THE PROPHET IN HIS OWN HOME
Martin walked into the street with a confused sense of triumph and
defeat, that confusion that comes to all sensitive men at the moment
when they are stepping, against their will, from one set of conditions
into another. He had gone into that house, only half an hour ago,
determined to leave Maggie for ever--for his good and hers. He came
back into the street realising that he was now, perhaps for the first
time, quite definitely involved in some relation with her--good, bad,
safe, dangerous he did not know--but involved. He had intended to tell
her nothing of his marriage--and he had told her. He had intended to
treat their whole meeting as something light, passing,
inconsiderable--he had instead treated it as something of the utmost
gravity. He had intended, above all, to prove to himself that he could
do what he wished--he had found that he had no power.
And so, as he stepped through the dim gold-dust of the evening light he
was stirred with an immense sense of having stepped, definitely at
last, across the threshold of new adventure and enterprise. All kinds
of problems were awaiting solution--his relation to his father, his
mother, his sister, his home, his past, his future, his sins and his
weaknesses--and he had meant to solve them all, as he had often solved
them in the past, by simply cutting adrift. But now, instead of that,
he had decided to stay and face it all out, he had confessed at last
that secret that he had hidden from all the world, and he had submitted
to the will of a girl whom he scarcely knew and was not even sure that
he liked.
He stopped at that for a moment and, standing in a little pool of
purple light under the benignant friendliness of a golden moon new
risen and solitary, he considered it. No, he did not know whether he
liked her--it was interest rather that drew him, her strangeness, her
strength and loneliness, young and solitary like the moon above
him--and yet--also some feeling softer than interest so that he was
suddenly touched as he thought of her and spoke out aloud: "I'll be
good to her--whatever happens, by God I'll be good to her," so that a
chauffeur near him turned and looked with hard scornful eyes, and a
girl somewhere laughed. With all his conventional dislike of being in
any way "odd" he walked hurriedly on, confused and wondering more than
ever what it was that had happened to him. Always before he had known
his own mind--now, in everything, he seemed to be pulled two ways. It
was as though some spell had been thrown over him.
It was a lovely evening and he walked slowly, not wishing to enter his
house too quickly. He realised that he had, during the last weeks,
found nothing there but trouble. And if Maggie wished, in spite of what
he had told her, to go on with him? And if his father, impatient at
last, definitely asked him to stay at home altogether and insisted on
an answer? And if his gradually increasing estrangement with his sister
broke into open quarrel? And if, strangest of all, this religious
business, that in such manifestations as the Chapel service of last
night he hated with all his soul, held him after all?
He was in Garrick Street, outside the curiosity shop, his latchkey in
his hand. He stopped and stared down the street as he had done once
before, weeks ago. Was not the root of all his trouble simply this,
that he was becoming against his will interested, drawn in? That there
were things going on that his common sense rejected as nonsense, but
that nevertheless were throwing out feelers like the twisting threats
of an octopus, touching him now, only faintly, here for a second, there
for a second, but fascinating, holding him so that he could not run
away? Granted that Thurston was a charlatan, Miss Avies a humbug, his
sister a fool, his father a dreamer, Crashaw a fanatic, did that mean
that the power behind them all was sham? Was that force that he had
felt when he was a child simply eager superstition? What was behind
this street, this moon, these hurrying figures, his own daily life and
thoughts? Was there really a vast conspiracy, a huge involving plot
moving under the cardboard surface of the world, a plot that he had by
an accident of birth spied upon and discovered?
Always, every day now, thoughts, suspicions, speculations were coming
upon him, uninvited, undesired, from somewhere, from some one. He did
not want them he wanted only the material physical life of the ordinary
man. It must be because he was idling. He would get work at once, join
with some one in the City, go abroad again ... but perhaps even then he
would not escape. Thoughts like those of the last weeks did not depend
for their urgency on place or time. And Maggie, she was mixed up in it
all. He was aware, as he hesitated before opening the door, of the
strangest feeling of belonging to her, not love, nor passion, not
sentiment even. Only as though he had suddenly realised that with new
perils he had received also new protection.
He went upstairs with a feeling that he was on the eve of events that
would change his whole world.
