Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  His voice trailed off. For a moment there was silence and she heard his breathing. He was asleep.

  She listened furiously. Oh, well, if he didn’t care more than that! If he couldn’t keep awake longer than that! She dug her nails into her hand. There it was; he could go to sleep when she was in torture. He didn’t care; the other man! Her mind flew back to the evening again. Ah! he would not have gone off to sleep! He would have listened — listened.

  But she lay for hours staring into the darkness, listening to the man’s even breathing.

  But there had been another example of “any wife to any husband,” that must, for a moment, have its record.

  Maradick feared, on coming into his room, that his wife was not yet in bed. She was sitting in front of her glass brushing her hair. She must have seen him in the mirror, but she did not move. She looked very young, almost like a little doll; as she sat there he had again the curious feeling of pathos that he had known at breakfast. Absurd! Emmy Maradick was the last person about whom anyone need be pathetic, but nevertheless the feeling was there. He got into bed without a word. She went on silently combing her hair. It got on his nerves; he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He turned his eyes away towards the wall, but slowly they turned back again, back to the silent white figure in the centre of the room by the shining glass.

  He suddenly wanted to scream, to shout something at her like “Speak, you devil!” or “don’t go on saying nothing, you mummy, sitting still like that.”

  At last he did speak.

  “You’re late, Emmy,” he said, “I thought you’d have been in bed.” His voice was very gentle. If only she would stop moving that brush up and down with its almost mechanical precision! She put the brush slowly down on the table and turned towards him.

  “Yes,” she said, “I was waiting for you, really, until you came up.”

  He was suddenly convinced that she knew; she had probably known all about it from the first. She was such a clever little woman, there were very few things that she didn’t know. He waited stupidly, dully. He wondered what she was going to say, what she was going to propose that they should do.

  But having got so far, she seemed to have nothing more to say. She stared at the glass with wide, fixed eyes; her cheeks were flushed, and her fingers played nervously with the things on the dressing-table.

  “Well,” he said at last, “what is it?”

  Then, to his intense surprise, she got up and came slowly towards him; she sat on the edge of the bed whilst he watched her, wondering, amazed. He had never seen her like that before, and his intense curiosity at her condition killed, for a moment, the eagerness with which he would discover how much she knew. But her manner of taking it was surely very strange.

  Temper, fury, passion, even hate, that he could understand, and that, knowing her, he would have expected, but this strange dreamy quiet frightened him. He caught the bed-clothes in his hands and twisted them; then he asked again: “Well, what is it?” But when she did at last speak she did not look at him, but stared in front of her. It was the strangest thing in the world to see her sitting there, speaking like that; and he had a feeling, not to be explained, that she wasn’t there at all really, that it was some one else, even, possibly, some strange thing that his actions of these last few days had suddenly called forth — called forth, that was, to punish him. He shrunk back on to his pillows.

  “Well,” her voice just went on, “it isn’t that I’ve really anything to say; you’ll think me silly, and I’m sure I don’t want to keep you when you want to go to sleep. But it isn’t often that we have anything very much to say to one another; it isn’t, at any rate, very often here. We’ve hardly, you know, talked at all since we’ve been here.

  “But these last few days I’ve been thinking, realising perhaps, that it’s been my fault all these years that things haven’t been happier. . . . I don’t think I’d thought about anyone except myself. . . . In some sort of way I hadn’t considered you at all; I don’t quite know why.”

  She paused as though she expected him to say something, but he made no sound.

  Then she went on: “I suppose you’ll think it foolish of me, but I feel as though everything has been different from the moment that we came here, from the moment that we came to Treliss; you have been quite different, and I am sorry if I have been so disagreeable, and I’m going to try, going to try to be pleasanter.”

  She brought it out with a jerk, as though she were speaking under impulse, as though something was making her speak.

  And he didn’t know what to say; he could say nothing — his only emotion that he was angry with her, almost furious, because she had spoken like that. It was too bad of her, just then, after all these years. There had, at any rate, been some justification before, or, at least, he had tried to persuade himself that there was, in his relations with Mrs. Lester. He had been driven by neglect, lack of sympathy, and all the rest of it; and now, suddenly, that had been taken away from under his feet. Oh! it was too bad.

  And then his suspicions were aroused again. It was so unlike her to behave like that. Perhaps she was only behaving like this in order to find out, to sound him, as it were. Oh, yes! it was a clever move; but he couldn’t say anything to her, the words refused to come.

  She waited, a little pathetically, there on the bed, for him to speak; and then as nothing came, still without looking at him, she said quietly “Good-night,” and stepped softly across the room.

  He heard her switch the light off, the bed-clothes rustled for a moment, and then there was silence.

  And these next two days were torture to him, the most horrible days that he had ever known. Partly they were horrible because of the general consciousness that something was going to happen. Lady Gale, in obedience to Tony, had arranged a picnic for Thursday, but “for ladies only. You see, Mr. Lester is leaving in the afternoon, and my husband and Rupert talk of going with him as far as Truro; my husband has some relations there. And really, I know you and Tony would rather go off on your own, Mr. Maradick. It would be too boring for you. We’re only going to sit in the sun, you know, and talk!”

