Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

“Wasn’t that Mr. Morris who was talking to you just now?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I like him. He looks kind.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “And where’s father?”

  “Over there, talking to Lady St. Leath.”

  She looked across, and there he was, so big and tall and fine, so splendid in his grand clothes. Her heart swelled with pride.

  “Isn’t he splendid, mother, dear?”

  “Who?”

  “Father!”

  “Splendid?”

  “Yes; doesn’t he look splendid to-night? Better looking than all the rest of the room put together?” (Johnny wasn’t good-looking. Better than good-looking.)

  “Oh — look splendid. Yes. He’s a very handsome man.”

  Joan felt once again that little chill with which she was so often familiar when she talked with her mother — a sudden withdrawal of sympathy, a pushing Joan away with her hand.

  But never mind — there was the music again, and here, oh, here, was Johnny! Someone had once called him Tubby in her hearing, and how indignant she had been! He was perhaps a little on the fat side, but strong with it.... She went off with him. The waltz began.

  She sank into sweet delicious waters — waters that rocked and cradled her, hugged her and caressed her. She was conscious of his arm. She did not speak nor did he. Years of utter happiness passed....

  He did not take her, as Mr. Forsyth had done, into the public glare of the passage, but up a crooked staircase behind the Minstrels’ Gallery into a little room, cool and shaded, where, in easy-chairs, they were quite alone.

  He was shy, fingering his gloves. She said (just to make conversation):

  “How beautiful Miss Daubeney is looking!”

  “Do you think so?” said Johnny. “I don’t. I’m sick of that girl. She’s the most awful bore. Mother’s always shoving her at my head. She’s been staying with us for months. She wants me to marry her because she’s rich. But we’ve got plenty, and I wouldn’t marry her anyway, not if we hadn’t a penny. Because she’s a bore, and because” — his voice became suddenly loud and commanding— “I’m going to marry you.”

  Something — some lovely bird of Paradise, some splendid coloured breeze, some carpet of magic pattern — came and swung Joan up to a high tree loaded with golden apples. There she swung — singing her heart out. Johnny’s voice came up to her.

  “Because I’m going to marry you.”

  “What?” she called down to him.

  “I’m going to marry you. I knew it from the very first second I saw you, that day after Cathedral — from the very first moment I knew it. I wanted to ask you right away at once, but I thought I’d do the thing properly, so I went away, and I’ve been in Paris and Rome and all over the place, and I’ve thought of you the whole time — every minute. Then mother made a fuss about this Daubeney girl — my not being here and all that — so I thought I’d come home and tell you I was going to marry you.”

  “Oh, but you can’t.” Joan swung down from her appletree. “You and me? Why, what would your mother say?”

  “It isn’t a case of would but will” Johnny said. “Mother will be very angry — and for a considerable time. But that makes no difference. Mother’s mother and I’m myself.”

  “It’s impossible,” said Joan quickly, “from every point of view. Do you know what my brother has done? I’m proud of Falk and love him; but you’re Lord St. Leath, and Falk has married the daughter of Hogg, the man who keeps a public-house down in Seatown.”

  “I heard of that,” said Johnny. “But what does that matter? Do you know what I did last year? I crossed the Atlantic as a stoker in a Cunard boat. Mother never knew until I got back, and wasn’t she furious! But the world’s changing. There isn’t going to be any class difference soon — none at all. You take my word. Look at the Americans! They’re the people! We’ll be like them one day.... But what’s all this?” he suddenly said. “I’m going to marry you and you’re going to marry me. You love me, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Joan faintly.

  “Well, then. I knew you did. I’m going to kiss you.” He put his arms around her and kissed her very gently.

  “Oh, how I love you!” he said, “and how good I’ll be to you!”

  “But we must be practical,” said Joan wildly. “How can we marry? Everything’s against it. I’ve no money. I’m nobody. Your mother — —”

  “Now you just leave my mother alone. Leave me to manage her — I know all about that — —”

  “I won’t be engaged to you,” Joan said firmly, “not for ages and ages — not for a year anyway.”

