PARADISE
Maggie had never really been happy before. She had of course not known
this; her adventures in introspection had been very few, besides she
had not known what happiness looked like; her father, her uncle, and
her aunts were not exactly happy people ...
Now she flung herself without thought or care into a flood of
happiness, and as sometimes occurs in life, she was granted by the
gods, beneficent or ironic as you please, a period of security when
everything menacing or dangerous withdrew and it seemed as though the
whole world were in a conspiracy to cheat her into confidence. She was
confident because she did not think; she simply did not think at all.
She loved Martin and Martin loved her; cased in that golden armour, she
confronted her aunts and the house and the world behind the house with
a sublime and happy confidence. She loved her aunts now, she loved
Martha and the parrot and the cat, and she could not believe that they
did not all love her. Because Martin loved her the rest of the world
must also do so, and if they did not she would compel them.
For three whole weeks the spell lasted, for three marvellous golden
weeks. When she looked back afterwards she wondered that she had not
seen many things, warnings, portents, whatever you please to call them.
But for three weeks she saw nothing but Martin, and for three weeks he
saw nothing but Maggie.
She began her career of defiance at once by informing Aunt Anne that
she was now going out every morning to do her shopping. Considering the
confinement to the house that her life had always been, this was such a
declaration of independence as those walls had never encountered
before. But Aunt Anne never turned one of her shining neatly ordered
hairs. "Shopping, my dear?" she asked. "Yes," said Maggie, looking her
full in the face. "What sort of shopping, dear?" "Oh, I don't know,"
said Maggie. "There's always something every day."
Maggie had an uncomfortable feeling that her aunt had in some way
mysteriously defeated her by this sudden abandonment of all protest,
and for a moment the mysterious house closed around her, with its
shadows and dim corners and the little tinkling Chapel hell in the
heart of it. But the thought of Martin dissolved the shadows, and off
she went.
They agreed to meet every morning at eleven o'clock outside Hatchards,
the bookseller's, in Piccadilly. They chose that place because you
could look into a bookseller's window for quite a long time without
seeming odd, and there were so many people passing that no one noticed
you. Their habit then was to walk to the corner of the Green Park and
there climb on to the top of a motor omnibus and go as far as they
could within the allotted time. Maggie never in after life found those
streets again. They had gone, she supposed, to Chelsea, to St. John's
Wood, to the heart of the city, to the Angel, Islington, to Westminster
and beyond, but places during those three weeks had no names, streets
had no stones, houses no walls, and human figures no substantiality.
They tried on one or two occasions to go by Tube, but they missed the
swing of the open air, the rush of the wind, and their independence of
men and women. Often he tried to persuade her to stay with him for
luncheon and the afternoon, but she was wiser than he.
"No," she said, "everything depends on keeping them quiet. A little
later on it will be lovely. You must leave that part of it to me."
She promised him definitely that soon they should go to a matinee
together, but she would not give her word about a whole evening. In
some strange way she was frightened of the evening, although she had
already pledged her word to him on something much more final: "No," she
thought to herself, "when the moment comes for me to leave everything,
I will go, but he shall know that I am not doing it cheaply, simply for
an evening's fun." He felt something of that too, and did not try to
persuade her. He hugged his unselfishness; for the first time in his
life it seemed to him that he wanted to follow somebody else's will;
with the other women it had been so different, if they had not wanted
to obey him he had left them. But indeed all through these three weeks
they were discovering themselves and one another, and, as though it
were part of the general conspiracy, only the best part of themselves.
On the top of the 'bus, as they sat close together, their hands locked
under his overcoat, the world bumping and jolting, and jogging about
their feet, as though indeed public houses and lamp-posts and cinemas
and town halls and sweet-shops were always jumping up tiptoe to see
whether they couldn't catch a glimpse of the lovers, Martin and Maggie
felt that they were really divine creatures, quite modestly divine, but
nevertheless safe from all human ravages and earthly failings, wicked
and cowardly thoughts, and ambitions and desires.
Indeed, during those three weeks Maggie saw nothing of Martin's
weaknesses, his suspicions and dreads, his temper and self-abasement.
The nobility that Martin had in him was true nobility, his very
weaknesses came from his sharp consciousness of what purity and
self-sacrifice and asceticism really were, and that they were indeed
the only things for man to live by. During those weeks he saw so truly
the sweetness and fidelity and simplicity of Maggie that his conscience
was killed, his scruples were numbed. He did not want during those
weeks any sensual excitement, any depravity, any license. A quiet and
noble asceticism seemed to him perfectly possible. He burst out once to
Maggie with: "I can't conceive, Maggie, why I ever thought life
complicated. You've straightened everything out for me, made all the
troubles at home seem nothing, shown me what nonsense it was wanting
the rotten things I was always after."
But Maggie had no eloquence in reply--she could not make up fine
sentences; it embarrassed her dreadfully to tell him even that she
loved him, and when he was sentimental it was her habit to turn it off
with a joke if she could. She wanted terribly to ask him sometimes what
he had meant when he said that he didn't love her as he had loved other
women. She had never the courage to ask him this. She wondered
sometimes why it had hurt her when he had said he loved her as though
she were a man friend, without any question of sex. "Surely that's
enough for me," she would ask herself, "it means that it's much more
lasting and safe." And yet it was not enough.
Nevertheless, during these weeks she found his brotherly care of her
adorable, he found her shyness divine.
"Every other woman I have ever been in love with," he told her once, "I
have always kept asking them would they ever change, and would they
love me always, and all that kind of nonsense. A man always begins like
that, and then the time comes when he wishes to God they would change,
and they won't. But you're not like that, Maggie, I know you'll never
change, and I know that I shall never want you to." "No, I shall never
change," said Maggie.
