by Hugh Walpole
Perhaps because of her retired, cloistered, Trenchard up-bringing she was, in spite of two years finishing in Paris, innocent and pure of heart. She thought that she knew everything about life, and her courage and her frankness carried her through many situations before which less unsophisticated women would have quailed.
It was not that she credited every one with noble characters; she thought many people foolish and weak and sentimental, but she did believe that every one was fundamentally good at heart and intended to make of life a fine thing. Her close companionship with Bunny caused her for the first time to wonder whether there was not another world— “underground somewhere” — of which she knew nothing whatever. It was not that he told her anything or introduced her to men who would tell her. He had, one must in charity to him believe, at this time at any rate, a real desire to respect her innocence; but always behind the things they did and said was this implication that he knew so much more of life than she. Henry had often implied that same knowledge, but she laughed at him. He might know things that he would not tell her, but he was essentially, absolutely of her own world. But Bunny was different. She was a modern girl, belonging to the generation in which, at last, women were to know as much, to see as much, as men. She must know.
“What do you mean, Bunny?”
“Oh, nothing . . . nothing that you need know.”
“But I want to know. I’m not a child — —”
“Rot. . . . Come and dance.” She did dance, furiously, ferociously. The Diamond Palace — a glass-domed building at the foot of the woods, just above the sea, was the place where Cladgate danced. The negro band, its teeth gleaming with gold, its fingers glittering with diamond rings, stamped and shrieked, banged cymbals, clashed tins, thumped at drums, yelled and then suddenly murmured like animals creeping back, reluctantly, into the fastnesses of their jungles, and all the good British citizens and citizenesses of Cladgate wandered round and round with solemn ecstatic faces, their bodies pressed close together, sweat gathering upon their brows; beyond the glass roof the walks were dark and silent and the sea crept in and out over the tiny pebbles, leaving a thin white pattern far down the deserted beach.
“What do you mean, Bunny?” asked Millie.
“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough,” he answered her.
The glass roof sparkled above the electric light with a million facets. Across the broad floor there stepped and shifted the changing pattern of the human bodies; faces stared out over shoulders, blank, serious, grim as though the crisis — the true crisis — of life had at last arrived, and the band encouraged that belief, softly whispering that now was the moment — NOW — and NOW. . . .
Millie sat against the wall with Victoria; she was waiting for Bunny, who was a quarter of an hour late. She had a panic, as she always had when he was late, that he would not come at all; that she would never see him again. Her dress to-night was carnation colour and she had shoes of silver tissue. She had an indescribable air of youth and trembling anticipation as though this were the first ball to which she had ever been. Henry would have been amazed, had he seen her — her usually so fearless.
Her love for Bunny made her tremble because, unknown to herself, she was afraid that the slightest movement from outside would precipitate her into a situation that would be disastrous, irrecoverable. . . .
Bunny arrived. She was in his arms and they were moving slowly around the room. She saw nothing, only felt that it was very hot. The negro band suddenly leapt out upon them, as though bursting forth from some hidden fastness. The glass roof, with its diamonds, becked and bowed, bending toward them like a vast string to a bow. Soon it would snap and where would they be? Bunny held her very close to him. Their hearts were like voices jumping together, trying to catch some common note with which they were both just out of tune.
The band shrieked and stopped as though it had been stabbed.
They were outside, in a dark corner of the balcony that looked over the sea. They kissed and clung close to one another. Suddenly she was aware of an immense danger, as though the grey wood beyond the glass were full of fiery eyes, dangerous with beasts.
“I’m not going into that wood,” she heard some voice within herself cry. The band broke out again from beyond the wall. “Oh, Bunny, let me go — —” She had only a moment in which to save herself — to save herself from herself.
She broke from him. She heard her dress tear. She had opened the door of the balcony, was running down the iron steps then, just as she was, in her carnation frock and silver shoes, was hurrying down the white road, away from the wood towards the hotel — the safe, large, empty hotel.
