by Hugh Walpole
Morelli was at his pleasantest, and showed how agreeable a companion he could be. Maradick still felt the same distrust of him, but he was forced to confess that he had never before met anyone so entertaining. His knowledge of other countries seemed inexhaustible; he had been everywhere, and had a way of describing things and places that brought them straight with him into the room, so vivid were they.
His philosophy of life in general appeared, this afternoon pleasant and genial. He spoke of men who had failed with commiseration and a very wide charity; he seemed to extend his affection to everyone, and said with a smile that “It was only a question of knowing people; they were all good fellows at heart.”
And yet, through it all, Maradick felt as though he were, in some unexplained way, playing at a game. The man was rather like a child playing at being grown-up and talking as he had heard his elders do. He had an impulse to say, “Look here, Morelli, it’s boring you dreadfully talking like this, you’re not a bit interested, really and truly, and we’re only playing this game as a background for the other two.”
And, in fact, that was what it all came to; that was Maradick’s immediate problem that must be answered before any of the others. What was Morelli’s idea about his daughter and Tony? Morelli knew, of course, perfectly well what was going on. You could see it in their eyes. And, apparently, as far as Maradick could see, he liked it and wanted it to continue. Why? Did he want them to marry? No, Maradick didn’t think that he did. He watched them with a curious smile; what was it that he wanted?
And they, meanwhile, the incredible pair with their incredible youth, were silent. It was through no constraint, but rather, perhaps, because of their overflowing happiness. Tony smiled broadly at the whole world, and every now and again his eyes fastened on her face with a look of assured possession, in the glance with which she had greeted him he had seen all that he wanted to know.
Then she turned round to him. “Oh, Mr. Gale, you haven’t seen the garden, our garden. You really must. It’s small, but it’s sweet. You will come, Mr. Maradick?”
Her father looked up at her with a smile. “You take Mr. Gale, dear. We’ll follow in a moment.” And so they went out together. He thought that he had never seen so sweet a place. The high walls were old red brick, the lawn stretched the whole length, and around it ran a brown gravelled path. In one corner was an enormous mulberry leaning heavily to one side, and supported by old wooden stakes and held together by bands of metal. Immediately beneath the wall, and around the length of the garden, was a flower bed filled with pansies and hollyhocks and nasturtiums; it was a blaze of colour against the old red of the wall and behind the green of the lawn.
Underneath the mulberry tree was a seat, and they sat down close enough to make Tony’s heart beat very hard indeed.
“Oh, it’s perfect!” he said with a sigh.
“Yes, it’s very lovely, isn’t it? I’ve never known any other garden, and now you don’t know how nice it is to have some one to show it to. I’ve never had anyone to show it to before.”
The old house looked lovely from the garden. Its walls bulged towards them in curious curves and angles, it seemed to hang over the lawn like a protecting deity. The light of the sun caught its windows and they flamed red and gold.
“You like having me to show it to?” he said.
“Of course,” she answered.
They were both suddenly uncomfortable. Everything around and about them seemed charged with intensest meaning. They began, each of them, to be more uncertain about the other. Perhaps after all they had read the signs wrongly. Janet suddenly reflected that she had known no other young men, and, after all, they might all have that habit of smiling and looking pleasant. It might be merely politeness, and probably meant nothing at all. She had been much too hasty; she took a stolen glance at him and fancied that he looked as though he were a little bored.
“It’s much nicer,” she said a little coldly, “in the summer than the winter.”
He looked at her for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “I say,” he said, “don’t let’s start being polite to each other, we’re friends. You know we made a compact the other day. We’ve got such a lot to talk about that we mustn’t waste time.”
“Oh! I’m so glad,” she sighed with relief; “you see I know so few people that I didn’t a bit know whether I was doing the right sort of thing. You looked a very little bit as though you were bored.”
“By Jove!” he said. “I should think not. Do you know, it’s the rippingest thing in the world coming and talking to you, and I’d been wondering ever since last time how soon it would be before I could come and talk to you again. And now, if you like my coming, it’s simply splendid.”
“Well, please come often,” she said, smiling. “I haven’t got many friends, and we seem to think the same about such lots of things.”
“Well, I love this place and this garden and everything, and I expect that I shall come often.”
“Oh! I think you’re wonderful!” she said.
“No, please don’t.” He bent towards her and touched her hand. “That’s only because you haven’t seen other people much. I’m most awfully ordinary, quite a commonplace sort of chap. I’d be awfully sick with myself really if I had time to think about it, but there’s such a lot going on that one simply can’t bother. But you’ll do me a lot of good if you’ll let me come.”
“I!” She opened her eyes wide. “How funny you are! I’m no use to anybody.”
“We’re both most fearfully modest,” he said, smiling, “and when people say how rotten they are they generally mean just the opposite. But I don’t, really. I mean it absolutely.” Then he lowered his voice. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” she said, very softly.
“Always?”
“Yes, always.”
His hand took hers very gently. At the touch of her fingers his heart began suddenly to pound his breast so that he could not hear, a quiver shook his body, he bent his head.
“I’m an awfully poor sort of fellow,” he said in a whisper.
