by Hugh Walpole
“Cruel to her?” said Maradick.
“Yes, ’e beats her, I know. I’ve been watching a long way back; and then again ‘e’ll kiss ‘er and give ‘er things and play with ‘er, and then one day ‘e’ll kill ‘er.”
Maradick started again. “Kill her?” he said.
“Yes. ‘E’ll do anything when ‘e’s mad. And a minute after ‘e’ll be sobbing and crying for sorrow over what ‘e’s hurt; and be like a drunkard when ‘e’s angry.”
“Then what do you make of it all?” said Maradick.
“Make of it?” said Punch. “I don’t know. There ain’t another like ’im in the kingdom. There’s more in the world than folk ‘ave any idea of, especially those that keep to towns. But it’s out on the road that you’ll be seeing things, when the moon is up and the hedges purple in their shadows. And ’e belongs to all of that. ‘E’s like Nature in a way, cruel and kind and wild. ‘E’s not to be believed in by sober folks who laugh at spirits, but there’s more in it than meets the eye.”
And that was all that Maradick got from him; and after all it did not amount to very much except a vague warning. But there was this definite fact, that Janet was in danger where she was, and that was an added impulse, of course, for going on with the whole adventure. To the initial charm of helping a delightful boy was now added the romantic sensation of the release of a captive lady; Maradick, knight! Forty and married for a lifetime; oh! the absurd world.
Then Maradick went up for breakfast.
Mrs. Maradick’s first thought in the morning was her hair, and then, at some considerable distance, the girls. It never happened that they were both “right” simultaneously, and she would indeed have been considerably surprised and felt a certain lack if there had been no cause for complaint on either score.
On the present morning everything was as it should be. Her hair “settled itself” as though by magic, the girls had given no possible cause of complaint; she came down to breakfast with an air of surprise and the kind of mind that is quite sure something unpleasant is going to happen simply because nothing unpleasant has “happened” so far. She presented, as she came down the hotel staircase, a delightful picture of neat compact charm; her girls, in precise and maidenly attendance behind her, accentuated her short stature by their own rather raw, long-legged size, but there was nothing loose or uncouth about her. In her colouring, in her light carnation silk waistband, in her high-heeled shiny shoes, she was neatness personified.
In the eyes of everyone except Mrs. Lawrence she had perhaps just a little too much the air of being “somebody,” because really, of course, she was nothing at all, simply Mrs. Maradick of Epsom; but then when you were so small you had to do something to make up for it, and an “air” did help undoubtedly. Her husband, coming in from the garden, met her at the bottom of the stairs, and she treated him very graciously. He kissed the girls with a “Well, Lucy!” and “Well, Annie!” and then Mrs. Maradick, with a final feeling for her hair and a last pat to the carnation riband, led the way in to breakfast.
It appeared that she was inclined to treat him graciously, but in reality she was trying to make up her mind; she was not a clever woman, and she had never been so puzzled before.
She had, indeed, never been forced to puzzle about anything at all. In her orderly compact life things had always been presented to her with a decency and certainty that left no room for question or argument. She had been quiet and obedient at home, but she had always had her way; she had married the man that had been presented to her without any hesitation at all, it was a “good match,” and it meant that, for the rest of her life, she would never be forced to ask any questions about anything or anybody. For a wild week or two, at first, she had felt strange undisciplined sensations that were undoubtedly dangerous; on their wedding night she had suddenly suspected that there was another woman there whose existence meant storm and disorder. But the morning had come with bills and calls and “finding a house,” and that other Mrs. Maradick had died. From that day to this there had been no cause for alarm. James had soon been reduced to order and had become a kind of necessity, like the sideboard; he paid the bills. Child-birth had been alarming for a moment, but Mrs. Maradick had always been healthy and they had an excellent doctor, but, after Annie’s appearance, she had decided that there should never be another. James presented no difficulties at all, and her only real worry in life was her “hair.” There was not very much of it, and she spent her mornings and her temper in devising plans whereby it should be made to seem “a lot,” but it never was satisfactory. Her “hair” became the centre of her life, her horizon. James fitted into it. If the “hair” were all right, he didn’t seem so bad. Otherwise he was stupid, dull, an oaf.
