by Hugh Walpole
Maggie also took the last joy of the familiar scene. The Vicarage, like a grey crouching cat, lay basking on the green hill. The sunlight flooded the dark wood; galleons of clouds rolled like lumbering vessels across the blue sky.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” whispered Maggie.
“Beautiful — beautiful,” sighed her aunt.
“I’ve always loved just this view. I’ve often walked here just to see it,” Maggie said.
Aunt Anne sat back in her seat.
“It’s been hard for me always to live in London. I love the country so.”
“So do I,” said Maggie, passionately.
For a moment they were together, caught up by the same happiness.
Then Aunt Anne said:
“Why, your bag, dear! The things are all about the place.”
Maggie bent down. When she looked up again they had dipped down on the other side of the hill.
Maggie had only once in all her life been in a train, but on this present occasion she did not find it very thrilling. It was rather like being in anything else, and her imagination exercised itself upon the people in the carriage rather than the scenery outside. She was at first extremely self-conscious and fancied that every one whispered about her. Then, lulled by the motion of the train and the warmth, she slept; she was more deeply exhausted by the events of the last week than she knew, and throughout the day she slumbered, woke, and slumbered again.
Quite suddenly she awoke with a definite shock to a new world. Evening had come; there were lights that rushed up to the train, stared in at the window, and rushed away again. On every side things seemed to change places in a general post, trees and houses, hedges and roads, all lit by an evening moon and wrapt in a white and wavering mist. Then the town was upon them, quite instantly; streets ran like ribbons into grey folds of buildings; rows of lamps, scattered at first, drew into a single point of dancing flame; towers and chimneys seemed to jump from place to place as though they were trying to keep in time with the train; a bell rang monotonously; wreaths of smoke rose lazily against the stars and fell again.
When at last she found herself, a tiny figure, standing upon the vast platform under the high black dome, the noise and confusion excited and delighted her. She rose to the waves of sound as a swimmer rises in the sea, her heart beat fast, and she was so eagerly engaged in looking about her, in staring at the hurrying people, in locating the shrill screams of the engines, in determining not to jump when the carriages jolted together, that her little black bag opened unexpectedly once more and spilled a handkerchief, a hand-mirror, a paper packet of sweets, a small pair of scissors, and a shabby brown purse upon the station-floor. She was greatly confused when an old gentleman helped her to pick them up. The little mirror was broken.
“Oh! it’s bad luck!” she cried, staring distressfully at the old man. He smiled, and would have certainly been very agreeable to her had not Aunt Anne, who had been finding their boxes and securing a cab, arrived and taken Maggie away. “You shouldn’t speak to strange gentlemen, dear,” said Aunt Anne.
But Maggie did not listen. It was characteristic of Anne Cardinal that she should secure the only four-wheeler in the station, rejecting the taxi-cabs that waited in rows for her pleasure. Had Maggie only known, her aunt’s choice was eloquent of their future life together. But Maggie did not know and did not care. Her excitement was intense. That old St. Dreot life had already swung so far behind her that it was like a fantastic dream; as they rumbled through the streets, the cries, the smells, the lights seemed arranged especially for her. She could not believe that they had all been, just like this, before her arrival. As with everything, she was busy imagining the World behind this display, the invisible Circle inside the circle that she saw.
They came into the Strand, and the masses of moving people seemed to her like somnambulists walking without reason or purpose. She felt as though there would suddenly come a great hole in the middle of the street into which the cab would tumble. The noise seemed to her country ears deafening, and when, suddenly, the lighted letters of some advertisement flashed out gigantic against the sky, she gave a little scream. She puzzled her aunt by saying:
“But it isn’t really like this, is it?”
To which Aunt Anne could only say:
“You’re hungry and tired, dear, I expect.”
