by Hugh Walpole
But, although he did not know it, Mrs. Trenchard had realised her son’s mood....
So, at last, tired, a little hysterical, feeling as though heavy steam rollers had, during the day, passed over their bodies, they were all assembled for supper. Sunday supper should be surely a meal very hot and very quickly over: instead it is, in all really proper English families, very cold and quite interminable. There were, to-night, seated round the enormous table Mrs. Trenchard, Aunt Betty, Aunt Aggie, Katherine, Millie and Henry. George Trenchard and Rachel Seddon were spending the evening with Timothy Faunder: Philip had not yet returned from his walk. A tremendous piece of cold roast beef was in front of Mrs. Trenchard; in front of Henry were two cold chickens. There was a salad in a huge glass dish, it looked very cold indeed. There was a smaller glass dish with beetroot. There was a large apple-tart, a white blancmange, with little “dobs” of raspberry jam round the side of the dish. There was a plate of stiff and unfriendly celery — item a gorgonzola cheese, item a family of little woolly biscuits, clustered together for warmth, item a large “bought” cake that had not been cut yet and was grimly determined that it never should be, item what was known as “Toasted Water” (a grim family mixture of no colour and a faded, melancholy taste) in a vast jug, item, silver, white table-cloth, napkin-rings quite without end. Everything seemed to shiver as they sat down.
Aunt Aggie, as she saw the blancmange shaking its sides at her, thought that she would have been wiser to have gone straight upstairs instead of coming in to supper. She knew that her tooth would begin again as soon as she saw this food. She had had a wretched day. Katherine, before luncheon, had been utterly unsympathetic, Henry at tea-time had laughed at her.... At any rate, in a minute, there would be soup. On Sunday evening, in order to give the servants freedom, they waited upon themselves, but soup was the one concession to comfort. Aunt Aggie thought she would have her soup and then go up quietly to bed. One eye was upon the door, looking for Rocket. Her tooth seemed to promise her: “If you give me soup I won’t ache.”
“Beef, Aggie — or chicken,” said Mrs. Trenchard. “No soup to-night, I’m afraid. They’ve all got leave to-night, even Rocket and Rebekah. There’s a meeting at the Chapel that seemed important ... yes ... beef or chicken, Aggie?”
Aunt Aggie, pulling all her self-control together, said: “Beef, please.” Her tooth, savage at so direct an insult, leapt upon her.
Aunt Betty, in her pleasant voice, began a story. “I must say I call it strange. In the ‘Church Times’ for this week there’s a letter about ‘Church-Kneelers’ by ‘A Vicar’ — complaining, you know ... Well—”
“Beef or chicken, Millie?” said Mrs. Trenchard.
“Chicken, please,” said Millie. “Shall I cut the bread?”
“White, please,” said Henry.
“Well—” went on Aunt Betty. “As I was saying, on ‘Church-Kneelers’ signed by ‘A Vicar’. Well, it’s a very curious thing, but you remember, Harriet, that nice Mr. Redpath—”
“One moment, Betty, please,” said Mrs. Trenchard.
“Not so much as that, Harry. Simply the leg. Thank you, dear. Simply the leg. That nice Mr. Redpath — with the nice wife and so many dear little children — he was curate to Mr. Williams of St. Clemens for years. Harriet, you’ll remember — one year all the children had scarlet fever together, and two of the poor little things died, although I couldn’t help thinking that really it was rather a mercy—”
“Mustard, please,” said Henry.
“More beef, Aggie?” said Mrs. Trenchard.
“No, thank you,” said Aggie, snapping her teeth upon a piece of bread. She was thinking: “How selfish they all are! They can’t see how I’m suffering!”
“Well, that Mr. Redpath — You must remember him, Harriet, because he had a red moustache and a rather fine white forehead — when he left Mr. Williams got a living somewhere in Yorkshire, near York, I think, or was it Scarborough? Scarborough, because I remember when I wrote to congratulate him he answered me in such a nice letter, and said that it would be just the place for the children. You remember, Katherine, I showed it you.”
“Yes,” said Katherine.
