Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  The close room, with its smell of medicines and eau-de-Cologne and its strange breathless hush, frightened her just as it had done once before. She saw again the religious picture, the bleeding Christ and the crucifix, the high white bed, the dim windows and the little table with the bottles and the glasses. It was all as it had been before. Her terror grew. She felt as though no power could drag her to that bed. Something lurked there, something horrible and unclean, that would spring upon her and hold her down with its claws ...

  “Maggie!” said the clear faint voice that she knew so well. Her terror left her. She did not notice Aunt Elizabeth, who was seated close to the bed, nor Mr. Magnus, nor the nurse, nor the doctor. She went forward unafraid.

  “Doctor, would you mind ...” the voice went on. “Three minutes alone with my niece ...” The doctor, a stout red-faced man, said something, the figures, all shadowy in the dim light, withdrew.

  Maggie was aware of nothing except that there was something of the utmost urgency that she must say. She came close to the bed, found a chair there, sat down and bent forward. There her aunt was lying, the black hair in a dark shadow across the pillow, the face white and sharp, and the eyes burning with a fierce far-seeing light.

  They had the intense gaze of a blind man to whom sight has suddenly been given: he cries “I see! I see!” stretching out his arms towards the sun, the trees, the rich green fields. She turned her head and put both her hands about Maggie’s; she smiled.

  Maggie said, “Oh, Aunt Anne, do you feel bad?”

  “No dear. I’m in no pain at all. Now that you’ve come I’m quite happy. It was my one anxiety.” Her voice was very faint, so that Maggie had to lean forward to catch the words.

  “You’ll have thought me unkind all this time,” said Maggie, “not to have come, but it hasn’t been unkindness. Many times I’ve wanted, but there seemed to be so much to do that it wasn’t RIGHT to come away.”

  “Are you happy, dear?” Aunt Anne said in her ghostly whisper.

  “Very, very happy,” said Maggie, remembering what Mr. Magnus had said to her.

  Aunt Anne sighed. “Ah, that’s good. It was my one worry that you mightn’t be happy. I was all wrong about you, Maggie, trying to push you my way instead of letting you go your own. I should have waited for God to show His direction. But I was impatient — and if you were unhappy—” She broke off and for a moment Maggie thought that she would speak no more. She lay there, with her eyes closed, like a waxen image.

  She went on again: “I’ve always loved you, Maggie, from the very first, but I was so impatient for you to come to God. I thought He would reveal Himself and you not be ready. He did reveal Himself, but not as I had thought. He came that night and took Mr. Warlock with Him — that was true, Maggie, that night. All true — All true. God will show you His way. It will be revealed to you. Heaven and its glories. God and His dear Son ...”

  She stopped again and lay with her eyes closed.

  Maggie timidly, at last, said:

  “Aunt Anne, I want you to forgive me for all my wickedness. I didn’t mean to be wicked, but I just couldn’t say my feelings out loud. I was shy of them somehow. I still am, perhaps. Maybe I always will be. But I just want to say that I know now how good you were to me all that time and I’m grateful from my heart.”

  “You’ll get better won’t you, Aunt Anne, and then I’ll come often? I’m shy to say my feelings, but I love you. Aunt Anne, for what you’ve been to me.”

  She stopped. There was a deathly stillness in the chamber. The lamp had sunk low and the fire was a gold cavern. Dusk stole on stealthy feet from wall to wall. Aunt Anne did not, it seemed, breathe. Her hands had dropped from Maggie’s and her arms lay straight upon the sheet. Her eyes were closed.

  Suddenly she whispered:

  “Dear Maggie ... Maggie ... My Lord and my God ... My Master ...”

  Then very faintly: “The Lord is my Shepherd ... My Shepherd ... He shall lead me forth ... beside the pastures ... my rod and my staff ... The Lord ...”

  She gave a little sigh and her head rolled to one side.

  Maggie, with a startled fear, was suddenly conscious that she was alone in the room. She went to the door and called for the doctor. As they gathered about the bed the caverns of the fire fell with the sharp sound of a closing door.

  Next morning Maggie wrote to Paul telling him that her aunt was dead, that the funeral would be in two days’ time, and that she would stay in London until that was over. She had not very much time just then to think of the house and the dead woman in it, because on the breakfast-table there was this letter for her.

