by Hugh Walpole
He laughed his little chuckling laugh. “But we beat them, didn’t we, Dorothy? Yes, we did — and here we are! Now, you tell us your history.”
Miss Toms had been watching Maggie’s face intently while her brother spoke, and the clear steady candour of Maggie’s eyes and her calm acceptance of all that the little man said must have been reassuring.
“Now. Jim,” she said, “don’t bother Mrs. Trenchard. You can’t expect her to tell us her history when she’s calling for the first time.”
“Why not expect me to?” said Maggie. “I’ve got no history. I lived in Glebeshire most of my life with my father, who was a clergyman. Then he died and I lived with two aunts in London. Then I met Paul and he married me, and here I am!”
“That’s not history,” said Mr. Toms a little impatiently. “However, I won’t bother you now. You’re only a child, I see. And I’m very glad to see it. I don’t like grown up people.”
“How do you like Skeaton?” asked Miss Toms, speaking more graciously than she had done.
“Oh I shall like it, I expect,” said Maggie. “At least I shall like the people. I don’t think I shall ever like the place — the sand blows about, and I don’t like the woods.”
“Yes, they’re greasy, aren’t they?” said Mr. Toms, “and full of little flies. And the trees are dark and never cool—”
They talked a little while longer, and then Maggie got up to say good-bye. When she took Mr. Tom’s hand and felt his warm confident pressure, and saw his large trusting eyes looking into hers, she felt a warmth of friendliness, also it seemed to her that she had known him all her life.
Miss Toms came with her to the door. They looked out into the dark. The sea rustled close at hand, far on the horizon a red light was burning as though it were a great fire. They could hear the wave break on the beach and sigh in the darkness as it withdrew.
“I shall come again,” said Maggie.
“Don’t you be too sure,” said Miss Toms. “We shall quite understand if you don’t come, and we shan’t think the worse of you. Public opinion here is very strong. They don’t want to be unkind to Jim, but they think he ought to be shut up ...Shut up!” Maggie could feel that she was quivering. “Shut up!”
Maggie tossed her head.
“Anyway, they haven’t shut me up yet,” she said.
“Well — good-night,” said Miss Toms, after a little pause in which she appeared to be struggling to say more.
She told Grace and Paul at supper that night that she had been to see the Toms. She saw Grace struggling not to show her disapproval and thought it was nice of her.
“Do you really think — ?” said Grace. “Oh, perhaps, after all—”
“Paul,” said Maggie, “do you not want me to see the Toms?”
Paul was distressed.
“No, it isn’t that ...Miss Toms is a very nice woman. Only—”
“You think it’s not natural of me to take an interest in some one who’s a little off his head like Mr. Toms.”
“Well, dear, perhaps there is something—”
Maggie laughed. “I’m a little off my head too. Oh! you needn’t look so shocked, Grace. You know you think it, and every one else here thinks it too. Now, Grace, confess. You’re beginning to be horrified that Paul married me.”
“Please, Maggie—” said Paul, who hated scenes. Grace was always flushed by a direct attack. Her eyes gazed in despair about her while she plunged about in her mind.
“Maggie, you mustn’t say such things — no, you mustn’t. Of course it’s true that you’ve got more to learn than I thought. You ARE careless, dear, aren’t you? You remember yesterday that you promised to look in at Pettits and get a reel of cotton, and then of course Mr. Toms is a good little man — every one says so — but at the same time he’s QUEER, you must admit that, Maggie; indeed it wasn’t really very long ago that he asked Mrs. Maxse in the High Street to take all her clothes off so that he could see what she was really made of. Now, that ISN’T nice, Maggie, it’s odd — you can’t deny it. And if you’d only told me that you hadn’t been to Pettits I could have gone later myself.”
“If it isn’t one thing,” said Maggie, “it’s another. I may be a child and careless, and not be educated, and have strange ideas, but if you thought, Grace, that it was going to be just the same after Paul was married as before you were mistaken. Three’s a difficult number to manage, you know.”
