Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  In his little pouched eye flickered years of guile.

  And the horse, poor beast, it was ribbed and forked,

  And its ears hung down, and its eyes were old,

  And its knees were knuckly, and as we talked

  It swung the stiff neck that could scarcely hold

  Its big, skinny head up — then I stepped in

  And the driver climbed to his seat with a grin.

  Only this old boy couldn’t climb if he were paid for it. I wonder how he gets up to his box in the morning. I expect they lift him, you know; his old wife and the children and the grandchildren — a kind of ceremony.”

  They were being flung about all this time like peas in a bladder, and Tony had to talk at the top of his voice to make himself heard. “Anyhow he’ll get us there all right, I expect. My word, what rain! I say, you know, I can’t in the very least realise it. It seems most frightfully exciting, but it’s all so easy, in a kind of way. You see I haven’t even had to have a bag or anything, because there’ll be heaps of time to stop in town and get things. And to-morrow morning to see the sun rise over Paris, with Janet!”

  His eyes were on fire with excitement. But to Maradick this weather, this cab, seemed horrible, almost ominous. He was flung against the side of the window, then against Tony, then back again. He had lost his breath.

  But he had realised something else suddenly; he wondered how he could have been so foolish as not to have seen it before, and that was, that this would be probably, indeed almost certainly, the last time that he would have Tony to himself. The things that the boy had been to him during these weeks beat in his head like bells, reminding him. Why, the boy had been everything to him! And now he saw suddenly that he had, in reality, been nothing at all to the boy. Tony’s eyes were set on the adventure — the great adventure of life. Maradick, and others like him, might be amusing on the way; were of course, “good sorts,” but they could be left, they must be left if one were to get on, and there were others, plenty of others.

  And so, in that bumping cab, Maradick suddenly realised his age. To be “at forty” as the years go was nothing, years did not count, but to be “at forty” in the way that he now saw it was the great dividing line in life. He now saw that it wasn’t for him any more to join with those who were “making life,” that was for the young, and they would have neither time nor patience to wait for his slower steps; he must be content to play his part in other people’s adventures, to act the observer, the onlooker. Those young people might tell him that they cared, that they wanted him, but they would soon forget, they would soon pass on until they too were “at forty,” and, reluctantly, unwillingly, must move over to the other camp.

  He turned to Tony.

  “I say, boy,” he said almost roughly, “this is the last bit that we shall have together; alone, I mean. I say, don’t forget me altogether afterwards. I want to come and see you.”

  “Forget you!” Tony laughed. “Why never! I!”

  But then suddenly the aged man and his coach bumped them together and then flung them apart and then bumped them again so that no more words were possible. The cab had turned the corner. The house, with its crooked door, was before them.

  In the hall there were lights; underneath the stairs there was a lamp and against the wall opposite the door there were candles. In the middle of the hall Janet was standing waiting; she was dressed in some dark blue stuff and a little round dark blue hat, beneath it her hair shone gloriously. She held a bag in her hand and a small cloak over her arm. Tony came forward with a stride and she stepped a little way to meet him. Then he caught her in his arms, and her head went back a little so that the light of the lamp caught her hair and flung a halo around it. Miss Minns was in the background in a state of quite natural agitation. It was all very quiet and restrained. There seemed to Maradick to fall a very beautiful silence for a moment about them. The light, the colour, everything centred round those two, and the world stood still. Then Tony let go and she came forward to Maradick.

  She held out her hand and he took it in his, and he, suddenly, moved by some strange impulse, bent down and kissed it. She let it lie there for a moment and then drew it back, smiling.

  “It’s splendid of you, Mr. Maradick,” she said; “without you I don’t know what we’d have done, Tony and I.”

  And then she turned round to Tony and kissed him again. There was another pause, and indeed the two children seemed perfectly ready to stand like that for the rest of the day. Something practical must be done.

