by Hugh Walpole
With a jerk the train stumbled forward again, and they were in Rasselas. The little station, which was of some importance because it was a junction for Pelynt and therefore also for Rafiel, lay very quietly at the bottom of the wooded hill. A porter went down the train swinging a lantern and crying: “Change for P’lynt. Change for P’lynt.”
A stream flowed near by, and the scent of a garden flooded the station: there would be already snowdrops and primroses and crocuses. The whole party of them were bundled out on to the platform — a great pile of luggage loomed in the distance. Heads from the carriage windows watched them, then a pause, a cry, and the train was off, leaving them all high and dry, with the wind blowing round their hair and clothes and ankles like a friendly and inquisitive dog. There was sea in the wind.
“Smell the sea!” cried Millie. “I must have left it in the restaurant car,” said Aunt Aggie. “Too provoking. I particularly wanted you to read that article, Harriet. I think you might have noticed, Millie ... you were sitting next to me.”
“There’s Jacob!” Henry, suddenly happy and excited and free from all burdens, cried:
“Hallo! Jacob! How are you? How’s everyone? How’s Rebekah?”
Jacob, with a face like a red moon, smiled, touched his hat, stormed at a young man in buttons. “Do ‘ee bustle a bit, John. Didn’t I tell ‘ee the box with the black ‘andles?... very comfortable, Mr. ‘Enry, sir, thank ‘ee, as I ‘opes you finds yourself. Been a bit o’ sickness around down along in the village ... but not to ‘urt....”
Could they all get in? Of course they could. The luggage was all on the luggage-cart, and Rock and Clarence with it; a silver moon, just rising now above the station roofs, peeping at her, laughed at her serious dignity.
“No, we’ll go on the box, Philip and I,” said Katherine. “Of course I shan’t be cold. No, really, we’d rather, wouldn’t we, Philip? Plenty of room, Jacob.”
They were off, up the little hill, down over the little bridge and through the little village. Katherine, sitting between Philip and Jacob, pressing her cheek against Philip’s rough tweed coat, her hand lying in his under the rug, seemed to slip, dreaming, fulfilling some earlier vision, through space. She had wondered sometimes, in the earlier days, whether there could be any greater happiness in life than that ever-thrilling, ever-satisfying return to Garth. She knew now that there was a greater happiness....
A white world of crackling, burning stars roofed them in; an owl flew by them through the grey dusk; the air smelt of spring flowers and fresh damp soil. The stream that had been with them since their entrance into Glebeshire still accompanied them, running with its friendly welcome at their side. Beyond the deep black hedges cows and horses and sheep moved stealthily: it seemed that they might not disturb the wonderful silence of the night.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked her; he caught her hand more tightly and kissed her cheek, very softly and gently. She trembled with happiness, and pressed more closely against his coat.
“Can you smell the sea yet? You will when you get to the top of Rasselas Hill. This is the high road to Pelynt. It runs parallel with the railway until we get to the cross roads, Pelynt Cross, you know.... You’ll smell the sea there. You can see it on a clear day. To the left of you there is just Pelynt Moor. It runs for miles and miles, right along by the Drymouth Road.... Look through the break in the hedge. Do you see that light across the field? That’s John Pollen’s cottage. John was murdered just about a hundred years ago. He was an old miser, and some men robbed him, but they never found his head. They say he wanders about still looking for it.... Oh, if this could go on for ever. Philip, are you happy?”
“Happy?” ... Ah! she could feel his body quiver.
“Yes, and now we’re coming down to the Well. There’s a little wood just at the body of the hill. We always call it the Well because it’s so dark and green. It’s the most famous wood for primroses in all Glebeshire. They’ll be coming now.... We’ll walk here.... I cried once because I thought I was lost here. They forgot me and went home. Then I was comforted by the postman, who found me and carried me home.... Jacob, do you remember?”
“Ah, Miss Kathie, doan’t ‘ee think that I’d forget ought about ‘ee. Not likely. And your mother in a fine takin’, poor soul, too. We’re a-coming to P’lynt Cross now, sir — as famous as any spot o’ ground in the ‘ole of Glebeshire, sir — Hup, then! Hup, then — Whey — Oh! oh! Hup, then!”
