Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  They were all very silent as she turned the photographs over and there were no sounds but the sharp crackling of the fire as it burst into little spurts of flame, the noise that her hand made on the silk of her dress as she turned each picture and the little mutterings of Robin in his corner as he talked to his Toby.

  Peter had never seen anything like this photography. The man had used his medium as delicately as though he had drawn every line. Things stood out — castles, a hill, trees, running water, a shining road — and behind them there was darkness and mystery.

  Suddenly Peter cried out:

  “Oh! that!” he said. It was the photograph of a great statue standing on a hill that overlooked a river. That was all that could be seen — the background was dark and vague, it was the statue of a man who rode a lion. The lion was of enormous size and struggling to be free, but the man, naked, with his utmost energy, his back set, his arms stiff, had it in control, but only just in control ... his face was terrible in the agony of his struggle and that struggle had lasted for a great period of time ... but at length, when all but defeated, he had mastered his beast.

  “Ah that!” Miss Rossiter held it up that Norah Monogue might see it better. “That is on a hill outside a little town in Bavaria. They put it up to a Herr Drexter who had done something, saved their town from riot I think. It’s a fine thing, isn’t it, and I think it so clever of them to have made him middle-aged with all the marks of the struggle about him — those scars, his face — so that you can see that it’s all been tremendous—”

  Peter spoke very slowly— “I’d give anything to see that!” he said.

  “Well, it’s in Bavaria; I wonder that it isn’t better known. But funnily enough the people that were with me at the time didn’t like it; it was only afterwards, when I showed them the photograph that they saw that there might have been ... aren’t people funny?” she ended abruptly, appealing to him with a kind of freemasonry against the world.

  But, still bending his brows upon it he said insistently —

  “Tell me more about it — the place — everything—”

  “There isn’t really anything to tell; it’s only a very ordinary, very beautiful, little German town. There are many orchards and this forest at the back of it and the river running through it — little cobbled streets and bridges over the river. And then, outside, this great statue on the hill—”

  “Ah, but it’s wonderful, that man’s face — I’d like to go to that town—” He felt perhaps that he was taking it all too seriously for he turned round and said laughing: “The boy’s daft on lions — Robin, come and look at this lion — here’s an animal for you.”

  The boy put down the Toby and walked slowly and solemnly toward them. He climbed on to Peter’s knee and looked at the photograph: “Oh! it is a lion!” he said at last, rubbing his fat finger on the surface of it to see of what material it was made. “Oh! for me!” he said at last in a shrill, excited voice and clutching on to it with one hand. “For me — to hang over my bed.”

  “No, old man,” Peter answered, “it belongs to the lady here. She must take it away with her.”

  “Oh! but I want it!” his eyes began to fill with tears.

  Miss Rossiter bent down and kissed him. He looked at her distrustfully. “I know now I’m not to have it,” he said at last, eyeing her, “or you wouldn’t have kissed me.”

  “Come on,” said Peter, afraid of a scene, “the lady will show you the lion another day — meantime I think bed is the thing.”

  He mounted the boy on to his shoulder and turned round to Miss Rossiter to say “Good-bye.” The photograph lay on the table between them— “I shan’t forget that,” he said.

  “Oh! but you must come and see us one day. My mother will be delighted. There are a lot more photographs at home. You must bring him out one day, Norah,” she said turning to Miss Monogue.

  If he had been a primitive member of society in the Stone Age he would at this point, have placed Robin carefully on the floor and have picked Miss Rossiter up and she should never again have left his care.

  As it was he said, “I shall be delighted to come one day.”

  “We will talk about Cornwall—”

  “And Germany.”

  His hand was burning hot when he gave it her — he knew that she was looking at his eyes.

  He was abruptly conscious of Miss Monogue’s voice behind him.

  “I’ve read a quarter of the book, Peter.”