At the very beginning of the three weeks a little incident occurred
that was trivial enough at the time, but appeared afterwards as
something significant and full of meaning. This incident was a little
talk with poor Mr. Magnus. Maggie always thought of him as "poor Mr.
Magnus." He seemed so feckless and unsettled, and then he wrote novels
that nobody wanted to buy. He always talked like a book, and that was
perhaps one reason why Maggie had avoided him during these last months.
Another reason had been that she really could not be sure how far he
was in the general conspiracy to drive her into the Chapel. He would
not do that of his own will she was sure, but being in love with Aunt
Anne he might think it his sacred duty, and Maggie was terrified of
"sacred duties." Therefore when, three days after that great evening in
the park, he caught her alone in the drawing-room, her first impulse
was to run away; then she looked at him and found that her love for the
world in general embraced him too "if only he won't talk like a book,"
she thought to herself.
He looked more wandering than ever with his high white collar, his
large spectacles, and his thin, dusty hair; the fire of some hidden,
vital spirit burnt beneath those glasses, and his face was so kindly
that she felt ashamed of herself for having avoided him so often.
"Both the aunts are at Miss Avies'." she said.
"Oh," he said, looking at her rather blankly.
"Perhaps I'll come another time," and he turned towards the door.
"No," she cried. "You won't--I haven't seen you for months."
"That's not my fault," he answered. "I thought we were to have been
friends, and you've run away every time you saw the corner of my dusty
coat poking round the door."
"Yes," she said, "I have--I've been frightened of every one lately."
"And you're not now?" he asked, looking at her with that sudden bright
sharpness that was so peculiarly his.
"No, I'm not," she answered. "I'm frightened of nobody."
He said nothing to that, but stared fixedly in front of him.
"I'm in a bad mood," he said. "I've been trying for weeks to get on
with a novel. Just a fortnight ago a young man and a young woman took
shelter from the rain in the doorway of a deserted house--they're still
there now, and they haven't said a word to one another all that time."
"Why not?" asked Maggie.
"They simply won't speak," he answered her.
"Well then, I should start another story," said Maggie brightly.
"Ah," he said, shaking his head. "What's the use of starting one if you
know you're never going to finish it, what's the use of finishing it if
you know no one is ever going to read it?" Maggie shook her head.
"You've changed. When I saw you last you told me that you didn't mind
whether any one ever read them or not, and that you just wrote them
because you loved doing them."
"Every author," said Mr. Magnus gloomily, "says that to himself when he
can't sell his books, but it's all vainglory, I'm afraid."
"I can't help being glad," Maggie answered. "There are such interesting
things you might do. I can't imagine why any one writes books now when
there are so many already in existence that nobody's read."
He wasn't listening to her. He looked up suddenly and said quite wildly:
"It's terrible all this that's going on. You know about it, of
course--Warlock's visions I mean and the trouble it's making. I'm
outside it and you're outside it, but we're being brought into it all
the same--how can we help it when we love the people who are in it?
It's so easy to say that it's nonsense, that people ought to be wiser
nowadays; that it's hysteria, even insanity--I know all that and, of
course, I don't believe for a moment that God's coming in a chariot of
fire on New Year's Eve especially for the benefit of Thurston, Miss
Avies and the rest, but that doesn't end it--it ought to end it, but it
doesn't. There's more in some people's madness than in other people's
sanity, and anyway, even if it's all nonsense it means life or death to
your aunt and some of the others, and it means a certain breaking up of
all this place. And it probably means the triumph of a charlatan like
Thurston and the increase of humbug in the world and the discouragement
of all the honest adventurers. I call myself an adventurer, you know,
Miss Maggie, although I'm a poor specimen--but I'm damned if it isn't
better to be a poor adventurer than to be a fat, swollen, contented
stay-at-home who can see just as far as his nose and his cheque-book
and might be just as well dead as alive--I beg your pardon," he added
suddenly, "for swearing--I'm not myself, I'm not really."
She could see indeed that he was in great agitation of mind, and some
of this agitation communicated itself to her. Had she not been selfish
in forgetting all this through her own happiness? He was right, she was
part of it all, whether she wished or no.
"What do you think," she asked, dropping her voice a little, "is the
real truth about it?"
"The real truth"--he looked at her suddenly with a tender, most
charming smile that took away his ugliness. "Ah, that's a tremendous
question. Part of the truth is that Warlock's been praying so much and
eating so little that it would be odd indeed if he didn't see visions
of some sort. And part of the truth is that there are a lot of women in
the world who'll believe simply anything that you tell them. It's part
of the truth, too, that there are scoundrels in the world who will take
advantage of anybody's simple trust to fill their pockets. But that's
not all," he went on, shaking his head, "no, that's not all. It's part
of the truth that there is a mystery, and that human beings will go on
searching whatever all the materialists and merchants in the world can
try to do to stop them. I remember years ago an old man, a little off
his dot, telling my father that he, the old man, was a treasure hunter.
He told my father that the world was divided into two halves, the
treasure hunters and the Town Councillors, and that the two halves
would never join and never even meet. My father, who was a practical
man, said that the old idiot should be shut up in an asylum, and
eventually I believe he was. 'We'll have him going off one day,' my
father said, 'in a cargo boat with a map in his pocket, looking for
gold pieces.' But it wasn't gold pieces he was after."
To Maggie it was always irritating the way that Mr. Magnus would wander
away from the subject. She brought him back now with a jerk.
