by Hugh Walpole
Then, almost before they had realised it, the other two men were down upon their knees. The ball was picked up and tossed from hand to hand, the baby, sitting upon Mr. Zanti’s stomach, watched with delight these extraordinary events.
Then they played Hunt the Slipper, sitting round in a ring upon the carpet, young Stephen trying to catch his own slipper, falling over upon his back, kicking his legs in the air, dashing now at Stephen the Elder’s beard, now at his father’s coat, now at Mr. Zanti’s legs.
The noise of the laughter drowned the rain and the fire. Mr. Zanti had the slipper — he was sitting upon it. Peter made a dash for it, Mr. Zanti rolled over, they were all in a heap upon the floor.
“I’ve got it.” Mr. Zanti was off on all fours round the room, the baby on his back clutching on to his hair. A chair was over, then a box of bricks, the table rocked and then was suddenly down with a crash!
What had come to them all? Stephen, so grave, so solemn, had caught the baby into the air, had flung him up and caught him again. Peter and Mr. Zanti looking up from the floor saw him standing, his legs wide, his beard flowing, his arms stretched with young Stephen shouting between them.
Behind him, around him was a wrecked nursery....
The baby, surveying the world from this sudden height, wondered at this amazing glory. He had never before beheld from such a position the things that bounded his life. How strange the window seemed! Through it now he could see the tops of the trees, the grey sky, the driving lines of rain! Only a little way above him now were pictures that had always glowed before from so great a distance. Around him, above him, below him space — a thing to be frightened of were one not held so tightly, so safely.
He approved, most assuredly, of the banishment of Mrs. Kant, and the invasion of these splendid Things! He would have life always like this, with that great blue ball to roll upon the floor, with that brown beard, near now to his hand, to clutch, with none of that hideous soap-in-the-eyes-early-to-bed Philosophy that he was becoming now conscious enough to rebel against.
He dug his hands into the beard that was close to him and, like the sons of the morning, shouted with joy.
Peter, looking up at the two Stephens, felt his burdens roll off his back. If only things could be like this always! And already he saw himself, through these two, making everything right once more with Clare. They should prove to her that, after all, his past life had not been so terrible, that Cornwall could produce heroes if it liked. Through these two he would get fresh inspiration for his work. He felt already, through them, a wind blowing that cleared all the dust from his brain.
And how splendid for the boy! To have two such men for his friends! Already he was planning to persuade them to stay in London. He had thought of the very place for them in Chelsea, near the Roundabout, the very house....
“Of course you’ll stay for dinner, you two—”
“But—” said Mr. Zanti, mopping his brow from which perspiration was dripping.
“No, nonsense. Of course you’ll stop. We’ve got such heaps to talk about—”
Stephen had got the baby now on his shoulder. “Off to Cornwall,” he shouted and charged down the room.
It was at that instant that Peter was conscious that Clare had been standing, for some moments, in the room. She stood, quite silently, without moving, by the door, her eyes blazing at him....
His first thought was of that other time when she had found him in the nursery, of the quarrel that they had had. Then he noticed the state of the room, the overturned chairs and table. Then he saw Mr. Zanti still wiping his forehead, but confusedly, and staring at Clare in a shocked hushed way, as though he were a small boy who had been detected with his fingers in a jam-pot.
Stephen saw her at last. He put the baby down and came slowly across the floor. Peter spoke: “Why, Clare! You’re back early. We’ve been having such a splendid time with Stephen — let me introduce my friends to you — Mr. Zanti and Mr. Brant... you’ve heard me speak of them—”
They came towards her. She shook hands with them, regarding them gravely.
“How do you do?”
There was silence. Then Mr. Zanti said— “We must be goin’ — longer than we ought to stop — we ‘ave business—”
Peter felt rising in him a cold and surging anger at her treatment of them. These two, the best friends that he had in the world — that she should dare!