  He wondered as he turned to her how it could be possible to regard two women so differently. To be so sternly critical of one — her hair that was nearly down, a little ink on her thumb, her blouse that was unbuttoned — and of the other to see her all in a glory so that her whole body, for colour and light and beautiful silence, had no equal amongst the possessions of the earth or the wonders of heaven. Here there was a button undone, there there was a flaming fire.

  “I won’t say anything,” Miss Monogue said, “until I’ve read more, but it’s going to be extraordinarily good I think.” What did he care about “Reuben Hallard?” What did that matter when he had Claire Elizabeth Rossiter in front of him.

  And then he pulled himself up. It must matter. How delighted an hour ago those words would have made him.

  “Oh! you think there’s something in it?” he said.

  “We’ll wait,” she answered, but her smile and the sparkle in her eyes showed what she thought. What a brick she was!

  He turned round back to Miss Rossiter.

  “My first book,” he said laughing. “Of course we’re excited—”

  And then he was out of the room in a moment with Robin clutching his hair. He did not want to look at her again ... he had so wonderful a picture!

  And as he left Robin in the heart of his family he heard him say —

  “Such a lion, Mother, a lady’s got — with a man on it — a ‘normous lion, and the man hasn’t any clothes on, and his legs are all scratched....”

  CHAPTER III

  ROYAL PERSONAGES ARE COMING

  I

  Peter, sitting obscurely in a corner of Herr Gottfried’s attic on the evening of this eventful day and listening to that string sextette that was written by Brahms when he was nineteen years of age (and it came straight from the heights of Olympus if any piece of music ever did), was conscious of the eyes of Herr Lutz.

  Herr Lutz was Herr Gottfried’s greatest friend and was notable for three things, his enormous size, his surpassing skill on the violoncello and his devoted attachment to the veriest shrew of a little sharp-boned wife that ever crossed from Germany into England. For all these things Peter loved him, but Herr Lutz was never very actively conscious of Peter because from the moment that he entered Herr Gottfried’s attic to the moment he left it his soul was wrapped in the music and in nothing else whatever. To-night as usual he was absorbed and after the second movement of the sextette had come to a most rapturous conclusion he was violently dissatisfied and pulled them back over it again, because they had been ragged and their enthusiasm had got the better of their time and they were altogether disgraceful villains, but through all of this his grey eyes were upon Peter.

  Peter, watching from his dark corner even felt that the ‘cello was being played especially for his benefit and that Herr Lutz was talking all the time to him through the medium of his instrument. It may have been that he himself was in a state of most exalted emotion, and never until the end of all things mortal and possibly all things eternal will he forget that sextette by Brahms; he may perhaps have put more into Herr Lutz than was really there, but it is certain that he was conscious of the German’s attention.

  As is common to all persons of his age and condition he was amazed at the glorified vision of everyday things. In Herr Gottfried’s flat there was a model of Beethoven in plaster of Paris, a bed, and a tin wash-hand stand, a tiny bookshelf containing some tattered volumes of Reclame’s Universal Bibliothek, a piano and six cane-bottomed chairs covered at the moment by the
stout bodies of the six musicians — nothing here to light the world with wonder! — and yet to-night, Peter, sitting on a cushion in a dark corner watched the glories of Olympus; the music of heaven was in his ear and before him, laughing at him, smiling, vanishing only to reappear more rapturous and beautiful than ever was the lady, the wonderful and only lady.

  His cheeks were hot and his heart was beating so loudly that it was surely no wonder that Herr Lutz had discovered his malady. The sextette came to an end and the six musicians sat, for a moment, silent on their chairs whilst they dragged themselves into the world that they had for a moment forsaken. That was a great instant of silence when every one in the room was concerned entirely with their souls and had forgotten that they so much as had bodies at all. Then Herr Lutz gathered his huge frame together, stuck his hand into his beard and cried aloud for drink.

  Beer was provided — conversation was, for the next two hours, volcanic. When twelve o’clock struck in the church round the corner the meeting was broken up.