  “I think we ought to be making a move,” said Maradick. “The cab’s waiting outside and the train has to be caught, you know.”

  “Why, of course.” Janet broke away from Tony. “How silly we are! I’m so sorry, Miss Minns, have you got the bag with the toothbrush? It’s all we’ve got, you know, because we can buy things in Paris. Oh! Paris!”

  She drew a breath and stood there, her eyes staring, her hands on her hips, her head flung back. It really was amazing the way that she was taking it. There was no doubt or alarm at the possible consequences of so daring a step. It must be, Maradick thought, her ignorance of all that life must mean to her now, all the difference that it would have once this day was over, that saved her from fear.

  And yet there was knowledge as well as courage in her eyes, she was not altogether ignorant.

  Miss Minns came forward, Miss Minns in an amazing bonnet. It was such an amazing bonnet that Miss Minns must positively have made it herself; it was shaped like a square loaf and little jet beads rang little bells on it as she moved. She was in a perfect tremble of excitement, and the whole affair sent her mind back to the one other romantic incident in her life — the one and only love affair. But the really amazing discovery was that romance wasn’t over for her yet, that she was permitted to take part in a real “affair,” to see it through from start to finish. She was quivering with excitement.

  They all got into the cab.

  It was a very silent drive to the church. The rain had almost stopped. It only beat every now and again, a little doubtfully, against the window and then went, with a little whirl of wind, streaming away.

  The cab went slowly, and, although it lurched from side to side and every now and again pitched forward, as though it would fall on its head, they were not shaken about very badly. Janet leaned back against Tony, and he had his arm round her. They neither of them spoke at all, but his fingers moved very lightly over her hand and then to her cheek, and then back to her hand again.

  As they got on to the top of the hill and started along the white road to the church the wind from the sea met them and swept about them. Great dark clouds, humped like camels, raced across the sky; the trees by the roadside, gnarled and knotted, waved scraggy arms like so many witches.

  Miss Minns’s only remark as they neared the church was, “I must say I should have liked a little bit of orange-blossom.”

  “We’ll get that in Paris,” said Tony.

  The aged man was told to wait with his coach until they all came out of church again. He seemed to be quite prepared to wait until the day of doom if necessary. He stared drearily in front of him at the sea. To his mind, it was all a very bad business.

  Soon they were all in the church, the clergyman with the flowing beard, his elderly boy, acting as a kind of verger and general factotum, Miss Minns, Maradick, and there, by the altar rails, Tony and Janet.

  It was a very tiny church indeed, and most of the room was taken up by an enormous box-like pew that had once been used by “The Family”; now it was a mass of cobwebs. Two candles had been lighted by the altar and they flung a fitful, uncertain glow about the place and long twisting shadows on the wall. On the altar itself was a large bowl of white chrysanthemums, and always for the rest of his life the sight of chrysanthemums brought back that scene to Maradick’s memory: the blazing candles, the priest with his great white beard, the tiny, dusty church, Miss Minns and her bonnet, Tony splendidly erect, a smile in his eyes, and Ja
net with her hair and her blue serge dress and her glance every now and again at Tony to see whether he were still there.

  And so, there, and in a few minutes, they were married.

  For an instant some little wind blew along the floor, stirred the dust and caught the candles. They flared into a blaze, and out of the shadows there leapt the dazzling white of the chrysanthemums, the gold of Janet’s hair, and the blue of the little stained-glass windows. The rain had begun again and was beating furiously at the panes; they could hear it running in little streams and rivers down the hill past the church.

  Maradick hid his head in his hands for an instant before he turned away. He did not exactly want to pray, he had not got anyone to pray to, but he felt again now, as he had felt before in the room of the minstrels, that there was something there, with him in the place — touching him, Good and Evil? God and the Devil? Yes, they were there, and he did not dare to raise his eyes.

  Then at last he looked up again and in the shock of the sudden light the candles seemed to swing like golden lamps before him and the altar was a throne, and, before it, the boy and girl.