“Oh! you’ll stay to dinner, you two! You must—”
“I’m afraid, ver’ afraid,” Mr. Zanti said bowing very low and still looking at Clare with apologetic, troubled eyes, “we ‘ave no time. Immediate business.”
Still Clare said nothing.
There was another moment’s silence, and then Peter said:
“I’ll come down and see you off.” Still without moving from her place she shook hands with them.
“Good-bye.”
They all three went out.
Peter could say nothing. The words seemed to be choked in his throat by this tide of anger that was like nothing he had ever felt before.
He held their hands for a moment as they stood outside in the dusk.
“Where are you staying? I must see you again—”
“We go down to Cornwall to-morrow.”
Stephen caught Peter’s shoulder:
“Come down to us, Peter, if you get a chance.” They all stared at one another; they were all, absolutely, entirely without words. Afterwards they would regret that they had said nothing, but now — !
They vanished into the dusk and Peter, stepping into the house again, closed very softly the hall door behind him.
CHAPTER X
ROCKING THE ROUNDABOUT
I
As he climbed, once more, the stairs to the nursery, he was conscious of the necessity for a great restraint. Did he but relax for an instant his control he was aware that forces — often dimly perceived and shuddered at — would now, as never in his life before, burst into freedom.
It was as though a whole life of joy and happiness had been suddenly snatched from him and it was Clare who had robbed him — Clare who had never cared what the things might be that she demanded from him — Clare who gave him nothing.
But his rage now, he also felt, was beyond all reason, something that belonged to that other part of him, the part that Scaw House and its dark room understood and so terribly fostered.
He was afraid of what he might do.
II
On opening the nursery door he saw the straight, thin, shining back of Mrs. Kant as she bent to put things straight. Young Stephen was quietly asleep. He closed the door, and, turning in the narrow passage, found Clare coming out of her room. In the dim light they faced one another, hostility flaming between them. She looked at him for a moment, her breast heaving, her mouth so tight and sharp, her eyes so fierce that her little stature seemed to be raised by her anger to a great height.
At that moment Peter felt that he hated her as he had never hated any one in his life before.
She went back, without a word, into her room.
She did not come down again that night and he had his evening meal, miserably, alone.
He slept in his dressing-room. Long before morning his rage had gone. He looked at her locked door and wished, miserably, that he might die for her....
III
Later, as he sat, hopelessly, over the dim and sterile pages of “Mortimer Slant,” Mrs. Rossiter came, heavily, in to talk with him. Mrs. Rossiter always entered the room with an expression of stupid benignity that hid a good deal of rather sharp perception. The fact that she was not nearly so stupid as she looked enabled her to look all the stupider and she covered a multitude of brains with a quantity of hard black silk that she spread out around her with the air of one who is filling as much of the room as she can conveniently seize upon. Her plump arms, her broad and placid bosom, her flat smooth face, her hair, entirely negative in colour and arrangement, offered no clue whatever to her unsuspected sharpnesses.
Smooth, broad, flat and motionless she carried, like the Wooden Horse of Troy, a thousand dangers in the depths of her placidity.
She had come now to assist her daughter, the only person for whom she may be said to have had the slightest genuine affection, for Dr. Rossiter she had long-despised and Mrs. Galleon was an ally and companion but never a friend. She had allowed Clare to marry Peter, chiefly because Clare would have married him in any case, but also, a little, because she thought that Peter had a great career in front of him. Now that Peter’s career seemed already to be, for the most part, behind him, she disliked him and because he appeared to have made Clare unhappy suddenly hated him... but placidity was the shield that covered her attack and, for a symbol, one might take the large flat golden brooch that she wore on her bosom — flat, expressionless and shining, with the sharpest pin behind it that ever brooch possessed.
Peter, whose miseries had accumulated as the minutes passed, was ready to seize upon anything that promised a reconciliation. He did not like Mrs. Rossiter — he had never been able to get to close quarters with her, and he was conscious that his roughness and occasional outbursts displeased her. He felt, too, that the qualities that he had resented in Clare owed their origin to her mother. That brooch of hers was responsible for a great deal.
