Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)
Page 367
All that day he struggled with temptation. He had not seen Maggie for a week, and during the last three days he had not heard from her, the adventurous Jane having defied the aunts and left.
At luncheon he asked about his father, whom he had not seen for two days.
“Father had a very bad night. He’s asleep now.”
“There’s something on to-night, isn’t there?” he asked.
“There’s a service,” Amy answered shortly.
“Father oughtn’t to go,” he went on. “I suppose your friend Thurston can manage.”
Amy looked at him. “Father’s got to go. It’s very important.”
“Oh, of course, if you want to kill father with all your beastly services—” he broke in furiously.
“It won’t be—” Amy began, and then, as though she did not trust herself to continue, got up and left the room.
“Mother,” he said, “why on earth don’t you do something?”
“I, dear?” she looked at him placidly. “In what way?”
“They’re killing father between them with all these services and the rest of the nonsense.”
“Your father doesn’t listen to anything I say, dear.”
“He ought to go away for a long rest.”
“Well, dear, perhaps he will soon. You know I have nothing to do with the Chapel. That was settled years ago. I wouldn’t interfere for a great deal.”
Martin turned fiercely upon her saying:
“Mother, don’t you care?”
“Care, dear?”
“Yes, about father — his living and getting well again and being happy as he used to be. What’s happened to this place?”
She looked at him in the strangest way. He suddenly felt that he’d never seen her before.
“There are a number of things, Martin, that you don’t understand — a number of things. You are away from us for years, you come back to us and expect things to be the same.”
“You and Amy,” he said, “both of you, have kept me out of everything since I came back. I believe you both hate me!”
She got up slowly from her seat, slowly put her spectacles away in their case, rubbed her fat little hands together, then suddenly licked inquisitively one finger as an animal might do. She spoke to him over her shoulder as she went to the door:
“Oh no, Martin, you speak too strongly.”
Left then to his own devices he, at last, wandered out into the foggy streets. After a while he found himself outside a public-house and, after a moment’s hesitation, he went in. He asked the stout, rubicund young woman behind the counter for a whisky. She gave him one; he drank that, and then another.
Afterwards he had several more, leaning over the bar, speaking to no one, seeing no one, hearing nothing, and scarcely tasting the drink. When he came out into the street again he knew that he was half drunk — not so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing. Oh dear, no. HE could drink any amount without feeling it. Nevertheless he had drunk so little during these last weeks that even a drop ... How foggy the streets were ... made it difficult to find your way home. But he was all right, he could walk straight, he could put his latch-key into the door at one try, HE was all right.
He was at home again. He didn’t stop to hang up his hat and coat but went straight into the dining-room, leaving the door open behind him. He saw that the meal was still on the table just as they’d left it. Amy was there too.
He saw her move back when he came in as though she were afraid to touch him.
“You’re drunk!” she said.
“I’m not. You’re a liar, Amy. You’ve always been a liar all your life.”
She tried to pass him, but he stood in the middle of the door.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “We’ve got to have this out. What have you been spreading scandal about me and Maggie Cardinal for?”
“Let me go,” she said again.
“Tell me that first. You’ve always tried to do me harm. Why?”
“Because I hate the sight of you,” she answered quickly. “As you’ve asked me, you shall have a truthful answer. You’ve never been anything but a disgrace to us ever since you were a little boy. You disgraced us at home and then abroad; now you’ve come back to disgrace us here again.”
“That’s a lie,” he repeated. “I’ve not disgraced anybody.”
“Well, it won’t be very long before you finish ruining that wretched girl. The best you can do now is to marry her.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “I’m married already.” She did not answer that hut stared at him with amazement.
“But never mind that,” he went on. “What if I am a bad lot? I don’t know what a bad lot is exactly, but if you mean that I’ve lived with women and been drunk, and lost jobs because I didn’t do the work, and been generally on the loose, it’s true, of course. But I meant to live decently when I came home. Yes, I did. You can sneer as much as you like. Why didn’t you help me? You’re my sister, aren’t you? And now I don’t care what I do. You’ve all given me up. Well, give me up, and I’ll just go to bits as fast as I can go! If you don’t want me there are others who do, or at any rate the bit of money I’ve got. You’ve kept me from the only decent girl I’ve ever known, the one I could have been straight with—”
“Straight with!” Amy broke in. “How were you going to be straight if you’re married already?”
He would have answered her but a sound behind him made him turn. He wheeled round and saw his father standing almost up against him. He had only time for a horrified vision of the ghostlike figure, the staring eyes, the open mouth, the white cheeks. The old man caught his coat.
“Martin, what was that? What did you say? ... No, no ... I can’t bear that now. I can’t, I can’t.”
He turned and made as though he would run up the stairs, catching about him like a child the shabby old dressing-gown that he was wearing. At the first step he stumbled, clutching the bannister to save himself.
Martin rushed to him, putting his arms round him, holding him close to him. “It’s all right, father ... It’s not true what you heard ... It’s all right.”
His father turned, putting his arms round his neck.
Martin half helped, half carried him up to his bedroom. He laid him on his bed and then, holding his hand, sat by his side all through the long dim afternoon.
