like his dog.
“I want to talk to you about Morelli, Garrick.” Maradick hesitated a
moment. It was very difficult to put into words exactly what he wanted
to say. “We have talked about the man before, and I shouldn’t bother you
about it again were it not that I’m very fond of young Tony Gale, and
he, as you know, has fallen in love with Morelli’s daughter. It’s all a
long story, but the main point is, that I want to know as much about the
man as you can tell me. Nobody here seems to know very much about him
except yourself.”
Punch’s brow had clouded at the mention of Morelli’s name.
“I don’t rightly know,” he said, “as I can say anything very definite,
and that being so perhaps one oughtn’t to say anything at all; but if
young Gale’s going to take that girl away, then I’m glad. He’s a good
fellow, and she’s on my mind.”
“Why?” said Maradick.
“Well, perhaps after all it’s best to tell what I know.” Punch took out
a pipe and slowly filled it. “Mind you, it’s all damned uncertain, a lot
of little things that don’t mean anything when taken by themselves. I
first met the man in ’89, twenty years ago. I was a young chap,
twenty-one or so. A kind of travelling blacksmith I used to be then,
with Pendragon up the coast as a kind o’ centre. It was at Pendragon I
saw him. He used to live there then as he lives in Treliss now; it was a
very different kind o’ place then to what it is now—just a sleepy,
dreamy little town, with bad lights, bad roads and the rest, and old
tumbled down ’ouses. Old Sir Jeremy Trojan ’ad the run of it then, him
that’s father of the present Sir Henry, and you wouldn’t have found a
quieter place, or a wilder in some ways.”
“Wild?” said Maradick. “It’s anything but wild now.”
“Yes, they’ve changed it with their trams and things, and they’ve pulled
down the cove; but the fisher-folk were a fierce lot and they wouldn’t
stand anyone from outside. Morelli lived there with his wife and little
girl. ’Is wife was only a young thing, but beautiful, with great eyes
like the sea on a blue day and with some foreign blood in ’er, dark and
pale.
“’E wasn’t liked there any more than ’e is here. They told funny tales
about him even then, and said ’e did things to his wife, they used to
hear her crying. And they said that ’e’d always been there, years back,
just the same, never looking any different, and it’s true enough he
looks just the same now as he did then. It isn’t natural for a man never
to grow any older.”
“No,” said Maradick, “it isn’t.”
“There were other things that the men down there didn’t like about ’im,
and the women hated ’im. But whenever you saw ’im he was charming—nice
as ’e could be to me and all of ’em. And he was clever, could do things
with his ’ands, and make birds and beasts do anything at all.”
“That’s strange,” said Maradick. “Tony said something of the same sort
the other day.”
“Well, that ain’t canny,” said David, “more especially as I’ve seen
other animals simply shake with fear when he comes near them. Well, I
was telling you, they didn’t like ’im down in the cove, and they’d say
nothing to ’im and leave ’im alone. And then one night”—Punch’s mouth
grew set and hard—“they found Mrs. Morelli up on the moor lying by the
Four Stones, dead.”
“Dead!” said Maradick, startled.
“Yes; it was winter time and the snow blowing in great sheets across the
moor and drifting about her dress, with the moon, like a yellow candle,
hanging over ’er. But that weren’t all. She’d been killed, murdered.
There were marks on her face and hands, as though teeth had torn her.
Poor creature!” Punch paused.
“Well,” said Maradick excitedly, “what was the end of it all?”
“Oh! they never brought it ’ome to anyone. I ’ad my own thoughts, and
the men about there kind o’ talked about Morelli, but it was proved ’e
was somewhere else when it ’appened and ’e cried like a child when ’e
saw the body.”
“Well,” said Maradick, laughing, “so far it isn’t very definite. That
might have happened to any man.” But it was, nevertheless, curiously in
keeping with the picture that he had in his mind.
“Yes,” said Punch, “I told you already that I ’adn’t got anything very
definite. I don’t say as ’e did it or had anything to do with it, but
it’s all of a piece in a way. Thing got ’ot against ’im in Pendragon
after that and ’e ’ad to go, and ’e came ’ere with ’is girl. But they
say that ’e’s been seen there since, and in other places too. And then
I’ve seen ’im do other things. Kill rabbits and birds like a devil. ’E’s
cruel, and then again ’e’s kind, just like a child will pull flies to
bits. ’E _is_ just like a child, and so ’e isn’t to be trusted. ’E’s
wild, like Nature. ’E likes to have young things about ’im. That’s why
’e’s taken to young Gale, and ’e loves that girl in a way, although I
know ’e’s cruel——”
“Cruel to her?” said Maradick.
“Yes, ’e beats her, I know. I’ve been watching a long way back; and then
again ’e’ll kiss ’er and give ’er things and play with ’er, and then one
day ’e’ll kill ’er.”
Maradick started again. “Kill her?” he said.
“Yes. ’E’ll do anything when ’e’s mad. And a minute after ’e’ll be
sobbing and crying for sorrow over what ’e’s hurt; and be like a
drunkard when ’e’s angry.”
“Then what do you make of it all?” said Maradick.
“Make of it?” said Punch. “I don’t know. There ain’t another like ’im in
the kingdom. There’s more in the world than folk ’ave any idea of,
especially those that keep to towns. But it’s out on the road that
you’ll be seeing things, when the moon is up and the hedges purple in
their shadows. And ’e belongs to all of that. ’E’s like Nature in a way,
cruel and kind and wild. ’E’s not to be believed in by sober folks who
laugh at spirits, but there’s more in it than meets the eye.”
And that was all that Maradick got from him; and after all it did not
amount to very much except a vague warning. But there was this definite
fact, that Janet was in danger where she was, and that was an added
impulse, of course, for going on with the whole adventure. To the
initial charm of helping a delightful boy was now added the romantic
sensation of the release of a captive lady; Maradick, knight! Forty and
married for a lifetime; oh! the absurd world.
Then Maradick went up for breakfast.
Mrs. Maradick’s first thought in the morning was her hair, and then, at
some considerable distance, the girls. It never happened that they were
both “right” simultaneously, and she would indeed have been considerably
surprised and felt a certain lack if there had been no cause for
complaint on either score.
On the present morning everything was as it should be. Her hair “settled
itself” as though by magic, the girls had given no possible cause of
complaint; she came down to breakfast with an air of surprise and the
kind of mind that is quite sure something unpleasant is going to happen
simply because nothing unpleasant _has_ “happened” so far. She
presented, as she came down the hotel staircase, a delightful picture of
neat compact charm; her girls, in precise and maidenly attendance behind
her, accentuated her short stature by their own rather raw, long-legged
size, but there was nothing loose or uncouth about her. In her
colouring, in her light carnation silk waistband, in her high-heeled
shiny shoes, she was neatness personified.
In the eyes of everyone except Mrs. Lawrence she had perhaps just a
little too much the air of being “somebody,” because really, of course,
she was nothing at all, simply Mrs. Maradick of Epsom; but then when you
were so small you had to do something to make up for it, and an “air”
did help undoubtedly. Her husband, coming in from the garden, met her at
the bottom of the stairs, and she treated him very graciously. He kissed
the girls with a “Well, Lucy!” and “Well, Annie!” and then Mrs.
Maradick, with a final feeling for her hair and a last pat to the
carnation riband, led the way in to breakfast.
It appeared that she was inclined to treat him graciously, but in
reality she was trying to make up her mind; she was not a clever woman,
and she had never been so puzzled before.
She had, indeed, never been forced to puzzle about anything at all. In
her orderly compact life things had always been presented to her with a
decency and certainty that left no room for question or argument. She
had been quiet and obedient at home, but she had always had her way; she
had married the man that had been presented to her without any
hesitation at all, it was a “good match,” and it meant that, for the
rest of her life, she would never be forced to ask any questions about
anything or anybody. For a wild week or two, at first, she had felt
strange undisciplined sensations that were undoubtedly dangerous; on
their wedding night she had suddenly suspected that there was another
woman there whose existence meant storm and disorder. But the morning
had come with bills and calls and “finding a house,” and that other Mrs.
Maradick had died. From that day to this there had been no cause for
alarm. James had soon been reduced to order and had become a kind of
necessity, like the sideboard; he paid the bills. Child-birth had been
alarming for a moment, but Mrs. Maradick had always been healthy and
they had an excellent doctor, but, after Annie’s appearance, she had
decided that there should never be another. James presented no
difficulties at all, and her only real worry in life was her “hair.”
There was not very much of it, and she spent her mornings and her temper
in devising plans whereby it should be made to seem “a lot,” but it
never was satisfactory. Her “hair” became the centre of her life, her
horizon. James fitted into it. If the “hair” were all right, he didn’t
seem so bad. Otherwise he was stupid, dull, an oaf.
And so she had come down to Treliss and life had suddenly changed. It
had really changed from that first evening of their arrival when he had
been so rude to her, although she had not realised it at the time. But
the astonishing thing was that he had kept it up. He had never kept
anything up before, and it was beginning to frighten her. At first it
had seemed to her merely conceit. His head had been turned by these
people, and when he got back to Epsom and found that he wasn’t so
wonderful after all, and that the people there didn’t think of him at
all except as her husband, then he would find his place again.
But now she wasn’t so sure. She had not been asleep last night when he
came to bed. She had seen him bend over with the candle in his hand, and
the look in his eyes had frightened her, frightened her horribly, so
that she had lain awake for hours afterwards, thinking, puzzling for the
first time in her life. During all these twenty years of their married
life he had been, she knew, absolutely faithful to her. She had laughed
at it sometimes, because it had seemed so absolutely impossible that
there should ever be anyone else. He did not attract people in Epsom in
the least; he had never made any attempt to, and she had imagined him,
poor fellow, sometimes trying, and the miserable mess that he would make
of it.
And now she had got to face the certainty that there was some one else.
She had seen it in his eyes last night, and she knew that he would never
have had the strength to keep up the quarrel for nearly a fortnight
unless some one else had been there. She saw now a thousand things that
should have convinced her before, little things all culminating in that
horrible picnic a few days ago. It was as though, she thought, he had
come down to Treliss determined to find somebody. She remembered him in
the train, how pleasant and agreeable he had been! He had arranged
cushions for her, got things for her, but the moment they had arrived!