"No, but what do you think is going to happen?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he answered. "I can't tell, but I know all my happiness
here is coming to an end, and I don't know what I shall do. If I were a
strong man I would go out and find all the other treasure hunters, all
the vicious ones, and the diseased, and the drunkards and the
perverted, and I would try to found some kind of a society so that they
should recognise one another all the world over and shouldn't feel so
lonely and deserted and hopelessly done for. I don't mean a society for
improving them, mind you, or warning them or telling them they'll go to
prison if they don't do better, that's none of my business. But it
seems to be a solemn fact that you aren't a treasure hunter until
there's something wrong with you, until you've got a sin that's
stronger than you are, or until you've done something that's
disgraceful in the eyes of the world--not that I believe in weakness or
in giving way to things. No one admires the strong and the brave more
than I do. I think a man's a fool if he doesn't fight as hard as he
can. But there's a brotherhood of the dissatisfied and the uneasy and
the anxious-hearted, and I believe it's they who will discover the
Grail in the end if it's ever going to be discovered at all."
He broke off, then said restlessly: "I think things out, you know, and
at last I come to a conclusion, and it ends by being a platitude that
all the goody, goody books have said times without number. But all the
same that doesn't prevent it from being my discovery. It's nothing to
do with goodness and nothing to do with evil, it's nothing to do with
strength, and nothing to do with weakness; it simply is that there are
some people who want what they can see and no more, and there are
others, the baffled, fighting and disordered others, for whom nothing
that they can see with their mortal eyes is enough, and who'll be
restless all their days with their queer little maps and their
mysterious, thumbed directions to some island or other that they'll
never reach and never even get a ship for."
He stopped and there was a long silence between them, Maggie was silent
because she never knew what to say when he burst into parables and
divided mankind, under strange names, into different camps. And yet
this time she did know a little what he was after. There was that house
of Katharine Mark's the other day, with its comfort and quiet and kind
smiling clergyman--and there was this strange place with all of them in
an odd quiver of excitement waiting for something to happen. But she
couldn't speak to him about that, she couldn't say anything to him at
all. He cleared his throat as though he were embarrassed and were
conscious that he had been making a fool of himself. Maggie felt that
he was disappointed in her. She was sorry for that, but she was as she
was.
"Well, I'm glad you're happy," he said, looking at her wistfully. He
got up and stood awkwardly looking at her.
"I want you to promise me something," he said, "that's really what I
came for. I want you to promise that you won't in any case leave your
aunts before the New Year."
She got up, looked at him and gave him her hand.
"Yes," she said. "I promise that."
The year had only a week or two more to run and she was not afraid of
that little space of time. He seemed to want to say something more, but
after hesitating he suddenly made a bolt for the door and she could
hear him stumbling downstairs.
She forgot him almost as soon as he had left the house, but his words
nevertheless brought her to consider her aunts. Next morning at
breakfast time she had a further reason to consider them. Aunt
Elizabeth met her, when she came downstairs, with a very grave face.
"Your aunt's had a terrible night," she said. "She's insisted on coming
downstairs--I told her not. She never listens to anything I say."
Maggie could see that something more than ordinary had occurred. Aunt
Elizabeth was on the edge of tears, and in so confused a state of mind
that she put sugar into her egg, and then ate it with a puzzled air as
though she could not be sure why it tasted so strange. When Aunt Anne
came in it was plain enough that she had wrestled with demons during
the night. Maggie had often seen her before battling with pain and
refusing to be defeated. Now she looked as though she had but risen
from the dead. It was a ghost in very truth that stood there; a ghost
in black silk dress with white wristbands and a stiff white collar,
black hair, so tightly drawn back and ordered that it was like a
shining skull-cap. Her face was white, with the effect of a chalk
drawing into which live, black, burning eyes had been stuck. But it was
none of these things that frightened Maggie. It was the expression
somewhere in the mouth, in the eyes, in the pale bony hands, that spoke
of some meeting with a torturer whose powers were almost
omniscient--almost, but not quite. Pain, sheer physical, brutal pain,
came into the room hulking, steering behind Aunt Anne's shoulder. It
grinned at Maggie and said, "You haven't begun to feel what I can do
yet, but every one has his turn. You needn't flatter yourself that
you're going to escape."
When Aunt Anne moved now it was with infinite caution, as though she
were stalking her enemy and was afraid lest any incautious gesture
should betray her into his ambush. No less marked than her torture was
her courage and the expectation that sustained that courage. She had
her eyes set upon something very sure and very certain. Maggie was
afraid to think what that expectation might be. But Maggie had grown
during these last weeks. She did not now kiss her aunt and try to show
an affection which was not so genuine as she would have liked it to be
by nervous little demonstrations. She said gravely:
"I am so sorry, Aunt Anne, that you have had so bad a night. Shall I
stay this morning and read to you?"
Even as she spoke she realised with sharp pain what giving up her
meeting with Martin meant.
"What were you going to do, dear?" asked Aunt Anne, her eyes seeing as
ever far beyond Maggie and the room and the house. As she spoke Thomas,
the cat, came forward and began rubbing himself very gently, as though
he were whispering something to his mistress, against her dress. Maggie
had an impulse, so strong that it almost defeated her, to burst out
with the whole truth. She almost said: "I'm going out to meet Martin
Warlock, whom I love and with whom I'm going to live." She hated
deceit, she hated lies. But this was some one else's secret as well as
her own, and telling the truth now would only lead to much pain and
distress, and then more lies and more deceit.
So she said:
"I'm going to Piccadilly to get some things for Aunt Elizabeth."
"Yes," said Aunt Elizabeth, "she saves me a great deal of trouble.
She's a good girl."
"I know she's a good girl," said Aunt Anne softly.
