by Hugh Walpole
“You have had, all of you, your innings during the last fortnight. You have decided, with your friends, that I am impossible, and from that moment you have deliberately cut me. You have driven me to find friends of my own and then you have complained of the friends that I have chosen. That is completed — in a fortnight you have shown me, quite plainly, your position. Now I will show you mine. You have refused to have anything to do with me — for the future the position shall be reversed. I shall alter in no respect whatever, either my friendships or my habits. I shall go where I please, do what I please, see whom I please. We shall, of course, disguise our position from the world. I have learnt that disguise is a very important part of one’s education. Our former relations from this moment cease entirely.”
He was speaking apparently calmly, but his anger was at white-heat. All the veiled insults and disappointments of the last fortnight rose before him, but, above all, he saw Mary as though he were defending her, there, in the room. He would never forgive them.
Clare was surprised, but she did not show it. She got up from the table and walked to the door. “Very well, Harry,” she said, “I think you will regret it.”
Garrett rose too, his hand trembling a little as he folded his newspaper.
“That is, I suppose, an ultimatum,” he said. “It is a piece of insolence that I shall not forget.”
Robin was turning to leave the room. Harry suddenly saw him. He had forgotten him; he had thought only of Mary.
“Robin,” he whispered, stepping towards him. “Robin — you don’t think as they do?”
“I agree with my aunt,” he said, and he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Harry’s defiance had left him. For a moment the only thing that he saw clearly in a world that had suddenly grown dark and cold was his son. He had forgotten the rest — his sister, Mary, Pendragon — it all seemed to matter nothing.
He had come from New Zealand to love his son — for nothing else.
He had an impulse to run after him, to seize him, and hold him, and force him to come back.
Then he remembered — his pride stung him. He would fight it out to the end; he would, as his father said, “show them a stiff back.”
He was very white, and for a moment he had to steady himself by the table. The silver teapot, the ham, the racks of toast were all there — how strange, when the rest of the world had changed; he was quite alone now — he must remember that — he had no son. And he, too, went out, closing the door quietly behind him.
CHAPTER VIII
Some letters during this week: —
23 SOUTHWICK CRESCENT, W.,
October 10, 1906.
My dear Robin — I should have written before, I am ashamed of my omission, but my approaching departure abroad has thrown a great many things on my hands; I have a paper to finish for Clarkson and an essay for the New Review, and letter-writing has been at a standstill. It was delightful — that little peep of you that I got — and it only made me regret the more that it is impossible to see much of you nowadays. I cannot help feeling that there is a danger of vegetation if one limits oneself too completely to a provincial life, and, charming though Cornwall is, its very fascination causes one to forget the importance of the outer world. I fancied that I discerned signs that you yourself felt this confinement and wished for something broader. Well, why not have it? I confess that I see no reason. Come up to London for a time — go abroad — your beloved Germany is waiting for you, and a year at one of the Universities would be both amusing and instructive. These are only suggestions; I should hesitate to offer them at all were it not that there has always been such sympathy between us that I know you will not resent them. Of course, the arrival of your father has made considerable difference. I must say, honestly, that I regretted to see that you had not more in common. The fault, I expect, has been on both sides; as I said to you before, it has been hard for him to realise exactly what it is that we consider important. We — quite mistakenly possibly — have come to feel that certain things, art, literature, music, are absolutely essential to us, morally and physically.
They are nothing at all to him, and I can quite understand that you have found it difficult — almost impossible — to grasp his standpoint. I must confess that he did not seem to me to attempt to consider yours; but it is easy, and indeed impertinent, to criticise, and I hope that, on the next occasion of your writing, I shall hear that things are going smoothly and that the first inevitable awkwardnesses have worn off.
I must stop. I have let my pen wander away with me. But do consider what I said about coming up to town; I am sure that it is bad for you in every way — this burial. Think of your friends, old chap, and let them see something of you. — Yours ever,
LANCELOT RANDAL.
“THE FLUTES,” PENDRAGON,
October 12, 1906.
My dear Lance — Thanks very much for your letter. This mustn’t pretend to be anything of a letter. I have a thousand things to do, and no time to do them. It was very delightful seeing you, and I, too, was extremely sorry we could not see more of you. My aunt enjoyed your visit enormously, and told me to remind you that you are expected here, for a long stay, on your return from Germany.
Yes, I was worried and am still. There are various things— “it never rains but it pours” — but I cannot feel that they are in the least due to my vegetating. I haven’t the least intention of sticking here, but my grandfather is, as you know, very ill, and it is impossible for me to get away at present.
