THE CHOICE
She waited for some time alone in the hall listening for she knew not
what. Her departure from the Chapel had been too abrupt to allow her in
a moment to shake off the impression of it--above all, the impression
of Mr. Crashaw standing there, his arms stretched out to her, his eyes
burning her through and through with the urgent insistence of his
discovery.
She was tired, her head ached horribly, she would have given everything
at that moment for a friend who would care for her and protect her from
her own wild fears. She did not know of what she was afraid, but she
knew that she felt that she would rather do anything than spend the
night in that house. And yet what could she do? How could she escape?
She knew that she could not. Oh! if only Martin would come! Where was
he? Why could he not carry her off that very night? Why did he not come?
She gazed desperately about her. Could she not leave the house there
and then? But where should she go? What could she do without a friend
in London? She stood there, clasping and unclasping her hands, looking
up at the black stairs, listening for some sound from above, fancying a
ghost in every darkening corner of the place.
Then her common sense reasserted itself. It was something, at any rate,
that she was out of the Chapel, away from Mr. Crashaw's piercing eyes,
Mr. Thurston's rasping voice, Mr. Warlock's reproachful melancholy. She
felt this evening as though by struggling with all her strength she
could shut the gates upon new experiences that were fighting to enter
into her soul, but must, at all costs to her own happiness, be
defeated. No such thing as ghosts, no such thing as a God, be He kind,
tender, cruel or loving--nothing but what one can see, can touch, can
confront with one's physical strength. She had been to a service at a
Methodist chapel, her aunt had been ill, to-morrow there would be
daylight and people hurrying down the street about their business, work
and shops and food and sun ... No such thing as ghosts! Nothing but
what you can see!
"And I'll get some work without wasting a minute," she thought, nodding
her head. "In a shop if necessary--or I could be a governess--and then
when he is free, Martin will be with me."
She climbed on a chair and turned down the hall-gas as she had seen
Martha do. She went to the door and slipped the chain into its socket
and turned the lock. She listened for a moment before she started
upstairs, she saw Mr. Crashaw's eyes in the dark--she heard his voice.
"Punishment! Punishment!..."
She suddenly started to run up the black stairs, stumbled, ran faster
through the passage under the picture of the armed men, arrived at last
in her room, breathless.
During her undressing she stopped sometimes to listen. Her aunt's
bedroom was on the floor below hers, and she certainly could hear
nothing through the closed doors, and yet she fancied, as she stood
there, that the sound of sobbing came up to her and, twice, a sharp cry.
"I suppose I'm terribly selfish," she thought, "I ought to want to go
and help Aunt Anne, and I don't." No, she didn't. She wanted to run
away from the house, miles and miles and miles. She climbed into bed
and thought of her escape. If Miss Trenchard did not answer her letter,
then she could go off to Uncle Mathew, greatly though she disliked the
thought of that; then she could live on her three hundred pounds and
look about until she found work or Martin came for her.
But so ignorant was she of the world that she did not in the least know
how she could get her three hundred pounds. But Uncle Mathew would
know. She thought of him standing in the doorway at the hotel, holding
up a glass, then she thought of Martin, and so fell asleep.
She woke suddenly to find some one standing in her open doorway and
holding up a candle. That some one was old Martha, looking strange
enough in a nightdress, her scanty grey hairs untidily about her neck
and a dirty red shawl over her shoulders. Maggie blinked at the light
and sat up in bed.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's your aunt, Miss--Miss Anne. She's very bad. She wants you to go
to her."
Maggie got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and slippers and
followed the servant.
As she hurried along the dark passage she was still only half-awake;
her soul had not returned into her body, but her body was awake and
vibrating with the knowledge that the soul was soon coming to it, and
coming to it with great news, with the consciousness of a marvellous
experience. For at the instant when Martha awoke her she had been
dreaming of Martin, dreaming of him physically, so that it was his body
against hers, his hand hot and dry in hers cool and soft, his cheek
rough and strong against hers smooth and pale. There had been no
sentimentality or weakness in her dream. They had been confident and
sure and defiant together, and it had been real life for her, so real
that this dream life in which now she moved down the shadowy passage
was about her as green water is about one when one swims under waves.
It was only slowly, as the cold air of the house at night cleared her
eyes and her throat and her breast, that she came to the world
consciousness again and surrendered her lover back to the shades and
felt a sudden frightened fear lest, after all, she should never really
know that ecstasy of which she had just been dreaming.
