Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  “Then the rabble — dirty, smelling, ill-conditioned fellows — breaking through the silence, tearing up the Wood, knocking down the palace, hanging the Grand Duke from a tree, last of all, setting the whole thing into the most splendid blaze!... Oh! of course that wasn’t Shelley’s context — his was all about boiling a kettle or something — but that’s the way I saw it — just like that.” Nothing stirred Brun like the sound of his own voice and now he was getting very excited indeed and was waving his hands.

  “Yes,” said Christopher placidly. “Very dramatic. What does it all mean?”

  “Well, this. It seems to me that that’s just what’s been happening over here. Your Duchess is dead and instead there is to-night’s crowd. The Grand Duke is gone and all that was his — now for the fires!”

  Christopher, filling his pipe, paused, and then, his voice grave and serious: “Romantics aside, Brun, for a minute. Do you remember your Tiger idea you delivered to me once? I’ve often thought of it since. You said then that the reason why the Duchess and her times — the Grand Duke and his wood — had got to go was because their policy had been to give the Tigers of the world no liberty — to pretend indeed that they weren’t there, and that now the time had come when every man should declare his Tiger, should give it liberty and, whether he restrained it or no, acknowledge its existence.... Well, now — what I want to know is this. What to your thinking is going to come of it all? I’m old-fashioned. I like the old settled laws and customs and the rest of it, and yet I’m not afraid of this new Individualism; but what I expect and what you expect to come of it all are sure to be mightily different things.”

  “They are,” said Brun, laughing. “You see, Christopher, as I’ve often said to you before, you’re a sentimentalist — people matter to you; you’re concerned in their individual good or bad luck. Now none of that is worth anything to me. I observe from the outside — always. What I want to see is less muddle, more brain, less waste of time, more progress. I believe the loosing of the Tiger is going to bring that about. That’s why I welcome it — I don’t care one little damn about your individual — let him be sacrificed every time for the general wisdom. Your Duchess, she was good for her age. Now she is against progress. She vanishes. That crowd of to-night has swept her away.... There’ll be a chaos here for a time — people like the Ruddards will mix things up; a woman like Mrs. Strode will destroy as many good people as she can. But the time will come; out of that crowd that we got into to-night a world, ruled by brain, by common sense, by understanding, not by sentiment and confusion, will arise.... May I not be with the good God!”

  “‘Sentiment and confusion,’” said Christopher, smiling. “That’s me, I suppose.”

  “Well, you are sentimental,” said Brun. “You’re stuffed with it.”

  “Do you yourself ...” asked Christopher, “is there no one — no one in the world — who matters to you?”

  “Nobody,” said Brun. “No one in the world. I think I like you better than anybody; you’re the honestest man I know and yet one of the most wrong-headed. Yes, I like you very much; but it would not be true to say that it would leave any great blank in my life if you were to die. Women! Yes, there have been women! But — thank the good God! for the moment only. The Heart — no — The Brain — yes — —”

  “Well, then,” said Christopher, “that’s all clear enough. It isn’t very wonderful that we differ. People are to me everything. Love the only power in the world to make change, to work miracles; I don’t mean only sensual love, or even sexual love, but simply the love of one human being for another, the love that leads to thinking more of your neighbour than yourself — self-denial.

  “Self-denial; the only curb for your Tiger, Brun. I’ve been watching it in a piece of private history, all this last year and a half. There might have been the most horrible mess; self-denial saved it all the time. You’ll say that all this is so vague and loose that it’s worth nothing.”

  “Not at all,” said Brun politely. “Go ahead.”

  “Well, then, the reason why I, old-fashioned and Philistine as I am, hail the passing of the Grand Duke with joy — and I cared for the old woman, mind you — is just this. I see some chance at last for the plain man — not the clever man, or the especially spiritual man or the wealthy man — but simply the ordinary man. When I say Brotherhood I don’t mean anything to do with associations or meetings or rules — Simply that I believe in an age when a man’s neighbour will matter to a man more than himself, when it won’t be priggish or weak to help someone in worse plight than yourself, when it will simply be the obvious thing ... when, above all, there’ll be no jealousy, no getting in a man’s way because he does better than you, no knocking a man down because he sees the world — this world and the next — differently. That’s my Individualism, my Rising City, and if you had watched the lives of a few friends of mine during the last year or two as I’ve watched them you’d know that ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ is the fire that’s going to burn all the Grand-Ducal woods in the world in time.”

