by Hugh Walpole
Henry, half-stunned, lay, his leg crushed under him, his eyes closed, and waited for the end. Duncombe now could do what he liked to him, and what he liked would be something horrible. But Duncombe also, it seemed, could not stir, but lay there all over Henry, heaving up and down, the sweat from his cheek and forehead trickling into Henry’s eyes, his breath coming in great desperate pants.
Then from a long way off came a voice:
“Tom — Trenchard. What the devil!” That voice seemed to electrify Duncombe. Henry felt the whole body quiver, stiffen for a moment, then slowly, very slowly raise itself.
Henry stumbled up and saw Sir Charles, not regarding him at all, but fixing his eyes only upon his brother, who stood, his hair on end, his shirt torn and exposing a red, hairy chest, wrath in his eyes, his mouth trembling with anger and also with some other emotion.
“What have you been doing, Tom?”
“This damned — —” then to Henry’s immense surprise he broke off and left the room almost at a run.
Sir Charles went straight to his table, looked at the papers, glanced at the drawers, then finally at the key, which was still on the hook.
His voice, when he spoke, was that of the saddest, loneliest, most miserable of men.
“You’d better go and clean up, Henry,” he said, pointing to the farther room.
He had never called him Henry before.
CHAPTER IV
THE CAULDRON
But the day had not finished with Henry yet.
When he had washed and tidied himself he discovered to his great relief that his pince-nez were not broken, and that only one button (and that an unimportant one) was torn from his trousers, and he departed. Sir Charles asked him no questions, but only sat there at his table, staring at his paper with a fixed look of melancholy absorption that Henry dared not break. As no questions were asked Henry offered no explanations. He was very glad that he had not to offer any. He simply said, “Good afternoon, sir,” and went. He was half expecting that Tom Duncombe would be hiding behind some pillar in the hall, and would spring out upon him as he passed, but there was no sign of anybody. The house was as silent and dead as the Nether Tomb.
He walked through the crowded ways to Peter Street in a fine turmoil of excitement and agitation. The physical side of the struggle was not yet forgotten; his shins, where Tom Duncombe had kicked him, were very sore indeed, and his leg would suddenly tremble for no particular reason.
His chest was sore and his head ached, from his enemy’s vigorous hair-pulling. He was very thankful that his face was not marked. That was because he had held his head down. But the physical consequences were lost in consideration of the deeper, more important spiritual and material issues. What had Tom Duncombe really been after? Plainly enough something that he had been after before. One could tell that from his brother’s silence. What revenge would Tom now try to take upon Henry? Perhaps he would bribe Mr. King to murder him in his sleep, or would send Henry poison in a box of chocolates, or would distil fly-paper into his coffee as Seddon had done to poor Miss Barrow? Perhaps he would have him assassinated by some Bolshevik agent, in the middle of Piccadilly? No, all these things, delightful though they sounded, were not likely — Tom Duncombe was obviously lacking in imagination.
A beautiful vers libre flew like a coloured dove into Henry’s brain just as he crossed the Circus:
Red-chested Minotaur Thrust Blow on Blow. Golden apples showering From Autumn trees In wolf-haunted Forest —
Had he not been sworn at by the driver of a swiftly advancing taxi-cab he might have thought of a second verse equally good.
Arriving at his destination, he found Mrs. Tenssen all alone seated at the table playing Patience, with a pack of very greasy cards. One useful lesson at least Henry was to learn from this eventful year, a lesson that would do him splendid service throughout his life — namely, that there is nothing more difficult than to discover a human being, man or woman, who is really wicked all the way round and the whole way through. People who seem to be thoroughly wicked, whom one passionately desires to be thoroughly wicked, will suddenly betray kindnesses, softnesses, amiabilities, imbecilities that simply do not go with the rest of their terrible character. This is very sad and makes life much more difficult than it ought to be.
It is indeed to be doubted whether a completely wicked human being has ever appeared on this planet.
It had already puzzled Henry on several occasions that Mrs. Tenssen, who as nearly resembled a completely wicked person as he had ever beheld, should care so passionately for the simple game of Patience, and should take flowers, as he discovered that she did, once a week to the Children’s Hospital in Cleseden Street.
He would so greatly have preferred that she should not do these things. She did them, it might be, as a blind, a concealment, an alibi, even as Count Fosco had his white mice and Uncle Silas played the flute, but they did not appear to be a disguise; she seemed to enjoy doing them.
She greeted Henry with great affection. She had been very kind to him of late. He did not like her any better than on his first vision of her; he liked her indeed far less. He did not know any one, man or woman, from whom sex so indecently protruded. It was always as though she sat quite naked in front of him and that she liked it to be so.
She had once made what even his innocent mind understood as improper advances to him, and he had not now the very slightest doubt of the reason why the various gentlemen, of all sizes and ages, came and had tea with her.
All this made him very sick and put him into an agony of desire to seize Christina and deliver her from the horrible place, but until now he had not thought of any plan, and one of his principal difficulties was that he could never succeed in being with Christina alone.