About, five Warlock suddenly revived, sat up, arid with the assistance of Martin dressed properly, had some tea, and went down to his study. He sat down in his chair, then suddenly looking up at his son he said:
“Did you and Amy have a quarrel this afternoon?”
“No, father,” said Martin.
“That’s right. I thought — I thought ... I don’t know ... My head’s confused. You’ve been a good boy, Martin, haven’t you? There’s no need for me to worry, is there?”
“None, father,” Martin said.
After a while Martin said:
“Father, don’t go to Chapel to-night.”
Warlock smiled.
“I must go. That’s all right ... Nothing to worry about.”
For some while he sat there, Martin’s hand in his; Martin did not know whether he were asleep or not.
At about ten he ate and drank. At eleven he started with Amy and Thurston for the Chapel.
CHAPTER XI
THE CHARIOT OF FIRE
When Jane, scolded by Aunt Anne for an untidy appearance, gave notice and at once departed, Maggie felt as though the ground was giving way under her feet.
A week until the New Year, and no opportunity of hearing from Martin during that time. Then she laughed at herself:
“You’re losing your sense of proportion, my dear, over this. Laugh at yourself. What’s a week?”
She did laugh at herself, but she had not very much to base her laughter upon. Martin’s last letters had been short and very uneasy. She had already, in a surprising fashion for one so young, acquired a very wise and just estimate of Martin’s chara
cter.
“He’s only a boy,” she used to say to herself and feel his elder by at least twenty years. Nevertheless the thought of his struggling on there alone was not a happy one. She longed, even though she might not advise him, to comfort him. She was beginning to realise something of her own power over him and to see, too, the strange mixture of superstition and self-reproach and self-distrust that overwhelmed him when she was not with him. She had indeed her own need of struggle against superstition. Her aunts continued to treat her with a quiet distant severity. Aunt Elizabeth, she fancied, would like to have been kind to her, but she was entirely under the influence of her sister, and there, too, Maggie was generous enough to see that Aunt Anne behaved as she did rather from a stern sense of duty than any real unkindness. Aunt Anne could not feel unkindly; she was too far removed from human temper and discontent and weakness. Nevertheless she had been deeply shocked at the revelation of Maggie’s bad behaviour, and it was a shock from which, in all probability she would never recover.
“WE’LL never be friends again.” Maggie thought, watching her aunt’s austere composure from the other side of the dining-table. She was sad at the thought of that, remembering moments — that first visit to St. Dreot’s, the departure in the cab, the night when she had sat at her aunt’s bedside — that had given glimpses of the kind human creature Aunt Anne might have been had she never heard of the Inside Saints.
Maggie, during these last days, did everything that her aunts told her. She was as good and docile as she could be. But, oh! there were some dreary hours as she sat, alone, in that stuffy drawing-room, trying to sew, her heart aching with loneliness, her needle always doing the wrong thing, the clock heavily ticking, Thomas watching her from the mat in front of the fire, and the family group sneering at her from the wall-paper.
It was during these hours that superstitious terrors gained upon her. Could it be possible that all those women whom she had seen gathered together in Miss Avies’s room really expected God to come when the clock struck twelve on the last night of the year? It was like some old story of ghosts and witches that her nurse used to tell her when she was a little girl at St. Dreot’s. And yet, in that dark dreary room, almost anything seemed possible. After all, if there was a God, why should He not, one day, suddenly appear? And if He wished to spare certain of His servants, why should He not prepare them first before He came? There were things just as strange in the Old and New Testament. But if He did come, what would His Coming be like? Would every one be burnt to death or would they all be summoned before some judgment and punished for the wicked things they had done? Would her father perhaps return and give evidence against her? And poor Uncle Mathew, how would he fare with all his weaknesses? Her efforts at laughing at herself rescued her from some of the more incredible of these pictures. Nevertheless the uncertainty remained and only increased her loneliness. Had Martin been there in five minutes they would, together, have chased all these ghosts away. But he was not there. And at the thought of him she would have to set her mouth very firmly, indeed, to prevent her lips from trembling. She took out her ring and kissed it, and looked at the already tattered copy of the programme of the play to which they had been, and recalled every minute of their walks together.
Christmas Day was a very miserable affair. There were no presents and no festivities. They went to Chapel and Mr. Thurston preached the sermon. Maggie did, however, receive one letter. It was from Uncle Mathew. He wrote to her from some town in the north. He didn’t seem very happy, and asked her whether she could possibly lend him five pounds. Alluding with a characteristic vagueness to “business plans of the first importance that were likely to mature very shortly.”
She told Aunt Anne that she wanted five pounds of her money, but she did not say for what she needed them.
Aunt Anne gave her the money at once without a word — as though she said: “We have given up all control of you except to see that you behave decently whilst you are still with us.”