Oh! this hateful town!
But now she had got to act. She had woke early that morning and had
found that he was already gone. That alone was quite enough to stir all
her suspicions.
Perhaps now he was down there in the town with some one! Why should he
get up at an unearthly hour unless it were for something of the kind? He
had always been a very sound sleeper. At Epsom he would never have
thought of getting up before eight. Who was it?
She put aside, for a moment, her own feelings about him, the curious way
in which she was beginning to look at him. The different side that he
was presenting to her and the way that she looked at it must wait until
she had discovered this woman, this woman! She clenched her little hands
and her eyes flashed.
Oh! she would talk to her when she found her!
His early escape that morning seemed to her a sign that the “woman” was
down in the town. She imagined an obvious assignation, but otherwise she
might have suspected that it was Mrs. Lester. That, of course, she had
suspected from the day of the picnic, but it seemed to her difficult to
imagine that a woman of the world, as Mrs. Lester, to give her her due,
most obviously was, could see anything in her hulk of a James; it would
be much more probable if it were some uncouth fisherwoman who knew, poor
thing, no better.
She looked at him now across the breakfast-table; his red cheeks, his
great nostrils “like a horse’s,” his enormous hands, but it was not all
hostility the look that she gave him. There was a kind of dawning wonder
and surprise.
They had their table by the window, and the sun beat through on to the
silver teapot and the ham and eggs. Annie had refused porridge. No, she
wasn’t hungry.
“You should have bathed, as I did, before breakfast,” said Maradick.
So he’d bathed before breakfast, had he? She looked across at him
smiling.
“You were up very early,” she said.
“Yes, I slept badly.” They were down again, those blinds! She saw him
drop them down as though by magic. He was playing his game.
“Well, next time you must wake me and I’ll come too,” she said. His
sense of humour was touched at the idea of her coming down at five in
the morning, but he said nothing.
The knowledge, the increasing certainty that there was something in it
all, was choking her so that she found it exceedingly difficult to eat.
But that she should be baffled by James was so incredible an idea that
she concealed her rising temper.
She nodded gaily at Mrs. Lawrence, who swam towards their table with
outstretched hands and a blue scarf floating like wings behind her.
“My dear!”
“My dear!”
“But you generally have it upstairs, I thought . . .”
“Yes, I know; but _such_ a day, one couldn’t really . . .”
“Yes, I was awake ever so . . . But James has been bathing. No, Lucy,
sit still, dear, until we’ve finished. Bathing before breakfast. I think
I really must to-morrow.”
Epsom closed about the table.
She was extremely nice to him throughout the meal, and even hinted at
their doing something, spending the day, “and _such_ a day.” It was a
shame not to take advantage of the weather “as a family.” Quite a new
idea, indeed, but he accepted it, and even began to suggest possible
places. She was baffled again, and, as the terrible prospect of a whole
day spent in James’s company, quite alone except for the girls, pressed
about her, became almost hysterical in her hurriedly discovered reasons
why, after all, it would never do. But he smiled at her, and although he
was quite ready to do anything that she might suggest, it was a
different kind of agreeing from a week or two ago.
She retired from the breakfast-table baffled.
He had been watching the door of the breakfast-room eagerly, and when he
went out down into the garden he was still looking for the same figure.
There was no longer, there could be no longer any disguise about the
person, it was Mrs. Lester beyond any possible question; but he _did_
disguise the reason. He wanted to talk to her, he liked to talk to her,
just as he liked to talk to any understanding person, quite irrespective
of sex. She had, of course, her atmosphere; it had a great deal in
common with the place and the weather and the amazing riot of colour
that the weather had brought. He saw her always as she had been on that
first day, primrose, golden, in that dark dim drawing-room; but that he
should think of her in that way didn’t show him, as it should have done,
how the case was really beginning to lie.
He had the “Play-boy” on his knee and the light swung, as some great
golden censor is swung before the High Altar, in waves of scent and
colour backwards and forwards before him. He watched, looking eagerly
down the sunlit path, but she did not come, and the morning passed in
its golden silence and he was still alone.
It wasn’t indeed until after lunch that things began to move again, and
then Tony came to him. He was in a glow of pleasure and excitement; she
had written to him.
“It was most awfully clever; she only wrote it after I left last night
and she hadn’t time to post it, of course, but she gave it to the old
apple-woman—you know, down by the tower—and right under her father’s
nose, and he hadn’t the least idea, and I’ve written back because I
mayn’t, perhaps, get a word with her this afternoon, and old Morelli
will be there.”
He sat on the edge of the stone wall, looking down at the town and
swinging his legs. The town was in a blaze of sun, seen dimly through a
haze of gold-dust. It hung like a lamp against the blue sky, because the
mist gathered closely about its foundations, and only its roofs and
pinnacles seemed to swing in the shifting dazzling sun before their
eyes.
“The old apple-woman,” said Tony, “is simply ripping, and I think she
must have had an awfully sad life. I should like to do something for
her.” There were at least ten people a day for whom he wanted to do
something. “I asked Bannister about her, but he wasn’t very interested;
but that’s because his smallest baby’s got whooping-cough. He told me
yesterday he simply whooped all night, and Mrs. Bannister had to sit up
with it, which pretty well rotted her temper next day.” Tony paused with
a consciousness that he was wandering from the point. “Anyhow, here’s
her letter, Janet’s, I mean. I know she wouldn’t mind you seeing it,
because you are in it almost as much as I am.” He held out the letter.
“Did Morelli see her give it to the apple-woman?” asked Maradick.
“Yes, she tells you in the letter. But he didn’t spot anything. He’s
such a funny beggar; he seems so smart sometimes, and then other times
he doesn’t see anything. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter much, because I’m
going to see him now and tell him everything.”
“Well; and then?” said Maradick.
“Oh! he’ll agree, I know he will. And then I think we’ll be married
right at once; there’s no use in waiting, you know, and there’s a little
church right over by Strater Cove, near the sea, a little tumbledown
place with a parson who’s an awful sportsman. He’s got five children and
two hundred a year, and—oh! where was I?—and then we’ll just come back
and tell them. They can’t do anything then, you know, and father will
get over it all right.”
Tony was so serene about it, swinging his legs there in the sun, that
Maradick could say nothing.
“And if Morelli doesn’t take to the idea?” he ventured at last.
“Oh! he!” said Tony. “Oh, he’s really most awfully keen. You noticed how
we got on. I took to him from the first, there was something about him.”
But he swung round rather anxiously towards Maradick. “Why! do you think
he won’t?” he said.
“I’m not sure of him,” Maradick answered. “I never have been. And then I
was with Punch this morning and he told me things about him.”
“Things! What sort of things?” asked Tony rather incredulously.
“Oh, about the way that he treated his wife.” It was, after all,
Maradick reflected, extremely vague, nothing very much that one could
lay hands on. “I don’t like the man, and I don’t for a minute think that
he’s playing square with you.”
But Tony smiled, a rather superior smile. After all, that was Maradick’s
way, to be pessimistic about things; it was to do with his age.
Middle-aged people were always cautious and suspicious. For a moment he
felt quite a distance from Maradick, and something akin to the same
feeling made him stretch out his hand for Janet’s letter.
“After all,” he said rather awkwardly, “perhaps she would rather that I
didn’t show it to anyone, even you.” He jumped down from the wall.
“Well, I must be off. It’s after three. I say, keep the family in the
dark until I’m back. They’re sure to ask. Now that Alice and father are
both beginning to think about it we shall fairly have to begin the
conspirator business.” He laughed in his jolly way and stood in front of
Maradick with a smile all over his face. Suddenly he leant forward and
put his hands on the other man’s shoulders and shook him gently.
“You silly old rotter, don’t look so sad about it, you don’t know what
fun it will all be. And you are the biggest brick in the world, anyway.
Janet and I will never forget you.” He bent down lower. “I say, you’re
not sick with me, are you? Because, scold me like anything if I’ve done
things. I always am doing things, you know.” He turned round and faced
the shining path and the sky like glass. “I say! Isn’t it topping? But I
must be off. I’ll come at once and tell you when I get back. But I’ll
have to be in time for dinner to-night or the governor will keep me to
my room on bread and water.” He was gone.
Maradick, looking back on it all afterwards, always saw that moment as
the beginning of the second act. The first act, of course, had begun
with that vision of Janet on the stairs with the candle in her hand.
That seemed a long while ago now. Then had come all the other things,
the picnic, the swim, the talk with Mrs. Lester, Tony’s proposal, his
own talk with Punch that morning; all little things, but all leading the
situation inevitably towards its climax. But they had all been in their
way innocent, unoffending links in the chain. Now there was something
more serious in it all, from that evening some other element mingled
with the comedy.
He suddenly felt irritated with the sun and the colour and began to walk
up and down the path. The uneasiness that he had felt all the afternoon
increased; he began to wish that he had not allowed Tony to go down
alone. Nothing, of course, could happen to the boy; it was absurd that
he should imagine things, and probably it was due to the heat. Every now
and again some sound came up from the town—a cry, a bell, the noisy
rattle of a cart, and it seemed like an articulate voice; the town
seemed to have a definite personality, some great animal basking there
in the sun, and its face was the face of Morelli.
He sat down on one of the seats in the shadiest part of the garden; the
trees hung over it in thick dark shadows, and at times a breeze pushed
like a bird’s wing through their branches.
All around him the path was dark, beyond it was a broad belt of light.
He must have gone asleep, because almost immediately he seemed to be
dreaming. The shadows on the path receded and advanced as a door opens
and shuts; the branches of the trees bent lower and lower. It seemed in
his dream that he recognised something menacing in their movement, and
he rose and passed through the garden and in a moment he was in the
town. Here too it was dark, and in the market-place the tower stood, a
black mass against the grey sky behind it, and the streets twisted like
snakes up and down about the hill.
