Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  He was silent. He was seeing those two in the new light of this letter. So they were really lovers, the drab, unromantic, plain, dull, middle-aged souls! What had they seen in one another? What had they felt, to drive them to deeds so desperate, yes, and so absurd? Was there then a world right outside his ken, a world from which he had been since his birth excluded? Absent-mindedly he had put the letter down on his table. Quickly she stretched out her gloved hand and took it. The bag clicked over it.

  “Why have you brought this to me?” he asked, looking at her with a disgust that he did not attempt to conceal. “You are the first person to whom I have spoken about the matter,” she answered. “I have not said anything even to Mrs. Baker. I have had the letter for several days and have not known what is right to do about it.”

  “There is only one thing that is right to do about it,” he answered sharply. “Burn it.”

  “And say nothing to anybody about it? Oh, Canon Ronder, surely that would not be right. I should not like people to think that you had given me such advice. To allow the Rector of St. James’ to continue in his position, with so many looking up to him, and he committing such sins. Oh, no, sir, I cannot feel that to be right!”

  “It is not our business,” he answered angrily. “It is not our affair.”

  “Very well, sir.” She got up. “It’s good of you to give me your opinion. It is not our affair. Quite so. But it is Archdeacon Brandon’s affair. He should see this letter. I thought that perhaps you yourself might like to speak to him — —” she paused.

  “I will have nothing to do with it,” he answered, getting up and standing over her. “You did very wrong to keep the letter. You are cherishing evil passions in your heart, Miss Milton, that will bring you nothing but harm and sorrow in the end. You have come to me for advice, you say. Well, I give it to you. Burn that letter and forget what you know.”

  Her complexion had changed to a strange muddy grey as he spoke.

  “There are others in this town, Canon Ronder,” she said, “who are cherishing much the same passions as myself, although they may not realise it. I thought it wise to tell you what I know. As you will not help me, I know now what to do. I am grateful for your advice — which, however, I do not think you wish me to follow.”

  With one last look at him she moved softly to the door and was gone. She seemed to him to leave some muddy impression of her personality upon the walls and furniture of the room. He flung up the window, walked about rubbing his hands against one another behind his back, hating everything around him.

  The words of the note repeated themselves again and again in his head.

  “Dearest...safe hand...dreadfully disappointed.... Dearest.”

  Those two! He saw Morris, with his weak face, his mild eyes, his rather shabby clothes, his hesitating manner, his thinning hair — and Mrs. Brandon, so mediocre that no one ever noticed her, never noticed anything about her — what she wore, what she said, what she did, anything!

  Those two! Ghosts! and in love so that they would risk loss of everything — reputation, possessions, family — that they might obtain their desire! In love as he had never been in all his life!

  His thoughts turned, with a little shudder, to Miss Milton. She had come to him because she thought that he would like to share in her revenge. That, more than anything, hurt him, bringing him down to her base, sordid level, making him fellow-conspirator with her, plotting...ugh! How cruelly unfair that he, upright, generous, should be involved like this so meanly.

  He washed his hands in the little dressing-room near the study, scrubbing them as though the contact with Miss Milton still lingered there. Hating his own company, he went downstairs, where he found Ellen Stiles, having had a very happy tea with his aunt, preparing to depart.

  “Going, Ellen?” he asked.

  She was in the highest spirits and a hat of vivid green.

  “Yes, I must go. I’ve been here ever so long. We’ve had a perfectly lovely time, talking all about poor Mrs. Maynard and her consumption. There’s simply no hope for her, I’m afraid; it’s such a shame when she has four small children; but as I told her yesterday, it’s really best to make up one’s mind to the worst, and there’ll be no money for the poor little things after she’s gone. I don’t know what they’ll do.”

  “You must have cheered her up,” said Ronder.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. Like all consumptives she will persist in thinking that she’s going to get well. Of course, if she had money enough to go to Davos or somewhere...but she hasn’t, so there’s simply no hope at all.”

  “If you are going along I’ll walk part of the way with you,” said Ronder.