Henry, hearing her voice, looked across at her and then dropped his eyes upon his plate.
She seemed herself again. Had her letter made her happy? With a sudden start he realised that Millie also was watching her....
“Well, it must have been about 1900 that Mr. Redpath went to Scarborough. I remember it was the year before that dreadful wet school treat here, when we didn’t know where to put all the children. I know the year after he went there poor Mrs. Redpath died and left him with all those little children—”
Just at that moment Philip came in. He came with the spray of the sea still wet upon his cheeks, his hair shining with it. His colour flaming, his eyes on fire. He had been, in the wind and darkness, down the Rafiel Road to the point above Tredden Cove where the sea broke inland. Here, deafened by the wind, blinded by the night, the sea-mist, now lashing his face, now stroking it softly with gentle fingers, he had stood on the edge of the world and heard the waters that are beyond the world exult in their freedom and scorn for men. He, too, standing there, had had scorn for himself. He had seen Katherine’s eyes as she turned from him in the garden, he had seen his own wretched impatience and temper and selfishness. “By heaven,” he thought, as he strode back, “I’ll never be so contemptible again. I’ll make them all trust me and like me. As for Katherine ...” and so he burst in upon them, without even brushing his hair first. Also, the only vacant chair was next to Aunt Aggie....
Aunt Betty, who thought that Philip’s entry had been a little violent and abrupt, felt that she had better cover it with the continuation of her story.
“And so the next year Mr. Redpath married again — quite a young woman. I never saw her, but Nelly Hickling knew her quite well. She always said that she reminded her of Clara Foster. You know, Harriet, the younger one with the dark hair and pretty eyes.”
But Philip had looked across at Katherine, her eyes had met his, and very faintly, as it were secretly, she smiled: the whirl of that encounter had hidden Aunt Betty’s voice from him. He did not know that he was interrupting her.
“It was a good walk, and it’s raining like anything. The sea was coming in over the Cove like thunder.”
No one answered him, and he realised suddenly that all the food was cold. No matter: he was used to Sunday supper by this time, and he was of a ferocious hunger. “Lots of beef, please,” he said, with a laugh.
Aunt Aggie shuddered. Her tooth was in her eye and her toes at the same moment; Annie had forgotten to call her, there had been no eggs for breakfast, Katherine at luncheon had been unsympathetic, at tea, before strangers (or nearly strangers), Henry had laughed at her, at supper there had been no soup, Betty, who in the morning had been idiotic enough to think Mr. Smart’s sermon a good one, in the evening had been idiotic enough to commence one of her interminable stories, the day had as usual been dreary and heavy and slow, and now that terrible young man, whom she had always hated, must come in, late and dripping, without even washing his hands, makes no apologies, demands food as though he were a butcher, smiles upon everyone with perfect complacency, is not apparently in the least aware of other people’s feelings — this horrible young man, who had already made everyone about him miserable and cross and restless: no, deeply though Aunt Aggie had always disliked Philip, she had never really hated him until this evening.
Although he was sitting next to her, he could not possibly have been more unconscious of her....
“You are interrupting my sister,” she said.
He started and flushed. “Oh! I beg your pardon,” he stammered.
“No, please, it’s nothing,” said Aunt Betty.
“You were saying something about Mr. Williams, Betty dear,” said Mrs. Trenchard.
“No, please, it’s nothing,” said Aunt Betty.
There was silence after that. Philip w
aited, and then, feeling that something must be done, said: “Well, Henry, I wish you’d been out with me. You’d have loved it. Why didn’t you come?”
“I’m sure he was better at church,” said Aunt Aggie. Her tooth said to her: “Go for him! Go for him! Go for him!”
Philip realised then her hostility. His face hardened. What a tiresome old woman she was, always cross and restless and wanting attention! He kept silent. That annoyed her: he seemed so big and overbearing when he sat so close to her.
“And I don’t know,” she went on, “whether you are really the best companion for Henry.”
Everyone looked up then at the bitterness in Aunt Aggie’s voice; no one heard Mrs. Trenchard say:
“Do have some tart, Henry.”
