Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  “Well, Peter,” she had said, “so you’re in love with that girl?”

  He admitted it at once, standing stolidly in front of her, looking at her with that pity in his eyes that irritated her so desperately.

  “Yes, I love her,” he said, “but she doesn’t love me. When you’re better we’ll go away and live somewhere else. Paris if you like. We’ll make a better thing of it, Clare, than we did the first time.”

  “Very magnanimous,” she answered him. “But don’t be too sure that she doesn’t love you. Or she will when she’s recovered from this present little affair. You must marry her, Peter — and if you do you’ll make a success of it. She’s the honestest woman I’ve met yet and you’re the honestest man I know. You’ll suit one another. . . . Mind you, I don’t mean that as a compliment. People as honest as you two are tiresome for ordinary folks to live with. I found you tiresome twenty years ago, Peter, I find you tiresome still.”

  He suddenly came down and knelt beside her sofa putting his arm round her. “Clare, please, please don’t talk like that. My life’s with you now. I daresay you find me dull. I am dull I know. But I’m old enough to understand now that you must have your freedom. All that I care about is for you to get well; then you shall do as you like. I won’t tie you in any way; only be there if you want a friend.”

  She suddenly put up her hand and stroked his cheek, then as suddenly withdrew her hand and tucked it under her.

  “Poor Peter,” she said. “It was bad luck my coming back like that just when she’d broken with her young man. Never mind. I’ll see what I can do. I did you a bad turn once — it would be nice and Christian of me to do you a good turn now. We ought never to have married of course — but you would marry me, you know.”

  She looked at him curiously, as though she were seeing him for the first time.

  “What do you think about life, Peter? What does it mean to you, all this fuss and agitation?”

  “Mean?” he repeated. “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do,” she answered him. “I know exactly what you think. You think it’s for us all to get better in. To learn from experience, a kind of boarding-school before the next world.”

  “Well, I suppose I do think it’s something of that sort,” he answered. “It hasn’t any meaning for me otherwise. It feels like a fight and a fight about something real.”

  “And what about the people who get worse instead of better? It’s rather hard luck on them. It isn’t their fault half the time.”

  “We don’t see the thing as it really is, I expect,” he answered her, “nor people as they really are.”

  She moved restlessly.

  “Now we’re getting preachy. I expect you get preachy rather easily just as you used to. All I know is that I’m tired — tired to death. Do you remember how frightened I used to be twenty years ago? Well, I’m not frightened any longer. There’s nothing left to be frightened of. Nothing could be worse than what I’ve had already. But I’m tired — damnably, damnably tired. And now I think I’ll just turn over and go to sleep if you’ll leave me for a bit.”

  He kissed her and left her, and at some moment between then and the morning she left him.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE RESCUE

  At the very moment that Millie was knocking on Peter’s door Henry was sitting, a large bump on his forehead, looking at a dirty piece of paper. Only yesterday he had fought Baxter in Piccadilly Circus; now Baxter and everything and every one about him was as far from his consciousness as Heaven was from 1920 London. The Real had departed — the coloured life of the imagination had taken its place. . . . The appeal for which all his life he had been waiting had come — it was contained in that same dirty piece of paper.

  The piece of paper was of the blue-grey kind, torn in haste from a washing bill; the cheap envelope that had contained it lay at Henry’s feet.

  On the piece of paper in a childish hand was scrawled this ill-spelt message: “Please come as quikley as you can or it will be to late.”

  Mr. King’s factotum, a long, thin young man with carroty hair, had brought the envelope five minutes before. The St. James’ church clock had just struck five; it was raining hard, the water running from the eaves above Henry’s attic window across and down with a curious little gurgling chuckle that was all his life afterwards to be connected with this evening.

  There was no signature to the paper; he had never seen Christina’s handwriting before; it might be a blind or a decoy or simply a practical joke. Nevertheless, he did not for a moment hesitate as to what he would do. He had already that afternoon decided in the empty melancholy of the deserted Hill Street library that he must that same evening make another attack on Peter Street. He was determined that this time he would discover once and for all the truth about Christina even though he had to wring Mrs. Tenssen’s skinny neck to secure it.

  He had returned to Panton Street fired with this resolve; five minutes later the note had been delivered to him.

  He washed his face, put on a clean collar, placed the note carefully in his pocket-book and started out on the great adventure of his life. The rain was driving so lustily down Peter Street that no one was about. He moved like a man in a dream, driven by some fantastic force of his imagination as though he were still sitting in Panton Street and this were a new chapter that he was writing in his romance — or as though his body were in Panton Street and it was his soul that sallied forth. And yet the details about Mrs. Tenssen were real enough — he could still hear her crunching the sardine-bones, and Peter Street was real enough, and the rain as it trickled inside his collar, and the bump on his forehead.

  Nevertheless in dreams too details were real.

  As though he had done all this before (having as it were rehearsed it somewhere), he did not this time go to the little door but went rather to the yard that had seen his first attack. He stumbled in the dusk over boxes, planks of wood and pieces of iron, hoops and wheels and bars.

