Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  She was awake suddenly, quite acutely aware of danger. She rubbed her eyes, turned, and in the dim shadow saw her aunt sitting up in bed, her body drawn up to its intensest height, her hands pressing down, flat upon the bed. Her eyes stared as though they would break down all boundaries, but her lips trembled like the lips of a little child.

  “Aunt Anne, what is it?” Maggie whispered.

  “It’s the pain—” Her voice was far away as though some one were speaking from the passage outside the door. “It’s the pain ... I can’t ... much more ...”

  Maggie remembered what Martha had told her about the drops. She found the little green bottle, saw the glass by the side of it.

  Suddenly she heard Aunt Anne: “Oh no ... Oh no! God I can’t ... God, I can’t ... I can’t.”

  Maggie bent over the bed; she put her hand behind her aunt’s back and could feel the whole body quivering, the flesh damp beneath the night-dress. She steadied her, then put the glass to her lips.

  The cry was now a little whisper. “No more ... I can ... no more.” Then more softly still: “Thy will, oh Lord. As thou wilt — Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed ... Hallowed ... Hallowed...”

  She sank down on to her pillows.

  “Is it better?” Maggie asked.

  Her aunt caught her hand.

  “You mustn’t leave me. I shan’t live long, but you must stay with me until I go. Promise me! Promise me!”

  “No, I can’t promise,” said Maggie.

  “You must stay. You must stay.”

  “No I can’t promise.” Then suddenly kneeling down by the bed she put her hand on the other’s arm: “Aunt Anne, I’ll do anything for you — anything — to make you better — if I can help ... but not a promise, I can’t promise.”

  “Ah, but you will stay,” Aunt Anne’s whisper trembled with its certainty.

  That seemed the climax of the night to Maggie then. She felt that she was indeed held for eternity by the house, the Chapel, and something beyond the Chapel. The scent of the medicine, the closeness of the room, the darkness and the sickness, seemed to close all about her ... She was at the bottom of a deep well, and she would never get out, she would never get out ...

  The door slowly, very softly opened, and old Martha looked in.

  “She’s been very bad,” whispered Maggie.

  “Ay, I heard something. That’s why I came. You gave her the drops?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’ll sleep a bit now. I’ll take your place, Miss Maggie. It’s time you went back to your bed.”

  Maggie crept away.

  She came down to breakfast to find the house bathed in sunlight and the parrot singing hoarsely “And her golden hair was hanging down her back.” Aunt Elizabeth was there, cheerful and almost merry in her bird-like fashion. The world was normal, ghosts out of fashion, and this morning was the day on which the silver was cleaned. This last was Maggie’s business, and very badly she did it, never being “thorough,” and having a fatal habit of thinking of other things. Porridge, eggs and bacon, marmalade —

  “And — her golden hair was hanging—” croaked Edward.

  “Your aunt won’t come down this morning, Maggie. She’s much better. The sun’s shining. A little walk will be a good thing. I’ll buy the calico that Anne talked about. Your aunt’s better.”

  Maggie felt ashamed of herself. What desperate silly feelings had she allowed last night? How much she had made of that service, and how weak she was to give way so easily!

  “I’ll clean the silver,” she thought. “I’ll do it better than ever” — but unfortunately she had a hole in her stocking, and Aunt Elizabeth, like a sparrow who has found a worm, told her about it.

  “Mr. Crashaw’s coming to tea this afternoon,” she concluded.

  “That’s why Anne’s staying in bed — to be well enough.” The stocking and Mr. Crashaw dimmed a little of the morning’s radiance, but behind them was the thought, “Martin must come to-day. It was like a message his look last night.” She even sang to herself as she scrubbed at the silver.

  They spent a domestic morning. Aunt Elizabeth did not go for her walk, but instead stayed in the dining-room and, seated at the end of the long dining-table, her head just appearing above the worn and soiled green table-cloth, tried to discipline the week’s household accounts. She worked sucking one finger after another and poking her pencil into her ears.

