Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  “I’m sure she is,” said Peter, feeling ashamed of having made so much of his own little troubles.

  “She must get out of London if she’s to improve at all. In a week or two I hope she’ll be able to move.”

  “How’s every one else?”

  “Oh, well enough.” Mrs. Brockett straightened her dress with her beautiful hands in the old familiar way— “But you’re not looking very hearty yourself, Mr. Peter.”

  “Oh! I’m all right,” he answered smiling; but she shook her head after him as she watched him go up the stairs.

  And then he was surprised. He came into Norah Monogue’s room and found her sitting up by her window, looking better than he had ever seen her. Her face was full of colour and her eyes bright and smiling. Only on her hands the blue veins stood out, and their touch, when she shook hands with him, was hot and burning.

  But he was reassured; Mrs. Brockett had exaggerated and made the worst of it all.

  “You’re looking splendid — I’m so glad. I was afraid from your letter-”

  “Oh! I really am getting on,” she broke in gaily, “and it’s the nicest boy in the world that you are to come in and see me so quickly. Only on a day like this London does just lie heavily upon one doesn’t it? and one just longs for the country—”

  A little breath of a sigh escaped from her and she looked through her window at the dim chimneys, the clouds hanging like consolidated smoke, the fine, thin dust that filtered the air.

  “You’re looking tired yourself, Peter. Working too hard?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “The work hasn’t been coming easily at all. I suppose I’ve been too conscious, lately, of the criticisms every one made about ‘The Stone House.’ I don’t believe one ought really to listen to anybody and yet it’s so hard not to, and so difficult to know whose opinion one ought to take if one’s going to take anybody’s. I wish,” he suddenly brought out, “Henry Galleon were still alive. I could have followed him.”

  “But why follow anybody?”

  “Ah! that’s just it. I’m beginning to doubt myself and that’s why it’s getting so difficult.”

  Her eyes searched his face and she saw, at once, that he was in very real trouble. He looked younger, just then, she thought, than she had ever seen him, and she felt herself so immensely old that she could have taken him into her arms and mothered him as though he’d been her own son.

  “There are a lot of things the matter,” she said. “Tell me what they all are.”

  “Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose it’s all been mostly my own fault — but the real difficulty is that I don’t seem to be able to run the business of being married and the business of writing together. I don’t think Clare in the least cares now about my writing — she almost resents it; she cared at first when she thought that I was going to make a huge success of it, but now—”

  “But, of course,” said Miss Monogue, “that success comes slowly — it must if it’s going to be any use at all—”

  “Well, she doesn’t see that. And she wants me to go out to parties and play about all the time — and then she doesn’t want me to be any of the things that I was before I met her. All my earlier life frightens her — I suppose,” he suddenly ended, “I want her to be different and she wants me to be different and we can’t make a compromise.”

  Then Miss Monogue said: “Have any outside people interfered at all?”

  Peter coloured. “Well, of course, Mrs. Rossiter stands up for Clare. She came and talked to me this morning and I think the things that she said were quite true. I suppose I am morose and morbid sometimes — more than I realise — and then,” he added slowly, “there’s Cards—”

  “Cards?”

  “Cardillac — a man I was at school with. I’m very fond of him. He’s the best friend I’ve got, and he’s been all over the place and done everything and, of course, knows ever so much more about the world than I do. The fact is he thinks really that my novels are dreadful nonsense, only he’s much too kind to say so — and, of course, Clare looks up to him a lot. Although he’s only my own age he seems so much older than both Clare and myself. I don’t believe she’d have lost interest in my work so quickly if he hadn’t influenced her — and he’s influenced me too—” Peter added sighing.

  “Well — and is there anything else?”

  “Yes. There’s Stephen. I can’t begin to tell you how I love that kid. There haven’t been many people in my life that I’ve cared about and I’ve never realised anything so intensely before. Besides,” he went on laughing proudly, “he’s such a splendid kid! I wish you could see him, Norah. He’ll do something one day—”

  “Well, what’s the trouble about Stephen?”