  Once he almost fell and the noise that he made seemed to his anxious ears terrific, but suddenly he stumbled against the little wooden stair, set his foot thereon and started to climb. Soon he felt the trap-door, pushed it up with his hand and climbed into the passage. Once more he was in the gallery, and once more he had looked through into the courtyard beyond, now striped and misted with the driving rain.

  No human being was to be seen or heard. He moved indeed as in a dream. He was now by the long window, curtained as before. This time no voices came from the other side; there was no sound in all the world but the rain.

  Again, as in dreams, he knew what would happen: that he would push at the window, find it on this occasion fastened, push again with his elbow, then with both hands shove against the glass. All this he did, the doors of the window sprang apart and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he saved himself from falling on to his knees as he had done on the earlier occasion.

  He parted the curtains and walked into the room. He found a group staring towards the window. At the table, her hands folded in front of her, sat Christina, wearing the hat with the crimson feather as she had done the first time he had seen her. On a chair sat Mrs. Tenssen, dressed for a journey; she had obviously been bending over a large bag that she was trying to close when the noise that Henry made at the window diverted her.

  Near the door, his face puckered with alarm, a soft grey hat on his head and very elegant brown gloves on his hands, was old Mr. Leishman.

  Henry, without looking at the two of them, went up to Christina and said:

  “I came at once.”

  Mrs. Tenssen, her face a dusty chalk-colour with anger, jumped up and moved forward as though she were going to attack Henry with her nails. Leishman murmured something; with great difficulty she restrained herself, paused where she was and then in her favourite attitude, standing, her hands on her hips, cried:

  “Then it is jail for you after all, young man. In two minutes we’ll have the police here and we’ll see
what you have to say then to a charge of house-breaking.”

  “See, Henry,” said Christina, speaking quickly, “this is why I have sent for you. My uncle has come to London at last and is to be here to-morrow morning to see us. My mother says I am to go with her now into the country to some house of his,” nodding with her head towards Leishman, “and I refuse and — —”

  “Yes,” screamed Mrs. Tenssen, “but you’ll be in that cab in the next ten minutes or I’ll make it the worse for you and that swollen-faced schoolboy there.” There followed then such a torrent of the basest abuse and insult that suddenly Henry was at her, catching her around the throat and crying: “You say that of her! You dare to say that of her! You dare to say that of her!”

  This was the third physical encounter of Henry’s during the months of this most eventful year: it was certainly the most confused of the three. He felt Mrs. Tenssen’s finger-nails in his face and was then aware that she had escaped from him, had snatched the pin from her hat and was about to charge him with it. He turned, caught Christina by the arm, moved as though he would go to the window, then as both Mrs. Tenssen and Leishman rushed in that direction pushed Christina through, the door, crying: “Quick! Down the stairs! I’ll follow you!”

  As soon as he saw that she was through he stood with his back to the door facing them. Again the dream-sensation was upon him. He had the impression that when just now he had attacked Mrs. Tenssen his hands had gone through her as though she had been air.

  He could hear Leishman quavering: “Let them go. . . . This will be bad for us. . . . I didn’t want . . . I don’t like . . .”

  Mrs. Tenssen said nothing, then she had rushed across at him, had one hand on his shoulder and with the other was jabbing at him with the hatpin, crying: “Give me my daughter! Give me my daughter! Give me my daughter!”

  With one hand he held off her arm, then with a sudden wrench, he was free of her, pushing her back with a sharp jerk, was through the door and down the stairs.

  Christina was waiting for him; he caught her hand and together they ran through the rain-driven street.

  Down Peter Street they ran and down Shaftesbury Avenue, across the Circus and did not stop until they were inside Panton Street door. The storm had emptied the street but, maybe, there are those alive who can tell how once two figures flew through the London air, borne on the very wings of the wind. . . . In such a vision do the miracles of this world and the next have their birth!

  Up the stairs, through the door, the key turned, the attic warm and safe about them, and at last Henry, breathless, his coat torn, his back to the door:

  “Now nobody shall take you! . . . Nobody in all the world!”

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE MOMENT

  The miracle had been achieved. She was sitting upon his bed, her hands in her lap, looking with curiosity about her. She was very calm and quiet, as she always was, but she suddenly turned and smiled at him as though she would say: “I do like you for having brought me here.”

  His happiness almost choked him, but he was determined to be severely practical. He found out from her the name of her uncle and the hotel at which he was staying. He wrote a few lines saying that Miss Christina Tenssen was here in his room, that it was urgently necessary that she should be fetched by her uncle as soon as possible for reasons that he, Henry, would explain later. He got Christina herself to write a line at the bottom of the page.