When the fog arrived it seemed to penetrate every nook and corner of the house. The daily afternoon walk that Maggie took with Aunt Elizabeth was cancelled because of the difficulty of finding one’s way from street to street and “because some rude man might steal one’s money in the darkness,” and Maggie was not sorry. Those walks had not been amusing, Aunt Elizabeth having nothing to say and being fully occupied with keeping an eye on Maggie, her idea apparently being that the girl would suddenly dash off to freedom and wickedness and be lost for ever. Maggie had no such intention and developed during these weeks a queer motherly affection for both the aunts, so lost they were and helpless and ignorant of the world! “My dear,” said Maggie to herself, “you’re a bit of a fool as far as common-sense goes, but you’re nothing to what they are, poor dears.” She tried to improve herself in every way for their benefit, but her memory was no better. She forgot all the things that were, in their eyes, the most important — closing doors, punctuality for meals, neat stitches, careful putting away of books and clothes.
Once, during a walk, she said to Aunt Elizabeth:
“I am trying, Aunt Elizabeth. Do you think Aunt Anne sees any improvement?”
And all Aunt Elizabeth said was:
“It was a great shock to her, what you did. Maggie — a great shock indeed!”
When the last day of the year arrived Maggie was surprised at the strange excitement that she felt. It was excitement, not only because of the dim mysterious events that the evening promised, but also because she was sure that this day would settle the loneliness of herself and Martin. After this they would know where they stood and what they must do. Old Warlock loomed in front of her as the very arbiter of her destiny. On his action everything turned. Oh! if only after this he were well enough for Martin to be happy and at ease about him! She was tempted to hate him as she thought of all the trouble that he had made for her. Then her mind went back to that first day long ago when he had spoken to her so kindly and bidden her come and see him as often as she could. How little she had known then what the future held for her! And now around his tall mysterious figure not only her own fate but that of every one else seemed to hang. Her aunts, Amy, Miss Pyncheon, Miss Avies, Thurston, that strange girl at the meeting, with them all his destiny was involved and they with his.
As the day advanced and the silver fog blew in little gusts about the house, making now this corner now that obscure, drifting, so that suddenly, when the door opened, the whole passage seemed full of smoke, clearing, for a moment, in the street below, showing lamp-posts and pavements and windows, and then blowing down again and once more hiding the world, she felt, in spite of herself, that she was playing a part in some malignant dream. “It can’t be like this really,” she told herself. “If I were to go to tea now with Mrs. Mark and sit in her pretty drawing-room and talk to that clergyman I wouldn’t believe a word of it.” And yet it was true enough, her share in it. As the afternoon advanced her sensations were very similar to those that she had had when about to visit the St. Dreot’s dentist, a fearsome man with red hair and hands like a dog’s paws. She saw him now standing over her as she sat trembling in the chair, a miserable little figure in a short untidy frock. She used to repeat to herself then what Uncle Mathew had once told her: “This time next year you’ll have forgotten all about this,” but when it was a question of facing the immensities of the Last Day that consolation was strangely inapt. It was dusk very early and she longed for Martha to bring the lamp.
At last it came and tea and Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Anne had not appeared all day. Then long dreary hours followed until supper, and after that hours again until ten o’clock.
She had not been certain, all this time, whether the aunts meant to take her to the service with them. She had supposed that her introduction to the meeting at Miss Avies’s meant that they intended to include her in this too, but now, as the evening advanced, in a fit of nervous terror she prayed within herself that they would not take her. If the end of the world were coming she wo
uld like to meet it in her bed. To go out into those streets and that ugly unfriendly Chapel was a horrible thing to do. If this were to be the end of the world how she did wish that she might have been allowed to know nothing about it. And those others — Miss Pyncheon and the rest who devoutly believed in the event — how were they passing these last hours?
“Oh, it isn’t true! It can’t be true!” she said to herself. “It’s a shame to frighten them so!”
By eleven o’clock the excitement of the day had wearied her so that she fell fast asleep in the arm-chair beside the fire. She woke to find Aunt Anne standing over her.
“It’s a quarter past eleven. It’s time to put on your things,” she said. So she was to go! She rose and, in spite of herself, her limbs were trembling and her teeth chattered. To her surprise Aunt Anne bent forward and kissed her on the forehead.
“Maggie,” she said, “if I’ve been harsh to you during these weeks I’m sorry. I’ve done what I thought my duty, but I wouldn’t wish on this night that we should have any unkindness in our hearts towards one another.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Maggie said awkwardly.
She went up to put on her things; then the three of them went out into the dark foggy street together.
Because it was New Year’s Eve there were many people about, voices laughing and shouting through the mist and then some one running with a flaring light, then some men walking singing in chorus. The aunts said nothing as they went. Maggie’s thoughts were given now to wondering whether Martin would be there. She tied her mind to that, but behind it was the irritating knowledge that her teeth were chattering and her knees trembling and that she did not maintain her courage as a Cardinal should.
As they entered the Chapel the hoarse ugly clock over the door grunted out half-past eleven. The Chapel seemed on Maggie’s entering it to be half in darkness, there was a thin splutter of gas over the reading-desk at the far end and some more light by the door, but the centre of the building was a shadowy pool. Only a few were present, gathered together in the middle seats below the desk, perhaps in all a hundred persons. Of these three-quarters were women. The aunts and Maggie went into their accustomed seat some six rows from the front. When Maggie rose from her knees and looked about her she recognised at once that only the Inside Saints were here.