  It was understood that Mr. Maradick had, as a matter of fact, fixed up something. Yes, he had promised his day to Tony, it being one of the last that they would have together. They would probably go for a sail. He would like to have come. He enjoyed the last, &c., &c.

  But this was quite enough to “do” the trick. What a picnic! Imagine! With everyone acutely conscious that there was something “going on” just over the hill, something that, for Lady Gale, at any rate, meant almost life and death. Thursday began to loom very large indeed. What would everyone be doing and thinking on Friday? Still more vital a question, where would everyone be on Friday?

  But at any rate he could picture them: the ladies — Lady Gale, Alice Du Cane, Mrs. Lester, his wife, even poor Mrs. Lawrence — sitting there, on the edge of the hill, silent, alert, listening.

  What a picnic!

  But their alertness, or rather their terrible eagerness to avoid seeming alert, horrified him. They seemed to pursue him, all five of them, during those two dreadful days with questioning glances; only his wife, by her curious patient intentness, as though she were waiting for the crisis to come, frightened him most of all. The more he thought of her strange behaviour the less he understood her. It was all so utterly unlike her. And it was not as though she had altered at all in other ways. He had heard her talking to other people, he had watched her scolding the girls, and it was the same sharp, shrill voice, the same fierce assumption that the person she was with must necessarily be trying to “get” at her; no, she was the same Emmy Maradick as far as the rest of the world was concerned. But, with him, she was some one altogether new, some one he had never seen before; and always, through it all, that strange look of wonder and surprise. He often knew that her eyes were upon him when he was talking to some one else; when he talked to her himself her eyes avoided him.

  And then Mrs. Lester, too
, was so strange. During the whole of Tuesday she avoided him altogether. He had a few minutes with her at teatime, but there were other people there, and she seemed anxious to get away from him, to put the room between them. And seeing her like this, his passion grew. He felt that whatever happened, whatever the disaster, he must have her, once at least, in his arms again. The memories of their other meetings lashed him like whips. He pictured it again, the darkness, the movement of the trees, the touch of her cheek against his hand; and then he would feel that his wife was looking at him from somewhere across the room. He could feel her eyes, like little gimlets, twisting, turning into his back. And then other moods would come, and the blackest despair. He was this kind of man, this sort of scoundrel; he remembered once that there had been a man at Epsom who had run away with a married woman, a man who had been rather a friend of his. He remembered what he had said to him, the kind of way that he had looked at him, poor, rotten creature; and now what was he?

  But he could not go; he could not move. He was under a spell. When he thought of Mrs. Lester his blood would begin to race again. He told himself that it was the sign of his freedom, the natural consequences of the new life that had come to him; and then suddenly he would see that moment when his wife, sitting forlornly on his bed, had spoken to him.

  And then on Wednesday there was a moment when Mrs. Lester was herself again. It was only a moment, an instant after dinner. Their lips met; he spoke of Thursday and she smiled at him, then the others had come upon them. For an hour or two he was on fire, then he crept miserably, like a thief, to the room of the minstrels and sat wretchedly, hour after hour, looking at the stars.

  The day would soon dawn! Thursday! The crisis, as it seemed to him, of the whole of his life. He saw the morn draw faint shadows across the earth, he saw all the black trees move like a falling wall against the stars, he felt the wind with the odour of earth and sea brush his cheek, as he waited for the day to come.

  He knew now that it was to be no light thing; it was to be a battle, the fiercest that he had ever waged. Two forces were fighting over him, and one of them, before the next night had passed, would win the day. No Good and Evil? No God and Devil? No Heaven and Hell? Why, there they were before his very eyes; the two camps and the field between! And so Thursday dawned!

  But it came with grey mists and driving rain. The sea was hidden; only the tops of the trees in the garden stood disconsolately dripping above the fog.

  Everyone came down shivering to breakfast, and disappointments that seemed unjust on ordinary days were now perfectly unbearable. If there were no letters, one was left out in the cold, if there were a lot, they were sure to be bills. It was certain to be smoked haddock when that was the one thing above all others that you loathed; and, of course, there were numbers of little draughts that crept like mice about your feet and wandered like spiders about your hair.

  But one thing was perfectly obvious, and that was, that of course there could be no picnic. To have five ladies sitting desolately alone on the top of the hill, bursting with curiosity, was melancholy enough; but to have them sitting there in driving rain was utterly impossible.

  Nevertheless some people intended to venture out. Sir Richard and Rupert — mainly, it seemed, to show their contempt of so plebeian a thing as rain — were still determined on Truro.

  Tony also was going to tramp it with Maradick.

  “Where are you going?” This from Sir Richard, who had just decided that his third egg was as bad as the two that he had already eaten.

  “Oh! I don’t know!” said Tony lazily, “over the hills and far away, I expect. That’s the whole fun of the thing — not knowing. Isn’t it, Maradick?”

  “It is,” said Maradick.

  He showed no signs of a bad night. He was eating a very hearty breakfast.

  “But you must have some idea where you are going,” persisted Sir Richard, gloomily sniffing at his egg.