It was strange to remember the time not so long ago when to run out of
the house and post a letter had seemed a bold defiant thing to do
threatened with grave penalties. The aunts had changed their plans
about her and had given her no reasons for doing so. No reasons were
ever given in that house for anything that was done. The more Maggie
went out, the more she was drawn in.
On her way to Martin that morning the figure of Aunt Anne haunted her.
She felt for a brief moment that she would do anything, yes, even
surrender Martin, to ease her aunt's pain. And then she knew that she
would not, and she called herself cruel and selfish and felt for an
instant a dark shadow threatening her because she was so. But when she
saw Martin outside Hatchard's she forgot it all. It was a strange thing
that during those weeks they neither of them asked any questions about
their home affairs. It was as though they both inwardly realised that
there was trouble for them of every kind waiting outside and that they
could only definitely realise their happiness by building a wall around
themselves. They knew perhaps in their secret hearts, or at any rate
Martin knew, that they could not hold their castle for long. But is not
the gift of three perfect weeks a great thing for any human being to be
given--and who has the temerity, the challenging audacity, to ask with
confidence for even so much?
On this particular morning Martin said to her:
"Before we get into the 'bus, Maggie, you've got to come into a shop
with me." He was especially boyish and happy and natural that morning.
It was strange how his face altered when he was happy. His brow was
clear, his eyes were bright, and he had a kind of crooked confident
smile that must have won anybody's heart. His whole carriage was that
of a boy who was entering life for the first time with undaunted
expectation that it could give him nothing but the best and jolliest
things. Maggie as she looked at him this morning caught her breath with
the astonishing force of her love for him. "Oh, how I'll look after
him," was her thought. "He shall never be unhappy again."
They crossed the street together, and stood for a moment close together
on the kerb in the middle way as though they were quite alone in the
world. She caught his arm and they ran before a charging motor-'bus,
laughing. People turned back and looked at them, so happy they seemed.
They walked up Bond Street and Martin drew her into a jeweller's. She
had never possessed any ornament except her coral necklace in all her
life and she knew now for the first time how terribly she liked
beautiful things. It was useless of her to pretend that she did not
know that he was going to give her something. She did not pretend. A
very thin old man, who looked like one of the prophets, drawn out of
the wilderness and clothed by the most fashionable of London tailors,
looking over their shoulders as he talked to them because he saw at
once that they were not customers who were likely to add very much to
his shop's exchequer, produced a large tray, full of rings that
glittered and sparkled and danced as though they'd been told to show
themselves off to the best possible advantage. But for Maggie at once
there was only one possible ring. It was a thin hoop of gold with three
small pearls set in the middle of it; nothing very especial about it,
it was in fact less striking than almost any other ring in the tray.
Maggie looked at the ring and the ring looked at Maggie. It was as
though the ring said, "I shall belong to you whether you take me or no."
"Now," said Martin with a little catch in his throat, "you make your
choice, Maggie." He was not a millionaire, but he did honestly intend
that whatever ring she chose she should have.
"Oh," said Maggie, whispering because the shop was so large and the
prophet so indifferent, "don't you think you'd better choose?"
At the same time she felt the anxious gaze of the three little pearls
upon her.
"No," said Martin, "I want to give you what you'd like."
"I'd like what you'd like," said Maggie, still whispering.
At this banality the prophet made a little impatient movement as though
he really could not be expected to stand waiting there for ever. Also a
magnificent lady, in furs so rich that you could see nothing of her but
her powdered nose, was waving ropes of pearls about in a blase manner
very close to them, and Maggie had a strange, entirely unreasonable
fear that this splendour would suddenly turn round and snatch the
little pearl ring and go off with it.
"I'd like that one," said Maggie, pointing. She heard the prophet sniff
his contempt, but she did not care.
Martin, although he would willingly have given her the most gorgeous
ring in the shop, was delighted to find that her taste was so good, and
like herself. He had great ideas about taste, some of his secret fears
had been lest her strange uncouth upbringing should have caused her to
like gaudy things. He could have hugged her before them all when she
chose that particular ring, which he had himself noticed as the
prettiest and neatest there.
"Just see whether it fits, darling," he said. At the word "darling" the
prophet cast another despairing look about the shop, as though he knew
well the length of time that lovers could take over these things if
they once put their hearts into it. Maggie was ashamed of her stubby
finger as she put her hand forward--but the ring fitted exactly.
"That's right," said Martin, "Now we'll have this put into a case."
"How wonderful he is," thought Maggie. Not as other women might have
thought, "I wonder how many times he's done this before." Maggie
thought then that it would be more proper to retire a little so that
she should not know the price--and she stood in the doorway of the
shop, looking upon the wind and weather in Bond Street and the
magnificent motor car that belonged to the lady with the pearls and a
magnificent chauffeur, who was so superior that it was probable that
the lady with the pearls belonged to him--and she saw none of these
things, but was conscious of herself and Martin wrapt together in a
mist of happiness that no outside force could penetrate.
As they walked away from the shop she said: "Of course I won't be able
to wear it."
He put the little square box, wrapped in tissue paper, into her hand,
and answered: "You can wear it on a ribbon under your dress."
"Oh yes," she whispered, pressing his hand for a moment.
They did not climb on to a 'bus that morning, but walked ahead blindly,
blissfully, they did not know whither. They were now in wild days at
the end of November and the weather was tempestuous, the wind blowing
with a screaming fury and black clouds scudding across the sky like
portents. Little heavy drops of rain fell with a sudden urgency as
though they were emphasising some secret; figures were swept through
the streets and the roar of the wind was so vehement that the traffic
seemed to make no sound. And yet nothing happened--no great storm of
rain, no devastating flood. It was a day of warning.
They noticed nothing of the weather. It might have been a world of
burning sunshine for all they saw of it.
