by Hugh Walpole
Every word that came from their lips increased her rage: they hated Isabel — Isabel who had never done them any harm or hurt. As their voices, even and cold, went on, she forgot that dark, silent figure in the corner, and her hands began to twitch the silk of her purple gown. Suddenly in an instant Freddie was forgotten, everything was forgotten save Isabel, and she burst out, her eyes burning, her cheeks flaming: “Really, Mrs. Dormer, you are a little inaccurate. I’m sure we must all agree that it’s a pity if anyone is so silly as to knock someone else down because someone else has stolen one’s umbrella, and I’m sure I should never want to; and indeed I remember quite well Miss Tweedy, who was matron here two years ago, taking a gray parasol of mine to chapel with her and putting it up before everybody, and nobody thought anything of it, and I remember Miss Tweedy being quite angry because I asked for it back again. I think it’s very stupid of Mr. Perrin to make such a fuss about nothing, and I never did like him, and I don’t care who knows it; but at any rate I don’t see what this has all got to do with dear Isabel’s engagement, and I think young Traill’s a delightful fellow, and I hope they’ll both be enormously happy, and I think it’s very unkind of you to wish them not to be!” Mrs. Comber took a deep breath.
“Really, my dear Mrs. Comber,” said Mrs. Dormer very slowly, “I’m sure we none of us wish them anything but happiness. Please don’t have the impression that we are not eager for their good.”
“I can’t help feeling, Mrs. Comber,” said Miss Madder, “that you have rather misunderstood our position in the matter.”
“Well, I’m sure I’m very sorry if I have,” broke in Mrs. Comber hurriedly, beginning already to be sorry that she had spoken so quickly.
“You see,” went on Miss Madder, “that I don’t think we can any of us have two feelings about the question of discipline. I’m sure you agree with us there, Mrs. Comber.”
“Oh, of course,” said Mrs. Comber.
But she saw at once that war had been declared. They hated Isabel, and they hated her; they would make it so unpleasant that Isabel would not be able to come and stay again — they were of one mind.
Above all, after they had gone, there remained the impression of that silent, black lady who had said not a word. What would she tell Moy-Thompson? What harm would come to Freddie?
Last, and worst of all, as Mrs. Comber most wretchedly reflected, Freddie had still to be faced.
His feelings, she knew, would be strongly expressed, and were certainly not in a line with her own.
Oh! the umbrella had a great deal to answer for!
III.
And Freddie was, as a matter of fact, faced that very evening, and a crisis arrived in the affairs of the Combers which must be chronicled, because it had ultimately a good deal to do with Isabel and Archie Traill, and indeed with everyone in the present story.
But whilst waiting for him downstairs, “dressed and shining,” as she used to like to say — with the dinner getting cold (for which disaster she was certain to be scolded) — she wondered in her muddled kind of way why it was that they should all have wanted to be so disagreeable, why, as a development of that, everyone always preferred to be disagreeable rather than pleasant. And she suddenly, facing the ormolu clock and the peacock screen with her eyes upon them as though they might, with their color and decoration help her, had a revelation — dim, misty, vague, and lost almost as soon as it was seen — that it wasn’t really anyone’s fault at all — that it was the system, the place, the tightness and closeness and helplessness that did for everybody; that nobody could escape from it, and that the finest saint, the most noble character, would be crushed and broken in that remorseless mill— “the mills of the gods”? — no, the mills of a rotten, impoverished, antiquated system.... She saw, staring at the clock and the screen and clinging to them, these men and these women, crushed, beaten, defeated: Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Dormer, Miss Madder, her own Freddie, Mr. Perrin, Mr. Birkland, Mr. White — even already young Traill — all of them decent, hopeful, brave... once. The coals clicked in the glowing fire, and the soft autumn wind passed down the darkening paths. She felt suddenly as though she must give it all up — she must leave Freddie and the children and go away... anywhere... she could not endure it any longer. And then Freddie came in, irritable, peevish, scarcely noticing her. Moy-Thompson had changed one of his hours, and that annoyed him; the soup of course was stone cold, the fish very little better. He scowled across the table at her, and she tried to be pleasant and amusing. Then suddenly he had launched into the umbrella affair.
“Young Traill wants kicking,” he said. “What are we all coming to, I should like to know? Why, the man’s only been here a month or two, and he goes and takes a senior master’s things without asking leave, and then knocks him down because he objects. I never heard anything like it. The fellow wants kicking out altogether.”
Mrs. Comber said nothing.
“Well, why don’t you say something? You’ve got some opinion about it, I suppose; and there’s more in it than that — he’s gone and got himself engaged to Isabel, I hear. What’s the girl thinking of? They’re both much too young anyhow. It’s absurd. I’ll tell her what I think of it.”
“Oh, no, Freddie — don’t say anything to her. She’s so happy about it, and I’m sure the dear girl has been so good to both of us that she deserves some happiness, and I do want them to be successful. After all, if Mr. Traill was a little hasty, he’s very young, and Mr. Perrin’s a very difficult man to get on with. You know, dear, you’ve always said—”
“Well, whatever I’ve said,” he broke in furiously, “I’ve never advocated stealing nor hitting your elders and betters in the face, and if you think I have, you’re mightily mistaken.”