They pulled to the top, leaving the wood in the dip behind them. The wind met them, flinging its salt and freshness in their faces with a rough, wild greeting. Philip could hear suddenly the humming of the telegraph wires, as though they had sprung from their imprisonment in the valley and were chanting their victory. To his left, vague and formless under the starlight, stretched Pelynt Moor, waiting there, scornfully confident in its age and strength and power, for daylight. The salt wind flung its arms around them and dragged them forward; Philip, listening, could hear, very stealthily, with the rhythm of armed men marching, the beating of the sea....
“Now we’re near — now we’re very near. It’ll be Garth Cross in a minute. There it is. Now we turn off down to the Almshouses. We don’t really come into the village.... There are the Almshouses and the Common.... Now round the corner.... There it is — there’s the Gate — the Gate!... Oh! Philip, are you happy?”
She was crying a very little: her eyes were blurred as they turned up the long drive, past all the rhododendron bushes, past the lawn with the giant oak at the farther end of it, round the curve to the hall door, with Rebekah standing under the porch to welcome them. Philip was down, and had helped her to the ground. She stood a little away from them all as they laughed and chattered about the door. She wiped her eyes with her gloved hand to stop the tears.
Philip was conscious of standing in a long dark hall with stairs at the end of it and a large oak chest with a glass case that contained a stuffed bird taking up much of the space; that, he always afterwards remembered, was his first impression of the house, that it was absurd to put so large a chest just there where everyone would knock against it. A misty babel of talk surrounded him: he was conscious of a tall old woman wearing a high, stiffly-starched white cap: she had a fine colour, very dark red cheeks, hair a deep black and flashing eyes. She must be between sixty and seventy, but her body was straight and vigorous. This was, he supposed, Rebekah. He saw, in the background, old Mr. Trenchard being helped up the stairs by Rocket; he heard Aunt Betty in a happy twitter, “Ah, now, this is nice ... this is nice ... how nice this is.” He heard Mrs. Trenchard’s slow, sleepy voice: “No — the train was punctual, Rebekah, quite punctual. We had luncheon on the train ... yes, we were quite punctual.”
Someone said: “I’ll show Philip his room,” and George Trenchard, laughing, cried to him: “Come on, Philip, this way — this way.” Trenchard, like a boy, bounded up the stairs in front of him. They were old, black, winding and creaking stairs that sighed as you mounted them. Trenchard cried: “To the right now — mind your head!” They turned through a little passage, so low that Philip must bend double and so dark that he could see nothing before him. He put out his hand, touched Trenchard’s broad back, and was surprised at his sense of relief. Now they walked along another passage, very narrow, white walls with coloured sporting prints hanging on them. “Ah! here’s the Blue Room. Here you are. Hope you’ll like it — got a decent view. Brought you hot water? Ah, yes, there it is. When you’ve washed come down just as you are. Don’t bother to change.... It’s only supper to-night, you know.... Right you are.”
His room was charming, with cherry-coloured wall-paper on walls that seemed a thousand years old. He flung his windows open, and there was the moon, thin, sharp, quivering with light in the sky, and he could hear the stream that had accompanied him ever since his entry into Glebeshire still singing to him. The night air was so sweet, the trees, that sighed and trembled and sighed again, so intimate. There was an intimacy here that he had never felt in any
country before.
There was an intimacy and also, for him, at any rate, some strange loneliness.... He closed the window. He found his way down into the hall, and there saw Katherine. “Quick!” she cried. “Quick! I hoped that you’d come down before the others. We’ve got ten minutes.” She was almost dancing with excitement (she his staid, reserved Katherine). She was pulling him by the arm, out through the door, under the porch, into the garden. She ran across the lawn, and he, more slowly, followed her. He caught her and held her close to him.
“You love it, Philip — don’t you? You must. Of course you’ve hardly seen anything to-night. To-morrow we must both get up early, before anyone else, and come down. But look back now. Isn’t the house simply — ? Isn’t it? Don’t you feel the happiness and cosiness and friendliness? Oh, you must! You must!”