  “Clare’s so odd about him. There are times when I don’t believe she cares for him the least little bit. Then there are other times when she resents fiercely my interfering about him. Sometimes she seems to love him more than anything in the world, but it’s always in an odd defiant way — just as though she were afraid that something would hurt her if she showed that she cared too much.”

  There was silence between them for a minute and then Peter summed it all up with:— “The fact is, Norah, that every sort of thing’s getting in between me and my work and worries me. It’s as though I were tossing more balls in the air than I could possibly manage. At one moment I think it’s Clare that I’ve got especially to hang on to — another time it’s the book — and then it’s Stephen. The moment I’ve settled down something turns up to remind me of Cornwall or the Bookshop. Fact is I’m getting battered at by something or other and I never can get my breath. I oughtn’t ever to have married — I’m not up to it.”

  Norah Monogue took his hand.

  “You are up to it, Peter, but I expect you’ve got a lot to go through before you’re clear of things. Now I’m going to be brutal. The fact is that you’re too self-centred. People never do anything in the world so long as they are wondering whether the world’s going to hurt them or no. Those early years of yours made you morbid. You’ve got a temper and one or two other things that want a lot of holding down and that takes up your attention — And then Clare isn’t the woman to help you—”

  Peter was about to break in but she went on:—’”Oh! I know my Clare through and through. She’s just as anxious as you are not to be hurt by anything and so she’s being hurt all the time. She’s out for happiness at any cost and you’re out for freedom — freedom from every kind of thing — and because both of you are denied it you are restive. But you and Clare are both people whose only salvation is in being hurt and knocked about and bruised to such an extent that they simply don’t know where they are. Oh! I know — I’m exactly the same sort of person myself. We can thank the Gods if we are knocked about—”

  Suddenly she paused and, falling back in her chair, put her hand to her breast, coughing. Something seized her, held her in its grip, tossed her from side to side, at last left her white, speechless, utterly exhausted. It had come so suddenly that it had taken Peter entirely by surprise. She lay back now, her eyes closed, her face a grey white.

  He ran to the door and called Mrs. Brockett. She came and with an exclamation hurried away for remedies.

  Peter suddenly felt his hand seized — a hoarse whisper was in his ear— “Peter — dear — go — at — once — I can’t bear — you — to see me — like this. Come back — another day.”

  He knelt, moved by an affection and tenderness that seemed stronger than any emotion he had ever known, and kissed her. She whispered:

  “Dear boy—”

  On his way back to Chelsea, the orange lamps, the white streets powdered with the evening glow, the rustling plane trees whispered to him, “You’ve got to be knocked about — you’ve got to be knocked about — you’ve got to be knocked about—” but the murmur was no longer sinister.

  Still thinking of Norah, he went up to the nursery to see the boy in bed. He remembered that Clare was going out alone to a party
and that he would have the evening to himself.

  On entering the room, dark except for a nightlight by the boy’s bed, some unknown fear assailed him. He was instantly, at the threshold, conscious of it. He stood for a moment in silence. Then realised what it was. The boy was moaning in his sleep.

  He went quickly over to the cot and bent down. Stephen’s cheeks were flaming, his hands very hot.

  Peter rang the bell. Mrs. Kant appeared.

  “Is there anything the matter with Stephen?”

  Mrs. Kant looked at him, surprised, a little offended. “He’s had a little cold all day, sir. I’ve kept him indoors.”

  “Have you taken his temperature?”

  “Yes, sir, nothing at all unusual. He often goes up and down.”

  “Have you spoken to your mistress?”

  “Yes, sir. She agrees with me that there is nothing unusual—”

  He brushed past the woman and went to his wife’s bedroom.

  She was dressed and was putting on a string of pearls, a wedding present from her father. She smiled up at him —

  “Clare, do you know Stephen’s ill?”

