by Hugh Walpole
Then he seemed to lie for a long time in a strange lassitude. He was still sitting forward with his hands pressed tightly together, his eyes fixed on the altar, but his brain seemed to have ceased to work. He had that sensation of suddenly standing outside and above himself. He saw Maradick sitting there, he saw the dusky church and the dim gold light over the altar, and outside the sweep of the plain and the dark plunging sea; and he was above and beyond it all. He wondered a little that that man could be so troubled about so small an affair. He wondered and then pitied him. What a perspective he must have, poor thing, to fancy that his struggles were of so vast an importance.
He saw him as a baby, a boy, a man — stolid, stupid self-centred, ignorant. Oh! so dull a soul! such a lump of clay, just filling space as a wall fills it; but no use, with no share at all in the music that was on every side of him.
And then, because for an instant the flame has descended upon him and his eyes have been opened, he rushes at once to take refuge in his body. He is afraid of his soul, the light of it hurts him, he cowers in his dark corner groping for his food, wanting his sensuality to be satisfied; and the little spark that has been kindled is nearly out, in a moment it will be gone, because he did not know what to do with it, and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
And slowly he came back to himself. The candles had been extinguished. The church was quite dark. Only a star shone through the little window and some late bird was singing. He gathered himself together. It must be late and he must see Morelli. He stumbled out of the church.
He knew as he faced the wind and the night air that in some obscure way, as yet only very vaguely realised, he had won the moral victory over himself. He had no doubt about what he must do; he had no doubt at all about the kind of life that he must lead afterwards. He saw that he had been given something very precious to keep — his vie sacré, as it were — and he knew that everyone had this vie sacré somewhere, that it was something that they never talked about, something that they kept very closely hidden, and that it was when they had soiled it, or hurt it, or even perhaps for a time lost it, that they were unhappy and saw life miserably and distrusted their fellow beings. He had never had it before; but he had got it now, his precious golden box, and it would make all life a new thing.
But there was still his body. He had never felt so strong in his life before; the blood raced through his veins, he felt as though he would like to strip himself naked and fight and battle with anything furious and strong.
His sense of weariness had left him; he felt that he must have some vent for his strength immediately or he would commit some crime. For a few minutes he stood there and let the wind blow about his forehead. The storm had passed away. The sky was a very dark blue, and the stars had a wind-blown, misty look, as they often have after a storm. Their gold light was a little watery, as though they had all been dipped in some mysterious lake somewhere in the hills of heaven before they were out in the sky. In spite of the wind there was a great silence, and the bird on some dark wind-bent tree continued to sing. The trees on either side of the lane rose, dark walls, against the sky. Then in the distance there were cries, at first vague and incoherent, almost uncanny, and then, coming down the lane, he heard the bleating of innumerable sheep. They passed him, their bodies mysteriously white against the dark hedges; they pressed upon each other and their cries came curiously to him, hitting the silence as a ball hits a board; there were very many of them and their feet pattered away into distance. They seemed to him like all the confused and dark thoughts that had surrounded him all these weeks, but that he had now driven away. His head was extraordinarily clear; he felt as though he had come out of a long sleep.
The lights were beginning to come out in the town as he entered it. It must be, he thought, about eight o’clock, and Morelli had probably returned from Truro. It had not occurred to him until now to think of what he was going to say to Morelli. After all, there wasn’t really very much to say, simply that his daughter was gone and that she would never come back again, and that he, Maradick, had helped her to go. It hadn’t occurred to him until now to consider how Morelli would probably take his share in it. He wouldn’t like it, of course; there would probably be some unpleasantness.
And then Morelli was undoubtedly a queer person. Tony was a very healthy normal boy, not at all given to unnecessary terror, but he had been frightened by Morelli. And then there were a host of little things, none of them amounting to anything in themselves, but taken together — oh yes! the man was queer.
The street was quite empty; the lamplighter had not yet reached that part of the town and the top of the hill was lost in darkness. Maradick found the bell and rang it, and even as he did so a curious feeling of uneasiness began to creep over him. He, suddenly and quite unconsciously, wanted to run away. He began to imagine that there was something waiting for him on the other side of the door, and when it actually opened and showed him only Lucy, the little maid-of-all-work, he almost started with surprise.
“No, sir; they’re all out. I don’t know when Miss Janet will be back, I’m sure. I’m expecting the master any moment, sir.” She seemed, Maradick thought, a little frightened. “I don’t know, I’m sure, sir, about Miss Janet; she said nothing about dinner, sir. I’ve been alone.” She stopped and twisted her apron in her hands.
Maradick looked down the street, then he turned back and looked past her into the hall. “Mr. Morelli told me that he would be back about now,” he said; “I promised to wait.”
She stood aside to let him enter the hall. She was obviously relieved that there was some one else in the house. She was even inclined to be a little confidential. “That kitchen,” she said and stopped.
“Yes?” he said, standing in the hall and looking at her.
“Well, it fairly gives you the creeps. Being alone all day down in the basement too. . . .” There was a little choke in her voice and her face was very white in the darkness. She was quite a child and not very tidy; pathetic, Maradick thought.
