by Hugh Walpole
It was full of deserted things, as is ever the way with the true Cornwall. On the hill were the Stones sharp against the sky-line; lower down, in a bend of the valley, stood the ruins of a mine, the shaft and chimney, desolately solitary, looking like the pillars of some ancient temple that had been fashioned by uncouth worshippers. In the valley itself stood the stones of what was once a chapel — built, perhaps, for the men of the desolate mine, inhabited now by rabbits and birds, its windows spaces where the winds that swept the moor could play their eternal, restless games.
On a day of clouds there was no colour on the moor, but when the sun was out great bands of light swept its surface, playing on the Stones and changing them to marble, striking colour from the mine and filling the chapel with gold. But the sun did not reach that valley on many days when the rest of the world was alight — it was as if it respected the loneliness of its monuments and the pathos of them.
Harry sat on the side of the hill, below the Stones, and watched the sea. At times a mist came and hid it; on sunny days, when the sky was intensely blue, there hung a dazzling haze like a golden veil and he could only tell that the sea was there by the sudden gleam of tiny white horses, flashing for a moment on the mirror of blue and shining through the haze; sometimes a gull swerved through the air above his head as though a wave had lost its bounds and, for sheer joy of the beautiful day, had flung itself tossing and wheeling into the air.
But to-day was a day of wind and rapidly sailing clouds, and myriads of white horses curved and tossed and vanished over the shifting colours of the sea; there were wonderful shadows of dark blue and purple and green of such depth that they seemed unfathomable.
Suddenly he saw Mary coming towards him. A scarf — green like the green of the sea — was tied round her hat and under her chin and floated behind her. Her dress was blown against her body, and she walked as though she loved the battling with the wind. Her face was flushed with the struggle, and she had come up to him before she saw that he was there.
“Now, that’s luck,” she said, laughing, as she sat down beside him; “I’ve been wanting to see you ever since yesterday afternoon, but you seemed to have hidden yourself. It doesn’t sound a very long time, does it? But I’ve something to tell you — rather important.”
“What?” He looked at her and suddenly laughed. “What a splendid place for us to meet — its solitude is almost unreal.”
“As to solitude,” she said calmly, pointing down the valley. “There’s Tracy Corridor; it will be all over the Club to-night — he’s been watching us for some time”; a long thin youth, his head turned in their direction, had passed down the footpath towards its ruined chapel, and was rapidly vanishing in the direction of Pendragon.
“Well — let them,” said Harry, shrugging his shoulders. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not a bit,” she answered lightly. “They’ve discussed the Bethel family so frequently and with such vigour that a little more or less makes no difference whatsoever. Pendragon taboo! we won’t dishonour the sea by such a discussion in its sacred presence.”
“What do you want to tell me?” he asked, watching delightedly the colour of her face, the stray curls that the wind dragged from discipline and played games with, the curve of her wrist as her hand lay idly in her lap.
“Oh, it’ll keep,” she said quickly. “Never mind just yet. Tell me about yourself — what’s happened?”
“How did you know that anything had?” he asked.
“Oh, one can tell,” she answered. “Besides, I have felt sure that it would, things couldn’t go on just as they were — —” she paused a moment and then added seriously, “I hope you don’t mind my asking? It seems a little impertinent — but that was part of the compact, wasn’t it?”
“Why, of course,” he said.
“Because, you know,” she went on, “it’s really rather absurd. I’m only twenty-six, and you’re — oh! I don’t know how old! — anyhow an elderly widower with a grown-up son; but I’m every bit as old as you are, really. And I’m sure I shall give you lots of good advice, because you’ve no idea what a truly practical person I am. Only sometimes lately I’ve wondered whether you’ve been a little surprised at my — our flinging ourselves into your arms as we have done. It’s like father — he always goes the whole way in the first minute; but it isn’t, or at any rate it oughtn’t to be, like me!”
“You are,” he said quietly, “the best friend I have in the world. How much that means to me I will tell you one day.”
“That’s right,” she said gaily, settling herself down with her hands folded behind her head. “Now for the situation. I’m all attention.”
“Well,” he answered, “the situation is simple enough — it’s the next move that’s puzzling me. There was, four days ago, an explosion — it was after breakfast — a family council — and I was in a minority of one. I was accused of a good many things — going down to the Cove, paying no attention to the Miss Ponsonbys, and so on. They attacked me as I thought unfairly, and I lost control — on the whole, I am sure, wisely. I wasn’t very rude, but I said quite plainly that I should go my own way in the future and would be dictated to by no one. At any rate they understand that.”
“And now?”
“Ah, now — well — it’s as you would expect. We are quite polite but hostile. Robin and I don’t speak. The new game — Father and Son; or how to cut your nearest relations with expedition and security.” He laughed bitterly.
“Oh, I should like to shake him!” she cried, sitting up and flinging her arms wide, as though she were saluting the sea. “He doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand! Neither himself nor any one else. Oh, I will talk to him some day! But, do you know,” she said, turning round to him, “it’s been largely your fault from the beginning.”