CHAPTER II
LIFE, DEATH AND FRIENDSHIP
Just at that time Henry at Duncombe was thinking very much of his sister. He could not tell why, but she was appearing to him constantly; he saw her three nights in his dreams. In one dream she was in danger, running for her life along a sea road, high above the sea. Once she was shouting to him in a storm and could not make him hear because of the straining and creaking of the trees. During his morning work in the little library he saw her, laughing at him on the lawn beyond the window — Millie as she was years ago, on that day, for instance, when she came back from Paris and astonished them all by her gaiety and was herself astonished by the news of Katherine’s unexpected engagement. He could see her now in the old green drawing-room, laughing at them all and shouting into Great-Aunt Sarah’s ear-trumpet. “Well, she’s in some trouble,” he said to himself, looking out at the sun-flecked lawn. “I’m sure she’s in trouble.”
He wrote to her and to his relief received a letter from her on that same day. She said very little: “. . . Only another week of this place, and I’m not sorry. These last days haven’t been much fun. It’s so noisy and every one behaves as though a moment’s quiet would be the end of the world. Oh, Henry darling, do come up to London soon after I get back, even if it’s only for a day. I’m sure your old tyrant will let you off. I ache to see you and Peter again. I want you near me. I’m not a bit pleased with myself. I’ve turned nasty lately — conceited and vain. You and Peter shall scold me thoroughly. Vi says mother is just the same. . . .”
Well, she was all right. He was glad. He could sink back once more into the strange, mysterious atmosphere of Duncombe, and call with his spirit Christina down to share the mystery with him. He could creep closer to Christina here than real life would ever take him.
Strange and mysterious it was, and touchingly, poignantly beautiful. The wet days of early August had been succeeded by fine weather — English fine weather that was not certain from hour to hour, and gave therefore all the pleasure of unexpected joy.
“Why! there’s the sun!” they would all cry, and the towers and the little square pond, and the Cupid, and the hedges cut into peacocks and towers and sailing-ships, would all be caught up into a sky so relentlessly blue that it surely never again would be broken; in a moment, white bolster clouds came slipping up; the oak and the mulberry tree, whose shadows had been black velvet patterns on the shrill green of the grass, seemed to spread out their arms beneath the threatening sky as though to protect their friends from the coming storm. But the storm was not there — only a few heavy drops and then the grey horizon changed to purple, the cloud broke like tearing paper, and in a few moments the shadows were on the lawn again and the water of the square pond was like bright-blue glass.
In such English weather the square English house was its loveliest. The Georgian wing with its old red brick, its square stout windows, was material, comfortable, homely, speaking of thick-set Jacobean squires and tankards of ale, dogs and horses, and long pipes of heavy tobacco. The little Elizabethan wing, where were the chapel and the empty rooms, touched Henry as though it were alive and were speaking to him. This old part of the house had in its rear two rooms that were still older, a barn used now as a garage with an attic above it that was Saxon.
The house was unique for its size in England — so small and
yet displaying so perfectly the three periods of its growth. It gained also from its setting because the hills rose behind the garden and the little wood like grey formless presences against the sky, and on the ridge below the house the village, with cottages of vast age and cottagers who seemed to have found the secret of eternal life, slumbered through the seasons, carrying on the tradition of their fathers and listening but dimly to the changes that were coming upon the world beyond them. The village had done well in the War as the cross in front of the Post Office testified, but the War had changed its life amazingly little.
Some of its sons had gone over the ridge of hill, had seen strange sights and heard strange sounds — some of them had not returned. . . . Prices were higher — it was harder now to live than it had been but not much harder. Already the new generation was growing up. One or two, Tom Giles the Butcher, Merriweather, a farmer, talked noisily and said that soon the country would be in the hands of the people. Well, was it not already in the hands of the people? Anyway, they’d rather be in the hands of Sir Charles than of Giles.
How were they to know that Giles’ friends would be better men than Sir Charles? Worse most likely. . . .