"You know," said Martin, "I've never liked giving any one anything so
much as I liked giving you that ring."
"I wish I could give you something too," she said.
"Well, you can," he said. "Some little thing that I'll carry about with
me always ... Oh, Maggie!" he went on. "Isn't it strange how easy it is
to be good when no one worries you. These last ten days with you I
couldn't have done anything wrong if I tried. It isn't fair to say we
can help ourselves. We can't. Something just comes along and seizes you
and makes you do wrong."
"Oh, I don't know," said Maggie. "Don't let's talk about those things.
It's like Mr. Magnus, who says we're treasure hunters or pools of
water, or old men in asylums. I don't understand all that. I'm just
Maggie Cardinal.--All the same I believe one can do what one wants to.
I don't believe people can make one do things."
"Do you think any one could make me not love you if they tried? I shall
love you always, whatever happens. I know I shall never change. I'm not
one to change. I'm obstinate. Father used to say 'obstinate as a pig.'"
That made her think of the old days at St. Dreot's, just then, as they
seemed, so remote. She began to tell him of those old days, of the
Vicarage, of the holes in the floor and the ceiling, of her loneliness
and the way the villagers used to talk, of her solitary walks and
looking down on to Polchester from the hill-top, of her father's sudden
death, of Uncle Mathew ...
"He's a funny old codger," said Martin. "What does he do?"
"I don't know," said Maggie. "I really don't know how he lives I'm
afraid it's something rather bad."
"I've known men like that," said Martin, "plenty, but it's funny that
one of them should be connected with you. It doesn't seem as though you
could have anything to do with a man like that."
"Oh, but I like him!" said Maggie. "He's been very kind to me often.
When I was all alone after father died he was very good--" She stopped
abruptly remembering how he'd come into her bedroom. "Drink's been his
trouble, and never having any money. He told me once if he had money
he'd never do a thing he shouldn't." "Yes," said Martin. "That's what
they always say when they haven't any money, and then when they have
any it's worse than ever."
He was thinking, perhaps, of himself. At any rate to stop remorseful
thoughts he began to tell her about his own childhood.
"Mine was very different from yours, Maggie," he said. "I wasn't
lonely. You don't know what a fuss people made of me. I was conceited,
too. I thought I was chosen, by God, out of all the world, that I was
different from every one else, and better too. When I was only about
nine, at home one Sunday they asked me if I'd say a prayer, and I did,
before them all, made it up and went on for quarter of an hour. Lord! I
must have been an awful child. And outside the religious time I was as
wicked as I could be. I used to go down into the kitchen and steal the
food and I'd dress up as a ghost to frighten Amy and I'd break mother's
china. I remember once, after we'd had a service in the drawing-room
and two girls had gone into hysterics, I stole down into the kitchen in
my nightdress to get some jam and I found one of the Elders making love
to the cook. They were both so fat and he had his coat and waistcoat
off and he was kissing her neck. My word, they were frightened when
they saw me standing there! After that I could do what I liked with the
cook ... We used to have prayer meetings in the drawing-room, and
sometimes father would pray so hard that the glass chandelier would
shake and rattle till I used to think it would come down."
"And the funny thing was that one minute I'd be pinching Amy who was
kneeling next to me and the next I'd be shaking with religion and
seeing God standing right in front of me by the coal-scuttle. Such a
mix-up! ... it was then and so it is now. Amy always hated me. She was
really religious and she thought I was a hypocrite. But I wasn't
altogether. There was something real in it and there still is."
"Didn't you go to school?" asked Maggie.
"No, that was the mistake. They never sent me. Father loved me too much
and he wanted to keep me always with him. He tried to teach me himself
but I never learnt anything. I always knew I could turn them round my
little finger. I always knew he'd rather do anything than make me
unhappy. Sometimes we had lovely times together, sitting in the dusk in
the front of the fire. Do you know, Maggie, I've never changed in my
love for father? I've changed in everything else, but in that never.
Yet I've hurt him over and over and over again. I've done things ..."
Here he broke off. To-day was to be happy; they must build up their
walls faster, faster, faster to keep the world out. He would think of
nothing, nothing but the present. The wind blew and the heavy drops of
rain fell, one and one and one, slowly between the gusts. Ho drew her
close to him.
"Are you cold?"
"No, Martin dear."
"I suppose we should turn back."
"Yes, it's getting late."
"It will seem hours until to-morrow."
"And to me too."
They were at the end of the Green Park. There was no one there. They
kissed and clung together and Maggie's hand was warm inside his coat.
Then they turned back and entered the real world once more ...
"Now we must have our matinee," Martin said. Maggie could not refuse
and besides she herself wanted it so badly. Also the three weeks were
drawing to a close, and although she did not know what was in store for
them, she felt, in some mysterious way, that trouble was coming.
"Yes, we'll have our matinee," she said.
It was a terrific excitement for her, apart altogether from her love
for Martin. She had, of course, never been to a theatre. She could not
imagine in the least what it was like. It so happened, by a wonderful
chance, that a note came from Katherine Mark asking her to tea. She
showed this to the aunts and said that she would accept it. She wrote
to Katherine Mark and refused and told Martin that for that Wednesday
afternoon she was quite free until at least seven o'clock. She wove
these deceits with strong disgust. She hated the lies, and there were
many, many times when she was on the edge of confessing everything to
the aunts. But the thought of what would follow that confession held
her back. She could not make things harder for Martin.
Nevertheless she wondered why when she felt, in herself, no shame al
all at the things that she was doing, she should have to lie to cover
those things up. But everything in connection with the Chapel seemed to
lie.--The place was wrapped in intrigue and double-dealing. How long
would it be before she and Martin were out of it all?
