by Hugh Walpole
“It’s more than that,” said Peter, wishing that the man would cease beating his knees with his hands —
“It’s them blasted stars — it’s Gawd. That’s what it is. Curse Gawd — that’s what I say — Curse Gawd!”
“What’s He done?” said Peter.
“I’ve just broken in my wife’s ‘ead with a poker. Killed ‘er I expect — I dunno — going back to see in a minute—”
“Why did you do it?”
“‘Ad to — always nagging — that’s what she was — always nagging. Wanted things — all sorts o’ things — and there were always children coming — So we ‘ad a blasted argyment this evening and I broke ‘er ‘ead open — Gawd did it — that’s what I say—”
Peter said nothing.
“You can call a bloomin’ copper if you want to,” the little man said.
“It’s no business of mine,” said Peter and he got up and left him. All shadows — only the sinister noise that London makes is real, that and Clare’s suffering.
He left the Park turned into Knightsbridge and came upon a toyshop. The shutters had not been put up and the lights of a lamp shone full upon its windows. Against the iron railings opposite and the high white road these toys stood with sharp, distinct outline behind the slanting light of the glass. There were dolls — a fine wedding doll, orange blossom, lace and white silk, and from behind it all, the sharp pinched features and black beady eyes stared out.... There was a Swiss doll with bright red cheeks, red and green clothing and shoes with shining buckles. Then there were the more ordinary dolls — and gradually down the length of the window, their clothing was taken from them until at last some wooden creatures with flaring cheeks and brazen eyes kicked their limbs and defied the proprieties.
He would be a Boy ... he would not care about dolls....
There were soldiers — rows and rows of gleaming soldiers. They came from a misty distance at the top of the shop window, came marching from the gates of some dark, mediæval castle. Their swords caught the lamplight, shining in a line of silver and the precision with which they marched, the certainty with which they trod the little bridge ... ah, these were the fellows! He would be a Boy ... soldiers would enchant him! He should have boxes, boxes, boxes!
There were many other things in the window; teddy bears and animals with soft woolly stomachs and fat comfortable legs — and there were ugly, modern Horrors with fat bulging faces and black hair erect like wire; there were little devils with red tails, there were rabbits that rode bicycles and monkeys that climbed trees. There were drums — big drums and little drums — trumpets with crimson tassels, and in one corner a pyramid of balls, balls of every colour, and at the top of the pyramid a tiny ball of peacock blue, hanging, balancing, daintily, supremely right in pose and gesture.
It had gesture. It caught Peter’s eye — Peter stood with his nose against the pane, his heart hammering— “Oh! she is suffering — My God, how she is suffering!” — and there the little blue ball caught him, held him, encouraged him.
“I will belong to your boy one day” it seemed to say.
“It shall be the first thing I will buy for him—” thought Peter.
He turned now amongst the light and crowds of Piccadilly. He walked on without seeing and hearing — always with that thought in his heart— “She is in terrible pain. How can God be so cruel? And she was so happy — before I came she was so happy — now — what have I done to her?”
Never, before to-night, had he felt so sharply, so irretrievably his sense of responsibility. Here now, before him, at this birth of his child, everything that he had done, thought, said — everything that he had been — confronted him. He was only twenty-seven but his shoulders were heavy with the confusion of his past. Looking back upon it, he saw a helpless medley of indecisions, of sudden impulses, sudden refusals; into the skeins of it, too, there seemed to be dragged the people that had made up his life — they faced him, surrounded him, bewildered him!
What right had he, thus encompassed, to hand these things on to another? His father, his grandfather ... he saw always that dark strain of hatred, of madness, of evil working in their blood. Suppose that as his boy grew he should see this in the young eyes? Suppose, most horrible of all, that he should feel this hatred for his son that his grandfather had felt for his father, that his father had felt for him.
What had he done?... He stopped, staring confusedly about him. The people jostled him on every side. The old devils were at him— “Eat and drink for to-morrow we die.... Give it up ... We’re too strong for you and we’ll be too strong for your son. Who are you to defy us? Come down — give it up—”
His white face caught attention. “Move along, guv’nor,” some one shouted. A man took him by the arm and led up a dark side street. He turned his eyes and saw that the man was Maradick.
