IT was on one of those warm, sunshiny mornings with which Londoners are
sometimes startled in mid January that Maddison drove down to Victoria
Station _en route_ for Brighton. So glorious was the weather that,
despite his heartache at parting with Marian, he found himself looking
forward eagerly to his holiday by the sea.
The platform was crowded, and having run himself rather close for time,
he found there would be difficulty in securing a comfortable seat. As he
made his way along through the din and hubbub a hand was laid heavily on
his shoulder and turning round sharply he faced Philip West.
“Hullo, Maddison, off to Brighton? Come along with us, I’ve got a
compartment—lots of room, and the missis and Miss Lane. Mrs. West’s not
been up to much lately, and the doctor says ‘Brighton.’ Might be worse;
some pokey, invalidy place down in the South. I can manage to amuse
myself in Brighton, and it’s convenient for town anyway.”
“Nothing much the matter, I hope?”
“Oh, nothing at all, probably; translated into brutal truth, the doctor
said she ate too many sweets and nonsense and too little food. Run
down.”
Maddison thought West’s manner rather callous, and wondered what Marian
would feel if he ever came to speak so lightly of her. Was West already
finding out the emptiness of his house of love?
Mrs. West greeted Maddison effusively, and Miss Lane did so quietly; a
minute later they were rushing along Southward Ho!
“What brings you out of town, Maddison?” West asked.
“Work. I’ve got some work I want to do and don’t seem to settle down to
it in town.”
“But is Brighton any better for work?” Mrs. West said, as she snuggled
down into her corner and drew her furs closely round her. Maddison
thought she looked all the prettier for her frailty.
“I’m not going to Brighton,” he answered; “I’ve got a cottage over at
Rottingdean, two rooms and a kitchen. I’m going to settle down there for
a bit.”
“How nice! We can run over in the motor, and you can begin my portrait
right away. Will you?”
West laughed, hoping that the direct question would embarrass Maddison,
who replied promptly:
“That will do splendidly, if you’re stopping long enough.”
“We _will_ stop long enough. I’m so glad to have an excuse for not going
back too soon. The country’s stupid in the winter and Brighton’s jolly,
although Philip did try to grumble about coming.”
“‘Try’ is the word,” rejoined West, biting the end of his cigar; “try!
When you get married, Maddison, you’ll remember that little word ‘try.’”
“Don’t be naughty, Philip,” said Mrs. West, pouting. “You know you
always have your own way, except about grumbling. Life’s too short for
grumbling, isn’t it, Mr. Maddison?”
“Much. Your husband as a business man ought to know better than to waste
his time.”
“What a prosaic view to take!” Mrs. West answered. “He ought to leave
business behind him in the office and just waste his time when he’s at
home. But all men are prosaic, I think.”
“And all women are—?” asked West.
“Just what you like to make them,” his wife replied. “That’s the worst
of it—what _we_ are depends on what _you_ are.”
“What do you say to such views, Alice?” West said, appealing to Miss
Lane, who was looking out of the window at the miles of dreary suburbs
flying by.
“Nothing!” she answered. “You know I never theorize about things. What’s
the use of it?”
“Practical, steady, unemotional Alice!” laughed Mrs. West; but Maddison
knew better, for he caught a glimpse of a look of contemptuous scorn
before Miss Lane turned away again to the window.
“Where are you going to put up?” Maddison asked.
“At the Metropole, it’s amusing,” answered Mrs. West. “You must come in
and dine with us.”
“Maddison hates big hotels,” said West.
“Big anything,” interjected Maddison, “except when Nature provides them.
Most of men’s big things are vulgar failures. London, for example, you
needn’t go farther.”
“Is a bad example,” rejoined West. “That example won’t prove your point:
just the opposite. On the whole, London is a success; it’s the most
comfortable, most luxurious and most beautiful city in the world.”
“And the most comfortless, most squalid, and most ugly,” said Maddison.
“That’s where London is such a dismal failure; she’s just like a horse
with an uncertain temper: one moment an angel, the next a devil.”
“Or you can put it another way and draw another conclusion; London has
just that charm which belongs to a woman—you’re never quite certain of
her—at least if she’s worth bothering about. It may be a scratch, it
may be a kiss.”
