Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  “Isn’t that charming?” she said, looking at the blue pincushion, “such a delightful way to speak to one’s wife.” Then suddenly she crossed over to him. “No, dear. I didn’t mean that really, it was silly of me. Only I do need a little sympathy sometimes. Little things, you know, matter to us women; we remember and notice.”

  “That’s all right.” He put his arm round her neck and kissed her, then he jumped into bed. “We’ll talk to-morrow.” He nestled into the clothes with a little sigh of satisfaction; in a moment he was snoring.

  She sat on the bed and stared in front of her. Her hair was down and she looked very young. Most of the room was in shadow, but her dressing-table glittered under the electric light; the silver things sparkled like jewels, the gleam fell on the blue dress and travelled past it to the wall.

  She swung her feet angrily. How dare he go to sleep all in a moment in that ridiculous manner? His kiss had seemed a step towards sentiment, and now, in a moment, he was snoring. Oh! that showed how much he cared! Why had she ever married him?

  At the thought of the splendid times that she might have been having with some one else, with some splendid strong man who could take her in his arms until she could scarcely breathe, some one who would understand her when she wanted to talk and not go fast off to sleep, some one, well, like Mr. Maradick, for instance, her eyes glittered.

  She looked at the room, moved across the floor and switched off the lights. She crept into bed, moving as far away from her husband as possible. He didn’t care — nobody cared — she belonged to nobody in the world. She began to sob, and then she thought, of the picnic; well, he had cared and understood. He would not have gone to sleep . . . soon she was dreaming.

  And the other person upon whom the weather had had some effect was Mrs. Maradick. It could not be said that weather, as a rule, affected her at all, and perhaps even now things might be put down to the picnic; but the fact remains that for the first time in her selfish little life she was unhappy. She had been wounded in her most sensitive spot, her vanity. It did not need any very acute intelligence to see that she was not popular with the people in the hotel. The picnic had shown it to her quite conclusively, and she had returned in a furious passion. They had been quite nice to her, of course, but it did not need a very subtle woman to discover their real feelings. Fifteen years of Epsom’s admiration had ill-prepared her for a harsh and unsympathetic world, and she had never felt so lonely in her life before. She hated Lady Gale and Mrs. Lester bitterly from the bottom of her heart, but she would have given a very great deal, all her Epsom worshippers and more, for some genuine advance on their part.

  She was waiting now in her room for her husband to come in. She was sitting up in bed looking very diminutive indeed, with her little sharp nose and her bright shining eyes piercing the shadows; she had turned out the lights, except the one by the bed. She did not know in the least what she was going to say to him, but she was angry and sore and lonely; she was savage with the world in general and with James in particular. She bit her lips and waited. He came in softly, as though he expected to find her asleep, and then when he saw her light he started. His bed was by the window and he moved towards it. Then he stopped and saw her sitting up in bed.

  “Emmy! You still awake!”

  He looked enormous in his pyjamas; he could see his muscles move beneath the jacket.

  “Yes,” she said, “I want to talk to you.”

  “Oh! must we? Now?” he said. “It seems very late.”

  “It’s the only opportunity that one gets nowadays,” she said, her eyes flaring, “you are so much engaged.” It made her furious to see him looking so clean and comfortably sleepy.

  “Engaged?” he said.

  “Oh! we needn’t go into that,” she answered. “One doesn’t really expect to see anything of one’s husband in these modern times, it isn’t the thing!”

  He didn’t remind her that during the last fifteen years she hadn’t cared very much whether he were lonely or not. He looked at her gravely.

  “Don’t let’s start that all over again now,” he said. “I would have spent the whole time with you if you hadn’t so obviously shown me that you didn’t want me. You can hardly have forgotten already what you said the other day.”

  “Do you think that’s quite true?” she said, looking up at him; she was gripping the bedclothes in her hands. “Don’t you think that it’s a little bit because there’s some one else who did, or rather does, want you?”