As Martin climbed to the top of the black crooked staircase he was
conscious, as though it had been shown him in a vision, that he was on
the edge of some scene that might shape for him the whole course of his
future life. He had been aware, once or twice before, of such a
premonition, and, as with most men, half of him had rejected and half
of him received the warning. To-day, however, there were reasons enough
for thinking this no mere baseless superstition. With Maggie, with his
father, with his sister, with his own life the decision had got to be
taken, and it was with an abrupt determination that he would end, at
all costs, the fears and uncertainties of these last weeks that he
pushed back the hall-door and entered. He noticed at once strange
garments hanging on the rack and a bright purple umbrella which
belonged, as he knew, to a certain Mrs. Alweed, a friend of his
mother's and a faithful servant of the Chapel, stiff and assertive in
the umbrella-stand. There was a tea-party apparently. Well, he could
not face that immediately. He would have to go in afterwards ...
meanwhile ...
He turned down the passage, pushed back his father's door and entered.
He paused abruptly in the doorway; there, standing in front of the
window facing him, his pale chin in the air, his legs apart,
supercilious and self-confident, stood Thurston. His father's desk was
littered with papers, rustling and blowing a little in the breeze from
the window that was never perfectly closed.
One candle, on the edge of the desk, its flame swaying in the air was
the only light. Martin's first impulse was to turn abruptly back again
and go up to his room. He could not speak to that fellow now, he could
not! He half turned. Then something stopped him:
"Halloo!" he said. "Where's father?"
"Don't know," said Thurston, sucking the words through his teeth. "I've
been wanting him too."
"Well, as he isn't here--" said Martin fiercely.
"No use me waiting? Quite so. All the same I'm going to wait."
The two figures were strangely contrasted, Martin red-brown with
health, thick and square, Thurston pale with a spotted complexion, dim
and watery eyes, legs and arms like sticks, his black clothes shabby
and his boots dusty.
Nevertheless at that moment it was Thurston who had the power. He moved
forward from the window. "Makes you fair sick to see me anywhere about
the 'ouse, doesn't it? Oh, I know ... You can't kid me. I've seen from
the first. You fair loathe the sight of me."
"That's nothing to do with it," said Martin uneasily. "Whether we like
one another or not, there's no need to discuss it."
"Oh, isn't there?" said Thurston, coming a little closer so that he was
standing now directly under the light of the candle. "Why not? Why
shouldn't we? What's the 'arm? I believe in discussing things myself. I
do really. I've said to myself a long way back. 'Well, now, the first
time I get 'im alone I'll ask him why 'e does dislike me. I've always
been civil to him,' I says to myself, 'and yet I can't please him--so
I'll just ask him straight.'"
Martin shrugged his shoulders; he wanted to leave the room, but
something in Thurston held him there.
"I suppose we aren't the sort to get on together. We haven't got enough
in common," he said clumsily.
"I don't know about that," Thurston said in a friendly conversational
tone. "I shouldn't wonder if we've got more in common than you'd fancy.
Now I'll tell you right out, I like you. I've always liked you, and
what's more I always shall. Whatever you do--"
"I don't care," broke in Martin angrily, "whether you like me or not."
"No, I know you don't," Thurston continued quietly. "And I know what
you think of me, too. This is your idea of me, I reckon--that I'm a
pushing, uneducated common bounder that's just using this religious
business to shove himself along with; that's kidding all these poor old
ladies that 'e believes in their bunkum, and is altogether about as
low-down a fellow as you're likely to meet with. That's about the
colour of it, isn't it?"
Martin said nothing. That was exactly "the colour of it."
"Yes, well," Thurston continued, a faint flush on his pale cheeks. "Of
course I know that all right. And I'll tell you the idea that I might
'ave of you--only might 'ave, mind you. Why, that you're a stuck-up
ignorant sort of feller, that's been rolling up and down all over
Europe, gets a bit of money, comes over and bullies his father, thinks
'e knows better than every one about things 'e knows nothing about
whatever--"
"Look here, Thurston," Martin interrupted, stepping forward. "I tell
you I don't care a two-penny curse what a man like--"
"I only said might, mind you," said Thurston, smiling. "It's only a
short-sighted fool would think that of you really. And I'm not a fool.
