Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  But it was in the attitude of Bucket Lane to the Great Inevitable that the essential difference was to be observed. In Bennett Square things had been expected and, for the most part, obtained. Catastrophes came lumbering into their midst at times but rising in the morning one might decently expect to go to rest at night in safety. In Bucket Lane there was no safety but defiance — fierce, bitterly humorous, truculent defiance. Bucket Lane was a beleaguered army that stood behind the grime and dirty walls on guard. From the earliest moment there the faces of all the babies born into Bucket Lane caught the strain of cautious resistance that was always to remain with them. Life in Bucket Lane, for every one from the youngest infant to the oldest idiot, was War. War against Order and Civilised Force. War also against that great unseen Hand that might at any moment swoop down upon any one of them and bestow fire, death and imprisonment upon its victims. To the ladies and gentlemen from the Mission the citizens of Bucket Lane presented an amused and cynical tolerance. If those poor, meek, frightened creatures chose some faint-hearted attempts at flattery and submission before this abominable Deity — well, they did no harm.

  Mrs. Williams said to Miss Connacher, a bright-faced young woman from St. Matthew’s Mission— “And I’m sure we’re always delighted to see you, Miss. But you can’t ‘ave us goin’ and being grateful on our bended knees to the sort of person as according to your account of it gave me my first ‘usband ‘oo was a blackguard if ever there was one, and my last child wot ‘ad rickets and so ‘andsomely arranged me to go breakin’ my leg one night coming back from a party and sliding on the stairs, and in losin’ my little bit o’ charin’ and as near the workus as ever yer see — no — it ain’t common sense.”

  To which Miss Connacher vaguely looking around for a list of Mrs. Williams’ blessings and finding none to speak of, had no reply.

  But the astonishing thing was that Peter seemed at once to be seized with the Bucket Lane position. He was now, he understood, in a world of earthquake — wise citizens lived from minute to minute and counted on no longer safety. He began also to eliminate everything that was not absolutely essential. At Brockett’s he had never consciously done without anything that he wanted — in Bucket Lane he discarded to the last possible shred of possession.

  He had returned from his first day’s hunting with the resolve that before he ventured out again he would have something to show. With a precious sixpence he bought a copy of The Mascot and studied it — there was a short story entitled “Mrs. Adair’s Co.” — and an article on “What Society Drinks” — the remaining pages of the number were filled with pictures and “Chatter from Day to Day.” This gaily-coloured production lying on one of the beds in the dark room in Bucket Lane seemed singularly out of place. Its pages fluttered in the breeze that came through the window cracks— “Maison Tep” it cried feebly to the screaming children in the court below, “is a very favourite place for supper just now, with Maitre Savori as its popular chef and its admirably stocked cellars....”

  Peter gave himself a fortnight in which to produce something that he could “show.” Stephen meanwhile had found work as a waiter in one of the small Soho restaurants; it was only a temporary engagement but he hoped to get something better within a week or two.

  For the moment all was well. At the end of his fortnight, with four things written Peter meant to advance once more to the attack. Meanwhile he sat with a pen, a penny bottle of ink and an exercise book and did what he could. At the end of the fortnight he had written “The Sea Road,” an essay for which Robert Louis Stevenson was largely responsible, “The Redgate Mill,” a story of the fantastic, terrible kind, “Stones for Bread,” moralising on Bucket Lane, and the “Red-Haired Boy,” a somewhat bitter reminiscence of Dawson’s. Of this the best was undoubtedly “The Sea Road,” but in his heart of hearts Peter knew that there was something the matter with all of them. “Reuben Hallard” he had written because he had to write it, these four things he had written because he ought to write them ... difference sufficient. Nevertheless, he put them into halfpenny wrappes and sent them away.

  In the struggle to produce these things he had not found that fortnight wearisome. Before him, every day, there was the evening when Stephen would return, to which he might look forward. Stephen was always very late — often it was two o’clock before he came in, but they had a talk before going to sleep. And here in these evenings Stephen developed in the most wonderful way, developed because Peter had really never known him before.