  “One pound, three shillings — ham, ham, ham — ?”

  At one moment she invited the cook to assist her, and that lady, crimson from the kitchen fire, bared arms akimbo, stated that she was not only the most economical woman in London, but was also, thanks to her upbringing, one of the most sober and virtuous, and if Miss Cardinal had anything to say against —

  Oh no! Aunt Elizabeth had nothing to say against, only this one pound, three shillings —

  Well, the cook couldn’t help that; she wasn’t one to let a penny out of her fingers where it shouldn’t go.

  So the morning hummed along; luncheon-time came, the silver was all cleaned, the stockings changed, and there was roast chicken. Thomas, with his wicked eyes, came slowly, majestically upon the scene — but even he was not sinister to-day, being interested in his own greed rather than other persons’ sins.

  All this time Maggie refused to think. Martin would come, then she would see.

  Martin ... Martin ... Martin ... She went up into her bedroom and whispered the name over and over to herself whilst she tried to mend her stocking. She flung the stocking down and gazed out of the window on to a world that was all golden cloud and racing watery blue. The roofs swam like floating carpets in the sun, detached from the brick and mortar beneath them, carried by the racing clouds. It was only at that sudden gaze that she realised that she was a prisoner. All her alarm came back to her.

  “Why can’t I go out? I’ll put on my hat and just walk out. No one can stop me. No one ...”

  But she knew that she could not. Something more must happen first. She turned from the window with a little shudder, finished very clumsily her stocking, and as the cuckoo clock struck halfpast three went down to the drawing-room.

  There to her surprise, she found Caroline Smith. The events of the last few days had, a little, dimmed Caroline from her memory. She had not seen Caroline for a fortnight. She did not know that she especially wanted to see Caroline now. However, it was very certain that Caroline wanted to see her. The young woman was dressed in rose-coloured silk that stood out from her slim body almost like a crinoline, and she had a straw funnel-shaped hat with roses perched on the side of her lovely head. She kissed Maggie many times, and then sitting down with her little sharp black shoes poked out in front of her, she ran on:

  “It’s been too bad, Maggie, dear; it’s simply ages since we had a moment, isn’t it, but it hasn’t been my fault. Father’s been ill — bronchitis — and I’ve had to help Mother. Father’s been so happy, he’s just been able to lie in bed for days and think about God. None of those tiresome people at the Bank to interrupt him, and chicken and jelly as much as he liked. He was so unhappy yesterday when he had to go back to work, poor dear ... But, Maggie, I hear you were at the service last night. How did you like it?”

  “Like it?” said Maggie. “I don’t know that it’s a thing one likes, exactly.”

  “Doesn’t one? I don’t know. I’m not one of the Inside Saints, you know, and I wouldn’t be if they wanted me to he. But you’re one now, they say, and I never would have thought it. You don’t look a bit like one, and I shouldn’t have dreamt that you’d ever stand that sort of thing. You look so matter-of-fact.”

  Maggie was on the point of bursting out that she was not an Inside Saint, and would never be one, when caution restrained her. She had learnt already that her gay young companion was not as trustworthy as best friends ought to be.

  “It was the first time, last night,” she said.

  “Yes, I know, and Miss Cardinal was ill and had to come away in the
middle, didn’t she? It must have been a simply awful meeting, because Mother came back as limp as anything. She’d been crying buckets, and has a dreadful headache to-day. I suppose Mr. Crashaw gave it them. I’ve never heard him, but I’ve seen him. Horrid old monkey — I hope Miss Cardinal’s better to-day.”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Maggie. “She’s better.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing. I’m so glad. And you, you darling, what did you think of it all? I’m sure you didn’t cry buckets. I can see you sitting there as quiet as anything, like a little Quaker. I’d like to have gone just to have seen you. I hear Martin Warlock was there too. Was he?”

  “He was,” said Maggie.

