IX

It is to be regretted that very many of The Chase shared the views of

Mrs. Vincent. Mrs. Vincent was a tireless propagandist of her own views

about other people. The Whittakers, and the Dimples, and the Tathams,

and all the more charitable and kindly people who were faintly shocked

but unconvinced by the whole affair, preferred not to talk about it at

all. So Mrs. Vincent steadily gained ground and John Egerton became a

dark and suspected figure, regarded with a shuddering horror by most of

his neighbours. He found this out very soon at the Underground station

in the mornings. Here on the platform there were always many of The

Chase, watching with growing irritation the non-stop trains thundering

past, and meanwhile chattering with one another of their hopes and fears

and domestic crises. John soon found that men became engrossed in

advertisements or conversations or newspapers as he approached, or

sidled away down the platform, or busily lit their pipes. And twice,

before he realized what was in their minds, his usual "Good morning" was

met with a stony, contemptuous stare. After that he took to avoiding

the men himself. He noticed then that the burly and genial ticket

collector had begun to withhold his invariable greeting and comment on

the weather. And after that John travelled by bus to Hammersmith and

took the train there. Nobody knew him there. And he left off walking up

the Square, but went by Red Man Lane, which was longer. In the Square he

might meet anybody. In the Square everybody knew him. In the Square he

felt that every one discussed him as he passed; the women chattering at

their cottage doors lowered their voices, he was sure, and muttered

about him. The milk-boys stared at him unusually, and laughed suddenly,

contemptuously, when he had gone. Or so he thought. For he was never

sure. He felt sometimes that he would like to stop and make sure. He

would like to say to the two young women with the baskets whom he passed

every day, "I believe you were saying something about me.... I know what

it was.... Well, it's all rot.... It was another man did it, really....

I can't explain ... but you've no right to look at me like that." He

longed to be able to justify himself, for he was a warm and sympathetic

soul, and liked to be on terms of vague friendliness and respect with

people he met or passed in the streets or dealt with daily in shops; he

liked saying "Good morning" to milkmen and porters and policemen and

paper-boys. And the fear that any day any of these people might ignore

him or insult him was a terrible fear.

Contrary to the common belief, it is more difficult for an innocent man,

if he be shy and sensitive, to look the whole world in the face than it

is for the abandoned evil-doer with his guilt fresh upon him. So John

avoided people he knew as much as he could. He avoided even his friends.

The kindly Whittakers made special efforts to bring him to their house.

They urged him to come in on their Wednesday evenings that they might

show the Vincents and the Vincent following what decent people thought

of him. But he would not go. He could not face the possibility of a

public insult in a drawing-room, some degrading, hot-cheeked, horrible

"scene."

And after all, it was only for a little time. Mrs. Byrne was still in a

bad way, but she was "out of the wood," Mrs. Bantam said. And when she

was quite well, Stephen of course would somehow manage to put things

right, in spite of his extraordinary conduct at the inquest. He did not

see Stephen for ten days after the inquest. He had felt sometimes that

he would like to see him, would like to tell him how awkward he had made

things by the way he had given his evidence. But it seemed hardly fair

to worry him. He must be worried enough, as it was, poor man. And John

felt that he would never be able to approach the topic without seeming

to be questioning Stephen's loyalty. And he did not want to do that. He

was quite sure that Stephen had never meant to put things as he had. It

was nervousness; and the muddle-headedness that comes from too much

thinking, too much planning, and the musty, intimidating atmosphere of

the Coroner's Court, and the stupid badgering of the smug Coroner.

Probably Stephen had hardly known what he was saying. He himself had

felt like that. And Stephen had had far more reason for nervousness in

that place. When Margery was better, he would go round and see Stephen,

and Stephen would "do the right thing." That was his own phrase.

Meanwhile, people must be avoided, and Mrs. Bantam was a great comfort.

Mrs. Bantam had shown herself a loyal and devoted soul. She, at least,

had perfect faith in him. There had never been a sack in _this_ house,

_that_ she knew. And that was all about it. Since her spirited

appearance in the Coroner's Court, her inter-prandial addresses were

confined to two themes--the ineptitude of the law and the high character

of her employer. She was wearisome, but she was very soothing to the

injured pride of a shy man who conceived himself as the detested byword

of West London.