The mulberry tree, the lawn, the shining windows, the flowers caught the tone and for one moment fell like a burning cloud about the two, then the light died away.
In the green wood, on the knoll, a little breeze played with the tops of the trees; down, far below, the white beach shone in the sun and the waves curled in dancing rows across the blue.
Two rabbits fancied for a moment that they heard the tune that had charmed them earlier in the day. They crept out to look, but there was no one on the knoll.
CHAPTER X. IN WHICH EVERYONE FEELS THE AFTER EFFECT OF
THE PICNIC
Meanwhile the picnic remained, for others besides Maradick, an interpretation. Lady Gale sat on the evening of the following day watching the sun sink behind the silver birch. She had dressed for dinner earlier than usual, and now it was a quarter to eight and she was still alone in the gradually darkening room.
Mrs. Lester came in. She was dressed in pale blue, and she moved with that sure confidence that a woman always has when she knows that she is dressed with perfect correctness.
“My dear,” she said, bending down and kissing Lady Gale, “I’m perfectly lovely to-night, and it isn’t the least use telling me that it’s only vanity, because I know perfectly well I’m the real right thing, as Henry James would say if he saw me.”
“I can’t see, dear,” said Lady Gale, “but from the glimpse I’ve got I like the dress.”
“Oh, it’s perfection! The only thing is that it seems such a waste down here! There’s no one who cares in the least whether you’re a fright or no.”
“There’s at any rate, Fred,” said Lady Gale.
“Oh, Fred!” said Mrs. Lester scornfully. “He would never see if you stuck it right under his nose. He can dress his people in his novels, but he never has the remotest notion what his wife’s got on.”
“He knows more than you think,” said Lady Gale.
She was sitting on a stool at Lady Gale’s feet with her hands clasped round her knees, her head was flung back and her eyes shining; she looked rather like a cross, peevish child who had been refused something that it wanted.
Lady Gale sighed for a moment and looked out into the twilight; in the dark blue of the sky two stars sparkled. “Take care of it, dear,” she said.
“Of what?” said Mrs. Lester, looking up.
“Love, when you’ve got it.” Lady Gale put her hand out and touched Mrs. Lester’s arm. “You know perfectly well that you’ve got Fred’s. Don’t play with it.”
“Fred cares about his books,” Mrs. Lester said slowly. “I don’t think that he cares the very least about me.”
“Oh, you know that’s untrue. You’re cross just now and so is he, and both of you imagine things. But down in your hearts you are absolutely sure of it.”
Mrs. Lester shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m afraid that I may be tiresome,” said Lady Gale gently, “but, my dear, I’ve lived such a long time and I know that it’s sufficiently rare to get the right man. You’ve got him, and you’re so certain that he’s right that you think that you can play with it, and it’s dangerous.”
“I’m not a bit certain,” said Mrs. Lester.
“Oh, you are, of course you are. You know that Fred’s devoted to you and you’re devoted to Fred. Only it’s rather dull that everything should go along so soberly and steadily, and you think that you’ll have some fun by quarrelling and worrying him. You’re piqued sometimes because you don’t think that he pays you enough attention and you imagine that other men will pay you more, and he is very patient.”
“Oh, you don’t know how annoying he can be sometimes,” said Mrs. Lester, shaking her head. “When he shuts himself up in his stupid books and isn’t aware that I’m there at all.”
“Of course I know,” said Lady Gale. “All men are annoying and so are all women. Anyone that we’ve got to live with is bound to be; that’s the whole point of rubbing along. Marriage seems stupid enough and dull enough and annoying enough, but as a matter of fact it would be ever so much worse if the man wasn’t there at all; yes, however wrong the man may be. We’ve got to learn to stick it; whether the it is a pimple on one’s nose or a husband.”
“Oh, it’s so easy to talk.” Mrs. Lester shook her shoulders impatiently. “One has theories and it’s very nice to spread them out, but in practice it’s quite different. Fred’s been perfectly beastly these last few days.”
“Well,” said Lady Gale, “don’t run a risk of losing him. I mean that quite seriously. One thinks that one’s got a man so safely that one can play any game one likes, and then suddenly the man’s gone; and then, my dear, you’re sorry.”
“You’re dreadfully serious to-night. I wanted to be amused, and instead of that you speak as if I were on the verge of something dreadful. I’m not a bit. It’s only Fred that’s cross.”
“Of course I don’t think you’re on the verge of anything dreadful.” Lady Gale bent down and kissed her. “It’s only that Treliss is a funny place. It has its effect — well, it’s rather hard to say — but on our nerves, I suppose. We are all of us excited and would do things, perhaps, here that we shouldn’t dream of doing anywhere else. Things look differently here.” She paused a moment, then she added, “It’s all rather worrying.”
“Dear, I’m a pig,” said Mrs. Lester, leaning over and kissing her. “Don’t bother about me and my little things. But why are you worrying? Is it Tony?”
“Well, I suppose it is,” said Lady Gale slowly; “it’s quite silly of me, but we’re all of us rather moving in the dark. Nobody knows what anyone else is doing. And then there’s Alice.”
