by Hugh Walpole
“Well, Trenchard,” she said, “had enough of London?”
He stammered, laughed and said nothing.
“Why do you always behave like a complete idiot when you’re with me?” she asked. “You’re not an idiot — know you’re not from what Duncombe has told me — always behave like one with me.”
“Perhaps you terrify me!” said Henry.
“Damn being terrified! Why be terrified of anybody? All the same, all of us. Legs, arms —— All dead soon.”
“Shyness is a very difficult thing,” said Henry. “I’ve suffered from it all my life — partly because I’m conceited and partly because I’m not conceited enough.”
“Have you indeed?” said Lady Alicia, looking at him with interest. “Now that’s the first interestin’ thing you’ve ever said to me. Expect you could say a lot of things like that if you tried.”
“Oh, I’m clever!” said Henry. “The trouble is that my looks are against me. That’s funny, too, because I have a most beautiful sister and another sister is quite nice-looking. I suppose they took all the looks of the family and there were none left for me.”
Lady Alicia considered him.
“But you’re not bad-lookin’,” she said. “Not at all. It’s an interestin’ face. You look as though you were a poet or something. It’s your clothes. Why do you dress so badly?”
“My clothes are all right when I buy them,” said Henry blushing. (This was a sensitive point with him.) “I go to a very good tailor. But when I’ve worn them a week or two they’re like nothing on earth, although I put them under my bed and have a trousers press. I look very fine in the morning sometimes just for five minutes, but in an hour it’s all gone.”
Lady Alicia laughed.
“You want to marry — some woman who’ll look after you.”
Next moment Henry had a shock. The door opened and in came Tom Duncombe. Henry had not seen him since the day of their encounter. In spite of himself his heart failed him. What would happen? How awful if, in front of Lady Alicia, Duncombe went for him! What should he do? How maintain his dignity? How not show himself the silly young fool that he felt?
Duncombe crossed the room, fat, red-faced, smiling. “Well, Alice,” he said, “glad to see you. How’s everything?”
Then he turned to Henry, holding out his hand.
“Glad to see you, Trenchard,” he said. “Hope you’re fit.”
“Very,” said Henry.
They shook hands.
That evening was a strange one. The comedy of Old Masks to Hide a New Tragedy was played with the greatest success. A thoroughly English piece, played with all the best English restraint and fine discipline. Sir Charles Duncombe as the hero was altogether admirable, and Lady Bell-Hall as the heroine won, and indeed, deserved, rounds of applause. Lady Alicia Penrose as the Comic Guest played in her own inimitable style a part exactly suited to her talents. Minor rôles were suitably taken by Thomas Duncombe, Henry Trenchard and Miss Bella Smith as Florence, a Parlourmaid. . . .
Henry was amazed to see Lady Bell-Hall’s splendid sang-froid. The house was tumbling about her head, her beloved brother was in all probability leaving her for ever, the whole of her material conditions were to change and be transformed, yet she, who beyond all women depended upon the permanence of minute signs and witnesses, gave herself no faintest whisper of apprehension.
Magnificent little woman, with her pug nose and puffing cheeks; dreading her Revolution, screaming at the prophecies of it, turning no hair when it was actually upon her! Threaten an Englishman with imagination and he will quail indeed, face him with facts and nothing can shake his courage and dogged pugnacity. Imagination is the Achilles heel of the English character . . . after which great thought Henry discovered that he was last with his soup and every one was waiting for him.
Alicia Penrose carried the evening on her shoulders. She was superb. Her chatter gave every one what was needed — time to build up battlements round reality so that to-morrow should not be disgraced.
Tom Duncombe ably seconded her.
“Seen old Lady Adela lately?” he would ask.
“Adela Beaminster?” Alicia was greatly amused. “Oh, but haven’t you heard about her? She’s got a medium to live with her in her flat in Knightsbridge and talks to her mother every mornin’ at eleven-fifteen.”
“What, the old Duchess?”