II
The elder man felt that the boy was trembling from head to foot.
“What’s the matter, Westcott? Anything I can do for you?”
Peter seemed to take him in slowly, and then, with a great effort, to pull himself together.
“What, you — Maradick? Where was I? I’m afraid I’ve been making a fool of myself....” A church clock struck somewhere in the distance. “Hullo, I say, what’s that? That’s eleven. I must get back, I ought to be at home—”
“I’ll come with you—”
Maradick hailed a hansom and helped Peter into it.
For a moment there was silence — then Maradick said —
“I hope everything’s all right, Westcott? Your wife?”
Peter spoke as though he were in a dream. “I’ve been waiting there all the afternoon — she’s been suffering — My God!... It got on my nerves.... She’s so young — they oughtn’t to hurt her like that.” He covered his face with his hands.
“I know. I felt like that when my first child came. It’s terrible, awful. And then it’s over — all the pain — and it’s magnificent, glorious — and then — later — it’s so commonplace that you cannot believe that it was ever either awful or magnificent. Fix your mind on the glorious part of it, Westcott. Think of this time to-morrow when your wife will be so proud, so happy — you’ll both be so proud, so happy, that you’ll never know anything in life like it.”
“Yes, yes, I know — of course it’s sure to be all right — but I suppose this waiting’s got on my nerves. There was a fellow in the Park just broken his wife’s head in — and then everything was so quiet. I could almost hear her crying, right away in her room.”
He stopped a moment and then went on. “It’s what I’ve always wanted — always to have a boy. And, by Jove, he’ll be wonderful! I tell you he shall be — We’ll be such pals!” He broke off suddenly— “You haven’t a boy?”
“No, mine are both girls. Getting on now — they’ll soon be coming out. I should like to have had a boy—” Maradick sighed.
“Are they an awful lot to you?”
“No — I don’t suppose they are. I should have understood a boy better, — but they’re good girls. I’m proud of them in a way — but I’m out so much, you see.”
Peter faced the contrast. Here this middle-aged man, with his two girls — and here too he, Peter, with his agonising, flaming trial — to slip, so soon, into dull commonplace?
“But didn’t you — if you can look so far — didn’t you, when the first child came, funk it? Your responsibility I mean. All the things one’s — one’s ancestors — it’s frightening enough for oneself but to hand it on—”
“It’s nothing to do with oneself — one’s used, that’s all. The child will be on its own legs, thrusting you away before you know where you are. It will want to claim its responsibilities — ancestors and all—”
Peter said nothing — Maradick went on:
“You know we were talking one night and were interrupted — you’re in danger of letting the things you imagine beat the things you know. Stick to the thing you can grasp, touch — I know the dangers
of the others — I told you that once in Cornwall, I — the most unlikely person in the world — was caught up by it. I’ve never laughed at morbidity, or nerves, or insanity since. There’s such a jolly thin wall between the sanest, most level-headed beef-eating Squire in the country and the maddest poet in Bedlam. I know — I’ve been both in the same day. It’s better to be both, I believe, if you can keep one under the other, but you must keep it under—”
Maradick talked on. He saw that the boy’s nerves were jumping, that he was holding himself in with the greatest difficulty.
Peter said: “You don’t know, Maradick. I’ve had to fight all my life — my father, grandfather, all of them have given in at last — and now this child ... perhaps I shall see it growing, see him gradually learning to hate me, see myself hating him ... at last, my God, see him go under — drink, deviltry — I’ve fought it — I’m always fighting it — but to-night—”
“Good heavens, man — you’re not going to tell me that your father, your grandfather — the rest of them — are stronger than you. What about your soul, your own blessed soul that can’t be touched by any living thing or dead thing either if you stick to it? Why, every man’s got power enough in himself to ride heaven and earth and all eternity if he only believed he’d got it! Ride your scruples, man — ride ’em, drive ’em — send ’em scuttling. Believe in yourself and stick to it — Courage!...”
Maradick pulled himself in. They were driving now, down the King’s Road. The people were pouring in a thick, buzzing crowd, out of the Chelsea Palace. Middle-aged stockbrokers in hansom cabs — talking like the third act of a problem play! — but Maradick had done his work. As they drove round the corner, past the mad lady’s painted house, he saw that Peter was calmer. He had regained his self-control. The little house where Peter lived was very still — the trees in the orchard were stiff and dark beneath the stars.