  “That’s all right,” said Johnny indifferently. “You can settle it any way you please — but no one’s going to marry you but me, and no one’s going to marry me but you.”

  He would have kissed her again, but Mrs. Preston and a young man came in.

  “Now you shall come and speak to my mother,” he said to her as they went out. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just say ‘Bo’ to her as you would to a goose, and she’ll answer all right.”

  “You won’t say anything — —” began Joan.

  “About us? All right. That’s a secret for the present; but we shall meet every day, and if there’s a day we don’t meet you’ve got to write. Do you agree?”

  Whether she agreed or no was uncertain, because they were now in a cloud of people, and, a moment later, were face to face with the old Countess.

  She was pleased, it at once appeared. She was in a gracious mood; people had been pleasant enough — that is, they had been obsequious and flattering. Also her digestion was behaving properly; those new pills that old Puddifoot had given her were excellent. She therefore received Joan very graciously, congratulated her on her appearance, and asked her where her elder sister was. When Joan explained that she had no sister Lady St. Leath appeared vexed with her, as though it had been a piece of obvious impertinence on her part not to produce a sister instantly when she had asked for one. However, Lady Mary was kind and friendly and made Joan sit beside her for a little. Joan thought, “I’d like to have you for a sister one day, if — if — ever — —” and allowed her thoughts to go no farther.

  Thence she passed into the company of Mrs. Combermere and Ellen Stiles. It seemd to her — but it was probably her fancy — that as she came to them they were discussing something that was not for her ears. It seemed to her that they swiftly changed the conversation and greeted her with quite an unusual warmth of affection. For the first time that evening a sudden little chill of foreboding, whence she knew not, seemed to touch her and shade, for an instant, her marvellous happiness.

  Mrs. Combermere was very sweet to her indeed, quite as though she had been, but now, recovering from an alarming illness. Her bass voice, strong thick hands and stiff wiry hair went so incongruously with her cloth of gold that Joan could not help smiling.

  “You look very happy, my dear,” Mrs. Combermere said.

  “Of course I am,” said Joan. “How can I help it, my first Ball?”

  Mrs. Combermere kicked her trailing garments with her foot, just like a dame in a pantomime. “Well, enjoy yourself as long as you can. You’re looking very pretty. The prettiest girl in the room. I’ve just been saying so to Ellen — haven’t I, Ellen?”

  Ellen Stiles was at that moment making herself agreeable to the Mayoress, who was sitting lonely and uncomfortable (weighed down with longing for sleep) on a little gilt chair.

  “I was just saying to Mrs. Branston,” Miss Stiles said, turning round, “that the time one has to be careful with children after whooping-cough is when they seem practically well. Her little boy has just been ill with it, and she says he’s recovered; but that’s the time, as I tell her, when nine out of ten children die — just when you think you’re safe.”

  “Oh dear,” said Mrs. Branston, turning towards them her full anxious eyes. “You do alarm me, Miss Stiles! And I’ve been letting Tommy quite loose,
as you may say, these last few days — with his appetite back and all, there seemed no danger.”

  “Well, if you find him feverish when you get home tonight,” said Ellen, “don’t he surprised. All the excitement of the Jubilee too will be very bad for him.”

  At that moment Canon Ronder came up. Joan looked and at once, at the sight of the round gleaming spectacles, the smiling mouth, the full cheeks puffed out as though he were blowing perpetual bubbles for his own amusement, felt her old instinct of repulsion. This man was her father’s enemy, and so hers. All the town knew now that he was trying to ruin her father so that he might take his place, that he laughed at him and mocked him.

  So fierce did she feel that she could have scratched his cheeks. He was smiling at them all, and at once was engaged in a wordy duel with Mrs. Combermere and Miss Stiles. They liked him; every one in the town liked him. She heard his praises sung by every one. Well, she would never sing them. She hated him.