  Stephen had never appeared to Peter as a character at all. In the early days Peter had been too young. Stephen had, at that time, been simply something to be worshipped, without any question or statement. Now that worshipping had gone and the space that it left had to be filled by some new relationship, something that could only come slowly, out of the close juxtaposition that living together in Bucket Lane had provided.

  And it was Stephen who found, unconsciously and quite simply, the shape and colour of Peter’s idea of him. Peter had in reality, nothing at all to do with it, and had Stephen been a whit more self-conscious the effect would have been spoiled.

  In the first place Peter came quite freshly to the way that Stephen looked. Stephen expressed nothing, consciously, with his body; it was wonderful indeed considering its size and strength, the little that he managed to do with it. His eyes were mild and amiable, his face largely covered with a deep brown beard, once wildly flowing, now sharply pointed. He was at least six foot four in height, the breadth of shoulder was tremendous, but although he knew admirably what to do with it as a means of conveyance, of sheer physical habit, he had no conception of the possibilities that it held as the expression of his soul. That soul was to be found, by those who cared to look for it, glancing from his eyes, struggling sometimes through the swift friendliness of his smile — but he gave it no invitation. It all came, perhaps, from the fact that he treated himself — if anything so unconscious may be called treatment — as the very simplest creature alive. The word introspection meant nothing to him whatever, there were in life certain direct sharp motives and on these he acted. He never thought of himself or of any one else in terms of complexity; the body acted simply through certain clear and direct physical laws ... so the spirit. He loved the woman who had dominated his whole life and one day he would find her and marry her. He loved Peter as he would love a son of his own if he possessed one, and he would be at Peter’s side so long as Peter needed him, and would rather be there than anywhere else. For the rest life was a matter of birth and death, of loving one man and hating another, of food and drink, and — but this last uncertainly — of some strange thrill that was stirred in him, at times, by certain sights and sounds.

  He was glad to have been born ... he would be quite ready to die. He did not question the reason of the one state or the other. For the very fact that life was so simple and unentangled he clung, with the tenacity and dumb force of an animal to the things that he had. Peter felt, vaguely, from time to time, the strength with which Stephen held to him. It was never expressed in word nor in action but it came leaping sometimes, like fire, into the midst of their conversation — it was never tangible — always illusive.

  To Peter’s progress this simplicity of Stephen was of vast importance. The boy had now reached an age and a period where emotions, judgments, partialities, conclusions and surmises were fighting furiously for dominion. His seven years at Brockett’s had been, introspectively, of little moment. He had been too busy discovering the things that other people had discovered and written down to think very much about himself.

  Now released from the domination of books, he plunged into a whirlpool of surmise about himself. During the fortnight that he sat writing his articles in Bucket Lane he flew, he sank, according to his moods. It seemed to him that as soon as he had decided on one path and set out eagerly to follow it others crossed it and bewildered him.

  He was now on that unwholesome, absorbing, thrilling, dangerous path of self-discovery. Opposed
to this was the inarticulate, friendly soul of Stephen. Stephen understood nothing and at the same time understood everything. Against the testing of his few simple laws Peter’s complexities often vanished ... but vanished only to recur again, unsatisfied, demanding a subtler answer. It was during those days, through all the trouble and even horror that so shortly came upon them both, that Stephen realised with a dull, unreasoned pain, like lead at the heart, that Peter was passing inevitably from him into a country whither Stephen could not follow — to deal with issues that Stephen could not, in any kind of way, understand. Stephen realised this many days before Peter even dimly perceived it, and the older man by the love that he had for the boy whom he had known from the very first period of his growth was enabled, although dimly, to see beyond, above all these complexities, to a day when Peter would once more, having learnt and suffered much in the meanwhile, come back to that first simplicity.

  But that day was far distant.