“Yes. You know what a bully she was when she was alive — well, she’s much worse now she’s dead. Medium’s Mrs. Bateson — you must have heard of her — Creole woman — found Peggy Nestle’s pearl necklace for her last year, said it was at the bottom of a well in a village near Salisbury, and so it was. Of course she’d taken it first and put it there — all the same it did her an immense amount of good. Old Lady Adela saw her at somebody’s house and carried her off there and then. Now at eleven-fifteen every morning up springs the Duchess, says she’s very comfortable in heaven, thank you, and then tells Adela what she’s to do. Adela doesn’t move a step without her. Did her best to get old Lord John in on it too, but he said ‘No thank you.’ He’d had enough of his mother when she was alive, and he wasn’t goin’ to start in again now he was over eighty and is bound to be meeting her in a year or two anyway. Why, he says, these few days left to him are all he’s got and he’s not going to lose ’em. But Adela’s quite mad. When you go and have tea with her, just as she’s givin’ you your second cup she says, ‘Hush! Isn’t that mother?’ Then she calls out in her cracked voice, ’Is that you, mother darlin’?’ then, if it is, she goes away and you never see your second cup — —” . . .
A sudden silence. Down every one goes, down into their own thoughts. About the house, in and out of the passages, through the doors and windows, figures are passing. Faces, pale and thin, are pressed against the window-panes. Into the dining-room itself the figures are crowding, turning towards the table, whispering: “Do not desert us! Do not abandon us! We are part of you, we belong to you. You cannot leave the past behind. You must take us with you. We love you so, take us, take us with you!”
Alicia’s voice rose again.
“But every one’s a crank now, Charles. In this year of grace 1920 it’s the only thing to be. You’ve got to be queer one way or t’other. That’s why young Pomfret keeps geese in his flat in Parkside. He feeds them in a sort of manger at the back of his dinin’-room. He likes them for their intelligence, he says. You’ve simply got to be queer or no one will look at you for a moment. That’s why they started the Pyjama Society, Luxmoore and Young Barrax, and some others. You have to swear that you’ll never wear anythin’ but pyjamas, and they’ve got special warm ones with fur inside for the cold weather. It’s catchin’ on like anythin’. It’s so comfortable and economical too after the first expense. Then there’s the Coloured Hair lot that Lady Bengin started — you all have to wear coloured wigs, green and purple and orange. You put on a new wig for lunch just as you used to put on a new hat. There’s a shop opened in Lover Street — Montayne’s — specially for these wigs. Expensive, of course, but not much more than a decent hat!”
Closer the pale figures pressed into the room, smiling, wistfully watching, tenderly waiting for their host so soon now to join them.
“Do not leave us! Do not forsake us! We must go with you! the beauty of life comes from us as well as from you, do not desert us! We are your friends! We love you!”
“Well, I’m sure,” said Lady Bell-Hall, searching for her crystallized sugar at the bottom of her coffee cup, “I never know whether to believe half the things you say, Alicia.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Tom Duncombe. “You’re right, Meg, don’t you believe her. You stick to me.”
But as the two women went out of the room together one whispered to the other:
“You are kind, Alicia. . . . I’ll never forget it.”
The next day was a wild one of wind and rain. Rain slashed the windows and spurted upon the lawns, died away into grey sodden clouds, burst forth again and was whi
rled by the wind with a noise like singing hail against the shining panes. The day passed without any incident. The normal life of the house was carried on. Henry worked in the library. Duncombe came in, found a book, went out again. The evening — the last evening — was upon them all with a startling suddenness. The women went up to their rooms; Charles Duncombe, his face grey and drawn, stopped Henry.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I’m going round the house for the last time. Come with me.”
He lit a candle and they started. The rain had died now to a comfortable purr. Into every room they went, the candle, raised high, throwing a splash of colour, marking pools of flickering light.
The old bedroom near the Chapel seemed to hold Duncombe. He stood there staring, the candlestick steady in his hand, but his eyes staring as though in a dream.
