Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  She did not, in this fashion, think things out for herself. To herself she simply expressed it that she was going to lead her own life, to earn her own living, to fight for herself; and that the sooner she escaped this gloomy, damp, and ill-tempered house the better. She would never say her prayers again; she would never read the Bible again to herself or any one else; she would never kneel on those hard chapel kneelers again; she would never listen to Mr. Warlock’s sermons again — once she had escaped.

  Meanwhile she said nothing at all to herself about Martin Warlock, who was really at the root of the whole matter.

  She began at once to take steps. Two years before this a lady had paid, with her sister, a short visit to St. Dreots and had taken a great liking to Maggie. They had made friends, and this lady, a Miss Katherine Trenchard, had begged Maggie to let her know if she came to London and needed help or advice. Miss Trenchard divided her life between London and a place called Garth in Roselands in Glebeshire, and Maggie did not know where she would be now — but, after some little hesitation, she wrote a letter, speaking of the death of her father and of her desire to find some work in London, and directed it to Garth.

  Now of course she must post it herself — no allowing it to lie on the hall-table with old Martha to finger it and the aunts to speculate upon it and finally challenge her with its destiny.

  On a bright evening when the house was as dark as a shut box and an early star, frightened at its irregular and lonely appearance, suddenly flashed like a curl of a golden whip across the sky, Maggie slipped out of the house. She realised, with a triumphant and determined nod of her head, that she had never been out alone in London before — a ridiculous and shameful fact! She knew that there was a pillar-box just round the corner, but because she had a hat upon her head and shoes upon her feet she thought that she might as well post it in the Strand, an EXCITING river of tempestuous sound into which she had as yet scarcely penetrated. She slipped out of the front door, then waited a moment, looking back at the silent house. No one stirred in their street; the noise of the Strand came up to her like wind beyond a valley. She must have felt, in that instant, that she was making some plunge into hazardous waters and she must have hesitated as to whether she would not spring back into the quiet house, lock and bolt the door, and never go out again. But, after that one glance, she went forward.

  She had never before in her life been on any errand alone, and at this evening hour the Strand was very full. She stood still clinging to the safe privacy of her own street and peering over into the blaze and quiver of the tumult. In the Strand end of her own street there were several dramatic agencies, a second-hand book and print shop with piles of dirty music in the barrow outside the window, a little restaurant with cold beef, an ancient chicken, hard-boiled eggs and sponge cakes under glass domes in the window; everywhere about her were dim doors, glimpses of twisting stairs, dusty windows and figures flitting up and down, in and out as though they were marionettes pulled by invisible strings to fulfil some figure.

  These were all in the dusk of the side-street; a large draper’s with shirts and collars and grinning wax boys in sailor suits caught with its front windows the Strand lamps. It was beside the shop that Maggie stood for an instant hesitating. She could see no pillar-box; she could see nothing save the streams of human beings, slipping like water between the banks of houses.

  She hesitated, clinging to the draper’s shop; then, suddenly catching sight of the pillar-box a few yards down the street, she let herself go, had a momentary sensation of swimming in a sea desperately crowded with other bodies, fought against the fierce gaze of lights that beat straight upon her eyes, found the box, slipped in the letter, and then, almost at once, was back in her quiet quarters again.

  She turned and, her heart beating, hurried home. The house door was still ajar. She pushed it back, slipped inside, caught her breath and listened. Then she closed the door softly behind her, and with that little act of attempted secrecy realised that she was now a rebel, that things could never be, for her, the same again as they had been a quarter of an hour ago. That glittering crowd, the lamps, the smells, the sounds, had concentrated themselves into a little fiery charm that held her heart within a flaming circle. She felt the most audacious creature in the world — and also the most ignorant. Not helpless — no, never helpless — but so ignorant that all her life that had seemed to her, a quarter of an hour ago, so tensely crowded with events and crises was now empty and barren like the old straw-smelling cab at home. She did not want to offend her aunts and hurt their feelings, but she was a living, breathing, independent creature and she must go her own way. Neither they nor their chapel should stop her — no, not the chapel nor any one in it.

