by Hugh Walpole
“I haven’t known it as long as you,” Bethel answered, “but I confess that the very charm of it lies in its contrast. It is invasion, if you like, but for that very reason exciting — two forces at work and a battle in progress.”
“With no doubt as to the ultimate victory,” said Harry gloomily. “Yes, I see what you mean by the contrast. But I cannot stand there and see them dispassionately — you see I am bound up with so much of it. Those men to-night were my friends when I was a boy. Newsome is the best man that I have ever known, and there is the place; I love every stone of it, and they would pull it down.”
They had left the Cove and were pressing up a steep path to the moor. The moon was struggling through a bank of clouds; the wind was whistling over their heads.
Bethel suddenly stopped and turned towards Harry. “Mr. Trojan,” he said, “I’m going to be impulsive and perhaps imprudent. There’s nothing an Englishman fears so much as impulse, and he is terribly ashamed of imprudence. But, after all, there is no time to waste, and if you think me impertinent you have only to say so, and the matter ends.”
Harry laughed. “I am delighted,” he began, but the other stopped him.
“No, wait a moment. You don’t know. I’m afraid you’ll think that I’m absurd — most people will tell you that I am worse. I want you to try to be a friend of mine, at any rate to give me a chance. I scarcely know you — you don’t know me at all — but; one goes on first impressions, and I believe that you would understand a little better than most of these people here — for one thing you have gone farther and seen more — —”
There was a little pause. Harry was surprised. Here was what he had been wanting — friendship; a week ago he would have seized it with both hands; now he was a little distrustful; a week ago it would have been natural, delightful; now it was unusual, even a little absurd.
“I should be very glad,” he said gravely. “I — scarcely — —”
“Oh,” Bethel broke in, “we shall come together naturally — there’s no fear of that. I could see at once that you know the mysteries of this place just as I do. Those others here are blind. I’ve been waiting for some one who would understand. But I don’t want you to listen to those other people about me; they will tell you a good deal — and most of it’s true. I don’t blame ’em, but I’m curiously anxious for you not to think with them. It’s ridiculous, I know, when I had never seen you before. If you only knew how long I’d been waiting — to talk to some one — about — all this.”
He waved his hand and they stopped. They were standing on the moor. Above their head mighty grey clouds were driving like fleets before the wind, and the moon, a cold, lifeless thing, a moon of chiselled marble, appeared, and then, as though frightened at the wild flight of the clouds, vanished. The sea, pearl grey, lay like mist on the horizon, and its voice was gentle and tired, as though it were slowly dying into sleep. They were near the Four Stones — gaunt, grey, and old. The dog had followed Harry from the inn and now ran, a white shadow, in front of him.
“Let me tell you,” Bethel said, “about myself. You know I was born in London — the son of a doctor with a very considerable practice. I received an excellent education, Rugby and Cambridge, and was trained for the law. I was, I believe, a rather ordinary person with a rather more than ordinary power of concentration, and I got on. I built up a business and was extremely and very conventionally happy. I married and we had a little girl. And then, one summer, we came down to Cornwall for our holiday. It was St. Ives. I remember that first morning as though it were yesterday. It was grey with the sea flinging great breakers. There was a smell of clover and cornflowers in the air, and great sheets of flaming poppies in the cornfields. But there was more than that. It was Cornwall, something magical, and that strange sense of old history and customs that you get nowhere else in quite the same way. Ah! but why analyse it? — you know as well as I do what I mean. A new man was born in me that day. I had been sociable and fond of little quite ordinary pleasures that came my way, now I wanted to be alone. Their conversation worried me; it seemed to be pointless and concerned with things that did not matter at all. I had done things like other men — now it was all to no purpose. I used to lie for hours on the cliffs watching the sea. I was often out all day, and I met all sorts of people, tramps, wasters, vagabonds, and they seemed the only people worth talking to. I met some strange fellows but excellent company — and they knew, all of them, the things that I knew; they had been out all night and seen the moon and the stars change and the first light of the dawn, and the little breeze that comes in those early hours from the sea, bringing the winds of other countries with it. And they were merry, they had a philosophy — they knew Cornwall and believed in her.