Nevertheless it was still with a great consciousness of Martin that she
entered her aunt's bedroom. Before she entered she turned round for a
moment to Martha.
"What must I do?" she asked. "What will she want me to do?"
"It's only," said Martha, "if the pains come on very bad, to give her
some drops. They're in a little green bottle by her bed. Five drops ...
yes, miss, five drops in a little green bottle. Only if the pains is
very bad. She's brave--wonderful. I'd 'ave sat up till morning willing,
and so of course would Miss Elizabeth. But she seemed to want you,
miss."
They were like two conspirators whispering there in the dark. The room
within was so still. Maggie very softly pushed back the door and
entered. She walked a few steps inside the room and hesitated. There
was no sound in the room at all, utter stillness so that Maggie could
hear her own breathing as though it were some one else at her side
warning her. Then slowly things emerged, the long white bed first,
afterwards a shaded lamp beside it, a little table with bottles, a
chair--beyond the circle of lighted shadow there were shapes, near the
window a high glass, a dark shade that was the dressing-table, and
faint grey squares where the windows hung.
In the room was a strange scent half wine, half medicine, and beyond
that the plain tang of apples partially eaten, a little smell of oil
too from the lamp--very faintly the figure of the Christ above the bed
was visible. Maggie moved forward to the bed, then stopped again. She
did not know what to do; she could see a dark shadow on the pillow that
must she knew be her aunt's hair, and yet she did not connect that with
her aunt. The room was cold and, she felt, of infinite space. The smell
of the wine and the medicine made her shy and awkward as though she
were somewhere where she should not be.
There came a little sigh, and then a very quiet, tired voice.
"Maggie, is that you?"
"Yes, Aunt Anne."
She came very close to the bed, and suddenly, as though a curtain had
been drawn back, she could see her aunt's large eyes and white sharp
face.
"It was very good of you, dear, to come. I felt ashamed to wake you up
at such an hour, but I wanted you. I felt that only you must be with me
to-night. It was a call from God. I felt that it must be obeyed. Sit
down, dear. There, on that chair. You're not cold, are you?"
Maggie sat down, gathering her dressing-gown close about her. She was
not even now drawn right out of her dream, and the room seemed
fantastic, to rise and fall a little, and to be filled with sound, just
out of hearing. For a time she was so sleepy that she nodded on her
chair, and the green lamp swelled and quivered and the very bed seemed
to sway in the dark, but soon the cold air cleared her head, and she
was wide awake, staring before her at the grey window-panes. Her aunt
did not for a long time speak again. Maggie sat there her mind a maze
of the Chapel, old Crashaw, Miss Avies, and Martin. Slowly the cold
crept into her feet and her hands, but her head now was burning hot.
Then suddenly her aunt began to talk in a dreamy rather lazy voice, not
her natural daily tone which was always very sharp and clear. She
talked on and on; sometimes her sentences were confused and unfinished,
sometimes they seemed to Maggie to have no meaning; once or twice the
voice dropped so low that Maggie did not catch the words, but always
there was especial urgency behind the carelessness as though every word
were being spoken for a listener's benefit--a listener who sat perhaps
with pencil and notebook somewhere in the dark behind them.
"So sorry ... so sorry, Maggie dear ... so sorry," the words ran up and
down. "I hadn't meant to take you away before the service was over.
Elizabeth could have ... sometimes my pain is very bad and I have to
lie down, you know. But it's nothing--nothing really--only I'm glad,
rather, that you should share all our little troubles, because then
you'll know us better, won't you? Dear Maggie, there's been something
between us all this time, hasn't there? Ever since our first
meeting--and it's partly been my fault. I wasn't good at first, I
wanted to be kind, but I was stiff and shy. You wouldn't think that I'm
shy? I am, terribly. I always have been since I was very little, and
just to enter a room when other people are there makes me so
embarrassed ... I remember once when mother was alive her scolding me
because I wouldn't come in to a tea-party. But I couldn't; I stood
outside the door in an agony, doing everything to make myself go
in--but I couldn't ... But now I've come to love you, dear, although of
course you have your faults. But they are faults of your age,
carelessness, selfishness. They are nothing in the eyes of God, who
understands all our weaknesses. And you must learn to know Him, dear.
