THE OUTSIDE WORLD
Maggie had a week.
She did not need it. From the first half-hour after Martin's leaving
her her mind was made up. This question of marriage did not, on further
reflection, very greatly disturb her. She had known, in her time, a
number of married people and they had been invariably unhappy and
quarrelsome. The point seemed to be that you should be, in some way,
near the person whom you loved, and she had only loved one person in
all her life, and intended never to love another. Even this question of
love was not nearly so tangled for her as it would be for any more
civilised person. She knew very little about marriage and only in the
most sordid fashion about sexual relations which were definitely
connected in her mind with drunken peasants and her father's cook. They
had nothing at all to do with Martin.
The opinion of the world was an unknown factor in her vision, she only
knew of the opinion of her aunts and Miss Warlock and with these she
was already in rebellion.
She would have been in great trouble had she supposed that this woman
still loved Martin and needed him, but that, from what Martin had said,
was obviously not so. No, it was all quite clear. They would escape
together, out of this tangle of unnatural mysteries and warnings, and
live happily for ever after in the country.
As to Martin's self-portrait, that did not greatly distress her. She
had never supposed that he or any one else was "good." She had never
known a "good" person. Nor did it occur to her, in her pristine state
of savagery, that you loved any one the less for their drawbacks. She
would rather be with Martin at his worst than with any one else at
their best--that was all.
Half-an-hour was enough time to settle the whole affair. She then
waited patiently until the end of the week. She did not quite know how
she would arrange a meeting, but that would, she expected, arrange
itself.
Two events occurred that filled her mind and made the week pass
quickly. One was that she received an answer to her adventurous letter,
the other was a remarkable conversation with Miss Caroline Smith. The
answer to her letter was lying on her plate when she came down to
breakfast, and Aunt Elizabeth was watching it with an excited stare.
It read as follows:
14 BRYANSTON SQUARE.
Dear Miss CARDINAL,
Of course I remember you perfectly. I wondered whether you would write
to me one day. I am married now and live most of the year in London.
Would you come and see me at Bryanston Square? I am nearly always at
home at tea-time. If you are free would you perhaps come next Friday?
It will be so nice to see you again.
Yours sincerely,
KATHERINE MARK. "You've got a letter, dear. Your aunt isn't quite so
well this morning, I'm afraid. Scrambled eggs."
"Yes," she looked her aunt in the face without any confusion. How
strangely her decision about Martin had altered her relationship now to
every one! What did it matter whether any one were angry? "I ought to
have told you, Aunt Elizabeth. I wrote about a fortnight ago to a lady
who came once to see us at home. She was a Miss Trenchard then. She
said that if ever I wanted any help I was to write to her. So I have
written--to ask her whether she can find me any work to do, and she has
asked me to go and see her."
"Work," said Aunt Elizabeth. "But you won't go away while your aunt's
so ill."
Wouldn't she? Maggie didn't know so much about that.
"I want to be independent," said Maggie, trying to fix Aunt Elizabeth's
eyes. "It isn't fair that I should be a burden to you."
"You're no burden, dear." Aunt Elizabeth looked uneasily round the
room. "Your aunt depends on you."
"Depends on me for what?"
"For everything."
"Then she oughtn't to, Aunt Elizabeth, I've said it again and again.
I'm not fit for any one to depend on. I'm forgetful and careless and
untidy. You know I am. And I'm different from every one here. I'm very
grateful to Aunt Anne, but I'm not good enough for her to depend on."
Aunt Elizabeth blinked nervously.
"She's got very little. You mustn't take away all she has."
"I'm not all she has," answered Maggie, knowing that she was becoming
excited and cross. "I don't belong to any one except myself." "And
Martin" her soul whispered. Then she added, suddenly moved by remorse
as she looked at Aunt Elizabeth's meek and trembling face, "You're so
good to me, both of you, and I'm so bad. I'll give you anything but my
freedom."
"You talk so strangely, dear," said Aunt Elizabeth. "But there are so
many things I don't understand."
Maggie took the letter up to her bedroom and there read it a number of
times. It all seemed wonderful to her, the stamped blue address, the
rich white square notepaper, and above all the beautiful handwriting.
She thought of her own childish scrawl and blushed, she even sat down,
there and then, at her dressing-table and, with a pencil, began to
imitate some of the letters.
On Friday! To-day was Tuesday. Bryanston Square. Wherever was Bryanston
Square, and how would she find it? She determined to ask Caroline Smith.
She had not long to wait for her opportunity. On Wednesday evening
about half-past five Miss Smith poked her head into the Cardinal
drawing-room to discover Maggie sitting with her hands on her lap
looking down on to the street.
"Are your aunts anywhere?" asked Caroline.
"No," said Maggie. "Aunt Anne's in bed and Aunt Elizabeth's at Miss
Pyncheon's."
"That's right," said Caroline, "because I haven't seen you, darling,
for ages."
"The day before yesterday," said Maggie.
"You're a literal pet," said Caroline kissing her. "I always
exaggerate, of course, and it's so sweet of you to tell me about it."
