by Hugh Walpole
As he passed down the crooked, uneven stone steps that led to the Cove, he felt indignant, almost unhappy. It was as if a friend had been insulted in his presence and he had been unable to defend him. They said that the Cove must go, must make way for modern jerry-built lodging-houses, in order that middle-class families from London and Manchester might be sufficiently accommodated.
The Cove had meant a great deal to him when a boy — mystery, romance, pirates and smugglers, strange Cornish legends of saints and sinners, knights and men-at-arms. The little inn, “The Bended Thumb,” with its irregular red-brick floor and its smoke-stained oaken rafters, had been the theatre of many a stirring drama — now it was to be pulled down. It was a wonderfully beautiful morning, and the little, twisting street of the Cove seemed to dance with its white shining cobbles in the light of the sun. It was mysterious as ever, but colours lingered in every corner. Purple mists seemed to hang about the dark alleys and twisting ways; golden shafts of light flashed through the open cottage doorways into rooms where motes of dust danced, like sprites, in the sun; smoke rose in little wreaths of pearl-grey blue into the cloudless sky; there was perfect stillness in the air, and from an overflowing pail that stood outside “The Bended Thumb,” the clear drip, drip of the water could be heard falling slowly into the white cobbles, and close at hand was the gentle lap of the sea, as it ran up the little shingly beach and then dragged slowly back again with a soft, reluctant hiss.
It was the Cove in its gentlest mood. No one was about; the women were preparing the dinner and the men were away at work. No strange faces peered from inhospitable doorways; there was nothing to-day that could give the stranger a sense of outlawry, of almost savage avoidance of ordinary customs and manners. Harry’s heart beat wildly as he walked down the street; there was no change here; it was as he had left it. He was at home here as he could never be in that new, strident Pendragon with its utter disregard of tradition and beauty.
He saw that it was late and hurried back. He had discovered a great deal during the morning.
At lunch he spoke of the changes that he had seen. Clare smiled. “Why, of course,” she said. “Twenty years is a long time, and Pendragon has made great strides. For my part, I am very glad. It brings money to the shopkeepers, and the place will be quite fashionable in a few years’ time. We’re all on the side of progress up here,” she added, laughing.
“But the Cove?” said Harry. “Barbour tells me that they are thinking of pulling it down to make way for lodging-houses or something.”
“Well, why not?” said Clare. “It is really very much in the way where it is, and is, I am told, extremely insanitary. We must be practical nowadays or we are nothing; you have to pay heavily for being romantic.”
Harry felt again that sensation of personal affront as though some close friend, bound to him by many ties, had been attacked violently in his presence. It was unreasonable, he knew, but it was very strong.
“And you, Robin,” he said, “what do you think of it?”
“I agree with Aunt Clare,” answered Robin lightly, as though it were a matter that interested him very little. “If the place is in the way, it ought to go. He’s a sensible man, Barbour.”
“The fact is, Harry,” said Garrett, “you haven’t changed quite as fast as the place has. You’ll see the point of view in a few weeks’ time.”
He felt unreasonably, ridiculously angry. They were all treating him as a child, as some one who would grow up one day perhaps, but was, at present at any rate, immature in thought and word; even with Robin there was a half-implied superiority.
“But the Cove!” he cried vehemently. “Is it nothing to any of you? After all that it has been to us all our lives, to our people, to the whole place, are you going to root it out and destroy it simply because the town isn’t quite big enough to put up all the trippers that burden it in the summer? Don’t you see what you will lose if you do? I suppose you think that I am sentimental, romantic, but upon my word I can’t see that you have improved Pendragon very much in all these twenty years. It was charming once — a place with individuality, independence; now it is like anywhere else — a miniature Brighton.”
He knew that he was wasting his words. There was a pause, and he felt that they were all three laughing at him — yes, Robin as well. He had only made a fool of himself; they could not understand how much he had expected during those weary years of waiting — how much he had expected and how much he had missed.