With one last outrending scream the whole world seemed to fling itself at the window, open because Aunt Anne thought the cab “had a smell.” “Oosh — O O S H.” “OOSH.” ... Maggie drew back as though she expected some one to leap in upon them. Then, with that marvellous and ironical gift of contrast that is London’s secret, they were suddenly driven into the sleepiest quiet; they stumbled up a street that was like a cave for misty darkness and muffled echoes. The cab’s wheels made a riotous clatter.
A man posting a letter in a pillar-box was the only figure in the street. The stars shone overhead with wonderful brilliance, and a little bell jangled softly close at hand. All the houses were tall and secret, with high white steps and flat faces. A cat slipped across the street; another swiftly followed it.
St. Dreot’s seemed near at hand again and Ellen the cook not so far away. Maggie felt a sudden forlornness and desolation.
“What a very quiet street!” she whispered, as though she were afraid lest the street should hear.
They stopped before one of the flat-faced houses; Aunt Anne rang the bell, and an old woman with a face like a lemon helped the cabman with the boxes. Maggie was standing in a hall that smelt of damp and geraniums. It was intensely dark, and a shrill scream from somewhere did not make things more pleasant.
“That’s Edward the parrot,” said Aunt Anne. “Take care not to approach him too closely, dear, because he bites.”
Then they went upstairs, Maggie groping her way and stumbling at the sharp corners. The darkness grew; she knocked her knee on the corner of something, cried out, and a suddenly opened door threw a pale green light upon a big picture of men in armour attacking a fortified town beneath a thundery sky. This picture wavered and faltered, hung as it was upon a thin cord strained to breaking-point. Maggie reached the security of the room beyond the passage, her shoulders bent a little as though she expected to near at every instant the crashing collapse of the armoured men. Her eyes unused to the light, she stumbled into the room, fell into some one’s arms, felt that her poor hat was crooked and her cheeks burning, and then was rebuked, as it seemed, by the piercing cry of Edward the parrot from the very bowels of the house.
She stammered something to the man who had held her and then let her go. She was confused, hot and angry. “They’ll think me an idiot who can’t enter a room properly.” She glared about her and felt as though she had been taken prisoner by some strange people who lived under the sea. She was aware, when her eyes were accustomed to the dim light, that the entrance of herself and her aunt had interrupted the conversation of three people. Near the fireplace sat a little woman wearing black mittens and a white lace cap; standing above her with his arm on the mantelpiece was a thin, battered-looking gentleman with large spectacles, high, gaunt features and a very thin head of hair; near the door was the man against whom Maggie had collided. She saw that he was young, thick-set and restless. She noticed even then his eyes, bright and laughing as though he were immensely amused. His mouth opened and closed again, his eyes were never still, and he made fierce dumb protests with his body, jerking it forward pulling it back, as a rider strives to restrain an unruly horse. Maggie was able to notice these things, because during the first moments her Aunt Anne entirely held the stage. She advanced to the fireplace with her halting movement, embraced the little lady by the fire with a soft and unimpassioned clasp.
“Well, Elizabeth, here we are, you see,” turned to the thin gentleman saying, “Why you, Mr. Magnus! I thought that you were still in Wiltshire!” then from the middle of the room addressing the stout young man: “I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Warlock.”
Maggi
e fancied that the three persons were nervous of her aunt; the stout young man was amused perhaps at the general situation, but Mr. Magnus by the fireplace showed great emotion, the colour mounting into his high bony cheeks and his nostrils twitching like a horse’s. Maggie had been always very observant, and she was detached enough now to notice that the drawing-room was filled with ugly and cumbrous things and yet seemed unfurnished. Although everything was old and had been there obviously for years, the place yet reminded one of a bare chamber into which, furniture had just been piled without order or arrangement. Opposite the door was a large and very bad painting of the two sisters as young girls, sitting, with arms encircled, in low dresses, on the seashore before a grey and angry sea, and Uncle Mathew as a small, shiny-faced boy in tight short blue trousers, carrying a bucket and spade, and a smug, pious expression. The room was lit with gas that sizzled and hissed in a protesting undertone; there was a big black cat near the fire, and this watched Maggie with green and fiery eyes.