He realized that Mrs. Tenssen had not as yet sufficiently made up her wicked mind about him. She was hesitating, he perceived, as to whether he was worth her while or no. He had no doubt but that she had been making inquiries about him and his family. Was she speculating about him as a husband for her daughter? Or had she some other plans in her evil head?
To-day the room was close and stuffy and dingy in spite of the pink silk. There was a smell of cooking that writhed in and out of the furniture, some evil, but savoury mess that was onions and yet not onions at all, here black pudding, and there stewing eels, once ducks’ eggs and then again sheeps’ brains — just such a savoury mess as any witch would have stewing in her cauldron.
Mrs. Tenssen, on this afternoon, proceeded to deliver herself of some of her thoughts, her large face crimson above her purple dress, her rings flashing over the shabby dog-eared cards. Henry sat there, his eyes on the door, listening, listening for the step that he would give all the world to hear.
“You know,” she said, cursing through her teeth at the bad order of the cards, “the matter with me is that I’m too good-natured. I’ve got a kind heart — that’s the matter with me. I’m sorry for it. I’m a fool to let myself go as I do. And what have I ever got for my kindness — damn that club. What but ingratitude and cheating. It’s the way of the world. You’re young. You just remember that. Don’t let your heart go. Use your intelligence.”
“What,” asked Henry who wished to discover from her something about Christina’s earlier life, “kind of a town is Copenhagen? How did you like Denmark?”
“Ugh!” said Mrs. Tenssen. “I’m an Englishwoman, I am — born in Bristol and bred there, thank God. None of your bloody foreign countries for me. Twenty years of my life wasted in that stinking hole. Not that my husband was so bad — not as husbands go that is. He was a sailor and away many a time, and a good thing too. Fine upstanding man he was with yellow curls and a chest broad enough to put a table on. He’d smack my ass and say, ‘There’s a woman for you!’ and so I was and am still for the matter of that.”
“Was Christina your only child,” asked Henry.
“Yes. What do you take me for? No more children for me after the first one. ‘No,’ I said to D
avid. ‘Behave as you like,’ I said, ‘but no more children for me.’ Wouldn’t have had that one if I hadn’t been such a blighted young fool. What’s life for if you’re lying up all the time? But David was all right. Drowned at sea. I always told him he would be.”
“Well, then, why weren’t you happy?”
“Happy,” she echoed. “I tell you Copenhagen’s a stinking town. Dirty little place. And his relations! There was a crew for you, especially a damned brother of his with a long beard, like a goat who was always round interfering. Didn’t want me to have any gentlemen friends. ‘Oh you go to hell,’ I said. ‘I’ll have what friends I damn well please.’ Wanted to take my girl away from me. There’s a nice thing! When a woman’s a widow and all alone in the world and doing all she can for her girl, for a bloody relation to come along and try to take her away.”
“What did he want to take her away for?” asked Henry.
“How the hell should I know? That’s what I asked him. ‘What do you want to take her away for?’ I asked him. He called me dirty names, then, so I just called dirty names back. Two can play at that game. I hadn’t been educated in Bristol for nothing. Then they went on interfering, so I just brought her over here.”
Henry was longing to ask some more questions when the door opened and Christina came in.
“Well, deary,” said her mother. “Here’s Mr. Trenchard.” Christina smiled, then stood there uncertainly.
“There’s a man coming upstairs, mother, who said you’d asked him to call. He wouldn’t give his name.”
Steps were outside. There was a pause, a knock on the door. Mrs. Tenssen looked at them both uncertainly.
“What do you say to taking Christina out to tea, Mr. Trenchard? It won’t do her any harm?”
Henry said he would be delighted, as for sure he would.
“Well, then, suppose you do — some nice tea-shop. I know you’ll look after her.”
The girl moved to the door. Henry opened it for her. On the other side was standing a large heavy man, some country-fellow he seemed, young, brown-faced, in rough blue clothes.
Christina slipped by, her head down. In the street Henry found her crying. He didn’t speak to her or ask her any questions. In silence they went down Peter Street.
When they were in Shaftesbury Avenue, Henry said, very gently:
“Where would you like to have tea? I’d want to take you to the grandest place there is if you’d care for that.”
She shook her head. “No no, nowhere grand. . . .” She paused, standing still and looking about her as though she were utterly lost. Then he saw her, with a great effort, drag herself together. “There’s a little place in Dean Street,” she said. “A little Spanish restaurant — opposite the theatre.”
He had been there several times to have a Spanish omelette which was cheap and very good. The kind little manager was a friend of his. He took her there wondering that he was not more triumphant on this, the first occasion when he had been alone with her in the outside world — but he could not be triumphant when she was so unhappy.
He found, as he had hoped he would, a little deserted table in the window shut off from the rest of the room by the door. It was very private with the light evening sunlight beyond the glass and people passing to and fro, and a little queue of men and women already beginning to form outside the pit door of the Royalty Theatre. The little manager brought them their tea and smiled and made little chirping noises and left them to themselves.
She was in great distress, not noticing her tea, staring in front of her as Henry had often seen her unconsciously do before, rolling her handkerchief between her hands into a little wet ball.