No, really, I'm not. I've got quite another idea of you. My idea is
that you're one of us whether you want to be or not, and that you
always will be one of us. That's why I like you and will be a friend to
you too."
"I tell you I don't want your damned friendship," Martin cried. "I
don't want to have anything to do with you or your opinion or your
plans or anything else."
"That's all right," said Thurston. "I quite understand. It's natural
enough to feel as you do. But I'm afraid you'll 'ave to 'ave something
to do with me. I'm not quite what you think me, and you're not quite
what you think yourself. There's two of each of us, that's the truth of
it. I may be a sham and a charlatan, one part of me, I don't know I'm
sure. I certainly don't believe all your governor does. I don't believe
all I say and I don't say all I think. But then 'oo does? You don't
yourself. I'll even tell you straight out that when I just came into
the business I laughed at the lot of 'em, your father and all. 'A silly
lot o' softs they are,' I said to myself, 'to believe all that
nonsense.' But now--I don't know. When you've been at this game a bit
you scarcely know what you do believe, that's the truth of it. There
may be something in it after all. Sometimes ... well, it 'ud surprise
you if you'd seen all the things I have. Oh, I don't mean ghosts and
spirits and all that kind of nonsense. No, but the kind of thing that
'appens to people you'd never expect. You're getting caught into it
yourself; I've watched you all along. But that isn't the point. The
point is that I'm not so bad as you think, nor so simple neither. And
life isn't so simple, nor religion, nor love, nor anything as you think
it. You're young yet, you know. Very young."
Martin turned back to the door.
"All very interesting, Thurston," he said. "You can think what you
like, of course. All the same, the less we see of one another--"
"Well," said Thurston slowly, smiling. "That'll be a bit difficult--to
avoid one another, I mean. You see, I'm going to marry your sister."
Martin laughed. Inside him something was saying: "Now, look out. This
is all a trap. He doesn't mean what he says. He's trying to catch you."
"Going to marry Amy? Oh no, you're not."
Thurston did not appear to be interested in anything that Martin had to
say. He continued as though he were pursuing his own thoughts. "Yes ...
so it'll be difficult. I didn't think you'd like it when you heard. I
said to Amy, 'E won't like it,' I said. She said you'd been too long
away from the family to judge. And so you have, you know. Oh! Amy and
I'll be right enough. She's a fine woman, your sister."
Martin burst out:
"Well, then, that settles it. It simply settles it. That finishes it."
"Finishes what?" asked Thurston, smiling in a friendly way.
"Never you mind. It's nothing to do with you. Has my father consented?"
"Yes ... said all 'e wanted was for Amy to be 'appy. And so she will
be. I'll look after her. You'll come round to it in time."
"Father agrees ... My God! But it's impossible! Don't you see? Don't
you see? I ..."
The sudden sense of his impotence called back his words. He felt
nothing but rage and indignation against the whole set of them, against
the house they were in, the very table with the papers blowing upon it
and the candle shining ... Well, it made his own affair more
simple--that was certain. He must be off--right away from them all.
Stay in the house with that fellow for a brother-in-law? Stay when ...
"It's all right," said Thurston, moistening his pale dry lips with his
tongue. "You'll see it in time. It's the best thing that could 'appen.
And we've got more in common than you'd ever suppose. We 'ave, really.
You're a religious man, really--can't escape your destiny, you know.
There's religious and non-religious and it doesn't matter what your
creed is, whether you're a Christian or a 'Ottentot, there it is. And
if you're religious, you're religious. I may be the greatest humbug on
the market, but I'm religious. It's like 'aving a 'are lip--you'll be
bothered with it all your life."
But what more Thurston may have said Martin did not hear: he had left
the room, banging the door behind him. On what was his indignation
based? Injured pride. And was he really indignant? Was not something
within him elated, because by this he had been offered his freedom?
Thurston marry his sister? ... He could go his own way now. Even his
father could not expect him to remain.
And he wanted Maggie--urgently, passionately. Standing for a moment
there in the dark passage he wanted her. He was lonely, disregarded,
despised.