He sat down in a chair near the four-poster.
“We’ll stop here a moment,” he said to Henry. “It’s the least I can do for the old room. It knows I’m going. This was the bridal-chamber of the old Duncombes,” he said. “Lady Emily Duncombe died in this room on her wedding-night. Heart failure. In other words, terror. . . . Poor little thing.”
“And now I’m going to die too.” Henry said something in protest. “Oh, of course there’s a chance — a-million-to-one chance. . . .” He looked up, smiling. “I’ll tell you one thing, Henry. Pain, if you have much of it, makes death a most desirable thing. Pain! Why I’d no idea at the beginning of what pain really was until this last year. Now I know. Many times I’ve wanted to die these last months, just before it comes on, when you know it’s coming. . . . Pain, yes I know something about that now.”
He had placed the candle on a table near to him. He raised it now above his head. “Dear old room. I remember crawling in here when I was about three and hiding from my nurse. They couldn’t find me for ever so long. . . . And now it’s all over.”
Henry said: “Not over if you’ve cared for it.”
“By Jove, there’s something in that,” Duncombe answered. “And I depend on you to carry it on. It’s strange how my thoughts have centred round you these last weeks. If I get through this by good fortune I’ll talk to you a bit, tell you things I’ve never told a living soul. I’ve always been alone all my life, not because I wanted to be, but just because I’m English. I’ve seen other men look at me just as I’ve looked at them, as though they longed to speak but their English education wouldn’t let them lest they should make fools of themselves. Then human beings have seemed to me so disappointing, so weak, so foolish. Not that I’ve thought myself any better. No, indeed. But we’re a poor lot, there’s no doubt about it.
“You’re honest, Henry, and loyal and affectionate. Stick to those three things for all you’re worth. You’ve been born into a wonderful time. Make something of it. Don’t be passive. Throw yourself into it. And take all this with you. Make the past and the present and the future one. Join them all together for the glory of God — and sometimes think of your old friend who loves you.”
He came across to Henry, kissed him on the forehead and patted him on the shoulder.
“I’m tired,” he said, “damned tired. These haven’t been easy weeks.”
Henry said: “I think you’re going to come through. If you do it will be wonderful for me. If you don’t I’ll never forget you. I’ll think of you always. I’ll try to do as you say.”
Duncombe smiled. “Look after my sister. Bring out the book with a bang. We’ll meet again one day.”
Henry saw the candle-light trail down the passage and disappear. He fumbled his way to his room.
Next morning Charles Duncombe went up to London. There was no sign of emotion at his departure; it was as though he would be back before they could turn round. He was his dry, cynical self. He merely nodded to Henry, looking at him a little sternly before he climbed into the car. “I’ll see that Spencer sends you those notes,” he said. “Meanwhile you’d better be getting on with that Ballantyne press.” He nodded still sternly, smiled with his accustomed irony at his sister and was gone.
Tom Duncombe and Alicia Penrose disappeared then for the day, rattling over in a very ancient hired taxi to see the Seddons, who were living just then some thirty miles away. Henry tried to fling himself into his work; manfully he sat in the little library driving through the intricacies of Ballantyne finances, striving desperately to lose himself in that old Edinburgh atmosphere and friendly company. It could not be done. He saw, stalking towards him across the leaf-sodden lawn, the harshest melancholy that his young life had ever known. He had faced before now his unhappy times — in his younger years he had rebelled and sulked and made himself a curse to every one around him! he was growing older now. He was becoming a man, but the struggle was none the easier because he was learning how to deal with it.
He gave up his work, stared out for a little on to the grass pale under a thin autumn sun, then felt that he must move about or die. . . .
