by Hugh Walpole
Maradick had, very fortunately, touched on the only topic that could possibly be said to make Miss Minns loquacious. Everyone became interested and animated.
“Oh! I should so love London!” Janet said, looking through the window at the stars outside. “People! Processions! Omnibuses! Father has told me about it sometimes — Dick Whittington, you know, and the cat. I suppose you’re not called Dick?” she said, looking anxiously at Tony.
“No,” said Tony, “I’m afraid I’m not. But I will be if you like.”
“It is scarcely polite, Janet,” said Morelli, “to ask a gentleman his name when you’ve only known him five minutes.”
“I wasn’t,” she answered. “Only I do want to know a Dick so very badly, and there aren’t any down here; but I expect London’s full of them.”
“It’s full of everything,” said Tony, “and that’s why I like this place so awfully. London chokes you, there’s such a lot going on; you have to stop, you know. Here you can go full tilt. May I have another chop, please? They’re most awfully good.”
Tony was rapidly becoming his usual self. He was still a little nervous, but he was talking nonsense as fluently as ever.
“You really must come up to London though, Miss Morelli. There are pantomimes and circuses and policemen and lots of funny things. And you can do just what you like because there’s no one to see.”
“Oh! theatres!” She clapped her hands. “I should simply love a theatre. Father took me once here; it was called ‘The Murdered Heir,’ and it was most frightfully exciting; but that’s the only one I’ve ever seen, and I don’t suppose there’ll be another here for ages. They have them in Truro, but I’ve never been to Truro. I’m glad you like the chops, I was afraid they were rather dry.”
“They are,” said Morelli. “It’s only Mr. Gale’s politeness that makes him say they’re all right. They’re dreadfully dry.”
“Well, you were late,” she answered; “it was your fault.”
She was excited. Her eyes were shining, her hands trembled a little, and her cheeks were flushed. Maradick fancied that there was surprise in her glance at her father. Miss Minns also was a little astonished at something. It was possibly unusual for Morelli to invite anyone into the house, and they were wondering why he had done it.
Morelli was a great puzzle. He seemed changed since they had sat down at the table. He seemed, for one thing, considerably younger. Outside the house he had been middle-aged; now the lines in his forehead seemed to disappear, the wrinkles under his eyes were no longer there. He laughed continually.
It was, in fact, becoming very rapidly a merry meal. The chops had vanished and there was cheese and fruit. They were all rather excited, and a wave of what Maradick was inclined to call “spirited childishness” swept over the party. He himself and Miss Minns were most decidedly out of it.
It was significant of the change that Morelli now paid much more attention to Tony. The three of them burst into roars of laughter about nothing; Tony imitated various animals, the drawing of a cork, and a motor-omnibus running into a policeman, with enormous success. Miss Minns made no attempt to join in the merriment; but sat in the shadow gravely silent. Maradick tried and was for a time a miserable failure, but afterwards he too was influenced. Morelli told a story that seemed to him extraordinarily funny. It was about an old bachelor who always lived alone, and some one climbed up a chimney and stuck there. He could not afterwards remember the point of the story, but he knew that it seemed delightfully amusing to him at the time. He began to laugh and then lost all control of himself; he laughed and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. He stopped for a moment and then started again; he grew red in the face and purple — he took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “Oh, dear!” he said, gasping, “that’s a funny story. I don’t know when I’ve laughed like that before. It’s awfully funny.” He still shook at the thought of it. It was a very gay meal indeed.
“You have been at the University, I suppose, Mr. Gale?” said Morelli.
“Yes, Oxford,” said Tony. “But please don’t call me Mr.; nobody calls me Mr., you know. You have to have a house, a wife and a profession if you’re Mr. anybody, and I haven’t got anything — nothing whatever.”
“Oh, I wonder,” said Janet, “if you’d mind opening the door for me. We’ll clear the table and get it out of the way. Saturday is Lucy’s night out, so I’m going to do it.”
“Oh, let me help,” said Tony, jumping up and nearly knocking the table over in his eagerness. “I’m awfully good at washing things up.”