Into all this Henry sank. Among the few books in the library he found several dealing with the history of the house, of the Duncombes, of the district. Just as he had conjured up the Edinburgh of Scott and Ballantyne, so now his head was soon full of all the Duncombes of the past — Giles Duncombe of Henry VIII.’s time, who had helped his fat monarch to persecute the monasteries and had been given the lands of Saltingham Abbey near by as a reward; Charles Duncombe, the admiral who had helped to chase the Armada; Denis Duncombe, killed at Naseby; Giles Duncombe, the Second, exquisite of Charles II.’s Court killed in a duel; Guy Duncombe, his son, who had fled to France with James II.; Giles the Third of Queen Anne’s Court, poet and dramatist; then the two brothers, Charles and Godfrey, who had joined the ‘45, Charles to suffer on the scaffold, Godfrey to flee into perpetual exile; then Charles again, friend of Johnson and Goldsmith, writer of a bad novel called The Forsaken Beauty, and a worse play which even Garrick’s acting could not save from being damned; then a seaman again, Triolus Duncombe, who had fought with Nelson at Trafalgar, and lost an arm there; then Ponsonby Duncombe, the historian, who had known Macaulay and written for the Quarterly, and had drunk tea with George Lewes and his horse-faced genius; then Sir Charles’s father, who had been simply a comfortable country squire — one of Trollope’s men straight from Orley Farm and The Claverings, who had liked his elder son, Ralph (killed tiger-shooting in India), and his younger son Tom both better than the quiet, studious Charles, whom he had never understood. All these men and their women too seemed to Henry still to live in the house and haunt the gardens, to laugh above the stream and walk below the trees. So quiet was the place and so still that standing by the pond under the star-lit sky he could swear that he heard their voices. . . .
Nevertheless the living engaged his attention sufficiently. Besides Millie and Christina and Peter there were with him in the house, in actual concrete form, Sir Charles and his sister. Lady Bell-Hall had now apparently accepted Henry as an inevitable nuisance with whom God, for some mysterious reason known only to Himself, had determined still further to try her spirit. She was immensely busy here, having a thousand preoccupations connected with the house and the village that kept her happy and free from many of her London alarms. Henry admired her deeply as he watched her trotting about in an old floppy garden-hat, ministering to, scolding, listening to, admonishing the village as though it was one large, tiresome, but very lovable family. With the servants in the house it was the same thing. She knew the very smallest of their troubles, and although she often irritated and fussed them, they were not alone in the world as they would have been had Mrs. Giles, the butcher’s wife, been their mistress.
It happened then that Henry for his daily companionship depended entirely upon Sir Charles. A strange companionship it was, because the affection between them grew stronger with every hour that passed, and yet there were no confidences nor intimacies — very little talk at all. At the back of Henry’s mind there was always the incident in the cab. He fancied that on several occasions since that he had seen that glance of almost agonizing suffering pass, flash in the eyes, cross the brow; once or twice Duncombe had abruptly risen and with steps that faltered a little left the room. Henry fancied also that Lady Bell-Hall during the last few days had begun to watch her brother anxiously. Sometimes she looked at Henry as though she would question him, but she said nothing.
Then, quite suddenly, the blow fell. On a day of splendid heat, the sky an unbroken blue, the fountain falling sleepily behind them, bees humming among the beds near by, Duncombe and Henry were sitting on easy chairs under the oak. Henry was reading, Duncombe sitting staring at the bright grass and the house that swam in a haze of heat against the blue sky.
“Henry,” Duncombe said, “I want to talk to you for a moment.”
Henry put down his book.
“I want first to tell you how very grateful I am for the companionship that you have given me during these last months and for your friendship.”
Henry stammered and blushed. “I’ve been wanting—” he said, “been wanting myself a long time to say something to you. I suppose that day when I had done the letters so badly and you — you still kept me on was the most important thing that ever happened to me. No one before has ever believed I could do anything or seen what it was I could do — I always lacked self-confidence and you gave it me. The War had destroyed the little I’d had before, and if you hadn’t come I don’t know — —”
He broke off, feeling, as he always did, that he could say none of the things that he really meant to say, and being angry with himself for his own stupidity.