She stood there by the door tired and hungry; she felt unacknowledged and forgotten.
“I know I shall hate it,” was her thought; she was conscious of her arms and her legs; her ankle tickled in her shoe, and she longed to scratch it. She sneezed suddenly, and they all jumped as though the floor had opened beneath them.
“And Maggie?” said the little lady by the fireplace.
Maggie moved forward with the awkward gestures and the angry look in her eyes that were always hers when she was ill at ease.
“Maggie,” said Aunt Anne, “has been very good.”
“And she’s tired, I’m sure,” continued the little lady, who must of course be Aunt Elizabeth. “The journey was easy, dear. And you had no change. They gave you footwarmers, I hope. It’s been lovely weather. I’m so glad to see you, dear. I’ve had no photograph of you since you were a baby.”
Aunt Elizabeth had a way, Maggie thought, of collecting a number of little disconnected statements as though she were working out a sum and hoped — but was not very certain — that she would achieve a successful answer. “Add two and five and three and four ...” The statements that she made were apparently worlds apart in interest and importance, but she hoped with good fortune to flash upon the boards a fine result. She was nervous, Maggie saw, and her thin shoulders were a little bent as though she expected some one from behind to strike her suddenly in the small of the back.
“She’s afraid of something,” thought Maggie.
Aunt Elizabeth had obviously not the strong character of her sister Anne.
“Thank you,” said Maggie, looking, for no reason at all, at Mr. Magnus, “I slept in the train, so I’m not tired.” She stopped then, because there was nothing more to say. She felt that she ought to kiss her aunt; she thought she saw in her aunt’s small rather watery eyes an appeal that she should do so. The distance, however, seemed infinite, and Maggie had a strange feeling that her bending down would break some spell, that the picture in the passage would fall with a ghostly clatter, that Edward the parrot would scream and shriek, that the gas would burst into a bubbling horror, that the big black cat would leap upon her and tear her with its claws.
“Well, I’m not afraid,” she thought. And, as though she were defying the universe, she bent down and kissed her aunt. She fancied that this act of hers produced a little sigh of relief. Every one seemed to settle down. They all sat, and conversation was general.
Mr. Magnus had a rather melancholy, deprecating voice, but with some touch of irony too, as though he were used to being called a fool by his fellow-beings, but after all knew better than they did. He did not sound at all conceited; only amused with a little gentle melancholy at his own position.
“I’m glad to see you so well, Miss Cardinal,” he said with an air of rather old-fashioned courtesy. “I had been afraid that it might have exhausted you. I only came to welcome you. I must return at once. I have an article to finish before midnight.”
Aunt Anne smiled gently: “No, I’m not tired, thank you. And what has happened while I have been away?”
“I have been away too, as you know,” said Mr. Magnus, “but I understand that your sister has been very busy — quite a number—”
Aunt Elizabeth said in her trembling voice: “No. No — Anne — I assure you. Nothing at all. As you know, the Bible Committee wanted to discuss the new scheme. Last Tuesday. Mr. Warlock, Mr. Simms, young Holliday, Miss Martin, Mary Hearst. And Sophie Dunn. AND Mr. Turner. Nothing at all. It was a wet day. Last Tuesday afternoon.”
“Your mother is quite well, I hope, Mr. Warlock?” said Aunt Anne, turning to the young man. “Yes — she’s all right,” he answered. “Just the same. Amy wants you to go and see her. I was to give you the message, if you could manage to-morrow sometime; or she’d come here if it’s more convenient. There’s something important, she says, but I don’t suppose it’s important in the least. You know what she is.”
He spoke, laughing. His eyes wandered all round the room and suddenly settled on Maggie with a startled stare, as though she were the last person whom he had expected to find there.