“You won’t have to wash anything up,” she answered. “We’ll leave that for Lucy when she comes back; but if you wouldn’t mind helping me to carry the plates and things into the other room I’d be very grateful.”
She looked very charming, Maradick thought, as she stood piling the plates on top of one another with most anxious care lest they should break. Several curls had escaped and were falling over her eyes and she raised her hand to push them back; the plates nearly slipped. Maradick, watching her, caught suddenly something that seemed very like terror in her eyes; she was looking across the table at her father. He followed her glance, but Morelli did not seem to have noticed anything. Maradick forgot the incident at the time, but afterwards he wondered whether it had been imagination.
“Do be careful and not drop things,” she said, laughing gaily, to Tony. “You seem to have got a great many there; there’s plenty of time, you know.”
She was delightful to watch, she was so entirely unconscious of any pose or affectation. She passed into the kitchen singing and Tony followed her laden with plates.
“Do you smoke, Mr. Maradick?” said Morelli. “Cigar? Cigarette? Pipe? — Pipe! Good! much the best thing. Come and sit over here.”
They drew up their chairs by the window and watched the stars; Miss Minns sat under the lamp sewing.
Maradick was a little ashamed of his merriment at dinner; he really didn’t know the man well enough, and a little of his first impression of cautious dislike returned. But Morelli was very entertaining and an excellent talker, and Maradick reproached himself for being unnecessarily suspicious.
“You know,” said Morelli, “it’s a great thing to have a home like this. I’ve been a wanderer all my days — been everywhere, you might say — but now I’ve always got this to come back to, and it’s a great thing to feel that it’s there. I’m Italian, you know, on my father’s side, and hence my name; and so it seems a bit funny, perhaps, settling down here. But one country’s the same to me as another, and my wife was English.”
He paused for a moment and looked out of the window; then he went on —
“We don’t see many people here; when you’ve got a girl to bring up you’ve got to be careful, and they don’t like me here, that’s the truth.”
He paused again, as though he expected Maradick to deny it. He had spoken it almost as an interrogation, as though he wanted to know whether Maradick had heard anything, but Maradick was silent. He felt strongly again, as he had felt at the time of their first meeting, that they were hostile to one another. Polite though Morelli was, Maradick knew that it was because of Tony, and not in the least because of himself. Morelli probably felt that he was an unnecessary bore, and resented his being there. It was Tony that he cared about.
“That is a very delightful boy,” Morelli said, nodding in the direction of the kitchen. “Have you known him a long while? Quite one of the most delightful people — —”
“Oh, no,” said Maradick a little stiffly. “We are quite new acquaintances. We have only known each other about a week. Yes, he is an enormously popular person. Everyone seems to like him wherever he goes. He wakes people up.”
Morelli laughed.
“Yes, there’s wonderful vitality there. I hope he’ll keep it. I hope that I shall see something of him while he is here. There isn’t much that we can offer you, but you will be doing both my daughter and myself a very real kindness if you will c
ome and see us sometimes.”
“Thank you,” said Maradick.
“Oh! I promised to show you those swords of mine. Come and see them now. I think there are really some that may interest you.”
They got up and left the room. In a moment the door was opened again and Janet and Tony returned.
“Let’s sit in front of the window,” Janet said, “and talk. Father’s showing your friend his swords and things, I expect, and he always takes an enormous time over that, and I want to talk most frightfully.”
She sat forward with her hands round her knees and her eyes gazing out of the window at the stars. Tony will always remember her like that; and as he sat and watched her he had to grip the side of his chair to prevent his leaning forward and touching her dress.
“I want to talk too,” he answered; “it’s an ‘experience’ evening, you know, one of those times when you suddenly want to exchange confidences with some one, find out what they’ve been doing and thinking all the time.”