That is my only prayer now. If I am taken, if I go before the great
day--if it be His will--then I pray always, now that I may leave you in
my place, waiting for Him as I have waited, trusting Him as I have
trusted ... you saw to-night what it means to us, what it must mean to
any one who has listened. There were times, years ago, when I had not
turned to God, when I did not care, when I thought of earthly love ...
God drew me to Himself ... You too must come, Maggie--you must come.
You mustn't stay outside--you are asked, you are invited--perhaps you
will be compelled ..."
The voice sank: Maggie's teeth chattered in her head from the cold, and
her foot had gone to sleep. She felt obstinate and rebellious and
frightened, she could not think clearly, and the words that came from
her, suddenly, seemed to her not to be her own.
"Aunt Anne, I want to do everything that you and Aunt Elizabeth think I
should, but I must be myself, mustn't I? I'm grown up now; I've got my
three hundred pounds and I don't think I want to be religious. I'm very
grateful to you and Aunt Elizabeth, but I'm not a help to you much, I'm
afraid. I know I'm very careless, I do want to be better, and that's
all the more reason, perhaps, why I should go out and earn my own
living. I'd learn more quickly then. But I do love you and Aunt
Elizabeth ..."
She broke off; she did not love them. She knew that she did not. The
only human being in all the world whom she loved was Martin.
Nevertheless there did come to her suddenly then a new tenderness for
her aunt; the actual sight of her pain in the Chapel had deeply touched
her and now her eagerness for escape was mingled with a longing to be
affectionate and good.
But Aunt Anne did not seem to have heard.
"Are you sure you're not cold, dear?"
"No, aunt."
Their hands touched.
"But you are. Put that rug over you. That one at the end of the bed.
I'm quiet now. I think perhaps I shall sleep a little."
"Is there anything I can do?"
"Perhaps turn the lamp down, dear. That's it. A little more. Now, if
you'd just raise my pillow. There, behind my head. That's the way! Why,
what a good nurse you are!"
Maggie, as tenderly as she could, turned the pillow, patted it, placed
it beneath her aunt's head. She was close against her aunt's face, and
the eyes seemed suddenly so fierce and urgent, so insistent and
powerful, that seeing them was like the discovery of some blazing fire
in an empty house. Most of all, they were terrified eyes. Maggie went
back to her chair. After that, she sat there during the slow evolution
of Eternity; Eternity unrolled itself before her, on and on and on,
grey limitless mist and space, comfortless, lifeless, hopeless. She had
been for many weeks leading a thoroughly unwholesome life in that old
house with those old women. She did not herself know how unhealthy it
had been, but she knew that she missed the wide fields and downs of
Glebeshire, the winds that blew from the sea round Borhedden, the air
that swirled and raced up and down the little stony strata of St.
Dreot. Now she had been kept indoors, had had no fun of any kind, had
looked forward to Mr. Magnus as her chief diversion. Then Martin had
come, and suddenly she had seen how dangerously her life was hemming
her in. She was losing courage. She would soon be afraid to speak for
herself at all; she would soon ...
In a panic at these thoughts, and feeling as though some one was trying
to push her down into a coffin whilst she was still alive, she began
hurriedly to speak, although she did not know whether her aunt were
asleep or no.
"I think I ought to tell you, Aunt Anne, that I wrote a letter some
days ago and posted it myself. It was to a lady who knew Father once in
Glebeshire, and she said that if ever I wanted help I was to write to
her, and so--although perhaps I oughtn't to have done it without asking
you first, still I was afraid you mightn't want me to--so I sent it. I
wouldn't like to hurt your feelings, Aunt Anne, and it isn't that I'm
not happy with you and Aunt Elizabeth, but I ought to be earning my own
living, oughtn't I? And I've only got my three hundred pounds, haven't
I? I'm not complaining, but I don't know about anything yet, do I? I
can't even find my way when I'm out with Aunt Elizabeth. And I'm afraid
I'll never be really good enough to be religious. Perhaps if Father'd
wanted me to be I might be now, but he never cared ... I hope you won't
be angry, Aunt Anne, but I didn't like to-night--I didn't really. When
I was there I thought that soon I'd begin to cry like the others, but
it was only because every one else was crying--not because I wanted to.
