by Hugh Walpole
Then, as unheralded as such things usually are, the crisis came. It was a foggy afternoon. He came in about half-past three, meaning to work. Just as he was about to sit down at his table his telephone bell rang. He was surprised to hear Martha Proctor’s voice: he was still more surprised when she told him that she was at Selfridge’s and would like to come in and have tea if he were alone.
Martha Proctor! The last of the Three Graces to pay him any attention he said. But I like her. I’ve always liked her best of the three. . . .
He got his tea things from the little brown cupboard, made some toast, found a pot of raspberry jam; just as he had finished Martha Proctor stalked in. He liked her clear-cut ways, the decent friendly challenge of her smile, her liking for brown bread and jam, with no nonsense about “not being really hungry.” Yes, he liked her — and he was pleased that she had troubled to come to him, even though it was only the fog that had driven her in. But at first his own shyness, the eternal sense always with him that he was a recognized failure, and that no one wanted to hear what he had to say, held him back. There fell silences, silences that always came when he was alone with anybody.
He had not the gift of making others enthusiastic, of firing their intelligence. Only Millie and Henry, and perhaps James Maradick and Bobby Galleon were able to see him as he really was. With others he always thought of the thing that he was going to say before he said it; then, finding it priggish, or sententious, or platitudinous, didn’t say it after all. No wonder men found him dull!
He liked Martha Proctor, but the first half-hour of their meeting was not a success. Then, with a smile he broke out:
“You know — you wouldn’t think it — but I’m tremendously glad the fog drove you in here to-day. There are so many things I want to talk about, but I’ve lost my confidence somehow in any one being interested in what I think.”
“If you imagine it was the fog,” said Martha Proctor, “that brought me in to-day, you are greatly mistaken. I’ve been meaning to come for weeks. You say you’re diffident, well, I’m diffident too, although I wouldn’t have any one in the world to know it. Here I am at forty-two, and I’m a failure. No, don’t protest. It’s true. I know I’ve got a name and something of a position and young authors are said to wait nervously for my Olympian utterances, but as a matter of fact I’ve got about as much influence and power as that jam-pot there. But it isn’t only with myself I’m disappointed — I’m disappointed with everybody.”
She paused then, as though she expected Peter to say something, so he said:
“That’s pretty sweeping.”
“No, it isn’t. The state of literature in London is rotten, more rotten than I’ve ever known it. Everybody over forty is tired and down and out, and everybody under thirty has swelled head. And they’re all in sets and cliques. And they’re all hating one another and abusing one another and running their own little pets. And all the little pets that might have turned into good writers if they’d been let alone have been spoiled and ruined.” She paused for breath, then went on, growing really excited: “Look at young Burnley for instance. There’s quite a promising dramatist — you know that The Rivers’ Family was a jolly good play. Then Monteith gets hold of him, persuades him that he’s a critic, which, poor infant, he never was and never will be, lets him loose on his paper and ruins his character. Yes, ruins it! Six months later he’s reviewing the same book in four different papers under four different names, and hasn’t the least idea that he’s doing anything dishonest!
“But Burnley isn’t the point. It’s the general state of things. Monteith and Murphy and the rest think they’re Olympian. They’re as full of prejudices as an egg is full of meat, and they haven’t got a grain of humour amongst the lot. They aren’t consciously dishonest, but they run round and round after their own tails with their eyes on the ground. Now, I’m only saying what lots of us are feeling. We want literature to become a jollier, freer thing; to be quit of schools and groups, and to have altogether more fun in it. That’s why I’ve come to you!”
“To me!” said Peter, laughing. “I’m not generally considered the most amusing dog in London — —”
“No, you’re not,” said Miss Proctor. “People don’t know you, of course. Lots of them think you dull and conceited. You may be proud, but you’re certainly not conceited — and you’re not dull.”
“Thank you,” said Peter.