  And now he was actually speaking to her. He had the impertinence to ask her for a dance.

  “I’m afraid I’m engaged for the next and for the one after that, Canon Ronder,” she said.

  “Well, later on then,” he said, smiling. “What about an extra?”

  Her dark eyes scorned him.

  “We are going home early,” she said. She pretended to examine her programme. “I’m afraid I have not one before we go.”

  She spoke as coldly as she dared. She felt the eyes of Mrs. Combermere and Ellen Stiles upon her. How stupid of her! She had shown them what her feelings were, and now they would chatter the more and laugh about her fighting her father’s battles. Why had she not shown her indifference, her complete indifference?

  He was smiling still — not discomfited by her rudeness. He said something — something polite and outrageously kind — and then young Charles D’Arcy came up to carry her off for the Lancers.

  An hour later her cup of happiness was completely filled. She had danced, during that hour, four times with Johnny; every one must be talking. Lady St. Leath must be furious (she did not know that Boadicea had been playing whist with old Colonel Wotherston and Sir Henry Byles for the last ever so long).

  She would perhaps never have such an hour in all her life again. This thing that he so wildly proposed was impossible — utterly, completely impossible; but what was not impossible, what was indeed certain and sure and beyond any sort of question, was that she loved Johnny St. Leath with all her heart and soul, and would so love him until the day of her death. Life could never be purposeless nor mean nor empty for her again, while she had that treasure to carry about with her in her heart. Meanwhile she could not look at him and doubt but that, for the moment at any rate, he loved her — and there was something simple and direct about Johnny as there was about his dog Andrew, that made his words, few and clumsy though they might be, most strangely convincing.

  So, almost dizzy with happiness, she climbed the stair behind the Gallery and thought that she would escape for a moment into the little room where Johnny had proposed to her, and sit there and grow calm. She looked in. Some one was there. A man sitting by himself and staring in front of him. She saw at once that he was in some great trouble. His hands were clenched, his face puckered and set with pain. Then she saw that it was her father.

  He did not move; he might have been a block of stone shining in the dimness. Terrified, she stood, herself not moving. Then she came forward. She put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Oh, father — father, what is it?” She felt his body trembling beneath her touch — he, the proudest, finest man in the country. She put her arm round his neck. She kissed him. His forehead was damp with sweat. His body was shaking from head to foot. She kissed him again and again, kneeling beside him.

  Then she remembered where they were. Some one might come. No one must see him like that.

  She whispered to him, took his hands between hers.

  “Let’s go home, Joan,” he said. “I want to go home.”

  She put her arm through his, and together they went down the little stairs.

  Chapter IV

  Sunday, June 20: In the Bedroom

  Brandon had been talking to the Precentor at the far end of the ballroom, when suddenly Ronder had appeared in their midst. Appeared the only word! And Brandon, armoured, he had thought, for every terror that that night might bring to him, had been suddenly seized with the lust of murder. A lust as dominating as any other, that swept upon him in a hot flaming tide, lapped him from head to foot. It was no matter, this time, of words, of senses, of thoughts, but of his possession by some other man who filled his brain, his eyes, his mouth, his stomach, his heart; one second more and he would have flung himself upon that smiling face, those rounded limbs; he would have caught that white throat and squeezed it — squeezed...squeezed....

  The room literally swam in a tide of impulse that carried him against Ronder’s body and left him there, breast beating against breast....

  He turned without a word and almost ran from the place. He passed through the passages, seeing no one, conscious of neither voices nor eyes, climbing stairs that he did not feel, sheltering in that lonely little room, sitting there, his hands to his face, shuddering. The lust slowly withdrew from him, leaving him icy cold. Then he lifted his eyes and saw his daughter and clung to her — as just then he would have clung to anybody — for safety.

  Had it come to this then, that he was mad? All that night, lying on his bed, he surveyed himself. That was the way that men murdered. No longer could he claim control or mastery of his body. God had deserted him and given him over to devils.