They did not care for him here, no one cared for him anywhere--only
Maggie who was clear-eyed and truthful and sure beyond any human being
whom he had ever known. Then, with a very youthful sense of challenging
this world that had so grossly insulted him by admitting Thurston into
the heart of it, he joined the tea-party. There in the pink, close,
sugar-smelling, soft atmosphere sat his mother, Amy, Mrs. Alweed and
little Miss Pyncheon. His mother, with her lace cap and white hair and
soft plump hands, was pouring tea through a strainer as though it were
a rite. On her plate were three little frilly papers that had held
sugary cakes, on her lips were fragments of sugar. Amy, in an ugly grey
dress, sat severely straight upon a hard chair and was apparently
listening to Miss Pyncheon, but her eyes, suspicious and restless,
moved like the eyes of a newly captured animal. Mrs. Alweed, stout in
pink with a large hat full of roses, smiled and smiled, waiting only
for a moment when she could amble off once again into space safe on the
old broad back of her family experiences, the only conversational steed
to whose care she ever entrusted herself. She had a son Hector, a
husband, Mr. Alweed, and a sister-in-law, Miss Alweed; she had the
greatest confidence in the absorbed attention of the slightest of her
acquaintances. "Hector, he's my boy, you know--although why I call him
a boy I can't think--because he's twenty-two and a half--he's at
Cambridge, Christs College--well, this morning I had a letter ..." she
would begin. She began now upon Martin. His mind wandered. He looked
about the little room and thought of Thurston. Why was he not more
angry about it all? He had pretended to be indignant, he had hated
Thurston as he stood there ... But had he? Half of him hated him. Then
with a jerk Thurston's words came back to him: "There's two of each of
us, that's the truth of it." "Two of each of us ..." Sitting there,
listening to Mrs. Alweed's voice that flowed like a river behind him,
he saw the two figures, saw them quite clearly and distinctly, flesh
and blood, even clothes and voices and smile. And he knew that all his
life these two figures had been growing, waiting for the moment when he
would recognise them. One figure was the Martin whom he knew--brown,
healthy, strong and sane; a figure wearing his clothes, his own
clothes, the tweeds and the cloths, the brogues and the heavy boots,
the soft untidy hats; the figure was hard, definite, resolute,
quarrelling, arguing, loving, joking, swearing all in the sensible way.
It was a figure that all the world had understood, that had been drunk
often enough, lent other men money, been hard-up and extravagant and
thoughtless. "A good chap." "A sensible fellow." "A pal." "No flies on
Warlock." That was the kind of figure. And the life had been physical,
had never asked questions, had never known morbidity, had lived on what
it saw and could touch and could break ... And the other figure! That
was, physically, less plainly seen. No, there it was, standing a little
away from the other, standing away, contemptuously, despising it,
deriding it. Fat, soft, white hanging cheeks, wearing anything to cover
its body, but shining in some way through the clothes, so that it was
body that you saw. A soft body, hands soft and the colour of the flesh
pale and unhealthy. But it was the eyes that spoke: the mouth trembled
and was weak, the chin was fat and feeble, but the eyes lived,
lived--were eager, fighting, beseeching, longing, captive eyes!
And this figure, Martin knew, was a prey to every morbid desire, rushed
to sensual excess and then crept back miserably to search for some
spiritual flagellation. Above all, it was restless, as some one presses
round a dark room searching for the lock of the door, restless and
lonely, cowardly and selfish, but searching and sensitive and even
faithful, faithful to something or to some one ... pursued also by
something or some one. A figure to whom this world offered only
opportunities for sin and failure and defeat, but a figure to whom this
world was the merest shadow hiding, as a shade hides a lamp, the life
within. Wretched enough with its bad health, its growing corpulence,
its weak mouth, its furtive desires, but despising, nevertheless, the
strong, healthy figure beside it. Thurston was right. Men are not born
to be free, but to fight, to the very death, for the imprisonment and
destruction of all that is easiest and most physically active and most
pleasant to the sight and touch ...