She was to meet him by one of the lions in Trafalgar Square. She bought
a golden chrysanthemum which she stuck into the belt of her black dress
and she wore her coral necklace. She was tired of black. She sometimes
thought she would spend all her Three Hundred Pounds on clothes ...
To-day, as soon as she was out of the house and had turned the corner
into King William Street, she slipped on her ring. She kissed it before
she put her glove on. He was waiting there looking like a happy
schoolboy, that way that she loved him to look. That slow crooked smile
of his, something that broke up his whole face into geniality and
friendliness, how she adored him when he looked like that! He was
wearing clothes of some rough red-brown stuff and a black knitted tie--
She was carrying something, a little parcel in tissue paper. She
pressed it into his hand when they met. He opened it, just like a boy,
chuckling, his eyes shining, his fingers tearing the paper in his
eagerness. Her present was a round locket of thin plain gold and inside
was the funniest little black faded photograph of Maggie, her head
only, a wild untidy head of hair, a fat round schoolgirl face--a
village snapshot of Maggie taken in St. Dreot's when she was about
fifteen.
"It's all I had," she said. "I remembered it the other day and I found
it. A travelling photographer took it one day. He came to the village
and every one was taken, father and all. It's very bad but it was the
only one."
"It's wonderful," said Martin, and truly it was wonderful. It had
caught by a marvellous chance, in spite of its shabby faded darkness,
the very soul of Maggie. Was it her hair, her untidy hair, or the
honesty of her eyes, or the strength and trustiness of her mouth? But
then it was to any one who did not know her the bad dim photograph of
an untidy child, to any one who did know her the very stamp and witness
of Maggie and all that she was. Maggie had spent twenty-five shillings
on the locket (she had had three pounds put away from her allowance in
her drawer).
It was a very simple locket, thin plain gold round and smooth, but
good, and it would last.
"You darling," whispered Martin. "There couldn't have been anything
more like you if you'd been taken by the grandest photographer in
London."
They started off towards Shaftesbury Avenue where the theatre was, and
as they went a funny little incident occurred. They were both too happy
to talk and Maggie was too happy even to think. Suddenly she was aware
that some one was coming towards her whom she knew. She looked and
tugged herself from that world of Martin and only Martin in which she
was immersed. It was the large, smiling, rosy-cheeked, white-haired
clergyman, Mr. Trenchard. Yes, certainly it was he. He had recognised
her and was stopping to speak to her. Martin moved on a little and
stood waiting for her. She was confused and embarrassed but pleased too
because he seemed glad to see her. He looked the very picture of a
well-dressed, kindly, genial friend who had known her all his life. He
was wearing a beautifully shining top-hat and his stiff white collar
gleamed. Yes, he was glad to see her and he said so. He remembered her
name. "Miss Cardinal," he called her. How had she been? What had she
been doing? Had she seen Mrs. Mark? He was staying with his sister at
Brown's Hotel in Somewhere--she didn't catch the name of the street.
His sister would be so glad if she would come and see them one day.
Would she come? He wouldn't tie her down, but she had only to write and
say she was coming ...
He took her hand and held it for a moment and looked in her eyes with
the kindliest friendliest regard. He was glad to have seen her. He
should tell his sister ...
He was gone and Maggie really could not be sure what she had said.
Something very silly she could be certain. Stupid the pleasure that his
few words had given her, but she felt once again, as she had felt in
Katherine Mark's drawing-room, the contact with that other world, that
safe, happy, comfortable, assured world in which everything was exactly
what it seemed. She was glad that he liked her and that his sister
liked her. Then she could not be so wild and odd and uncivilised as she
often was afraid that she was. She rejoined Martin with a little added
glow in her cheeks.
"Who was that?" Martin asked her rather sharply.
She told him.
"One of those humbugging parsons," he said. "He stood over you as
though he'd like to eat you."
"Oh, I'm sure he's not a humbug," she answered.
"You'd be taken in by anybody," he told her.
"Oh, no, I shouldn't," she said. "Now forget him."
And they did. By the time they had reached Piccadilly Circus they were
once more deep, deep in one another. They were back in their dark and
gleaming wood.
The Lyric Theatre was their destination. Maggie drew a breath as they
stepped into the hall where there stood two large stout commissionaires
in blue uniforms, gold buttons, and white gloves. People pushed past
them and hurried down the stairs on either side as though a theatre
were a Nothing. Maggie stood there fingering her gloves and feeling
lonely. The oil painting of a beautiful lady with a row of shining
teeth faced her. There were also some palms and a hole in the wall with
a man behind it.
Soon they too passed down the stairs, curtains were drawn back, and
Maggie was sitting, quite suddenly, in a large desert of gold and red
plush, with emptiness on every side of it and a hungry-looking crowd of
people behind a wooden partition staring at her in such a way that she
felt as though she had no clothes on. She gave a hurried glance at
these people and turned round blushing.
"Why don't they sit with us?" she whispered to Martin.
"They're the Pit and we're the Stalls," he whispered to her, but that
comforted her very little.
"Won't people come and sit where we are?" she asked.
"Oh yes; we're early," he told her.
Soon she was more composed and happier. She sat very close to Martin,
her knee against his and his hand near to hers, just touching the
outside of her palm. Her ring sparkled and the three little pearls
smiled at her. As he breathed she breathed too, and it seemed to her
that their bodies rose and fell as one body. Without looking directly
at him, which would, she knew, embarrass him before all those hungry
people behind her, she could out of the corner of her eye see the ruddy
brown of his cheek and the hard thick curve of his shoulder. She was
his, she belonged to no one else in the world, she was his utterly.