Resent what you said! Why, no, of course not. We are too good friends for resentment, and I am only too grateful for your advice. The situation here at this moment is peculiarly Meredithian — and, although one ought perhaps to be silent concerning it, I know that I can trust you absolutely and I need your advice badly. Besides, I must speak to some one about it; I have been thinking it over all day and am quite at a loss. There was battle royal this morning after breakfast, and my father was extremely rude to my aunt, acting apparently from quite selfish motives. I want to look at it fairly, but I can, honestly, see it in no other light. My aunt accused him of indifference with regard to the family good name. She, quite rightly, I think, pointed out that his behaviour from first to last had been the reverse of courteous to herself and her friends, and she suggested that he had, perhaps, scarcely realised the importance of maintaining the family dignity in the eyes of Pendragon. You remember his continual absences and the queer friendships that he formed. She suggested that he should modify these, and take a little more interest in the circle to which we, ourselves, belong. Surely there is nothing objectionable in all this; indeed, I should have thought that he would have been grateful for her advice. But no — he fired up in the most absurd manner, accused us of unfairness and prejudice, declared his intention of going his own way, and gave us all his congé. In fact, he was extremely rude to my aunt, and I cannot forgive him for some of the things that he said. His attitude has been absurd from the first, and I cannot see that we could have acted otherwise, but the situation is now peculiar, and what will come of it I don’t know. I must dress for dinner — I am curious to see whether he will appear — he was out for lunch. Let me have a line if you have a spare moment. I scarcely know how to act. — Yours,
ROBERT TROJAN.
23 SOUTHWICK CRESCENT, W.,
October 14, 1906.
Dear Robin — In furious haste, am just off and have really no time for anything. I am more sorry than I can say to hear your news. I must confess that I had feared something of the kind; matters seemed working to a climax when I was with you. As to advice, it is almost impossible; I really don’t know what to say, it is so hard for me to judge of all the circumstances. But it seems to me that your father can have had no warrant for the course that he took. One is naturally chary of delivering judgment in such a case, but it was, obviously, his duty to adapt himself to his environment. He cannot blame you for reminding him of that fact. Out of loyalty to your aunt,
I do not see that you can do anything until he has apologised. But I will think of the matter further, and will write to you from abroad. — In great haste, your friend, LANCELOT RANDAL.
“THE FLUTES,” PENDRAGON, CORNWALL,
October 13, 1906.
Dear Miss Feverel — I must apologise for forcing you to realise once more my existence. Any reminder must necessarily be painful after our last meeting, but I am writing this to request the return of all other reminders of our acquaintance that you may happen to possess; I enclose the locket, the ring, your letters, and the tie that you worked. We discussed this matter the other day, but I cannot believe that you will still hold to a determination that can serve no purpose, except perhaps to embitter feelings on both sides. From what I have known of you I cannot believe that you are indulging motives of revenge — but, otherwise, I must confess that I am at a loss. — Expecting to receive the letters by return, I am, yours truly,
ROBERT TROJAN.
9 SEA VIEW TERRACE, PENDRAGON, CORNWALL,
October 14, 1906.
Dear Mr. Trojan — Thank you for the locket, the ring, and the letters which I have received. I regret that I must decline to part with the letters; surely it is not strange that I should wish to keep them. — Yours truly, DAHLIA FEVEREL.
“THE FLUTES,”
October 15, 1906.
What do you mean? You have no right to them. They are mine. I wrote them. You serve no purpose by keeping them. Please return them at once — by return. I have done nothing to deserve this. Unless you return them, I shall know that you are merely an intriguing — ; no, I don’t mean that. Please send them back. Suppose they should be seen? — In haste, R. T.
9 SEA VIEW TERRACE, PENDRAGON, CORNWALL,
October 15, 1906.
My decision is unalterable.
D. F.
But Dahlia sat in the dreary little drawing-room watching the grey sea with a white face and hard, staring eyes.
She had sat there all day. She thought that soon she would go mad. She had not slept since her last meeting with Robin; she had scarcely eaten — she was too tired to think.
The days had been interminable. At first she had waited, expecting that he would come back. A hundred impulses had been at work. At first she had thought that she would go and tell him that she had not meant what she said; she would persuade him to come back, She would offer him the letters and tell him that she had meant nothing — they had been idle words. But then she remembered some of the things that he had said, some of the stones that he had flung. She was not good enough for him or his family; she had no right to expect that an alliance was ever possible. His family despised her. And then her thoughts turned from Robin to his family. She had seen Clare often enough and had always disliked her. But now she hated her so that she could have gladly killed her. It was at her door that she laid all the change in Robin and her own misery. She felt that she would do anything in the world to cause her pain. She brooded over it in the shabby little room with her face turned to the sea. How could she hurt her? There were the others, too — the rest of the family — all except Robin’s father, who was, she felt instinctively, different. She thought that he would not have acted in that way. And then her thoughts turned back to Robin, and for a moment she fancied that she hated him, and then she knew that she still loved him — and she stared at the grey sea with misery in her heart and a dull, sombre confusion in her brain. No, she did not hate Robin, she did not really want to hurt him. How could she, when they had had those wonderful months together? Those months that seemed such centuries and centuries away. But, nevertheless, she kept the letters. Her mother had talked about them, had advised her to keep them. She did not mean to do anything very definite with them — she could not look ahead very far — but she would keep them for a little.