“When I’ve got you I don’t want anything. Everything is lovely.”
“But you’re happy now to be here, aren’t you?”
“Very happy.”
“And you won’t be disappointed, will you? You must promise me that you won’t be disappointed.”
“I promise you.”
“And there’s so much to show you! Oh! it’s so wonderful to have all the old places that I’ve loved so long, to have them all to show you — to share them all with you.... Oh, wonderful, wonderful!”
“Yes, I’ll share them all with you. But — but ... Katherine, darling. No, turn round — come closer. There, like that: I don’t want to share you with them. I don’t want to share you with anyone or anything.”
“You don’t — you can’t. Of course you can’t. I’m all yours — but then this is part of me, so it’s all yours too.”
“And you couldn’t live away from it? You couldn’t imagine having to be right away from it — if I had to live somewhere else?”
“But why should you? You won’t have to live somewhere else. And let’s not imagine anything. Things are so lovely, so perfect, as they are. I don’t like imagining things. I can’t when this is all so real.”
“Katie ... Katie ... No, come closer. Much closer. I don’t care if I do hurt you. I want to. I want you, you, you. It’s what I said last night. Let’s marry soon — not this awful year. I feel — I don’t know — I imagine too much. I suppose — Rut I feel as though you’d escape me, as though they’d all come between and take you away. If once you were mine I’d never care again. We’d stay anywhere, do anything you like. But this is so hard — to wait like this. To see you caring so much for other people, who don’t, perhaps, care for me. I want you. I want you — all of you. And I’ve only got half.”
“Half!” She laughed triumphantly. “You have all of me — all of me — for ever! Philip, how funny you are! Why, you don’t trust me! I’d wait for ever if necessary, and never doubt for an instant that anything could come between. I trust you as I trust this place.”
A voice broke in upon them. Someone called.
“Katherine! Katherine!”
Slowly she drew away from him. “That’s mother. I must go.”
He caught her hand. “Stay a little longer. They can wait.”
“No, it’s mother. She wants me. Come on, Phil darling. Supper time. We’ll creep out again afterwards.”
She crossed the lawn, expecting Philip to follow her. Rut he stayed there under the oak tree. He heard the voices laughing and calling in the lighted house. He was suddenly desperately lonely. He was frightened.... He crossed hurriedly the lawn, and as he walked he knew that what he wanted was that someone, someone who really knew him, should come and comfort him.
Before he entered the hall he stopped and looked back into the dark garden. Was there someone beneath the oak, someone who watched him with an ironical, indulgent smile?... No, there was no one there. But he knew who it was that could comfort him. With a swift, sharp accusation of disloyalty he confessed to himself that it was Anna for whom, during that instant, he had looked.
CHAPTER V. THE FEAST
Some entries in Millie’s diary:
March 12th. Wind and rain like anything. Been in most of the day patching up the screen in my bedroom with new pictures — got them as much like the old ones as possible. Went for an hour’s tussle with the wind out to the Cross, and it was fine. Wish I could have got over to Rafiel. The sea must have been fine to-day coming in over the Peak. Father drove Philip over to Polchester in the morning. Felt bored and out of temper in the evening.
March 13th. Katie and Philip had their first tiff this morning — at least first I’ve seen. He wanted her to go off with him for the day. She’d got to stop and help mother with the Merrimans from Polneaton, coming to tea. Mother said it didn’t matter, but I could see that she was awfully pleased when K. stayed. But if I’d been K. I’d have gone. What does a family matter when one’s in love? and she is in love, more than anyone I’ve ever seen. But I think she’s disappointed with Phil for not caring more about Garth, although she never owns it. I’m sorry for him. He wanders about not knowing what to do with himself, and everyone’s too busy to think of him. I try, but he doesn’t want me, he wants Katherine, and thinks he ought to have her all the time. Aunt Aggie makes things worse in every way she can....