“No, but seriously, a lot of us have been considering you lately. You see, you’re honest — no one would deny that — and you’re independent, and even if you’re proud you’re not so damned proud as Monteith, and you haven’t got a literary nursery of admiring pupils. You’d be surprised, though, if you knew how many friends you have got.”
“I should be indeed,” said Peter.
“Well, you have. Of course Janet Ross and the others of her kind think you’re no good, but those are just the cliques we want to get away from. To cut a long story short, some of us — Gardiner, Morris, Billy Wells, Thompson, Thurtell, and there are others — want you to join us.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing very definite at the moment. We are going to be apart from all cliques and sets — —”
“I see — —” interrupted Peter, “be an anti-clique clique.”
“Not at all,” said Martha Proctor. “We aren’t going to call ourselves anything or have meetings in an A.B.C. shop or anything of the kind. It is possible that there — there’ll be a paper one day — a jolly kind of paper that will admit any sort of literature if it’s good of its kind; not only novels about introspective women and poems about young men’s stomachs on a spring morning. I don’t know. All we want now is to be a little happier about things in general, to be a little less jealous of writing that isn’t quite our kind and, above all, not to be Olympian!”
She banged the table with her hand and the jam-pot jumped. “I hate the Olympians! Damn the Olympians! Self-conscious Olympians are the worst things God ever made . . . I’m a fool, you’re not very bright, but we’re not Olympian, therefore let’s have tea together once or twice a year!”
Soon after that she went. Peter had promised to come to her flat one evening soon and meet some of her friends. She left him in a state of very pleasureable excitement.
He walked up and down his room, lurching a little from leg to leg like a sailor on his deck. Yes, he was awfully pleased — awfully pleased. . . . Somebody wanted him. Somebody thought his opinion worth having.
There were friendly faces, kindly voices waiting for him.
His ambition leapt up again like fire. Life was not over for him, and although he might never write a fine book nor a word that would be remembered after he was gone, yet he could help, take his share in the movement, encourage a little what seemed to him good, fight against everything that was false and pretentious and insincere.
He felt as though some one were pushing the pieces of the game at last in his favour. For long he had been baffled, betrayed, checked. Now everything was moving together for him. Even Millie. . .!
He stopped in his walk, staring at the window behind whose panes the fog lay now like bales of dirty cotton. Millie! Perhaps this engagement of hers was not a success. He did not know why but he had an impression that all was not well with her. Something that Henry had said in a letter. Something. . . . So long as she were still there so that he might see her and tell her of his work. See her, her colour, her eyes, her hands, her movement as she walked, her smile so kindly and then a little scornful as though she were telling herself that it was not grown-up to show kindness too readily, that they must understand that she was grown up. . . .
Oh, bless her! He would be her true friend whatever course her life might take, however small a share himself might have in it.
He stared at the window and his happiness, his new ambition and confidence were suddenly penetrated by some chill breath. By what? He could not tell. He stood there looking in front of him, seeing nothing but the gr
ey shadows that coiled and uncoiled against the glass.
What was it? His heart seemed to stand still in some sudden anticipation. What was it? Was some one coming? He listened. There was no sound but a sudden cry from the fog, a dim taxi-whistle. Something was about to happen. He was sure as one is sure in dreams with a knowledge that is simply an anticipation of something that one has already been through. Just like this once he had stood, waiting in a closed room. Once before. Where? Who was coming? Some one out in the fog was now looking at the number of his house-door. Some one had stepped into the house. Some one was walking slowly up the stairs, looking at the cards upon the doors. It was as though he were chained, enchanted to the spot. Now his own floor. A pause outside his door. When suddenly his bell rang he felt no surprise, only a strange hesitation before he moved as though a voice were saying to him: “This is going to be very difficult for you. Pull yourself together. You’ll need your courage.”
He opened his door and peered out. The passage was dark. A woman was there, standing back, leaning against the bannisters.
“Who’s there?” he called. His voiced echoed back to him from the empty staircase. The woman made no answer, standing like a black shadow against the dark stain of the bannisters.