I hope you won't be angry, but I'm afraid I'll never be religious as
you and Aunt Elizabeth want me to be; so don't you think it will be
better for me to start learning something else right away?"
Maggie poured all this out and then felt immense relief. At last she
was honest again; at last she had said what she felt, and they knew it
and could never say that she hadn't been fair with them. She felt that
her speech had cleared the air in every kind of way. She waited for her
aunt's reply. No sound came from the bed. Had her aunt heard? Perhaps
she slept. Maggie waited. Then timidly, and softly she said:
"Aunt Anne ... Aunt Anne ..."
No reply. Then again in a whisper:
"Aunt Anne ... Aunt Anne ..."
Supposing Aunt Anne ... Maggie trembled, then, commanding herself to be
calm, she bent towards the bed.
"Aunt Anne, are you asleep?"
Suddenly Aunt Anne's face was there, the eyes closed, the mouth, the
cheeks pale yellow in the faint reflection from the lamp. There was no
stir, no breath.
"Aunt Anne, Aunt Anne," Maggie whispered in terror now. Then she saw
that her aunt was sleeping; very, very faintly the sheets rose and fell
and the fingers of the hand on the coverlet trembled a little as though
they were struggling to wake.
Then Aunt Anne had heard nothing after all. But it might be that she
was pretending, just to see what Maggie would say.
"Aunt Anne," whispered Maggie once more and for the last time. Then she
sat back on her seat again, her hands folded, staring straight in front
of her. After that she did not know for how long she sat there in a
state somewhere between dream and reality. The room, although it never
lost its familiarity, grew uncouthly strange; shapes grey and dim
seemed to move beneath the windows, humping their backs, spinning out
into long limbs, hands and legs and gigantic fingers. The deadest hour
of the night was come; the outside world seemed to press upon the
house, the whole world cold, thick, damp, lifeless, like an animal
slain and falling with its full weight, crushing everything beneath it.
Perhaps she slept--she did not know. Martin seemed to be with her, and
against them was Aunt Anne, her back against the door, her hands
spread, refusing to let them pass. The room joined in the struggle, the
floor slipped beneath their tread, the curtain swayed forward and
caught them in its folds, the lamp flickered and flickered and
flickered ...
She was awake suddenly, quite acutely aware of danger. She rubbed her
eyes, turned, and in the dim shadow saw her aunt sitting up in bed, her
body drawn up to its intensest height, her hands pressing down, flat
upon the bed. Her eyes stared as though they would break down all
boundaries, but her lips trembled like the lips of a little child.
"Aunt Anne, what is it?" Maggie whispered.
"It's the pain--" Her voice was far away as though some one were
speaking from the passage outside the door. "It's the pain ... I can't
... much more ..."
Maggie remembered what Martha had told her about the drops. She found
the little green bottle, saw the glass by the side of it.
Suddenly she heard Aunt Anne: "Oh no ... Oh no! God I can't ... God, I
can't ... I can't."
Maggie bent over the bed; she put her hand behind her aunt's back and
could feel the whole body quivering, the flesh damp beneath the
night-dress. She steadied her, then put the glass to her lips.
The cry was now a little whisper. "No more ... I can ... no more." Then
more softly still: "Thy will, oh Lord. As thou wilt--Our Father, which
art in Heaven, Hallowed ... Hallowed ... Hallowed..."
She sank down on to her pillows.
"Is it better?" Maggie asked.
Her aunt caught her hand.
"You mustn't leave me. I shan't live long, but you must stay with me
until I go. Promise me! Promise me!"
"No, I can't promise," said Maggie.
"You must stay. You must stay."
"No I can't promise." Then suddenly kneeling down by the bed she put
her hand on the other's arm: "Aunt Anne, I'll do anything for
you--anything--to make you better--if I can help ... but not a promise,
I can't promise."
"Ah, but you will stay," Aunt Anne's whisper trembled with its
certainty.
That seemed the climax of the night to Maggie then. She felt that she
was indeed held for eternity by the house, the Chapel, and something
beyond the Chapel. The scent of the medicine, the closeness of the
room, the darkness and the sickness, seemed to close all about her ...
She was at the bottom of a deep well, and she would never get out, she
would never get out ...
The door slowly, very softly opened, and old Martha looked in.
"She's been very bad," whispered Maggie.
"Ay, I heard something. That's why I came. You gave her the drops?"
"Yes."