She rushed off to the fire and spread out her blue skirt and dangled
her feet.
"Isn't it cold and dark? You funny dear, not to have the blinds down
and to sit staring into the beastly street like that ... I believe
you're in love."
Maggie came to herself with a start, got up and slowly went over to the
fire.
"Caroline, where's Bryanston Square?"
"Oh, you pet, don't you know where Bryanston Square is?" cried Caroline
suddenly fixing her bright eyes upon Maggie with burning curiosity.
"If I did I wouldn't ask," said Maggie.
"Quite right--neither you would. Well, it's near Marble Arch."
"But I don't know where the Marble Arch is."
"Lord!" cried Caroline. "And she's been in London for months. You
really are a pet. Well, what you'd better do is to get into the first
taxi you see and just say 'Bryanston Square.'"
How stupid of her! She might have thought of that for herself.
"Is there a park near Bryanston Square?" she asked.
"Yes. Of course--Hyde Park."
"And is it open at six?"
"Of course. You can't shut Hyde Park."
"Oh!"
Maggie pursued her thoughts. Caroline watched her with intense
curiosity.
"What do you want with a Park, you darling?" she asked at last.
"Oh, nothing," said Maggie, slowly. Then she went on, laughing: "I've
been asked out to tea--for the first time in my life. And I'm terribly
frightened."
"How exciting!" said Caroline clapping her hands. "Who's it with?"
"It's a Mrs. Mark. She was a Miss Trenchard. She used to live in
Glebeshire. She's going to find me some work to do."
"Work!" cried Caroline. "Aren't you going to stay with your aunts then?"
"I want to be independent," said Maggie slowly.
"Well!" said Caroline, amazed.
Could Maggie have seen just then into Miss Smith's mind and could she
only have realised that, with Miss Smith, every action and intention in
the human heart pivoted upon love-affairs and love-affairs only, she
might have been warned and have saved much later trouble. She was
intent on her own plans and was thinking of Caroline only as a possible
agent.
"Caroline," she asked, "would you take a note for me to some one?"
"Of course," said Caroline. "Who is it?"
"Martin Warlock," said Maggie.
At the name she suddenly blushed crimson. She knew that Caroline was
looking at her with eager curiosity. She suspected then that she had
done something foolish and would have given anything to recall her
words, but to recall them now seemed only to make it the more
suspicious.
"It's only something his sister wanted to know," she said casually. "I
thought you'd be seeing him soon. I hardly ever do."
"Yes, I'm going up there to-night," said Caroline staring at Maggie.
"Well, I'll give it you before you go," then she went on as casually as
she could. "What's been happening lately?"
"Of course you know all about the excitement," said Caroline sitting
back in the faded arm-chair with her blue dress spread all about her
like a cloud.
"What excitement?" said Maggie, pulling herself up, with a desperate
struggle, from her own private adventures.
"What! you don't know?" Caroline exclaimed in an awed whisper.
"Know what?" Maggie asked, rather crossly, repenting more and more of
asking Caroline to carry her note.
"Why, where DO you live? ... All about Mr. Warlock and his visions!"
"I've heard nothing at all," said Maggie.
This was unexpected joy to Caroline, who had never imagined that there
would be any one so near the Inner Saints as Maggie who yet knew
nothing about these recent events.
"Do you really know nothing about it?"
"Nothing," said Maggie.
"Aren't you wonderful?" said Caroline. "What happened was this. About
three weeks ago Mr. Warlock had a vision in the middle of the night. He
saw God at about three in the morning."
"How did he see God?" asked Maggie, awed in spite of herself.
Caroline's voice dropped to a mysterious whisper. "He just woke up and
there God was at the end of the bed. Of course he's not spoken to me
about it, but apparently there was a blaze of light and Something in
the middle. And then a voice spoke and told Mr. Warlock that on the
last night of this year everything would be fulfilled."
"What did He mean?" asked Maggie.
"Different people think He meant different things," said Caroline. "Of
course there's most fearful excitement about it. Mr. Warlock's had two
since."
"Two what?" asked Maggie.
"Two visions. Just like the first. The blazing light and the voice and
telling him that the last night of the year's to be the time." Caroline
then began to be carried away by her excitement. She talked faster and
faster. "Oh! You don't know what a state every one's in! It's causing
all sorts of divisions. First there are all his own real believers.
Miss Pyncheon, your aunts, and the others. My father's one. They all
believe every word he says. They're all quite certain that the last day
of this year is to be the time of the Second Coming. They won't any of
them, look a minute further than that. Father doesn't care a bit now
what mother does with the money because, he says, we shan't want any
next year. Mother isn't so sure so she's taking as much care of it as
ever, and of course it's nice for her now to have it all in her own
hands. They're all of them doing everything to make themselves ready.
It doesn't matter how aggravating you are, father never loses his
temper now. He's so sweet that it's maddening. Haven't you noticed how
good your aunts are?"
"They're always the same," said Maggie.