  23 CROMWELL RD., KENSINGTON, March 12, 1912.

  DEAR MRS. TRENCHARD,

  I hear that you have come to London to visit your aunt. I have been hoping for some time past to have an opportunity of seeing you. I am sure that you will have no wish at all to see me; at the same time I do beg you to give me half an hour at the above address. Five o’clock to-morrow would be a good time. Please ask for Miss Warlock.

  Believe me, Yours faithfully, AMY WARLOCK.

  Maggie stared at the signature, then, with a thickly beating heart, decided that of course she would go. She was not afraid but — Martin’s sister! What would come of it? The house was strangely silent; Aunt Elizabeth sniffed into her handkerchief a good deal; Mr. Magnus, his face strained with a look of intense fatigue, went out about some business. The blinds of the house wore down and all the rooms were bathed in a green twilight.

  About quarter past four Maggie went down into the Strand and found a cab. She gave the address and off they went. Sitting in the corner of the cab she seemed to be an entirely passive spectator of events that were being played before her. She knew, remotely, that Aunt Anne’s death had deeply affected her, that coming back to the old house had deeply affected her, and that this interview with Amy Warlock might simply fasten on her the fate that she had for many months now seen in front of her. She could not escape; and she did not want to escape.

  They found the house, a very grimy looking one, in the interminable Cromwell Road. Maggie rang a jangling bell, and the door was ultimately opened by a woman with sleeves turned up at the elbows and a dirty apron.

  “Is Miss Warlock at home?” The woman sniffed.

  “I expect so,” she said. “Most times she is. What name?”

  “Mrs. Trenchard,” Maggie said.

  She was admitted into a hall that smelt of food and seemed in the half-light to be full of umbrellas. The woman went upstairs, but soon returned to say that Miss Warlock would see the lady. Maggie found that in the sitting-room the gas was dimly burning. There was the usual lodging-house furniture, and on a faded red sofa near the fire old Mrs. Warlock was lying. Maggie could not see her very clearly in the half-light, but there was something about her immobility and the stiffness of her head (decorated as of old with its frilly white cap) that reminded one of a figure made out of wax. Maggie turned to find Amy Warlock standing close to her.

  “Mrs. Thurston—” Maggie began, hesitating.

  “You may not know,” said Amy Warlock, “that I have retained my maiden name. Sit down, won’t you? It is good of you to have come.”

  The voice was a little more genial than it had been in the old days. Nevertheless this was still the old Amy Warlock, stiff, masculine, impenetrable.

  “I hope your aunt is better,” she said.

  “My aunt is dead,” answered Maggie.

  “Dear me, I’m sorry to hear that. She was a good woman and did many kind actions in her time.”

  There was something very unpleasant about that room, with the yellow light, the hissing gas, and the immobile figure on the sofa. Maggie looked in the direction of old Mrs. Warlock.

  “You needn’t mind mother,” said Amy Warlock. “For some time now she’s been completely paralysed. She can’t speak or move. But she likes to be downstairs, to see the world a bit. It’s sad after the way that she used to enjoy life. Father’s death was a great sh
ock to her.”

  It was sad. Maggie remembered how fond she had been of her food. Like a waxen image! Like a waxen image! The whole room was ghoulish and unnatural.

  “I’ve asked you to come and see me, Mrs. Trenchard,” continued Miss Warlock, “not because we can have any wish to meet, I am sure. We have never liked one another. But I have something on my conscience, and I may not have another opportunity of speaking to you. I don’t suppose you have heard that very shortly I intend to enter a nunnery at Roehampton.”

  “And your mother?” asked Maggie.

  “Mother will go into a Home,” answered Miss Warlock.

  There was a strange little sound from the sofa like a rat nibbling behind the wainscot.

  “I must tell you,” said Miss Warlock, speaking apparently with some difficulty, “that I have done you a wrong. Shortly after my father’s death my brother wrote to you from Paris.”

  “Wrote to me?” repeated Maggie.

  “Yes — wrote to you through me. I destroyed the letters. He wrote then five times in rather swift succession. I destroyed all the letters.”

  Maggie said nothing.