"She'll sleep a bit now. I'll take your place, Miss Maggie. It's time
you went back to your bed."
Maggie crept away.
She came down to breakfast to find the house bathed in sunlight and the
parrot singing hoarsely "And her golden hair was hanging down her
back." Aunt Elizabeth was there, cheerful and almost merry in her
bird-like fashion. The world was normal, ghosts out of fashion, and
this morning was the day on which the silver was cleaned. This last was
Maggie's business, and very badly she did it, never being "thorough,"
and having a fatal habit of thinking of other things. Porridge, eggs
and bacon, marmalade--
"And--her golden hair was hanging--" croaked Edward.
"Your aunt won't come down this morning, Maggie. She's much better. The
sun's shining. A little walk will be a good thing. I'll buy the calico
that Anne talked about. Your aunt's better."
Maggie felt ashamed of herself. What desperate silly feelings had she
allowed last night? How much she had made of that service, and how weak
she was to give way so easily!
"I'll clean the silver," she thought. "I'll do it better than
ever"--but unfortunately she had a hole in her stocking, and Aunt
Elizabeth, like a sparrow who has found a worm, told her about it.
"Mr. Crashaw's coming to tea this afternoon," she concluded.
"That's why Anne's staying in bed--to be well enough." The stocking and
Mr. Crashaw dimmed a little of the morning's radiance, but behind them
was the thought, "Martin must come to-day. It was like a message his
look last night." She even sang to herself as she scrubbed at the
silver.
They spent a domestic morning. Aunt Elizabeth did not go for her walk,
but instead stayed in the dining-room and, seated at the end of the
long dining-table, her head just appearing above the worn and soiled
green table-cloth, tried to discipline the week's household accounts.
She worked sucking one finger after another and poking her pencil into
her ears.
"One pound, three shillings--ham, ham, ham--?"
At one moment she invited the cook to assist her, and that lady,
crimson from the kitchen fire, bared arms akimbo, stated that she was
not only the most economical woman in London, but was also, thanks to
her upbringing, one of the most sober and virtuous, and if Miss
Cardinal had anything to say against--
Oh no! Aunt Elizabeth had nothing to say against, only this one pound,
three shillings--
Well, the cook couldn't help that; she wasn't one to let a penny out of
her fingers where it shouldn't go.
So the morning hummed along; luncheon-time came, the silver was all
cleaned, the stockings changed, and there was roast chicken. Thomas,
with his wicked eyes, came slowly, majestically upon the scene--but
even he was not sinister to-day, being interested in his own greed
rather than other persons' sins.
All this time Maggie refused to think. Martin would come, then she
would see.
Martin ... Martin ... Martin ... She went up into her bedroom and
whispered the name over and over to herself whilst she tried to mend
her stocking. She flung the stocking down and gazed out of the window
on to a world that was all golden cloud and racing watery blue. The
roofs swam like floating carpets in the sun, detached from the brick
and mortar beneath them, carried by the racing clouds. It was only at
that sudden gaze that she realised that she was a prisoner. All her
alarm came back to her.
"Why can't I go out? I'll put on my hat and just walk out. No one can
stop me. No one ..."
But she knew that she could not. Something more must happen first. She
turned from the window with a little shudder, finished very clumsily
her stocking, and as the cuckoo clock struck halfpast three went down
to the drawing-room.
There to her surprise, she found Caroline Smith. The events of the last
few days had, a little, dimmed Caroline from her memory. She had not
seen Caroline for a fortnight. She did not know that she especially
wanted to see Caroline now. However, it was very certain that Caroline
wanted to see her. The young woman was dressed in rose-coloured silk
that stood out from her slim body almost like a crinoline, and she had
a straw funnel-shaped hat with roses perched on the side of her lovely
head. She kissed Maggie many times, and then sitting down with her
little sharp black shoes poked out in front of her, she ran on:
"It's been too bad, Maggie, dear; it's simply ages since we had a
moment, isn't it, but it hasn't been my fault. Father's been
ill--bronchitis--and I've had to help Mother. Father's been so happy,
he's just been able to lie in bed for days and think about God. None of
those tiresome people at the Bank to interrupt him, and chicken and
jelly as much as he liked. He was so unhappy yesterday when he had to
go back to work, poor dear ... But, Maggie, I hear you were at the
service last night. How did you like it?"