And then suddenly he was at Morelli’s house, he recognised the strange
carving and the crooked, twisting shape of the windows. The door opened
easily to his hand and he passed up the stairs. The house was quite
dark; he had to grope to find his way. And then he was opposed by
another door, something studded with nails—he could feel them with his
hands—and heavily barred. He heard voices on the other side of the
door, low, soft whispers, and then he recognised them, they were Tony
and Morelli. He was driven by an impulse to beat the door and get at
them; some fear clutched at his throat so that he felt that Tony was in
terrible danger. In a minute he knew that he would be too late.
He knocked, at first softly and then furiously; for a moment the voices
stopped, and then they began again. No one paid any attention to his
knocking. He knew with absolute certainty that in a few minutes the door
would open, but first something would happen. He began to beat on the
door with his fists and to call out; the house was, for the rest,
perfectly silent.
And then suddenly he heard Morelli’s laugh. There was a moment’s
silence, and then Tony screamed, a terrified, trembling scream; the door
began to open.
Maradick awoke to find himself on the garden seat with his head sunk on
his breast and some one looking at him; in the hazy uncertainty of his
waking his first thought was that it was Janet—he had scarcely
recovered from his dream. He soon saw that it was not Janet, and,
looking up confusedly, blushed on finding that it was Alice Du Cane. She
was dressed in white, in something that clung about her and seemed to be
made all in one piece. It looked to him very beautiful, and the great
sweeping dark hat that she wore must have been delightfully shady, but
it only had the effect of confusing him still more.
He knew Alice Du Cane very slightly, in fact he couldn’t really be said
to know her at all. They said “good morning” and “good evening,” and it
had occasionally happened that they had had to talk “just to keep the
ball rolling” at some odd minute or other, but she had always given him
the impression of being in quite “other worlds,” from which she might
occasionally look down and smile, but into which he could never possibly
be admitted. He had quite acquiesced in all of this, although he had no
feeling of the kind about the rest of the party; but she belonged, he
felt, to that small, mysterious body of people who, in his mind at any
rate, “were the very top.” He was no snob about them, and he did not
feel that they were any the better people for their high position, but
he did feel that they were different. There were centuries of tradition
behind them, that perhaps was really it, and there were the old houses
with their lawns and picture galleries, and there were those wonderful
ancestors who had ruled England from the beginning of time.
He had laughed sometimes when his wife had represented to him that
certain people in Epsom, alluded to in a hushed voice and mysterious
nods, were really “it.” He knew so well that they were not; nothing to
do with it at all. But he always recognised “it” at once when it was
there. He did not recognise “it” in the Gales; there was a certain
quality of rest arising from assurance of possession that they lacked,
but Alice Du Cane had got “it,” most assuredly she had got “it.”
He liked to watch her. She moved with so beautiful a quiet and carried
herself with so sure a dignity; he admired her enormously, but had been
quite prepared to keep his distance.
And then suddenly he had seen that she was in love with Tony, and she
was at once drawn into the vortex. She became something more than a
person at whom one looked, whom one admired as a picture; she was part
of the situation. He had been extremely sorry for her, and it had been
her unhappiness more than anything else that had worried him about his
part in the affair. But now, as he saw her there watching him with a
smile and leaning ever so slightly on her parasol, of ever so delicate a
pink, he was furiously embarrassed.
He had been sleeping, probably with his mouth open, and she had been
watching him. He jumped to his feet.
“Oh, Miss Du Cane,” he stammered, “I really——”
But she broke in upon him, laughing.
“Oh! what a shame! Really, Mr. Maradick, I didn’t mean to, but the
gravel scrunched or something and it woke you. I’ve been doing the same
thing, sleeping, I mean; it’s impossible to do anything else with heat
like this.” Then her face grew grave. “All the same I’m not sure that
I’m sorry, because I have wanted to talk to you very badly all day, and
now, unless you _do_ want to go to sleep again, it does seem to be a
chance.”
“Why, of course,” he answered gravely, and he made way for her on the
seat. He felt the sinister afternoon pressing upon him again. He was
disturbed, worried, anxious; his nerves were all to pieces. And then she
did most certainly embarrass him. The very way that she sat down, the
careful slowness of her movement, and the grace with which she leant
slightly forward so that the curve of her neck was like the curve of a
pink shell against her white dress, embarrassed him. And he was tired,
most undoubtedly tired; it was all beginning to be too much for him.
And then he suddenly caught a look in her eyes as she turned towards
him; something melancholy and appealing in it touched his heart and his
embarrassment left him.
“Mr. Maradick,” she began hurriedly, with her face again turned away
from him, “you are much older than I am, and so I expect you’ll
understand what I am trying to get at. And anyhow, you know all that’s
been going on this week, more than anyone else does, and so there’s no
need to beat about the bush. Besides, I always hate it. I always want to
get straight at the thing, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. It was one of the true things about both of them.
“Well then, of course it’s about Tony. We all want to know about Tony,
and nobody does know except you, and everybody’s afraid to ask you
except myself, so there you are. You mustn’t think me impertinent; I
don’t mean to be, but we _must_ know—some of us, at any rate!”
“What _must_ you know?” he said. He was suddenly on his mettle. He
resented the note of command in her voice. About his general position in
the world he was quite ready to yield place, but about Tony’s affairs he
would yield to no one; that was another matter.
“Why, of course,” she said, looking at him, “what _I_ want to know, what
we all want to know, is what he is doing. Of course we have all, by this
time, a pretty good idea. I saw him with that girl down on the beach,
and it’s been pretty obvious, by his being away so continually, what he
is after. No, it isn’t exactly so much what he is doing as whether it’s
all right.”
“But then,” said Maradick, facing her, “why exactly are you asking me?
Why not ask Tony?”
“Oh! you know that would be no good,” she said, shaking her head
impatiently. “Tony would tell me nothing. If he wanted to tell us
anything he would have told us. You can see how secret he’s been keeping
it all. And you’re the only other person who knows. Besides, I don’t
want you to betray any secrets, it’s only to tell us if it’s all right.
If you say it is then we shall know.”
“And who exactly is ‘we’?” Maradick asked.
Alice hesitated a moment. Then she said, “It’s Lady Gale really who
wants to know. She’s suffering terribly all this time, but she’s afraid
to ask you herself because you might tell her too much, and then she
couldn’t be loyal to Sir Richard. But, you know, she spoke to you
herself about it.”
“Yes, she did,” said Maradick slowly. “Then I suppose that this, her
sending you, means that she doesn’t quite trust me now. She said before
that she would leave it in my hands.”
“Yes. She trusts you just as much, of course. Only—well, you see, you
haven’t known Tony all his life as we have, you haven’t cared for him
quite as much as we have. And then I’m a woman, I should probably see a
whole lot of things in it that you couldn’t see. It’s only that you
should tell me a little about it, and then, if Lady Gale sees that we
both think it’s all right, she will be happier. Only, she’s felt a
little, just lately, that you weren’t very comfortable about it.”
“Is it only Lady Gale?” asked Maradick.
“Well, of course I want to know too. You see, I’ve known Tony since we
were both babies, and of course I’m fond of him, and I should hate him
to get in a mess”; she finished up rather breathlessly.
He had a strong feeling of the pathos of it all. He knew that she was
proud and that she had probably found it very difficult to come to him
as she had done.
He could see now that she was struggling to keep her old pride and
reserve, but that she found it very hard.
His voice was very tender as he spoke to her.
“Miss Du Cane,” he said, “I understand. I do indeed. I would have spoken
to Lady Gale herself if she hadn’t begged me to keep quiet about it.
Besides, I wasn’t sure, I’m not sure now, how things were really going,
and I was afraid of alarming her.”
“Then there _is_ trouble?” Alice said; “you _are_ anxious?”
“No, not really,” Maradick hastened to assure her. “As far as the main
thing goes—the girl herself, I mean—it’s the best thing that could
possibly happen to Tony. The girl is delightful; better than that, she
is splendid. I won’t tell you more, simply that it _is_ all right.”
“And Tony loves her?” Alice’s voice trembled in spite of itself.
“Yes, heart and soul,” said Maradick fervently; “and I think when you
see her that you will agree about her. Only you must see the
difficulties as well as I do; what we are doing is the only thing to do.
I think that to take Tony away now would lead to dreadful disaster. He
must go through with it. The whole thing has gone too far now for it
possibly to be stopped.”
“Then tell me,” Alice said slowly, “was she, do you suppose, the girl
that I saw down on the beach with Tony?”
“Yes,” said Maradick, “she must have been.”
The girl got up slowly from the seat and stood with her back to him, her
slim white figure drawn to its full height; the sun played like fire
about her dress and hair, but there was something very pathetic in the
way that she let her arms with a slow hopeless gesture fall to her side,
and stared, motionless, down the path.
Then she turned round to him.
“Thank you, Mr. Maradick,” she said, “that’s all I wanted to know. I am
happier about it, and Lady Gale will be too. You’re quite right about
taking Tony away. It would only mean a hopeless break with Sir Richard,
and then his mother would be caught into it too, and that must be
averted at all costs. Besides, if she is as nice as you say, perhaps,
after all, it is the best thing that could happen. And, at any rate,”
she went on after a little pause, “we are all most awfully grateful to
you. I don’t know what we should have done otherwise.”
Some one was coming down the path. They both, at the same moment, saw
that it was Mrs. Lester.
Alice turned. “I must go,” she said. “Thank you again for what you told
me.”
He watched her walk down the path, very straight and tall, with a grace
and ease that were delightful to him. The two women stopped for a moment
and spoke; then Alice passed out of sight and Mrs. Lester came towards
him.
Some clock in the distance struck six.
CHAPTER XIV
MARADICK IN A NEW RÔLE—HE AFTERWARDS SEES TONY’S
FACE IN A MIRROR
He didn’t precisely know what his feelings were; he was too hot, and the
whole thing was too much of a surprise for him to think at all; the
thing that he did most nearly resemble, if he had wanted similes, was
some sharply contested citadel receiving a new attack on its crumbling
walls before the last one was truly over.