  “That will be nice.” Ellen kissed Miss Ronder very affectionately. “Good-bye, you darling. I have had a nice time. Won’t it be awful if it’s wet next week? Simply everything will be ruined. I don’t see much chance of its being fine myself. Still you never can tell.”

  They went out together. The Precincts was quiet and deserted; a bell, below in the sunny town, was ringing for Evensong. “Morris’s church, perhaps,” thought Ronder. The light was stretched like a screen of coloured silk across the bright green of the Cathedral square; the great Church itself was in shadow, misty behind the sun, and shifting from shade to shade as though it were under water.

  When they had walked a little way Ellen said: “What’s the matter?”

  “The matter?” Ronder echoed.

  “Yes. You’re looking worried, and that’s so rare with you that when it happens one’s interested.”

  He hesitated, looking at her and almost stopping in his walk. An infernal nuisance if Ellen Stiles were to choose this moment for the exercise of her unfortunate curiosity! He had intended to go down High Street with her and then to go by way of Orange Street to Foster’s rooms; but one could reach Foster more easily by the little crooked street behind the Cathedral. He would say good-bye to her here.... Then another thought struck him. He would go on with her.

  “Isn’t your curiosity terrible, Ellen!” he said, laughing. “If you didn’t happen to have a kind heart hidden somewhere about you, you’d be a perfectly impossible woman. As it is, I’m not sure that you’re not.”

  “I think perhaps I am,” Ellen answered, laughing. “I do take a great interest in other people’s affairs. Well, why not? It prevents me from being bored.”

  “But not from being a bore,” said Ronder. “I hate to be unpleasant, but there’s nothing more tiresome than being asked why one’s in a certain mood. However, leave me alone and I will repay your curiosity by some of my own. Tell me, how much are people talking about Mrs. Brandon and Morris?”

  This time she was genuinely surprised. On so many occasions he had checked her love of gossip and scandal and now he was deliberately provoking it. It was as though he had often lectured her about drinking too much and then had been discovered by her, secretly tippling.

  “Oh, everybody’s talking, of course,” she said. “Although you pretend never to talk scandal you must know enough about the town to know that. They happen to be talking less just at the moment because nobody’s thinking of anything but the Jubilee.”

  “What I want to know,” said Ronder, “is how much Brandon is supposed to be aware of — and does he mind?”

  “He’s aware of nothing,” said Ellen decisively. “Nothing at all. He’s always looked upon his wife as a piece of furniture, neither very ornamental nor very useful, but still his property, and therefore to be reckoned on as stable and submissive. I don’t think that in any case he would ever dream that she could disobey him in anything, but, as it happens, his son’s flight to London and his own quarrel with you entirely possess his mind. He talks, eats, thinks, dreams nothing else.”

  “What would he do, do you think,” pursued Ronder, “if he were to discover that there really was something wrong, that she had been unfaithful?”

  “Why, is there proof?” asked Ellen Stiles, eagerly, pausing for a moment in her excitement.<
br />
  The sharp note of eagerness in her voice checked him.

  “No — nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. Of course not. And how should I know if there were?”

  “You’re just the person who would know,” answered Ellen decisively. “However many other people you’ve hoodwinked, you haven’t taken me in all these years. But I’ll tell you this as from one friend to another, that you’ve made the first mistake in your life by allowing this quarrel with Brandon to become so public.”

  He marvelled again, as he had often marvelled before, at her unerring genius for discovering just the thing to say to her friends that would hurt them most. And yet with that she had a kind heart, as he had had reason often enough to know. Queer things, women!

  “It’s not my fault if the quarrel’s become public,” he said. They were turning down the High Street now and he could not show all the vexation that he felt. “It’s Brandon’s own idiotic character and the love of gossip displayed by this town.”

  “Well, then,” she said, delighted that she had annoyed him and that he was showing his annoyance, “that simply means that you’ve been defeated by circumstances. For once they’ve been too strong for you. If you like that explanation you’d better take it.”

  “Now, Ellen,” he said, “you’re trying to make me lose my temper in revenge for my not satisfying your curiosity; give up. You’ve tried before and you’ve always failed.”