“I wanted us to come. I’m glad we’ve had the chance. I’ve been wanting for weeks to explain something to you.” Henry poured her tea out for her and mechanically, still staring beyond him, beyond the shop, beyond London, she drank it.
“You’ve been very good these months, very very good. I don’t know why, because you didn’t know me before, nor anything about me. One day I laughed at you and I’m sorry for that. You are not to be laughed at — you have not that character — not at all — anywhere.”
She paused, and Henry, looking into her face, said:
“I haven’t been good to you. I’m ashamed because these weeks have all gone by and I haven’t helped you yet. But you needn’t say why do I come and why am I your friend. I love you. I loved you the first moment I saw you in Piccadilly. I’ve never loved anybody before and I feel now as though I shall never love anybody again. But I will do anything for you, or go anywhere. You only have to say and I will try and do that.”
Her gaze came inwards, leaving those wide unscaleable horizons whither she had gone and travelling back to the simple untidy face of Henry whose eyes at any rate were good enough for you to be quite sure that he meant honestly all that he said. “That’s it,” she said quickly. “That’s what I must try to explain to you. I’ve wanted to say to you before that perhaps I have made you think what isn’t true. I like you. You’re the only friend I’ve had since I came to England. But I can’t love you, you dear good boy, nor I can’t love anybody. I will not forget you if I can once get out of this horrible place, but I have no thoughts of love — not for any one — until I can come home again.
“You saw me crying just now. I should not cry; my father used to say, ‘Christina, always be strong and not show them you’re weak,’ but I cry, not from weakness, but from deep, deep shame at that woman and what you see in her house.”
She suddenly took his hand. “You are not angry because I don’t love you? You see, I have only one thought — to get home, to get home, to get home!”
Henry choked in his throat and could only stare back at her and try to smile.
“Well, then,” she said smiling. “Now I will try to tell you how I am. That woman — that horrible woman — whom they call my mother, and I too, to my shame, call her so — she was the wife of my father. From my birth she was cruel to me, she always hated me. When my father was at home she could not touch me — he would not allow her — but when he was at sea then she could do what she wished. My father was a hero, he was the finest of all Danish men, and when a Dane is fine no one in the world is as fine as he. He loved me and I loved him. Every one must love him, how he sang and danced and played like a child! After a time he hated the woman he’d married, because she was cruel, and he would have taken me away with him on his ship, but of course he could not. And then father was drowned — one night I knew it. I saw him. He came to my bed and smiled at me and he was all dripping with water. Then that woman was terrible to me, and my two uncles, father’s brothers, who were almost as fine as he, tried to take me away, but she was too quick for them. And when they quarrelled with her, she ran away in the night and brought me over here.”
Henry sighed in sympathy with her.
“Yes, and here it is terrible. I do not think I can endure it very much more. My uncle wrote and said he would come for me, and that is why I have been waiting, because I am sure that he will come.
“But now I think that woman is planning something else. She wants to sell me to some man so that she herself can be free. She is in doubt about several. That old man you saw the other day is one. He is very rich, and has a castle. Then she has been for some while in doubt about whether perhaps you will do. I don’t care for it when she beats me, and when she says terrible things to me, but it is the fear of the future, and she may do worse than she has ever done — she threatens . . . and when I am alone at night — often all night — I am so afraid. . . .”
“Alone?” said Henry. “Isn’t she there?”
“She has another place — somewhere in Victoria Street. Often she is away all night.”
“Then,” said Henry eagerly, “it’s quite easy. We’ll escape one night. I can get enough money together and I will travel with you to Copenhagen and give you to your uncle.”
She shook her head. “No. You are a sweet boy, but that is no go
od. She has the place always watched. The police would stop us at once. She is a very clever woman.”
“But then,” pursued Henry, “if that house in Peter Street is a bad house, and she is keeping you, that is against the law, and we can have her arrested.”
Christina shook her head.
“No. She is a very clever woman indeed. Nothing wrong goes on there. Perhaps in Victoria Street. I don’t know. I have never been there. But I am sure if you tried to catch her in Victoria Street you would not be able to. There is nothing to be done that way. But see . . .”
She leant over towards Henry across the table, dropping her voice.
“Next December I shall be twenty-one and shall be free. It is before that that I am afraid. I know she is making some plan in her head. But I feel that you are watching, then I shall be safer. She wants to get a lot of money for me, and I think perhaps that old Mr. Leishman whom you saw is arranging something with her.
“What you want to do is to be friends with her so long as you can, so that you may come to us freely. But one day she will have made up her mind, and then there will be a scene, and she will forbid you the house. After that watch every day in The Times in the personal part. I will let you know when it is serious. I will try to tell you where I have gone. If I do that, it will mean that it is very anxious, and you must help me any way you can. Will you promise me?”
“I promise,” said Henry. “Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, I will come.”
“I have written to my uncle and I know he will come if he can. But he travels very much abroad, and my other uncle is in Japan. If they do not get any letter, I have no one — no one but you.”