And so she had come down to Treliss and life had suddenly changed. It had really changed from that first evening of their arrival when he had been so rude to her, although she had not realised it at the time. But the astonishing thing was that he had kept it up. He had never kept anything up before, and it was beginning to frighten her. At first it had seemed to her merely conceit. His head had been turned by these people, and when he got back to Epsom and found that he wasn’t so wonderful after all, and that the people there didn’t think of him at all except as her husband, then he would find his place again.
But now she wasn’t so sure. She had not been asleep last night when he came to bed. She had seen him bend over with the candle in his hand, and the look in his eyes had frightened her, frightened her horribly, so that she had lain awake for hours afterwards, thinking, puzzling for the first time in her life. During all these twenty years of their married life he had been, she knew, absolutely faithful to her. She had laughed at it sometimes, because it had seemed so absolutely impossible that there should ever be anyone else. He did not attract people in Epsom in the least; he had never made any attempt to, and she had imagined him, poor fellow, sometimes trying, and the miserable mess that he would make of it.
And now she had got to face the certainty that there was some one else. She had seen it in his eyes last night, and she knew that he would never have had the strength to keep up the quarrel for nearly a fortnight unless some one else had been there. She saw now a thousand things that should have convinced her before, little things all culminating in that horrible picnic a few days ago. It was as though, she thought, he had come down to Treliss determined to find somebody. She remembered him in the train, how pleasant and agreeable he had been! He had arranged cushions for her, got things for her, but the moment they had arrived! Oh! this hateful town!
But now she had got to act. She had woke early that morning and had found that he was already gone. That alone was quite enough to stir all her suspicions.
Perhaps now he was down there in the town with some one! Why should he get up at an unearthly hour unless it were for something of the kind? He had always been a very sound sleeper. At Epsom he would never have thought of getting up before eight. Who was it?
She put aside, for a moment, her own feelings about him, the curious way in which she was beginning to look at him. The different side that he was presenting to her and the way that she looked at it must wait until she had discovered this woman, this woman! She clenched her little hands and her eyes flashed.
Oh! she would talk to her when she found her!
His early escape that morning seemed to her a sign that the “woman” was down in the town. She imagined an obvious assignation, but otherwise she might have suspected that it was Mrs. Lester. That, of course, she had suspected from the day of the picnic, but it seemed to her difficult to imagine that a woman of the world, as Mrs. Lester, to give her her due, most obviously was, could see anything in her hulk of a James; it would be much more probable if it were some uncouth fisherwoman who knew, poor thing, no better.
She looked at him now across the breakfast-table; his red cheeks, his great nostrils “like a horse’s,” his enormous hands, but it was not all hostility the look that she gave him. There was a kind of
dawning wonder and surprise.
They had their table by the window, and the sun beat through on to the silver teapot and the ham and eggs. Annie had refused porridge. No, she wasn’t hungry.
“You should have bathed, as I did, before breakfast,” said Maradick.
So he’d bathed before breakfast, had he? She looked across at him smiling.
“You were up very early,” she said.
“Yes, I slept badly.” They were down again, those blinds! She saw him drop them down as though by magic. He was playing his game.
“Well, next time you must wake me and I’ll come too,” she said. His sense of humour was touched at the idea of her coming down at five in the morning, but he said nothing.
The knowledge, the increasing certainty that there was something in it all, was choking her so that she found it exceedingly difficult to eat. But that she should be baffled by James was so incredible an idea that she concealed her rising temper.
She nodded gaily at Mrs. Lawrence, who swam towards their table with outstretched hands and a blue scarf floating like wings behind her.
“My dear!”
“My dear!”
“But you generally have it upstairs, I thought . . .”
“Yes, I know; but such a day, one couldn’t really . . .”