But that again was not a simile that served with any accuracy, because
he was so glad, so tumultuously and intensely glad, to see her. He
wanted to keep that moment, that instant when she was coming down the
path towards him, quite distinct from all the other moments of his life
in its beauty and colours, and so he focussed in his mind the deep green
of the trees and their purple shadows on the path, the noise that two
birds made, and the deep rustle as of some moving water that her dress
sent to him as she came.
He sat there, one hand on each knee, looking straight before him,
motionless.
Mrs. Lester had that morning done her utmost to persuade her husband to
“play a game.” She was brimming over with sentiment, partly because of
the weather, partly because Treliss always made her feel like that,
partly because it was “in the air” in some vague way through Tony.
She did not understand it, but she knew that she had one of her “fits,”
a craving for excitement, for doing anything that could give one
something of a fling.
But her talk with her husband had also partly arisen from her
realisation of her feeling for Maradick. She was not a very serious
woman, she took life very lightly, but she knew that her affection for
her husband was by far the best and most important thing in her.
She knew this through all the passing and temporary moods that she might
have, and she had learnt to dread those moods simply because she never
knew how far she might go. But then Fred would be so provoking! As he
was just now, for instance, paying no attention to her at all, wrapped
in his stupid writing, talking about nerves and suggesting doctors.
But she had tried very hard that morning to awaken him to a sense of the
kind of thing that was happening to her. She had even, with a sudden
sense of panic, suggested leaving the place altogether, hinting that it
didn’t suit her. But he had laughed.
She had, in fact, during these last few days, been thinking of Maradick
a great deal. For one thing, she hated Mrs. Maradick; she had never in
her life before hated anyone so thoroughly. She took people easily as a
rule and was charitable in her judgment, but Mrs. Maradick seemed to her
to be everything that was bad. The little woman’s assumption of a manner
that quite obviously could never belong to her, her complacent patronage
of everybody and everything, her appearance, everything seemed to Mrs.
Lester the worst possible; she could scarcely bear to stay in the same
room with her. She had, therefore, for Maradick a profound pity that had
grown as the days advanced. He had seemed to her so patient under what
must be a terrible affliction. And so “the game” had grown more serious
than usual, serious enough to make her hesitate, and to run, rather as a
frightened child runs to its nurse, to Fred for protection. But Fred
wouldn’t listen, or, what was worse, listened only to laugh. Well, on
Fred’s head be it then!
She had not, however, set out that afternoon with any intention of
finding him; she was, indeed, surprised when she saw him there.
They both, at once, felt that there was something between them that had
not been there before; they were both nervous, and she did not look at
him as she sat down.
“How lazy we are!” she, said. “Why, during the last week we’ve been
nothing at all but ‘knitters in the sun!’ I know that’s a nice quotation
out of somewhere, but I haven’t the least idea where. But, as a matter
of fact, it’s only the irresponsible Tony who’s been rushing about, and
he’s made up for most of us.”
She was dressed in her favourite colour, blue, the very lightest and
palest of blue. She had a large picture hat tied, in the fashion of a
summer of a year or two before, with blue ribbon under her chin; at her
belt was a bunch of deep crimson carnations. She took one of them out
and twisted it round in her fingers.
She looked up at him and smiled.
“You’re looking very cool and very cross,” she said, “and both are
irritating to people on a hot day. Oh! the heat!” She waved her
carnation in the air. “You know, if I had my way I should like to be
wheeled about in a chair carved out of ice and sprayed by cool negroes
with iced rose water! There! Isn’t that Théophile Gautier and Théodore
de Banville and the rest? Oh dear! what rot I’m talking; I’m——”
“I wish,” he said, looking her all over very slowly, “that you’d be
yourself, Mrs. Lester, just for a little. I hate all that stuff; you
know you’re not a bit like that really. I want you as you are, not a
kind of afternoon-tea dummy!”
“But I am like that,” she said, laughing lightly, but also a little
nervously. “I’m always like that in hot weather and at Treliss. We’re
all like that just now, on the jump. There’s Lady Gale and Sir Richard
and Alice Du Cane, and Rupert too, if he wasn’t too selfish, all
worrying their eyes out about Tony, and there’s Tony worrying his eyes
out about some person or persons unknown, and there’s my husband
worrying his eyes out about his next masterpiece, and there’s you
worrying your eyes out about——” She paused.
“Yes,” said Maradick, “about?”
“Oh! I don’t know—something. It was easy enough to see as one came
along. I asked Alice Du Cane; she didn’t know. What was she talking to
you for?”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“Oh! I don’t know; only she’s on the jump like the rest of us and hasn’t
honoured anyone with her conversation very much lately. The place has
got hold of you. That’s what it is. What did I tell you? Treliss is full
of witches and devils, you know, and they like playing tricks with
people like yourself, incredulous people who like heaps of eggs and
bacon for breakfast and put half a crown in the plate on Sundays. I
know.”
He didn’t say anything, so she went on:
“But I suppose Alice wanted to know what Tony was doing. That’s what
they all want to know, and the cat will be out of the bag very soon. For
my part, I think we’d all better go away and try somewhere else. This
place has upset us.” Suddenly her voice dropped and she leant forward
and put her hand for a moment on his knee. “But please, Mr.
Maradick—we’re friends—we made a compact the other day, that, while we
were here, you know, we’d be of use to each other; and now you must let
me be of use, please.”
That had never failed of its effect, that sudden passing from gay to
grave, the little emotional quiver in the voice, the gentle touch of the
hand; but now she was serious about it, it was, for once, uncalculated.
And it had its effect on him. A quiver passed through his body at her
touch; he clenched his hands.
“Yes,” he said in a low voice, “but I don’t think you can help me just
now, Mrs. Lester. Besides, I don’t think that I want any help. As you
say, we’re all a little strained just now; the weather, I suppose.” He
paused and then went on: “Only, you don’t know what it is to me to have
you for a friend. I’ve thought a good deal about it these last few days.
I’ve not been a man of very many friends, women especially little.”
“Life,” she said, “is so difficult.” She liked to talk about life in the
abstract; she was not a clever woman and she never pretended to keep
pace with her husband in all his ideas, but, after all, it was something
to be able to talk about life at all—if one said that it was “queer” or
“difficult” or “odd” there was a kind of atmosphere.
She said it again; “Life is so difficult . . . one really doesn’t know.”
“I had never known,” he answered, looking steadily in front of him,
“until these last weeks how difficult it was. You’ve made it that, you
know.”
She broke in nervously, “Oh, surely, Mr. Maradick.”
She was suddenly frightened of him. She thought she had never seen
anyone so strong and fierce. She could see the veins stand out on the
back of his hands and the great curve of his arm as he leant forward.
“Yes,” he went on roughly, “I’m not fooling. I’d never seen what life
was before. These last weeks, you and other things have shown me. I
thought it was life just going on in an office, making money, dining at
home, sleeping. Rot! That’s not life. But now! now! I know. I was forty.
I thought life was over. Rot! life’s beginning. I don’t care what
happens, I’m going to take it. I’m not going to miss it again. Do you
see? I’m not going to miss it again. A man’s a fool if he misses it
twice.”
He was speaking like a drunken man. He stumbled over his words; he
turned round and faced her. He saw the ribbon under her chin rise and
fall with her breathing. She was looking frightened, staring at him like
a startled animal. He saw her dress in a blue mist against the golden
path and the green trees, and out of it her face rose white and pink and
a little dark under the eyes and then shadows under the sweeping hat. He
began to breathe like a man who has been running.
She put out her hand with a gesture as though she would defend herself,
and gave a little cry as he suddenly seized and crushed it in his.
He bent towards her, bending his eyes upon her. “No, it’s rot, missing
it again. My wife never cared for me; she’s never cared. Nobody’s cared,
and I’ve been a fool not to step out and take things. It isn’t any use
just to wait, I see that now. And now we’re here, you and I. Just you
and I. Isn’t it funny? I’m not going to make love to you. That’s rot,
there isn’t time. But I’ve got you; I’m strong!”
She was terrified and shrunk back against the seat, but at the same time
she had an overwhelming, overpowering realisation of his strength. He
was strong. His hand crushed hers, she could see his whole body turning
towards her as a great wave turns; she had never known anyone so strong
before.
“Mr. Maradick! Please! Let me go!”
Her voice was thin and sharp like a child’s. But he suddenly leaned
forward and took her in his arms; he crushed her against him so that she
could feel his heart beating against her like a great hammer. He turned
her head roughly with his hand and bent down and kissed her. His mouth
met hers as though it would never go.
She could not breathe, she was stifled—then suddenly he drew back; he
almost let her fall back. She saw him bend down and pick up his hat, and
he had turned the corner of the path and was gone.
He did not know how he left the garden. He did not see it or realise it,
but suddenly he found himself in the stretch of cornfield that reached,
a yellow band, from horizon to horizon. The field ran down the hill, and
the little path along which he stumbled crept in and out across the top
of the slope. Below the corn was the distant white road, and curving
round to the left was the little heap of white cottages that stand,
stupidly, almost timidly, at the water’s edge. Then beyond that again
was the wide blue belt of the sea. The corn was dark brown like burnt
sugar at the top and a more golden yellow as it turned trembling to the
ground. The scarlet poppies were still split in pools and lakes and
rivers across its breast, and it seemed to have caught some of their
colour in its darker gold.
Still not knowing what he was doing, he sat down heavily on a little
green mound above the path and looked with stupid, half-closed eyes at
the colour beneath him. He did not take it in, his heart was still
beating furiously; every now and again his throat moved convulsively,
his hands were white against his knee.
But, through his dazed feelings, he knew that he was glad for what he
had done. Very glad! A kind of strange triumph at having really done it!
There was something pounding, drumming through his veins that was new—a
furious excitement that had never been there before.
He felt no shame or regret or even alarm at possible consequences. He
did not think for an instant of Mrs. Maradick or the girls. His body,
the muscles and the nerves, the thick arms, the bull neck, the chest
like a rock—those were the parts of him that were glad, furiously glad.
He was primeval, immense, sitting there on the little green hill with
the corn and the sea and the world at his feet.