"Like it?" said Maggie. "I don't know that it's a thing one likes,
exactly."
"Doesn't one? I don't know. I'm not one of the Inside Saints, you know,
and I wouldn't be if they wanted me to he. But you're one now, they
say, and I never would have thought it. You don't look a bit like one,
and I shouldn't have dreamt that you'd ever stand that sort of thing.
You look so matter-of-fact."
Maggie was on the point of bursting out that she was not an Inside
Saint, and would never be one, when caution restrained her. She had
learnt already that her gay young companion was not as trustworthy as
best friends ought to be.
"It was the first time, last night," she said.
"Yes, I know, and Miss Cardinal was ill and had to come away in the
middle, didn't she? It must have been a simply awful meeting, because
Mother came back as limp as anything. She'd been crying buckets, and
has a dreadful headache to-day. I suppose Mr. Crashaw gave it them.
I've never heard him, but I've seen him. Horrid old monkey--I hope Miss
Cardinal's better to-day."
"Yes, thank you," said Maggie. "She's better."
"Well, that's a good thing. I'm so glad. And you, you darling, what did
you think of it all? I'm sure you didn't cry buckets. I can see you
sitting there as quiet as anything, like a little Quaker. I'd like to
have gone just to have seen you. I hear Martin Warlock was there too.
Was he?"
"He was," said Maggie.
"Fancy that! I wonder what he went for. His father made him, I expect.
You know they say he's getting on awfully badly at home and that there
are quarrels all the time. I don't know, of course, but his sister
can't stand him. She's always showing her feelings--not very good
taste, I think, but Mr. Thurston eggs her on. They'll be making a match
of it one day, those two ... I say, Maggie--" Caroline drew her chair
close. "I'll give you a secret. You won't tell any one, will you?"
"Certainly not--if you tell me not to," said Maggie.
"Well, Martin Warlock and I--ever since he came back. Oh! I don't say
it's anything really. But he's attracted by me and would like to go
farther. He'll be asking me to marry him one of these days, and then
I'll have fun. He would have done the other day if I'd let him. I like
him rather, don't you? He's getting a bit fat, of course, but he's got
nice eyes, and then he's a real man. I like real men. But there, you'll
be thinking me coarse, I know you will. I'm not coarse really, only
impulsive. You don't like me, honestly, if it were known. Oh no! you
don't! I can tell. I always know. But I don't care--I love you. You're
a darling--and what I say is if you love some one, just love them.
Never mind what they think. Don't you agree with me? But you wouldn't.
You wouldn't think of loving anybody. But I'm not really bad--only
careless, Mother says--"
What Mother said could not be known, because the door opened and Martha
announced Mr. Crashaw. The old man, leaning on a walking stick, came
forward and greeted Maggie and Caroline with good-temper and
amiability. He was indeed in day-time a very mild old man, and it was
difficult for Maggie to believe that this was the same who last night
had frightened her out of her wits and led her to the edge of such
strange suspicions. He was more than ever like a monkey, with his bony
brown forehead, protuberant eyes and large mottled nose, and he sat
there all huddled up by his rheumatism, a living example of present
physical torments rather than future spiritual ones. It was apparent at
once that he liked pretty young women, and he paid Caroline a number of
flattering attentions, disregarding Maggie with a frankness that
witnessed to a life that had taught one lesson at least, never on any
occasion to waste time. Maggie did not mind--it amused her to see her
terror of the night before transformed into a mere serenading crippled
old gentleman, and to see, too, the excited pleasure with which
Caroline accepted even such decayed attentions as these. But what was
it that had persuaded her last night? Why did she now spend her time
half in one world and half in another? Which world was the real one?
Aunt Anne very soon joined them, and this quiet, composed figure only
added to Maggie's scorn of her last night's terrors. Was this the same
who had struggled with such agony, who had made Maggie feel that she
was caught in a trap and imprisoned for ever?
The sun beat hotly upon the carpet. Caroline's rose-coloured silk shone
and glowed, the tea was poured out, and there was chatter about the
warm winter that it was and how time passed, and how fashions changed,
and how you never saw a four-wheeler now, and what they were turning
Kingsway into, and what they were turning the Law Courts out of, and
even once, by Mr. Crashaw, a word about the Lyceum Theatre, where some
one was playing the Merchant of Venice, which was a fine play and could
do no one any harm.