There was one other spark of comfort. The Tarrants were away in the

country and had missed all this. But Mrs. Vincent was a friend of Mrs.

Tarrant and would no doubt write to her. John wondered whether he ought

to write to Muriel Tarrant. He did not think so. They were not really on

writing terms.

And in the big room over the river, where the blinds were always down,

but the sun thrust through in brilliant slices at the corners, Margery

Byrne lay very still--sleeping and thinking, sleeping and thinking, of

Stephen and Michael Hilary and Joan, but chiefly of Stephen. In the

morning and in the evening he came up and sat with her for an hour, and

he was very tender and solicitous. She saw that he was pale and weary

looking, with anxious eyes, and she was touched and secretly surprised

that her illness should have made him look like this. Indeed, it pleased

her. But she told him that he must worry about her no more; she told him

he must eat enough, and not sit up working too late. Then she would say

that she wanted to sleep, lest he should become fidgety or bored with

sitting in the darkened room. She would kiss him very fondly, and follow

him with her eyes while he walked softly to the door. Then she would lie

in a happy dream listening to the birds in the ivy, and the soft

river-sounds, the distant cries of the bargemen, and the melancholy

whistle of tugs, and the ripple of their wash about the moored boats;

she would lie and listen and make huge plans for the future--infinite,

impossible, contradictory plans. And the centre of all of them was

Stephen.

* * * * *

And Stephen would go down into the warm study and sit down in the sunny

window and write. Ever since that Sunday morning when the detective came

with the sack he had been writing. It was extraordinary that he was able

to write. He knew that it was extraordinary. Sometimes he sat in the

evening and tried to understand it. In that fearful time before the

detective came, and most of all in those terrible days when Emily Gaunt

was drifting irrecoverably up and down in the river, no conceivable

power could have wrung from him a single line. He could no more have

written poetry than he could have written a scientific treatise. But

now, amazingly, he could command the spirit, the idea, the

concentration--everything; he could become absorbed, could lose himself

in his work. The idea he was working on had been with him for a long

time; he had made notes for the poem many weeks back, long before Emily

had come to the house; he had written a few lines of it just before she

left it. But one wanted more than ideas to do good work of that kind;

one must have--what was it?--"peace of mind," presumably. There must be

no tempers, or terrors, or worries in the mind. And, one would have

thought, no remorse, no pricking of conscience. But perhaps that did not

matter. For otherwise how could he now have "peace of mind"? Stephen

felt that his conscience was working; he was sorry for what he had

done--truly sorry. He was sorry for poor old John. But it did not

trouble him when he sat down in the sunshine to write. He could forget

it then. But that day when the baby came, when he had seen the sack go

past and chased it in the boat, and the next day when Emily was still at

large, drifting bulkily for the first police-boat to see--on those days

he could not have forgotten. He had been afraid--afraid for Margery, and

afraid for himself. And now, somehow, he was not afraid. Why was that?

Distressing things, appalling things, might still happen, but he was not

disturbed by them. The day after the inquest he had been a little

disturbed; he had not been able to settle down to work that day; he had

wandered vaguely up and down the house, had sat in the garden a little,

had rowed in the boat a little--restless; and he had slept badly. But

the next day he had worked successfully many hours. In a little diary he

kept a record of work--so many hours, such and such a poem, so many

hundreds of words. All these weeks he had automatically made the entries

as usual, and from Sunday, 1st June, the figures moved steadily upward.

After the 5th there was a distinct bound--seven hours on the 6th. June

1st was the day the policeman came--the day he had told the policeman

about John--almost by accident, he felt. Yes; he had not meant anything

then. And the 4th was the day of the inquest--the day he had made all

those other suggestions about John--quite intentionally--and cleverly,

too. That was the secret of it, of course, that was the real foundation

of his peace of mind--the way he had managed to entangle John in the

affair. He had John hopelessly entangled now.

