by Hugh Walpole
After the affair of the sea-picnic, Jeremy was for some time under a cloud. It was felt that he was getting too big for anyone to manage. It was not that he was wicked, not that he kept bad company with the boys on the farm, or was dishonest, or told lies, or stole things — no, he gave no one that kind of anxiety — but that he was developing quite unmistakably a will of his own, and had a remarkable way of doing what he wanted without being actually disobedient, which was very puzzling to his elders. Being a little in disgrace he went off more than ever by himself, always appearing again at the appointed time, but telling no one where he had been or what he had been doing. His father had no influence over him at all, whilst Uncle Samuel could make him do whatever he wanted — and this, as Aunt Amy said, “was really a pity.”
“It’s a good thing he’s going to school in September,” sighed his mother. “He’s getting out of women’s hands.”
Mary longed with feverish longing to share in his adventures. If only he would tell her what he did on these walks of his. But no, only Hamlet knew. Perhaps, if he did not go with the dog he would go with her. When this idea crept into her brain she seized it and clutched it. That was all he wanted — a companion! Were Hamlet not there he would take her. Were Hamlet not there... She began to brood over this. She wandered... She considered. She shuddered at her own wickedness; she tried to drive the thoughts from her head, but they kept coming.
After all, no one need know. For a day or two Jeremy would be sorry and then he would forget. She knew the man who went round selling dogs — selling dogs and buying them.
She shuddered at her wickedness.
III
The last days of August came, and with them the last week of the holiday. Already there was a scent of autumn in the air, leaves were turning gold and red, and the evenings came cool and sudden, upon the hot summer afternoons. Mary was not very well; she had caught a cold somewhere, and existed in the irritating condition of going out one day and being held indoors the next. This upset her temper, and at night she had nightmares, in which she saw clouds of smoke crawling in at her window, snakes on the floor, and crimson flames darting at her from the ceiling. It was because she was in an abnormal condition of health that the idea of doing something with Hamlet had gained such a hold upon her. She considered the matter from every point of view. She did not want to be cruel to the dog; she supposed that after a week or two he would be quite happy with his new master, and, in any case, he had strolled in so casually upon the Cole family that he was accustomed to a wandering life.
She did not intend that anyone should know. It was to be a deep secret all of her own.
Jeremy was going to school in September, and before then she must make him friendly to her again. She saw stretching in front of her all the lonely autumn without him and her own memories of the miserable summer to make her wretched. She was an extremely sentimental little girl.
As always happens when one is meditating with a placated conscience a wicked deed, the opportunity was suddenly offered to Mary of achieving her purpose. One morning Jeremy, after refusing to listen to one of Mary’s long romances, lost his temper.
“I can’t stop,” he said. “You bother and bother and bother. Aunt Amy says you nearly make her mad.”
“I don’t care what Aunt Amy says,” Mary on the edge of tears replied.
“Hamlet and I are going out. And I’m sick of your silly old stories.” Then he suddenly stopped and gazed at Mary, who was beginning, as usual, to weep.
“Look here, Mary, what’s been the matter with you lately? You’re always crying now or something. And you look at me as though I’d done something dreadful. I haven’t done anything.”
“I — never — said you — had,” Mary gulped out. He rubbed his nose in a way that he had when he was puzzled.
“If it’s anything I do, tell me. It’s so silly always crying. The holidays will be over soon, and you’ve done nothing but cry.”
“You’re — never — with me — now,” Mary sobbed.
“Well, I’ve been busy.”
“You haven’t. You can’t be busy all — by yourself.”
“Oh, yes, you can.” He was getting impatient. “Anyway, you might let Hamlet and me alone. You’re always bothering one of us.”
“No, I’m not.” She choked an enormous sob and burst out with: “It’s always Hamlet now. I wish he’d never — come. It was much nicer before.”
Then he lost his temper. “Oh, you’re a baby! I’m sick of you and your nonsense,” he cried, and stamped off.
In Mary’s red-rimmed eyes, as she watched him go, determination grew.
It happened that upon the afternoon of that same day Miss Jones announced that she would take Mary for a walk; then, just as they passed through the farm gates, Hamlet, rushing out, joined them. He did not often honour them with his company, despising women most especially when they walked, but to-day his master was busy digging for worms in the vegetable garden, and, after a quarter of an hour’s contemplation of this fascinating occupation, he had wandered off in search of a livelier game. He decided to join Miss Jones; he could do what he pleased, he could amuse himself with her ineffectual attempts to keep him in order, and he could irritate Mary; so he danced along, with his tail in the air, barking at imaginary rats and poking his nose into hedges.
Mary, with a sudden tightened clutching of the heart, realised that her hour was upon her. She felt so wicked as she realised this that she wondered that the ground didn’t open up and swallow her, as it had done with those unfortunate people in the Bible. But no, the world was calm. Little white milky clouds raced in lines and circles across the sky, and once and again a leaf floated from a tree, hung for a moment suspended, and then turned slowly to the ground. The hedges were a dark black-green, high and thick above the dusty road; there had been no rain for weeks. Truly a stable world. Mary, glaring at Fate, wondered how it could be so.