  She was standing, motionless, in the dark cold hall, wondering whether any one had heard her enter, when she was suddenly conscious of two eyes that watched her — two steady fiery eyes suspended as it seemed in mid air. She realised that it was the cat. The cat hated her and she hated it. She had not realised that before, but now with the illumination of the lighted street behind her she realised it. The cat was the spirit of the chapel watching her, spying upon her to see that she did not escape. The cat knew that she had posted her letter and to whom she had posted it. She advanced to the bottom of the stair and said: “Brr. You horrid thing! I hate you!” and instantly the two fiery eyes had vanished, but now in their place the whole house seemed to be watching, so silent and attentive was it — and the odour of damp biscuits and wet umbrellas seemed to be everywhere.

  Just then old Martha came out with a lamp in her hand, and standing upon a chair, lit the great ugly gas over the middle of the door.

  “Why, Miss Maggie,” she said in her soft, surprised whisper, looking as she always did, beyond the girl, into darkness.

  “I’ve been out,” said Maggie, defiantly.

  “Not all alone, miss?”

  “All alone,” said Maggie. “Why not? I can look after myself.”

  “Well, there’s your uncle waiting in the drawing-room — just come,” said the old woman, climbing down from the chair with that silent imperturbable discontent that always frightened Maggie.

  “Uncle Mathew! Here! in this house!” Maggie, even in the moment of her first astonishment, was amazed at her own delight. That she should ever feel THAT about Uncle Mathew! Truly it showed how unhappy she had been, and she ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and pushed back the drawing-room door.

  “Uncle Mathew!” she cried.

  Then at the sight of him she stood where she was. The man who faced her, with all his old confusion of nervousness and uneasy geniality, was, indeed, Uncle Mathew, but Uncle Mathew glorified, shabbily glorified and at the same time a little abashed as though she had caught him in the act of laying a mine that would blow up the whole house. He was wearing finer clothes than she had ever seen him in before — a frock coat, quite new but fitting him badly, so that it was buttoned too tightly across his stomach and loose across the back. He had a white flower in his button-hole, and a rather soiled white handkerchief protruded from his breast-pocket. One leg of his dark grey trousers had been creased in two places, and there were little spots of blood on his high white collar because he had cut himself shaving. His complexion was of the same old suppressed purple, but his little eyes were bright and shining and active; they danced towards Maggie. His scanty locks had been carefully brushed over his bald head, and his hands, although they were still puffed and swollen, were whiter than Maggie had ever seen them.

  But it was in the end his attitude of confused defiance that made her pause. What had he been doing, or what did he intend to do? He was prosperous, she could see, and knowing him as she did, she was afraid of his prosperity. She had never in her life realised so clearly as she did now that he was a wicked old man — and still she was glad to see him. He was an odd enough creature in that room, and that, she was aware, pleased her.

  “Well, my dear,” he said very genially, as though they met again after an h
our’s parting, “how are you? I’m very glad to see you — looking so well too. And quite smart. Your aunts dressed you up. I thought I must look at you. I’m staying just round the corner, and my first thought was ‘I wonder how she’s getting on in all that tom-foolery. You bet she’s keeping her head.’ And so you are. One can see at a glance.”

  She went up to him, kissed him, and smelt whisky and some scent that had geraniums in it. He put his arm round her, with his old unsteady gesture, and held her to him for a moment, then patted her back with his large, soft hand.

  “Your aunt’s a long time. I’ve been waiting half an hour.”

  “They’ve been to some meeting.” She stood looking at him with her fine steady gaze that had always made him afraid of her, and did so, to his own surprise, again now. He had thought that his clothes would have saved him from that; his fingers felt at his button-hole. Looking at him she said:

  “Uncle, I want to get away — out of this — at once. No, they aren’t horrid to me. Every one’s been very kind. But I’m afraid of it all — of never getting out of it — and I want to be independent ...” She stopped with a little breathless gasp because she heard the hall-door close. “Ah, they’re here! Don’t tell them anything. We’ll talk afterwards ...”