"But I daresay," said Mr. Crashaw, "that this young lady here goes to
nothing but plays every night of her life."
"Why, Mr. Crashaw," said Caroline, tossing her head. "If that's the
kind of life you fancy I lead you're completely mistaken. Theatres
indeed! Never do I put so much as the tip of my nose inside one. Father
thinks they're wrong and so does Mother say she does, although I know
she likes them, really; but any way that doesn't matter because I never
have a moment to myself--sitting at home sewing, that's the way I spend
my days, Mr. Crashaw."
It was the very last way she really spent them, as Maggie perfectly
well knew. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Crashaw either was
deceived. However, he gave a wicked wink with the eye that was least
rheumatic and said something about "a beautiful young lady like Miss
Smith wasted on sewing and darning," and Caroline smiled and said
something about "one day perhaps"--and Aunt Anne looked remotely
benevolent. What did she think of all this, Maggie wondered? What did
she think of her great preacher, her prophet, wasting the few hours of
life that remained to him over such a business? They had some secret
understanding, perhaps, as though they said to one another, "We know,
you and I, what are our real intentions beneath all this. We only do
what we must."
Understanding or no, Mr. Crashaw sprang up with unexpected activity
when Caroline departed and announced his intention of conducting her to
her door. He made his adieus and then hobbled along after the
rose-coloured silk as though this was his last chance of warming his
hands at the flame of life.
When they were gone, Aunt Anne said:
"I am going back to bed, Maggie, dear. Martha will send me up some
supper later. Elizabeth has gone to Lambeth to see a friend, so make
yourself busy until seven, dear. If I want anything I'll ring."
When she was left alone in the darkening room she stood there thinking.
Why should she not go out and find Martin? She did not care what any
one thought. She would go to his house and ask for him. She had waited
and waited ... She wanted him so, she wanted him so desperately!
Then Martha opened the door and announced him, yes, really announced
him, saying: "It's young Mr. Warlock, Miss, and he says if your aunts
isn't in you'll do."
"Ask him to come up, Martha," said Maggie, and then held herself there,
rooted, where she stood so that she should not run to him and fling her
arms round his neck. She felt at once with that quick perception that
was hers, in spite of her ignorance of life, that this was no moment
for love-making, and that he wanted something quite other from her.
He closed the door behind him, looked round the room, didn't come to
her, but stayed where he was.
"I've been trying to see you all day," he said. "How long have we got
alone do you think?" She never took her eyes from his face. "Until
seven probably. Aunt Elizabeth's in Lambeth and Aunt Anne's in bed."
"That's luck." He drew a breath of relief, then moved over to the
fireplace. "Maggie, I've come to say we mustn't see one another any
more."
Some one, some vast figure shadowy behind her, moved suddenly forward
and caught her in his arms and his embrace was deadly cold. She stood
where she was, her hands at her side, looking steadfastly at him.
"Why?" she said. "Because--because--the fact is, I've been wrong
altogether. Maggie, I'm not the sort of man for you to have anything to
do with. You don't know much about life yet, do you? I'm about the
first man you've ever met, aren't I? If you'd met another man before
me, you'd have cared for him as much."
She said nothing and he seemed to be confused by her steady gaze,
because he looked down and continued to speak as though to himself:
"I knew at once that there was danger in our meeting. With other girls
they can look after themselves. One hasn't any responsibility to them.
It's their own affair, but you believe every word a fellow says. And if
we'd been friends it wouldn't have mattered, but from the very first we
weren't that--we were something more."
"You were so different from any other girl. I've wanted to be good to
you from the beginning, but now I see that if we go on I shall only be
bad. It all comes in the end to my being bad--really bad--and I want
you to know it."
"I don't know," said Maggie, "that I've thought very
much whether you're good or bad. And it doesn't matter. I can look
after myself."
"No, you can't," he said vehemently, making a step towards her and then
suddenly stopping. "That's just it--you can't. I've been thinking all
the time since the other evening when we were together, and I've seen
that you believe every word I say and you trust me. I don't mean to
tell lies--I don't know that I'm worse than most other men--but I'm not
good enough for you to trust in all the same. I've been knocking about
for years, and I suppose I've had most of my idealism knocked out of
me. Anyway I don't believe in most people, and you still do. I'm not
going to be the one to change you."