“What exactly has she got to do with it?” asked Mrs. Lester.
“My dear, she has everything.” Lady Gale sighed. You must have heard when you were in town that she was, more or less, ‘allotted’ to Tony. Of course it hadn’t actually come to any exact words, but it was very generally understood. I myself hadn’t any doubt about the matter. They were to come down here to fix it all up. As a matter of fact, coming down here has undone the whole thing.”
“Yes, of course I’d heard something,” said Mrs. Lester. “As a matter of fact I had been wondering rather. Of course I could see that it wasn’t, so to speak, coming off.”
“No. Something’s happened to Tony since he came down, and to Alice too, for that matter. But at first I didn’t worry; in fact, quite between ourselves, I was rather glad. In town they were neither of them very keen about it; it was considered a suitable thing and they were going to fall in with it, and they were quite nice enough, both of them, to have carried it on all right afterwards. But that wasn’t the kind of marriage that I wanted for Tony. He’s too splendid a fellow to be lost and submerged in that kind of thing; it’s too ordinary, too drab. And so, when he came down here, I saw at once that something had happened, and I was glad.”
“I understand,” said Mrs. Lester, her eyes shining.
“But I asked him nothing. That has always been our plan, that he shall tell me if he wants to, but otherwise I leave it alone. And it has worked splendidly. He has always told me. But this time it is rather different. As soon as he told me anything I should have to act. If he told me who the girl was I should have to see her, and then you see, I must tell my husband. As soon as I know about it I become the family, and I hate the family.”
Mrs. Lester could feel Lady Gale’s hand quiver on her arm. “Oh, my dear, you don’t know what it has always been. Before Tony came life was a lie, a lie from the very beginning. I was forced to eat, to sleep, to marry, to bear children, as the family required. Everything was to be done with one eye on the world and another on propriety. I was hot, impetuous in those days, now I am getting old and calm enough, God knows; I have learnt my lesson, but oh! it took some learning. Rupert was like the rest; I soon saw that there was no outlet there. But then Tony came, and there was something to live for. I swore that he should live his life as he was meant to live it, no square pegs in round holes for him, and so I have watched and waited and hoped. And now, at last, romance has come to him. I don’t know who she is; but you’ve seen, we’ve all seen, the change in him, and he shall seize it and hold it with both hands, only, you see, I must not know. As soon as I know, the thing becomes official, and then there’s trouble. Besides, I trust him. I know that he won’t do anything rotten because he’s Tony. I was just a little bit afraid that he might do something foolish, but I’ve put Mr. Maradick there as guard, and the thing’s safe.”
“Mr. Maradick?” asked Mrs. Lester.
“Yes. Tony’s devoted to him, and he has just that stolid matter-of-fact mind that will prevent the boy from doing anything foolish. Besides, I like him. He’s not nearly so stupid as he seems.”
“I don’t think he seems at all stupid,” said Mrs. Lester, “I think he’s delightful. But tell me, if they were neither of them very keen and the thing’s off, why are you worried? Surely it is the very best thing that could possibly happen.”
“Ah! that was before they came down.” Lady Gale shook her head. “Something’s happened to Alice. Since she’s been down here she’s fallen in love with Tony. Yes, wildly. I had been a little afraid of it last week, and then last night she came to me and spoke incoherently about going away and hating Treliss and all sorts of things jumbled up together and then, of course, I saw at once. It is really very strange in a girl like Alice. I used to think that I never knew anyone more self-contained and sensible, but now I’m afraid that she’s in for a bad time.”
“If one only knew,” said Mrs. Lester, “what exactly it is that Tony is doing; we’re all in the dark. Of course, Mr. Maradick could tell us.” She paused for a moment, and then she said suddenly: “Have you though
t at all of the effect it may be having on Mr. Maradick? All this business.”
“Being with Tony, you mean?” said Lady Gale.
“Yes, the whole affair. He’s middle-aged and solid, of course, but he seems to me to have — how can one put it? — well, considerable inclinations to be young again. You know one can’t be with Tony without being influenced, and he is influenced, I think.”
Lady Gale put her hand on the other’s sleeve. “Millie,” she said very earnestly, “look here. Leave him alone. I mean that seriously, dear. He’s not a man to be played with, and it isn’t really worth the candle. You love Fred and Fred loves you; just stick to that and don’t worry about anything else.”
Mrs. Lester laughed. “How perfectly absurd! As if I cared for Mr. Maradick in that kind of way! Why, I’ve only known him a few days, and, anyway, it’s ridiculous!”
“I don’t know,” said Lady Gale, “this place seems to have been playing tricks with all of us. I’m almost afraid of it; I wish we were going away.”
They said no more then, but the conversation had given Lady Gale something more to think about.
Rupert, his father and Alice came in together. It was half-past eight and quite time to go down. Sir Richard was, as usual, impatient of all delay, and so they went down without waiting for Tony and Mr. Lester. The room was not very full when they came in; most people had dined, but the Maradicks were there at their usual table by the window. The two little girls were sitting straight in their chairs with their eyes fixed on their plates.