  “Fancy that! I wonder what he went for. His father made him, I expect. You know they say he’s getting on awfully badly at home and that there are quarrels all the time. I don’t know, of course, but his sister can’t stand him. She’s always showing her feelings — not very good taste, I think, but Mr. Thurston eggs her on. They’ll be making a match of it one day, those two ... I say, Maggie—” Caroline drew her chair close. “I’ll give you a secret. You won’t tell any one, will you?”

  “Certainly not — if you tell me not to,” said Maggie.

  “Well, Martin Warlock and I — ever since he came back. Oh! I don’t say it’s anything really. But he’s attracted by me and would like to go farther. He’ll be asking me to marry him one of these days, and then I’ll have fun. He would have done the other day if I’d let him. I like him rather, don’t you? He’s getting a bit fat, of course, but he’s got nice eyes, and then he’s a real man. I like real men. But there, you’ll be thinking me coarse, I know you will. I’m not coarse really, only impulsive. You don’t like me, honestly, if it were known. Oh no! you don’t! I can tell. I always know. But I don’t care — I love you. You’re a darling — and what I say is if you love some one, just love them. Never mind what they think. Don’t you agree with me? But you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t think of loving anybody. But I’m not really bad — only careless, Mother says—”

  What Mother said could not be known, because the door opened and Martha announced Mr. Crashaw. The old man, leaning on a walking stick, came forward and greeted Maggie and Caroline with good-temper and amiability. He was indeed in day-time a very mild old man, and it was difficult for Maggie to believe that this was the same who last night had frightened her out of her wits and led her to the edge of such strange suspicions. He was more than ever like a monkey, with his bony brown forehead, protuberant eyes and large mottled nose, and he sat there all huddled up by his rheumatism, a living example of present physical torments rather than future spiritual ones. It was apparent at once that he liked pretty young women, and he paid Caroline a number of flattering attentions, disregarding Maggie with a frankness that witnessed to a life that had taught one lesson at least, never on any occasion to waste time. Maggie did not mind — it amused her to see her terror of the night before transformed into a mere serenading crippled old gentleman, and to see, too, the excited pleasure with which Caroline accepted even such decayed attentions as these. But what was it that had persuaded her last night? Why did she now spend her time half in one world and half in another? Which world was the real one?

  Aunt Anne very soon joined them, and this quiet, composed figure only added to Maggie’s scorn of her last night’s terrors. Was this the same who had struggled with such agony, who had made Maggie feel that she was caught in a trap and imprisoned for ever?

  The sun beat hotly upon the carpet. Caroline’s rose-coloured silk shone and glowed, the tea was poured out, and there was chatter about the warm winter that it was and how time passed, and how fashions changed, and how you never saw a four-wheeler now, and what they were turning Kingsway into, and what they were turning the Law Courts out of, and even once, by Mr. Crashaw, a word about the Lyceum Theatre, where some one was playing the Merchant of Venice, which was a fine play and could do no one any harm.

  “But I daresay,” said Mr. Crashaw, “that this young lady here goes to nothing but plays every night of her life.”

  “Why, Mr. Crashaw,” said Caroline, tossing her head. “If that’s the kind of life you fancy I lead you’re completely mistaken. Theatres indeed! Never do I put so much as the tip of my nose inside one. Father thinks they’re wrong and so does Mother say she does, although I know she likes them, really; but any way that doesn’t matter because I never have a moment to myself — sitting at home sewing, that’s the way I spend my days, Mr. Crashaw.”

  It was the very last way she really spent them, as Maggie perfectly well knew. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Crashaw either was deceived. However, he gave a wicked wink with the eye that was least rheumatic and said something about “a beautiful young lady like Miss Smith wasted on sewing and darning,” and Caroline smiled and said something about “one day perhaps” — and Aunt Anne looked remotely benevolent. What did she think of all this, Maggie wondered? What did she think of her great preacher, her prophet, wasting the few hours of life that remained to him over such a business? They had some secret understanding, perhaps, as though they said to one another, “We know, you and I, what are our real intentions beneath all this. We only do what we must.”