“Oh, if you mean,” said Grace, crimsoning, “that I’m better away, that I should live somewhere else, please say so openly. I hate this hinting. What I mean to say is I can leave to-morrow.”
“My dear Grace,” said Paul hurriedly, “whoever thought such a thing? We couldn’t get on without you. All that Maggie meant was that it takes time to settle down. So it does.”
“That isn’t all I meant,” said Maggie slowly. “I meant that I’m not just a child as you both think. I’ve got a life of my own and ideas of my own. I’ll give way to you both in lots of things so long as it makes you happy, but you’re not — you’re not going to shut me up as you’d like to do to Mr. Toms.”
Perhaps both Grace and Paul had a sharp troubling impression of having caught some strange creature against their will. Maggie had risen from the table and stood for the moment by the door facing them, her short hair, standing thick about her head, contrasting with her thick white neck, her body balanced clumsily but with great strength, like that of a boy who has not yet grown to his full maturity. She tossed her head back in a way that she had and was gone.
The Caroline affair was of another sort. Some days after Christmas, Maggie went to have tea with Caroline. She did not enjoy it at all. She felt at once that there was something wrong with the house. It was full of paintings in big gold frames, looking-glasses, and marble statues, and there was a large garden that had an artificial look of having been painted by some clever artist in the course of a night. Maggie did not pay a long visit. There were a number of men present; there was also a gramophone, and after tea they turned up the carpet in the dining-room and danced.
Caroline, in spite of her noise and laughter, did not seem to Maggie to be happy. She introduced her for a moment to the master of the house, a stout red-faced man who looked as though he had lost something very precious, but was too sleepy to search for it. He called Caroline “Sweet,” and she treated him with patronage and contempt. Maggie came away distressed, and she was not surprised to hear, a day or two later, from Grace that Mrs. Purdie was “fast” and had been rude to Mrs. Constantine.
One day early in the spring Grace announced that Maggie ought not to go and see Mrs. Purdie any more. “There are all sorts of stories,” said Grace. “People say — Oh, well, never mind. They have dancing on Sunday.”
“But she’s an old friend of mine,” said Maggie.
“You have others to think of beside yourself, Maggie,” said Grace. “And there is the Church.”
“She’s an old friend of mine,” repeated Maggie, her mouth set obstinately.
“I will ask Paul what he thinks,” said Grace.
“Please,” said Maggie, her colour rising into her cheeks, “don’t interfere between Paul and me. I’ll speak to him myself.”
She did. Paul maintained the attitude of indifference that he had adopted during the last six months.
“But would you rather I didn’t go?” asked Maggie, aggravated.
“You must use your judgment,” said Paul.
“But don’t you see that I can’t leave a friend just because people are saying nasty things.”
“There’s your position in the parish,” said Paul.
“Oh, Paul!” Maggie cried. “Don’t be so aggravating! Just say what you really think.”
“I’m sorry I’m aggravating,” said Paul patiently.
It was this conversation that determined Maggie. She had been coming, through all the winter months, to a resolution. She must be alone with Paul, she must have things out with him. As the months had gone they had be
en slipping further and further apart. It had been Paul who had gradually withdrawn into himself. He had been kind and thoughtful but reserved, shy, embarrassed. She understood his trouble, but at her first attempt to force him to speak he escaped and placed Grace between them. Well, this summer should see the end of that. They must know where they stood, and for that they must be alone ...
One day, early in June, Paul announced that he thought of exchanging duties, for the month of August, with a Wiltshire clergyman. This was Maggie’s opportunity. Finding him alone in his study, she attacked.
“Paul, did you mean Grace to come with us to Little Harben in August?”
“Of course, dear. She has nowhere else to go.”
“Well, she mustn’t come. I’ve given way about everything since we were married. I’m not going to give way about this. That month we are to be alone.”
“Alone!” said Paul. “But we’re always alone.”