“Well — the holiday came to an end, and I had to go back! London. My God! After that I struggled — I went to my work every day with the sound of that sea in my ears and the vision of those moors always there with me. And the freedom! If you have tasted that once, if you have ever got really close so that you can hear strange voices and see beauties of which you had never dreamt, well, you will never get back to your old routine again. I don’t care how strong you are — you can’t do it, man. Once she’s got hold of you, nothing counts. That was eighteen years ago. I kept my work for a year, but it was killing me. I got ill — I nearly died; once I ran away at night and tried to get to the sea. But I came back — there were my wife and girl. We had a little money, and I gave it all up and we came to live down here. I have done nothing since; rather shameful, isn’t it, for a strong man? They have thought that here; they think that I am a waster — by their lights I am. But the things I have learnt! I didn’t know what living was until I came here! I knew nothing, I did nothing, I was a dead man. What do I care for their thoughts of me! They are in the dark!”
He had spoken eagerly, almost breathlessly. He was defending his position, and Harry knew that he had been waiting for years to say these things to some one of his own kind who would understand. And he understood only too well! Had he not himself that very evening been tempted to escape, to flee his duty? He had resisted, but the temptation had been very strong — that very voice of Cornwall of which Bethel had spoken — and if it were to return he did not know what answer he might give. But he was not thinking of Bethel; his thoughts were with the wife and daughter. That poor pathetic little woman — and the girl ——
“And your wife and daughter?” he said. “What of them?”
“They are happy,” Bethel said eagerly. “They are indeed. I don’t see them very often, but they have their own interests — and friends. My wife and I never had very much in common — Ah! you’re going to scold,” he said, laughing, “and say just what all these other horrid people say. But I know. I grant it you all. I’m a waster — through and through; it’s damnably selfish — worst of all, in this energetic and pushing age, it’s idle. Oh! I know and I’m sorry — but, do you know, I’m not ashamed. I can’t see it seriously. I wouldn’t harm a fly. Why can’t they let me alone? At least I am happy.”
They had reached the outskirts of the town by this time and Bethel stopped before a little dark house with red shutters and a tiny strip of garden.
“Here we are!” said he. “This is my place. Come in and smoke! It must be past your dinner hour up at ‘The Flutes.’ Come and have something with me.”
Harry laughed. “They have already ceased wondering at my erratic habits,” he said. “New Zealand is a bad place for method.”
He followed Bethel in. It was a tiny hall, and on entering he stumbled over an umbrella-stand that lounged forward in a rickety position. Bethel apologised. “We’re in a bit of a mess,” he said. “In fact, to tell the truth, we always are!” He hung his coat in the hall and led the way into the dining-room. Mrs. Bethel and her daughter came forward. The little woman was amazing in a dress of bright red silk and an absurd little yellow lace cap. Only half the table was laid; for the rest a shabby green cloth, spotted with ink, formed a backgro
und for an incoherent litter of papers and needlework. The walls were lined with books and there were some piled on the floor.
A cold shoulder of mutton, baked potatoes in their skins, a melancholy glass dish containing celery, and a salad bowl startlingly empty, lay waiting on the table.
“Anne,” said Bethel, “I’ve brought a guest — up with the family port and let’s be festive.”
His great body seemed to fill the room, and he brought with him the breath of the sea and the wind. He began to carve the mutton like Siegfried making battle with Fafner, and indeed again and again during the evening he reminded Harry of Siegfried’s impetuous humour and rejoicing animal spirits.