  She laughed, putting her hand through his arm.

  “Yes, don’t let’s quarrel,” she said. “Isn’t it delightful to-night with the sunlight and the excitement and every one out enjoying themselves? I love to see them happy, poor things. It’s only the successful and the self-important and the patronising that I want to pull down a little. As soon as I find myself wanting to dig at somebody, I know it’s because they’re getting above themselves. You’d better be careful. I’m not at all sure that success isn’t going to your head.”

  “Success?” he asked.

  “Yes. Don’t look so innocent. You’ve been here only a few months and already you’re the only man here who counts. You’ve beaten Brandon in the very first round, and it’s absurd of you to pretend to an old friend like myself that you don’t know that you have. But be careful.”

  The street was shining, wine-coloured, against the black walls that hemmed it in, black walls scattered with sheets of glass, absurd curtains of muslin, brown, shabby, self-ashamed backs of looking-glasses, door-knobs, flower-pots, and collections of furniture, books and haberdashery.

  “Suppose you leave me alone for a moment, Ellen,” said Ronder, “and think, of somebody else. What I really want to know is, how intimate are you with Mrs. Brandon?”

  “Intimate?”

  “Yes. I mean — could you speak to her? Tell her, in some way, to be more careful, that she’s in danger. Women know how to do these things. I want to find somebody.”

  He paused. Did he want to find somebody? Why this strange tenderness towards Mrs. Brandon of which he was quite suddenly conscious? Was it his disgust of Miss Milton, so that he could not bear to think of any one in the power of such a woman?

  “Warn her?” said Ellen. “Then she is in danger.”

  “Only if, as you say, every one is talking. I’m sorry for her.”

  They had come to the parting of their ways. “No. I don’t know her well enough for that. She wouldn’t take it from me. She wouldn’t take it from anybody. She’s prouder than you’d think. And it’s my belief she doesn’t care if she is in danger. She’d rather welcome it. That’s my belief.”

  “Good-bye then. I won’t ask you to keep our talk quiet. I don’t suppose you could if you wanted to. But I will ask you to be kind.”

  “Why should I be kind? And you know you don’t want me to be, really.”

  “I do want you to be.”

  “No, it’s part of the game you’re playing. Or if it isn’t, you’re changing more than you’ve ever changed before. Look out! Perhaps it’s you that’s in danger!”

  As he turned up Orange Street he wondered again what impulse it was that was making him sorry for Mrs. Brandon. He always wished people to be happy — life was easier so — but had he, even yesterday, been told that he would ever feel concern for Mrs. Brandon, that supreme symbol of feminine colourless mediocrity, he would have laughed derisively.

  Then the beauty of the hour drove everything else from him. The street climbed straight into the sky, a broad flat sheet of gold, and on its height the monument, perched against the quivering air, was a purple shaft, its gesture proud, haughty, exultant. Suddenly he saw in front of him, moving with quick, excited steps, Mrs. Brandon, an absurdly insignificant figure against that splendour.

  He felt as though his thoughts had evoked her out of space, and as though she was there against her will. Then he felt that he, too, was there against his will, and that he had nothing to do with either the time or the place.

  He caught her up. She started nervously when he said, “Good evening, Mrs. Brandon,” and raised her little mouse-face with its mild, hesitating, grey eyes to his. He knew her only slightly and was conscious that she did not like him. That was not his affair; she had become something quite new to him since he had gained this knowledge of her — she was provocative, suggestive, even romantic.

  “Good evening, Canon Ronder.” She did not smile nor slacken her steps.

  “Isn’t this a lovely evening?” he said. “If we have this weather next week we shall be lucky indeed.”

  “Yes, shan’t we — shan’t we?” she said nervously, not considering him, but staring straight at the street in front of her.

  “I think all the preparations are made,” Ronder went on in the genial easy voice that he always adopted with children and nervous women. “There should be a tremendous crowd if the weather’s fine. People already are pouring in from every part of the country, they tell me — sleeping anywhere, in the fields and the hedges. This old town will be proud of herself.”