  And then, again, they were all in the old man’s study, amongst his fishing-rods and dogs and books.

  He laid both his hands on Tony’s shoulders before he said good-bye. Tony looked up into his face and smiled.

  And the old man said: “I think that you will be very happy, both of you. But take one word of advice from some one who has lived in the world a very long time and knows something of it, even though he has dwelt in only an obscure corner of it. My dear, keep your Charity. That is all that I would say to you. You have it now; keep it as your dearest possession. Judge no one; you do not know what trouble has been theirs, what temptation, and there will be flowers even in the dreariest piece of ground if only we sow the seed. And remember that there are many very lonely people in the world. Give them some of your vitality and happiness and you will do well.”

  Miss Minns, who had been sniffing through the most of the service, very nearly broke down altogether at this point. And then suddenly some one remembered the time.

  It was Tony. “My word, it’s half-past two. And the train’s quarter-past three. Everything’s up if we miss it. We must be off; we’ll only just do it as it is.”

  They found the aged man sitting in a pool of water on the box. Water dripped from the legs of the trembling horse. The raindrops, as though possessed of a devil, leaped off the roof of the cab like peas from a catapult.

  Tony tried to impress the driver with the fact that there was no time to lose, but he only shook his head dolefully. They moved slowly round the corner.

  Then there began the most wonderful drive that man or horse had ever known.

  At first they moved slowly. The road was, by this time, thick with mud, and there were little trenches of water on both sides. They bumped along this for a little way. And then suddenly the aged man became seized, as it were, by a devil. They were on the top of the hill; the wind blew right across him, the rain lashed him to the skin. Suddenly he lifted up his voice and sang. It was the sailor’s chanty that Maradick had heard on the first day of his coming to Treliss; but now, through the closed windows of the cab, it seemed to reach them in a shrill scream, like some gull above their heads in the storm.

  Wild exultation entered into the heart of the ancient man. He seemed to be seized by the Furies. He lashed his horse wildly, the beast with all its cranky legs and heaving ribs, darted madly forward, and the rain came down in torrents.

  The ancient man might have seemed, had there been a watcher to note, the very spirit of the moor. His eyes were staring, his arms were raised aloft; and so they went, bumping, jolting, tumbling along the white road.

  Inside the cab there was confusion. At the first movement Miss Minns had been flung violently into Maradick’s lap. At first he clutched her wildly. The bugles on her bonnet hit him sharply in the eyes, the nose, the chin. She pinched his arm in the excitement of the moment. Then she recovered herself.

  “Oh! Mr. Maradick!” she began, “I — —” but, in a second, she was seized again and hurled against the door, so that Tony had to clutch her by the skirt lest the boards should give and she should be hurled out into the road. But the pace of the cab grew faster and faster. They were now all four of them hurled violently from one side of the vehicle to the other. First forward, then backwards, then on both sides at once, then all in a tangled heap together in the middle; and the ancient man on the top of the box, the water dripping from his hat in a torrent, screamed his song.

  Then terror suddenly entered into them all. It seemed to strike them all at the same moment that there was danger. Maradick suddenly was afraid. He was bruised, his collar was torn, he ached in every limb. He had a curious impulse to seize Miss Minns and tear her to pieces, he was wild with rage that she should be allowed to hit and strike him like that. He began to mutter furiously. And the others felt it too. Janet was nearly in tears; she clung to Tony and murmured, “Oh! stop him! stop him!”

  And Tony, too. He cried, “We must get out of this! We must get out of this!” and he dragged furiously at the windows, but they would not move; and then his hand broke through the pane, and it began to bleed, there was blood on the floor of the carriage.

  And they did not know that it was the place that was casting them out. They were going back to their cities, to their disciplined places, to their streets and solemn houses, their inventions, their rails and lines and ordered lives; and so the place would cast them out. It would have its last wild game with them. The ancient man gave a last shrill scream and was silent. The horse relapsed into a shamble; they were in the dark, solemn streets. They climbed the hill to the station.