"And so Hector really hopes that he'll be able to get down to us for
Christmas, although he's been asked to go on this reading party. Of
course, it's simply a question as to whether he works better at home or
with his friends. If he were a weak character, I think Mr. Alweed would
insist in his coming home, but Hector really cares for his work more
than anything. He's never been very good at games; his short sight
prevents him, poor boy, and as he very justly remarked, when he was
home last holidays, 'I don't see, mother, how I am going to do my duty
as a solicitor (that's what he hopes to be) if I don't work now. Many
men regard Cambridge as a time for play. Not so I.'"
"But I hope that if Hector comes home this Christmas he'll attend the
Chapel services. The influence your father might have on such a boy as
Hector, Mr. Warlock, a boy, sensitive and thoughtful ... I was saying,
Miss Pyncheon, that Hector--"
Miss Pyncheon was the soul of good-nature--but she was much more than
that. She was by far the most sensible, genial, and worldly of the
Inside Saints; it was, in fact, astonishing that she should be an
Inside Saint at all.
Of them all she impressed Martin the most, because there was nothing of
the crank about her. She went to theatres, to the seaside in the
summer, took in The Queen, and was a subscriber to Boots' Circulating
Library. She dressed quietly and in excellent taste--in grey or black
and white. She had jolly brown eyes and a dimple in the middle of her
chin. She was ready to discuss any question with any one, was
marvellously broad-minded and tolerant, and although she was both poor
and generous, always succeeded in making her little flat in Soho Square
pretty and attractive.
Her chief fault, perhaps, was that she cared for no one especially--she
had neither lovers nor parents nor sisters nor brothers, and to all her
friends she behaved with the same kind geniality, welcoming one as
another. She was thus aloof from them all and relied upon no one. The
centre of her life was, of course, her religion, but of this she never
spoke, although strangely enough no one doubted the intensity of her
belief and the reality of her devotion.
She was a determined follower of Mr. Warlock; what he said she
believed, but here, too, there seemed to be no personal attachment. She
did not allow criticism of him in her own presence, but, on the other
hand, she never spoke as though it would distress her very greatly to
lose him. He was a sign, a symbol ... If one symbol went another could
be found.
To Martin she was the one out-standing proof of the reality of the
Chapel. All the others--his sister, Miss Avies, Thurston, Crashaw, the
Miss Cardinals, yes, and his father too, were, in one way or another,
eccentric, abnormal, but Miss Pyncheon was the sane every-day world,
the worldly world, the world of drinks and dinners, and banks and
tobacconists, and yet she believed as profoundly as any of them. What
did she believe? She was an Inside Saint, therefore she must have
accepted this whole story of the Second Coming and the rest of it. Of
course women would believe anything ... Nevertheless ...
He scarcely listened to their chatter. He was forcing himself not to
look at his sister, and yet Thurston's news seemed so extraordinary to
him that his eye kept stealing round to her to see whether she were
still the same. Could she have accepted him, that bounder and cad and
charlatan? He felt a sudden cold chill of isolation as though in this
world none of the ordinary laws were followed. "By God, I am a stranger
here," he thought. It was not until after dinner that night that he was
alone with his father. He had resolved on many fine things in the
interval. He was going to "have it out with him," "to put his foot
down," "to tell him that such a thing as Thurston's marriage to his
sister was perfectly impossible." And then, for the thousandth time
since his return to England he felt strangely weak and irresolute. He
did wish to be "firm" with his father, but it would have been so much
easier to be firm had he not been so fond of him. "Soft, sentimental
weakness," he called it to himself, but he knew that it was something
deeper than that, something that he would never be able to deny.
He went into his father's study that night with a strange dismal
foreboding as though he were being drawn along upon some path that he
did not want to follow. What was his father mixed up with all this
business for? Why were such men as Thurston in existence? Why couldn't
life be simple and straightforward with people like his father and
himself and that girl Maggie alone somewhere with nothing to interfere?
Life was never just as you wanted it, always a little askew, a little
twisted, cynically cocking its eye at you before it vanished round the
corner? He didn't seem to be able to manage it. Anyway, he wasn't going
to have that fellow Thurston marrying his sister.
He found his father lying back in his arm-chair fast asleep, looking
like a dead man, his long thin face pale with fatigue, his eyelids a
dull grey, his mouth tightly closed as though in a grim determination
to pursue some battle. And at the sight of him thus worn out and beaten
Martin's affection flooded his heart. He stood opposite his father
looking at him and loving him more deeply than he had ever done before.