  “I destroyed the letters,” continued Amy Warlock, “because I did not wish you and my brother to come together. I did not wish you to, simply out of hatred for you both. I thought that my brother killed my father — whom — whom — I loved. I knew that the one human being whom Martin had ever loved beside his father was yourself. He did love you, Mrs. Trenchard, more truly than I had believed it in his power to love any one. I think you could have made him happy — therefore I did not wish you to meet again.”

  There was a pause. Maggie said at last:

  “Were there no other letters?”

  “Yes,” said Miss Warlock. “One this summer. For more than a year there was nothing; then this summer, a little one. I destroyed that too.”

  “What did it say?” asked Maggie.

  “It said that the woman to whom he had been married was dead. He said that if you didn’t answer this letter he would understand that you would not want to hear from him any more. He had been very ill.”

  “Where did he write that?”

  “In Paris.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. I have heard from him no more.”

  Maggie got up and stood, her head raised as though listening for something.

  “You’ve been very cruel, Miss Warlock,” she said.

  “Perhaps I have,” said Miss Warlock. “But you cannot judge until you know with what reason I hated my brother. It is a very old story. However, now I hate no one. I will not apologise for what I have done. I do not want your forgiveness. I had to absolve my conscience.”

  “And you have no idea where he is now?”

  “I have no idea. He may be dead for all I know.”

  Maggie shivered. “If you have any more information you will give it me?”

  “I will give it you.”

  “This is my address.” Maggie gave her a card.

  They said good-day, looking for one moment, face to face, eye to eye.

  Then Maggie turned and went. Her eyes were dim so that she stumbled on the stairs. In the street she walked, caring nothing of her direction, seeing only Martin.

  CHAPTER VIII

  DEATH OF UNCLE MATHEW

  Grace, during the days that Maggie was in London, regained something of her old tranquillity. It was wonderful to her to be able to potter about the house once more mistress of all that she surveyed and protected from every watching eye. She had had, from her very earliest years, a horror of being what she called “overlooked.”

  She had a habit of stopping, when she had climbed halfway upstairs, of suddenly jerking her head round to see whether any one were looking at her. You would have sworn, had you seen her, that she was deeply engaged upon some nefarious and underhand plot; yet it was not so-she was simply going to dust some of her hideous china treasures in her bedroom.

  Always after breakfast there was this pleasant ritual. She would plod all round the house, duster in hand, picking things up, giving them a little flick and putting them back again, patting treasures that she especially loved, sighing heavily with satisfaction at the pleasant sight of all her possessions tranquilly in their right places. As she looked around the ugly sitting-room and saw the red glazed pots with the ferns, the faded football-groups, the worsted mats and the china shepherdesses, a rich warm feeling rose in her heart and filled her whole body. It was like a fine meal to a hungry man: every morning at half-past nine she was hungry in this fashion, and every morning by eleven o’clock she was satisfied. Her thick body thus promenaded the house; she was like a stolid policeman in female attire, going his rounds to see that all was well. From room to room she went, pausing to pant for breath on the stairs, stumbling always because of her short sight at the three dark little steps just outside Paul’s bedroom, always sitting down on her bed “to take a breath” and to get a full gaze at the crucifix of bright yellow wood, that hung just under her mother’s picture. Tramp, tramp, tramp round the house she went.

  It was incredible how deeply Maggie had interfered with this ritual. She had certainly not intended to do so. After that first effort to change certain things in the house she had retired from the battle, had completely capitulated. Nevertheless she had interfered with all Grace’s movements and, as the terror of her grew, it seemed to pervade every nook and corner of the house, so that Grace felt that she could go nowhere without that invasion. Oh, how she resented it, and how afraid she was! After Paul and Maggie returned from that summer holiday she saw that Paul too felt Maggie’s strangeness. To Grace, from the beginning of that autumn, every movement and gesture of Maggie’s was strange. The oddity of her appearance, her ignorance of everything that seemed to Grace to be life, her strange, half-mocking, half-wondering attitude to the Church and its affairs (“like a heathen in Central Africa”), her dislike of the Maxses and the Pynsents and her liking for the Toms and Caroline Purdie, her odd silences and still odder speeches, all these things increased the atmosphere that separated her from the rest of the world.