  “You see if we went on to your uncle’s hotel now at once he might not be in and we would not be able to go up to his room. It is much better that we should stay here. Your mother may come on here, but they shall only take you from this room over my dead body.” He laughed. “That’s a phrase,” he said, “that comes naturally to me because I’m a romantic novelist. Nevertheless, this time it’s true. All the most absurd things become true at such a time as this. If you knew what nights and days I’ve dreamt of you being just like this, sitting alone with me like this. . . . Oh, Gimini! I’m happy. . . .” He pressed the bell that here rang and there did not. For the first time in history (but was not to-day a fairy tale?) the carroty-haired factotum arrived with marvellous promptitude, quite breathless with unwonted exertion. Henry gave him the note. He looked for an instant at Christina, then stumbled away.

  “If your uncle is in he should be here in half an hour. If he is out, of course, it will be longer. At least I have half an hour. For half an hour you are my guest in my own palace, and for anything in the world that you require I have only to clap my hands and it shall be brought to you!”

  “I don’t want anything,” she said; “only to sit here and be quiet and talk to you.” She took off her hat and it reposed with its scarlet feather on Henry’s rickety table.

  She looked about her, smiling at everything. “I like it all — everything. That picture — those books. It is so like you — even the carpet!”

  “Won’t you lie down on the bed?” he said. “And I’ll sit here, quite close, where I can see you. And I’ll take your hand if you don’t mind. I suppose we shan’t meet for a long time again, and then we shall be so old that it will all be quite different. I shall never have a moment like this again, and I want to make the very most of it and then remember every instant so long as I live!”

  She lay down as he had asked her and her hand was in his.

  “You don’t know what it is,” she said, “to be away from that place at last. All this last fortnight my mother has been hesitating what she was to do. She has been trying to persuade Leishman to take me away himself, but there has been some trouble about money. There has been some other man too. All she has wanted lately is to get the money; she has wanted, I know, to leave the country — she has been cursing this town every minute — but she was always bargaining for me and could not get quite what she wanted. Then suddenly only this morning she had a letter from my uncle to say that he had arrived. She is more afraid of him than of any one in the world. She and the old man have been quarrelling all the morning, but at last they came to some decision. We were to leave for somewhere by the six o’clock train. She had hardly for a moment her eyes off me, but I had just a minute when I could give that note to Rose, the girl who comes in in the morning to work for us. I was frightened that you might not be here, away from London, but it was all I could do. . . . I was happy when I saw you come.”

  “This is the top moment of my life,” said Henry, “and for ever afterwards I’m going to judge life by this. Just for half an hour you are mine and I am yours, and I can imagine to myself that I have only to say the word and I can carry you off to some island where no one can touch you and where we shall be always together.”

  “Perhaps that’s true,” she said, suddenly looking at him. “I have never liked any one as I like you. My father and my uncles were quite different. If you took me away who knows what would come?”

  He shook his head, smiling at her. “No, my dear. You’re grateful just now and you feel kind but you’re not in love with me and you never, never will be. I’m not the man you’ll be in love with. He’ll be some one fine, not ugly and clumsy and untidy like me. I can see him — one of your own people, very handsome and strong and brave. I’m not brave and I’m certainly not handsome. I lose my temper and then do things on the spur of the moment — generally ludicrous things — but I’m not really brave. But I believe in life now. I know what it can do and what it can bring, and no one can take that away from me now.”

  “I believe,” she said, looking at him, “that you’re going to do fine things — write great books or lead men to do great deeds. I shall be so proud when I hear men speaking your name and praising you. I shall say to myself: ‘That’s my friend whom they’re speaking of. I knew him before they did and I knew what he would do.’”

  “I think,” said Henry, “that I always knew that this moment would come. When I was a boy in the country and was always being scolded for something I did wrong or stupidly I used to dream of this. I thought it would come in the War but it d
idn’t. And then when I was in London I would stop sometimes in the street and expect the heavens to open and some miracle to happen. And now the miracle has happened because I love you and you are my friend, and you are here in my shabby room and no one can ever prevent us thinking of one another till we die.”

  “I shall always think of you,” she answered, “and how good you have been to me. I long for home and Kjöbenhaven and Langlinir and Jutland and the sand-dunes, but I shall miss you — now I know how I shall miss you. Henry, come back with me — if only for a little while. Come and stay with my uncle, and see our life and what kind of people we are.”

  His hand shook as it held hers. He stayed looking at her, their eyes lost in one another. It seemed to him an eternity while he waited. Then he shook his head.

  “No. . . . It may be cowardice. . . . I don’t know. But I don’t want to spoil this. It’s perfect as it is. I want you always to think about me as you do now. You wouldn’t perhaps when you knew me better. You don’t see me as I really am, not all the way round. For once I know where to stop, how to keep it perfect. Christina darling, I love you, love you, love you! I’ll never love any one like this again. Let me put my arms around you and hold you just once before you go.”

  He knelt on the floor beside the bed and put his arms around her. Her cheek was against his. She put up her hand and stroked his hair.

  They stayed there in silence and without moving, their hearts beating together.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Give me something,” he said. “Something of yours before you go. The scarlet feather!”

  She tore it from her hat and gave it to him. Then he went to the door and opened it.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR

  It was the morning of November 11, 1920, the anniversary of the Armistice, the day of the burial of the Unknown Warrior.