Clare looked round the room and was relieved to find that only Beldam was present. If one of the family was bent on being absurd, it was as well that there should only be one of the servants to hear him.
“You know that you are to be on your trial this afternoon, Harry?” she said.
“My trial?” he repeated, bewildered.
“Yes — it’s my at-home day, you know — first Thursdays — and, of course, they’ll all come to see you. We shall have the whole town — —” She looked at him a little anxiously; so much depended on how he behaved, and she wasn’t completely reassured by his present manner.
If he astonished them all this afternoon by saying things about the Cove like that, it would be too terrible!
“How horrible!” he said, laughing. “I’m very much afraid that I shan’t do you justice, Clare. I’m no good at small conversation.”
His treating it so lightly made it worse, and she wondered how she could force him to realise the seriousness of it.
“All the nicest people in Pendragon,” she said; “and they are rather ridiculously critical, and of course they talk.”
He looked at her and laughed. “I wish they were Maories,” he said, “I shouldn’t be nearly so frightened!”
She leant over the table to emphasise her words. “But it really does make a difference, Harry. First impressions count a lot. You’ll be nice to them, won’t you?”
The laugh had left his eyes. It was serious, as he knew. He had had no idea that he would have, so to speak, “funked” it so. It was partly, of course, because of Robin. He did not want to make a fool of himself before the boy. He was already beginning to realise what were the things that counted with Robin.
The real pathos of the situation lay in his terrible anxiety to do the right thing. If he had taken it quietly, had trusted to his natural discretion and had left circumstances to develop of themselves, he would have, at any rate, been less self-conscious. But he could not let it alone. He had met Auckland society often enough and had, indeed, during his later years, been something of a society man, but there everything was straight-forward and simple. There was no tradition, no convention, no standard. Because other people did a thing was no reason why you should do it — originality was welcomed rather than otherwise. But here there were so many things that you must do, and so very, very many that you mustn’t; and if you were a Trojan, matters were still more complicated.
It was after half-past four when he entered the drawing-room, and Clare was pouring out tea. Five or six ladies were already there, and a clergyman of ample proportions and quite beautifully brushed hair. He was introduced— “Mrs. le Terry — Miss Ponsonby — Miss Lucy Ponsonby — Miss Werrel — Miss Thisbe Werrel — Mr. Carrell — our rector, Harry.”
He shook hands and was terribly embarrassed. He was conscious at once of that same sense of challenge that he had felt with Barbour in the morning. They were not obviously staring, but he knew that they were rapidly summing him up. He coloured foolishly, and stood for a moment awkwardly in the middle of the room.
“Tea, Harry?” said Clare. “Scones down by the fire. Everybody else is all right — so look after yourself.”
He found himself by Mrs. le Terry, a small, rather pretty woman with wide-open blue eyes, and a mass of dark brown hair hidden beneath a large black hat that drooped over one ear. She talked rapidly and with few pauses. She was, he discovered, one of those persons whose conversation was a series of exclamation marks. She was perpetually astonished, delighted, and disa
ppointed with an amount of emotion that left her no breath and gave her hearers a small opinion of her sincerity. “It’s too terribly funny,” she said, opening her eyes very wide indeed, “that you should have been in that amazing place, New Zealand — all sheep and Maories, isn’t it? — and if there’s one thing that I should be likely to detest more than mutton I’m sure it would be Maories. Too dreadful and terrible! But you look splendidly well, Mr. Trojan. I never, really never, saw any one with such a magnificent colour! I suppose that it’s that gorgeous sun, and it never rains, does it? Too delightful! If there’s one thing that I do adore, it’s the sun!”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Harry, laughing; “we had rain pretty often in Auckland, and — —”
“Oh,” she said, breaking in upon him, “that’s too curious, because, do you know, I thought you never had rain at all, and I do detest rain so. It’s too distressing when one has a new frock or must go to some stupid place to see some one. But I’m too awfully glad that you’ve come here, Mr. Trojan. We do want waking up a little, you know, and I’m sure you’re the very person to do it. It would be too funny if you were to wake us all up, you know.”