Fixing his eyes upon it he said, “You’ve come about Clare?”
“Yes, Peter.” Mrs. Rossiter settled herself more comfortably, spread her skirts, folded her hands. “She’s very unhappy.”
The mild eyes baffled him.
“I’m terribly sorry. I will do anything I can, but I think — that I had a right” — he faltered a little; it was so like talking to an empty Dairy— “had a right to mind. Two old friends of mine — two of the best friends that I have in the world were here yesterday and Clare—”
“I don’t think,” the soft voice broke in upon him whilst the eyes searched his body up and down, “that, even now, Peter, you quite understand Clare—”
“No,” he said eagerly, “I know. I’m blundering, stupid. Lots of times I’ve irritated her, and now again.” He paused, but then added, with a touch of his old stubbornness— “But they were friends of mine — she should have treated them so.”
Mrs. Rossiter felt that she did indeed hate the young man.
“Clare is very unhappy,” she repeated. “She tells me that she has been crying all night. You must remember, Peter, that her life has been very different to yours—”
He wished that she would not repeat herself; he wished that she would not always use the same level voice; he wanted insanely to tell her that she ought to say “different from” — he could not take his eyes from the brooch. But the thought of Clare came to him and he bowed himself once more humbly.
“I will see that things are better,” he said earnestly. “I don’t know what has been the matter lately — my work and everything has been wrong, and I expect my temper has been horrible. You know,” he said with a little crooked smile, “that I’ve got to work to keep it all going, and when I’m writing badly then my temper goes to pieces.”
Mrs. Rossiter, with no appearance of having heard anything that he had said, continued —
“You know, Peter, that your temperament is very different to Clare’s. You are, and I know you will forgive my putting it so plainly, a little wild still — doubtless owing to your earlier years. Clare is gentle, bright, happy. She has never given my husband or myself a moment’s trouble, but that is because we understood her nature. We knew that she loved people about her to be happy — she flourished in the sun, she drooped under the clouds... under the clouds” Mrs. Rossiter repeated again softly, as she searched, with care, for her next words.
Irritation was rising within Peter. Why should it be concluded so inevitably that the fault was all on Peter’s side and not at all on Clare’s — after all, there were reasons... but he pulled himself up. He had behaved like a beast.
“I’ve tried very hard—” he began.
“Clouds—” said Mrs. Rossiter. “And you, Peter, are at times — I have seen it myself and I know that it is apparent to others — inclined to be morose — gloomy, a little gloomy—” Her fingers tapped the silk of her dress. “Dear Clare, considering what her own life has been, shrinks, I must confess it seems to me quite naturally, from any reminder of what your own earlier circumstances have been. Look at it, Peter, for an instant from the outside and you will see, at once, I am sure, what it must have been to her, yesterday, to come into her nursery, to find tables, chairs overturned, strange men shouting and flinging poor little Stephen towards the ceiling — some talk about Cornwall — really, Peter, I think you can understand...”
He abandoned all his defences. “I know — I ought to have realised... it was quite natural...”
In the back of his head he heard her words “You’re morose — you’re wild. Other people find you so — you’re making a mess of everything and every one knows it—”
He was humbled to the dust. If only he might make it all right with Clare, then he would see to it — Oh! yes he would see to it — that nothing of this kind ever happened again. From Mrs. Rossiter’s standpoint he looked back upon his life and found it all one ignoble, selfish muddle. Dear Clare! — so eager to be happy and he had made her miserable.
“Will she forgive me?”
“Dear Clare,” said Mrs. Rossiter, rising brightly and with a general air of benevolence towards all the sinners in existence, “is the most forgiving creature in the world.”
He went down to her bedroom and found her lying on a sofa and reading a novel.
He fell on his knees at her side— “Clare — darling — I’m a beast, a brute—”
She suddenly turned her face into the cushions and burst into passionate crying. “Oh! it’s horrible — horrible — horrible—”
He kissed her hand and then getting on to his feet again, stood looking at her awkwardly, struggling for words with which to comfort her.