“Yes, I was awake ever so . . . But James has been bathing. No, Lucy, sit still, dear, until we’ve finished. Bathing before breakfast. I think I really must to-morrow.”
Epsom closed about the table.
She was extremely nice to him throughout the meal, and even hinted at their doing something, spending the day, “and such a day.” It was a shame not to take advantage of the weather “as a family.” Quite a new idea, indeed, but he accepted it, and even began to suggest possible places. She was baffled again, and, as the terrible prospect of a whole day spent in James’s company, quite alone except for the girls, pressed about her, became almost hysterical in her hurriedly discovered reasons why, after all, it would never do. But he smiled at her, and although he was quite ready to do anything that she might suggest, it was a different kind of agreeing from a week or two ago.
She retired from the breakfast-table baffled.
He had been watching the door of the breakfast-room eagerly, and when he went out down into the garden he was still looking for the same figure. There was no longer, there could be no longer any disguise about the person, it was Mrs. Lester beyond any possible question; but he did disguise the reason. He wanted to talk to her, he liked to talk to her, just as he liked to talk to any understanding person, quite irrespective of sex. She had, of course, her atmosphere; it had a great deal in common with the place and the weather and the amazing riot of colour that the weather had brought. He saw her always as she had been on that first day, primrose, golden, in that dark dim drawing-room; but that he should think of her in that way didn’t show him, as it should have done, how the case was really beginning to lie.
He had the “Play-boy” on his knee and the light swung, as some great golden censor is swung before the High Altar, in waves of scent and colour backwards and forwards before him. He watched, looking eagerly down the sunlit path, but she did not come, and the morning passed in its golden silence and he was still alone.
It wasn’t indeed until after lunch that things began to move again, and then Tony came to him. He was in a glow of pleasure and excitement; she had written to him.
“It was most awfully clever; she only wrote it after I left last night and she hadn’t time to post it, of course, but she gave it to the old apple-woman — you know, down by the tower — and right under her father’s nose, and he hadn’t the least idea, and I’ve written back because I mayn’t, perhaps, get a word with her this afternoon, and old Morelli will be there.”
He sat on the edge of the stone wall, looking down at the town and swinging his legs. The town was in a blaze of sun, seen dimly through a haze of gold-dust. It hung like a lamp against the blue sky, because the mist gathered closely about its foundations, and only its roofs and pinnacles seemed to swing in the shifting dazzling sun before their eyes.
“The old apple-woman,” said Tony, “is simply ripping, and I think she must have had an awfully sad life. I should like to do something for her.” There were at least ten people a day for whom he wanted to do something. “I asked Bannister about her, but he wasn’t very interested; but that’s because his smallest baby’s got whooping-cough. He told me yesterday he simply whooped all night, and Mrs. Bannister had to sit up with it, which pretty well rotted her temper next day.” Tony paused with a consciousness that he was wandering from the point. “Anyhow, here’s her letter, Janet’s, I mean. I know she wouldn’t mind you seeing it, because you are in it almost as much as I am.” He held out the letter.
“Did Morelli see her give it to the apple-woman?” asked Maradick.
“Yes, she tells you in the letter. But he didn’t spot anything. He’s such a funny beggar; he seems so smart sometimes, and then other times he doesn’t see anything. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter much, because I’m going to see him now and tell him everything.”
“Well; and then?” said Maradick.
“Oh! he’ll agree, I know he will. And then I think we’ll be married right at once; there’s no use in waiting, you know, and there’s a little church right over by Strater Cove, near the sea, a little tumbledown place with a parson who’s an awful sportsman. He’s got five children and two hundred a year, and — oh! where was I? — and then we’ll just come back and tell them. They can’t do anything then, you know, and father will get over it all right.”
Tony was so serene about it, swinging his legs there in the sun, that Maradick could say nothing.
“And if Morelli doesn’t take to the idea?” he ventured at last.