Harry was pleased. There were no difficulties here, at any rate. Hadn’t Robin mentioned Mrs. le Terry as one of the leaders of Fallacy Street? He suddenly lost his shyness and wanted to become confidential. He would tell her how glad he was to be back in England again; how anxious he was to enter into all the fun and to take his part in all the work. He wondered what she felt about the Cove, and he hoped that she would be an enemy to its proposed destruction.
But she yielded him no opportunity of speaking, and he speedily discovered her opinion on the Cove. “And such changes since you went away! Quite another place, I’m glad to say. Pendragon is the sweetest little town, and even the dear, dirty trippers in the summer are the most delightful and amusing people you ever saw. And now that they talk of pulling down that horrid, dirty old Cove, it will be too splendid, with lodging-houses and a bandstand; and they do talk of an Esplanade — that would be too delightful!”
While she was speaking, he watched the room curiously. Robin had come in and was standing by the fireplace talking to the Miss Werrels, two girls of the athletic type, with short skirts and their hair brushed tightly back over their foreheads. He was leaning with one arm on the mantelpiece, and was looking down on the ladies with an air of languid interest: his eyes were restless, and every now and again glanced towards his father. The two Miss Ponsonbys were massive ladies of any age over fifty. Clad in voluminous black silk, with several little reticules and iron chains, their black hair bound in tight coils at the back of their heads, each holding stiffly her teacup with a tenacity that was worthy of a better cause, they were awe-inspiring and militant. In spite of their motionless gravity, there was something aggressive in their frowning brows and cold, expressionless eyes. Harry thought that he had never seen two more terrifying persons. Clare was talking to the prosperous clergyman; he smiled continually, and now and again laughed in reply to some remark, but it was always something restrained and carefully guarded. He was obviously a man who laid great store by exterior circumstances. That the sepulchre should be filled with dead men’s bones might cause him pain, but that it should be unwhitened would be, to him, a thing far more terrible.
Clare turned round and addressed the room generally.
“Mr. Carrell has just been telling me of the shocking state of the Cove,” she said. “Insanitary isn’t the word, apparently. Things have gone too far, and the only wise measure seems to be to root the place up completely. It is sad, of course — it was a pretty old place, but it has had its day.”
“I’ve just been telling your brother about it, Miss Trojan,” said Mrs. le Terry. “It’s quite too terrible, and I’m sure it’s very bad for all of us to have anything quite so horrible so close to our houses. There’s no knowing what dreadful things we may not all of us be catching at this very moment — —”
She was interrupted by two new arrivals — Mrs. and Miss Bethel. They were a curious contrast. The mother was the strangest old lady that Harry had ever seen. She was tiny in stature, with snow-white hair and cheeks that were obviously rouged; she wore a dress of curious shot silk decorated with much lace, and her fingers were thick with jewels; a large hat with great purple feathers waved above her head. It was a fantastic and gaudy impression that she made, and there was something rather pitiful in the contrast between her own obvious satisfaction with her personal appearance and the bizarre, almost vulgar, effect of such strangely contrasted colours. She came mincing into the room with her head a little on one side, but in spite of, or perhaps because of, her rather anxious smiles, it was obvious that she was not altogether at her ease.
The girl who followed her was very different. Tall and very dark, she was clothed quite simply in grey; her hair was wonderful, although it was at present hidden to some extent by her hat, but its coal-black darkness had something intent, almost luminous, about it, so that, paradoxically, its very blackness held hidden lights and colours. But it was her manner that Harry especially noticed. She followed her mother with a strange upright carriage of the head and flash of the eyes that were almost defiant. She was evidently expecting no very civil reception, and she seemed to face the room with hostility and no very ready eagerness to please.
The effect on the room was marked. Mrs. le Terry stopped speaking for a moment and rustled her skirts with a movement of displeasure, the Miss Ponsonbys clutched their teacups even tighter than before and their brows became more clouded, the Miss Werrels smiled confidentially at each other as though they shared some secret, and even Robin made a slight instinctive movement of displeasure.