He did not see the world at all, but there passed before his eyes, like
pictures on a shining screen, some earlier things that had happened to
him and had given him that same sense of furious physical excitement. He
saw himself, a tiny boy, in a hard tight suit of black on a Sunday
afternoon in their old home at Rye. Church bells were ringing somewhere,
and up the twisting, turning cobbles of the street grave couples were
climbing. The room in which he was hung dark and gloomy about him, and
he was trying to prevent himself from slipping off the shiny horsehair
chair on which he sat, his little black-stockinged legs dangling in the
air. In his throat was the heavy choking sensation of the fat from the
midday dinner beef. On the stiff sideboard against the wall were ranged
little silver dishes containing sugar biscuits and rather dusty little
chocolates; on the opposite side of the room, in a heavy gilt frame, was
the stern figure of his grandmother, with great white wristbands and a
sharp pointed nose.
He was trying to learn his Sunday Collect, and he had been forbidden to
speak until he had learnt it; his eyes were smarting and his head was
swimming with weariness, and every now and again he would slip right
forward on the shiny chair. The door opened and a gentleman entered, a
beautiful, wonderful gentleman, with a black bushy beard and enormous
limbs; the gentleman laughed and caught him up in his arms, the
prayer-book fell with a clatter to the floor as he buried his curly head
in the beard. He did not know now, looking back, who the gentleman had
been, but that moment stood out from the rest of his life with all its
details as something wonderful, magic. . . .
And then, later—perhaps he was about fifteen, a rather handsome, shy
boy—and he was in an orchard. The trees were heavy with flowers, and
the colours, white and pink, swung with the wind in misty clouds above
his head. Over the top of the old red-brown wall a girl’s face was
peeping. He climbed an old gnarled tree that hung across the wall and
bent down towards her; their lips met, and as he leaned towards her the
movement of his body shook the branches and the petals fell about them
in a shower. He had forgotten the name of the little girl, it did not
matter, but the moment was there.
And then again, later still, was the moment when he had first seen Mrs.
Maradick. It had been at some evening function or other, and she had
stood with her shining shoulders under some burning brilliant lights
that swung from the ceiling. Her dress had been blue, a very pale blue;
and at the thought of the blue dress his head suddenly turned, the corn
swam before him and came in waves to meet him, and then receded, back to
the sky-line.
But it was another blue dress that he saw, not Mrs. Maradick’s—the blue
dress, the blue ribbon, the trees, the golden path. His hands closed
slowly on his knees as though he were crushing something; his teeth were
set.
Everything, except the one central incident, had passed from his mind,
only that was before him. The minutes flew past him; in the town bells
struck and the sun sank towards the sea.
He made a great effort and tried to think connectedly. This thing that
had happened would make a great change in his life, it would always
stand out as something that could never be altered. Anyone else who
might possibly have had something to say about it—Mrs. Maradick, Mr.
Lester—didn’t count at all. It was simply between Mrs. Lester and
himself.
A very faint rose-colour crept up across the sky. It lingered in little
bands above the line of the sea, and in the air immediately above the
corn tiny pink cushions lay in heaps together; the heads of the corn
caught the faint red glow and held it in the heart of their dark gold.
The sheer physical triumph began to leave Maradick. His heart was
beating less furiously and the blood was running less wildly through his
veins.
He began to wonder what she, Mrs. Lester, was thinking about it. She, of
course, was angry—yes, probably furiously angry. Perhaps she would not
speak to him again; perhaps she would tell her husband. What had made
him do it? What had come to him? He did not know; but even now, let the
consequences be what they might, he was not sorry. He was right whatever
happened.
A long time passed. He was sunk in a kind of lethargy. The pink cushions
in the sky sent out fingers along the blue to other pink cushions, and
ribbons of gold were drawn across and across until they met in a golden
flame above the water. The sun was sinking and a little wind had stirred
the sea, the waves were tipped with gold.
The breeze blew about his cheeks and he shivered. It must be late; the
sun was setting, the field of corn was sinking into silver mist from out
of which the poppies gleamed mysteriously. Suddenly he thought of Tony.
He had forgotten the boy. He had come back to the hotel probably by now;
he remembered that he had said that he must be back in time for dinner.
But Tony’s affairs seemed very far away; he did not feel that he could
talk about things to-night, or, indeed, that he could talk to anyone. He
could not go back to the hotel just yet. The sun had touched the sea at
last, and, from it, there sprung across the softly stirring water a band
of gold that stretched spreading like a wing until it touched the little
white houses now sinking into dusk. The sky was alive with colour and
the white road ran in the distance, like a ribbon, below the corn.
The bells struck again from the town; he rose and stood, an enormous
dark figure, against the flaming sky. There was perfect stillness save
for the very gentle rustle of the corn. In the silence the stars came
out one by one, the colours were drawn back like threads from the pale
blue, and across the sea only the faintest gold remained; a tiny white
moon hung above the white houses and the white road, the rest of the
world was grey. The lights began to shine from the town.
He was cold and his limbs ached; the dim light, the mysterious hour
began to press about him. He had a sudden wish, a sudden demand for
company, people, lights, noise.
Not people to talk to, of course; no, he did not want anyone to talk to,
but here, in this silence, with the mysterious rustling corn, he was
nervous, uneasy. He did not want to think about anything, all that he
wanted now was to forget. He could not think; his brain refused, and
there was no reason why he should bother. To-morrow—to-morrow would do.
He stumbled down the path through the field; he could not see very well,
and he nearly fell several times over the small stones in his path; he
cursed loudly. Then he found the hard white road and walked quickly
down, past the little white houses, over the bridge that crossed the
river, up into the town.
His need for company increased with every step that he took; the
loneliness, the half light, the cold breeze were melancholy. He turned
his head several times because he thought that some one was following
him, but only the white road gleamed behind him, and the hedges, dark
barriers, on either side.
The lights of the town came to him as a glad relief. They were not very
brilliant; in the first streets of all the lamps were very wide apart,
and in between their dim splashes of yellow were caverns of inky
blackness.
These streets were almost deserted, and the few people that passed
hurried as though they were eager to reach some more cheerful spot. Very
few lamps burnt behind the windows, but Maradick felt as though the
houses were so many eyes eagerly watching him. Everything seemed alive,
and every now and again his ear caught, he fancied, the sound of a
measured tread in his rear. He stopped, but there was perfect silence.
His exultation had absolutely left him. He felt miserably depressed and
lonely. It seemed to him now that he had cut off his two friends with a
sudden blow for no reason at all. Mrs. Lester would never speak to him
again. Tony, on his return, would be furious with him for not being
there according to his solemn promise. Lady Gale and Alice Du Cane would
lose all their trust in him; his wife would never rest until she had
found out where he had been that night, and would never believe it if
she did find out. He now saw how foolish he had been not to go back to
the hotel for dinner; he would go back now if it were not too late; but
it was too late. They would have finished by the time that he was up the
hill again.
He was hungry and tired and cold; he greeted the lights of the
market-place with joy. It was apparently a night of high festival. The
lamps on the Town Hall side showed crowds of swiftly moving figures,
dark for a moment in the shadows of the corner houses and then suddenly
flashing into light. The chief inn of the town, “The Green Feathers,”
standing flamboyantly to the right of the grey tower, shone in a blazing
radiance of gas. Two waiters with white cloths over their arms stood on
the top stair watching the crowd. Behind them, through the open door,
was a glorious glimpse of the lighted hall.
The people who moved about in the market were fishermen and country
folk. Their movement seemed aimless but pleasant; suddenly some one
would break into song, and for a moment his voice would rise, as a fish
leaps from the sea, and then would sink back again. There was a great
deal of laughter and a tendency to grow noisier and more
ill-disciplined.
Maradick, as he pushed his way through the crowd, was reminded of that
first night when Tony and he had come down; the dance and the rest! What
ages ago that seemed now! He was another man. He pushed his way
furiously through the people. He was conscious now of tremendous
appetite. He had not eaten anything since lunch, and then only very
little. He was tired both mentally and physically; perhaps after a meal
he would feel better.
He walked wearily up the steps of “The Green Feathers” and accosted one
of the waiters. He must have food, a room alone, quiet. Maradick
commanded respect; the waiter withdrew his eye reluctantly from the
crowd and paid attention. “Yes—fish—a cutlet—a bottle of
Burgundy—yes—perhaps the gentleman would like the room upstairs. It
was a pleasant room. There was no one there just now; it overlooked the
market, but, with the windows down, the noise——”
The idea of overlooking the market was rather pleasant; the people and
the lights would be there and, at the same time, there would be no need
to talk to anyone. Yes, he would like that room. He walked upstairs.
There was much movement and bustle on the ground floor of the inn,
chatter and laughter and the chinking of glasses, but above stairs there
was perfect silence. The waiter lighted candles, two massive silver
candlesticks of venerable age, and entered the long dining-room carrying
them in front of him. He explained that they had not lighted this room
with gas because candles were more in keeping. He hinted at the
eighteenth century and powder and ruffles. He almost pirouetted as he
held the candles and bent to put them on the table by the window. He was
most certainly a waiter with a leg.
He did, beyond question, suit the room with its long gleaming walls and
long gleaming table. The table at which he was to dine was drawn up
close to the window, so that he could watch the antics of the square.
The candle-light spread as far as the long table and then spread round
in a circle, catching in its embrace a tall mirror that ran from the
ceiling to the floor. This mirror was so placed that a corner of the
square, with its lights and figures and tall dark houses, was reflected
in it.
The room seemed close, and Maradick opened the window a little and
voices came up to him. In places the people were bathed in light and he
could see their faces, their eyes and their mouths, and then in other
parts there was grey darkness, so that black figures moved and vanished
mysteriously. The tower reminded him curiously of the tower in his
dream; it rose black against the grey light behind it.
His dinner was excellent; the waiter was inclined to be conversational.
“Yes, it was some kind o’ feast day. No, he didn’t know exactly. The
place was full of superstitions—no, he, thank Gawd, was from
London—yes, Clapham, where they did things like Christians—there were
meringues, apple-tart, or custard—yes, meringues.” He faded away.
