by Hugh Walpole
She clenched her hands and frowned. As a matter of fact she got on with him very well, but they had quarrelled that morning, over nothing at all, of course. And then it made things more exciting if you thought that you hated your husband, and Mr. Maradick was a fine-looking man.
And he thought how young she was and what a dreary stretch of years was before her. He knew what his own married life had been: fifteen years of disillusion and misunderstanding and sullen silence.
“I am so sorry,” he said, and he looked at her very sympathetically. “I can understand a little how hard it is. We don’t all of us make lucky shots, but then we have just got to grin and bear it; cold sort of comfort, I know, and if it really does comfort you to feel that you have a friend you may count on me.”
She liked his sympathy, the dear old strong thing! and at any rate she would pull Fred pretty sharply out of his books for once. Captain Stanton and Mr. Stapylton had had just that effect; she had never known Fred so charming as he was after their final exit.
He looked down at her with a fatherly smile. “We’ll be friends,” he said.
“It’s perfectly sweet of you,” she said, her voice trembling a little. “I felt that you would understand. I cannot tell you how it has helped me, this little talk of ours. Now I suppose we ought to be going back or they’ll be wondering where we are.”
And he stood thanking God for a wonderful world. At last there were people who wanted him, Tony and Mrs. Lester; and at the same time he had begun to see everything with new eyes. It was his view! They talked of life being over at forty; why, it had never begun for him until now!
They walked back to the tent, and he talked to her gravely about helping others and the real meaning of life. “He can,” she thought, “be most awfully dull, but he’s a dear old thing.”
The expedition in search of a church had scarcely been a success, and when one considers the members of it there is little room to wonder. Tony had been right about the gods. They had seen fit to play their games round the tent on the gorse, and the smiles with which they had regarded the luncheon-party speedily changed to a malicious twinkle. Everyone had been too pleasant to be true, and, after the meal was over, the atmosphere became swiftly ominous. For one thing, Tony had departed with Maradick for a bathe, and his absence was felt. Lady Gale had a sudden longing for sleep, and her struggles against this entirely precluded any attempt at keeping her guests pleasantly humoured. Mrs. Maradick was never at her best after a meal, and now all her former irritation returned with redoubled force. She had been far too pleasant and affable to these people; she could not think what had induced her to chatter and laugh like that at lunch, she must be on her dignity. Mr. Lester’s remark about her clothes and the gorse also rankled. What impertinence! but there, these writing people always did think that they could say anything to anybody! Novelist, forsooth! everyone was a novelist nowadays. Mrs. Lawrence didn’t make things any better by an interminable telling of one of her inconclusive stories. Mrs. Maradick bristled with irritation as she listened. “. . . So there poor Lady Parminter was, you know — dreadfully stout, and could scarcely walk at all — with her black poodle and her maid and no motor and raining cats and dogs. It was somewhere near Sevenoaks, I think; or was it Canterbury? I think perhaps it was Canterbury, because I know Mr. Pomfret said something about a cathedral; although it might have been Sevenoaks, because there was a number in it, and I remember saying at the time . . .”
Mrs. Maradick stiffened with annoyance.
Mr. Lester gloomily faced the sea and Mrs. Lester chatted rather hysterically to Lady Gale, who couldn’t hear what she said because she was so sleepy. Mr. Lester hated quarrelling, because it disturbed his work so; he knew that there would be a reconciliation later, but one never knew how long it would be.
It was eventually Rupert who proposed the church. He had found Mrs. Maradick very amusing at lunch, and he thought a stroll with the little woman wouldn’t be bad fun. So he interrupted Mrs. Lawrence’s story with “I say, there’s a rotten old church somewhere kickin’ around. What d’you say to runnin’ it to earth, what?”
Everyone jumped up with alacrity. Mrs. Lester shook her head. “I shall stay and keep guard over the tent,” she said.
“No, Milly dear, you go,” said Lady Gale, “I’m much too sleepy to move.”
“Well, then, I’ll stay to keep guard over you as well,” said Mrs. Lester, laughing; “I’m lazy.”