  “What do you mean?” he said, coming towards her bed. She was suddenly frightened. This was the man whom she had seen for the first time on that first evening at dinner, some one she had never known before.

  “I mean what I say,” she answered. “How long do you suppose that I intend to stand this sort of thing? You leave me deliberately alone; I don’t know what you do with your days, or your evenings, neither does anyone else. I’m not going to be made a laughing-stock of in the hotel; all those beastly women . . .” She could scarcely speak for rage.

  “There is nothing to talk about,” he answered sternly. “It’s only your own imagination. At any rate, we are not going to have a scene now, nor ever again, as far as that goes. I’m sick of them.”

  “Well,” she answered furiously, “if you think I’m going to sit there and let myself be made a fool of and say nothing you’re mightily mistaken; I’ve had enough of it.”

  “And so have I,” he answered quietly. “If you’re tired of this place we’ll go away somewhere else, wherever you please; perhaps it would be a good thing. This place seems to have upset you altogether. Perhaps after all it would be the best thing. It would cut all the knots and end all these worries.”

  But she laughed scornfully. “Oh! no, thank you. I like the place well enough. Only you must be a little more careful. And if you think — —”

  But he cut her short. “I don’t think anything about it,” he said. “I’m tired of talking. This place has made a difference, it’s true. It’s shown me some of the things that I’ve missed all these years; I’ve been going along like a cow . . . and now for the future it’s going to be different.”

  “Oh! it’s not only the place,” she sneered. “Mrs. Lester — —”

  But at the word he suddenly bent down and held her by the shoulders. His face was white; he was shaking with anger. He was so strong that she felt as though he was going to crush her into nothing.

  “Look here,” he whispered, “leave that alone. I won’t have it, do you hear? I won’t have it. You’ve been riding me too long, you and your nasty dirty little thoughts; now I’m going to have my own way. You’ve had yours long enough; leave me alone. Don’t drive me too far. . . .”

  He let her drop back on the pillows. She lay there without a word. He stole across the room on his naked feet and switched out the lights. She heard him climb into bed.

  CHAPTER XI. OF LOVE — AND THEREFORE TO BE SKIPPED BY ALL THOSE

  WHO ARE TIRED OF THE SUBJECT

  Above the knoll the afternoon sun hung in a golden mist. The heat veiled it, and the blue of the surrounding sky faded into golden shadows near its circle and swept in a vast arc to limitless distance. The knoll, humped like a camel’s back, stood out a vivid green against the darker wall of trees behind it. Far below, the white sand of the cove caught the sun and shone like a pearl, and beyond it was the blue carpet of the sea.

  Morelli sat, cross-legged, on the knoll. In his hands was his flute, but he was staring straight below him down on to the cove. He waited, the air was heavy with heat; a crimson butterfly hovered for a moment in front of him and then swept away, a golden bee buzzed about his head and then lumbered into the air. There was silence; the trees stood rigid in the heat.

  Suddenly Morelli moved. Two black specks appeared against the white shadows of the beach; he began to play.

  Punch was lying on the cliff asleep. To his right, curving towards the white sand, was a sea-pool slanting with green sea-weed down into dark purple dep
ths. The sun beat upon the still surface of it and changed it into burning gold. Below this the sea-weed flung green shadows across the rock. It reflected through the gold the straight white lines of the road above it, and the brown stem, sharp like a sword, of a slender poplar. It seemed to pass through the depths of the pool into endless distance. Besides the green of the sea-weed and the gold of the sun there was the blue of the sky reflected, and all these lights and colours mingled and passed and then mingled again as in the curving circle of a pearl shell. Everything was metallic, with a hard outline like steel, under the blazing sun.

  Tony turned the corner and came down the hill. He was in flannels and carried in one hand a large tea-basket. His body, long and white, was reflected in the green and blue of the pool. It spread in little ripples driven by a tiny wind in white shadows to the bank.

  He was whistling, and then suddenly he saw Toby and Punch asleep in the grass. He stopped for a moment in the road and looked at them. Then he passed on.