  II

  On the evening of the day on which Peter finished the last of his five attempts to take the London journals by storm Stephen returned from his restaurant earlier than usual — so early indeed, that Peter, had he not been so bent on his own immediate affairs, must have noticed and questioned it. He might, too, have observed that Stephen, now and again, shot an anxious, troubled glance at him as though he were uneasy about something.

  But Peter, since six o’clock that evening, at which moment he had written the concluding sentence of “The Sea Road,” had been in deep and troubled thought concerning himself, and broke from that introspection, on Stephen’s arrival, in a state of unhappy morbidity and entire self-absorption.

  Their supper was beer, sardines and cheese.

  “It’s been pretty awful here this evening,” Peter said. “Old Trubbit on the floor below’s been beating his wife and she’s been screaming like anything. I couldn’t stand it, after a bit, and went down to see what I could do. The family was mopping her head with water and he was sitting on a chair, crying. Drunk again, of course, but he was turned off his job apparently this afternoon. They’re closing down.”

  “‘Ard luck,” said Stephen, looking at the floor.

  “Yes — it hasn’t been altogether cheerful — and his getting the chuck like that set me thinking. It’s awfully lucky you’ve got your job all right and of course now I’ve written these things and have got ‘something to show,’ I’ll be all right.” Peter paused for a moment a little uncertainly. “But it does, you know, make one a bit frightened, this place, seeing the way people get suddenly bowled over. There were the Gambits — a fortnight ago he was in work and they were as fit as anything ... they haven’t had any food now for three days.”

  “There ain’t anything to be frightened about,” Stephen said slowly.

  “No, I know. But Stephen, suppose I don’t get work, after all. I’ve been so confident all this time, but I mightn’t be able to do the job a bit.... I suppose this place is getting on my nerves but — I could get awfully frightened if I let myself.”

  “Oh, you’ll be all right. Of course you’ll be getting something—”

  “Yes, but I hate spending your money like this. Do you know, Stephen, I’d almost rather you were out of work too. That sounds a rotten thing to say but I hate being given it all like this, especially when you haven’t got much of your own either—”

  “Between friends,” said Stephen slowly, swinging his leg backwards and forwards and making the bed creak under his weight, “there aren’t any giving or taking — it’s just common.”

  “Oh, yes, I know,” said Peter hurriedly, frightened lest he should have hurt his feelings, “of course it’s all right between you and me. But all the same I’m rather eager to be earning part of it.”

  They were silent for a time. Bucket Lane too seemed silent and through their little window, between the black roofs and chimneys, a cluster of stars twinkled as though they had found their way, by accident, into a very dirty neighbourhood and were trying to get out of it again.

  Peter was busy fishing for his thoughts; at last he caught one and held it out to Stephen’s innocent gaze.

  “It isn’t,” he said, “like anything so much as catching a disease from an infectious neighbourhood. I think if I lived here with five thousand a year I should still be frightened. It’s in the air.”

  “Being frightened,” said Stephen rather hurriedly and speaking with a kind of shame, as though he had done something to which he would rather not own up, “is a kind of ‘abit. Very soon, Peter, you’ll know what it’s like and take it as it comes.”

  “Oh,” said Peter, “if it’s that kind of being frightened — seeing I mean quite clearly the things you’re frightened of — why, that’s pretty easy. One of the first books I ever read— ‘Henry Lessingham,’ by Galleon, you know, I’ve talked about him to you — had a long bit about it — courage I mean. He made it a kind of parable, countries you’d got to go through before you’d learnt to be really brave; and the first, and by far the easiest courage is the sort that you want when you haven’t got things — the sort the Gambits want — when you’re starving or out of a job. Well, that’s I suppose the easiest kind and yet I’m funking it. So what on earth am I going to do when the harder business comes along? ... Stephen, I’m beginning to have a secret and uncomfortable suspicion that your friend, Peter Westcott, is a poor creature.”