“What do you mean?” said Philip sharply. His proximity to her made in some way the anger between them absurd: they were so close that they could not look at one another.
“Oh, nothing ... nothing....” She closed her lips.
“Please ...” Philip insisted. “Why am I a bad companion for Henry?”
“Because you make him drink ... disgusting!” she brought out furiously: when she had spoken her eyes went to Katherine’s face — then, as she saw Katherine’s eyes fixed on Philip’s, her face hardened. “Yes. You know it’s true,” she repeated.
Henry broke in. “What do you say, Aunt Aggie? What do you mean? Drink — I — what?”
“You know that it’s true, Henry. That night that you dined with Philip in London — You came back — disgraceful. Philip had to carry you. You fell on the top of the stairs. He had to lift you up and carry you into your room. I watched it all. Well — I didn’t mean to say anything. I’m sorry, Harriet, if I — perhaps not quite the right time — but I — I—”
Her voice sank to muttering; her hands shook like leaves on the table-cloth and her tooth was saying: “Go for him! Go for him! Go for him!”
And for Philip it was as though, after all these weeks of waiting, not only the family but the whole place had at last broken into its definite challenge.
Beyond the room he could feel the garden, the lawn, the oak, the sea-road, the moor, even Rafiel itself, with its little square window-pane harbour, crowding up to the window, listening, crying to him: “You’ve got to be broken! You’ve got to go or be broken!...” The definite moment had come at last.
His eyes never left Katherine’s face as he answered:
“It’s perfectly true. I don’t know how it happened, but we had been having supper quite soberly together, and then Henry was suddenly drunk. I swear he’d had simply nothing to drink. He was quite suddenly drunk, all in a moment. I was never more surprised in my life. I suppose I should have prevented it, but I swear to you it would have surprised anyone — really, you would have been surprised, Mrs. Trenchard.”
Henry, whose face was first flaming, then white, said, sulkily: “It wasn’t Philip’s fault.... I wasn’t used to it. Anyway, I don’t see why there need be such a fuss about it. What Aunt Aggie wants to drag it in now for just when everyone’s tired after Sunday. It isn’t as though I were always drunk — just once — everyone’s drunk sometime.”
“I’ve never said anything,” Aunt Aggie began.
“No, that’s just it,” Philip broke in, suddenly flashing round upon her. “That’s just it. You’ve never said anything until now. Why haven’t you? Why, all this time, have you kept it, hugging it to yourself?... That’s what you’ve all been doing. You never tell me anything. You never treat me really frankly, but if you’ve got something you think will do damage you keep it carefully until the best moment for letting it go off. You’re all as secret with me as though I were a criminal. You ask me down here, and then keep me out of everything. I know you dislike me and think I oughtn’t to marry Katherine — but why can’t you say so instead of keeping so quiet! You think I shouldn’t have Katherine — but you can’t stop it, and you know you can’t.... I’m sorry.” He was conscious of the silence and many pairs of eyes and of much quivering cold food and the ticking of a large grandfather’s clock saying: ‘You are rude. You are rude — You shouldn’t — do it — You shouldn’t — do it.’
But he was also conscious of a quivering life that ran, like quicksilver, through the world outside, through all the streams, woods, paths, into the very heart of the sea. His eyes were on Mrs. Trenchard’s face.
“I apologise if I’ve been rude, but to-day — a day like this — awful—” He broke off abruptly, and moved as though he would get up. It was then that the Dreadful Thing occurred.
He pushed his chair, and it knocked against Aunt Aggie’s, jolting her. She, conscious that she was responsible for an abominable scene, conscious that she had lost all that fine dignity and self-command in which, through her lifetime, she had seen herself arrayed, conscious of her tooth, of a horrible Sunday, of many Sundays in front of her equally horrible (conscious, above all, of some doubt as to whether she were a fine figure, whether the world would be very different without her, conscious of the menace of her own cherished personal allusion), driven forward, moreover, by the individual experiences that Mrs. Trenchard, Millie, Henry, Katherine had had that day (because all their experiences were now in the room, crowding and pressing against their victims), seeing simply Philip, an abominable intrusion into what had formerly been a peaceful and honourable life, Philip, now and always her enemy ... at the impact of his chair against hers, her tooth said “Go!”