Voices came up to the room. Vague figures of three people could be seen
below the window. The quavering voice of an old man pierced the general
murmurs of the square.
“Well, ’e’d seen the first wasp of the season, as early back as April;
yus, ’e was minded to give ’im a clout, but ’e missed it.” The wasp
figured largely in the discussion. They were all three rapidly reaching
that stage when excessive affection gives place to inimical distrust.
The old man’s voice quavered on. “If ’e called _’is_ woman names then ’e
didn’t see why ’e shouldn’t call _’is_ woman names.” This led to futile
argument. But the old man was obstinate.
Stars burnt high over the roofs in a silver cluster, and then there
trailed across the night blue a pale white path like silk that was made
of other stars—myriads of stars, back in unlimited distance, and below
them there hung a faint cloud of golden light, the reflexion from the
lamps of the tower.
Maradick’s dinner had done him good. He sat, with his chair tilted
slightly forward, watching the square. The magnificent waiter had
appeared suddenly, had caught the food in a moment with a magical net,
as it were, and had disappeared. He had left whisky and soda and
cigarettes at Maradicks side; the light of two candles caught the
shining glass of the whisky decanter and it sparkled all across the
table.
The question of Tony had come uppermost again; that seemed now the
momentous thing. He ought to have been there when Tony came back.
Whatever he had done to Mrs. Lester, or she to him—that matter could be
looked at from two points of view at any rate—he ought to have gone
back and seen Tony. The apprehension that he had felt during the
afternoon about the boy returned now with redoubled force. His dream,
for a time forgotten, came back with all its chill sense of warning.
That man Morelli! Anything might have happened to the boy; they might be
waiting for him now up at the hotel, waiting for both of them. He could
see them all—Lady Gale, Alice Du Cane, Mrs. Lester, his wife. He had in
a way deserted his post. They had all trusted him; it was on that
condition that they had granted him their friendship, that they had so
wonderfully and readily opened their arms to him. And now, perhaps the
boy . . .
He drank a stiff whisky-and-soda, his hand trembling a little so that he
chinked the glass against the decanter.
He felt reassured. After all, what reason had he for alarm? What had he,
as far as Morelli was concerned, to go upon? Nothing at all; merely some
vague words from Punch. The boy was perfectly all right. Besides, at any
rate, he wasn’t a fool. He knew what he was about, he could deal with
Morelli, if it came to that.
He drank another whisky-and-soda and regarded the mirror. It was funny
the way that it reflected that corner of the square, so that without
looking at all out of the window you could see figures moving, black and
grey, and then suddenly a white gleaming bit of pavement where the light
fell. His head became undoubtedly confused, because he fancied that he
saw other things in the mirror. He thought that the crowd in the square
divided into lines. Some one appeared, dancing, a man with a peaked cap,
dancing and playing a pipe; and the man—how odd it was!—the man was
Morelli! And suddenly he turned and danced down the lines of the people,
still piping, back the way that he had come, and all the people,
dancing, followed him! They passed through the mirror, dancing, and he
seemed to recognise people that he knew. Why, of course! There was Tony,
and then Janet Morelli and Lady Gale, Mrs. Lester, Alice Du Cane; and
how absurd they looked! There was himself and Mrs. Maradick! The scene
faded. He pulled himself up with a jerk, to find that he was nodding,
nearly asleep; the idea of the music had not been entirely a dream,
however, for a band had gathered underneath the window. In the uncertain
light they looked strangely fantastic, so that you saw a brass trumpet
without a man behind it, and then again a man with his lips pressed
blowing, but his trumpet fading into darkness.
The crowd had gathered round and there was a great deal of noise; but it
was mostly inarticulate, and, to some extent, quarrelsome. Maradick
caught the old man’s voice somewhere in the darkness quavering “If ’e
calls my old woman names then I’ll call ’is old woman . . .” It trailed
off, drowned in the strains of “Auld Lang Syne,” with which the band,
somewhat mistakenly, had commenced.
The time was erratic; the band too, it seemed, had been drinking, even
now he could see that they had mugs at their sides and one or two of
them were trying to combine drink and music.
One little man with an enormous trumpet danced, at times, a few steps,
producing a long quivering note from his instrument.
The crowd had made a little clearing opposite the window, for an old man
with a battered bowler very much on one side of his head was dancing
solemnly with a weary, melancholy face, his old trembling legs bent
double.
Maradick felt suddenly sick of it all. He turned back from the window
and faced the mirror. He was unutterably tired, and miserable,
wretchedly miserable. He had broken faith with everybody. He was no use
to anyone; he had deceived his wife, Lady Gale, Tony, Mrs. Lester,
everybody. A load of depression, like a black cloud, swung down upon
him. He hated the band and the drunken crowd; he hated the place,
because it seemed partly responsible for what had happened to him; but
above all he hated himself for what he had done.
Then suddenly he looked up and saw a strange thing. He had pulled down
the window, and the strains of the band came very faintly through; the
room was strangely silent. The mirror shone very clearly, because the
moon was hanging across the roofs on the opposite side of the square.
The corner of the street shone like glass. Nearly all the crowd had
moved towards the band, so that that part of the square was deserted.
Only one man moved across it. He was coming with a curious movement; he
ran for a few steps and then walked and then ran again. Maradick knew at
once that it was Tony. He did not know why he was so certain, but as he
saw him in the mirror he was quite sure. He felt no surprise. It was
almost as though he had been expecting him. He got up at once from his
chair and went down the stairs; something was the matter with Tony. He
saw the waiter in the hall, and he told him that he was coming back;
then he crossed the square.
Tony was coming with his head down, stumbling as though he were drunk.
He almost fell into Maradick’s arms. He looked up.
“You! Maradick! Thank God!”
He caught hold of his arm; his face was white and drawn. He looked
twenty years older. His eyes were staring, wide open.
“I say—take me somewhere where I—can have a drink.”
Maradick took him, without a word, back to the inn. He gulped down
brandy.
Then he sighed and pulled himself together. “I say, let’s get back!” He
did not loosen his hold of Maradick’s arm. “Thank God you were here; I
couldn’t have faced that hill alone . . . that devil . . .” Then he said
under his breath, “My God!”
Maradick paid his bill and they left. They passed the crowd and the
discordant band and began to climb the hill. Tony was more himself. “I
say, you must think me a fool, but, my word, I’ve had a fright! I’ve
never been so terrified in my life.”
“Morelli!” said Maradick.
“Yes; only the silly thing is, nothing happened. At least nothing
exactly. You see, I’d been there a deuce of a time; I wanted to speak to
him alone, without Janet, but he wouldn’t let her go. It was almost as
if he’d meant it. He was most awfully decent all the afternoon. We
fooled about like anything, he and all of us, and then I had to give up
getting back to dinner and just risk the governor’s being sick about it.
We had a most ripping supper. He was topping, and then at last Janet
left us, and I began. But, you know, it was just as if he knew what I
was going to say and was keeping me off it. He kept changing the
subject—pleasant all the time—but I couldn’t get at it. And then at
last my chance came and I asked him. He didn’t say anything. He was
sitting on the other side of the table, smiling. And then suddenly, I
don’t know what it was, I can’t describe it, but I began to be
terrified, horribly frightened. I’ve never felt anything like it. His
face changed. It was like a devil’s. You could only see his eyes and his
white cheeks and the tips of his ears, pointed. He was still laughing. I
couldn’t stir, I was shaking all over. And then he began to move,
slowly, round the table, towards me. I pulled myself together; I was
nearly fainting, but I rushed for the door. I got out just as he touched
me, and then I ran for my life.”
He was panting with terror at the recollection of it. They were on the
top of the hill. He turned and caught Maradick’s hand. “I say,” he said,
“what does it mean?”
CHAPTER XV
WHY IT IS TO BE THE TWENTY-SEVENTH, AND WHAT THE
CONNEXION WAS BETWEEN JANET’S BEING FRIGHTENED
AND TOBY’S JOINING THE GREAT MAJORITY
They all met at tea on the next afternoon, and for the gods who were
watching the whole affair from the sacred heights of Olympus, it must
have been a highly amusing sight.
Mrs. Lawrence was the only person who might really be said to be “right
out of it,” and she had, beyond question, “her suspicions”; she had
_seen_ things, she had noticed. She had always, from her childhood, been
observant, and anyone could see, and so on, and so on; but nevertheless,
she was really outside it all and was the only genuine spectator, as far
as mere mortals went.
For the rest, things revolved round Sir Richard; it being everyone’s
hidden intention, for reasons strictly individual and peculiar, to keep
everything from him for as long a period as possible. But everybody was
convinced that he saw further into the matter than anyone else, and was
equally determined to disguise his own peculiar cleverness from the rest
of the company.
Tony was there, rather quiet and subdued. That was a fact remarked on by
everybody. Something, of course, had happened last night; and here was
the mystery, vague, indefinite, only to be blindly guessed at, although
Maradick knew.
The fine shades of everybody’s feelings about it all, the special
individual way that it affected special individual persons, had to be
temporarily put aside for the good of the general cause, namely, the
hoodwinking and blinding of the suspicions of Sir Richard; such a
business! Conversation, therefore, was concerned with aeroplanes, about
which no one present had any knowledge at all, aeroplanes being very
much in their infancy; but they did manage to cover a good deal of
ground during the discussion, and everyone was so extraordinarily and
feverishly interested that it would have been quite easy for an
intelligent and unprejudiced observer to discover that no one was really
interested at all.
Lady Gale was pouring out tea, and her composure was really admirable;
when one considers all that she had to cover it was almost superhuman;
but the central fact that was buzzing beyond all others whatever in her
brain, whilst she smiled at Mrs. Lester and agreed that “it would be
rather a nuisance one’s acquaintances being able to fly over and see one
so quickly from absolutely anywhere,” was that her husband had, as yet,
said nothing whatever to Tony about his last night’s absence. That was
so ominous that she simply could not face it at all; it meant, it meant,
well, it meant the tumble, the ruin, the absolute débâcle of the house;
a “house of cards,” if you like, but nevertheless a house that her
admirable tact, her careful management, her years of active and
unceasing diplomacy, had supported. What it had all been, what it had
all meant to her since Tony had been anything of a boy, only she could
know. She had realised, when he had been, perhaps, about ten years old,
two things, suddenly and sharply. She had seen in the first place that
Tony was to be, for her, the centre of her life, of her very existence,
and that, secondly, Tony’s way through life would, in every respect, be
opposed to his father’s.