  Brun laughed. “You’ll be taken in horribly one of these days, Christopher.”

  “You speak as though I were a chicken,” Christopher broke out indignantly. “Man alive, haven’t I lived all these years? Haven’t I seen the poorest and rottenest and feeblest side of human nature time and time again? But this I know: That it’s losing the thing you prize most that pays, it’s the pursuit, the self-denial, the forgetting of self that scores in the material, practical world as well as the spiritual, heavenly one. That’s where the Millennium’s coming from. Brains as well perhaps, but souls first.”

  “We’ll see,” said Brun. “A bit of both, I dare say. Anyhow, it’s the next generation that’s going to be interesting. All kinds of people free who’ve never been free before, all sorts of creeds and doctrines smashed that seemed like Eternity. The old woods flaming already. Après la Duchesse!... But as for your Love, your Brotherhood, Christopher, I’ve a shrewd suspicion that human nature will change very little. Unselfishness? Very fine to talk about — but who’s going to practise it? Every man for his own hand, now as ever.”

  “We’ll see,” answered Christopher. “I’m not clever at putting things into words. If I were to go along to the man in the street and say, ‘Look here, I’ve made a discovery — I’ve got something that’s going to make everything straight in the world,’ and he were to say, ‘What’s that?’ and then I were to answer, ‘Self-denial. Unselfishness — Love of your neighbour,’ he would, of course, instantly remind me that Someone greater than myself had made the same remark a few thousand years ago. He’d be right.... There’s nothing new in it. But it’s coming new to the world just because the laws and conventions that covered it are breaking. The Tiger in Every Man and Self-denial to curb it ... That’s my prophecy, Brun.”

  Brun gave himself a whisky-and-soda. “No idea you were such a talker, Christopher.... But I’m right all the same.”

  He held up his glass.

  “Here’s to the Tiger in the next generation.” He drank, then held it up again. “And here,” he cried, “to the memory of the last Great lady in England!”

  III

  When Brim had gone it seemed that he had left that last toast of his in the air behind him.

  Christopher was haunted by the thought of the Duchess, he felt her with him in the room; she stirred him to restlessness so that at last, desperately, he took his hat and went out.

  His steps took him, round the corner, to Portland Place; here all was very quiet, a few cabs in the middle of the street, a few lights in the windows, the silver field of stars, in the distance the sky golden, fired now and again into life as a rocket rose shielding beneath its glow all that stirring multitude. Sounds rose — a cry, a shout, singing — then died down again.

  He was outside No. 104. He thought that he would ring and see whether Mrs. Newton were in; perhaps she had gone to bed, it was after eleven, but, if she were there, he would take one last look at
the Portrait before it was packed up and sent down to Beaminster.

  Mrs. Newton unbolted the door and smiled when she saw him— “I was just going to bed — There’s only myself and Louisa here — and the watchman.”

  “I won’t keep you, Mrs. Newton,” he said. “The fancy just took me to look at some of the pictures once more before they’re packed up. Lady Seddon told me that a good many of them were to be packed up to-morrow; they won’t look quite the same at Beaminster.”

  “No, that they won’t, sir,” said Mrs. Newton. “I shall miss the old house. Just to think of the years; and now, all of us scattered!”

  She lit a lamp for him and he went up the stone staircase, found the long drawing-room, and there, on the farther wall, the Portrait.

  The furniture, shrouded in brown holland, waited like ghostly watchers on every side of him. The huge house, always a place of strange silences and vast disturbances, multiplied now in its long mirrors and its air of cold suspense as though it were waiting for something to happen, showed its recognition of death and death’s consequences.

  But the Portrait was alive! As he held the lamp up to it the face leapt into agitation, the eyes were bent once again sharply upon him, the mouth curved to speak, the black silk rustled against the chair.