“Well,” he said, “your master will be back in a minute.”
“Yes, sir, and it’s all dark, sir. I’ll light the lamp upstairs.”
She led the way with a candle. He followed her up the stairs, and his uneasiness seemed to increase with every step that he took. He had a strange consciousness that Morelli had really returned and that he was waiting for him somewhere in the darkness. The stairs curved, and he could see the very faint light of the higher landing above him; the candle that the girl carried flung their two heads on to the wall, gigantic, absurd. His hair seemed to stand up in the shadow like a forest and his nose was hooked like an elephant’s trunk.
She lit the lamp in the sitting-room and then stood with the candle by the door.
“I suppose you couldn’t tell me, sir,” she said timidly, “when Miss Janet is likely — what time she’ll be in?”
“Your master will probably be able to tell you,” said Maradick.
Lucy was inclined for conversation. “It’s funny, sir,” she said, “what difference Miss Janet makes about the house, comin’ in and goin’ out. You couldn’t want a better mistress; but if it weren’t for ‘er . . . I must be seein’ to things downstairs.” She hurried away.
The room was quiet save for the ticking of the clock. The little blue tiles of the fireplace shone under the lamp, the china plates round the wall made eyes at him.
He was sitting straight up in his chair listening. The uneasiness that he had felt at first would soon, if he did not keep it in check, grow into terror. There was no reason, no cause that he could in the least define, but he felt as though things were happening outside the door. He didn’t know what sort of things, but he fancied that by listening very hard he could hear soft footsteps, whispers, and a noise like the rustling of carpets. The ticking of the clock grew louder and louder, and to forget it he flung up the window so that he could hear the noises of the town. But there weren’t any noises; only, very far away, some cat was
howling. The night was now very dark; the stars seemed to have disappeared; the wind made the lamp flare. He closed the window.
At the same moment the door opened and he saw Morelli standing there smiling at him. It was the same charming smile, the trusting, confiding laugh of a child; the merry twinkle in the eyes, taking the whole world as a delightful, delicious joke.
“Why, Maradick!” He seemed surprised, and came forward holding out his hand. “I’m delighted! I hope you haven’t been waiting long. But why is Janet not entertaining you? She’s only upstairs, I expect. I’ll call her.” He moved back towards the door.
“Miss Morelli isn’t in,” Maradick said slowly. He was standing up and resting one hand on the table.
“Not in?”
“No. Your servant told me so.”
He wanted to say more. He wanted to give his message at once and go, but his tongue seemed tied. He sat down, leaning both his arms on the table.
Morelli laughed. “Oh well, I expect she’s out with Minns somewhere — walking, I suppose. They’re often late; but we’ll wait supper a little if you don’t mind. We’ll give them ten minutes. Well, how’s young Gale?”
Seeing him like this, it was almost impossible to reconcile him with all the absurdly uncouth ideas that Maradick had had of him. But the uncanny feeling of there being some one outside the door was still with him; he had a foolish impulse to ask Morelli to open it.
Then he leant across the table and looked Morelli in the face.
“That’s what I came to tell you. Young Gale has gone.”
“Gone? What, with his people? I’m sorry. I liked him.”
“No. Not with his people. He was married to your daughter at two o’clock this afternoon. They have gone to London.”
There was absolute silence. Morelli didn’t move. He was sitting now on the opposite side of the table facing Maradick.
“My daughter has gone to London with Gale?” he said very slowly. The smile had died away from his face and his eyes were filled with tears.
“Yes. They were married to-day. They have gone to London.”
“Janet!” He called her name softly as though she were in the next room. “Janet!” He waited as though he expected an answer, and then suddenly he burst into tears. His head fell forward between his arms on to the table; his shoulders shook.
Maradick watched him. It was the most desolate thing in the world; he felt the most utter cad. If it had been possible he would have, at that moment, brought Janet and Tony back by main force.
“I say,” he muttered, “I’m awfully sorry.” He stopped. There was nothing to say.
Then suddenly Morelli looked up. The tears seemed to have vanished, but his eyes were shining with extraordinary brilliance. His hands, with their long white fingers, were bending over the table; his upper lip seemed to have curled back like the mouth of a dog.
He looked at Maradick very intently.
“You saw them married?”
“Yes.”
“You saw them leave for London?”
“Yes.”
“You have helped them all this time?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought that they ought to marry; I was fond of both of them. I wanted them to marry.”
“And now I will kill you.”
He said it without moving; his face seemed to grow more like a beast’s at every moment. His hands stretched across the table; the long fingers were like snakes.
“I must go.” Maradick got up. Panic was about him again. He felt that he ought to make some kind of defence of what he had done, but the words would not come.
“You will see, afterwards, that what I did was best. It was really the best. We will talk again about it, when you feel calmer.”
He moved towards the door; but Morelli was coming towards him with his head thrust forward, his back a little bent, his hands hanging, curved, in mid-air, and he was smiling.