  The white sand gleamed and sparkled in the sun; the little wind had passed from the face of the pool, and there was no movement at all except the very soft and gentle breaking of tiny waves on the sand’s edge. A white bird hanging for the moment motionless in the air, a tiny white cloud, the white edge of the breaking ripples, broke the blue.

  Tony sat down. From where he was sitting he could see the town rising tier upon tier into a peak. It lay panting in the sun like a beast tired out.

  The immediate problem was whether Morelli or Miss Minns would come. A tiny note in a tiny envelope had arrived at the “Man at Arms” that morning. It had said:

  Dear Mr. Gale,

  Thank you so very much. It is charming of you to ask us. We shall be delighted to come.

  Yours sincerely

  Janet Morelli.

  It wasn’t like her, and short though it was he felt sure that somebody had watched her whilst she did it. And “we”? For whom did that stand? He had felt so sure in his heart of hearts that no one except Janet would come that he was, at first, bitterly disappointed. What a farce the whole thing would be if anyone else were there! He laughed sarcastically at the picture of Miss Minns perched horribly awry at the end of the boat, forcing, by her mere presence, the conversation into a miserable stern artificiality. And then suppose it were Morelli? But it wouldn’t be, of that he was sure; Morelli had other things to do.

  He glanced for a moment up to the cliff where Punch was. He didn’t want the whole town to know what he was about. Punch could keep a secret, of course, he had kept a good many in his time, but it might slip out; not that there was anything to be ashamed of.

  As a matter of fact, he had had some difficulty in getting away from the hotel; they had been about him like bees, wanting him to do things. He had noticed, too, that his mother was anxious. Since the day of the picnic she had watched him, followed him with her eyes, had evidently longed to ask him what he was going to do. That, he knew, was her code, that she should ask him nothing and should wait; but he felt that she was finding the waiting very difficult. He was quite sure in his own mind that Alice had spoken to her, and, although he would give everything in the world to be pleasant and easy, he found, in spite of himself, that he was, when he talked to her, awkward and strained. There was something new and strange in her attitude to him, so that the old cameraderie was quite hopelessly gone, and the most ordinary conventional remark about the weather became charged with intensest meaning. This all contrived to make things at the hotel very awkward, and everyone was in that state of tension which forced them to see hidden mysteries in everything that happened or was said. The Lesters had been barely on speaking terms at breakfast time and Maradick hadn’t appeared at all.

  Then, when the afternoon had come, his mother had asked him to come out with them. He had had to refuse, and had only been able to give the vaguest of reasons. They knew that he was not going with Mr. Maradick, because he had promised to walk with Mr. Lester. What was he going to do? He spoke of friends in the town and going for a row. It had all been very unpleasant. Life was, in fact, becoming immensely complicated, and if Miss Minns were to appear he would have all this worry and trouble for nothing.

  He gazed furiously at the hard white road. The pool shone like a mirror; the road, the poplar, the sky were painted on its surface in hard vivid outline. Suddenly a figure was reflected in it. Some one in a white dress with a large white hat, her reflexion spread across the length of the pool. The water caught a mass of golden hair and held it for a moment, then it was gone.

  Tony’s eyes, straining towards the hill, suddenly saw her; she was alone. When he saw her his heart began to beat so furiously that for a moment he could not move. Then he sprang to his feet. He must not be too sure. Perhaps Miss Minns was late. He watched her turn down the path and come towards him. She was looking very cool and collected and smiling at him as she crossed the sand.

  “Isn’t it a lovely day?” she said, shaking hands. “I’m not late, am I?”

  “No, I was rather early;” and then, suddenly, “Is Miss Minns coming?”

  “Oh, no,” Janet laughed, “it was far too hot. She is sleeping with all the curtains drawn and the doors and windows shut. Only I’m not to be late. Oh, dear! What fun! Where’s the boat?”

  The excitement of hearing that she really was alone was very nearly too much for Tony. He wanted to shout.