Mrs. Bethel was delighted. Her little eyes twinkled with excitement, her yellow cap was pushed awry, and her hands trembled with pleasure. It was obvious that a visitor was an unusual event. Miss Bethel had said very little, but she had given Harry that same smile that he had seen before. She busied herself now with the salad, and he watched her white fingers shine under the lamplight and the white curve of her neck as she bent over the bowl. She was dressed in some dark stuff — quite simple and unassuming, but he thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful.
He said very little, but he was quietly happy. Bethel did not talk very much; he was eating furiously — not greedily, but with great pleasure and satisfaction. Mrs. Bethel talked continuously. Her eyes shone and her cap bobbed on her head like a live thing.
“I said, Mr. Trojan, after our meeting the other day, that you would be a friend. I said so to Mary coming back. I felt sure that first day. It is so nice to have some one new in Pendragon — one gets used, you know, to the same faces and tired of them. In my old home, Penlicott in Surrey, near Marlwood Beeches — you change at Grayling Junction — or you used to; I think you go straight through now. But there you know we knew everybody. You really couldn’t help it. There was really only the Vicar and the Doctor, and he was so old. Of course there were the Draytons; you must have heard of Mr. Herbert Drayton — he paints things — I forget quite what, but I know he’s good. They all lived there — such a lot of them and most peculiar in their habits; but one gets used to anything. They all lived together for some time, about fifteen there were. Mother and I dined there once or twice, and they had the funniest dining-room with pictures of Job all round the room that were most queer and rather disagreeable; and they all liked different things to drink, so they each had a bottle — of something — separately. It looked quite funny to see the fifteen bottles, and then ‘Job’ on the wall, you know.”
But he really hadn’t paid very much attention to her. He had been thinking and wondering. How was it that a man like Bethel had married such a wife? He supposed that things had been different twenty years ago, with them as with him. It was strange to think of the difference that twenty years could make. She had been, perhaps, a little pretty, dainty thing then — the style of girl that a strong man like Bethel would fall in love with. Then he thought of Miss Bethel — what was her life with a mother like that and a father who never thought about her at all? She must, he thought, be lonely. He almost hoped that she was. It gave them kinship, because he was lonely too. The conversation was not very animated; Mrs. Bethel was suddenly silent — she seemed to have collapsed with the effort, and sat huddled up in her chair, with her hands in her lap.
He realised that he had said nothing to Miss Bethel, and he turned to her. “You know London?” he said. He wondered whether she longed for it sometimes — its excitement and life.
“Oh yes,” she said quickly; “we were there, you know, a long while ago, and I’ve been up once or twice since. But it makes one feel so dreadfully small, as if one simply didn’t count, and no woman likes that.”
“Pendragon makes one feel smaller,” Harry said. “When one is of no account even in a small place, then one is small indeed.”
He had not intended to speak bitterly, but she had caught the sound of it in his voice and she was suddenly sorry for him. She had been a little afraid of him before — even on that terrible afternoon at “The Flutes”; but now she saw that he was disappointed — he had expected something and it had failed him.
She said nothing then, and the meal came to an end. Bethel dragged Harry into his study to see the books. There was the same untidiness here. The table was littered with papers and pens, tobacco jars, numerous pipes, some photographs. From the floor to the ceiling were books — rows on rows — flung apparently into the shelves with no order or method.
“I’m no good as far as books go,” said Harry, laughing. “There never was such a heathen. There have always been other things to do, and I must confess it is a mystery to me how men get time to read at all. If I do get time I’m generally done up, and a novel’s the only thing I’m fit for.”
“Ah, then, you don’t know the book craze,” Bethel Said. “It’s worse than drink. I’ve seen it absolutely ruin a man. You can’t stop — if you see a book you must get it, whether you really want it or no. You go on buying and buying and buying. You get far more than you can ever read. But you’re a miser and you hate even lending them. You sit in your room and count the covers, and you’re no fit company for man or beast.”
Harry looked at him— “You’ve known it?”