So Rupert, Alice Du Cane, Mr. Lester, Mrs. Maradick and Mrs. Lawrence started off. The expedition was a failure. The church wasn’t found, and in the search for it the tempers of all concerned were lost. It was terribly hot, the sun beat down upon the gorse and there was very little breeze. The gorse passed and they came to sand dunes, and into these their feet sank heavily, their shoes were clogged with it. Nobody spoke very much. It was too hot and everybody had their own thoughts; Mrs. Lawrence attempted to continue her story, but received no encouragement.
“I vote we give up the church,” said Rupert, and they all trudged drearily back again.
Mrs. Maradick was wondering why Mrs. Lester hadn’t come with them. It didn’t make her wonder any the less when, on their arrival at the tent, she saw Lady Gale and Tony in sole possession. Where was the woman? Where was her husband? She decided that Rupert Gale was a nuisance. He had nothing to say that had any sense in it, and as for Mr. Lester . . .!
Tea was therefore something of a spasmodic meal. Everybody rushed furiously into conversation and then fled hurriedly out again; an air of restraint and false geniality hung over the teacups. Even Tony was quiet, and Lady Gale felt, for once, that the matter was beyond her; everyone was cross.
Then Mrs. Lester and Maradick appeared and there was a moment’s pause. They looked very cheerful and contented, which made the rest of the party only the more irritable and discontented. Why were they so happy? What right had they to be so happy? They hadn’t got sand in their shoes and a vague search after an impossible church under a blazing sun in their tempers.
Mrs. Lester was anything but embarrassed.
“Oh! there you all are! How nice you all look, and I do hope you’ve left something! No, don’t bother to move, Rupert. There’s plenty of room here! Here you are, Mr. Maradick! Here’s a place; yes, we’ve had such a nice stroll, Mr. Maradick and I. It was quite cool down by the beach. . . . Thanks, dear, one lump and cream. Oh! don’t trouble, Tony, I can reach it . . . yes, and did you see your church? Oh! what a pity, and you had all that trouble for nothing. . . .”
“There’s going to be a storm!” said Mr. Lester gloomily.
A little wind was sighing, up and down, over the gorse. The sun shone as brilliantly as ever, but on the horizon black, heavy clouds were gathering. Then suddenly the little breeze fell and there was perfect stillness. The air was heavy with the scent of the gorse. It was very hot. Then, very faintly, the noise of thunder came across the sea.
“The gods are angry,” said Tony.
“Oh! my dear!” said Lady Gale. “And there isn’t a cover to the wagonette thing! Whatever shall we do? We shall get soaked to the skin. I never dreamt of its raining.”
“Perhaps,” said Maradick, “if we started at once we might get in before it broke.”
The things were hurriedly packed and everyone hastened over the gorse. They clambered into the wagonette. Across the sky great fleets of black clouds were hurrying and the sound of the thunder was closer at hand. Everything was still, with the immovability of something held by an invisible hand, and the trees seemed to fling black pointing fingers to the black gloomy sky.
For a mile they raced the storm, and then it broke upon them. The thunder crashed and the lightning flared across their path, and then the rain came in sheeted floods. What fun for the gods! They cowered back in their seats and not a word was spoken by anyone; the driver lashed his horses along the shining road.
Whilst they journeyed, each traveller was asking himself or herself a question. These questions must be reco
rded, because they will all be answered during the course of this history.
Lady Gale’s question. Why did everything go wrong?
Mrs. Maradick’s question. Why had a malevolent providence invented Mrs. Lester, and, having invented her, what could James see in her?
Mrs. Lester’s question. At what hour that evening should she have her reconciliation scene with her husband and for how long could she manage to spin it out?
Alice Du Cane’s question. What was Tony keeping back?
Tony’s question. Was Janet afraid of thunder?
Maradick’s question. What did it all mean?
Mr. Lester’s question. What was the use of being alive at all?
Rupert’s question. Why take a new suit to a picnic when it always rained?
Mrs. Lawrence’s question. Would the horses run away?
The only question that received an immediate answer was Mrs. Lawrence’s, because they didn’t.