It was strange how it had worked out. In the beginning he had honestly

intended "to do the right thing." Or he believed he had. From the time,

at any rate, that John had become seriously involved, he had really

meant to "own up" as soon as Margery was well enough. Probably it would

have meant suicide, he remembered--a long time ago it seemed--thinking

of that; but he was going to do _something_. And then the inspiration

and the chance had come hand in hand that Sunday morning to show him a

better way. It _was_ a better way. He knew quite certainly now that he

would never own up--not even if Margery was to die. He would never say a

word to clear John's character. He had a fairly clear idea now of what

would happen. There would (he hoped) be no further proceedings; the

evidence was too thin. All that John would suffer would be this local

gossip and petty suspicion; and he would have to live that down. John

would not mind--a good fellow, John. But if he did mind, if he ever

showed signs of expecting to be cleared, if he ever suggested a

confession or any rubbish of that sort, the answer would be simple:

"Really, my dear John, the evidence is so strong against you that I

don't really think I should be _believed_ now if I said _I_ did it. And

you must remember, John, you've anyhow sworn all sorts of things on your

oath that you'd have to explain away--the Civil Service wouldn't like

that--perjury, you know. Of course, if you _want_ me, John--but I really

think it would be better from _your_ point of view--I only want to do

the best for _you_, John--"

He could hear himself solemnly developing the argument; and he could see

John bowing to his judgment, acquiescing.

If he didn't acquiesce; if he made trouble, or if the police made

trouble--but Stephen preferred not to think of that. Yet if it did

happen he would be ready. If it was oath against oath, with the scales

weighted already against John, he knew who would be believed.

And, after all, John Egerton, good fellow as he was, would leave but a

tiny gap in the world. What were his claims on life? What had he to give

to mankind? A single man, parents dead, an obscure Civil Servant, at

five hundred a year--a mere machine, incapable of creation, easily

replaced, perhaps not even missed. What was he worth to the world beside

the great Stephen Byrne? Supposing they both died now, how would their

obituary notices compare? John's--but John would not have one; his death

would be announced on the front page of the newspapers. But about

himself there would be half-columns. He knew what they would say:

"Tragic death of a young poet still in his prime ... Keats ...

unquestionable stamp of genius ... a loss that cannot be measured ...

best work still unwritten ... engaged, we understand ... new poem ...

would have set the seal ..." and so on.

And it would all be true. Wasn't it _right_, then, that if the choice

had ever to be made, he, Stephen Byrne, should be chosen, should be

allowed to live and enrich the world? It was curious that never before

had he so clearly appreciated his own value to humanity. Somehow, he had

never thought of himself in that way. This business had brought it home

to him.

Anyhow, he must get on with this poem. It was going to be a big thing.

The more he wrote, the more it excited him; and the more contented he

became with the work he was doing, the more satisfied he was with his

material circumstances, the more sure that all would be well for him

with the Emily affair.

This is the way of many writers. Their muses and their moods react upon

each other in a kind of unending circle. When they are unhappy they

cannot write; but when they are busy with writing, and they know that it

is good, they grow happier and happier. Then when they have finished and

the first intoxication of achievement has worked itself out, depression

comes again. And then, while they are yet too exhausted for a new

effort, all their work seems futile and worthless, and all life a

meaningless blank. And until the next creative impulse restores their

confidence and vigour they are, comparatively, miserable.

Stephen Byrne was peculiarly sensitive to these reactions. He had that

creative itch which besets especially the young writer with his wings

still strange and wonderful upon him. At the end of a day in which he

had written nothing new, he went to bed with a sense of frustration, of

failure and emptiness. There was something missing. For weeks on end he

wrote something every day, some new created thing, if it was only a

single verse, apart from the routine work of criticism and

review-writing and odd journalism with which he helped to keep his

family alive. But ideas do not come continually to any man; and when

they come, the weary mind is not always ready to shape them. There were

long periods of barrenness or stagnancy when Stephen could write

nothing. Sometimes the ideas came copiously enough, but hovered like

maddening ghosts just out of his grasp, clearly seen, but unattainable.

Sometimes they came not at all. In either case, like a good artist,

Stephen made no attempt to force the unwilling growth, but let himself

lie fallow for a little. But all these fallow times he was restless and

half-content. He had the sense, somehow, of failure. He became moody and

irritable, and silent at meals. But when the creative fit was upon him,

when he had made some little poem, or was still hot and busy at a long

one, the world was benevolent and good, life was a happy adventure, and

Stephen talked like a small boy at dinner-time.