“We’re never alone,” said Maggie, standing with her legs apart and her hands behind her back. “I don’t mean to complain about Grace. She’s been very good to me, I know, and I’ve got much to be grateful for. All the same she’s not coming to Little Harben. She’s got you all the rest of the year. She can give you up for a month.”
“But Maggie—” said Paul.
“No, I’m quite determined about this. I may be a child and a fool, but I know what I’m talking about this time. You’re not happy. You never talk to me as you used to. There are many things we ought to have out, but Grace is always there in the daytime and at night you’re too tired. If we go on like this we’ll be strangers in another six months.”
He turned round to stare at her, and she saw in his eyes an odd excited light.
“Maggie,” he said in a low voice. “If we go alone to Little Harben does it mean that you think — you can begin to love me?”
She turned her eyes away. “I don’t know. I don’t know about myself, I only know that I want us to be happy and I want us to be close together — as we were before we were married. It’s all gone wrong somehow; I’m sure it’s my fault. It was just the same with my father and my aunts. I couldn’t say the things to them I wanted to, the things I really felt, and so I lost them. I’m going to lose you in the same way if I’m not careful.”
He still looked at her strangely. At last, with a sigh, he turned back to his desk.
“I’ll speak to Grace,” he said. That night the storm broke.
During supper Grace was very quiet. Maggie, watching her, knew that Paul had spoken to her. Afterwards in the study the atmosphere was electric. Grace read The Church Times, Paul the Standard, Maggie Longfellow’s Golden Legend, which she thought foolish.
Grace looked up. “So I understand, Maggie, that you don’t want me to come with you and Paul this summer?”
Maggie, her heart, in spite of herself, thumping in her breast, faced a Grace transfigured by emotion. That countenance, heavily, flabbily good-natured, the eyes if stupid, also kind, was now marked and riven with a flaming anger.
But Maggie was no coward. With her old gesture of self-command she stilled her heart. “I’m very sorry, Grace,” she said. “But it’s only for a month. I want to be alone with Paul.”
Grace, her hands fumbling on the arms of her chair as though she were blind, rose.
“You’ve hated my being here, Maggie ... all this time I’ve seen it. You’ve hated me. You don’t know that you owe everything to me, that you couldn’t have managed the house, the shops, the servants — nothing, nothing. This last year I’ve worked my fingers to the bone for you and Paul. What do you think I get out of it? Nothing. It’s because I love Paul ... because I love Paul. But you’ve hated my doing things better than you, you’ve wanted me to fail, you’ve been jealous, that’s what you’ve been. Very well, then, I’ll go. You’ve made that plain enough at any rate. I’ll leave to-morrow. I won’t wait another hour. And I’ll never forgive you for this — never. You’ve taken Paul away from me ... all I’ve ever had. I’ll never forgive you — never, never, never.”
“Grace, Grace,” cried Paul.
But she rushed from the room.
Maggie looked at her husband.
“Why, Paul,” she said, “you’re frightened. Grace doesn’t mean it. She won’t go to-morrow — or ever. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”
His red cheeks were pale. His hands trembled.
“I do so hate quarrels,” he said.
Maggie went up to him and rather timidly put her hand on his arm.
“We’ll have a lovely time at Harben,” she said. “Oh, I do want you to be happy, Paul.”
CHAPTER VI
THE BATTLE OF SKEATON
SECOND YEAR
Strangely enough Maggie felt happier after this disturbance. Grace, in the weeks that followed, was an interesting confusion of silent and offended dignity and sudden capitulations because she had some news of fussing interest that she must impart. Nevertheless she was deeply hurt. She was as tenacious of her grievances as a limpet is of its rock, and she had never been so severely wounded before. Maggie, on her side, liked Grace better after the quarrel. She had never really disliked her, she had only been irritated by her.
She thought it very natural of her to be angry and jealous about Paul. She was determined that this month at Little Harben should put everything right. Looking back over these past years she blamed herself severely. She had been proud, self-centred, unfeeling. She remembered that day so long ago at St. Dreot’s when Aunt Anne had appealed for her affection and she had made no reply. There had been many days, too, in London when she had been rebellious and hard. She thought of that night when Aunt Anne had suffered so terribly and she had wanted only her own escape. Yes — hard and unselfish that was what she had been, and she had been punished by losing Martin.