“I’m very glad,” Duncombe said, “if I’ve done that. I think you have a fine future before you if you do the things you’re really suited for — which you will do, of course. But I’m going to trust you still further. I know I can depend on your discretion — —”
“If there’s anything in the world — —” Henry began eagerly.
“It’s nothing very difficult,” Duncombe said, still smiling; “I am in all probability going to have a serious operation. It’s not quite settled — I shall know after a further examination. But it is almost certain. . . .
“There are definite chances that I shall not live through it — the chances of my surviving or not are about equal, I believe. I’ll tell you frankly that if I were to think only of myself, death is infinitely preferable to the pain that I have suffered during the last six months. It was when the pain became serious that I determined to hurry up those family papers that you are now working on. I had an idea that I might not have much time left and I wanted to find somebody who could carry them on. . . . Well, I have found somebody,” he said, turning towards Henry and smiling his slightly cynical smile. “In my Will I have left you a certain sum that will support you at any rate for the next three years, and directions that the book is to be left entirely in your hands. . . . I know that you will do your best for it.”
Henry’s words choked in his throat. He saw the bright grass and the red dazzled house through a mist of tears. He wanted, at that moment above all, to be practical, a hard, common-sense man of the world — but of course as usual he had no power to be what he wanted.
“Yes . . . my best . . .” he stammered.
“Then, what I mean is this,” Duncombe continued. “If you do that you will still have some relations with my family, with my brother and sister, I mean.” He paused, then continued looking in front of him as though for the moment he had forgotten Henry. “When I first knew that my illness was serious I felt that I could not leave all this. I had no other feeling for the time but that, that I must stay here and see this place safely through these difficult days . . .” He paused again, then looked straight across to Henry.
“I have not forgotten what happened in London in the library
the other day. You will probably imagine from that that my brother is a very evil person. He is not, only impulsive, short-sighted and not very clever at controlling his feelings. He has an affection for me but none at all for this place, and as soon as he inherits it he will sell it.
“It is that knowledge that is hardest now for me to bear. Tom is reckless with money, reckless with his affections, reckless with everything, but he is not a mean man. He came into the library that day to get some papers that he knew he should not have rather as a schoolboy might go to the cupboard and try to steal jam, but you will find when you meet him again that he bears no sort of malice and will indeed have forgotten the whole thing. My sister too — of course she is rather foolish and can’t adapt herself to the new times, but she is a very good woman, utterly unselfish, and would die for Tom and myself without a moment’s hesitation. If I go, be a help to her, Henry. She doesn’t know you now at all, but she will later on, and you can show her that things are not so bad — that life doesn’t change, that people are as they always were — certainly no worse, a little better perhaps. To her, the world seems to be suddenly filled with ravening wolves —— Poor Meg!”
His voice died away. . . . Again he was looking at the house and the sparkling lawn.
“To lose this . . . to let it go —— After all these years.”
There was a long silence. Only the doves cooing from the gay-tiled roof seemed to be the voice, crooning and satisfied of the summer afternoon.
“And that,” said Duncombe, suddenly waking from his reverie, “is another idea that I have had. I feel as though you are going to be of importance in your new generation and that you will have influence. Even though I shall lose this place I shall be able to continue it in a way, perhaps, if I can make you feel that the past is not dead, that it must go on with its beauty and pathos influencing, interpenetrating the present. You young ones will have the world to do with as you please. Our time is done. But don’t think that you can begin the world again as though nothing had ever happened before. There is all that loveliness, that beauty, longing to be used. The lessons that you are to learn are the very same lessons that generation after generation has learnt before you. Take the past which is beseeching you not to desert it and let it mingle with the present. Don’t let modern cleverness make you contemptuous of all that has gone before you. They were as clever as you in their own generation. This beauty, this history, this love that has sunk into these walls and strengthened these trees, carry these on with you as your companions. . . . I love it so . . . and I have to leave it. To know that it will go to strangers . . .”