"Well. I expect they're different really. Then there's the middle-class
like Mr. Thurston and Miss Avies who pretend to believe all that Mr.
Warlock says, but of course, they don't believe a word of it, and they
hope that this will prove his ruin. They know there won't be any Second
Coming on New Year's Eve, and then they think he will be finished and
they'll be able to get rid of him. So they're encouraging him to
believe in all this, and then when the moment comes they'll turn on
him!"
"Beasts!" said Maggie suddenly.
"Well, I daresay you're right," said Caroline. "Only it does make me
laugh, all of it. Thurston and Miss Avies have all their plans made,
only now they're quarrelling because Thurston wants to marry Amy
Warlock and Miss Avies meant him to marry her!"
"Is Mr. Thurston going to marry Miss Warlock?" cried Maggie.
"So they say," said Caroline again watching Maggie curiously. "Well,
anyway, Miss Avies is the strongest of the lot really. I'd back her
against anybody. I'm terrified of her myself, I tell you frankly. She'd
wring any one's neck for twopence. Oh yes, she would! ... Then there
are the third lot who simply don't believe in Mr. Warlock's visions at
all and just laugh at him. People like Miss Smythe and Mrs. Bellaston.
A lot of them are leaving the chapel. Mr. Warlock won't listen to
anybody. He's getting stranger and stranger, and his heart's so bad
they say he might die any day if he had a shock. Then he's always
quarrelling with Martin."
Caroline suddenly stopped. She looked at Maggie.
"Martin's a terrible trial to his father," she said.
But Maggie was secure now.
"Is he?" she asked indifferently. Then she added slowly, "What do you
believe, Caroline?"
"What do I believe?"
"Yes, about Mr. Warlock's visions."
"Oh, of course, it's only because he's ill and prays for hours without
getting off his knees, and won't eat enough, that he sees things. And
yet I don't know. There may be something in it. If I were on my knees
for weeks I'd never see anything. But I'll be terribly sorry for Mr.
Warlock if the time comes and nothing happens. He'll just have to go."
They sat a little longer together and then Caroline said: "Well,
darling, I must be off. Where's that note?" She hesitated, looking at
Maggie with a wicked gleam in her pale blue eyes. "You know, Maggie, I
can't make up my mind. I've had an offer of marriage."
"I'm so glad, Caroline," said Maggie.
"Yes, but I don't know what to do. It's a man--Mr. Purdie. His father's
ever so rich and they've got a big place down at Skeaton."
"Where's that?" asked Maggie.
"Oh, don't you know? Skeaton-on-Sea. It's a seaside resort. I've known
William for a long time. His father knows father. He came to tea last
week, and proposed. He's rather nice although he's so silent."
"Why don't you marry him then?" asked Maggie.
"Well, I know Martin Warlock's going to ask me. It's been getting
closer and closer. I expect he will this week. Of course, he isn't so
safe as William, but he's much more exciting. And he's got quite a lot
of money of his own."
Strange, the sure, confident, happy security that Maggie felt in her
heart at this announcement.
"I should wait for Martin Warlock," she said. "He'd be rather fun to
marry."
"Do you think so?" answered Caroline. "Do you know, I believe I will.
You're always right, you darling ... Only suppose I should miss them
both. William won't wait for ever! Got that note, dear?"
Maggie was defiant. She would just show the creature that she wasn't
afraid of her. She'd give her the note and she might imagine what she
pleased.
She got a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote hurriedly.
The week is up on Friday. Will you meet me that evening at a quarter
past six under the Marble Arch? MAGGIE.
The boldness, the excitement of this inflamed her. It was so like her
to challenge any action once she was in it by taking it to its furthest
limit. She put it in an envelope and wrote Martin's name with a
flourish.
"There!" she said, giving it to Caroline.
"Thank you," said Caroline, and with a number of rather wet and
elaborate kisses (Maggie hated kissing) departed.
But her afternoon was not yet over; hardly had Caroline left when the
door was opened and Miss Avies was shown in. Maggie started up with
dismay and began to stammer excuses. Miss Avies brushed them aside.
"It doesn't matter," she said. "You'll do as well--even, it may be,
better."
A strange woman Miss Avies! Maggie had, of course, seen her at Chapel,
but this was the first time that they had been alone together. Miss
Avies was like a thin rod of black metal, erect and quivering and
waiting to strike. Her long sallow face was stiff, not with outraged
virtue, or elaborate pride, or burning scorn, but simply with the
accumulated concentration of fiery determination. She was the very
symbol of self-centred energy, inhuman, cold, relentless. Her hair was
jet black and gleamed like steel, and she had thick black eyebrows like
ink-marks against her forehead of parchment. Her eyes were dead, like
glass eyes, and she had some false teeth that sometimes clicked in her
mouth. She wore a black dress with no ornament and thin black gloves.