So this poem he was working at was an important thing. The "idea" was

comparatively old. It had come to him in a fallow time, and had been

stored somewhere away. When the policeman's visit restored his

tranquillity, the fallow time was over. The idea was ready to hand, and

he had only to take it out and sow it and water it. And as it grew and

blossomed under his hand, it commanded him. It made him superior to

circumstance; it decorated his fortunes and made them hopeful and

benign. Nothing could be harmful or disturbing while he was doing such

good work every day. It made him sure that he was right--sure that his

decisions were wise. It made him see that no good purpose would be

served by telling the world the truth about Emily Gaunt and about John

Egerton. So he went on writing.

But there was another curious thing about this poem. It was a kind of

epic, an immensely daring, ambitious affair. The war came into it, but

it was not about the war. Rather it was a great song of the chivalry and

courage of the men and women of our time wherever these have appeared.

There were battles in it, and the sea was in it, and something of the

obscure gallantry of hidden or humble men; and something also of the

imperishable heroisms that did not belong to the war--Scott's last

voyage and Shackleton's voyage, and the amazing braveries of the air.

And day by day, as he sat there in the sun, glorifying, page by page,

the high qualities of these men, their courage and their truth and

straightness, he was conscious distantly of the strange contradiction

between what he was doing and what he was. He stopped sometimes and

thought, "This is sincere work that I am doing; I mean it; it excites

me; the critics, whatever they say, will say that it is sincere and

noble writing. Parents in the days to come may make their children read

it as an exhortation to manliness and truth. They may even say that I

was a noble character myself.... And all the time I am doing a mean and

dirty thing--a cowardly thing. And I don't care. My life is a lie, and

this poem is a lie, but I don't care; it is good work."

All that June the weather was very lovely. In the busy streets the air

grew heavy and stifling, full of dust and the vile fumes of motor buses.

They were like prisons. But by the river there was always a sense of

freshness and freedom; and when the great tide swept up in the evenings

a gentle breeze came in light breaths from the west and fingered and

fondled the urgent water, making it into a patchwork of rippled places

and smooth places, where there swam for a little in a fugitive glow of

amber and rose the small clouds over the Richmond Hills. Then it was

cool and strengthening to sit in a small boat and drink the breeze, and

Stephen always, when the tide was up, would row out into the ripples to

see the big sun go down behind Hammerton Church. And while the boat

rocked gently on the wash of tugs, he would sit motionless, trying to

store the sunset in his mind. He would look at the lights in the water,

the unimaginable pattern and colouring of the clouds, fretted like the

sand when the sea goes out, consciously realizing, consciously

memorizing, thinking, "I must remember how that looked!" For he was not

naturally observant, and often, he knew, made up for his lack of

observation by his power of imagining. But the critics said he was

observant, and observant he was determined to be.

Or he would row across to the eastern end of the Island and tie his boat

to the single willow tree that stood there. From this point, looking

eastward, you saw the whole of the splendid reach, curving magnificently

away to Hammersmith Bridge. You saw the huddled, irregular houses beside

it glowing golden in the last sunlight, with here and there a window

that blazed at you like a furnace; you saw the fine old trees on the

southern bank and the tall chimneys and the distant church that had

something of the grace of Magdalen Tower, and you saw the wide and

exuberant stream with an impression of bigness and dignity which could

never be commanded from the bank; and you saw it rich with colour and

delicate lights--with steel-blue and gold--with copper and with rose.

You knew that it was a thick and muddy stream, that most of the houses

were squalid houses, and many of the buildings were ugly buildings. But

they were all beautiful in the late sun, and Stephen loved them.

And while he sat there, the poem hovered always in the background of his

mind. Everything he saw he saw as material which might somehow take its

place in the poem. Sometimes half-consciously he was shaping ahead the

scheme of what he had next to do, the general form and sequence of it;

and sometimes there was a line that would not come right, a word or a

phrase that would not surrender itself, and this problem would be always

busy in his head, the alternatives chasing each other in a tumbling

perpetual circle. Sometimes he would go into the house again in a vague

depression, simply because this difficulty had not yet resolved itself.