  Understanding or no, Mr. Crashaw sprang up with unexpected activity when Caroline departed and announced his intention of conducting her to her door. He made his adieus and then hobbled along after the rose-coloured silk as though this was his last chance of warming his hands at the flame of life.

  When they were gone, Aunt Anne said:

  “I am going back to bed, Maggie, dear. Martha will send me up some supper later. Elizabeth has gone to Lambeth to see a friend, so make yourself busy until seven, dear. If I want anything I’ll ring.”

  When she was left alone in the darkening room she stood there thinking. Why should she not go out and find Martin? She did not care what any one thought. She would go to his house and ask for him. She had waited and waited ... She wanted him so, she wanted him so desperately!

  Then Martha opened the door and announced him, yes, really announced him, saying: “It’s young Mr. Warlock, Miss, and he says if your aunts isn’t in you’ll do.”

  “Ask him to come up, Martha,” said Maggie, and then held herself there, rooted, where she stood so that she should not run to him and fling her arms round his neck. She felt at once with that quick perception that was hers, in spite of her ignorance of life, that this was no moment for love-making, and that he wanted something quite other from her.

  He closed the door behind him, looked round the room, didn’t come to her, but stayed where he was.

  “I’ve been trying to see you all day,” he said. “How long have we got alone do you think?” She never took her eyes from his face. “Until seven probably. Aunt Elizabeth’s in Lambeth and Aunt Anne’s in bed.”

  “That’s luck.” He drew a breath of relief, then moved over to the fireplace. “Maggie, I’ve come to say we mustn’t see one another any more.”

  Some one, some vast figure shadowy behind her, moved suddenly forward and caught her in his arms and his embrace was deadly cold. She stood where she was, her hands at her side, looking steadfastly at him.

  “Why?” she said. “Because — because — the fact is, I’ve been wrong altogether. Maggie, I’m not the sort of man for you to have anything to do with. You don’t know much about life yet, do you? I’m about the first man you’ve ever met, aren’t I? If you’d met another man before me, you’d have cared for him as much.”

  She said nothing and he seemed to be confused by her steady gaze, because he looked down and continued to speak as though to himself:

  “I knew at once that there was danger in our meeting. With other girls they can look after themselves. One hasn’t any responsibility to them. It’s their own affair, but you believe every word a fellow says. And if we’d been friends it wouldn’t have mattered, but from the very first we weren’t that — we were something more.”

  “You were
so different from any other girl. I’ve wanted to be good to you from the beginning, but now I see that if we go on I shall only be bad. It all comes in the end to my being bad — really bad — and I want you to know it.”

  “I don’t know,” said Maggie, “that I’ve thought very much whether you’re good or bad. And it doesn’t matter. I can look after myself.”

  “No, you can’t,” he said vehemently, making a step towards her and then suddenly stopping. “That’s just it — you can’t. I’ve been thinking all the time since the other evening when we were together, and I’ve seen that you believe every word I say and you trust me. I don’t mean to tell lies — I don’t know that I’m worse than most other men — but I’m not good enough for you to trust in all the same. I’ve been knocking about for years, and I suppose I’ve had most of my idealism knocked out of me. Anyway I don’t believe in most people, and you still do. I’m not going to be the one to change you.”

  “Perhaps I know more about life than you think,” said Maggie.

  “No, how can you? You’ve never had a chance of seeing any of it. You’d get sick of me in no time. I’m moody and selfish and bad-tempered. I used to drink a bit too. And I can’t be faithful to women. I might think I was going to be faithful to you and swear I would be — and then suddenly some one would come along. I thought for a bit I’d just go on with you and see what came of it. You’re so unusual, you make me want to be straight with you; but I’ve seen it wouldn’t be fair. I must just slip out of your path and you’ll forget me, and then you’ll meet a much better man than I and be happy. I’m queer — I have funny moods that last for days and days sometimes. I seem to do every one harm I come in touch with. There’s my father now. I love him more than any one in the world, and yet I make him unhappy all the time. I’m a bad fellow to be with—”