That evening, Maradick went for a moment to the room of the minstrels. The storm was passing. On the horizon there stole a very faint band of gold. Out of the black bank of cloud a star shone, and suddenly there burst from the dark shadows of the fleeing storm a silver crescent moon. The light of it fell on the boards of the floor and then touched faintly the grinning face of the carved lion.
THE PROLOGUE IS CONCLUDED
PART II. PUNCH
CHAPTER IX. MORELLI BREAKS SOME CROCKERY AND PLAYS
A LITTLE MUSIC
Punch was in bed asleep, with the bedclothes drawn up to his ears. It had just struck six, and round the corner of the open window the sun crept, flinging a path of light across the floor. Presently it would reach the bed and strike Punch’s nose; Toby, awake and curled up on a mat near the door, watched the light travel across the room and waited for the inevitable moment.
The room was of the simplest. Against the wall leant the Punch and Judy show, on the mantelpiece was a jar that had once held plum jam and now contained an enormous bundle of wild flowers. Two chairs, a bed, a chest of drawers and a washstand completed the furniture. Against the wall was pinned an enormous outline map of England. This Punch had filled in himself, marking roads, inns, houses, even trees; here and there the names of people were written in a tiny hand. This map was his complete history during the last twenty years; nothing of any importance that had happened to him remained unchronicled. Sometimes it would only be a cross or a line, but he remembered what the sign stood for.
The sun struck his nose and rested on his hair, and he awoke. He said “Ugh” and “Ah” very loudly several times, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, raised his arms above his head and yawned, and then sat up. His eyes rested for a moment lovingly on the map. Parts of it were coloured in chalk, red and yellow and blue, for reasons best known to himself. The sight of it opened unending horizons: sharp white roads curving up through the green and brown into a blue misty distance, the round heaving shoulder of some wind-swept down over which he had tramped as the dusk was falling and the stars came slowly from their hiding-places to watch him, the grey mists rising from some deep valley as the sun rose red and angry — they stretched, those roads and hills and valleys, beyond his room and the sea, for ever and ever. And there were people too, in London, in country towns, in lonely farms and tiny villages; the lines and crosses on the map brought to his mind a thousand histories in which he had played his part.
He looked at Toby. “A swim, old man,” he said; “time for a swim — out we get!” Toby unrolled himself, rubbed his nose on his mat twice like an Eastern Mahommedan paying his devotions, and strolled across to the bed. His morning greeting to his master was always the same, he rolled his eyes, licked his lips with satisfaction, and wagged an ear; then he looked for a moment quite solemnly into his master’s face with a gaze of the deepest devotion, then finally he leapt upon the bed and curled up at his master’s side.
Punch (whose real name, by the way, was David Garrick — I don’t know why I didn’t say so before — he hadn’t the slightest connexion with the actor, because his family didn’t go back beyond his grandfather) stroked a paw and scratched his head. “It’s time we got up and went for a swim, old man. The sun’s been saying so hours ago.” He flung on an overcoat and went out.
The cottage where he lived was almost on the beach. Above it the town rose, a pile of red roofs and smoking chimneys, a misty cloud of pale blue smoke twisted and turned in the air. The world was full of delicious scents that the later day destroyed, and everything behaved as though it were seeing life for the first time; the blue smoke had never discovered the sky before, the waves had never discovered the sand before, the breeze had never discovered the trees before. Very soon they would lose that surprise and would find that they had done it all only yesterday, but, at first, it was all quite new.
Punch and Toby bathed; as they came out of the water they saw Morelli sitting on a rock. Punch sat down on the sand quite unconcernedly and watched the sea. He hadn’t a towel, and so the sun must do instead. Toby, having barked once, sat down too.
“Good morning, Mr. Garrick,” said Morelli.
Punch looked up for a moment. “A fine day,” he said.
Morelli came over to him. He was dressed in a suit of some green stuff, so that against the background of green boughs that fringed the farther side of the little cove he seemed to disappear altogether.
“Good morning, Mr. Garrick,” he said again. “A splendid day for a bathe. I’d have gone in myself only I know I should have repented it afterwards.”
“Yes, sir,” said Punch. “You can bathe ’ere all the year round. In point of fact, it’s ‘otter at Christmas than it is now. The sea takes a while to get warm.”