IV
And then at luncheon, there was a little, pencilled feeble note for Peter from Norah Monogue. “Please, if you can spare half an hour come to me. In a day or two I am off to the country.”
Things had just been restored to peace and happiness — Clare had just proposed that they should go, that afternoon, to a Private View together — they might go and have tea with —
For an instant he was tempted to abandon Norah. Then his courage came: —
“Here’s a note from Miss Monogue,” he said. “She’s awfully ill I think, I ought—”
Clare’s face hardened again. She got up from the table —
“Just as you please—” she said.
He climbed on to the omnibus that was to stumble with him down Piccadilly with a. hideous, numbing sense of being under the hand of Fate. Why, at this moment, in all time, should this letter of Norah Monogue’s have made its unhappy appearance? With what difficulty and sorrow had he and Clare reached once more a reconciliation only, so wantonly, to be plucked away from it again! From the top of his omnibus he looked down upon a sinister London. It was a heavy, lowering day; thick clouds like damp cloths came down upon the towers and chimneys. The trees in the Green Park were black and chill and in and out of the Clubs figures slipped cautiously and it seemed furtively. Just beyond the Green Park they were building a vast hotel, climbing figures and twisting lines of scaffolding pierced the air, and behind the rolling and rattling of the traffic the sound of many hammers beat rhythmically, monotonously....
To Peter upon his omnibus, suddenly that sound that he had heard before — that sound of London stirring — came back to him, and now more clearly than he had ever known it. Tap-tap-tap-tap... Clamp-clamp-tap-tap-tap-tap — whir! whir!... Clamp-clamp....
It seemed to him that all the cabs and the buses and the little black figures were being hurried by some power straight, fast, along Piccadilly to be pitched, at the end of it, pell-mell, helter-skelter into some dark abysmal pit, there to perish miserably.
&nb
sp; Yes, the beast was stirring! Ever so little the pavements, the houses were heaving. Perhaps if one could see already the soil was cracking beneath one’s feet. “Look out! London will have you in a minute.” Tap-tap-tap-tap — clamp-clamp — tap-tap-tap-tap — whir-whir — clamp-clamp....
Anyhow it was a heavy, clammy day. The houses were ghosts and the people were ghosts, and grey shadows, soon perhaps to be a yellow fog, floated about the windows and the doors and muffled all human sounds.
He passed the great pile of scaffolding, saw iron girders shining, saw huge cranes swinging in mid-air, saw tiny, tiny black atoms perched above the noise and swallowed by the smoke... tap-tap-clamp-clamp....
Yes, the beast was moving... and, out and in, lost and then found again, crept that twisting chain of beggars to whose pallid army Peter himself had once so nearly belonged.
“I suppose I’ve got a headache after all that row with Clare,” Peter thought as he climbed off the omnibus.
V
He realised, as he came into the Bloomsbury square, and saw Mrs. Brockett gloomily waiting for him, that the adventures of his life were most strangely bound together. Not for an instant did he seem to be able to escape from any one of them. Now it would be Cornwall, now the Bookshop, now Stephen, now Mr. Zanti, now Bucket Lane, now Treliss — all of them interweaving, arresting his action at every moment. Because he had done that once now this must not be permitted him; he felt, as he rang the old heavy bell of Brockett’s that his head would never think clearly again. As the door opened and he stepped into the hall he heard, faintly, across the flat spaces of the Square “Tap-tap-tap-tap-clamp-clamp....”
Even Mrs. Brockett, who might be considered if any one in the world, immune from morbid imaginations, felt the heaviness of the day, suggested a prevalence of thunder, and shook her head when Peter asked about Miss Monogue.
“She’s bad, Mr. Peter, very bad, poor dear. There’s no doubt about that. It’s hard to see what can be done for her — but plucky! That’s a small word for it!”