“I am going to kill you, here and now,” he said. “It is not a very terrible affair. It will not be very long. You can’t escape; but it is not because you have done this or that, it is not for anything that you have done. It is only because you are so stupid, so dreadfully stupid. There are others like you, and I hate you all, you fools. You do not understand anything — what I am or who I am, or the world — nothing.”
Maradick said nothing. The terror that had once seized Tony was about him now like a cloud; the thing that was approaching him was not a man, but something impure, unclean. It was exactly as though he were being slowly let down into a dungeon full of creeping snakes.
His breath was coming with difficulty. He felt stifled.
“You must let me out,” he gasped.
“Oh no, I will throw you out, later. Now, you are here. That boy understood a little, and that girl too. They were young, they were alive, they were part of me; I loved to have them about me. Do you suppose that I care whether they are married; what is that to me? But they are gone. You with your blundering, you fat fool, you have done that; and now I will play with you.”
Maradick, suddenly feeling that if he did not move soon he would be unable to move at all, stumbled for the door. In an instant Morelli was upon him. His hand hung for an instant above Maradick like a whip in the air, then it fastened on his arm. It passed up to Maradick’s neck; his other hand was round his waist, his head was flung back.
Then curiously, with the touch of the other man’s hand Maradick’s strength returned. He was himself again; his muscles grew taut and firm. He knew at once that it was a case of life and death. The other man’s fingers seemed to grip his neck like steel; already they were pressing into the flesh. He shot out his arm and caught Morelli’s neck, but it was like gripping iron, his hand seemed to slip away. Then Morelli’s hand suddenly dug into Maradick’s shoulder-bone. It turned about there like a gimlet. Suddenly something seemed to give, and a hot burning pain twisted inside his flesh as an animal twists in its burrow. They swayed backwards and forwards in the middle of the room. Maradick pushed the other body slowly back and, with a crash, it met the table. The thing fell, and the lamp flamed for an instant to the ceiling and then was on the floor in a thousand pieces.
When the lamp fell the darkness seemed to leap like a wall out of the ground. It fell all about them; it pressed upon them, and the floor heaved to and fro.
They had turned round and round, so that Maradick was confused and could not remember where the door was. Then the other man’s hand was pressing on his throat so that he was already beginning to be stifled; then he felt that he was dizzy. He was swimming on a sea, lights flashed in and out of the darkness; the window made a grey square, and through this there seemed to creep innumerable green lizards — small with burning eyes; they crawled over the floor towards him. He began to whimper, “No, Morelli, please . . . my God . . . my God!” His shoulder burnt like fire; his brain began to reel so that he fancied that there were many people there crushing him. Then he knew that Morelli was slowly pressing him back. One hand was about his neck, but the other had crept in through his shirt and had touched the skin. Maradick felt the fingers pressing over his chest. Then the fingers began to pinch. They caught the flesh and seemed to tear it; it was like knives. All his body was on fire. Then the fingers seemed to be all over his limbs. They crept down to his hip, his thigh. They bit into his flesh, and then he knew that Morelli was pressing some nerve in his hip and pushing it from the socket. At that moment he himself became aware, for the first time, of Morelli’s body. He pressed against his chest and his fingers had torn the man’s clothes away. Morelli’s chest was hairy like an animal’s and cold as marble. He was sweating in every pore, but Morelli was icy cold. He dug his nails into the flesh, but they seemed to slip away. His arm was right round Morelli’s body; the cold flesh slipped and shrunk beneath his touch. His mouth was against Morelli’s neck. He had a sudden wild impulse to bite. He was becoming a wild beast. . . .
Then Morelli seemed to encircle
the whole of him. Every part of his body was touched by those horrible fingers — his arms, his neck; it was as though he were being bitten to death. Then he felt in his neck teeth; something was biting him. . . .
He screamed again and again, but only a hoarse murmur seemed to come from his lips. He was still struggling, but he was going; the room seemed full of animals. They were biting him, tearing him; and then again he could feel the soft fingers stealing about his body.
A curious feeling of sleepiness stole over him. The pain in his shoulder and his arm was so terrible that he wanted to die; his body twitched with a fresh spasm of pain. Things — he did not know what they were — were creeping up his legs; soon they would be at his chest.
He knew that they were both naked to the waist. He could feel the blood trickling down his face and his arms. . . .
Tony was in the room! Yes, Tony. How was he there? Never mind! He would help him! “Tony! Tony! They’re doing for me!” Tony was all over the room. He pulled himself together, and suddenly fell against the knob of the door. They fell against it together. He hit at the other’s naked body, hit at it again and again. Strength seemed to pour back into his body in a flood. He had been nearly on his knees, but now he was pressing up again. He snatched at the hand about his neck and tore it away. Again they were surging about the room. His hand was upon the door. Morelli’s hands were about his and tried to drag it away, but he clung. For an age they seemed to hang there, panting, heaving, clutching.
Then he had turned it. The door flew open and his foot lunged out behind him. He kicked with all his force, but he touched nothing. There was nothing there.