"I will take him away from all this," was his thought, "these Thurstons
and all--out of all this ... We'll go off abroad somewhere. And I'll
make him fat and happy."
Then his father suddenly woke up, with a start and a cry: "Where am I?"
... Then he suddenly saw Martin. "Martin," he said, smiling.
Martin smiled back and then began at once: "Father, this isn't true
about Thurston, is it?"
He saw, as he had often done before, that his father had to call
himself up from some world of vision before he could realise even his
surroundings. Martin he recognised intuitively with the recognition of
the spirit, but he seemed to take in the details of the room slowly,
one by one, as though blinded by the light.
"Ah--I've been dreaming," he said, still smiling at Martin helplessly
and almost timidly. "I'm so tired these days--suddenly--I usen't to be
..." He put his hand to his forehead, then laid it on Martin's knee,
and the strength and warmth of that seemed suddenly to fill him with
vigour.
"You're never tired, are you?" he asked as a child might ask an elder.
"Very seldom," answered Martin, "I say, father, what is all this about
Thurston?"
"Thurston ... Why, what's he been doing?"
"He says he's engaged to Amy." The disgust of the idea made Martin's
words, against his will, sharp and angry.
"Does he? ... Yes, I remember. He spoke to me about it."
"Of course it's simply his infernal cheek ..."
Mr. Warlock sighed. "I don't know, I'm sure. Amy seemed to wish it."
Martin felt then more strongly than before the Something that drove
him. It said to him: "Now, then ... here's a thing for you to make a
row about--a big row. And then you can go off with Maggie." But, on the
other hand, there was Something that said: "Don't hurt him. Don't hurt
him. You may regret it all your life if ..."
If what? He didn't know. He was always threatened with regretting
things all his life. The blow was always going to fall. And that
pleasant very British phrase came back to him, "He would put his foot
down"--however--he was very angry--very angry.
He burst out: "Oh, but that's absurd, father. Impossible--utterly.
Thurston in the family? Why, you must see yourself how monstrous it
would be. Amy's got some silly, sentimental whim and she's got to be
told that it won't do. If you ask me, I don't think Amy's improved much
since I was away. But that's not the question. The idea of Thurston's
disgusting. You can't seriously consider it for a minute..."
"Why is Thurston disgusting, my boy?"
Martin hated to be called "my boy"--it made him feel so young and
dependent.
"You've only got to look at him!" Martin jumped up, disregarding his
father's hand, and began to stamp about the room. "He's a cad--he's not
your friend, father. He isn't, really. He'd like to out you from the
whole thing if he could. He thinks you're old-fashioned and behind the
times, and all he thinks about is bringing in subscriptions and
collecting new converts. He's like one of those men who beat drums
outside tents in a fair ... He's a sickening man! He doesn't believe in
his religion or anything else. I should think he's crooked about money,
and immoral probably too. You're much too innocent, father. You're so
good and trustful yourself that you don't know how these fellows are
doing you in. There's a regular plot against you and they'd be most
awfully pleased if you were to retire. They're not genuine like you.
They simply use the Chapel for self-advertisement and making money. Of
course there are some genuine ones like the Miss Cardinals, but
Thurston's an absolute swindler ..."
He stopped short at that. He had said more than he had intended and he
was frightened suddenly. He swung round on his heel and looked at his
father.
"Come here, Martin." He came across the room. "Closer. Now, tell me.
We're good friends, aren't we?"
"Of course, father."
He put his hand on his son's shoulder. "Do you know that I love you
more than anything in the whole world? More, I'm sometimes terribly
afraid, than God Himself. I can't help myself. I love you, Martin, so
that it's like hunger or thirst ... It's the only earthly passion that
I've ever had. And I'll tell you another thing. It's the one terror of
my earthly life that you'll leave me. Now that I've got you back I'm
afraid every time you go out of the house that you'll run away, round
the corner, and never come back again. I love you and I'm not going to
let you go again.--Not until--until--the Time has come ... What does it
matter to you and me what Thurston and Amy do? God will come and He
will find us both together--you and I--and He will take us up and keep
us together and we shall never be separated any more ... I love your
strength, Martin, your happiness, your youth--all the things I've never
had. And you're not going to leave me, not though Amy married a hundred
Thurstons ..."