  His eyes glittered with satisfaction. “I knew you would, my dear. I knew you wouldn’t be able to stand it ... I’ll get you out of it ... Trust me!”

  The door opened and Aunt Anne came in. She had been prepared by Martha for her visitor, and she came forward to him now with the dignity and kindly patronage of some lady abbess receiving the miscreant and boorish yokel of a neighbouring village. And yet how fine she was! As Maggie watched her, she thought of what she would give to have some of that self-command and dignity and decision. Was it her religion that gave her that? Or only her own self-satisfaction? No; there was something behind Aunt Anne, something stronger than she, something that Mr. Warlock also knew ... and it was this something that Uncle Mathew met with his own hostility as he looked up now at his sister and greeted her:

  “Why, Mathew! You never told us. I would have hurried back, and now Elizabeth, I’m afraid, has gone on to see some friends. She will be so disappointed. But at least you’ve had Maggie to entertain you.”

  A quick glance was exchanged between uncle and niece.

  “Yes,” he said, “we’ve had a talk, Anne, thank you. And it doesn’t matter about Elizabeth, because I’m staying close here in Henrietta Street, and I’ll be in again if I may. I just looked in to ask whether Maggie might come and have dinner with me at my little place to-night. It’s a most respectable place — I’ll come and fetch her, of course, and bring her back afterwards.”

  Of course Aunt Anne could not refuse, but oh! how Maggie saw that she wanted to! The battle that followed was silent. Uncle Mathew’s eyes narrowed themselves to fiery malicious points; he dropped them and moved his feet restlessly on the soft carpet.

  “Quite respectable!” he repeated.

  Aunt Anne smiled gently. “Why, of course, Mathew. I know you’ll look after Maggie. It will be a change for her. She’s been having rather a dull time here, I’m afraid.”

  Then there was silence. Maggie wanted to speak, but the words would not come, and she had the curious sensation that even if she did find them no one would hear them.

  Then Uncle Mathew suddenly said good-bye, stumbled over his boots by the door, shot out, “Seven o’clock, Maggie” — and was gone.

  “Well, that will be nice for you, Maggie,” said Anne, looking at her.

  “Yes,” said Maggie. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No dear, of course not.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Maggie broke out desperately. “I know I’m not satisfying you and yet you won’t say anything. Do tell me — and I’ll try — anything — almost anything ...”

  Then the sudden memory of her own posted letter silenced her. Was that readiness to do “anything”? Had that not been rebellion? And had she not asked Uncle Mathew to help her to escape? The consciousness of her dishonesty coloured her cheek with crimson. Then Aunt Anne, very tenderly, put her hand on her shoulder.

  “Will you really do anything — for me, Maggie — for me?” Her voice was gentle and her eyes had tears in them. “If you will — there are things very close to my heart—”

  Maggie turned away, trembling. She hung her head, then with a sudden movement walked to the door.

  “You must tell me,” she said, “what you want. I’ll try — I don’t understand.”

  Then as though she was aware that she was fighting the whole room which had already almost entrapped her and that the fight was too much for her, she went.

  When she came to her own room and thought about her invitation she wished, with a sudden change of mood, that she had a pretty frock or two. She would have loved to have been grand to-night, and now the best that she could do was to add her coral necklace and a little gold brooch that years ago her father had given her, to the black dress that she was already wearing. She realised, with a strange little pang of loneliness, that she had not had one evening’s fun since her arrival in London — no, not one — and she would not have captured to-night had Aunt Anne been able to prevent it.

  Then as her mind returned back to her uncle she felt with a throb of excited anticipation that perhaps after all this evening was to prove the turning-point of her life. Her little escape into the streets, her posting of the letter, had been followed so immediately by Uncle Mathew’s visit, and now this invitation!

  “No one can keep me if I want to go,” and the old cuckoo-clock outside seemed to tick in reply:

  “Can no one keep her if she wants to go?”