  Herr Lutz said to Peter, “There is still the ‘verdammte’ fog. Together we will go part of the way.”

  So they went together. But on the top of the dark and crooked staircase Herr Gottfried stopped Peter.

  “Boy,” he said and he rubbed his nose with his finger as he always did when he was nervous and embarrassed, “I shouldn’t go to the shop for a week or two if I were you.”

  “Not go?” said Peter astonished.

  “No — for reason why — well — who knows? The days come and they go, and again it will be all right for you. I should rub up the Editors, I should—”

  “Rub up the Editors?” repeated Peter still confused.

  “Yes — have other irons, you know — often enough other irons are handy—”

  “Did Zanti tell you to say this to me?”

  “No, he says nothing. It is only I — as a friend, you understand—”

  “Well, thank you very much,” said Peter at last. Herr Gottfried, he reflected, must think that he, Peter, had mints of money if he could so lightly and on so slender a warning propose his abandoning his precious two pounds a week. Moreover there was loyalty to Mr. Zanti to be considered.... Anyway, what did it all mean?

  “I can’t go,” he said at last, “unless Zanti says something to me. But what are they all up to?”

  “Seven years,” said Herr Gottfried darkly, “has the Boy been in the shop — of so little enquiring a mind is he.”

  And he would say nothing further. Peter followed Herr Lutz’ huge body into the street. They took arms when they encountered the fog and went stumbling along together.

  “You are in lof,” said Herr Lutz, breathlessly avoiding a lamp post.

  “Yes,” said Peter, “I am.”

  “Ah,” said Herr Lutz giving Peter’s arm a squeeze. “It is the only thing — The — Only — Thing.... However it may be for you — bad or ill — whether she scold or smile, it is a most blessed state.”

  He spoke when under stress of emotion, in capitals with a pause before the important word.

  “It won’t come to anything,” said Peter. “It can’t possibly. I haven’t got anything to offer anybody — an uncertain two pounds a week.”

  “You have a — Career,” said Herr Lutz solemnly, “I know — I have often watched you. You have written a — Book. Karl Gottfried has told me. But all that does not matter,” he went on impetuously. “It does not matter what you get — It is — Being — in — Love — The — divine — never — to — be — equalled — State—”

  The enormous German stopped on an island in the middle of the road and waved his arms. On every side of him through the darkness the traffic rolled and thundered. He waved his arms and exulted because he had been married to a shrew of a wife for thirty years. During that time she had never given him a kind word, not a loving look, but Peter knew that out of all the fog and obscurity that life might bring to him that Word, sprung though it might be out of Teutonic sentiment and Heller’s beer, that word, at any rate, was true.

  II

  London, in the morning, recovered from the fog and prepared to receive Foreign Personages. They were not to arrive for another week, but it was some while since anything of the kind had occurred and London meant to carry it out well. The newspapers were crowded with details; personal anecdotes about the Personages abounded — a Procession was to take place, stands began to climb into the air and the Queen and her visitors were to have addresses presented to them at intervals during the Progress.

  To Peter this all seemed supremely unimportant. At the same moment, to confuse little things with big ones, Mrs. Lazarus suddenly decided to die. She had been unwell for many months and her brain had been very clouded and temper uncertain — but now suddenly she felt perfectly well, her intelligence was as sharp and bright as it had ever been and the doctor gave her a week at the utmost. She would like, she said, to have seen the dear Queen ride through the streets amidst the plaudits of the populace, but she supposed it was not to be. So with a lace cap on her head and her nose sharp and shiny she sat up in bed, flicked imaginary bread pellets along the counterpane, talked happily to the boarding-house and made ready to die.

  The boarding-house was immensely moved, and Peter, during these days came back early from the bookshop in order to sit with her. He was surprised that he cared as he did. The old lady had been for so long a part of his daily background that he could no more believe in her departure than he could in the sudden disappearance of the dark green curtains and the marble pillars in the dining-room. She had had, from the first, a great liking for Peter. He had never known how much of that affection was an incoherent madness and he had never in any way analysed his own feeling for her, but now he was surprised at the acute sharpness of his regret.