  “No, it’s only a cold. I’ve been up to see him—”

  He took her hand — she smiled up at him— “Did you enjoy your visit?” She fastened the necklace.

  “Clare, stay in to-night. It may be nothing but if the boy got worse—”

  “Do you want me to stay?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wanted you to go with me this afternoon—”

  “That was different. The boy may be really ill—”

  “You didn’t do what I wanted this afternoon. Why should I do what you want now?”

  “Clare, stay. Please, please—”

  She took her hand gently out of his, and, as she went out of the door switched off the electric light.

  He heard the opening of the hall door and, standing where she had left him in the dark bedroom, saw, shining, laughing at him, her eyes.

  CHAPTER XI

  WHY?

  I

  There are occasions in our life when the great Wave so abruptly overwhelms us that before we have recovered our dazed senses it has passed and the water on every side of us is calm again.

  There are other occasions when we stand, it may seem through a lifetime of anticipation bracing our backs for the inevitable moment. Every hour before it comes is darkened, every light is dimmed by its implacable shadow. Then when at last it is upon us we meet it with an indifference, almost with a relief, because it has come at last.

  So was it now with Peter. During many weeks he had been miserable, apprehensive, seeing an enemy in every wind. Now, behold, his adversary in the open.

  “This,” he might cry to that old man, down in Scaw House, “this is what you have been preparing for me, is it? At last you’ve shown me — well, I’ll fight you.”

  Young Stephen was very ill. Peter was strangely assured that it was to be a bad business. Well, it rested with him, Peter, to pull the boy through. If he chose to put his back into it and give the kid some of his own vigour and strength then it was bound to be all right.

  Standing there in the dark, he stripped his mind naked; he flung from it every other thought, every other interest — his work, Clare, everything must go. Only Stephen mattered and Stephen should be pulled through.

  For an instant, a little cold trembling fear struck his heart. Supposing...? Then fiercely, flinging the thought from him he trampled it down.

  He went to the telephone and called up a doctor who lived in Cheyne Walk. The man could be with him in a quarter of an hour.

  Then he went back into the nursery. Mrs. Kant was there.

  “I’ve sent for Dr. Mitchell.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “He’ll be here in quarter of an hour.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  He hated the woman. He would like to take her thin, bony neck and wring it.

  He went over to the cot and looked down. The little body outlined under the clothes was so helpless, the little hands, clenched now, were so tiny; he was breathing very fast and little sounds came from between his teeth, little struggling cries.

  Peter saw that moment when Stephen the Elder had held Stephen the younger aloft in his arms. The Gods appear to us only when we claim to challenge their exultation. They had been challenged at that moment.... Young Stephen against the Gods! Surely an unequal contest!

  II

  Dr. Mitchell came and instantly the struggle was at its height. Appendicitis. As they stood over the cot the boy awoke and began to cry a little, turned his head from side to side as though to avoid the light, beating with his hands on the counterpane.

  “I must send for a nurse at once,” Dr. Mitchell said.

  “Everything is in your hands,” Peter answered.

  “You’d better go down and have something to eat.”

  The little cry came trembling and pitiful, driving straight into Peter’s heart.

  “Temperature 105 — pretty bad.” Mitchell, who was a stout, short man with red cheeks, grey eyes and the air of an amiable Robin, was transformed now into something sharp, alert, official.

  Peter caught his arm —

  “It’s all right?... you don’t think — ?”

  The man turned and looked at him with eyes so kind that Peter trembled.

  “Look here, we’ve got to fight it, Westcott. I ought to have been called hours ago. But keep your head and we’ll pull the child through.... Better go down and have something to eat. You’ll need it.”

  Outside the door Peter faced a trembling Mrs. Kant.

  “Look here, you lied just now. You never took the boy’s temperature.”

  “Well, sir—”

  “Did you or not?”