“Oh! I know that feeling,” she answered eagerly, “but I’ve never had anyone to exchange them with. Sometimes I’ve felt it so that I haven’t known what to do; but it’s been no good, there’s been nobody except father and Miss Minns. It’s very funny, isn’t it? but you’re the first person of my own age I’ve ever met. Of course you’re older really, but you’re near enough, and I expect we think some of the same things; and oh! it’s so exciting!”
She said “person” like a creature of fifty, and he smiled, but then her “exciting” brought his heart to his mouth. She was obviously so delighted to have him, she accepted him so readily without any restrictions at all, and it was wonderful to him. Every girl that he had ever met had played a game either of defence or provocation, but there was perfect simplicity here.
“Let’s begin,” he said, “and find out whether we’ve had the same things. But first I must tell you something. This isn’t the only time that I’ve seen you.”
“It’s not!” she cried.
“No; there was the other day on the beach; you were with your father. I looked at you from behind a rock and then ran away. And the other time was one night about a week ago, quite late, and you leaned out of a window and said something to Miss Minns. There was a lamp, and I saw your face.”
“Oh! which night?” she said quite eagerly.
“Well, let me see, I think it was a Thursday night — no, I can’t remember — but there was a fair in the town; they danced round the streets. We had been, Maradick and I, and were coming back.”
“Oh! I remember perfectly,” she said, turning round and looking at him. “But, do you know, that’s most curious! I was tremendously excited that night, I don’t quite know why. There was no real reason. But I kept saying to Miss Minns that I knew something would happen, and she laughed at me and said, ‘What could?’ or something, and then I suddenly opened the window and two people were coming up the street. It was quite dark. There was only the lamp!”
She spoke quite dramatically, as though it was something of great importance.
“And fancy, it was you!” she added.
“But, please,” she said, “let’s begin confidences. They’ll be back, and we’ll have to stop.”
“Oh! mine are ordinary enough,” he said, “just like anybody else’s. I was born in the country; one of those old rambling country houses with dark passages and little stairs leading to nowhere, and thick walls with a wonderful old garden. Such a garden, with terraces and enormous old trees, and a fountain, and a sun-dial, and peacocks. But I was quite a kid when we left that and came to town. It is funny, though, the early years seem to remain with one after the other things have gone. It has always been a background for me, that high old house with the cooing of pigeons on a hot summer’s afternoon, and the cold running of some stream at the bottom of the lawn!”
“Oh! how beautiful,” she said. “I have never known anything like that. Father has talked of Italy; a little town, Montiviero, where we once lived, and an old grey tower, and a long, hard white road with trees like pillars. I have often seen it in my dreams. But I myself have never known anything but this. Father has stayed here, partly, I think, because the old grey tower in the market-place here is like the tower at Montiviero. But tell me about London,” she went on. “What is it like? What people are there?”
“London,” he said, “has grown for me as I have grown to know it. We have always lived in the same house. I was six when I first went there, an old dark place with large solemn rooms and high stone fireplaces. It was in a square, and we used to be taken out on to the grass in the morning to play with other children. London was at first only the square — the dark rooms, my nurse, my father and mother, some other children, and the grass that we played upon. Then suddenly one day the streets sprang upon me — the shops, the carriages, some soldiers. Then it grew rapidly; there were the parks, the lake, the Tower, and, most magical of all, the river. When I was quite a small boy the river fascinated me, and I would escape there when I could; and now, if I lived alone in London, I would take some old dark rooms down in Chelsea and watch the river all day.”
“Chelsea!” she said. “I like the sound of that. Is there a very wonderful river, then, where London is?”
“Yes,” he answered, “it is dirty and foggy, and the buildings along the banks of it are sometimes old and in pieces. But everyone that has known it will tell you the same. Then I went to a pantomime with my nurse.”
“Oh! I know what a pantomime is,” she said. “Miss Minns once saw one, but there was a man with a red nose and she didn’t like it. Only there were fairies as well, and if I’d been there I should only have seen the fairies.”
“Well, this was ‘Dick Whittington.’ There was a glorious cat. I don’t remember about the rest; but I went home in a golden dream and for the next month I thought of nothing else. London became for me a dark place with one glorious circle of light in the midst of it!”