Peter spoke in a whisper— “Good-night, Maradick, you’ve done me a lot of good — I shan’t forget it.”
“Good luck to you,” Maradick whispered back. Peter stole into the house.
The little drawing-room looked very cosy; the fire was burning, the lamp lighted, the thick curtains drawn. Maria Theresa smiled, with all her finery, from the wall.
Peter sat down in front of the fire. Maradick was right. One must have one’s hand on the bridle — the Rider on the Lion again. It’s better that the beast under you should be a Lion rather than a Donkey, but let it once fling you off its back and you’re done for. And Maradick had said these things! Maradick whom once Peter had considered the dullest of his acquaintances. Well, one never knew about people — most of the Stay-at-homes were Explorers and vice versa, if one only understood them.
How still the house was! What was happening upstairs? He could not go and see — he could not move. He was held by the stillness. The doctor would come and tell him....
He thought of the toyshop — that blue ball — it would be the first thing that he would buy for the boy — and then soldiers — soldiers that wouldn’t hurt him, that he couldn’t lick the paint from —
Now the little silver clock ticked! He was so terribly tired — he had never been tired like this before....
The stillness pressed upon the house. Every sound — the distant rattling of some cab, the faint murmur of trams — was stifled, extinguished. The orchard seemed to press in upon the house, darker and darker grew the forest about it — The stars were shut out, the moon... the world was dead.
Then into this sealed and hidden silence, a voice crying from an upper room, suddenly fell — a woman in the abandonment of utter pain, pain beyond all control, was screaming. Somewhere, above that dark forest that pressed in upon the house, a bird of prey hovered. It hung for a moment; it descended — its talons were fixed upon her flesh... then again it ascended. Shriek after shriek, bursting the silence, chasing the shadows, flooding the secrecy with horrible light, beat like blows upon the walls of the house — rose, fell, rose again. Peter was standing, his back against the wall, his hands spread out, his face grey.
“My God, my God... Oh! my God!”
The sweat poured from his forehead. Once more there was silence but now it was ominous, awful....
The little silver clock ticked — Peter’s body stood stretched against the wall — he faced the door.
Hours, hours passed. He did not move. The screaming had, many years ago, ceased. The doctor — a cheerful man with blue eyes and a little bristling moustache — came in.
“A fine boy, Mr. Westcott — I congratulate you. You might see your wife for a moment if you cared — stood it remarkably well—”
Slowly the forest, dark and terrible, moved away from the house. Very faintly again could be heard the distant rattling of some cab, the murmur of trams.
CHAPTER VII
DECLARATION OF HAPPINESS
I
Extracts from letters that Bobby Galleon wrote to Alice Galleon about this time:
“... But, of course, I am sorrier than I can say that it’s so dull. That’s due to charity, my dear, and if you will go and fling yourself into the depths of Yorkshire because a girl like Ola Hunting chooses to think she’s unhappy and lonely you’ve only yourself to thank. Moreover there’s your husband to be considered. I don’t suppose, for a single instant, that he really prefers to be left alone, with his infant son, mind you, howling at the present moment because his nurse won’t let him swallow the glass marbles, and you can picture to yourself — if you want to make yourself thoroughly unhappy — your Robert sitting, melancholy throughout the long evening, alone, desolate, creeping to bed somewhere about ten o’clock.
“So there we are — you’re bored to death and I’ve no one to growl at when I come back from the City — all Ola Hunting’s fault — wring the girl’s neck. Meanwhile here I sit and every evening I’ll write whatever comes into my head and never look back on it again but stick it into an envelope and send it to you. You know me too well by now to be disappointed at anything.