  Then came the day when Grace, dusting in Maggie’s bedroom, discovered the bundle of letters. She read them, read them with shame at her own dishonesty and anger at Maggie for making her dishonest. To her virgin ignorance the passion in them spoke of illicit love and the grossest immorality. Her heart burnt with a strange mingling of envy, jealousy, loneliness, shame, and eagerness to know more ...

  Then came Uncle Mathew’s visit; then Caroline Purdie’s disgrace. The count was fully charged. Maggie, that strange girl found in the heart of London’s darkness, alone, without friends or parents, was a witch, a devilish, potion-dealing witch, who might, at any time, fly through the night-sky on a broom-stick as surely as any mediaeval old hag. These visions might be exaggerated for many human beings, not so for Grace. Having no imagination she was soaked in superstition. She clung to a few simple pictures, and was exposed to every terror that those pictures could supply.

  Maggie now haunted her day and night. Everywhere she could feel Maggie’s eyes piercing her. A thousand times an hour she looked up to see whether Maggie were not there in the room watching her. She hated her now with terror that was partly fear for her own safety, partly love and jealousy for Paul, partly outraged modesty and tradition, partly sheer panic.

  She had, as yet, said very little to Paul. She waited the right moment. Maggie’s absence showed her how deep and devastating this fear had been. She saw that it embraced the whole life of Paul and herself in Skeaton. She had grown fond of Skeaton; she was a woman who would inevitably care for anything when she had become thoroughly accustomed to its ways and was assured that it would do her no harm.

  She liked the shops and the woods, the sand and the sea. Above all, she adored the Church. During a large part of every day she was there, pottering about, talking to the caretaker, poking her nose into the hymn-books to see whether the choir-boys had drawn
pictures in them, rubbing the brasses, making tidy the vestry. The house too she loved, and the garden and the bottles on the wall. She might have known that she was not popular in the place, she cannot have failed to realise that she had no woman friend and that she was seldom invited to dinner. This did not matter to her. Her affections — and they were very real and genuine — were all for her brother. Had she Paul she wanted no one else. That was enough.

  And now it might be that they would have to leave the place. Already the talk about Maggie was intolerable. Grace heard it on every side. After Mathew Cardinal’s visit the talk rose to a shriek. Grace knew that those sudden silences on her entrance into the room meant lively and excited discussion. “How terrible for the poor rector!” “Such an odd girl — taken out of the slums.” “Yes, quite drunk. He knocked Mrs. Maxse down.” “Oh I assure you that she went to see Caroline Purdie the very day after. She did indeed ...”

  Yes. Grace knew all about it. Unless things changed Paul would have to go. His life was ruined by this girl.

  Nevertheless for a whole happy week the world seemed to sink back into its old accustomed apathy. The very house seemed to take on its old atmosphere. Paul came out of his study and went about paying calls. That hour, from six to seven, when he was at home to his parishioners seemed once again to be crowded with anxious old women and men out of work and girls in trouble. He took Grace with him on his rounds. Every one was very friendly. Grace was able to reassume some of her old importance.

  Her old flow of conversation — checked recently by the sense of Maggie’s strangeness — returned to her. In the morning she would stand by her brother’s study-table, duster in hand, and pour out her heart.

  “You know, Paul, it’s all very well, you may say what you like, but if Mrs. Maxse thinks she’s going to have the whole of that second pew she’s mistaken. It’s only for a week or two that she’s got the Broadbents staying with her, and I know what she’s after. Just fancy! What she wants is to put the Broadbents in that second seat the two Sundays they’re here and then stick to it after they’re gone. Just fancy what Miss Beats and Miss Hopwood will feel about it! What I mean is that they’ve had that seat for nearly eight years and now to be turned out! But I assure you, Paul, from what Linda Maxse said to me yesterday I believe she intends that, I do indeed. She thinks Miss Beats and Miss Hopwood will get used to sitting somewhere else after two Sundays. ‘I’m sure they won’t mind — poor old things,’ she said only yesterday. ‘Poor old things.’ Just fancy! Why, Mary Beats is very little older than I. You’ll have to put your foot down about it, you will, indeed, Paul. Yes, you will. Give Linda Maxse an inch and she takes a mile, I always said — and this is just the kind of thing ...”