After that there was silence during the rest of the meal. Miss Desart was dining at the Squire’s in the village, and, for once, Mrs. Comber was glad that the girl was not with them.
She was very near to tears. The day had been a most terrible one — and her food choked her. The meal seemed to stretch into infinity, the dreary dining-room, the monotonous tick of the clock, and always her husband’s scowling face.
At last it was over, and he went to his study, and she to her little drawing-room. In front of her fire, her sewing slipped from her lap and she slept, with her purple dress shining in the firelight, and the rest of the room in shadow about her. And she dreamt wonderful dreams — of places where there was freedom and light, of hard, white roads and forests and cathedrals, and of a wonderful life where there was no travail nor ill-temper; and her face became happy again, and she saw Freddie as he had once been, before the shadow of this place had fallen about him, and in her dreams she was in a place where everyone loved her and she could make no mistakes.
Then she woke up and saw Freddie Comber standing near her, and she smiled at him and then gave a little exclamation because the fire was nearly out.
“Yes,” he said, following her glance, “it’s a nice, cheerful room for a man to come into, isn’t it, after he’s tired and cold with work? I have got a nice, pleasant little wife. I’m a lucky man, I am.”
Then, as she began to busy herself with the fire, and tried to brighten it, he said, “Oh! leave it now, can’t you? What’s the use of making a noise and fuss with it now?”
Then he went on as she got up from her knees again and faced him, “Look here, we’ve got to come to an understanding about this business.”
“What business?” she said faintly, all the color leaving her cheeks.
“Why, young Traill,” he went on, standing over her. “I’m not going to have my wife encouraging him in this affair. I tell you I object to him — he’s a conceited, impertinent prig, and he wants putting in his place, and I’ll let him know it if he comes near here. I won’t have him in the house, and it’s just as well he should know it. So don’t you go asking him here.”
She was now white to the lips. “But,” she said, “I have told Isabel that I am glad, and I am glad. I like Mr. Trai
ll, and I don’t think it was his fault in this business; and, Freddie dear, you know you are not quite fair to him because of his football, or something silly, and I’m sure you don’t mind him, really — you don’t like Mr. Perrin, you know.”
This was quite the most unfortunate speech that poor Mrs. Comber could possibly have made; the mention of the football at once reminded Freddie Comber of all that he had suffered on that head, and his neck began to swell with rage, and his cheeks were flushed.
“Look here, my lady,” he said, “you just leave things alone that don’t belong to you. Never you mind what reasons I’ve got for disliking young Traill — it’s enough if I say that he’s not to come here — and Miss Isabel shall hear that from my own lips.”
In all her long experience of him she had never known him so angry as he was now, and she had never before been so afraid of him; but at the mention of Isabel, she called all her courage to her aid and drew herself up.
“You must not do that,” she said. “You cannot insult Isabel here, when she has been such a friend of ours, and been so good — so good. I love her, and the man she is going to marry is my friend.”
“Oh!” he said, speaking very low and coming very close to her. “This is defiance, is it? You will do this and that, will you? I tell you that he shall not come here.”
“And I say that he shall,” she answered in a whisper.
Then, with the accumulated irritation of the day upon him, he suddenly came to her and, muttering between his teeth, “We’ll see about the master here,” struck her so that he cut his hand on her brooch, and she fell back against the wall, and stayed there with her hands spread out against it, staring at him....
There was a long silence, with no sound save the clock and the distant wind. He had never, in their long married life, struck her before. They both knew, as they stood there staring at one another, that a period had suddenly been placed, like an iron wall, in their lives. Their relations could never be the same again. They might be better, they might be worse — they could never be the same.
But with him there was a great overwhelming horror of what he had done. Her white face, her large, shining eyes, the way that her hands lay against the wall, and the way that her dress fell about her feet, because her knees were bending under her — drove this home to him. He was appalled; suddenly that man in him that had been dead for twenty years was brought to life by that blow.
“My dear — my dear — don’t look at me like that — I did not mean anything — I am not angry — I am terribly ashamed.... Please—”
His voice was a trembling whisper. He put out his hand towards her. She took his hand, and came away from the wall, still looking at him fixedly.
“You never struck me before, Freddie,” she said. “At least, you have never done that. I am so sorry, my dear.”
Then, very quietly, she put her arms about his neck and kissed him; then she went slowly out of the room.
He stood where she had left him motionless. Then he said, still in a whisper and looking at the curtains that hid the night and the dark buildings. “Curse the place! It is that — it has done for me....” And then, as he very slowly sat down and faced the fire, he whispered to the shadowy room, “I am no good — I am no good at all!”
CHAPTER X — THE BATTLE OF THE UMBRELLA; “WHOM THE GODS WISH TO DESTROY....”
I.
DURING the month that followed, the battle raged furiously, and within a week of that original incident there was no one in the establishment who had not his or her especial grievance against someone else. In the Senior common room, at the middle morning hour, the whole staff might be seen, silent, grave, bending with sheer resolution over the daily papers, eloquent backs turned to their enemies, every now and again abstract sarcasm designed for some very concrete resting-place.