“Oh, I know,” he answered. “If I had only seen then what I see now. But how could I? How could I tell? But I always have been that kind of man, all my days — finding out things when it’s too late and wanting to mend things that are hopelessly broken. And then I have always been impulsive and enthusiastic about people. When I meet them first, I mean, I like them and credit them with all the virtues, and then, of course, there is an awakening. Oh, you don’t know,” he said, with a little laugh, “how enthusiastic I was when I first came back.”
“Yes, I do,” she answered; “that was one of the reasons I took to you.”
“But it isn’t right,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve always been like that. It’s been the same with my friendships. I’ve rated them too highly. I’ve expected everything and then cried like a child because I’ve been disappointed. I can see now not only the folly of it, but the weakness. It is, I suppose, a mistake, caring too much for other people, one loses one’s self-respect.”
“Yes,” she said, staring out to sea, “it’s quite true — one does. The world’s too hard; it doesn’t give one credit for fine feelings — it takes a short cut and thinks one a fool.”
“But the worst of it is,” he went on ruefully, “that I never feel any older. I have those enthusiasms and that romance in the same way now at forty-five — just as I did at nineteen. I never could bear quarrelling with anybody. I used to go and apologise even when it wasn’t my fault — so that, you see, the present situation is difficult.”
“Ah, but you must keep your end up,” she broke in quickly. “It’s the only way — don’t give in. Robin is just like that. He is self-centred, all shams now, and when he sees that you are taken in by them, just as he is himself, he despises you. But when he sees you laugh at them or cut them down, then he respects you. I’m the only person, I think, that knows him really here. The others haven’t grasped him at all.”
“My father grows worse every day,” Harry went on, as though pursuing his own train of thought. “He can’t last much longer, and when he goes I shall miss him terribly. We have understood each other during this fortnight as we never did in all those early years. Sometimes I funk it utterly
— following him with all of them against me.”
“Why, no,” she cried. “It’s splendid. You are in power. They can do nothing, and Robin will come round when he sees how you face it out. Why, I expect that he’s coming already. I’ve faced things out here all these years, and you dare to say that you can’t stand a few months of it.”
“What have you faced?” he asked. “Tell me exactly. I want to know all about you; you’ve never told me very much, and it’s only fair that I should know.”
“Yes,” she said gravely, “it is — well, you shall! — at least a part of it. A woman always keeps a little back,” she said, looking at him with a smile. “As soon as she ceases to be a puzzle she ceases to interest.”
She turned and watched the sea. Then, after a moment’s pause, she said:
“What do you want to know? I can only give you bits of things — when, for instance, I ran away from my nurse, aged five, was picked up by an applewoman with a green umbrella who introduced me to three old ladies with black pipes and moustaches — I was found in a coal cellar. Then we lived in Bloomsbury — a little house looking out on to a little green park — all in miniature it seems on looking back. I don’t think that I was a very good child, but they didn’t look after me very much. Mother was always out, and father in business. Fancy,” she said, laughing, “father in business! We were happy then, I think, all of us. Then came the terrible time when father ran away.”
“Ah, yes,” Harry said, “he told me.”
“Poor mother! it was quite dreadful; I was only eight then, and I didn’t understand. But she sat up all night waiting for him. She was persuaded that he was killed, and she was very ill. You see he had never left any word as to where he was. And then he suddenly turned up again, and ate an enormous breakfast, as though nothing had happened. I don’t think he realised a bit that she had worried.
“It was so like him, the naked selfishness of it and the utter unresponsibility, as of a child.
“Then I went to school — in Bloomsbury somewhere. It was a Miss Pinker, and she was interested in me. Poor thing, her school failed afterwards. I don’t know quite why, but she never could manage, and I don’t think parents ever paid her. I had great ideas of myself then; I thought that I would be great, an actress or a novelist, but I got rid of all that soon enough. I was happy; we had friends, and luxuries were rare enough to make them valuable. Then — we came down here — this sea, this town, this moor — Oh! how I hate them!”
Her hands were clenched and her face was white. “It isn’t fair; they have taken everything from me — leisure, brain, friends. I have had to slave ever since I came here to make both ends meet. Ah! you never knew that, did you? But father has never done a stroke of work since he has been here, and mother has never been the same since that night when he ran away; so I’ve had it all — and it has been scrape, scrape, scrape all the time. You don’t know the tyranny of butter and eggs and vegetables, the perpetual struggle to turn twice two into five, the unending worry about keeping up appearances — although, for us, it mattered precious little, people never came to see if appearances were kept.
“They called at first; I think they meant to be kind, but father was sometimes rude and never seemed to know whether he had met a person before or no. Then he was idle, they thought, and they disliked him for that. We gave some little parties, but they failed miserably, and at last people always refused. And, really, it was rather a good thing, because we hadn’t got the money. I suppose I’m a bad manager; at any rate, whatever it is, things have been getting worse and worse, and one day soon there’ll be an explosion, and that will be the end. We’re up to our eyes in debt. I try to talk to father about it, but he waves it away with his hand. They have, neither of them, the least idea of money. You see, father doesn’t need very much himself, except for buying books. He had ten pounds last week — housekeeping money to be given to me; he saw an edition of something that he wanted, and the money was gone. We’ve been living on cabbages ever since. That’s the kind of thing that’s always happening. I wanted to talk to him about things this morning, but he said that he had an important engagement. Now he’s out on the moor somewhere flying his kite — —”
She was leaning forward, her chin on her hand, staring out to sea.