“Oh! he!” said Tony. “Oh, he’s really most awfully keen. You noticed how we got on. I took to him from the first, there was something about him.” But he swung round rather anxiously towards Maradick. “Why! do you think he won’t?” he said.
“I’m not sure of him,” Maradick answered. “I never have been. And then I was with Punch this morning and he told me things about him.”
“Things! What sort of things?” asked Tony rather incredulously.
“Oh, about the way that he treated his wife.” It was, after all, Maradick reflected, extremely vague, nothing very much that one could lay hands on. “I don’t like the man, and I don’t for a minute think that he’s playing square with you.”
But Tony smiled, a rather superior smile. After all, that was Maradick’s way, to be pessimistic about things; it was to do with his age. Middle-aged people were always cautious and suspicious. For a moment he felt quite a distance from Maradick, and something akin to the same feeling made him stretch out his hand for Janet’s letter.
“After all,” he said rather awkwardly, “perhaps she would rather that I didn’t show it to anyone, even you.” He jumped down from the wall. “Well, I must be off. It’s after three. I say, keep the family in the dark until I’m back. They’re sure to ask. Now that Alice and father are both beginning to think about it we shall fairly have to begin the conspirator business.” He laughed in his jolly way and stood in front of Maradick with a smile all over his face. Suddenly he leant forward and put his hands on the other man’s shoulders and shook him gently.
“You silly old rotter, don’t look so sad about it, you don’t know what fun it will all be. And you are the biggest brick in the world, anyway. Janet and I will never forget you.” He bent down lower. “I say, you’re not sick with me, are you? Because, scold me like anything if I’ve done things. I always am doing things, you know.” He turned round and faced the shining path and the sky like glass. “I say! Isn’t it topping? But I must be off. I’ll come at once and tell you when I get back. But I’ll have to be in time for dinner to-night or the governor will keep me to my room on bread and water.” He was gone.
Maradick, looking back on it all afterwards, always saw that mom
ent as the beginning of the second act. The first act, of course, had begun with that vision of Janet on the stairs with the candle in her hand. That seemed a long while ago now. Then had come all the other things, the picnic, the swim, the talk with Mrs. Lester, Tony’s proposal, his own talk with Punch that morning; all little things, but all leading the situation inevitably towards its climax. But they had all been in their way innocent, unoffending links in the chain. Now there was something more serious in it all, from that evening some other element mingled with the comedy.
He suddenly felt irritated with the sun and the colour and began to walk up and down the path. The uneasiness that he had felt all the afternoon increased; he began to wish that he had not allowed Tony to go down alone. Nothing, of course, could happen to the boy; it was absurd that he should imagine things, and probably it was due to the heat. Every now and again some sound came up from the town — a cry, a bell, the noisy rattle of a cart, and it seemed like an articulate voice; the town seemed to have a definite personality, some great animal basking there in the sun, and its face was the face of Morelli.
He sat down on one of the seats in the shadiest part of the garden; the trees hung over it in thick dark shadows, and at times a breeze pushed like a bird’s wing through their branches.
All around him the path was dark, beyond it was a broad belt of light. He must have gone asleep, because almost immediately he seemed to be dreaming. The shadows on the path receded and advanced as a door opens and shuts; the branches of the trees bent lower and lower. It seemed in his dream that he recognised something menacing in their movement, and he rose and passed through the garden and in a moment he was in the town. Here too it was dark, and in the market-place the tower stood, a black mass against the grey sky behind it, and the streets twisted like snakes up and down about the hill.
And then suddenly he was at Morelli’s house, he recognised the strange carving and the crooked, twisting shape of the windows. The door opened easily to his hand and he passed up the stairs. The house was quite dark; he had to grope to find his way. And then he was opposed by another door, something studded with nails — he could feel them with his hands — and heavily barred. He heard voices on the other side of the door, low, soft whispers, and then he recognised them, they were Tony and Morelli. He was driven by an impulse to beat the door and get at them; some fear clutched at his throat so that he felt that Tony was in terrible danger. In a minute he knew that he would be too late.