  She finished her preparations; as she fastened the coral necklace round her neck the face of Martin Warlock was suddenly before her. He had been perhaps at her elbow all day.

  “I like him and I think he likes me,” she said to the mirror. “I’ve got one friend,” and her thought still further was that even if he didn’t like her he couldn’t prevent her liking him.

  She went down to the drawing-room and found Uncle Mathew, alone, waiting for her.

  “Here I am, Maggie,” he said. “And let’s get out of this as quick as we can.”

  “I must go and say good-night to the aunts,” she said.

  She went upstairs to Aunt Anne’s bedroom. Entering it was always to her like passing into a shadowed church after the hot sunshine — the long, thin room with high slender windows, the long hard bed, of the most perfect whiteness and neatness, the heavy black-framed picture of “The Ascension” over the bed, and the utter stillness broken by no sound of clock or bell — even the fire seemed frozen into a glassy purity in the grate.

  Her aunt was sitting, as so often Maggie found her, in a stiff-backed chair, her hands folded on her lap, staring in front of her. Her eyes were like the open eyes of a dead woman; it was as though, with a great effort of almost desperate concentration, she were driving her vision against some obstinate world of opposition, and the whole of life had meanwhile stayed to watch the issue.

  A thin pale light from some street lamp lay, a faintly golden shadow, across the white ceiling.

  Maggie stood by the door.

  “I’ve come to say good-night, aunt.”

  “Ah, Maggie dear, is that you?” The pale oval face turned towards her.

  “You won’t be very late, will you?”

  “Hadn’t I better have a key, not to bother Martha?”

  “Oh, Martha won’t have gone to bed.”

  Maggie felt as though her whole evening would be spoilt did she know that Martha was waiting for her at the end of it.

  “Oh, but it will be such a pity—”

  “Martha will let you in, dear. Come and kiss me; I hope that you’ll enjoy yourself.”

  And then the strangest thing happened. Maggie bent down. She felt a tear upon her cheek and then the thin strong arms held her, for an instant, in an almost threatening embra
ce.

  “Good-night, dear aunt,” she said; but, outside the room, she had to stand for a moment in the dark passage to regain her control; her heart was beating with wild unreasoning terror. Although she had brushed her cheek with her hand the cold touch of the tears still lingered there.

  Outside the house they were free. It looked so close and dark behind them that Maggie shivered a little and put her arm through her uncle’s.

  “That’s all right,” he said, patting her hand. “We’re going to enjoy ourselves.”

  She looked up and saw Martin Warlock facing her. The unexpected meeting held both of them silent for a moment. To her it seemed that he had risen out of the very stones of the pavement, at her bidding, to make her evening wonderful. He looked so strong, so square, so solid after the phantom imaginations of the house that she had left, that the sight of him was a step straight into the heart of comfort and reassurance.

  “I was just coming,” he said, looking at her, “to leave a note for Miss Cardinal — from my father—”

  “She’s in,” Maggie said.

  “Oh, it wasn’t to bother her — only to leave the note. About some meeting, I think.”

  “We’re just going out. This is my uncle — Mr. Warlock.”

  The two men shook hands.

  Mathew Cardinal smiled. His eyes closed, his greeting had an urgency in it as though he had suddenly made some discovery that gratified and amused him. “Very glad to meet you — very glad, indeed, sir. Any friend of my niece’s. I know your father, sir; know him and admire him.”

  They all turned down the street together. Uncle Mathew talked, and then, quite suddenly, stopping under a lamp-post as though within the circle of light his charm were stronger, he said:

  “I suppose, Mr. Warlock, you wouldn’t do me the great, the extreme, honour of dining with myself and my niece at my humble little inn to-night? A little sudden — I hope you’ll forgive the discourtesy — but knowing your father—”

  Martin looked straight into Maggie’s eyes.

  “Oh, please do!” she said, her heart beating, as it seemed, against her eyes so that she dropped them.