“Yes. To-morrow afternoon, perhaps — about three, if that would suit her. How is Amy?”
“Oh, she’s all right. As eager to run the world as ever — and she never will run it so long as she shows her cards as obviously as she does. I tell her so. But it’s no good. She doesn’t listen to me, you know.”
Aunt Anne, with the incomparable way that she had, brushed all this very gently aside. She simply said: “I’m glad that she’s well.” Then she turned to the other gentleman:
“Your writing’s quite satisfactory, I hope, Mr. Magnus.”
She spoke as though it had been a cold or a toothache.
He smiled his melancholy ironical smile. “I go on, you know, Miss Cardinal. After all, it’s my bread and butter.”
Maggie, looking at him, knew that this was exactly the way that he did not regard it, and felt a sudden sympathy towards him with his thin hair, his large spectacles and his shabby clothes. But her look at him was the last thing of which she was properly conscious. The wall beyond the fireplace, that had seemed before to her dim and dark, now suddenly appeared to lurch forward, to bulge before her eyes; the floor with its old, rather shabby carpet rose on a slant as though it was rocked by an unsteady sea; worst of all, the large black cat swelled like a balloon, its whiskers distended like wire. She knew that her eyes were burning, that her forehead was cold, and that she felt sick. She was hungry, and at the same time was conscious that she could eat nothing. Her only wish was to creep away and hide herself from every one.
However, through all her confusion she was aware of her determination not to betray to them that she was ill. “If only the cat wouldn’t grow so fast, I believe I could manage,” was her desperate thought. There was a roaring in her ears; she caught suddenly from an infinite distance the voice of the stout young man— “She’s ill! She’s fainting!”
She was aware that she struggled to face him with fierce protesting eyes. The next thing she knew was that she lay for the second time that afternoon in his arms. She felt that he laid her, clumsily but gently, upon the sofa; some one sprinkled cold water on her forehead. Deep down in her soul she hated and despised herself for this weakness before strangers. She closed her eyes tightly, desiring to conceal not so much the others as herself from her scornful gaze. She heard some one say something about a cup of tea, and she wanted it suddenly with a desperate, fiery desire, but she would not speak, no, not if they were to torture her with thirst for days and days — to that extent at least she could preserve her independence.
She heard her Aunt Elizabeth say something like: “Poor thing — strain — last week — father — too much.”
She gathered all her energies together to say “It hasn’t been too much. I’m all right,” but they brought her a cup of tea, and before that she succumbed. She drank it with eager greed, then lay back, her eyes closed, and slowly the bars of hot iron withdrew from
her forehead. She slept.
She woke to a room wrapped in a green trembling twilight. She was alone save for the black cat. The fire crackled, the gas was turned low, and the London murmur beyond the window was like the hum of an organ. There was no one in the room; she felt, as she lay there, an increasing irritation at her weakness. She was afraid too for her future. Did she faint like this at the earliest opportunity people would allow her no chance of earning her living. Where was that fine independent life upon which, outside Borhedden Farm, she had resolved? And these people, her aunts, the young man, the thin spectacled man, what would they think of her? They would name it affectation, perhaps, and imagine that she had acted in such a way that she might gain their interest and sympathy. Such a thought sent the colour flaming to her cheeks; she sat up on the sofa. She would go to them at once and show them that she was perfectly strong and well.
The door opened and Aunt Elizabeth came in, very gently as though she were going to steal something. She was, Maggie saw now, so little as to be almost deformed, with a soft pale face, lined and wrinkled, and blue watery eyes. She wore a black silk wrapper over her shoulders, and soft black slippers. Alice in Wonderland was one of the few books that Maggie had read in her childhood; Aunt Elizabeth reminded her strongly of the White Queen in the second part of that masterpiece.
“Oh, you’re not asleep, dear,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“No, I’m not,” said Maggie. “I’m perfectly all right. I can’t think what made me behave like that. I’ve never done such a thing before. I’m ashamed!”