“Do you want anything?” asked Peter. “Did you ring my bell?”
She moved then ever so slightly. In a hoarse whisper she said: “I want to speak to Mr. Westcott.”
“I’m Peter Westcott,” he answered.
She moved again, coming a little nearer.
“I want to sit down,” she said. “I’m not very well.” She gave a little sigh, her arms moved in a gesture of protest and she sank upon the floor. He went to her, lifted her up (he felt at once how small she was and slight), carried her into his room and laid her on his old green-backed sofa.
Then, bending over her, he saw that she was his wife, Clare.
Instantly he was flooded, body and soul, with pity. He had, he could have, no other sense but that. It had been, perhaps, all his life even during those childish years of defiance of his father the strongest emotion in him — it was called forth now as it had never been before.
He had hurried into his bedroom, fetched water, bathed her forehead, her hands, taken off the shabby hat, unfastened the faded black dress at the throat, still she lay there, her eyes closed in the painted and powdered face, the body crumpled up on the sofa as though it were broken in every limb.
Broken! Indeed she was! It was nearly twenty years since he had last seen her, since that moment when she had turned back at the door, looking at him with that strange appeal in her eyes, the appeal that had failed. He heard again, as though it had been only yesterday, her voice in their last conversation— “I’ve got a headache. I’m going upstairs to lie down. . . .” And that had been the end.
She smelt of some horrible scent, the powder on her face blew off in little dry flakes, her hair was still that same wonderful colour, yellow gold; she must be forty now — her body was as slight and childish as it had been twenty years ago. He rubbed her hands: they were not clean and the nails were broken.
She moved restlessly without opening her eyes, as though in her sleep, she pushed against him, then freed her hands from his, muttering. He caught some words: “No, Alex — no. Don’t hurt me. I want to be happy! Oh, I want to be happy! Oh, don’t hurt me! Don’t!”
All this in a little whimper as though she had no strength left with which to cry out. Then her eyes opened: she stared about her, first at the ceiling, then at the table and chairs, then at Peter.
She frowned at him. “I oughtn’t to have come here,” she said. “You don’t want me — not after all this time. Did I faint? How silly of me!” She pushed herself up. “That’s because I’m so hungry — so dreadfully hungry. I’ve had nothing to eat for two days except what that man gave me at the station . . . I feel sick but I must eat something — —”
“Hungry!” he sprang to his feet. “Just lie there a minute and rest. Close your eyes. There! Lie back again! I’ll have something ready in a moment.”
He rushed into the little kitchen, found the kettle, filled it and put it on the sitting-room fire. The tea-things were still on the table, a plate with cakes, a loaf of bread, the pot of jam. She was sitting up staring at them. She got up and moved across to the table. “Cut me some bread quickly. Never mind about the tea.”
He cut her some bread and butter. She began to eat, tearing the bread with her fingers, her eyes staring at the cakes. She snatched two of them and began to eat them with the bread. Suddenly she stopped.
“Oh, I can’t!” she whispered. “I’m so hungry, but I can’t — I’m going to be sick.”
He led her into his bedroom, his arm around her. There she was very ill. Afterwards white and trembling she lay on his bed. He put the counterpane over her, and then said:
“Would you like a doctor?” She was shivering from head to foot.
“No,” she whispered. “Would you make me some tea — very hot?”
He went into the sitting-room and in a fever of impatience waited for the kettle to boil. He stood there, watching it, his own emotion so violent that his knees and hands were trembling.
“Poor little thing! Poor little thing! Poor little thing!” He found that he was repeating the words aloud. . . . The lid of the kettle suddenly lifted. He made the tea and carried it into the other room. It was dark now, with the fog and the early evening. He switched on the light and then as she turned, making a slight movement of protest with her hand, he switched it off again. She sat up a little, catching at the cup, and then began to drink it with eager, thirsty gulps.