That original umbrella had, long ago, been forgotten, or, rather the original borrowing of it. It had now become a flag, a banner — something that stood for any kind of principle that it might serve one’s purpose to support. One hated one’s neighbor — well, let any small detail be the provocation, the battle was the thing.
Imagine, moreover, the effect on the young generation, assembled to watch and imitate the thoughts and actions of their elders and betters; what a delightful and admirable system! — with their Greek accents and verbs in with their principal parts of savior and dire and their conclusive decisions concerning vulgar fractions and the imports and exports of Sardinia, they should learn the delicate art of cutting your neighbor, of hating your fellow-creatures, of malicious misconception — all this within so small an area of ground, so slight a period of time, at so wonderfully inconsiderable an expense.
The question at issue passed of course speedily to the very smallest boy in the school, but here there was not so intense a division — there was indeed scarcely a division at all, because there could not, on the whole, be two opinions about it. When it came to choosing between Old Pompous with his stupid manners and his uncertain temper, with all the custom of his twenty years’ stay at the school so that he was simply a tiresome tradition that present fathers of grown families had once accepted as a fearful authority — between this and the novel and athletic Traill, with his splendid football and his easy fellowship... why? There was nothing more to be said. Why shouldn’t one take Old Pompous’s umbrella? Who was he to be so particular about his property? He wouldn’t hesitate to take someone else’s things if he wanted them.... Meanwhile there was an encouragement to rebellion amongst all those who came beneath his discipline — as to the way that he took this, there is more to be said later.
But the point about this month is not the question of individual quarrel and disturbance. Of that there was enough and to spare, but there was nothing extraordinary about its progress, and every successive term saw something of the kind: the two questions as to whether Traill should have taken Perrin’s umbrella and whether Isabel Desart should, under the circumstances, have allowed herself to be engaged to Traill, simply took the place of other questions that had, in their time, served to rouse combat. No — the peculiar fact about this month was that at the end of it, when their quarrels and hatreds should have reached their climax, they were sunk suddenly almost to the point of disappearance — they were almost lost and forgotten — and the reason of this was that everyone in the place, in some cases unconsciously and in nearly every instance silently, was watching Perrin.... It had become during that time an issue between two men, and one of those men was passive. It was being worked out in silence — even the spectators themselves made no comment, but Mrs. Comber afterwards put it into words when she said that “Everyone was so afraid that talking about it might make it happen that no one said anything at all” — and that indeed was the remarkable fact.
Amongst all the eyes that were turned on the developing incident those most fitted for our purpose of elucidation belonged to Isabel Desart, and her experience of it all will do very well for everyone else’s experience of it, because the only difference between herself and the rest was that she was more acute in her judgment and had a more discerning intuition.
In the first place she had very crucially indeed to fight her own battles. It did not take her a day to discover that every lady in the place, with the single exception of Mrs. Comber, was, for the time being at any rate, up in arms against her. She ought not to have allowed herself to be engaged to Mr. Traill — there were no two opinions about it. It was not ladylike — she was allying herself, to disorder and tumult, she was encouraging the stealing of things, and the knocking down of persons in authority — above all, she was setting herself up, whatever that might mean: all this was foreshadowed on the very first day in Mrs. Comber’s drawing-room.
These things did not, in the very least, surprise or dismay Isabel. She loved a battle — she had never realized before how dearly she loved it, she gave no quarter and she asked none. She went about with her head up and her eyes flashing fire — she was quiet unless she was attacke
d; but so soon as there were signs of the enemy, the armor would be buckled on and the trumpet sounded. In a way — and it seemed to her curious when she looked back upon it — this month of hers was stirring and even rather delightful.
But there were other and more serious sides to it. She saw at once that something had happened in the Comber family, and with all the tenderness and gentleness that was so wonderfully hers she sought to put it right. But she soon realized that it had all gone far too deep for any outside help. She did not know what had occurred on that evening when she had dined at the Squire’s. Mrs. Comber told her nothing — she only begged her not to speak to Freddie about the umbrella quarrel and not to attempt to bring Archie to the house, at present at any rate.
But Mrs. Comber was now a different person — her animated volubility had disappeared altogether, she went about her house very quietly with a pale face and tired eyes, and she did not speak unless she was spoken to. But the change in Freddie Comber was still more marked. Isabel had never liked him so much before. His harsh dogmatism seemed to have disappeared. He said very little to anybody, but in his own house at any rate he was quiet, reserved, and even submissive. Isabel noticed that he was on the watch to do things for his wife, and sometimes she saw that his eyes would leave his work and stray about the room as though he were searching for something. He scarcely seemed to notice her at all, and sometimes when she spoke to him he would start and look at her curiously, almost suspiciously, as though he were wondering how much she knew. He was not kind and attentive to her, as he had been before — she felt sure that he had now a great dislike for her. All this made her miserable, and she loved to wonder sometimes what it was that held her back from speaking to Mrs. Comber about it all — but something prevented her.