  “Thank the Lord,” said Stephen furiously and kicking out with his leg as though he had got some especial enemy’s back directly in front of him, “that you’ve finished them damned articles. You’ve been sittin’ here thinkin’ and writin’ till you’ve given yerself blue devils — down-along, too, with all them poor creatures hittin’ each other and drinkin’ — I oughtn’t to have left yer up here so much alone—”

  “No — you couldn’t help it, Stephen — it’s nothing to do with you. It’s all more than you can manage and nobody in the world can help me. It’s seven years and a bit now since I left Cornwall, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Stephen, looking across at him.

  “All that time I’ve never had a word nor a sign from any one there. Well, you might have thought that that would be long enough to break right away from it.... Well, it isn’t—”

  “Don’t you go thinking about all that time. You’ve cleared it right away—”

  “No, I haven’t cleared it — that’s just the point. I don’t suppose one ever clears anything. All the time I was with Zanti I was reading so hard and living so safely that it was only at moments, when I was alone, that I thought about Treliss at all. But these last weeks it’s been coming on me full tide.”

  “What’s been coming on you?”

  “Well, Scaw House, I suppose ... and my father and grandfather. My grandfather told me once that I couldn’t escape from the family and I can’t — it’s the most extraordinary thing—”

  Stephen saw that Peter was growing agitated; his hands were clenched and his face was white.

  “Mind you, I’ve seen my grandfather and father both go under it. My father went down all in a moment. It isn’t any one thing — you can call it drink if you like — but it’s simply three parts of us aching to go to the bad ... aching, that’s the word. Anything rotten — women or drink or anything you like — as long as we lose control and let the devil get the upper hand. Let him get it once — really get it — and we’re really done—”

  Peter paused for a moment and then went on hurriedly as though he were telling a story and had only a little time in which to tell it.

  “But that isn’t all — it’s worse than that. I’ve been feeling these last weeks as though my father were sitting there in that beastly house with that filthy woman — and willing me — absolutely with all his might — to go under—”

  “But what is it,” said Stephen, going, as always, to the simplest aspect of the case, “that you exactly want to do?”

  “Oh, I don’t know ... just to let loose the whole thing — I did break out once
at Brockett’s — I’ve never told anybody, but I got badly drunk one night and then went back with some woman.... Oh! it was all filthy — but I was mad, wild, for hours ... insane — and that night, in the middle of it all, sitting there as plainly as you please, there in Scaw House, I saw my father — as plainly as I see you—”

  “All young men,” said Stephen, “‘ave got to go through a bit of filth. You aren’t the sort of fellow, Peter, that stays there. Your wanting not to shows that you’ll come out of it all right.”

  Here was a case where Stephen’s simplicities were obviously of little avail.

  “Ah, but don’t you see,” said Peter impatiently, “it’s not the thing itself that I feel matters so much, although that’s rotten enough, but it’s the beastly devil — real, personal — I tell you I saw him catch my grandfather as tight as though he’d been there in the room ... and my father, too. I tell you, this last week or two I’ve been almost mad ... wanting to chuck it all, this fighting and the rest and just go down and grovel...”

  “I expect it’s regular work you’re wanting,” said Stephen, “keeping your mind busy. It’s bad to ‘ave your sort of brain wandering round with nothing to feed on. It’ll be all right, boy, in a day or two when you’ve got some work.”

  Peter’s head dropped forward on to his hands. “I don’t know — it’s like going round in a circle. You see, Stephen, what makes it all so difficult is — well, I don’t know ... why I haven’t told you before ... but the fact is — I’m in love—”

  “I knew it a while back,” said Stephen quietly, “watching your face when you didn’t know I was lookin’—”

  “Well, it’s all hopeless, of course. I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again ... but that’s what’s made this looking for work so difficult — I’ve been wanting to get on — and every day seems to place her further away. And then when I get hopeless these other devils come round and say ‘Oh well, you can’t get her, you know. That’s as impossible as anything — so you’d better have your fling while you can....’ My God! I’m a beast!”