Miss Jones, who was happy and optimistic to-day, talked in a tenderly reminiscent tone of her youth. This vein of reminiscence Mary, on her normal day, loved. To-day she did not hear a word that Miss Jones said.
“I remember my mother saying so well to my dear brother: ‘Do what you like, my boy. I trust you.’ And indeed Alfred was to be trusted if ever a boy was. It is a remarkable thing, but I cannot remember a single occasion of dishonesty on Alfred’s part. ‘A white lie,’ he would often say, ’is a lie, and a lie is a sin — white or black, always a sin’; and I remember that he would often put mother to a serious inconvenience by his telling callers that she was in when she had wished it to be said that she was not at home. He felt it his serious duty, and so he told Mother. ‘Don’t ask me to tell a lie, Mother,’ I remember his saying. ‘I cannot do it.’”
“Like George Washington,” said Mary, suddenly catching the last words of Miss Jones’s sentence.
“He was like many famous characters in history, I used to think. Once I remember reading about Oliver Cromwell... ‘Where is that dog? Hamlet! Hamlet! Perhaps he’s gone after the sheep. Ah! there he is! Hamlet, you naughty dog!’”
They were approaching one of their favourite pieces of country — Mellot Wood. Here, on the wood’s edge, the ground broke away, running down in a field of corn to a little green valley with clustered trees that showed only their heads, so thickly embedded were they, and beyond the valley the sea. The sea looked quite close here, although it was in reality four miles distant. Never was such a place as this view for light and shadow. The clouds raced like the black wings of enormous birds across the light green valley, and the red-gold of the cornfield was tossed into the haze and swept like a golden shadow across the earth, bending back again when the breeze had died. Behind Mellot Wood was Mellot Farm, an old eighteenth-century house about which there was a fine tragic story with a murder and a ghost in it, and this, of course, gave Mellot Wood an additional charm. When they arrived at the outskirts of Mellot Wood Mary looked about her. It was here, on the edge of the Rafiel Road that skirted
the wood, that she had once seen the dog-man eating his luncheon out of a red pocket-handkerchief. There was no sign of him to-day. All was silent and still. Only the little wood uttered little sighs of content beneath the flying clouds. Hamlet, tired with his racing after imaginary rabbits, walked quietly along by Mary’s side. What was she to do? She had once again the desperate feeling that something stronger than she had swept down upon her and was forcing her to do this thing. She seemed to have no will of her own, but to be watching some other commit an act whose dangerous wickedness froze her heart. How could she? But she must. Someone was doing it for her.
And in very truth it seemed so. Miss Jones said that now they were here she might as well call upon Miss Andrews, the sister of the Mellot farmer. Miss Andrews had promised her some ducks’ eggs. They pushed open the farm gate, passed across the yard and knocked on the house door. Near Mary was a large barn with a heavy door, now ajar. Hamlet sat gazing pensively at a flock of geese, his tongue out, panting contentedly.
“Wait here one minute, Mary,” said Miss Jones. “I won’t stay.”
Miss Jones disappeared. Mary, still under the strange sense that it was not she, but another, who did these things, moved back to the barn, calling softly to Hamlet. He followed her, sniffing a rat somewhere. Very quickly she pulled back the door; he, still investigating his rat, followed into the dark excitements of the barn. With a quick movement she bent down, slipped off his collar, which she hid in her dress, then shut him in. She knew that for a moment or two he would still be pursuing his rat, and she saw, with guilty relief, Miss Jones come out to her just as she had finished her evil deed.
“Miss Andrews is out,” said Miss Jones. “They are all away at Liskane Fair.”
They left the farm and walked down the road. Hamlet had not begun his cry.
IV
Miss Jones was pleased. “Such a nice servant,” she said. “One of the old kind. She had been with the family fifty years, she told me, and had nursed Mr. Andrews on her knee. Fancy! Such a large fat man as he is now. Too much beer, I suppose. I suppose they get so thirsty with all the straw and hay about. Yes, a really nice woman. She told me that there was no place in Glebeshire to touch them for cream. I dare say they’re right. After all, you never can tell. I remember at home...”
She broke off then and cried: “Where’s Hamlet?”
Mary, wickeder than ever, stared through her spectacles down the road. “I don’t know, Miss Jones,” she said. They had left the wood and the farm, and there was nothing to be seen but the long white ribbon of road hemmed in by the high hedges.
“Perhaps he stayed behind at the farm,” said Miss Jones.
Then Mary told her worst lie.
“Oh, no, Miss Jones. He ran past us just now. Didn’t you see him?”
“No, I didn’t. He’s gone on ahead, I suppose. He runs home sometimes. Naughty dog! We shall catch him up.”
But of course they did not. They passed through the gates of Cow Farm and still nothing of Hamlet was to be seen.
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” said Miss Jones. “I do hope that he’s arrived. Whatever will Jeremy say if anything has gone wrong?”