“Oh! It must have been beautiful!” she sighed.
“Then,” he went on, “it spread from that, you know, to other things, and I went to school. For a time everything was swallowed up in that, beating other people, coming out top, and getting licked for slacking. London was fun for the holidays, but it wasn’t a bit the important thing. I was like that until I was seventeen.”
“You were very lucky,” Janet said, “to go to school. I asked father once, but he was very angry; and, you know, he is away for months and months sometimes, and then it is most dreadfully lonely. I have never had anyone at all to talk to until you came, and now they’ll take you away in a moment, so do hurry up. There simply isn’t a minute!”
Miss Minns was heard to say:
“Aren’t you cold by the window, Janet? I think you’d better come nearer the table.”
“Oh! please don’t interrupt, Miss Minns!” She waved her hand. “It’s as warm as toast, really. Now please go on, it’s a most terribly exciting adventure.”
“Well,” he said, sinking his voice and speaking in a dramatic whisper, “the next part of the tremendous adventure was books and things. I suddenly, you know, discovered what they were. I’d read things before, of course, but it had always been to fill in time while I was waiting for something else, and now I suddenly saw them differently, in rows and rows and rows, each with a secret in it like a nut, and I cracked them and ate them and had the greatest fun. Then I began to think that I was awfully clever and that I would write great books myself, and I was very solemn and serious. I expect I was simply hateful.”
“And did you write anything?” she said in an awed voice.
“Yes,” he answered solemnly, “a very long story with heaps of people and lots of chapters. I have it at home. They liked it down in the kitchen, but it never had an end.”
“Why not?” Janet asked.
“Because, like the Old Woman in the Shoe, I had so many children that I didn’t know what to do. I had so many people that I simply didn’t know what to do with them all.
And then I grew out of that. I went to Oxford, and then came the last part of the adventure.”
“Where is Oxford?” she asked him.
“Oh! It’s a university. Men go there after leaving school. It’s a place where a man learns a good many useless habits and one or two beautiful ones. Only the beautiful ones want looking for. The thing I found was walking.”
He looked at her and laughed for the very joy of being so near to her. In the half light that the lamp flung upon them the gold of her hair was caught and fell like a cloud about her face, the light blue of her dress was the night sky, and her eyes were the stars. Oh! it was a fine adventure, this love! There had been no key to the world before this came, and now the casket was opened and stuffs of great price, jewels and the gold-embroidered cloths of God’s workshop were spread before him. And then a great awe fell upon him. She was so young and so pure that he felt suddenly that all the coarse thoughts and deeds of the world rose in a dark mist between them, and sent him, as the angel with the flaming sword sent Adam, out of so white a country.
But she suddenly leant over and touched his arm. “Oh! do look at Miss Minns!” she said. Miss Minns was falling asleep and struggling valiantly against the temptation. Her hands mechanically clicked the needles and clutched the piece of cloth at which she was working, but her head nodded violently at the table as though it was telling a story and furiously emphasising facts. The shadow on the wall was gigantic, a huge fantastic Miss Minns swinging from side to side on the ceiling and swelling and subsiding like a curtain in the wind. The struggle lasted for a very short time. Soon the clicking of the needles ceased, there was a furious attempt to hold the cloth, and at last it fell with a soft noise to the ground. Miss Minns, with her head on her breast, slept.
“That’s better,” said Janet, settling herself back in her chair. “Now about the walking!”
“Ah! you’re fond of it too,” he said. “I can see that. And it’s the only thing, you know. It’s the only thing that doesn’t change and grow monotonous. You get close right down to earth. They talk about their nature and culture and the rest, but they haven’t known what life is until they’ve felt the back of a high brown hill and the breast of a hard white road. That saved me! I was muddled before. I didn’t know what things stood for, and I was unhappy. My own set weren’t any use at all, they were aiming at nothing. Not that I felt superior, but it was simply that that sort of thing wasn’t any good for me. You couldn’t see things clearly for the dust that everybody made. So I left the dust and now I’m here.”