  “Oh, I say, I’m so glad. No, I don’t mean to be rude really; I think Miss Minns awfully decent, simply ripping” (this, I am afraid, due to general pleasure rather than strict veracity), “but it would have put a bit of a stopper on the talking, wouldn’t it? and you know there are simply tons of things that I want to talk about. The boat’s round here, round the corner over these rocks. I thought we’d row to Mullin’s Cave, have tea, and come back.”

  They moved across the sand.

  Punch had woke at the sound of voices and now was staring in front of him. He recognised both of them. “The couple of babies,” he said, and he sighed.

  And at that precise moment some one else came down the path. It was Alice du Cane. She carried a pink parasol. Her figure lay for a moment on the surface of the pool. She was looking very pretty, but she was very unhappy. They had asked her to go out with them, but she had refused and had pleaded a headache. And then she had hated the gloom and silence of her room. She knew what it was that she wanted, although she refused to admit it to herself. She pretended that she wanted the sea, the view, the air; and so she went out. She told herself a hundred times a day that she must go away, must leave the place and start afresh somewhere else. That was what she wanted; another place and she would soon forget. And then there would come fierce self-reproach and miserable contempt. She, Alice du Cane, who had prided herself on her self-control? The kind of girl who could quote Henley with satisfaction, “Captain of her soul?” At the turn of the road she saw Punch and Toby; then across the white sand of the cove two figures.

  He said good-day, and she smiled at him. Then for a moment she stopped. It was Tony, she could hear his laugh; he gave the girl his hand to cross the rocks.

  “A beautiful day, isn’t it?” she said to Punch, and passed down the road.

  They found the boat round the corner of the rocks lying with its clean white boards and blue paint. It lay with a self-conscious air on the sand, as though it knew at what ceremony it was to attend. It gurgled and chuckled with pleasure as it slipped into the water. Whilst he busied himself with the oars she stood silently, her hands folded in front of her, looking out to sea. “I’ve always wanted to know,” she said, “what there is right out there on the other side. One used to fancy a country, like any child, with mountains and lakes, black sometimes and horrible when one was in a bad mood, and then, on other days, beautiful and full of sun. . . .”

  They said very little as the boat moved out; the cove rapidly dwindled into a shining circle of silver sand; the rocks behind it assumed shapes, dragons and mandarins and laughing dogs, the town mounted li
ke a pyramid into the sky and some of it glittered in the light of the sun like diamonds.

  Janet tried to realise her sensations. In the first place she had never been out in a boat before; secondly, she had never been really alone with Tony before; thirdly, she had had no idea that she would have felt so silent as she did. There were hundreds of things that she wanted to say, and yet she sat there tongue-tied. She was almost afraid of breaking the silence, as though it were some precious vase and she was tempted to fling a stone.

  Tony too felt as though he were in church. He rowed with his eyes fixed on the shore, and Janet. Now that the great moment had actually arrived he was frightened. Whatever happened, the afternoon would bring tremendous consequences with it. If she laughed at him, or was amazed at his loving her, then he felt that he could never face the long dreary stretches of life in front of him; and if she loved him, well, a good many things would have to happen. He realised, too, that a number of people were bound up with this affair of his; his mother, Alice, the Maradicks, even the Lesters.

  “They didn’t mind your coming alone?” he said at last.

  “Oh, no, why should they?” she said, laughing. “Besides, father approves of you enormously, and I’m so glad! He’s never approved of anyone as a companion before, and it makes such a difference.”

  “Is he kind to you?”

  “Father! Why, of course!”

  “Are you fond of him?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I must know; I want to know all about it. We can’t be real friends unless there’s complete confidence. That’s the best of being the ages we are. As things are, we can’t have very much to hide, but later on people get all sorts of things that they have done and said that they keep locked up.”

  “No,” said Janet, smiling, “I haven’t got anything to hide. I’ll try and tell you all you want to know. But it’s very difficult, about father.”