  “Well, sir, Mrs. Westcott said there was no need. I’m sure I thought—”

  “You leave the house now — at once. Go up and pack your things and clear out. If I see you here in an hour’s time the police shall turn you out.”

  The woman began to cry. Peter went downstairs. To his own surprise he found that he could eat and drink. Of so fundamental an importance was young Stephen in his life that the idea that he could ever lose him was of an absurd and monstrous incredibility. No, of that there was no question — but he was conscious nevertheless of the supreme urgency of the occasion. That young Stephen had ever been delicate or in any way a weakling was a monstrous suggestion. Always when one thought of him it was a baby laughing, tumbling — or thoughtfully, with his hand rolled tightly inside his father’s, taking in the world.

  Just think of all the tottering creatures who go on and on and snap their fingers at death. The grotesque old men and women! Or think of the feeble miserables who never know what a day’s health means — crowding into Davos or shuddering on the Riviera!

  And young Stephen, the strongest, most vital thing in the world! Nevertheless, suddenly, Peter found that he could eat and drink no more. He put the food aside and went upstairs again.

  In the darkened nursery he sat in a chair by the fire and waited for the hours to pass. The new nurse had arrived and moved quietly about the room. There was no sound at all save the monotonous whispering beseeching little cries that came from the bed. One had heard that concentration of will might do so much in the directing of such a battle, and surely great love must help. Peter, as he sat in the half-darkness thought that he had never before realised his love for the boy — how immense it was — how all-pervading, so that if it were taken from him life would be instantly broken, without colour, without any rhythm or force.

  As he sat there he thought confusedly of a great number of things of his own childhood — of his mother — of a boy at Dawson’s who had asked him once as they gazed up at a great mass of apple blossoms in bloom, “Do you think there is anything in all that stuff about God anyway, Westcott?” — of a night when he had gone with some loose woman of the town and of the wet miry street that they had left behind them as she had clos
ed the door — of that night at the party when he had seen Cardillac again — of the things that Maradick had said to him that night when young Stephen was born — and so from that to his own life, his own birth, his father, Scaw House, the struggle that it had all been.

  He remembered a sentence out of a strange novel of Dostoieffsky’s that he had once read, “The Brothers Karamazoff”: “It’s a feature of the Karamazoffs ... that thirst for life regardless of everything—” and the Karamazoffs were of a sensual, debased stock — rotten at the base of them with an old drunken buffoon of a father — yes, that was like the Westcotts. All his life, struggle ... and young Stephen — all his life, struggle... and yet, even in the depths of degradation, if the fight were to go that way there would still be that lust for life.

  So many times he had been almost under. First Stephen Brant had saved him, then at Brockett’s Norah Monogue, then in Bucket Lane his illness, then in Chelsea his marriage, lately young Stephen... always, always something had been there to keep him on his feet. But if everything were taken from him, if he were absolutely, nakedly alone — what then? Ah, what then!

  He buried his head in his hands. “God, you don’t know what young Stephen is to me — or, yes, of course you do know, God — and because you do know, you will not take him from me.”

  The little tearing pain at his heart held him — every now and again it turned like some grinding key.

  Mitchell entered with another doctor. Peter went over to the window, and whilst they made their examination, stared through the glass at the fretwork of trees, the golden haze of London beyond, two stars that now, when the storm had spent itself, showed in a dark dim sky. Very faintly the clanging note of trams, the clatter of a hansom cab, the imperative call of some bell came to him.

  The world could thus go on! Mitchell crossed to him and put his hand on his shoulder —

  “He’s pretty bad, Westcott. An operation’s out of the question I’m afraid. But if you’d like another opinion—”

  “No thanks. I trust you and Hunt.” The doctor could feel the boy’s body trembling beneath his touch.

  “It’s all right, Westcott. Don’t be frightened. We’ll do all mortals can. We’ll know in the early morning how things are going to be. The child’s got a splendid constitution.”