  They began to straighten themselves, and already to forget that it had been, in the least, terrible.

  “After all,” said Tony, “it was probably a good thing that we came at that pace. We might have missed the train.”

  He helped Janet to tidy herself. Miss Minns was profuse in her apologies: “Really, Mr. Maradick, I don’t know what you can have thought of me. Really, it was most immodest; and I am afraid that I bumped you rather awkwardly. It was most — —”

  But he stopped her and assured her that it was all right. He was thinking, as they climbed the hill, that in another quarter of an hour they would both be gone, gone out of his life altogether probably. There would be nothing left for him beyond his explanations; his clearing up of the bits, as it were, and Mrs. Lester. But he would not think of her now; he put her resolutely from him for the moment. The thought of her seemed desecration when these two children were with him — something as pure and beautiful as anything that the world could show. He would think of her afterwards, when they had gone.

  But as he looked at them a great pang of envy cut him like a knife. Ah! that was what life meant! To have some one to whom you were the chief thing in the world, some one who was also the chief thing to you!

  And he? Here, at forty, he had got nothing but a cheque book and a decent tailor.

  They got out of the cab.

  It was ten minutes before the train left. It was there, waiting. Tony went to get the tickets.

  Janet suddenly put her hand on Maradick’s arm and looked up into his face:

  “Mr. Maradick,” she said, “I haven’t been able, I haven’t had a chance to say very much to you about all that Tony and I owe you. But I feel it; indeed, indeed I do. And I will never, never forget it. Wherever Tony and I are there will always be a place for you if you want one. You won’t forget that, will you?”

  “No, indeed,” said Maradick, and he took her hand for a moment and pressed it. Then suddenly his heart stopped beating. The station seemed for a moment to be pressed together, so that the platform and the roof met and the bookstall and the people dotted about disappeared altogether.

  Sir Richard and Rupert were walking slowly towards them down the platform. There was no question about it at all. They had obviously just arrived from Truro
and Rupert was staring in his usual aimless fashion in front of him. There was simply no time to lose. They were threatened with disaster, for Tony had not come back from the ticket-office and might tumble upon his father at any moment.

  Maradick seized Janet by the arm and dragged her back into the refreshment room. “Quick,” he said, “there isn’t a moment to lose — Tony’s father. You and Miss Minns must get in by yourselves; trust to luck!” In a moment she had grasped the situation. Her cheeks were a little flushed, but she gave him a hurried smile and then joined Miss Minns. Together they walked quietly down the platform and took their seats in a first-class carriage at the other end of the train. Janet was perfectly self-possessed as she passed Sir Richard. There was no question that this distinguished-looking gentleman must be Tony’s father, and she must have felt a very natural curiosity to see what he looked like; she gave him one sharp glance and then bent down in what was apparently an earnest conversation with Miss Minns.

  Then Rupert saw Maradick. “Hullo! there’s Maradick!” He came forward slowly; but he smiled a little in a rather weary manner. He liked Maradick. “What a day! Yes, Truro had been awful! All sorts of dreadful people dripping wet!”

  Yes, Maradick had been a tramp in the rain with Tony. Tony was just asking for a parcel that he was expecting; yes, they’d got very wet and were quite ready for tea! Ah! there was Tony.

  Maradick gazed at him in agony as he came out of the ticket office. Would he give a start and flush with surprise when he saw them? Would he look round vaguely and wildly for Janet? Would he turn tail and flee?

  But he did none of these things. He walked towards them as though the one thing that he had really expected to see, there on the platform, was his father. There was a little smile at the corners of his mouth and his eyes were shining especially brightly, but he sauntered quite casually down the platform, as though he hadn’t the least idea that the train was going off in another five minutes, and that Janet was close at hand somewhere and might appear at any moment.