She did not seem, however, to Maggie unkindly, as she stood there,
looking about the room rather short-sightedly. (She would not wear
glasses. Could it have been vanity?) She was not hostile, nor scornful,
nor even patronising ... but had Maggie been struck there, dead at her
feet she would not have moved a step to help her. Her voice was ugly,
with a crack in it, as though it needed oil. Maggie, as she looked at
her, did not need to be told that she did not believe in Mr. Warlock's
mysticism. She came across and shook Maggie's hand. Her touch was cold
and stiff and a little damp like that of a wet stone.
"Sorry your Aunt's out," she said, "but I can talk to you for a while."
She looked at Maggie for a moment. Then she said:
"Why don't you clear out of all this?"
The voice was so abrupt and the words so unexpected that Maggie jumped.
"Why don't I?" she repeated.
"Yes, you," said Miss Avies. "You've no place here in all this
business. You don't believe in it, do you?"
"No," said Maggie.
"And you don't want to use it for something you do believe in?"
"No," said Maggie. "Well then, clear out."
Maggie, colouring a little, said:
"My aunts have been very good to me. I oughtn't to leave them."
"Fiddlesticks," said Miss Avies. "Your life's your own, not your
aunts'."
She sat down and stayed bolt upright and motionless near the fire; she
flung a thin dark shadow like a stain on the wall. There was a long
pause between them. After that abrupt opening there seemed to be
nothing to say. Maggie's thoughts also were elsewhere. She was wishing
now passionately that she had not given that note to Caroline.
Suddenly Miss Avies said, "What do you do with yourself all day?"
Maggie laughed. "Try and make myself less careless, Miss Avies."
Miss Avies replied, "You'll never make yourself less careless. We are
as we are."
"But don't you think," said Maggie, "that one can cure one's faults?"
"One gets rid of one only to make room for another ... But that doesn't
matter. The point is that one should have an ambition. What's your
ambition, child?"
Maggie didn't answer. Her ambition was Martin, but she couldn't tell
Miss Avies so.
At last, after a long pause, as Miss Avies still seemed to be waiting,
she answered:
"I suppose that I want to earn my living--to be independent."
"Well, leave this place then," said Miss Avies. "There's no
independence here." Then added, as though to herself. "They think
they're looking for the face of God ... It's only for themselves and
their vanity they're looking."
Maggie said, to break another of the long pauses that seemed to be
always forming between them:
"I think every one ought to earn their own living, don't you?"
Miss Avies shook her head. "You're very young--terribly young. I've got
no advice to give you except to lead a healthy life somewhere away from
these surroundings. We're an unnatural lot here and you're a healthy
young creature ... Have you got a lover?"
Maggie smiled. "I've got a friend," she said. Miss Avies sighed.
"That's more than I've got," she said.
"Not that I've time for one," she added. She got up. "I won't wait for
your aunt," she said, "I've left a note downstairs ... You clear out as
soon as you can, that's my advice to you."
She said good-bye, looking into Maggie's clear eyes. She was suddenly
less inhuman, the touch of her hand was warmer.
"Don't you cheat yourself into believing in the Deity," she said, and
was gone.
When Friday arrived Maggie had not seen Caroline again, and she could
not tell whether the note had been safely delivered or no. She was not
sure what she had better do. Caroline might hare done anything with the
note, torn it up, burnt it, lost it, forgotten it altogether. Well,
that was a risk that Maggie must take. If he did not appear she would
wait a little while and then come away. They must soon meet in any
case. They had all their lives before them.
Aunt Anne was up again--very, very pale now and so thin that the light
seemed to shine through her making her more of a stained window saint
than ever.
Maggie told her about the visit, Aunt Anne looked at her curiously. She
seemed so weak and frail that Maggie suddenly felt warm maternal love.
Rather shyly she put her hand upon her aunt's: "I won't go away until
you're better--"
Aunt Anne nodded her head.
"I know you won't, dear," she said. "Don't be out late to-day. We shall
be anxious about you."
Maggie had made a promise and was terrified when she thought of it.
Suppose her aunt did not get better for years and years?
People often had long lingering illnesses with no apparent change in
their condition. To Maggie a promise was an utterly final thing. She
could not dream that one ever broke one's word. She trembled now when
she thought of what she had done. She had been entrapped after all and
by her own free will.
In her little room as she was putting on her hat she suddenly prayed to
a God, of whom she knew nothing, that her aunt might get better soon.
She started out on her great adventure with a strange self-assurance as
though loving Martin had given her the wisdom of all the ages.
Turning down the street towards the Strand she found almost at once a
taxi-cab drawn up, as though it had been waiting there especially for
her like an eloping coach in a romantic tale. A fat red-faced fellow
with a purple nose, a cloth cap and a familiar vague eye, as though he
always saw further than he intended, waited patiently for her to speak.
Boldly, as though she had done such things all her life, she said,
"Fourteen Bryanston Square." Then she slipped in and was hidden from
the gay world. She sat there, her hands on her lap staring at the three
crimson rolls in the neck of her driver. She was thinking of nothing,
nothing at all. Did she struggle to think? Only words would come,
"Martin," or "Bryanston Square," or "cab," again and again, words that
did not mean anything but physical sensations. "Martin" hot fire at the
throat, "Bryanston Square" an iron rod down the spine, and "cab" dust
and ashes in the eyes.