“I don’t like your talking that way, Phil,” said Mrs. West; “you know
you don’t mean it.”
“It’d be too stupid if we only said what we meant; most of us mean such
commonplaces.”
Mrs. West picked up a magazine, and neither of the men feeling inclined
to talk, the conversation dropped.
West was glad of Maddison’s company and pleased that he was to be a
neighbor. The portrait-painting would occupy some of that time which
Agatha found weighing so heavy on her hands, and would relieve him from
being always called upon to lighten her burden and to listen to her
complaints. He had been accustomed for years past to have his own way
with those around him, and the women with whom he had chiefly mixed had
been those who must please to live. Now and again he had felt the need
for a settled home and had vaguely contemplated matrimony. But the idea
had not crystallized until last spring he had met Agatha, who seemed to
offer him all that he wanted in a wife—good looks, good temper, good
nature. The love-making had been quick and strong; the engagement brief.
Now, a few months after their marriage, he was beginning to understand
the nature of his acquisition wholly he thought, forgetting that a man
has never yet entirely understood a woman any more than any woman has
entirely understood a man. We set out to judge others by their motives,
which we hope to trace from their actions, but half of what we do in
life is purposeless, merely impulsive, and the other half unintentional.
It was West’s dangerous pride to feel convinced that he owned the gift
of seeing into the hearts and souls of men and women. He had come to the
conclusion that good looks were all his wife’s endowment, and that the
good nature would not stand against the test of self-sacrifice in any
degree however small, and that the good temper was not proof against
disappointment and contradiction. Once or twice lately she had asked him
for extravagances which he told her he considered unnecessary, which
when she pressed him he said he could not afford, his means not being
limitless. He did not add that at the moment it would have been more
correct to say that his income was by no means so large as the world
believed it to be, one or two speculations having turned out
considerable losses. He was not embarrassed as yet, but the next few
months would be full of anxiety, with another brilliant success or a
startling failure at the end of them. He had never before felt any
desire to share his business worries with anyone, had never, in fact,
had anyone with whom he was tempted to do so, but now to a certain
degree it irritated him to know that if he had desired to confide in
Agatha it would lead to no good result; the mere fact that she was not
his helpmeet made him wish for such an one.
Maddison parted with the Wests at Brighton Station, and having confided
his luggage and paraphernalia to the carrier who had driven in to meet
him, set forth on foot for Rottingdean. The air was crisper, fresher
here than it had been in London, and as he strode along the broad
pathway on the edge of the cliff, drinking in the salt breeze, he felt
that he would have been perfectly content had only Marian been by his
side.
Then his thoughts turned to the Wests. The man was strong and could take
care of himself, but he was sorry for Agatha. There was to him something
pathetic in her foolish, pretty helplessness, the pathos that there is
in a dumb beast’s futile efforts to understand a world that is beyond
his ken. He knew now that he could paint her portrait, not in the
jeering spirit he had intended, but so that he would show in the pretty
face the struggling of a soul unborn. Would it ever see the light of
life? Perhaps better not, he thought; souls suffer more keenly than mere
clay.
He paused when he had left the houses some way behind, and looked out
over the white-flecked sea, boundless, apparently, save for the distant
bank of mist that crept treacherously along; away to the right the dun
cloud of smoke over the town; behind him the rolling downs; to the left,
Rottingdean, nestling down in its cradle; and before him the
white-flecked sea. No living being in sight, yet thousands so near. He
felt lonely, and there swept over him a passionate longing for Marian,
to have her standing with her hand in his, looking out with him over the
white-flecked sea; they two together, what would it matter then if there
were no other living soul in the world? It took all his will to master
his impulse to retrace his steps, and to go straight back to town. Could
he endure the staying down here? Could he wait even the few days he had
promised to remain before going up to see her? Where was she at this
moment? What was she doing? Was she, perhaps, thinking of him?
He remembered so well the building of the cottage—how clearly its white
walls stood out against the green background of the downs, and how
pleasantly the months had slipped away when he stayed there the last
summer; he almost dreaded now to go on and to cross its threshold; it
would be so dreary and so empty.