It would, she saw, be a question of choice, and from the instant of that
clear vision her life was spent in the search for compromise, something
that would enable her to be loyal to Tony and to all that his life must
mean to him, and something that should veil that life from his father.
She was, with all her might, “keeping the house together,” and it was no
easy business; but it was not until the present crisis that it seemed an
impossible one.
She had always known that the moment when love came would be the moment
of most extreme danger.
She had vowed to her gods, when she saw what her own marriage had made
of her life, that her son should absolutely have his way; he should
choose, and she would be the very last person in the world to stop him.
She had hoped, she had even prayed, that the woman whom he should choose
would be some one whom her husband would admit as possible. Then the
strength of the house would be inviolate and the terrible moment would
be averted. That was, perhaps, the reason that she had so readily and
enthusiastically welcomed Alice Du Cane. The girl would “do” from Sir
Richard’s point of view, and Lady Gale herself liked her, almost loved
her. If Tony cared, why then . . . and at first Tony had seemed to care.
But even while she had tried to convince herself, she knew that it was
not, for him at any rate, the “real thing.” One did not receive it like
that, with that calmness, and even familiar jocularity, when the “real
thing” came. But she had persuaded herself eagerly, because it would, in
nearly every way, be so suitable.
And then suddenly the “real thing” had come, come with its shining eyes
and beautiful colour; Tony had found it. She had no hesitation after
that. Tony must go on with it, must go through with it, and she must
prevent Sir Richard from seeing anything until it was all over. As to
that, she had done her best, heaven knew, she had done her best. But
circumstances had been too strong for her; she saw it, with frightened
eyes and trembling hands, slipping from her grasp. Why had Tony been so
foolish? Why had he stayed out again like that and missed dinner? Why
was he so disturbed now? It was all threatening to fall about her ears;
she saw the quarrel; she saw Tony, arrogant, indignant, furious. He had
left them, never to return. She saw herself sitting with her husband,
old, ill, lonely, by some desolate fireside in an empty house, and Tony
would never return.
But she continued to discuss aeroplanes; she knew another thing about
her husband. She knew that if Tony was once married Sir Richard might
storm and rage but would eventually make the best of it. The house must
be carried on, that was one of his fixed principles of life; Tony
single, and every nerve should be strained to make his marriage a
fitting one, but Tony married! Why then, curse the young fool, what did
he do it for? . . . but let us nevertheless have a boy, and quick about
it!
Provided the girl were possible—the girl _must_ be possible; but she
had Maradick’s word for that. He had told Alice that she was “splendid!”
Yes, let the marriage only take place and things might be all right, but
Sir Richard must not know.
And so she continued to discuss aeroplanes. “Yes, there was that clever
man the other day. He flew all round the Crystal Palace; what was his
name? Porkins or Dawkins or Walker; she knew it was something like
Walker because she remembered at the time wondering whether he had
anything to do with the Walkers of Coming Bridge—yes, such nice
people—she used to be a Miss Temple—yes, the _Daily Mail_ had offered
a prize.”
At the same time, Tony’s face terrified her. He was standing by the
window talking to Alice. She had never seen him look like that before,
so white and grave and stern—years older. What had he been doing last
night?
She gave Mrs. Lawrence her third cup of tea. “Yes, but they are such
tiny cups—oh! there’s nothing. No, I’ve never been up in a balloon—not
yet—yes, I’m too old, I think; it doesn’t do, you know, for me at my
age.”
Supposing it were all “off.” Perhaps it might be better; but she knew
that she would be disappointed, that she would be sorry. One didn’t get
the “real thing” so often in life that one could afford to miss it. No,
he mustn’t miss it—oh, he _mustn’t_ miss it. The older she grew, the
whiter her hair, the stiffer her stupid bones, the more eagerly,
enthusiastically, she longed that every young thing—not only Tony,
although he, of course, mattered most—should make the most of its time.
They didn’t know, dear people, how quickly the years and the stiffness
and the thinning of the blood would come upon them. She wanted them all,
all the world under thirty, to romp and live and laugh and even be
wicked if they liked! but, only, they must not miss it, they _must_ not
miss the wonderful years!
Sir Richard was perfectly silent. He never said more than a word or two,
but his immobility seemed to freeze the room. His hands, his head, his
eyes never moved; his gaze was fixed on Tony. He was sitting back in his
chair, his body inert, limp, but his head raised; it reminded the
terrified Mrs. Lawrence of a snake ready to strike.
Mrs. Lawrence found the situation beyond her. She found a good many
situations beyond her, because she was the kind of person whom people
continually found it convenient to leave out.
Her attempts to force a way in—her weapons were unresting and tangled
volubility—always ended in failure; but she was never discouraged, she
was not clever enough to see that she had failed.
She was sitting next to Sir Richard, and leant across him to talk to
Lady Gale. Mrs. Maradick and Mrs. Lester were sitting on the other side
of the table, Maradick talking spasmodically to Lester in the
background; Alice and Tony were together at the window.
Maradick had not spoken to Mrs. Lester since their parting on the day
before. He was waiting now until her eyes should meet his; he would know
then whether he were forgiven. He had spent the morning on the beach
with his girls. He had come up to lunch feeling as he usually did after
a few hours spent in their company, that they didn’t belong to him at
all, that they were somebody else’s; they were polite to him, courteous
and stiffly deferential, as they would be to any stranger about whom
their mother had spoken to them. Oh! the dreariness of it!
But it amused him, when he thought of it, that they, too, poor innocent
creatures, should be playing their unconscious part in the whole game.
They were playing it because they helped so decisively to fill in the
Epsom atmosphere, or rather the way that he himself was thinking of
Epsom—the particular greyness and sordidness and shabbiness of the
place and the girls.
He had come up to lunch, therefore, washing his hands of the family. He
had other things to think of. The immediate affair, of course, was Tony,
but he had had as yet no talk with the boy. There wasn’t very much to
say. It had been precisely as he, Maradick, had expected.
Morelli had refused to hear of it and Tony had probably imagined the
rest. In the calm light of day things that had looked fantastic and
ominous in the dark were clear and straightforward.
After all, Tony was very young and over-confident. Maradick must see the
man himself. And so that matter, too, was put aside.
“Yes,” Lester was saying, “we are obviously pushing back to Greek
simplicity, and, if it isn’t too bold a thing to say, Greek morals. The
more complicated and material modern life becomes the more surely will
all thinking men and lovers of beauty return to that marvellous
simplicity. And then the rest will have to follow, you know, one day.”
“Oh yes,” said Maradick absently. His eyes were fixed on the opposite
wall, but, out of the corners of them, he was watching for the moment
when Mrs. Lester should look up. Now he could regard yesterday afternoon
with perfect equanimity; it was only an inevitable move in the
situation. He wondered at himself now for having been so agitated about
it; all that mattered was how she took it. The dogged, almost stupid
mood had returned. His eyes were heavy, his great shoulders drooped a
little as he bent to listen to Lester. There was no kindness nor charity
in his face as he looked across the floor. He was waiting; in a moment
she would look up. Then he would know; afterwards he would see Morelli.
“And so, you see,” said Lester, “Plato still has the last word in the
matter.”
“Yes,” said Maradick.
Mrs. Lawrence was being entirely tiresome at the tea-table. The strain
of the situation was telling upon her. She had said several things to
Sir Richard and he had made no answer at all.
He continued to look with unflinching gaze upon Tony. She saw from Lady
Gale’s and Mrs. Lester’s curious artificiality of manner that they were
extremely uneasy, and she was piqued at their keeping her, so
resolutely, outside intimacy.
When she was ill at ease she had an irritating habit of eagerly
repeating other people’s remarks with the words a little changed. She
did this now, and Lady Gale felt that very shortly she’d be forced to
scream.
“It will be such a nuisance,” said Mrs. Lester, still continuing the
“flying” conversation, “about clothes. One will never know what to put
on, because the temperature will always be so very different when one
gets up.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lawrence eagerly, “nobody will have the slightest idea
what clothes to wear because it may be hot or cold. It all depends——”
“Some one,” said Lady Gale, laughing, “will have to shout down and tell
us.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lawrence, “there’ll have to be a man who can call out
and let us know.”
Tony felt his father’s eyes upon him. He had wondered why he had said
nothing to him about his last night’s absence, but it had not really
made him uneasy. After all, that was very unimportant, what his father
or any of the rest of them did or thought, compared with what Morelli
was doing. He was curiously tired, tired in body and tired in mind, and
he couldn’t think very clearly about anything. But he saw Morelli
continually before him. Morelli coming round the table towards him,
smiling—Morelli . . . What was he doing to Janet?
He wanted to speak to Maradick, but it was so hard to get to him when
there were all these other people in the room. The gaiety had gone out
of his eyes, the laughter from his lips. Maradick was everything now; it
all depended on Maradick.
“You’re looking tired,” Alice said. She had been watching him, and she
knew at once that he was in trouble. Of course anyone could see that he
wasn’t himself, but she, who had known him all his life, could see that
there was more in it than that. Indeed, she could never remember to have
seen him like that before. Oh! if he would only let her help him!
She had not been having a particularly good time herself just lately,
but she meant there to be nothing selfish about her unhappiness. There
are certain people who are proud of unrequited affection and pass those
whom they love with heads raised and a kind of “See what I’m suffering
for you!” air. They are incomparable nuisances!
Alice had been rather inclined at first to treat Tony in the same sort
of way, but now the one thought that she had was to help him if only he
would let her! Perhaps, after all, it was nothing. Probably he’d had a
row with the girl last night, or he was worried, perhaps, by Sir
Richard.
“Tony,” she said, putting her hand for a moment on his arm, “we are
pals, aren’t we?”