Mary was breathing hard now, as though she had been running a desperate race. She would at this moment have given all that she possessed, or all that she was ever likely to possess, to recall her deed. If she could have seen Hamlet rushing down the road towards her she would have cried with relief; there seemed now to be suddenly removed from her that outside agency that had forced her to do this thing; now, having compelled her, it had withdrawn and left her to carry the consequences. Strangely confused in her sentimental soul was her terror of Jeremy’s wrath and her own picture of the wretched Hamlet barking his heart out, frightened, thirsty, and lonely. Her teeth began to chatter; she clenched her hands together.
Miss Jones went across the courtyard, calling:
“Hamlet! Hamlet!”
The family was collected, having just sat down to tea, so that the announcement received its full measure of excitement.
“Has Hamlet come back? We thought he was ahead of us.”
A chair had tumbled over. Jeremy had run round the table to Miss Jones.
“What’s that? Hamlet? Where is he?”
“We thought he must be ahead of us. He ran past us down the road, and we thought—”
They thought! Silly women! Jeremy, as though he were challenging a god, stood up against Miss Jones, hurling questions at her. Where had they been? What road had they taken? Had they gone into the wood? Whereabouts had he run past them?
“I don’t know,” said Miss Jones to this last. “I didn’t see him. Mary did.”
Jeremy turned upon Mary. “Where was it you saw him?”
She couldn’t speak. Her tongue wouldn’t move, her lips wouldn’t open; she could but waggle her head like an idiot. She saw nothing but his face. It was a desperate face. She knew so much better than all the others what the thought of losing Hamlet was to him. It was part of the harshness of her fate that she should understand him so much better than the others did.
But she herself had not realised how hardly he would take it.
“I didn’t — I couldn’t—”
“There’s the dog-man,” he stammered. “He’ll have stolen him.” Then he was off out of the room in an instant.
And that was more than Mary could hear. She realised, even as she followed him, that she was giving her whole case away, that she was now, as always, weak when she should be strong, soft when she should be hard, good when she should be wicked, wicked when she should be good. She could not help herself. With trembling limbs and a heart that seemed to be hammering her body into pieces she followed him out. She found him in the hall, tugging at his coat.
“Where are you going?” she said weakly.
“Going?” he answered fiercely. “Where do you think?” He glared at her. “Just like you.” He broke off, suddenly appealing to her. “Mary, CAN’T you remember? It will be getting dark soon, and if we have to wait until to-morrow the dog-man will have got him. At any rate, he had his collar—”
Then Mary broke out. She burst into sobs, pushed her hand into her dress, and held out the collar to him.
“There it is! There it is!” she said hysterically.
“You’ve got it?” He stared at her, suspicion slowly coming to him. “But how — ? What have you done?”
She looked up at him wild-eyed, the tears making dirty lines on her face, her hand out towards him.
“I took it off. I shut Hamlet into the barn at Mellot Farm. I wanted him to be lost. I didn’t want you to have him. I hated him — always being with you, and me never.”
Jeremy moved back, and at the sudden look in his eyes her sobbing ceased, she caught her breath and stared at him with a silly fixed stare as a rabbit quivers before a snake.
Jeremy said in his ordinary voice:
“You shut Hamlet up? You didn’t want him to be found?”
She nodded her head several times as though now she must convince him quickly of this —
“Yes, yes, yes. I did... I know I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it—”
He clutched her arm, and then shook her with a sudden wave of fierce physical anger that was utterly unlike him, and, therefore, the more terrifying.
“You wicked, wicked — You beast, Mary!”
She could only sob, her head hanging down. He let her go.
“What barn was it?”
She described the place.
He gave her another look of contempt and then rushed off, running across the courtyard.
There was still no one in the hall; she could go up to her room without the fear of being disturbed. She found the room, all white and black now with the gathering dusk. Beyond the window the evening breeze was rustling in the dark trees of the garden and the boom of the sea could be heard faintly. Mary sat, where she always sat when she was unhappy, inside the wardrobe with her head amongst the clothes. They in some way comforted h
er; she was not so lonely with them, nor did she feel so strongly the empty distances of the long room, the white light of the window-frames, nor the mysterious secrecy of the high elms knocking their heads together in the garden outside.
She had a fit of hysterical crying, biting the hanging clothes between her teeth, feeling suddenly sick and tired and exhausted, with flaming eyes and a dry, parched throat. Why had she ever done such a thing, she loving Jeremy as she did? Would he ever forgive her? No, never; she saw that in his face. Perhaps he would — if he found Hamlet quickly and came back. Perhaps Hamlet never would be found. Then Jeremy’s heart would be broken.
She slept from utter exhaustion, and was so found, when the room was quite dark and only shadows moved in it, by her mother.
“Why, Mary!” said Mrs. Cole. “What are you doing here? We couldn’t think where you were. And where’s Jeremy?”
“Jeremy!” She started up, remembering everything.
“Hasn’t he come back? Oh, he’s lost and he’ll be killed, and it will be all my fault!” She burst into another fit of wild hysterical crying.
Her mother took her arm. “Mary, explain — What have you done?”