“This fine weather,” said Morelli, looking at the sea, “brings a lot of people to the place.”
“Yes,” said Punch, “the ‘Man at Arms’ is full and all the lodgings. It’s a good season.”
“I suppose it makes some difference to you, Mr. Garrick, whether there are people or no?”
“Oh yes,” said Punch, “if there’s no one ’ere I move. I’m staying this time.”
“Do you find that the place changes?” said Morelli.
“No,” said Punch, “it don’t alter at all. Now there are places, Pendragon for one, that you wouldn’t know for the difference. They’ve pulled down the Cove and built flats, and there are niggers and what not. It’s better for the trade, of course, but I don’t like the place.”
“Oh yes, I remember Pendragon,” said Morelli. “There was a house there, the Flutes — Trojan was the name of the people — a fine place.”
“And ‘e’s a nice man that’s there now,” said Punch, “Sir ‘Enry; what I call a man, but the place is rotten.”
Toby looked in his master’s face and knew that he was ill at ease. He knew his master so well that he recognised his sentiments about people without looking at him twice. His own feelings about other dogs were equally well defined; if he was suspicious of a dog he was on his guard, very polite of course, but sniffing inwardly; his master did the same.
“I can remember when there were only two or three houses in Pendragon,” said Morelli; then suddenly, “You meet a great many people, Mr. Garrick. Everyone here seems to know you. Do you happen to have met a young fellow, Gale is his name? He is staying at the ‘Man at Arms.’”
“Yes,” said Punch. “I know Mr. Gale.” Why did Morelli want to know?
“A nice boy,” said Morelli. “I don’t often take to the people who come here for the summer, they don’t interest me as a rule. But this boy — —”
He broke off and watched Toby. He began to whistle very softly, as though to himself. The dog pricked up his ears, moved as though he would go to him, and then looked up in his master’s face.
“There’s another man,” continued Morelli, “that goes about with young Gale. An older man, Maradick his name is, I think. No relation, it seems, merely a friend.”
Punch said nothing. It was no business of his. M
orelli could find out what he wanted for himself. He got up. “Well,” he said, wrapping his greatcoat about him, “I must be going back.”
Morelli came close to him and laid a hand on his arm. “Mr. Garrick,” he said, “you dislike me. Why?”
Punch turned round and faced him. “I do, sir,” he said, “that’s truth. I was comin’ down the high road from Perrota one evenin’ whistling to myself, the dog was at my heels. It was sunset and a broad red light over the sea. I came upon you suddenly sitting by the road, but you didn’t see me in the dust. You were laughing and in your hands was a rabbit that you were strangling; it was dusk, but I ‘eard the beast cry and I ‘eard you laugh. I saw your eyes.”
Morelli smiled. “There are worse things than killing a rabbit, Mr. Garrick,” he said.
“It’s the way you kill that counts,” said Punch, and he went up the beach.
Meanwhile there is Janet Morelli.
Miss Minns was the very last person in the world fitted to give anyone a settled education; in her early days she had given young ladies lessons in French and music, but now the passing of years had reduced the one to three or four conversational terms and the other to some elementary tunes about which there was a mechanical precision that was anything but musical. Her lessons in deportment had, at one time, been considered quite the thing, but now they had grown a little out of date, and, like her music, lost freshness through much repetition.
Her ideas of life were confined to the three or four families with whom she had passed her days, and Janet had never discovered anything of interest in any of her predecessors; Alice Crate (her father was Canon Crate of Winchester Cathedral), Mary Devonshire (her father was a merchant in Liverpool), and Eleanor Simpson (her father was a stockbroker and lived in London). Besides, all these things had happened a long while ago; Miss Minns had been with Janet for the last twelve years, and fact had become reminiscence and reminiscence tradition within that time. Miss Minns of the moment with which we have to do was not a very lively person for a very young creature to be attached to; she was always on the quiver, from the peak of her little black bonnet to the tip of her tiny black shoes. When she did talk, her conversation suffered from much repetition and was thickly strewn with familiar proverbs, such as “All’s well that ends well” and “Make hay while the sun shines.” She served no purpose at all as far as Janet was concerned, save as an occasional audience of a very negative kind.