She raised her thin hand and slapped him. Her two rings cut his cheek.
When the House was finally quiet and dark again, Rebekah alone was left. Stiff, solemn, slow, she searched the rooms, tried the doors, fastened the windows, marched with her candle up the back stairs into the heart of the house.
It had been a dull, uneventful Sunday. Nothing had occurred.
CHAPTER VII. ROCHE ST. MARY MOOR
Terror is a tall word; it should not, perhaps, be used, in this trivial history, in connection with the feelings and motives of so youthfully comfortable a character as Philip — nevertheless very nearly akin to terror itself was Philip’s emotion on discovering the results of his disgraceful encounter with Aunt Aggie ... because there were no results.
As he had watched Aunt Aggie trembling, silent, emotional, retreat (after striking Philip she had risen and, without a word, left the room), he had thought that the moment for all his cards to be placed dramatically upon the Trenchard table had at last come. Perhaps they would tell him that he must go; they would openly urge Katherine to abandon him, and then, faced, with force and violence, by the two alternatives, he was assured, absolutely assured, of her loyalty to himself. He saw her, protesting that she would love them all, reminded that (Philip being proved an abomination) she must now choose, finally going out into the world with Philip.
He went to his room that Sunday evening triumphant. No more Trenchard secrets and mysteries — thanks to that horrible old woman, the way was clear. He came down the next morning to breakfast expecting to be treated with chilly politeness, to be asked to interview George Trenchard in his study, to hear Trenchard say: “Well, my dear boy — I’m very sorry of course — but you must see with me that it’s better to break off ...” and then his reply.
“That, sir, must remain with Katherine. I am bound to her....” No, he had no fear of the result. As he came down the stairs on that Monday morning, a fine hot spring day, with the mist of the spring heat hazy above the shining grass, his eyes were lighter, his spirits higher than they had been since his first coming to Garth. He entered the dining-room, and thought that he had dreamt yesterday’s incidents.
Millie cried— “Hullo, Phil! Late as usual.”
George Trenchard said: “Philip, what do you say to a drive over to Trezent? It’s a good day and I’ve some business there.”
Aunt Aggie gave him her withered hand to shake with exactly the proud, peevish air that she always used to him. There was a scratch on his face where her rings had cut him; he looked at her rings ...
yes, he was surely dreaming. Then there crept to him the conviction that the plot — the family plot — seen before vaguely, mysteriously and uncertainly — was now developing before his eyes as something far deeper, far more soundless, far more determined than he had ever conceived. Mrs. Trenchard, smiling there at the head of the table, knew what she was about. That outburst of Aunt Aggie’s last night had been a slip — They would make no more.
His little quarrel with Katherine had needed no words to mark its conclusion. He loved her, he felt, just twice as deeply as he had loved her before ... he was not sure, though, that he was not now a little — a very little — afraid of her....
In the middle of the week, waking, very early on the most wonderful of all spring mornings, his inspiration came to him.
He got up, and about half-past seven was knocking on Katherine’s door. She spoke to him from within the room.
“Katie!”
“Yes!”
He whispered to her in the half-lit house, across whose floors the light, carrying the scent of the garden-flowers, shook and trembled; he felt a conspirator.
“Look here! You’ve got to dress at once and come off with me somewhere.”
“Go off!”
“Yes, for the day! I’ve thought it all out. We can take the pony-cart and just catch the nine o’clock at Rasselas. That’ll get us to Clinton by ten. We’ll be down in Roche Cove by eleven — spend the day there, catch the eight-thirty back and be in the house again by half-past ten to-night.”
There was a pause, filled with the delighted twittering of a company of sparrows beyond the open passage-window.
At last her voice:
“Yes. I’ll come.”
“Good.... Hurry!... I’ll tell them downstairs.”
When the family assembled for breakfast and he told them, his eyes challenged Mrs. Trenchard’s.