He went out into the hall; the whole place seemed deserted and dead; the hall door was open and from far away came the dim creaking of a cart. A little, chill, autumnal wind blew a thin eddy of leaves a few paces into the hall. Suddenly he heard a sound — some one was crying. Like any boy he hated above everything to hear a grown person cry. His immediate instinct was to run for his life. Then he was drawn against his will but by his natural instincts of tenderness and kindness towards the sound. He pushed back the drawing-room door that was ajar and looked into the room. Lady Bell-Hall was sitting there, crumpled up on the sofa, her head in her arms, crying desperately.
He knew that he should go away; the English instinct deep in him that he must not make a fool of himself warned him that she did not like him, that she had never liked him and that she would hate that he above all people should see her in this fashion. There was nevertheless something so desolate and lonely in her unhappiness that he could not go. He stood there for a moment, then very gently closed the door. She heard the sound and looked up. She saw who it was and hurriedly sat erect, tried to assume dignity, rolling a handkerchief nervously between her hands and frowning. . . .
“Well,” she said in a strange little voice with a crack and a sob in it, “what is it?”
“I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “I wondered — I was thinking — that perhaps there was something — —”
“No,” she answered hurriedly, not looking at him. “Thank you. There’s nothing.”
She sniffed, blew her nose, then suddenly began to sob again, turning to the mantelpiece, leaning her head upon her arms.
He waited, seeing such incongruous things as that a grey lock of hair had escaped its pins and was trailing down over the black silk collar of her blouse, that Pretty One was fast asleep, snoring in her basket, undisturbed by her mistress’s grief, that last week’s Spectator had fallen from the table on to the floor, that the silver calendar on the writing-table asserted that they were still in the month of May whatever the weather might pretend.
He came nearer to her. “I do want you to know,” he said, blushing awkwardly, “how I understand what you must be feeling, and that I myself feel some of it too.”
She turned round at him, looked at him with her short-sighted eyes as though she were seeing him for the first time, then sat down again on the sofa.
“You do think he’s going to get well, don’t you?” she said suddenly. “This isn’t serious, this operation, is it? Tell me, tell me it isn’t.”
He lied to her because he knew that she knew that he was lying and that she wanted him to lie.
“Of course he’s going to come through it,” he said. “And be better than he’s ever been in his life before. Doctors are so wonderful now. They can do anything.”
“Oh, I do hope so! I do indeed! He wouldn’t let me go up with him, although I did want to be there. I nursed my dear husband through three terrible illnesses so I have much experience. . . . But I’m going up to-morrow to Hill Street to be near in case he should need me.”
> She blinked at Henry, then patted the sofa.
“Come and sit here and talk to me. . . . It is very kind of you to speak as you do.”
Henry sat down. She looked at him more closely. “I wish I liked you better,” she said. “I have tried very hard to. Charles likes you so much and says you’re so clever.”
“I’m sorry you don’t like me, Lady Bell-Hall,” said Henry. “I would do anything in the world for your brother. I think he’s the finest man I have ever known.”
This set Lady Bell-Hall sobbing again: “He is! Oh, he is! Indeed he is!” she cried, waving one little hand in the air while with the other she wiped her eyes. “No one can know as well as I know how kind he is and good . . . and it’s so wicked . . . when he’s so good — that they should take away his money and his house that he loves and has always been in the family and give it to people who aren’t nearly so good. Why do they do it? What right have they —— ?” She broke off, looking at him with sudden suspicion. “Oh, I suppose it all seems right to you,” she said. “You’re the new generation, I suppose that’s why I don’t like you. I don’t like the new generation. All you boys and girls are irreligious and immoral and selfish. You don’t respect your parents and you don’t believe in God. You think you know everything and you’re hard-hearted. The world has become a terrible place and the wrath of God will surely be called down upon it.”
Henry said quietly:
“After a war like the one there’s just been it always takes a long time to settle down, doesn’t it? And all the young generation aren’t as you say. For instance, I have a splendid sister who is as modern as anybody, but she isn’t immoral and she isn’t hard-hearted and she doesn’t think she knows everything. I think many girls now are fine, with their courage and independence and honesty. Hypocrisy is leaving England at last. It’s been with us quite long enough.”