Mr. Warlock's grip on his son's shoulder was iron.
Martin bent down and sat on the arm of his dusty leather chair to bring
himself on to the same level. He put his arm round his father and drew
him close to him. Maggie, Life, Money, Adventure--everything seemed to
draw away from him and he saw himself, a little boy, pattering on bare
feet down the aisle towards the font--just as though a spell had been
cast over him.
They sat close together in silence. Then slowly the thought of Thurston
came back again. Martin drew away a little.
"All the same, father," he said, "Thurston mustn't marry Amy."
"They're only engaged. There's no question of marriage yet."
"Then they are engaged?" Martin drew right away, standing up again.
"Oh, yes, they're engaged."
"Then I'm not going to stand it. I tell you I won't stay here if
Thurston marries Amy."
Mr. Warlock sighed. "Well then, let's leave it, my boy. I daresay
they'll never marry."
"No. I won't have it. It's too serious to leave."
His father's voice was sharper suddenly.
"Well, we won't talk about it just now, Martin, if you don't mind."
"But I must. You can't leave a thing like that. Thurston will simply
own the place ..."
"I tell you, Martin, to leave it alone." They were both angry now.
"And I tell you, father, that if you let Thurston marry Amy I leave the
house and never come back again."
"Isn't that rather selfish of you? You've been away all these years.
You've left us to ourselves. You come back suddenly without seeing how
we live or caring and then you dictate to us what we're to do. How can
you expect us to listen?"
"And how can you expect me to stay?" Martin broke into a torrent of
words: "I'm miserable here and you know that I am. Mother and Amy hate
me and you're always wrapped up in your religion. What kind of a place
is it for a fellow? I came back meaning that you and I should be the
best pals father and son have ever been, but you wouldn't come out with
me--you only wanted to drag me in. You tell me always to wait for
something. To wait for what? I don't know. And nobody here does seem to
know. And I can't wait for ever. I've got to lead my own life and if
you won't come with me I must go off by myself--"
He was following his own ideas now--not looking at his father at all.
"I've discovered since I've been home that I'm not the sort of fellow
to settle down. I suppose I shall go on wandering about all my days.
I'm not proud of myself, you know, father. I don't seem to be much good
to any one, but the trouble is I don't want to be much better. I feel
as though it wouldn't be much good if I did try. I can't give up my own
life--for nobody--not even for you--and however rotten my own life is
I'd rather lead it than some one else's."
He stopped and then went on quietly, as though he were arguing
something out with himself: "The strange thing is that I do feel this
place has got a kind of a hold on me. When you remind me of what I was
like as a kid I go right back and feel helpless as though you could do
anything with me you like. All the same I don't believe in this
business, father--all this Second Coming and the rest of it. We're in
the Twentieth Century now, you know, and everybody knows that that kind
of thing is simply impossible. Only an old maid or two ... Why, I don't
believe you believe in it really, father. That's why you're so keen on
making me believe. But I don't; it's no use. You can't make me. I don't
believe there's any God at all. If there were a God he'd let a fellow
have more free will ..."
He was interrupted by an extraordinary cry. He turned to see his father
standing, one hand pressed back on the chair, his face white, his eyes
black and empty, like sightless eyes.
"Martin! That's blasphemy! ... Take care! Take care! ... Oh, my son, my
son! ..."
Then he suddenly collapsed backwards, crouching on to the chair as
though he were trying to flee from some danger. Martin sprang towards
him. He caught him round the body, holding him to him--something was
leaping like a furious animal inside his father's breast.
"What is it?" he cried, desperately frightened.
"It's my heart," Warlock answered in a voice very soft and distant.
"Bad ... Excitement ... Ring that bell ... Amy ..."
A moment later Amy entered. She came quickly into the room, she said
nothing--only gave Martin one look.
She gave her father something from a little bottle, kneeling in front
of him.
At last she turned to her brother. "You'd better go," she said. "You
can do nothing here."
Miserable, repentant, feeling as though he had no place in the world
and yet eager too to defend himself, he left the room.