She tried to look at herself in the little mirror opposite her, but she
could only catch the corner of her cheek and half her hat. But she
minded less about her appearance now. If Martin could love her it did
not matter what others thought--nevertheless she pulled her hat about a
little and patted her dress. The cab stopped and she felt desperately
lonely. Did any one care about her anywhere? No, no one. She could have
cried with pity at the thought of her own loneliness.
"One and sixpence, Miss," said the cabman in so husky a voice.
She gave it to him.
"What's this?" he asked, looking at it.
"One and sixpence," she answered timidly, wondering at his sarcastic
eye.
"Oh well, o' course," he said, looking her all over.
She knew instinctively that he demanded more. She found another
sixpence. "Is that enough?" she asked.
He seemed ashamed.
"If I 'adn't a wife sick--" he began.
She ran up the high stone steps and rang a bell. The episode with the
driver had disturbed her terribly. It had shown in what a foreign world
she was. All her self-confidence was gone. She had to take a pull at
herself and say: "Why, Maggie, you might be ringing the dentist's bell
at this moment."
That helped her, and then the thought of Martin. She saw his boyish
smile and felt the warm touch of his rough hand. When the maid was
there instead of the green door, she almost said: "Is Martin in?"
But she behaved very well.
"Mrs. Mark?" she said in precisely the voice required.
The maid smiled and stood aside. And then into what a world she
entered! A world of comfort and reassurance, of homeliness and
kindliness, without parrots and fierce-eyed cats and swaying pictures
of armoured men--a world of urbanity and light and space. There was a
high white staircase with brown etchings in dark frames on the white
walls. There was a thick soft carpet and a friendly fat grandfather
clock. Many doors but none of them mysterious, all ready to be opened.
She climbed the staircase and was shown into a room high and gaily
coloured and full of flowers. She saw the deep curtains, blue silk shot
with purple, the chairs of blue silk and a bowl of soft amber light
hanging from the ceiling. A mass of gold-red chrysanthemums flamed
against the curtains. Several people were gathered round a tea-table
near the fire.
She stood lost on the thick purple carpet under the amber light, all
too brilliant for her. She had come from a world of darkness, owl-like
she must blink before the blaze. Some one came forward to her, some one
so kind and comforting, so easy and unsurprised that Maggie suddenly
felt herself steadied as though a friend had put an arm around her.
Before she had felt: "This light--I am shabby." Now she felt, "I am
with friendly people." She was surprised at the way that she was
suddenly at her ease.
Mrs. Mark was not beautiful, but she had soft liquid eyes and her hand
that held Maggie's was firm and warm and strong.
"Let me introduce you," said Mrs. Mark. "That is Miss Trenchard, and
that Mr. Trenchard. This is my husband. Philip, this is Miss Cardinal."
Miss Trenchard must be forty, Maggie thought. She was plump and
thick-set, with a warm smile. Then Mr. Trenchard was a clergyman--he
would be stout were he not so broad. His face was red, his hair snowy
white, but he did not look old.
He smiled at Maggie as though he had known her all his life. Then there
was Mr. Mark, who was stocky and thick, and reminded Maggie of Martin,
although his face was quite different, he looked much cleverer and not
such a boy; he was not, in fact, a boy at all. "I'm sure he thinks too
hard," decided Maggie, who had habits of making up her mind at once
about people.
"Well, there's no one to be frightened about here," she decided. And
indeed there was not! It was as though they had all some especial
reason for being nice to her. Perhaps they saw that she was not in her
own world here. And yet they did not make her feel that. She drank in
the differences with great gulps of appreciation, but it was not they
who insisted.
Here were light and colour and space above all--rest. Nothing was about
to happen, no threat over their heads that the roof would fall beneath
one's feet, that the floor would sink. No sudden catching of the breath
at the opening of a door, no hesitation about climbing the stairs, no
surveillance by the watching Thomas, no distant clanging of the Chapel
bell. How strange they all seemed, looking back from this safe harbour.
The aunts, the Warlocks, Thurston, Mr. Crashaw, Caroline--all of them.
There the imagination set fire to every twig--here the imagination was
not needed, because everything occurred before your eyes.
She did not figure it all out in so many words at once, but the
contrast of the two worlds was there nevertheless. Why had she been so
anxious, so nervous, so distressed? There was no need. Had she not
known that this other world existed? Perhaps she had not. She must
never again forget it ...
Katherine Mark was so kind and friendly, her voice so soft and her
interest so eager, that Maggie felt that she could tell her anything.
But their talk was not to come just yet--first there must be general
conversation.
The clergyman with the white hair and the rosy face laughed a great
deal in a schoolboy kind of way, and every time that he laughed his
sister, who was like a pippin apple with her sunburnt cheeks, looked at
him with protecting eyes.