With a half laugh, he shook himself free from these oppressive thoughts,
and hurried along down the chalky road into the village, where many
homely acquaintances greeted him warmly, expressing surprise at his
visiting them at such a time of the year.
Mrs. Witchout, who “did” for him, stood on the doorstep ready to greet
him. She was an abnormally tall, abnormally thin, abnormally
pinched-faced and red-nosed woman, which beacon was a libel upon her
teetotal principles and practice.
“The fire’s burnin’ nicerly, and your luggidge’s all piled upinaheap,”
said Mrs. Witchout, in her piping voice, which came startlingly as would
the note of a penny whistle from a lengthy organ pipe. “I didn’t like to
sort it out not knowin’-whatswhat.”
Mrs. Witchout’s most remarkable gift was a breathless way of running two
or three words into one, which was not only astonishing but often
perplexing.
“That’s all right, Mrs. Witchout. How are you?”
“I’m myself, which comes to the same as sayin’ I’m middlin’; w’en I
ain’t got a cold in the ’ead I’m sure to have a blister on my ’eel, but
I managesterfergitit by not thinkin’ abart myself. Ain’t you ’ungry,
sir? I do ’ope so. I’ve got two sich nice chops, pertaties, cabidgeanda
cheese.”
“Hungry! I should say I am! The walk across the cliffs is better than
any pick-me-up in the world. So on with the chops and out with the
cheese.”
The north end of the cottage was occupied by one large room, lit by a
long lattice window and a skylight above; a passage ran from the front
door right through to the back, and on the south there were two floors,
the lower half kitchen, half sitting room, the upper a bedroom reached
by a narrow stair from the passage. A snug nest Maddison had thought it,
but despite the bright fires in studio and kitchen and Mrs. Witchout’s
warm welcome, there was a sense of desolateness about the place that
hurt him. He carried his portmanteau up to the bedroom, unstrapped it,
then sat down on the edge of the bed and looked out of the open window,
through which the breeze came cool and crisp. There lay the sea, spread
out like a great, gray drugget, and in the distance the gathering fog.
It _was_ dreary.
“Chopson the table!” Mrs. Witchout called up the stairs.
“Wat’llyoudrink? Beer?”
“Beer will do A1!”
Again Maddison tried to shake himself free of his oppression, and ran
down the stairs.
“You’re a brick, Mrs. Witchout: chops and cheese and beer! Here goes!”
Mrs. Witchout tucked her hands under her apron and looked on approvingly
as he set to vigorously.
“Brick!” she said meditatively. “Now I wonders could you explain
w’ytheycall pussons ‘bricks’? It’s meant a complimentapparently, but I
don’t see ’ow: bricks bein’ ’ardandangular, which I ’ope I ain’t either.
Perhaps it alludes to being full baked. Wot do you think, sir?”
“I think it’s a very interesting question and that this is excellent
beer. I hope it doesn’t ruin your reputation as a teetotaler your
purchasing beer?”
“It’s a poor sort of repitation as wouldn’t stand a dozen of bassordered
forsomeoneelse. Not that people don’t talk when they’ve got no reason
for to do so. If people only opened their mouths when there was
somethin’ worth comin’ out to come out most folks would go aboutwi’
their mouths shut. We didn’t expect you down afore the springtime
anyway, but I keeps everything ready, as you toldmeto, and pleasant nice
work it is lookin’ arter ’m. Stoppin’ long, sir?”
“A month or so, if you don’t get too tired of me.”
Mrs. Witchout smiled broadly, as who should say that the impossible had
been mentioned.
After lunch, leaving Mrs. Witchout to wash up and set things tidy and
ready for tea, Maddison devoted his energies to unpacking and putting
everything in order. He took “The Rebel” from its packing-case, and set
it up on an easel, and sat down before it. It was a good picture and he
knew it, but he knew also how much better he had meant it to be. In the
waning afternoon light the unfinished portions scarcely showed; there
sat Marian, the rebel, the queen of rebels, bright, beautiful—his, “The
Rebel!” Should he paint a companion picture?—Marian sitting by the
fireside—here in his cottage studio—the light of love in her eyes. He
looked across at the empty chair, a fellow of one that she often sat in
at home—there she was visible, to his mind’s eye, sitting there,
gracious and lovely—his and his only.