“Why, of course,” pulling himself suddenly away from Janet and her
possible danger and trying to realise the girl at his side.
“Because,” she went on, looking out of the window, “I’ve been a bit of a
nuisance lately—not much of a companion, I’m afraid—out of sorts and
grumpy. But now I want you to let me help if there’s anything I can do.
There might be something, perhaps. You know”—she stopped a
moment—“that I saw her down on the beach the other day. If there was
anything——”
She stopped awkwardly.
“Look here,” he began eagerly; “if you’re trying to find out——” Then
he stopped. “No, I know, of course you’re not. I trust you all right,
old girl. But if you only knew what a devil of a lot of things are
happening——” He looked at her doubtfully. Then he smiled. “You’re a
good sort, Alice,” he said, “I know you are. I’m damned grateful. Yes,
I’m not quite the thing. There are a whole lot of worries.” He hesitated
again, then he went on: “I tell you what you _can_ do—keep the family
quiet, you know. Keep them off it, especially the governor. They trust
you, all of them, and you can just let them know it’s all right. Will
you do that?”
He looked at her eagerly.
She smiled back at him. “Yes, old boy, of course. I think I can manage
Sir Richard, for a little time at any rate. And in any case, it isn’t
for very long, because we’re all going away in about a week;
twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth, I think Lady Gale said.”
Tony started. “Did she?” he said. “Are you sure of that, Alice? Because
it’s important.”
“Yes. I heard Lady Gale discussing it with Sir Richard last night.”
“By Jove. I’m glad to know that. Well, anyhow, Alice, I’ll never forget
it if you help us. We want it, by Jove.”
She noticed the “we.” “Oh, that’s all right,” she said, smiling back at
him. “Count on me, Tony.”
At that moment a general move was made. The meal, to everyone’s infinite
relief, was over. Mrs. Lester got up slowly from her chair, she turned
round towards Maradick. For an instant her eyes met his; the corners of
her mouth were raised ever so slightly—she smiled at him, then she
turned back to his wife.
“Mrs. Maradick,” she said, “do come over and sit by the window. There’ll
be a little air there. The sun’s turned the corner now.”
But Mrs. Maradick had seen the smile. Suddenly, in a moment, all her
suspicions were confirmed. She knew; there could be no doubt. Mrs.
Lester, Mrs. Lester and her husband—her husband, James. Dear, how
funny! She could have laughed. It was quite a joke. At the same time,
she couldn’t be well, because the room was turning round, things were
swimming; that absurd carpet was rising and flapping at her.
She put her hand on the tea-table and steadied herself; then she smiled
back at Mrs. Lester.
“Yes, I’ll bring my work over,” she said.
The rest of the company seemed suddenly to have disappeared; Maradick
and Tony had gone out together, Lady Gale and Alice, followed by Sir
Richard and Lester, had vanished through another door; only Mrs.
Lawrence remained, working rather dismally at a small square piece of
silk that was on some distant occasion to be christened a table-centre.
Mrs. Maradick sometimes walked on her heels to increase her height; she
did so now, but her knees were trembling and she had a curious feeling
that the smile on her face was fixed there and that it would never come
off, she would smile like that always.
As she came towards the table where Mrs. Lester was another strange
sensation came to her. It was that she would like to strangle Mrs.
Lester.
As she smiled at her across the table her hands were, in imagination,
stretching with long twisting fingers and encircling Mrs. Lester’s neck.
She saw the exact spot; she could see the little blue marks that her
fingers would leave. She could see Mrs. Lester’s head twisted to one
side and hanging in a stupid, silly way over her shoulder. She would
draw her fingers very slowly away, because they would be reluctant to
let go. Of course it was a very stupid, primitive feeling, because
ladies that lived in Epsom didn’t strangle other ladies, and there were
the girls to be thought of, and it wouldn’t really do at all. And so
Mrs. Maradick sat down.
“It is quite cool,” she said as she brought out her work, “and after
such a hot day, too.”
Mrs. Lester enjoyed the situation very much. She knew quite well that
Maradick had been watching her anxiously all the afternoon. She knew
that he was waiting to see what she was going to do about yesterday. She
had not been quite sure herself at first. In fact, directly after he had
left her she had been furiously angry; and then she had been frightened
and had gone to find Fred, and then had cried in her bedroom for half an
hour. And then she had dried her eyes and had put on her prettiest dress
and had come down to dinner intending to be very stiff and stately
towards him. But he had not been there; no one had known where he was.
Mrs. Maradick had more or less conveyed that Mrs. Lester could say if
she wanted to, but of course she wouldn’t.
However, she really didn’t know. The evening was stupid, tiresome, and
very long. As the hours passed memories grew stronger. No one had ever
held her like that before. She had never known such strength. She was
crushed, gasping. There was a man! And after all, it didn’t matter;
there was nothing _wrong_ in _that_. Of course he oughtn’t to have done
it. It was very presumptuous and violent; but then that was just like
the man.
It was the kind of thing that he did, the kind of thing, after all, that
he was meant to do! In the Middle Ages, of course, would have been his
time. She pictured him with some beautiful maiden swung across the
crupper, and the husband, fist in air but impotent—that was the kind of
man.
And so she had smiled at him, to show him that, after all, she wasn’t
very angry. Of course, she couldn’t be always having it; she didn’t even
mean that she’d altogether forgiven him, but the whole situation was
given an extra piquancy by the presence of Mrs. Maradick. She didn’t
mean any harm to the poor little spectacle of a woman, but to carry him
off from under her very nose! Well! it was only human nature to enjoy
it!
“You must come and see us, dear Mrs. Maradick, both of you, when you’re
back in town. We shall so like to see more of you. Fred has taken
enormously to your husband, and it’s so seldom that he really makes a
friend of anyone.”
“Thank you so much,” said Mrs. Maradick, smiling, “we’ll be sure to look
you up. And you must come out to Epsom one day. People call it a suburb,
but really, you know, it’s quite country. As I often say, it has all the
advantages of the town and country with none of their disadvantages. A
motor-van comes down from Harrods’ every day.”
“That must be delightful,” said Mrs. Lester.
“And Lord Roseberry living so near makes it so pleasant. He’s often to
be seen driving; he takes great interest in the school, you know—Epsom
College for doctors’ sons—and often watches their football!”
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Lester.
Mrs. Maradick paused and looked out of the window. What was she going to
do? What was she going to do? The great black elms outside the window
swept the blue sky like an arch. A corner of the lawn shone in the sun a
brilliant green, and directly opposite a great bed of sweet-peas
fluttered like a swarm of coloured butterflies with the little breeze.
What was she to do?
She was feeling now, suddenly, for the first time in her selfish,
self-centred life utterly at a loss. She had never been so alone before.
There had always been somebody. At Epsom there had been heaps of people;
and, after all, if the worst came to the worst, there had always been
James. She had never, in all these years, very actively realised that he
was there, because she had never happened to want him; there had always
been so many other people.
Now suddenly all these people had gone. Epsom was very, very far away,
and, behold, James wasn’t there either!
She realised, too, that if it had been some one down in the town, a
common woman as she had at first imagined it, it would not have hurt so
horribly. But that some one like Mrs. Lester should care for James,
should really think him worth while, seemed at one blow to disturb,
indeed to destroy all the theories of life in general and of James in
particular that had governed her last twenty years.
What could she see? What could any one of them see in him? she asked
herself again and again.
Meanwhile, of course, it must all be stopped somehow. They must go away
at once. Or perhaps it would be better to be quiet for a day or two and
see. They would all be gone in a week or so. And then Epsom again, and
everything as it had been and none of this—she called it “intrigue.”
“I’m so glad,” said Mrs. Lester, smiling, “that Tony Gale has taken so
strong a liking to your husband. It’s so good for a boy of that age to
have some one older. . . . He’s a charming boy, of course, but they
always need some one at that age just to prevent them from doing
anything foolish.”
_This_ was fishing, Mrs. Maradick at once felt. She couldn’t see exactly
what Mrs. Lester wanted, but she _did_ want something, and she wasn’t
going to get it. She had a sudden desire to prove to Mrs. Lester that
she was a great deal more to her husband than appeared on the surface. A
great deal more, of course, than any of the others were. For the first
time in their married life she spoke of him with enthusiasm.
“Ah! James,” she said, “is splendid with young men. Only I could really
tell the world what he has been to some of them. They take to him like
anything. There’s something so strong and manly about him—and yet he’s
sympathetic. Oh! I could tell you——” She nodded her head sagaciously.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lester; “I can’t tell you how I admire him, how we all
do, in fact. He must be very popular in Epsom.”
“Well, as a matter of fact he rather keeps himself to himself there.
They all like him enormously, of course; but he doesn’t want anything
really except just the family—myself and the girls, you know. He’s a
very domestic man, he always has been.”
“Yes, one can see that,” said Mrs. Lester, smiling. “It’s delightful
when one sees that nowadays. It so seldom happens, I am afraid. You must
be very proud of him.”
“I am,” said Mrs. Maradick.
The impulse to lean over and take Mrs. Lester’s head and slowly bend it
back until the bones cracked was almost too strong to be resisted.
Mrs. Maradick pricked her finger and stopped the blood with her
handkerchief. Both ladies were silent. The last rays of the sun as it
left the corner of the lawn fell in a golden shower upon the sweet-peas.
Mrs. Lawrence could be heard counting her stitches.
Meanwhile Mrs. Lester’s smile had had its effect upon Maradick. He had
waited, tortured, for the smile to come, but now it was all right. They
were still friends. He could not see it any farther than that. After
all, why should he trouble to look at it any more deeply? They were
friends. He would be able to talk to her again; he would see her smile
again. If she did not want him to behave like that, if she did not want
him to hold her hand, he was ready to obey in anything. But they were
still friends. She was not angry with him.
His depression took wings and fled. He put his arm on Tony’s shoulder as
they went down the stairs. “Well, old chap,” he said, “I’m off to see
Morelli now. You can bet that it will be all right. Things looked a bit
funny last night. They always do when one’s tired and it’s dark. Last
night, you see, you imagined things.”
But Tony looked up at him quietly with grave eyes.