But there were certain evenings of such peace and quiet dignity that he

was stricken with a brief and unwilling remorse. Then the poem was at

last thrust out of his mind; then he thought of Margery and the wrong he

had done her, and of John and the wrong he was doing him, and shame took

hold of him. At these moments he had an impulse to abandon his plans, to

forget his poem and his ambitions and his love of life, and give himself

up suddenly to the police. This was usually when the sun was yet warm

and wonderful. But when the sun had gone, and he had come back into the

dark and silent garden, this mood departed quickly. Fear came back to

him then, the love of warmth and light and comfort and life, and with

that the love of praise and the desire of success. And then he would

think passionately again of his poem; he would snatch, as it were in

self-defence, at the pride and excitement of his purpose, and comfort

his soul with new assurances of his own exceeding worth.

And when he had recaptured that consoling invigorating mood, the great

contradiction would smite him with a fresh and glorious force, the

contradiction of his personal vileness and the beauty and nobility of

the work which he was doing. Then as he sat down in the bright island of

light at his table, he would think again, with a kind of conceited

malice, of the blind and stupid world which judged a man by his

work--which would slobber over a murderer and a liar and a betrayer of

friends simply because he could write good verse about good men.

And sometimes he even formed this thought into an arrogant phrase, "They

think they know me, the damned fools--but they don't!"

Then he would go on with the noble poem. And Margery Byrne lay silent

alone in the cool bedroom, thinking of Stephen.

X

So the weeks went by. And John and Stephen saw little of each other.

Indeed, they saw little of any one. Then, towards the end of June,

Margery Byrne got up for the first time, and little Joan came home from

her grandmother's. In a week Margery was completely and delightedly

"up," full of plans and longing to take up life exactly where she had

left it. Stephen found her curiously eager for company, and especially

the company of old friends; it seemed to her so long since she had seen

them. Very soon she asked why John Egerton was so neglecting them. "Get

him to come round, Stephen," she said. "Ring him up now." Stephen had

lately told her the story of the inquest, of the local feeling and

faction; and Margery had at once determined that she would think nothing

of it. She would do as the Whittakers did; not that she was prepared in

any case to believe evil of John. Yet at the back of her mind there was

just a hint of curiosity about it.

So Stephen reluctantly rang him up--reluctantly because he had wanted to

work that evening, and because he feared this meeting. But he did not

dare to seem unwilling.

And John Egerton came. He had known for some days that he would soon

have to do it, and he, too, had been afraid. But this evening he was

almost glad of the invitation. The long weeks of semi-isolation had

tried him very severely. The sense of being an outcast from his fellows,

suspected, despised, had grown unreasonably and was a perpetual irritant

to the nerves. He had an aching to go again into a friend's house, to

sit and talk again with other men. And even the house of the Byrnes and

the company of the Byrnes might be a soothing relief from his present

loneliness.

And now that Margery was up and well, the time was surely near when

something would be done about this business. Unpleasant things had

happened. The family of the Gaunts had been to see him. They had come

again this evening--in the middle of supper--sly, grasping, malicious

people, a decayed husband of about fifty with a drooping, ragged

moustache, with watery eyes and the aspect of a wet rat, and an upright,

aggressive, spiteful little wife, with an antique bonnet fixed very

firmly on the extreme summit of her yellowish hair. She had thin lips, a

harsh voice, and an unpleasant manner. There was also a meek son of

about twenty, and Emily's fiancé, who looked conscientiously sad and

respectable and wore a bowler hat. But the woman did all the talking.

The men only interposed when they felt that she was going too far to be

effective.

They wanted money. The men might be half-ashamed of wanting it, but they

wanted it, and they clearly expected to get it. They assumed as common

ground that John had made away with Emily and had only been preserved

from arrest by the strange eccentricities of the law. They did not want

trouble made, but there it was: Emily had been a good daughter to them

and had contributed money to the household; and it was only fair that

something should be done to heal the injury to their affections and

their accounts. If not, of course, there would _have_ to be trouble.