“It takes the beans out of life, doesn’t it?” she said, laughing. “You must think me rather a poor thing for complaining like this, only it does some good sometimes to get rid of it, and really at times I’m frightened when I think of the end, the disgrace. If we are proclaimed bankrupts it will kill mother. Father, of course, will soon get over it.”
“I say — I’m so sorry.” Harry scarcely knew what to say. She was not asking for sympathy; he saw precisely her position — that she was too proud to ask for his help, but that she must speak. No, sympathy was not what she wanted. He suddenly hated Bethel — the selfishness of it, the hopeless egotism. It was, Harry decided, the fools and not the villains who spoilt life.
“I want you to do me a favour,” he said. “I want you to promise me that, before the end actually comes, if it is going to come, you will ask me to help you. I won’t offer to do anything now — I will stand aside until you want me; but you won’t be proud if it comes to the worst, will you? Do you promise? You see,” he added, trying to laugh lightly, “we are chums.”
“Yes,” she answered quietly, “I promise. Here’s my hand on it.”
As he took her hand in his it was all he could do to hold himself back. A great wave of passion seized him, his body trembled from head to foot, and he grew very white. He was crying, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” but he kept the words from his lips — he would not speak yet.
“Thank you,” was all that he said, and he stood up to hide his agitation.
For a little they did not speak. They both felt that, in that moment, they had touched on things that were too sacred for speech; he seemed so strong, so splendid in her eyes, as he stood there, facing the sea, that she was suddenly afraid.
“Let us go back,” she said. They turned down the crooked path towards the ruined chapel.
“What was the news that you had for me?” he asked suddenly.
“Why, of course,” she answered; “I meant to have told you before.” Then, more gravely, “It’s about Robin — —”
“About Robin?”
“Yes. I don’t know really whether I ought to tell you, because, after all, it’s only chatter and mother never gets stories right — she manages to twist them into the most amazing shapes.”
“No. Tell me,” he insisted.
“Well — there’s a person whom mother knows — Mrs. Feverel. Odious to my mind, but mother sees something of her.”
“A lady?”
“No — by no means; a gloomy, forbidding person who would like to get a footing here if she could, and is discontented because people won’t know her. You see,” she added, “we can only know the people that other people don’t know. This Mrs. Feverel has a daughter — rather a pretty girl, about eighteen — I should think she might be rather nice. I am a little sorry for her — there isn’t a father.
“Well — these people have, in some way, entangled Robin. I don’t quite know the right side of it, but mother was having tea with Mrs. Feverel yesterday afternoon and that good woman hinted a great deal at the power that she now had over your family. For some time she was mysterious, but at last she unburdened herself.
“Apparently, Master Robin had been making advances to the girl in the summer, and now wants to back out of it. He had, I gather, written letters, and it was to these that Mrs. Feverel was referring — —”
Harry drew a long breath. “I’m damned,” he said.
“Oh, of course, I don’t know,” she went on; “you see, it may have been garbled. Mrs. Feverel is, I should think, just the person to hint suspicions for which there’s no ground at all. Only it won’t do if she’s going to whisper to every one in Pendragon — I thought you ought to be warned — —”
Harry was thinking hard. “The young fool,” he said. “But it’s just what I’ve been wanting. This is just where I can come in. I knew something has been worrying him lately. I could see it. I believe he’s been in two minds as to telling me — only he’s been too proud. But, of course, he will have to tell some one. A youngster like that is no match for a girl and her mother of the class these people seem to be. He will confide in his aunt—” He stopped and burst into uncontrollable laughter. “Oh! The humour of it — don’t you see? They’ll be terrified — it will threaten the honour of the House. They will all go running round to get the letters back; that girl will have a good time — and that, of course, is just where I come in.”
“I don’t see,” said Mary.
“Why, it’s just what I’ve been watching for. Harry Trojan arrives — Harry Trojan is no good — Harry Trojan is despised — but suddenly he holds the key to the situation. Presto! The family on their knees — —”
Mary looked at him in astonishment. It was, she thought, unlike him to exult like this over the misfortunes of his sister; she was a little disappointed. “It is really rather serious,” she said, “for your sister, I mean. You know what Pendragon is. If they once get wind of the affair there will be a great deal of talk.”
“Ah, yes!” he said gravely. “You mustn’t think me a brute for laughing like that. But I’m thinking of Robin. If you knew how I cared for the boy — what this means. Why, it brings him to my feet — if I carry the thing out properly.” Then quickly, “You don’t think they’ve got back the letters already?”
“They haven’t had time — unless they’ve gone to-day. Besides, the girl’s not likely to give them up easily. But, of course, I don’t really know if that’s how the case lies — mother’s account was very confused. Only I am certain that Mrs. Feverel thinks she has a pull somewhere; and she said something about letters.”
“I will go at once,” Harry said, walking quickly. “I can never be grateful enough to you. Where do they live?”