"Perhaps I know more about life than you think," said Maggie.
"No, how can you? You've never had a chance of seeing any of it. You'd
get sick of me in no time. I'm moody and selfish and bad-tempered. I
used to drink a bit too. And I can't be faithful to women. I might
think I was going to be faithful to you and swear I would be--and then
suddenly some one would come along. I thought for a bit I'd just go on
with you and see what came of it. You're so unusual, you make me want
to be straight with you; but I've seen it wouldn't be fair. I must just
slip out of your path and you'll forget me, and then you'll meet a much
better man than I and be happy. I'm queer--I have funny moods that last
for days and days sometimes. I seem to do every one harm I come in
touch with. There's my father now. I love him more than any one in the
world, and yet I make him unhappy all the time. I'm a bad fellow to be
with--"
He stopped suddenly, looked at her and laughed. "It isn't any good,
Maggie ... You haven't any idea what a sweep I am. You'd hate me if you
really knew."
She looked steadily back at him. "We haven't much time," she said,
speaking with steady, calm conviction as though she had, for years,
been expecting just such a conversation as this, and had thought out
what she would say. "Aunt Elizabeth can come back earlier than she
said. Perhaps I shall say something I oughtn't to. I don't care. The
whole thing is that I love you. I suppose it's true that I don't know
anything about men, but I'd be poor enough if my love for you just
depended on your loving me back, and on your being good to me and all
the rest of it. I've never had any one I could love until you came, but
now that you have come it can't be anything that you can do that can
alter it. If you were to go away I'd still love you, because it's the
love in me that matters, not what I get for it. Perhaps you'll make me
unhappy, but anyway one will be unhappy some of the time."
She went up to him and kissed him. "I know Caroline Smith or some one
would be very shocked if they thought I'd said such things to you, but
I can't help what they say."
He had a movement to catch her and hold her, but he kept himself off,
moved away from her, turning his back to her.
"You don't understand ... you don't understand," he repeated. "You
know nothing about men, Maggie, and you know nothing about me. I tell
you I wouldn't be faithful to you, and I'd be drunk sometimes, and I'd
have moods for days, when I'd just sulk and not speak to a soul. I
think those moods some damned sort of religion when I'm in them, but
what they really are is bad temper. You've got to know it, Maggie. I'd
be rotten to you, however much I wanted not to be."
"That's my own affair," she answered. "I can look after myself. And for
all the rest, I'm independent and I'll always be independent. I'll love
you whether you're good to me or bad."
"Well, then," he suddenly wheeled round to her, "you'd better have it
... I'm married already."
She took that with a little startled cry. Her eyes searched his face in
a puzzled fashion as though she were pursuing the truth. Then she said
like a child who sees some toy broken before its eyes:
"Oh, Martin!"
"Yes. Nobody knows--not a soul. It was a mad thing--four years ago in
Marseille I met a girl, a little dressmaker there. I went off my head
and married her, and then a month later she ran off with a merchant
chap, a Greek. I didn't care; we got on as badly as anything ... but
there you are. No one knows. That's the whole thing, Maggie. I thought
at first I wouldn't tell you. I was beginning to care for you too much,
as a matter of fact, and then when your uncle asked me to dinner, I
told myself I was a fool to go. Then when I saw how you trusted me, I
thought I'd be a cad and let it continue, but somehow ... you've got
an influence over me ... You've made me ashamed of things I wouldn't
have hesitated about a year ago. And the funny thing is it isn't your
looks. I can say things to you I couldn't to other women, and I'll tell
you right away that there are lots of women attract me more. And yet
I've never felt about any woman as I do about you, that I wanted to be
good to her and care for her and love her. It's always whether they
loved me that I've thought about ... Well, now I've told you, you see
that I'd better go, hadn't I? You see ... you see."
She looked up at him.
"I've got to think. It makes a difference, of course. Can we meet after
a week and talk again?"
"Much better if I don't see you any more. I'll go away
altogether--abroad again."
"No--after a week--"
"Much better not."
"Yes. Come here after a week. And if we can't be alone I'll give you a
letter somehow ... Please, Martin--you must."
"Maggie, just think--"
"No--after a week."
"Very well, then," he turned on her fiercely. "I've been honest. I've
told you. I've done all I can. If I love you now it isn't my fault."
He left the room, not looking at her again. And she stood there,
staring in front of her.