John Egerton, disgusted and humiliated, had nobly kept his temper, but

firmly refused to give them a penny. They had gone away, muttering

threats. John had no idea what they would do, but they filled him with

loathing and fear. He could not endure this much longer for any man's

sake. Stephen must release him.

But the evening at the Byrnes' house did nothing to clear things up.

Rather it aggravated the tangle. Mrs. Byrne was lying on the sofa,

looking more fragile yet more delicious than he had ever seen her. She

greeted him very kindly and they talked for a little, while Stephen sat

rather glumly in the window-seat staring out at the river.

She spoke happily of Stephen Michael Hilary Byrne, of his charm and his

intelligence, and how already he really had something of Stephen about

him; and as she said that she smiled at Stephen. And she leaned back

with a little sigh of content and looked round at her drawing-room, rich

with warm and comfortable colour, at the striped material of delicate

purple, at the Japanese prints she had bought with Stephen at a sale, at

the curious but excellent wall-paper of dappled grey, and the pleasant

rows of books on the white shelves, at the flowers in the Chinese bowl

which Stephen had bought for her in some old shop, and the mass of roses

on the shiny Sheraton table; then she looked out through the window at

the red light of a tug sliding mysteriously down through the steely dark

and back again at Stephen. And John knew that she was counting up her

happiness; and he thought with an intense pity and rage how precarious

that happiness was. He realized then that he could not allow Stephen to

"do the right thing"; he would not press for it. After all, it was a

small thing for himself to suffer, this petty local suspicion, even the

visitations of the Gaunts, compared with the suffering which this dear

and delicate lady would have to bear if the truth were told. Surely it

was an easy sacrifice for a man to make.

So John sat glowing with sentiment and resolution, and Margery pondered

the happiness of life, and Stephen brooded darkly in the window, and

they were all silent. Then Margery suggested that the two men should

sing together as they used to do; and they sang. They sang odd things

from an Old English song book, picked out at random as they turned over

the leaves. And it seemed as if every song in that book must have for

those two some hidden and sinister meaning. It was bad enough, in any

case, to stand there together behind Margery at the piano, and try to

sing as they had sung in the old days, when nothing had happened. But

these songs had some terrible innuendoes: "Blow, blow, thou winter

wind," they sang first, and "Sigh no more, ladies." And when they came

to "a friend's ingratitude" and "fellowship forgot" and "Men were

deceivers ever," the two men became foolishly self-conscious. They

looked studiously in front of them, and each in his heart hoped that the

other had not noticed, hoped that his own expression was perfectly

normal and composed. It was exceedingly foolish. There were other songs

like this, and after a few more Stephen said shortly that that was

enough.

Then they tried to talk again; but the men could think of no topic which

did not somehow lead them near to Emily Gaunt and such dangerous

ground. Even when Margery began to speak of the motor-boat, the men

seemed to be stricken silly and dumb. Margery wondered what ailed them,

till she remembered about John's "wood-collecting" evidence, and blushed

suddenly at her folly.

Stephen went down with John to the front door feeling certain that he

would there and then "have it out." But John said nothing, only a quick

"Good night." He did not look at Stephen. They felt then like strangers

to each other. And Stephen, marvelling at John's silence and strangely

moved by his coldness, became suddenly anxious to get at his thoughts.

He said, "John--I--I--I hope you're not ... hadn't I better ... I--I

mean ... are you being worried much ... by this?..."

His vagueness was partly due to a new and genuine nervousness and partly

to calculation--a half-conscious determination not to commit himself.

But John perfectly understood.

"No, Stephen, we'll forget all that ... you're not to do anything....

It's a bit trying, but I can stand it. I don't want to upset things any

more now.... Margery and you ... a fresh start, you know.... Good

night." And he was gone.

Stephen went slowly upstairs, astonished and ashamed, with a confused

sense of humiliation and relief. And while he felt penitent and mean in

the face of this magnanimity of John's, he could not avoid a certain

conceited contentment with the wisdom and success of his planning.

Yes, it was very satisfactory. And now he could get on with the poem

about "Chivalry." He sat down at his table and pulled out the scribbled

muddle of manuscript. But he wrote no word that night. He sat for a long

time staring at the paper, thinking of the chivalry of John Egerton. And

it brought no inspiration.