  “Yes, yes,” Mrs. Brandon looked about her as though she were trying to find a way of escape. “I’m so glad you think that the weather will be fine. I’m so glad. I think it will myself. I hope Miss Ronder is well.”

  “Very well, thank you.” What could Morris see in her, with her ill- fitting clothes, her skirt trailing a little in the dust, her hat too big and heavy for her head, her hair escaping in little untidy wisps from under it? She looked hot, too, and her nose was shiny.

  “You’re coming to the Ball of course,” he went on, relieved that now they were near the top of the little hill. “It’s to be the best Ball the Assembly Rooms have seen since — since Jane Austen.”

  “Jane Austen?” asked Mrs. Brandon vaguely.

  “Well, her time, you know, when dancing was all the rage. We ought to have more dances here, I think, now that there are so many young people about.”

  “Yes, I agree with you. My daughter is coming out at the Ball.”

  “Oh, is she? I’m sure she’ll have a good time. She’s so pretty. Every one’s fond of her.”

  He waited, but apparently Mrs. Brandon had nothing more to say. There was a pause, then Mrs. Brandon, as though she had been suddenly pushed to it by some one behind her, held out her hand....

  “Good evening, Canon Ronder.”

  He said good-bye and watched her for a moment as she went up past the neat little villas, her dress trailing behind her, her hat bobbing with every step. He looked up at the absurd figure on the top of the monument, the gentleman in frock-coat and tall hat commemorated there. The light had left him. He was not purple now but a dull grey. He, too, had doubtless had his romance, blood and tears, anger and agony for somebody. How hard to keep out of such things, and yet one must if one is to achieve anything. Keep out of it, detached, observant, comfortable. Strange that in life comfort should be so difficult to attain!

  Climbing Green Lane he was surprised to feel how hot it was. The trees that clustered over his head seemed to have gathered togeth
er all the heat of the day. Everything conspired to annoy him! Bodger’s Street, when he turned into it, was, from his point of view, at its very worst, crowded and smelly and rocking with noise. The fields behind Bodger’s Street and Canon’s Yard sloped down the hill then up again out into the country beyond.

  It was here on this farther hill that the gipsies had been allowed to pitch their caravans, and that the Fair was already preparing its splendours. It was through these gates that the countrymen would penetrate the town’s defences, just as on the other side, low down in Seatown on the Pol’s banks, the seafaring men, fishermen and sailors and merchantmen, were gathering. Bodger’s Street was already alive with the anticipation of the coming week’s festivities. Gas-jets were flaming behind hucksters’ booths, all the population of the place was out on the street enjoying the fine summer evening, shouting, laughing, singing, quarrelling. The effect of the street illumined by these uncertain flares that leapt unnaturally against the white shadow of the summer sky was of something mediaeval, and that impression was deepened by the overhanging structure of the Cathedral that covered the faint blue and its little pink clouds like a swinging spider’s web.

  Ronder, however, was not now thinking of the town. His mind was fixed upon his approaching interview with Foster. Foster had just paid a visit, quite unofficial and on a private personal basis, to Wistons, to sound him about the Pybus living and his action if he were offered it.

  Ronder understood men very much better than he understood women. He understood Foster so long as ambition and religion were his motives, but there was something else in play that he did not understand. It was not only that Foster did not like him — he doubted whether Foster liked anybody except the Bishop — it was rather perhaps that Foster did not like himself. Now it is the first rule of fanaticism that you should be so lost in the impulse of your inspiration that you should have no power left with which to consider yourself at all. Foster was undoubtedly a fanatic, but he did consider himself and even despised himself. Ronder distrusted self- contempt in a man simply because nothing made him so uncomfortable as those moments of his own when he wondered whether he were all that he thought himself. Those moments did not last long, but he hated them so bitterly that he could not bear to see them at work in other people. Foster was the kind of fanatic who might at any minute decide to put peas in his shoes and walk to Jerusalem; did he so decide, he would abandon, for that decision, all the purposes for which he might at the time be working. Ronder would certainly never walk to Jerusalem.