  “Well, I expect we’ll start out towards that old church,” said Tony. “You know, the one on the cliff; then we’ll strike inland, I expect. Don’t you think so, Maradick?”

  “Yes,” said Maradick.

  There was no doubt at all that the five ladies were extremely glad that there was to be no picnic. Mrs. Lawrence meant to have a really cosy day reading by the fire one of those most delightful stories of Miss Braddon. She was enormously interested in the literature of the early eighties; anything later than that rather frightened her.

  “We can have a really cosy day,” said Mrs. Lester.

  “Yes, we shall have quite a comfortable time,” said Mrs. Lawrence.

  “It is so nice having an excuse for a fire,” said Lady Gale.

  “I do love it when one can have a fire without being ashamed, don’t you?” said Mrs. Lawrence.

  Mrs. Maradick gathered her two girls about her and they disappeared.

  Slowly the clock stole towards half-past eleven, when the first move was to be made. Mr. Lester had left quite early. He said good-bye to Maradick with great cordiality.

  “Mind you come and see us, often. It’s been delightful meeting you. There’s still plenty to talk about.”

  He said good-bye to his wife with his usual rather casual geniality.

  “Good-bye, old girl. Send me a line. Hope this weather clears off” — and he was gone.

  She had been standing by the hall door. As the trap moved down the drive she suddenly made a step forward as though she would go out into the rain after him and call him back. Then she stopped. She was standing on the first step in front of the door; the mist swept about her.

  Lady Gale called from the hall: “Come in, dear, you’ll get soaking wet.”

  She turned and came back.

  To Tony, as he watched the hands of the clock creep round, it seemed perfectly incredible that the whole adventure should simply consist in quietly walking out of the door. It ought to begin, at any rate, with something finer than that, with an escape, something that needed secrecy and mystery. It was so strange that he was simply going to walk down and take Janet; it was, after all, a very ordinary affair.

  At quarter-past eleven he found his mother alone in her room.

  He came up to her and kissed her. “I’m going off with Maradick now,” he said.

  “Yes,” she answered, looking him in the eyes.

  “You know I’m in for an adventure, mother?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “Of course, dear, perfectly.”

  “You shall know all about it to-morrow.”

  “When you like, dear,” she answered. She placed her arms on his shoulders, and held him back and looked him in the face. Then she touched his head with her hands and said softly —

  “You mustn’t let anything or anyone come between us, Tony?”

  “Never, mother,” he answered. Then suddenly he came very close to her, put his arms round her and kissed her again and again.

  “God bless you, old boy,” she said, and let him go.

  When he had closed the door behind him she began to cry, but when Mrs. Lester found her quarter of an hour later there were no signs of tears.

  Maradick and Tony, as half-past eleven struck from the clock at the top of the stairs, went down the steps of the hotel.

  As they came out into the garden the mists and rain swam all about them and closed them in. The wind beat their faces, caught their coats and lashed them against their legs, and went scrambling away round the corners of the hill.

  “My word! what a day!” shouted Tony. “Here’s a day for a wedding!” He was tremendously excited. He even thought that he liked this wind and rain, it helped on the adventure; and then, too, there would be less people about, but it would be a stormy drive to the church.

  They secured a cab in the market-place. But such a cab; was there ever another like it? It stood, for no especial reason it seemed, there in front of the tower, with the rain whirling round it, the wind beating at the horse’s le
gs and playing fantastic tricks with the driver’s cape, which flew about his head up and down like an angry bird. He was the very oldest aged man Time had ever seen; his beard, a speckly grey, fell raggedly down on to his chest, his eyes were bleared and nearly closed, his nose, swollen to double its natural size, was purple in colour, and when he opened his mouth there was visible an enormous tooth, but one only.

  His hands trembled with ague as he clutched the reins and addressed his miserable beast. The horse was a pitiful scarecrow; its ribs, like a bent towel-rack, almost pierced the skin; its eye was melancholy but patient. The cab itself moved as though at any moment it would fall to pieces. The sides of the carriage were dusty, and the wheels were thick with mud; at every movement the windows screamed and rattled and shook with age — the cabman, the four-wheeler and the horse lurched together from side to side.

  However, there was really nothing else. Time was precious, and it certainly couldn’t be wasted in going round to the cab-stand at the other end of the town. On a fine day there would have been a whole row of them in the market-place, but in weather like this they sought better shelter.

  The wind whistled across the cobbles; the rain fell with such force that it hit the stones and leaped up again. The aged man was murmuring to himself the same words again and again. “Eh! Lor! how the rain comes down; it’s terrible bad for the beasts.” The tower frowned down on them all.

  Tony jumped in, there was nothing else to be done; it rattled across the square.

  Tony was laughing. It all seemed to him to add to the excitement. “Do you know,” he said, “James Stephens’s poem? It hits it off exactly;” and he quoted:

  “The driver rubbed at his nettly chin,

  With a huge, loose forefinger, crooked and black,

  And his wobbly violent lips sucked in,

  And puffed out again and hung down slack:

  One fang shone through his lop-sided smile,