"She looks after him in everything," said Maggie to herself. He was
called Paul by them all.
"He's my cousin, you know, Miss Cardinal," said Mrs. Mark. "And yet I
scarcely ever see him. Isn't it a shame? Grace makes everything so
comfortable for him ..."
Grace smiled, well pleased.
"It's Paul's devotion to his parish ..." she said in calm, happy,
self-assured voice, as though she'd never had a surprise in her life.
"I'm sure it isn't either of those things," thought Maggie to herself.
"He's lazy."
Lazy but nice. She had never seen a clergyman so healthy, so happy so
clean and so kind. She smiled across the table at him.
"Do you know Skeaton?" he asked her. Skeaton! Where had she heard of
the place? Why, of course, it was Caroline!
"Only yesterday I heard of it for the first time," she said. "A friend
of mine knows some one there."
"Beastly place," said Mr. Mark. "Sand always blowing into your eyes."
Mr. and Mrs. Trenchard got up to go.
He stood a moment holding Maggie's hand. "If ever you come to Skeaton,
Miss Cardinal," he said, "we shall be delighted ..." His eyes she
noticed were light blue like a baby's. She felt that he liked her and
would not forget her.
"Come, Paul," said Miss Trenchard, rather sharply Maggie fancied.
Soon afterwards Philip departed. "Must finish that beastly thing," he
assured his wife.
"It's an article," Katherine Mark explained. "He's always writing about
politics. I hate them, so he pretends to hate them too. But he doesn't
really. He loves them."
"I know nothing about politics," said Maggie with profound truth. "Your
husband must be very clever."
"He's better than that," said Katherine with pride; "I hate perfect
people, don't you?"
"Oh, indeed I do!" said Maggie from the bottom of her heart. They then
came to her particular business.
"I would like to get some work to do," said Maggie, "that would make me
independent. I have three hundred pounds of my own."
"What can you do?" asked Katherine.
"I don't know," said Maggie.
"Can you shorthand and type?"
"No, I can't," said Maggie; "but I'll learn."
"Must you be independent soon?" asked Katherine. "Are you unhappy where
you are?"
Maggie paused.
"Don't tell me anything you oughtn't to," said Katherine.
"No," answered Maggie. "It isn't that exactly. I'm not happy at home,
but I think that's my fault. My aunts are very good. But I want to be
free. It is all very religious where I am, and they want me to believe
in their religion. I'm afraid I'm not religious at all. Then I don't
want to be dependent on people. I'm very ignorant. I know nothing about
anything, and so long as I am kept with my aunts I shall never learn."
She stopped abruptly. She had thought suddenly of Martin. His coming
had altered everything. How could she say what she wanted her life to
be until her relation to him were settled? Everything depended on that.
This sense of Martin's presence silenced her. "If I can feel," she said
at last, "that I can ask your advice. I have nobody ... We all seem ...
Oh! how can I make you understand properly! You never will have seen
anything like our house. It is all so queer, so shut-up, away from
everything. I'm like a prisoner ..."
And that is perhaps what she was like to Mrs. Mark, sitting there in
her funny ill-fitting clothes, her anxious old-fashioned face as of a
child aged long before her time. Katherine Mark, who had had, in her
life, her own perplexities and sorrows, felt her heart warm to this
strange isolated girl. She had needed in her own life at one time all
her courage, and she had used it; she had never regretted the step that
she had then taken. She believed therefore in courage ... Courage was
eloquent in every movement of Maggie's square reliant body.
"She could be braver than I have ever been," she thought.
"Miss Cardinal," she said, "I want you to come here whenever you can.
You haven't seen our boy, Tim, yet--one and a half--and there are so
many things I want to show you. Will you count yourself a friend of the
house?"
Maggie blushed and twisted her hands together.
"You're very good," she said, "but ... I don't know ... perhaps you
won't like me, or what I do."
"I do like you," said Katherine. "And if I like any one I don't care
what they do."
"All the same," said Maggie, "I don't belong ... to your world, your
life. I should shock you, I know. You might be sorry afterwards that
you knew me. Supposing I broke away ..."
"But I broke away myself," said Katherine, "it is sometimes the only
thing to do. I made my mother, who had been goodness itself to me,
desperately unhappy."
"Why did you do that?" asked Maggie.
"Because I wanted to marry my husband."
"Well, I love a man too," said Maggie.
"Oh, I do hope you'll be happy!" said Katherine. "As happy as I am."
"No," said Maggie, shaking her head, "I don't expect to be happy."
She seemed to herself as she said that to be hundreds of miles away
from Katherine Mark and her easy life, the purple curtains and her
amber light.
"Not happy but satisfied," she said.
She saw that it was five minutes past six. "I must go," she said.
When they said good-bye Katherine bent forward and kissed her.
"If ever, in your life. I can help in any way at all," she said, "come
to me."
"I'll do that," promised Maggie. She coloured, and then herself bent
forward and kissed Katherine. "I shall like to think of you--and all
this--" she said and went.
She was let out into the outer world by the smiling maid-servant.