  A host of memories crowded the room, he was filled with a regret more poignant than anything that he had felt since her death.

  “She was fine! I miss her more than I had any notion that I would! She stirred one up, she made one alive!”

  He put the lamp upon the floor and sat down for a minute amongst the shrouded furniture.

  His mind passed from Brun’s generalizations to the little bundle of people whom he knew — Rachel, Francis, Roddy, Lizzie Rand. To all of them the Tiger’s moment had come; and out of it all, out of the stress and suffering and struggle, Rachel’s child was to be born — instead of the Duchess the new generation. Instead of this old house, the hooded furniture, the anger at all freedom of thought, the jealousy of all enterprise, the slander and the malice, an age of a universal Brotherhood, of unselfishness, restraint, charity, tolerance ...

  Perhaps after all, he was an old, sentimental fool. There had always been those at every birth and every death who had had their dreams of new human nature, new worlds, new virtues and moralities....

  He looked his last at the Portrait —

  “I’m nearly as old as you. I shall go soon. But I miss you ... you’d be yourself surprised if you knew how much!”

  He took up the lamp and left her.... He said good night to Mrs. Newton and closed the door behind him.

  Standing on the steps of the house he looked about him. Portland Place was like a broad river running silently into the dark trees at the end of it. There was a great rest and quiet here.

  Southwards the sky flamed, the noise of a great multitude of people came muffled across space with the rhythm in it of a beating song. Rockets slashed the sky, broke into golden stars; the bells from all the churches in the town clashed and, from some great distance, guns solemnly booming rolled through the air.

  Christopher, standing there, smiled as he thought of Brun’s little picture.

  Brun springing up, of course, at the right moment, to point his moral. Brun, who appeared, like some Jack-in-the-box, in city after city, with his conclusion, his prophecy, neat and prepared.

  “And we’ll have fires out of the Grand Duke’s Wood...”

  There was the Wood, there the mob, there the Grand Duke, dead and buried —

  Christopher shrugged his shoulders; whatever Brun might say human beings were more than summaries, prophecies, conclusions.

  As he looked towards the trees and felt a little breeze caress his face with, he could swear, some salt of the sea, he thought of the human beings who were his friends — Rachel, Roddy, Lizzie, Francis.

  And then it seemed to him that, out of the trees, down the shining surface of Portland Place, a figure came towards him — the figure of Rachel’s child.

  THE DARK FOREST

  The Dark Forest was first published by Martin Secker in London in 1916. The novel was inspired by Walpole’s experiences with the Russian Red Cross on the Eastern Front during the First World War. When the war started the author wished to sign up for the British Army, but knew his poor eyesight would disqualify him from serving. He attempted to join the police, but was rejected, so he decided to take a job as a reporter in Moscow, before being appointed an officer in the Red Cross. In June 1915, Walpole singlehandedly rescued an injured soldier and was awarded the Cross of Saint George for his bravery. He briefly returned to Britain to visit his friends, including Henry James, before being deployed to Petrograd to work for the Propaganda Bureau in 1916. It was shortly before his departure to Russia that his novel was published and it received favourable reviews from critics, who considered it a real progression of Walpole’s talents. The author stayed in Petrograd until the autumn of 1917, where he witnessed the February uprising, although he missed the October revolution due to departing the city on the day it commenced.

  John Trenchard, the protagonist of The Dark Forest, is a young Englishman, who decides to enlist in the Russian Red Cross during the war, despite his timid nature and extraordinary fear of death. Trenchard is searching for the friendship and affection he has been denied for most of his life. He falls in love with a young Russian woman, Marie Ivanovna, but his hopes are dashed when the overbearing and arrogant Doctor Semyonov starts to pursue her. Trenchard is devastated and slowly begins to covet death; he desires an end to his life as his childhood fear ceases to maintain any power over him. The novel is more sombre in tone than Walpole’s previous works as it explores the traumatising effect of war and loss.