“Oh yes! I’ve known it. I’m a bit better now — I’m out such a lot. But even now there’s a great deal here that I’ve never read, and I add to it continually. The worst of it is,” he said, laughing, “that we can’t afford it. It’s very hard on Mary and the wife, but I’m a rotten loafer, and that’s the end of it.”
He said it so gaily and with so little sense of responsibility that you couldn’t possibly think that it weighed on him. But he looked such a boy, standing there with his hands in his pockets and that half-penitent, half-humorous look in his eyes, that you couldn’t be angry. Harry laughed.
“Upon my word, you’re amazing!”
“Oh! you’ll get sick of me. It’s all so selfish and slack, I know. But I struggled once — I’m in the grip now.” He talked about Borrow and displayed a little grey-bound “Walden” with pride. He spoke of Richard Jefferies with an intimate affection as though he had known the man.
He gave Harry some of his enthusiasm, and he lent him “Lavengro.” He described it and Harry compared mentally Isobel Berners with Mary Bethel.
Then they went up to the little drawing-room — an ugly room, but redeemed by a great window overlooking the sea, and a large photograph of Mary on the mantelpiece. Under the light of the lamp the silver frame glittered and sparkled.
He sat by the window and talked to her, and again he had that same curious sense of having known her before: he spoke of it.
“I expect it’s in another existence then,” she said; “as I’ve never been into New Zealand and you’ve never been out of it — at least, since I’ve been born. But, of course, I’ve talked about you to Robin. We speculated, you know. We hadn’t any photographs much to help us, and it was quite a good game.”
“Ah! Robin!”
“I want to speak to you about him,” she said, turning round to him. “You won’t think me interfering, will you? but I’ve meant to speak ever since the other day. I was afraid that, perhaps — don’t think it dreadfully rude of me — you hadn’t quite understood Robin. He’s at a difficult age, you know, and there are a lot of things about him that are quite absurd. And I have been afraid that you might take those absurdities for the real things and fancy that that was all that was there. Cambridge — and other things — have made him think that a certain sort of attitude is essential if you’re to get on. I don’t think he even sincerely believes in it. But they have taught him that he must, at least, seem to believe. The other things are there all right, but he hides them — he is almost ashamed of any one suspecting their existence.”
“Thank you!” Harry said quietly. “It is very kind of you and I’m deeply grateful. It’s quite true that Robin and I haven’t seemed to hit it off properly. I expect that it is m
y fault. I have tried to see his point of view and have the same interests, but every effort that I’ve made has seemed to make things worse. He distrusts me, I think, and — well — of course, that hurts. All the things in which I had hoped we would share have no interest for him.”
“Don’t you think, perhaps,” she said, “that you’ve been a little too anxious — perhaps, a little too affectionate? I am speaking like this because I care for Robin so much. We have been such good friends for years now, and I think he has let me see a side of him that he has hidden from most people. He is curiously sensitive, and really, I think, very shy; and most of all, he has a perfect horror of being absurd. That is what I meant about your being affectionate. He would think, perhaps, that the rest were laughing at him. It’s as if you were dragging something that was very sacred and precious out into the light before all those others. Boys are like that; they are terrified lest any one should know what good there is in them — it isn’t quite good form.”
They were silent for some time. Harry was throwing her words like a searchlight on the events of the past week, and they revealed much that had been very dark and confused. But he was thinking of her. Their acquaintance seemed to have grown into intimacy already.
“I can’t thank you enough,” he said again.
“It is so nice of you,” she said laughing, “not to have thought it presumptuous of me. But Robin is a very good friend of mine. Of course you will find out what a sterling fellow he is — under all that superficiality. He is one of my best friends here!”
He got up to go. As he held out his hand, he said: “I will tell you frankly, Miss Bethel, that Pendragon hasn’t received me with open arms. I don’t know why it should — and twenty years in New Zealand knocks the polish off. But it has been delightful this evening — more than you know.”