Bryanston Square was dark with purple colour as though the purple
curtains inside the house had been snipped off from a general curtained
world. There was a star or two and some gaunt trees with black pointing
fingers, and here a lighted window and there a shining doorway; behind
it all the rumble of a world that disregarded love and death and all
the Higher Catechism.
Maggie confronted a policeman.
"Please, can you tell me where the Marble Arch is?" she asked.
"Straight ahead, Miss," he answered, pointing down the street, "you
can't miss it."
And she could not. It soon gleamed white ahead of her against the thick
folds of the sky. When she saw it her heart raced in front of her, like
a pony, suddenly released, kicking its heels. And her thoughts were so
strangely wild! The lovely night, yes, purple like Mrs. Mark's curtains
and scented oranges, chrysanthemums, boot-polish and candied sugar.--Oh
yes! how kind they had been--nice clergyman, fat a little, but young in
spite of his white hair, and Aunt Anne in bed under the crucifix
struggling and Mr. Crashaw smiling lustfully at Caroline ... The long
black streets, strips of silk and the lamps like fat buttons on a coat,
there was a cat! Hist! Hist! A streak of black against black ... and
the Chapel bell ringing and Thomas' fiery eyes ...
Behind all this confusion there was Martin, Martin, Martin. Creeping
nearer and nearer as though he were just behind her, or was it that she
was creeping nearer and nearer to him? She did not know, but her heart
now was beating so thickly that it was as though giants were wrapping
cloth after cloth round it, hot cloths, but their hands were icy cold.
No, she was simply excited, desperately, madly excited.
She had never been excited before, and now, with the excitement, there
was mingled the strangest hot pain and cold pity. She noticed that now
her knees were trembling and that if they trembled much more she would
not be able to walk at all.
"Now, Maggie, steady your knees!" she said to herself. But look, the
houses now were trembling a little too! Ridiculous those smart houses
with their fine doors and white steps to tremble! No, it was her heart,
not the houses ...
"Do I look queer?" she thought; "will people be looking at me?"
Ideas raced through her head, now like horses in the Derby.
"Woof! Poof! Off we go!" St. Dreot's, that square piece of grass on the
lawn with the light on it, her clothes, the socks that must be mended,
Caroline's silk and the rustle it made, shops, houses, rivers, seas,
death--yes, Aunt Anne's cancer ... and then, with a great upward surge
like rising from the depths of the sea after a dive, Martin! Martin,
Martin! ... For a moment then she had to pause. She had been walking
too fast. Her heart jumped, then ran a step or two, then fell into a
dead pause ... She went on, seeing now nothing but two lamps that
watched her like the eyes of a giant.
She was there! This was a Marble Arch! All by itself in the middle of
the road. She crossed to it, first went under it, then thought that he
would not see her there so came out and stood, nervously rubbing her
gloved hands against one another and turning her head, like a bird,
swiftly from side to side. She didn't like standing there. It seemed to
make her so prominent. Men stared at her. He should have been there
first. He might have known ... But perhaps Caroline never gave him the
letter. At that thought her heart really did stop. She was terrified at
once as though some one had told her disastrous news. She would not
wait very long; then she would go home ...
She saw him. He stood only a little away from her staring about him,
looking for her. She felt that she had not seen him for years; she
drank in his sturdiness, his boyish face, his air of caring nothing for
authority. She had not seen his dark blue overcoat before. He stood
directly under a lamp, swaying ever so little on his heels, his
favourite, most characteristic, movement. He stood there as though he
were purposely giving her a portrait that she might remember for the
rest of her days. She was too nervous to move and then she wanted that
wonderful moment to last, that moment when she had realised that he had
come to meet her, that he was there, amongst all those crowds, simply
for her, that he was looking for her and wanting her, that he would be
bitterly disappointed did she not come ...
She saw him give a little impatient jerk of the head, the same movement
that she had seen him make in Chapel. That jerk set her in motion
again, and she was suddenly at his side. She touched his arm; he turned
and his eyes lit with pleasure. They smiled at one another and then,
without a word, moved off towards the park. He took her arm and put it
through his. She felt the warm thick stuff of the blue coat, and
beneath that the steady firm beat of his heart. They walked closely
together, his thigh pressed against hers, and once and again her hair
brushed his cheek. She was so shy that, until they were through the
gates of the park, she did not speak. Then she said:
"I was so afraid that Caroline would not give you the note."
"Oh, she gave it me all right." He pressed her arm closer to him. "But
I expect that she read it first."
"Oh, is she like that?"
"Yes, she's like that ..."
There was another pause; they turned down the path to the right towards
the trees that were black lumps of velvet against the purple sky. There
were no stars, and it was liquidly dark as though they ploughed through
water. Maggie felt suffocated with heat and persecuted by a strange
weariness; she was suddenly so tired that it was all that she could do
to walk.
"I'm tired ..." she murmured--"expecting you--afraid that you wouldn't
come."