When she had seen Robin’s handwriting again it had been almost more than she could bear. For some time she had been unable to tear open the envelope and speculated, confusedly, on the contents. Perhaps he had repented. She judged him by her own days and nights of utter misery and knew that, had it been herself, they would have driven her back crying to his feet. Perhaps it was to ask for another interview. That she would refuse. She felt that she could not endure another such meeting as their last; if he were to come to her without warning, to surprise her suddenly — her heart beat furiously at the thought; but the deliberate meeting merely for the purpose of his own advantage — no!
She opened the letter, read the cold lines, and knew that it was utterly the end. She had fancied, at their last meeting, that her love, like a bird shot through the heart, had fallen at his feet, dead; then, after those days of his absence, his figure had grown in her sight, glorified, resplendent, and love had revived again — now, with this letter she knew that it was over. She did not cry, she scarcely moved. She watched the sea, with the letter on her lap, and felt that a new Dahlia Feverel, a woman who would traffic no longer with sentiment, who knew the world for what it was — a hard, merciless prison with fiends for its gaolers — had sprung to birth.
She replied to him and showed her mother her answer. She scarcely listened to Mrs. Feverel’s comments and went about her daily affairs, quietly, without confusion. She saw herself and Robin like figures in a play — she applauded the comedy and the tragedy left her unmoved. Robin Trojan had much to answer for.
He read her second letter with dismay. He had spent the day in solitary confinement in his room, turning the situation round and round in his mind, lost in a perfect labyrinth of suggested remedies, none of which afforded him any outlet. The thought of exposure was horrible; anything must be done to avoid that — disgrace to himself was bad enough; to be held up for laughter before his Cambridge friends, Randal, his London acquaintances — but disgrace to the family! That was the awful thing!
From his cradle this creed of the family had been taught him; he had learnt it so thoroughly that he had grown to test everything by that standard; it was his father’s disloyalty to that creed that had roused the son’s anger — and now, behold, the son was sinning more than the father! It was truly ironic that, three days after his attacking a member of the family for betraying the family, he himself should be guilty of far greater betrayal! How topsy-turvy the world seemed, and what was to be done?
The brevity and conciseness of Dahlia’s last letter left him in no doubt as to her intentions. Breach of Promise! The letters would be read in court, would be printed in the newspapers for all the world to see. With youth’s easy grasping of eternity, it seemed to him that his disgrace would be for ever. Beddoes’ “Death’s Jest-book” was lying open on his knee. Wolfram’s song —
Old Adam, the carrion crow,
The old crow of Cairo;
He sat in the shower, and let it flow
Under his tail and over his crest;
And through every feather
Leaked the wet weather;
And the bough swung under his nest;
For his beak it was heavy with marrow.
Is that the wind dying? Oh no;
It’s only two devils, that blow
Through a murderer’s bones, to and fro,
In the ghost’s moonshine —
had always seemed to him the most madly sinister verse in English literature. It had been read to him by Randal at Cambridge and had had a curious fascination for him from the first. He had found that the little bookseller at Worms had known it and had indeed claimed Beddoes for a German — now it seemed to warn him vaguely of impending disaster.
He did not see that he himself could act any further in the matter; she would not see him and writing was useless. And yet to leave the matter uncertain, waiting for the blow to fall, with no knowledge of the movements in the other camp, was not to be thought of. He must do something.
The moment had arrived when advice must be taken — but from whom? His father was out of the question. It was three days since the explosion, and there was an armed truce. He had, in spite of himsel
f, admired his father’s conduct during the last three days, and he was surprised to find that it was his aunt and uncle rather than his father who had failed to carry off the situation. He refused as yet to admit it to himself, but the three of them, his aunt, his uncle, and himself, had seemed almost frightened. His father was another person; stern, cold, unfailingly polite, suddenly apparently possessed of those little courtesies in which he had seemed before so singularly lacking. There had been conversation of a kind at meals, and it had always been his father who had filled awkward pauses and avoided difficult moments. The knowledge, too, that his father would, in a few months’ time, be head of the house, was borne in upon him with new force; it might be unpleasant, but it would not, as he had formerly fancied, be ludicrous. A sign of his changed attitude was the fact that he rather resented Randal’s letter and wished a little that he had not taken him into his confidence.
Nevertheless, to ask advice of his father was impossible. He must speak to his uncle and aunt. How hard this would be only he himself knew. He had never in their eyes failed, in any degree, towards the family honour. From whatever side the House might be attacked, it would not be through him. There was nothing in his past life, they thought, at which they would not care to look.
He realised, too, Clare’s love for him. He had known from very early days that he counted for everything in her life; that her faith in the family centred in his own honour and that her hopes for the family were founded completely in his own progress — and now he must tell her this.
He could not, he knew, have chosen a more unfortunate time. The House had already been threatened by the conduct of the father; it was now to totter under blows dealt by the son. The first crisis had been severe, this would be infinitely more so. He hated himself for the first time in his life, and, in doing so, began for the first time to realise himself a little.