  On a bright evening of sunshine, about six o’clock, she died — Mrs. Brockett, the Tressiters, Norah Monogue also were with her at the time. Peter had been with her alone during the earlier afternoon and although she had been very weak she had talked to him in her trembling voice (it was like the noise that two needles knocking against one another would make), and she had told him how she believed in him.

  She made him ashamed with the things that she said about him. He had paid her little enough attention, he thought, during these seven years. There were so many things that he might have done. As the afternoon sun streamed into the room and the old lady, her hands like ivory upon the counterpane, fell into a quiet sleep he wondered — Was he bad or good? Was he strong or weak? These things that people said, the affection that people gave him ... he deserved none of it. Surely never were two so opposite presences bound together in one body — he was profoundly selfish, profoundly unselfish, loving, hard, kind, cruel, proud, humble, generous, mean, completely possessed, entirely uncontrolled, old beyond his years, young beyond belief —

  As he sat there beside the sleeping old lady he felt a contempt of himself that was beyond all expression, and also he felt a pride at the things that he knew that he might do, a pride that brought the blood to his cheeks.

  The Man on the Lion? The Man under the Lion’s Paw?... The years would show. A quiet happy serenity passed over Mrs. Lazarus’ face and he called the others into the room.

  Stern Mrs. Brockett was crying. Mrs. Lazarus woke for a moment and smiled upon them all. She took Peter’s hand.

  “Be good to old people,” she breathed very faintly — then she closed her eyes and so died.

  Below in the street a boy was calling the evening papers. “Arrival of the Prince and Princess of Schloss.... Arrival of the Prince and—”

  They closed the windows and pulled down the blinds.

  II

  Thursday was to be the day of Royal Processions, and on Friday old Mrs. Lazarus was to be buried.

  To Peter, Wednesday was a day of extravagant confusion — extravagant because it was a day on which nothing was done. Customers were not served in the shop. Editors were not attacked in their lairs. Nothing was done, every
one hung about.

  Peter could not name any one as directly responsible for this state of things, nor could he define his own condition of mind; only he knew that he could not leave the shop. About its doors and passages there fell all day an air of suspense. Mr. Zanti was himself a little responsible for this; it was so unusual for that large and smiling gentleman to waste the day idly; and yet there he was, starting every now and again for the door, looking into the empty yard from the windows at the back of the house, disappearing sometimes into the rooms above, reappearing suddenly with an air of unconcern a little too elaborately contrived.

  Peter felt that Mr. Zanti had a great deal that he would like to say to him, and once or twice he came to him and began “Oh, I say, boy,” and then stopped with an air of confusion as though he had recollected something, suddenly.

  There was a Russian girl, too, who was about the shop, uneasily on this day. She was thin, slight, very dark; fierce eyes and hands that seemed to be always curving. Her name was Maria Notroska and she was engaged to the big Russian, Oblotzky, whom Peter had seen, on other days up and down through the shop. She spoke to no one. She knew but little English — but she would stand for hours at the door looking out into the street. It was a long uneasy day and Peter was glad when the evening, in slow straight lines of golden light, came in through the black door. The evening too seemed to bring forward a renewed hope of seeing Stephen again — enquiries could bring nothing from either Zanti or Herr Gottfried; they had never heard of the man, oh no!... Stephen Brant? Stephen ...? No! Never —

  That sudden springing out of the darkness had meant something however. Peter could still feel his wet clothes and see his shining beard. Yes, if there were any trouble Stephen would be there. What were they all about? Peter closed the shutters of the shop that night without having any explanation to offer. Mr. Zanti was indeed a strange man; when Peter turned to go he stopped him with his hand on his shoulder: “Peter, boy,” he said, whispering, “come upstairs — I have something to tell you.”