"I believe that I would have come," he answered quite fiercely, "even
if I hadn't had the note--I was determined to see you to-night some
way. But you know, Maggie, it had better be for the last time ..."
"No," she said, whispering, "it's the first time."
"Let's sit down here," he said. "We're alone all right."
There was no seat near them. The trees made a cave of black above them,
and in front of them the grass swept like a grey beach into mist. There
was no sound save a distant whirr like the hum of a top that died to a
whisper and then was lashed by some infuriated god to activity again.
They sat close together on the bench. She felt his arm move out as
though he would embrace her, then suddenly he drew back.
"No," he said, "until we've talked this out we've got to be like
strangers. We can't go on, you know, Maggie, and it's no use your
saying we can."
She pressed her hands tightly together. "I can convince him better,"
she thought to herself, "if I'm very quiet and matter-of-fact." So,
speaking very calmly and not looking at him, she went on:
"But, Martin, you promised last time that it would depend on me ... You
said that if I didn't mind your being married and was willing to take
risks that we would go on together. Well, I've thought all about it and
I know that I'd rather be miserable with you than happy with any one
else. But then I shouldn't be miserable. You seem to think you could
make me miserable just as soon as you like. But that depends on myself.
If I don't want to be miserable nobody can make me be." She paused. He
moved a little closer and suddenly took her hand.
She drew it away and went on:
"Don't think I'm inexperienced about this, Martin. You say I know
nothing about men. Perhaps I don't. But I know myself. I know what I
want, and I can look after myself. However badly you treated me, it
would be you that I was with all the time."
"No, no, Maggie," he answered, speaking rapidly and as though he were
fiercely protesting against some one. "It isn't that at all. You say
you know yourself--but then I know myself. It isn't only that I'm a
rotten fellow. It is that I seem to bring a curse on every one I'm fond
of. I love my father, and I've come back and made him miserable. It's
always like that. And if I made you miserable it would be the worst
thing I ever did ... I don't even know whether I love you. If I do it's
different from any love I've ever had. Other women I'd be mad about.
I'd go for them whatever happened and got them somehow, and I wouldn't
care a bit whether they were happy or no. But I feel about you almost
as though you were a man--not sensually at all, but that safe steady
security that you feel for a man sometimes ... You're so restful to be
with. I feel now as though you were the one person in the world who
could turn me into a decent human being. I feel as though we were just
meant to move along together; but then some other woman would come like
a fire and off I'd go ... Then I'd hate myself worse than ever and be
really finished."
Maggie looked at him.
"You don't love me then, Martin?" she asked.
"Yes I do," he answered suddenly, "I keep telling myself that I don't,
but I know that I do. Only it's different. It's as though I were loving
myself, the better part of myself. Not something new and wildly
exciting, but something old that I had known always and that had always
been with me. If I went away now. Maggie, I know I'd come back one
day--perhaps years afterwards--but I know I'd come back. It's like that
religious part of me, like my legs and my arms. Oh! it's not of my own
comfort I'm doubting, but it's you! ... I don't want to hurt you,
Maggie darling, just as I've hurt every one I loved--"
"I'll come with you, Martin," said Maggie, "as long as you want me, and
if you don't want me, later you will again and I'll be waiting for you."
He put his arm round her. She crept up close to him, nestled into his
coat and put her hand up to his cheek. He bent down his head and they
kissed.
After that there could be no more argument. What had he not intended to
press upon her? With what force arid power had he not planned to
persuade her? How he would tell her that he did not love her, that he
would not be faithful to her, that he would treat her cruelly. Now it
was all gone. With a gesture of almost ironic abandonment he flung away
his scruples. It was always so; life was stronger than he. He had
tried, in this at least, to behave like a decent man. But life did not
want him to be decent ...
And how he needed that rest that she gave him! As he felt her close up
against him, folded into him with that utterly naif and childish trust
that had allured and charmed him on the very first occasion, he felt
nothing but a sweet and blessed rest. He would not think of the future.
He would not ... HE WOULD NOT. And perhaps all would be well. As he
pressed her closer to him, as he felt her lips suddenly strike through
the dark, find his check and then his mouth, as he felt her soft
confident hand find his and then close and fold inside it like a
flower, he wondered whether this once he might not force things to be
right. It was time he took things in hand. He could. He must ...
He began to whisper to her:
"Maggie darling ... It mayn't be bad. I'll find out where this other
woman is and she shall divorce me. I'll arrange it all. And we'll go
away somewhere where I can work, and we won't allow anybody to
interfere. After all, I'm older now. The mess I've been in before is
because I always make wrong shots ..."
His words ceased. Their hearts were beating too tumultuously together
for words to be possible. Maggie did not wish to speak, she could not.
She was mingled with him, her heart his, her lips his, her check his
... She did not believe that words would come even though she wished
for them. She was utterly happy--so utterly that she was, as it were,
numb with happiness. They murmured one another's names.
"Martin."
"Maggie! ..."
At last, dreaming, scarcely knowing what they did, like two children in
a dark wood, they wandered towards home.