Already here, just as before in London, she was complaining and angry, and unsympathetic. She did care for Paul — she could even love Grace if she would let her. She would make everything right this summer and try and be a better, kinder woman.
Then, one morning, she found a letter on the breakfast table. She did not recognise the handwriting; when she opened it and saw the signature at the end for a moment she also did not recognise that. “William Magnus.” ... Then — why, of course! Mr. Magnus! She saw him standing looking down at her with his mild eyes, staring through his large spectacles.
Her heart beat furiously. She waited until breakfast was over, then she took it up to her bedroom.
The letter was as follows:
Dear Miss Maggie,
I know you are not “Miss Maggie” now, but that is the only way that I can think of you. I expect that you have quite forgotten me, and perhaps you don’t want to hear from me, but I must not lose sight of you altogether. I haven’t so many friends that I can lose one without a word. I don’t know quite what to begin by telling you. I ought to ask you questions about yourself, I suppose, but I know that your aunts hear from you from time to time and they give me news from your letters. I hear that you are happily married and are quite settled down to your new life. I’m very glad to hear that, although it isn’t quite the life that I would have prophesied for you. Do you like Skeaton? I’ve never cared much for seaside resorts myself, but then I’m a queer cranky old man, and I deserve all I get. I wish I could tell you something cheerful about all your friends here, but I’m afraid I can’t. Your aunt is so brave and plucky that probably she said nothing to you in her last letter about how ill she has been, but she’s just had a very bad bout, and at one time we were afraid that we were going to lose her. You can imagine how anxious we all were. But she is better again now, although very much shattered. The Chapel is closed. There’s a piece of news for you! It never recovered from poor Warlock’s death; he was the spirit that gave it life, and although he may have had his dreams and imaginations that deceived him, there was some life in that building that I have never found anywhere else and shall never find again. You remember that Amy Warlock
married that scamp Thurston. Well, she has left him and has come back to live with her mother. She had a rather bad experience, I’m afraid, poor woman, but she says nothing to any one about it. She and the old lady have moved from this part of London and have gone to live somewhere in Kensington. Some one saw Martin Warlock in Paris the other day. I hear that he has been very seriously ill and is greatly changed, looking years older. I can say, now that you are happily married, that I am greatly relieved that you were not engaged to him. You won’t think this presumptuous of a man old enough to be your father, will you? I am sure he had many good things in him, but he was very weak and not fitted to look after you. But he had a good heart, I’m sure, and his father’s death was a great shock to him. Thurston, I hear, is having revival meetings up and down the country. Miss Avies, I believe, is with him. You remember Miss Pyncheon? She and many other regular attendants at the Chapel have left this neighbourhood. The Chapel is to be a cinematograph theatre, I believe. There! I have given you all the gossip. I have not said more about your aunts because I want you to come up one day to London, when you have time, and see them. You will do that, won’t you? I expect you are very busy — I hope you are. I would like to have a line from you, but please don’t bother if you have too much to do.
Always your friend,
WILLIAM MAGNUS.
When Maggie saw Martin’s name the other writing on the page transformed itself suddenly into a strange pattern of webs and squares. Nevertheless she pursued her way through this, but without her own agency, as though some outside person were reading to her and she was not listening.
She repeated the last words “Always your friend, William Magnus” aloud solemnly twice. Her thoughts ran in leaps and runs, hurdle-race-wise across the flat level of her brain. Martin. Old. Ill. Paris. Those walls out there and the road-man with a spade — little boy walking with him — chattering — it’s going to be hot. The light across the lawn is almost blue and the beds are dry. His room. The looking-glass. Always tilts back when one tries to see one’s hair. Meant to speak about it. Martin. Ill. Paris. Paris. Trains. Boats. How quickly could one be there? No time at all. Paris. Never been to Paris. Perhaps he isn’t there now ...