  The first edition's title page

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  Walpole witnessed the February Revolution in 1917

  TO

  KONSTANTINE SAMOFF

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

  BY HIS FRIEND THE AUTHOR

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER I

  SPRING IN THE TRAIN

  His was the first figure to catch my eye that evening in Petrograd; he stood under the dusky lamp in the vast gloomy Warsaw station, with exactly the expression that I was afterwards to know so well, impressed not only upon his face but also upon the awkwardness of his arms that hung stiffly at his side, upon the baggy looseness of his trousers at the knees, the unfastened straps of his long black military boots. His face, with its mild blue eyes, straggly fair moustache, expressed anxiety and pride, timidity and happiness, apprehension and confidence. He was in that first moment of my sight of him as helpless, as unpractical, and as anxious to please as any lost dog in the world — and he was also as proud as Lucifer. I knew him at once for an Englishman; his Russian uniform only accented the cathedral-town, small public-school atmosphere of his appearance. He was exactly what I had expected. He was not, however, alone, and that surprised me. By his side stood a girl, obviously Russian, wearing her Sister’s uniform with excitement and eager anticipation, her eyes turning restlessly from one part of the platform to another, listening with an impatient smile to the remarks of her companion.

  From where I stood I could hear his clumsy, hesitating Russian and her swift, preoccupied replies. I came up to them.

  “Mr. Trenchard?” I asked.

  He blushed, stammered, held out his hand, missed mine, blushed the more, laughed nervously.

  “I’m glad ... I knew ... I hope....”

  I could feel that the girl’s eyes were upon me with all the excited interest of one who is expecting that every moment of her new wonderful experience
will be of a stupendous, even immortal quality.

  “I am Sister Marie Ivanovna, and you are, of course, Mr. Durward,” she said. “They are all waiting for you — expecting you — you’re late, you know!” She laughed and moved forward as though she would accompany me to the group by the train. We went to the train together.

  “I should tell you,” she said quickly and suddenly with nervousness, “that we are engaged, Mr. Trenchard and I — only last night. We have been working at the same hospital.... I don’t know any one,” she continued in the same intimate, confiding whisper. “I would be frightened terribly if I were not so excited. Ah! there’s Anna Mihailovna.... I know her, of course. It was through, her aunt — the one who’s on Princess Soboleff’s train — that I had the chance of going with you. Oh! I’m so happy that I had the chance — if I hadn’t had it....”

  We were soon engulfed now. I drew a deep breath and surrendered myself. The tall, energetic figure of Anna Mihailovna, the lady to whose practical business gifts and unlimited capacity for compelling her friends to surrender their last bow and button in her service we owed the existence of our Red Cross unit, was to be seen like a splendid flag waving its followers on to glory and devotion. We were devoted, all of us. Even I, whose second departure to the war this was, had after the feeblest resistance surrendered myself to the drama of the occasion. I should have been no gentleman had I done otherwise.

  After the waters had closed above my head for, perhaps, five minutes of strangled, half-protesting, half-willing surrender I was suddenly compelled, by what agency I know not, to struggle to the surface, to look around me, and then quite instantly to forget my immersion. The figure of Trenchard, standing exactly as I had left him, his hands uneasily at his sides, a half-anxious, half-confident smile on his lips, his eyes staring straight in front of him, absolutely compelled my attention. I had forgotten him, we had all forgotten him, his own lady had forgotten him. I withdrew from the struggling, noisy group and stepped back to his side. It was then that, as I now most clearly remember, I was conscious of something else, was aware that there was a strange faint blue light in the dark clumsy station, a faint throbbing glow, that, like the reflection of blue water on a sunlit ceiling, hovered and hung above the ugly shabbiness of the engines and trucks, the rails with scattered pieces of paper here and there, the iron arms that supported the vast glass roof, the hideous funnel that hung with its gaping mouth above the water-tank. The faint blue light was the spring evening — the spring evening that, encouraged by God knows what brave illusion, had penetrated even these desperate fastnesses. A little breeze accompanied it and the dirty pieces of paper blew to and fro; then suddenly a shaft of light quivered upon the blackness, quivered and spread like a golden fan, then flooded the huge cave with trembling ripples of light. There was even, I dare swear, at this safe distance, a smell of flowers in the air.