“Ah, that’s good!” he heard her murmur. “Good!” He gave her some more, then a third cup. With a little sigh she sank back satisfied. She lay then without speaking and he thought she was asleep. He drew a chair to the bedside and sat down there, leaning forward a little towards her. He could not see her now at all: the room was quite dark.
Suddenly she began to speak in a low, monotonous voice ——
“I oughtn’t to have come. . . . Do you know I nearly came once last year? I was awfully hard up and I got your address from the publishers. I didn’t like to go to them again this time. It was just chance that you might still be here. I wouldn’t have come to you at all if I hadn’t been so hard up. . . .”
“Hush,” he said, “you oughtn’t to talk. Try and sleep.”
She laughed. “You say that just as you used to. You aren’t changed very much, fatter a bit. I’d have known you anywhere. I wouldn’t have come if I’d known where Benois was. He’s in London somewhere, but he’s given me the slip. Not the first time either. . . . I’m not going to stay here, you know. You needn’t be frightened.”
The voice was changed terribly. He would have recognized it from the thin sharp note, almost of complaint, that was still in it, but it was thickened, coarsened, with a curious catch in it as though her breathing were difficult.
“Don’t talk now. Rest!” he repeated.
“Yes, you’re not changed a bit. Fatter of course. I’ve often wondered what you’d turned into. How you got on in the War. You know Jerry was killed — quite early, at the beginning. He was in the French Army. He treated me badly. But every one’s treated me badly. All I wanted was to be happy. I didn’t mean to do any one any harm. It’s cruel the way I’ve been treated.”
Her voice died off into a murmur. He caught only the words “Benois . . . Paris . . . Station.”
Soon he heard her breathing, soft with a little catch in it like a strangled sob. He sat on then, hearing nothing but that little catch. He did not think at all. He could see nothing. He was sightless in a blind world, coil after coil of grey vapour moving about him, enclosing him, releasing him, enclosing him again— “Poor little thing!” “Poor little thing!” “Poor little thing!”
He did not move as the evening passed into night.
CHAPTER VII
DUNCOMBE SAYS GOOD-BYE
At the
moment when Clare Westcott was climbing the stairs to her husband’s rooms Henry Trenchard was walking up the drive through the Duncombe park. The evening air was dark and misty with a thin purple thread of colour that filtered through the bare trees and shone in patches of lighted shadow against tall outlines of the road. Everything was very still: even his steps were muffled by the matted carpet of dead leaves that had not been swept from the drive. He had told them the time of his arrival but there had been nothing at the station to meet him. That did not surprise him. It had happened before; you could always find a fly at the little inn. But this evening he had wanted to walk the few miles. Something made him wish to postpone the arrival if he could.
The day after to-morrow Duncombe was to go up to London for his operation. Henry hated scenes and emotional atmospheres and he knew that Duncombe also hated them. Everything of course would be very quiet during those two days — beautifully restrained in the best English fashion, but the emotion would be there. No one would be frank; every one would pretend to be gay with that horrible pretence that Englishmen succeed in so poorly. No one would be worse at it than Henry himself.
As he turned the corner of the drive that gave the first view of the house a thin white light, a last pale flicker before dusk, enveloped the world, spread across the lawn and shone upon the square, thick-set building as though a sheet of very thin glass had suddenly been lowered from the sky. The trees were black as ink, the grass grey, but the house was illumined with a ghastly radiancy under the bare branches and the pale evening sky. The light passed and the house was in dusk.
When he had been up to his room and come down to the little drawing-room he found Alicia Penrose. “She’s been asked to make things easier,” he said to himself. He was glad. He was not afraid of her as he was of some people and he fancied that she rather liked him. In her presence he always felt himself an untidy, uncouth schoolboy, but to-night he was not thinking of himself. He knew that beneath her nonsense she was a good sort. She was standing, legs apart, in front of the fire; she was wearing a costume of broad checks, like a chessboard. It reached just below the knees, but she had fine legs, slim, strong, sensible. Her hair, brushed straight back from her forehead, was jet black; she had beautiful, small, strong hands.