Utterly. Ever so swiftly and gently her hand brushed for an instant
over his; he responded, crooking his little finger for a moment inside
hers. She smiled; she turned round and looked at the people
triumphantly, she felt a deep contented rest in her heart, rich and
full, proud and arrogant, the mother, the lover, the sister, the child,
everything to him she was ...
People came in, the theatre filled, and a hum of talk arose, then the
orchestra began to tune, and soon music was playing, and Maggie would
have loved to listen but the people must chatter.
When suddenly the lights went down the only thing of which she was
conscious was that Martin's hand had suddenly seized hers roughly,
sharply, and was crushing it, pressing the ring into the flesh so that
it hurt. Her first excited wondering thought then was:
"He doesn't care for me any more only as a friend.--There's the other
now ..." and a strange shyness, timidity, and triumph overwhelmed her
so that her eyes were full of tears and her body trembling.
But as the play continued she must listen. It was her very first play
and soon it was thrilling to her so that she forgot, for a time, even
Martin. Or rather Martin was mingled with it, absorbed in it, part of
it, and she was there too sharing with him the very action of the
story. It was a very old-fashioned play about a little Charity girl who
was brought up by a kindly middle-aged gentleman who cared for nothing
but books. He brought her up on his own plan with a view to marrying
her afterwards. But meanwhile, of course, she saw a handsome young
soldier who was young like herself, and she was naturally bored with
the studious gentleman. Maggie shared all the feelings of the Charity
girl. Had she been brought up, say by a man like Mr. Trenchard and then
had met Martin, why, of course, she could have gone only one way.
The soldier was not like Martin, being slim and curled and beautiful,
nor was the studious gentleman like Mr. Trenchard, being thin and tall
with a face like a monk and a beautiful voice. But the girl was like
Maggie, prettier of course, and with artful ways, but untidy a little
and not very well educated. At the first interval, when the lights were
up and the band was playing and the people walking, Martin whispered:
"Do you like it, Maggie?"
"I love it," she answered.
And then they just sat there, without another word between them,
pressed close together.
A little song ran through the play--one of Burns's most famous songs,
although Maggie, who had never read anything, did not know that. The
verses were:
O my luve's like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June: O my
luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune!
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I: And I will luve
thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry:
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun; I
will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve, And fare thee weel a while! And I
will come again, my Luve, Tho' it were ten thousand mile.
First the handsome soldier sang this to the Charity girl, and then,
because it was a sentimental tune, it was always turning up through the
play, and if one of the characters were not singing it the orchestra
was quietly playing it. Maggie loved it; she was not sentimental but
she was simple, and the tune seemed at once to belong to herself and to
Martin by natural right.
As the story developed it became more unreal and Maggie's unerring
knowledge of the difference between sense and nonsense refused to
credit the tall handsome villainness who confronted the Charity girl at
the ball. The Charity girl had no right to be at the ball and people
stood about in unnatural groups and pretended not to listen to the loud
development of the plot and no one seemed to use any of their
faculties. Then at the end, when the middle-aged gentleman nobly
surrendered his Charity girl to the handsome soldier, the little tune
came back again and all was well.
They came out of the theatre into lights and shadows and mists cabs and
omnibuses and crowds of people ... Maggie clung to Martin's arm. It
seemed to her, dazzled for an instant, that a great are of white
piercing light cut the black street and that in the centre of this arc
a tree, painted green, stood, and round the tree figures, dark shapes,
and odd shadows danced. She shaded her eyes with her hand. The long
shining line of Shaftesbury Avenue ran out, from her feet, into thick
clusters of silver lights. The tree had vanished and now there were
policemen and ladies in hats and strange mysterious houses. She caught
above it all, between the roofs, the pale flat river of the evening sky
and in this river stars like golden buttons floated. The moon was there
too, a round amber coin with the laughing face stamped upon it.
"What time is it?" she asked Martin.
"Half-past five," he said. "How early the moon rises. It's only
climbing now. See the chimney's tossing it about."
"I must get home."
"No, no." He held her arm fiercely. "You must come to tea. That's part
of the programme. We have plenty of time before seven o'clock." She
knew that she ought to return. Something seemed to tell her, as she
stood there, that now was the moment to break this off. But when his
hand was on her arm, when he was so close to her, she could not leave
him. She would have one hour more ... He took her across the street,
down into darkness, up into light. Then they went into a shop, up some
stairs, and were suddenly in a little room with a table with a cloth, a
window looking out into the lamp-lit square, cherry-coloured curtains
and gay hunting pictures on the walls. Martin pushed a bell in the wall
and a stout waiter, perspiring, smiling, a napkin in his hand, came to
the door. "Tea," said Martin, and he vanished. "It's all right," he
said, drawing her to a creaking wicker armchair near the empty
fireplace. "No one will interrupt us. They know me here. I ordered the
room yesterday." Tea came, but she could not eat anything. In some
strange way that moment in the theatre when he had pressed her hand had
altered everything. She recognised in herself a new Maggie; she was
excited with a thick burning excitement, she was almost sleepy with the
strain of it and her cheeks were hot, but her throat icy cold. When she
told him that she wasn't hungry, he said, "I'm not either." Then he
added, not looking at her, "That fellow won't be back for an hour." He
came and stood by her looking down on her. He bent forward over the
chair and put his hands under her chin and pressed her face up towards
his. But he did not kiss her. Then he took her hands and pulled her
gently out of the chair, sat down on it himself, then, still very
tenderly, put his arms round her and drew her down to him. She lay back
against him, her cheek against his, his arms tight around her. He
whispered to her again and again, "Darling ... Darling ... Darling."