March 15th. Cross all day. Garth isn’t quite so nice this time somehow. Is it because of Paris? I don’t think so — it used to make one care all the more. I think Philip upsets one. When you see someone criticising something you’ve always loved, it makes you hot defending it, but also, although you’d never own it, it makes you see weak spots. Then he stirs my imagination as no one ever has done before. I believe he always sees the place he’s not in much more vividly than the place he is. If I were Katie I’d marry him to-morrow and make sure of him. Not that he isn’t in love with her — he is — more every day — but he doesn’t want to divide her with us, and she doesn’t understand it and we won’t have it — so there you are!
March 16th. Henry very queer to-day. I wish they’d send him to Oxford or do something with him. It’s so hard on him to let him hang around doing nothing — it’s so bad for him, too. I think he hates Philip, but is fascinated by him. He took me into the garden after lunch to-day as though he were going to tell me something very important. He was so very mysterious, and said I could advise him, and he was dreadfully worried. Then he suddenly stopped, said it was nothing, and wasn’t it a fine day? I know I shall kill Henry one day. He thinks he’s so important and has got a great destiny, whereas he can’t even keep his face clean. So I told him, and then I wanted to hug him and comfort him. I’m really awfully fond of him, but I do wish he was nice and smart like other men.
March 17th. Had a long walk with Philip this afternoon. Really I do like him most tremendously, partly, I think, because he always treats me as though I’d come out years ago and knew all about everything. He talked all the time about Katherine, which was natural enough, I suppose. He said (what he’d told me in London) that he was frightened by her idea of him, and wished she thought him more as he was. He said he hated a long engagement, that he wished it were over — then he said that he was a poor sort of fellow for anyone so fine as Katherine, and I said that I didn’t think it did to be too humble about oneself and that I always made myself out as grand as I could in my mind.
He said that it was Russia made one like that, that after you’d been in Russia a little you doubted everyone and everything, most of all yourself. I said that I thought that rather flabby ... but I do like him. I don’t think Katie ought to insist so much on his liking Garth. She’ll frighten him off it altogether if she does that.
March 19th. Rachel Seddon arrived. Mother asked her down. She doesn’t generally come at this time, and she’s only just back from abroad, but I think she wants to see how the engagement’s getting on. Of course she doesn’t like Philip — you can see that in a moment — and of course he knows it. But he wants to make her like him. I wish he didn’t care so much whether people like him or no. Henry quite his old self to-night, and we danced (I tried to t
each him a cake-walk) in my room, and smashed a lamp of Aunt Aggie’s — I’d quite forgotten her ceiling was my floor. The house is awfully old and shaky — letter from Rose La Touche — Paris does seem funny to think of here....
Part of a letter that was never posted —
“I haven’t written to you all these weeks because I was determined not to write to Russia until I was settled and happy and married for life. Then, also, you yourself have not written. Have you all, over there, forgotten me? Russians never do write letters, do they? I don’t suppose I ought to be disappointed — you warned me. If I’d forgotten all of you there — but I haven’t. I thought for a time that I had, but I haven’t ... then a bell rings, and all the servants troop in and kneel down in a row with their heels up, and George Trenchard reads a bit out of the New Testament and, very fast, a prayer about ‘Thy humble servants’, and he has his eye on the weather out of the window all the time. Afterwards there is the Post — also eggs, bacon, marmalade, brown bread and white and the family arriving one by one with ‘sorry I’m late!’ Fancy a Russian saying: ‘Sorry I’m late’!... so the day’s begun. Afterwards, everyone has their own especial job. I don’t know what my especial job is supposed to be. George has his writing and the whole place — fences, weeds, horses, dogs — anything yon like. He fancies himself Walter Scott at Abbotsford, and is as happy as the day is long; Mrs. Trenchard has the village and the inside of the house (with Katherine her lieutenant). There is no living soul from the infant of a week to the old man of ninety-seven (John Wesley Moyle — he sees visions) who does not have his or her life exactly and precisely arranged. Mrs. Trenchard has a quiet hypnotic power that fills me with terror, because I know that I shall soon be ranged with all the others. She is kindness itself I am sure, and no cloud passing across the sun’s face makes less sound — and yet she has always her way. Oh, Paul, old man, I’m frightened of her as I have never been of anyone before. When I see her here I want to run. I had a horrible dream last night. The terror of it is with me still. I thought that I said good-night to everyone and went up to my bedroom. To my surprise I found Mrs. Trenchard there, and instead of my usual bed was an enormous feather-bed — an enormous one stretching from wall to wall. ‘You will sleep on that to-night,’ said Mrs. Trenchard, pointing to it. In some way I knew that if I once lay down upon it I should never get up again. I said ‘No, I would not lie down.’ ‘I think you’d better,’ she said in her slow way. ‘I think you’d better.’ ‘No!’ I cried, ‘I defy you!’ Instantly the feather-bed like a cloud rose, filled the room, was above me, under me, around me. It pressed in upon me. I tore at it, and the feathers floated in a great stifling fog against my eyes, up my nose, in my mouth. I screamed for mercy, I fought, I fell, I was suffocating, death was driving down upon me ... I woke. There’s nonsense for you! And yet not such nonsense neither. On a stuffy day here, when everything steams and the trees and grass and hedges close up about the house like an army, when Mrs. Trenchard, with Katherine, is arranging meals and lives, birth and death, when, trying to escape down one of the lanes, they rise so high above one’s head that it’s like being drowned in a green bath, I tell you the feather-bed is not so far away — suffocation seems no idle dream. The fact of the matter is that there’s nothing here for me to do. It didn’t matter having nothing to do in Russia — although, as a matter of fact, I always had plenty, because no one else had anything to do that couldn’t be stopped at any moment for the sake of a friend, or a drink, or a bit of vague thinking. I suppose it’s the order, the neatness, the punctuality and, at the same time, the solid, matter-of-fact assumption that things must be exactly what they look (which they never are) that fusses me. But really of course I came down here to make love to Katherine — and I only get a bit of her. She cherishes the faith that I want the family as badly as I want her, and that the family want me as badly as she does. She has got a thousand little duties here that I had never reckoned on, and they are like midges on a summer’s evening. I would throw myself into their life if they would let me, but there doesn’t seem any real place for me. It’s fighting with shadows. George Trenchard takes me for drives, Millie, Katherine’s sister, takes me for walks — Katie herself is, I do believe, with me whenever she can be.... I ought to be satisfied. But only last night Great Aunt Sarah, who is in her dotage (or pretends to be), said, in the drawing-room to Millie, in a loud whisper, ‘Who is that young man, my dear, sitting over there? I seem to know his face.’ That sort of thing doesn’t exactly make you feel at home. With all this, I feel the whole time that they are criticising me and waiting for me to make some big blunder. Then they’ll say to Katherine, ‘You see, my dear!’ Oh, of course, I’m an ass to make a fuss. Any sensible fellow would just wait his year, marry Katherine and say good-bye to the lot. But I shan’t be able to say good-bye to the lot. That’s the whole business ... partly because I’m weak, partly because Katherine adores them, partly because that is, I believe, Mrs. T.’s plan. To absorb me, to swallow me, to have me ever afterwards, somewhere about the place, a colourless imitation of the rest of them. So they’ll keep Katie, and I’m not important enough to matter. That’s her plan. Is she stronger than I? Perhaps after all I shall snatch Katherine from them and escape with her — and then have her homesick for ever after.... Why am I always imagining something that isn’t here? Russia poisoned my blood — sweet poison, but poison all the same. You’ll understand this letter, but if George Trenchard, or indeed any ordinary sensible Englishman were to read it, what an ass he’d think me! ‘If he thought more about the girl he was going to marry than about himself he wouldn’t have all this worry.’ But isn’t it just that. If, in nine months from now, I, swallowed whole by Mrs. T., marry Katie, will that be much fun for her? I shall be a sort of shadow or ghost. I can see myself running Mrs. Trenchard’s errands, hurrying down to be in time for breakfast (although she never scolds anyone), sometimes waking, seeing myself, loathing, despising myself. Ah! Anna would understand ... Anna, even when she laughed, understood ... Anna ... I don’t think I shall send this. I’m determined to drive you all from me until, in a year’s time, I can think of you safely again. I described Moscow to Katherine in the train, and speaking of it, has reminded me ...”