  His son, his wife, and now God. His loneliness was terrible. And he could not think. He must think about this letter and what he should do. He could not think at all. He was given over to devils.

  After Matins in the Cathedral next day one thought came to him. He would go and see the Bishop. The Bishop had come in from Carpledon for the Jubilee celebrations and was staying at the Deanery. Brandon spoke to him for a moment after Matins and asked him whether he might see him for half an hour in the afternoon on a matter of great urgency. The Bishop asked him to come at three o’clock.

  Seated in the Dean’s library, with its old-fashioned cosiness — its book- shelves and the familiar books, the cases, between the high windows, of his precious butterflies — Brandon felt, for the first time for many days, a certain calm descend upon him. The Bishop, looking very frail and small in the big arm-chair, received him with so warm an affection that he felt, in spite of his own age, like the old man’s son.

  “My lord,” he began with difficulty, moving his big limbs in his chair like a restless schoolboy, “it isn’t easy for me to come to-day. There’s no one in the world I could speak to except yourself. I find it difficult even to do that.”

  “My son,” said the Bishop gently, “I am a very, very old man. I cannot have many more months to live. When one is as near to death as I am, one loves everything and everybody, because one is going so soon. You needn’t be afraid.”

  And in his heart he must have wondered at the change in this man who, through so many years now, had come to him with so much self-confidence and assurance.

  “I have had much trouble lately,” Brandon went on. “But I would not have bothered you with that, knowing as I do all that you have to consider just now, were it not that for the first time in my life I seem to have lost control and to be heading toward some great disaster that may bring scandal not only on myself but on the Church as well.”

  “Tell me your trouble,” said the Bishop.

  “Nine months ago I seemed to be at the very height of my powers, my happiness, my usefulness.” Brandon paused. Was it really only nine months back, that other time? “I had no troubles. I was confident in myself, my health was good, my family were happy. I seemed to have many friends.... Then suddenly everything changed. I don’t want to seem false, my lord, in anything that I may say, but it was literally as though in the course of a ni
ght all my happiness forsook me.

  “It began with my boy being sent down from Oxford. I have only one boy, as I think your lordship knows. He was — he is, in spite of what has happened — very dear to me.” Brandon paused.

  “Yes, I know,” said the Bishop.

  “After that everything began to go wrong. Little things, little tiny things — one after another. Some one came to this town who almost at once seemed to put himself into opposition to me.” Brandon paused once more.

  The Bishop said again: “Yes, I know.”

  “At first,” Brandon went on, “I didn’t realise this. I was preoccupied with my work. It had never, at any time in my life, seemed to me healthy to consider about other people’s minds, what they were thinking or imagining. There is quite enough work to do in the world without that. But soon I was forced to consider this man’s opposition to me. It came before me in a thousand little ways. The attitude of the Chapter changed to me — especially noticeable at one of the Chapter meetings. I don’t want to make my story so long, my lord, that it will tire you. To cut it short — a day came when my boy ran off to London with a town girl, the daughter of the landlord of one of the more disreputable public-houses. That was a terrible, devastating blow to me. I have quite literally not been the same man since. I was determined not to allow it to turn me from my proper work. I still loved the boy; he had not behaved dishonourably to the girl. He has now married her and is earning his living in London. If that had been the only blow — —” He stopped, cleared his throat, and, turning excitedly towards the Bishop, almost shouted:

  “But it is not! It is not, my lord! My enemy has never ceased his plots for one instant. It was he who advised my boy to run off with this girl. He has turned the whole town against me; they laugh at me and mock me! And now he...now he...” He could not for a moment find breath. He exercised an impulse of almost superhuman self-control, bringing his body visibly back into bounds again. He went on more quietly:

  “We are in opposite camps over this matter of the Pybus living — we are in opposition over almost every question that arises here. He is an able man. I must do him that justice. He can plot...he can scheme...whereas I...” Brandon beat his hands desperately on his knees.