She felt now so terribly part of him that she seemed to have lost all
her own identity. His hands, softly, tenderly passed up and down her
body, stroking her hair, her cheeks, her arms. Her mouth was against
his cheek and she was utterly motionless, shivering a little sometimes
and once her hand moved up and caught his and then moved away again. At
last, as it seemed from an infinite distance, his voice came to her,
speaking to her. "Maggie, darling," he said, "don't go back till late
to-night. You can say that those people asked you to stay to dinner.
Your aunts can't do anything. Nothing can happen. Stay with me here and
then later we'll go and have dinner at a little place I know ... and
then come back here ... come back here ... like this. Maggie, darling,
say you will. You must. We mayn't have another chance for so long.
You're coming to me afterwards. What does it matter, a week or two
earlier? What does it matter, Maggie? Stay here. Let us love one
another and have something to think about ... to remember ... to
remember ... to remember ..." His voice seemed to slip away into
infinity as voices in a dream do. She could not say anything because
she was in a dream too. She could only feel his hand stroking her face.
He seemed to take her silence for consent. He suddenly kissed her
furiously, pressing her head back until it hurt. That woke her. She
pushed his arms back and sprang up. Her hands were trembling. She shook
her head. "No, Martin. No, not now." "Why not?" He looked at her
angrily from the chair. His face was altered, he was frowning, his eyes
were dark. "I'm not going to stay now." Her voice shook in spite of
herself. With shaking hands she patted her dress. "Why not?" he asked
again. "I'm not. I promised the aunts. Not now. It would spoil
everything." "Oh, very well." He was furious with her. He wouldn't meet
her eyes. "Not now." She felt that she would cry; tears flooded her
eyes. "It's been so lovely ... Martin ... Don't look like that. Oh, I
love you too much!" She broke off. With a sudden movement she fell at
his feet; kneeling there, she drew his hands to her face, she kissed
them, the palms of his hands over and over again. His anger suddenly
left him. He put his arms round her and kissed her, first her eyes,
then her cheeks, then, gently, her mouth. "All right," he said. "Only I
feel somehow ... I feel as though our time had come to an end." "But it
shan't?" He turned upon her fiercely, held her hands, looked in her
face. "Maggie, do you swear that you'll love me always, whatever I am,
whatever I do?" "I swear," she answered, gazing into his eyes, "that
I'll love you always, whatever you are, whatever you do." Then she went
away, leaving him by the table, staring after her. In the street she
saw that her chrysanthemum was in pieces, torn and scattered and
destroyed. She slipped off the ring and put it into her pocket, then,
with forebodings in her heart, as though she did indeed know that her
good time was over, she turned towards home. She was right. Her good
time was over. That night she was left alone. Martha let her in and,
regarding her darkly, said nothing. The aunts also said nothing,
sitting all the evening under the green shade of the lamp in the
drawing-room, Aunt Anne reading a pamphlet, Aunt Elizabeth sewing.
Maggie pretended to read but she saw no words. She saw only the green
lamp like a dreadful bird suspended there and Aunt Anne's chiselled
sanctity. Over and over again she reasoned with herself. There was no
cause for panic. Nothing had happened to change things--and yet--and
yet everything was changed. Everything had been changed from that
moment when Martin pressed her hand in the theatre. Everything! ...
Danger now of every sort. She could be brave, she could meet anything
if she were only sure of Martin. But he too seemed strange to her. She
remembered his dark look, his frown when she had refused him. Oh, this
loneliness, this helplessness. If she could be with him, beside him,
she would fear nothing. That night, the first faint suspicion of
jealousy, of doubt, an agonising dart of pain at the knowledge of what
it would mean to her now if he left her, stirred in her breast. This
room was stifling. She got up from her chair, went to the window,
looked out between the thick curtains at the dark deserted street.
"What is it, Maggie?" "Nothing, Aunt Anne." "You're very restless,
dear." "It's close. May I open the door?" "A little, dear." She opened
the door and then sat there hearing the Armed Men sway ever so
slightly, tap, tap, against the wall in the passage. That night she
scarcely slept at all, only tumbling into sudden nightmare dreams when
something had her by the throat and Martin was not there. In the
morning as soon as she could escape she hurried to Piccadilly. Martin
was waiting for her. When she saw him she realised at once that her
good time was indeed over. His face was white and strained. He scarcely
looked at her but stared anxiously up and down the street.
"What is it?" she asked breathlessly. "Look here, Maggie," he began,
still scarcely looking at her. "I must get back at once. I only came to
tell you that we must drop our meetings for the next day or two--until
it's blown over."
"Until what's blown over," she asked him.
"It's my father. I don't know what exactly has happened. They'll none
of them tell me, damn them. It's Caroline Smith. She's been talking to
Amy about you and me. I know that because of what Amy said about you at
breakfast this morning."
"What did she say?"
"She wouldn't speak out. She hinted. But she admitted that Caroline
Smith had told her something. But she doesn't matter. Nothing matters
except father. He mustn't be excited just now. His heart's so bad. Any
little thing ... We must wait."
She saw that he was scarcely realising her at all. She choked down all
questions that concerned themselves. She simply agreed, nodding her
head.
He did look at her then, smiling as he used to do.
"It's awfully hard on us. It won't be for more than a day or two. But I
must put things right at home or it will be all up. I don't care for
the others, of course, but if anything happened to father through me
..." He told her to write to the Charing Cross post-office. He would do
the same. In a day or two it would be all right. He pressed her hand
and was gone.
When she looked about her the street seemed quite empty although it was
full of people. She threw up her head. She wouldn't be beaten by
anybody ... only, it was lonely going back to the house and all of them
... alone ... without Martin.
She cried a little on her way home. But they were the last tears she
shed.