Harry felt at once an impulse of sympathy towards the girl. It was almost as if this sudden hostility had made them friends: he liked that independence of her carriage, the pride in her eyes. Mrs. le Terry’s voice broke upon his ears.
“Which must be, Mr. Trojan, extraordinarily provoking. To go there, I mean, and find absolutely no one in — all that way, too, and a horribly wet night, and no train until nine o’clock.”
In his endeavours to pick up the thread of the conversation he lost sight of their meeting with Clare.
She, indeed, had greeted them with all the Trojan coldness; nothing could have been more sternly formal than her “Ah! Mrs. Bethel, I’m so glad that you were able to come. So good of you to trouble to call. Won’t you have some tea? Do find a seat somewhere, Miss Bethel. I hope you won’t mind our all having finished.”
Harry was introduced and took them their tea. It was obvious that, for some reason unknown to him, their presence there was undesired by all the company present, including Clare herself. He also knew instinctively that their coming there had been some act of daring bravery, undertaken perhaps with the hope that, after all, it might not be as they had feared.
The old lady’s hand trembled as she took her teacup; the colour had fled from her face, and she sat there white and shaking. As Harry bent over her with the scones, he saw to his horror that a tear was trembling on her eyelid; her throat was moving convulsively.
At the same instant he knew that the girl’s eyes were fixed upon his; he saw them imploring, beseeching him to help them. It was a difficult situation, but he smiled back at the girl and turned to the old lady.
“Do try these scones, Mrs. Bethel,” he said; “they are still hot and I can recommend them strongly. I’m so glad to meet you; my sister told me only this morning that she hoped you would come this afternoon, as she wanted us to become acquainted.”
It was a lie, but he spoke it without hesitation, knowing that it would reach Clare’s ears. The little lady smiled nervously and looked up at him.
“Ah, Mr. Trojan,” she said, “it’s very good of you, I’m sure. We are only too delighted. It’s not much gaiety that we can offer you here, but such as it is — —”
She was actually making eyes at him, the preposterous old person. It was re
ally a little pitiful, with her gorgeous colours, and her trembling assumption of a coquettish youth that had left her long ago. Her attempt to storm a difficult position by the worst of all possible tactics made him extremely sorry for the daughter, who was forced to look on in silence. His thoughts, indeed, were with the girl — her splendid hair, her eyes, something wild, almost rebellious, that found a kindred note in himself; curiously, almost absurdly, they were to a certain degree allies although they had not spoken. He talked to her a little and she mentioned the Cove.
“It is a test of your Cornish ancestry,” she said— “if you care for it, I mean. So many people here look on it as a kind of rubbish-heap — picturesque but untidy — and it is the most beautiful place in the world.”
“I am glad that you feel like that,” he said quietly; “it meant a lot to me as a boy. I have been sorry to find how unpopular it is now; but I see that it still has its supporters.”
“Ah, you must talk to father,” she said. “He is always there. We are a little old-fashioned, I’m afraid.”
There was in her voice, in her smile, something that stirred him strangely. He felt as though he had met her before — a long while ago. He recognised little characteristics, the way that she pushed back her hair when she was excited, the beautiful curve of her neck when she raised her eyes to his, the rise and fall of her bosom — it was all strangely, individually familiar, as though he had often watched her do the same things in the same way before, in some other place....
He had forgotten the others — Clare, Robin, the Miss Ponsonbys, Mrs. le Terry; and when they had all gone, he did not realise that he had in any way neglected them.
After Miss Bethel had left the room, followed by the preposterous old mother, he stood at the window watching the lights of the town shining mistily through the black network of trees in the drive. He must meet her again.
Clare spoke to him and he turned round. “I’m afraid you have made the Miss Ponsonbys enemies for life,” she said; “you never spoke to them once. I warned you that they were the most important people in the place.”