“I’m quite sure that, if you were here with me now, sitting in that chair opposite me and sewing for all you were worth, that the thing that we’d be talking about would be Peter. If, therefore, these scrawls are full of Peter you won’t mind, I know. He’s immensely occupying my attention just now and you love him as truly and deeply as I do, so that if I go on at length about him you’ll excuse it on that score. You who know me better than any one else in the world know that, in my most secret heart, I flatter myself on my ability as a psychologist. I remember when I told you first how you laughed but I think since then you’ve come round not a little, and although we both keep it to ourselves, it’s a little secret that you’re a tiny bit proud of. I can see how brother Percival, or young Tony Gale, or even dear Peter himself would mock, if I told them of this ambition of mine. ‘Good, dear, stupid, old Bobby’ is the way they think of me, and I know it’s mother’s perpetual wonder (and also, I think, a little her comfort) that I should be so lacking in brilliance when Percival and Millie are so full of it.
“You know Peter’s attitude to me in these things — you’ve seen it often enough. He’s patronising — he can’t help it. That isn’t, he considers, my line in the least, and, let me once begin to talk to him of stocks and shares and he’ll open all his ears. Well, I can’t blame him — but I do think these writers and people are inclined to draw their line a little too sharply with their Philistines — great big gulf, please — and Artists. At any rate, here goes for my psychology and good luck to it. Peter, in fact, is so interesting a subject if one sees anything of him at all that I believe he’d draw speculation out of any one. There was old Maradick talking about him the other night — fascinated by him and understanding him most amazingly well — another instance of your Philistine and Artist mixed.
“But I knew him — and knew him jolly well too — when he was about twelve, so that I really get a pull over the rest of you there, for it adds of course immensely to the interest and if ever child w
as Father of the Man, Peter was. You know how we both funked that marriage of his for him — you because you knew Clare so well, I because I knew Peter. And then for a time it really seemed that we were both entirely wrong. Clare’s is a far simpler personality than Peter’s, and if you work along one or two recognised lines — let her have her way, don’t frighten her, above all keep her conventional — it’s all right. Clare was, and is, awfully in love with him, and he madly with her of course — and that helped everything along. You know how relieved we both were and indeed it seemed, for a time, that it was going to be the making of both of them — going to make Clare braver and Peter less morbid.
“Well, it’s since you’ve been away that everything’s happened. Although the baby was born some weeks before you went, it’s only lately that Clare has been up and about. She’s perfectly well and the baby’s splendid — promises to be a tremendous fellow and as healthy as possible. You can imagine, a little, the effect of it all on Clare. I don’t suppose there’s any girl in London been so wrapped in cotton wool all her life, and that old ass of a father and still more irritating ass of a mother would go on wrapping her still if they had their way. The fuss they’ve both made about this whole business is simply incredible — especially when the man’s a doctor and brings Lord knows how many children into the world every week of his life. But it’s all been awfully bad for Clare. Of course, she was frightened — frightened out of her wits. It’s the very first time life ever had its wrappings off for her, and that in itself of course is a tremendously good thing. But you can’t, unfortunately, wrap any one up for all those years and then take the wrappings off and not deliver a shock to the system. Of course there’s a shock, and it’s just this shock that I’m so afraid of. I’m afraid of it for one thing because Peter’s so entirely oblivious of it. He was in an agony of terror on the day that the baby was born, but once it was there — well and healthy and promising — fear vanished. He could only see room for glory — and glory he does. I cannot tell you what that boy is like about the baby; at present he thinks, day and night, of nothing else. It is the most terrific thing to watch his feeling about it — and meanwhile he takes it for granted that Clare feels the same.... Well, she doesn’t. I have been in a good deal during these last few days and she’s stranger than words can say — doesn’t see the child if she can help it — loves it, worships it, when it is there, and — is terrified of it. I saw a look in her eyes when she was nursing it yesterday that was sheer undiluted terror. She’s been frightened out of her life, and if I know her the least little bit she’s absolutely made up her mind never to be frightened like that again. She is going to hurl herself into a perfect whirlpool of excitement and entertainment and drag Peter with her if she can. Meanwhile, behind that hard little head of hers, she’s making plans just as fast as she can make them. I believe she looks on life now as though it had broken the compact that she made with it — a compact that things should always be easy, comfortable, above all, never threatening. The present must be calm but the Future’s absolutely got to be — and I believe, although she loves him devotedly in the depths of her strange little soul, that she half blames Peter for all of this disturbance, and that there are a great many things about him — his earlier life, his earlier friends, even his work — that she would strip from him if she could.