by Hugh Walpole
Sheraton’s eyes, that had been so insistently veiled by decent society, as expressionless as a pair of marbles, were suddenly human; Sheraton’s voice, which had been something like the shadow of a real voice, was suddenly full of feeling.
“Why, sir, of course I’ve noticed... being with you before the war and all, and being fond of you, if you’ll forgive my saying so, so that I always hoped that I’d come back to you. Why, if you ask me, sir, it’s just the bloody war — that’s all it is. I’ve felt something of the same kind myself. I’m getting over it a bit. It’ll pass, sir. The war leaves you kind o’ dead. People don’t seem real any more. If you could get fond of some young lady, Mr. Duddon, I’m sure....”
“Thanks, Sheraton. I dare say you’re right.” He went out.
It was a horrible night. The March wind was tearing down Duke Street, hurling itself at the windows, plucking with its fingers at the doors, screaming and laughing down the chimneys. The decorous decencies of that staid bachelor St. James’s world seemed to be nothing to its mood of wilful bad temper. Through the clamour of banging doors and creaking windows the bells of St. James’s Church could be heard striking seven o’clock.
The rain was intermittent, and fell in sudden little gusts, like the subsiding agonies of a weeping child. Every once and again a thin wet wisp of a moon showed dimly grey through heavy piles of driving cloud. Tom, found Bond Street almost deserted of foot passengers.
Buttoning his high blue collar up about his neck, he set himself to face the storm. The drive of the rain against his cheeks gave him some sort of dim satisfaction after the close warm comfort of his flat.
Somewhere, far, far away in him, a voice was questioning him as to why he had given Mrs. Matcham that money. The voice reminded him of what indeed he very well knew, that it was exactly like throwing water down a well, that it would do Millie Matcham no good, that it was wasted money.... Well, he didn’t care. The voice was too far away, and altogether had too little concern with him to disturb him very deeply. Nothing disturbed him, damn it — nothing, nothing, nothing!
When he was almost upon Grosvenor Street, a sudden gust of wind drove at him so furiously that, almost without knowing what he was doing, instinctively he stepped back to take shelter beneath a wooden boarding. Here a street lamp gave a pale yellow colour to the dark shadows, and from its cover the street shot like a gleaming track of steel into the clustered lights of Oxford Street.
Tom was aware that two people had taken shelter in the same refuge. He peered at their dim figures. He saw at once that they were old — an old man and an old woman.
He did not know what it was that persuaded him to stare at them as though they could be of any importance to him. Nothing could be of any importance to him, and he was attracted, perhaps, rather by a kind of snivelling, sniffling noise that one of them made. The old lady — she had a terrible cold. She sneezed violently, and the old man uttered a scornful “chut-chut” like an angry, battered bird. Then he peered up at Tom and said in a complaining, whining voice:
“What a night!”
“Yes, it is,” said Tom. “You’d better get home.”
His eyes growing accustomed to the gloom, he saw the pair distinctly. The old man was wearing a high hat, battered and set rakishly on the side of his head. The collar of a threadbare overcoat was turned up high over his skinny neck. He wore shabby black gloves. The old lady, sheltering behind the old man, was less easily discerned. She was a humped and disconcerted shadow, with a feather in her hat and a sharp nose.
“You’d better be getting home,” Tom repeated, wondering to himself that he stayed.
The old man peered up at him.
“You’re out for no good, I reckon,” he mumbled. “Waiting like this on a night like this.” There was a note in his voice of scornful patronage.
“I’m not out for anything particular,” said Tom. “Simply taking a walk.” The old lady sneezed again. “You’d really better be going home. Your wife’s got a terrible cold.”
“She’s not my wife,” said the old man. “She’s my sister, if you want to know.”
“I don’t want to know especially,” said Tom. “Well, good-night: I see the rain’s dropped.”
He stepped out into Bond Street, and then (on looking back he could never define precisely the impulse that drove him) he hurried back to them.
“You’d better let me get you a cab or something,” he said. “You really ought to go home.”
The old man snarled at him. “You let us alone,” he said. “We haven’t done you any harm.”
The impulse persisted.
“I’m going to get you a cab,” he said. “Whether you like it or no.”
“None of your bloody philanthropy,” said the old man. “I know you. M’rier and me’s all right.”
It was Maria then who took the next step in the affair. Tom, although he was afterwards to have a very considerable knowledge of that old lady, could never definitely determine as to whether the step that she took was honest or no. What she did was to collapse into the sodden pavement in a black and grimy heap. The feather stood oat from the collapse with a jaunty, ironical gesture.
“’Ere, M’rier,” said the old man, very much as though he were addressing a recalcitrant horse, “you get hup.”
No sound came from the heap. Tom bent down. He touched her soiled velvet coat, lifted an arm, felt the weight sink beneath him. “Well,” he said, almost defiantly, to the old man, “what are you going to do now?”
“She’s always doing it,” he answered, “and at the most aggravating moments.” Then with something that looked suspiciously like a kick, he repeated: “You get hup, M’rier.”
“Look here, you can’t do that,” Tom cried. “What an old devil you are! We’ve got to get her out of this.”
A voice addressed them from the street: “Anything the matter?” it said.
Tom turned and found that the driver of a taxi had pulled up his machine and was peering into the shadow.
“Yes. There’s been an accident,” Tom said. “This lady’s fainted. We’d better get her home.”
“Where’s she going to?” said the driver suspiciously.
“What business is that of yours?” cried the old man furiously. “You just leave us alone.”
“No, you couldn’t do that,” Tom answered. “There’ll be a policeman here in a moment, and he’ll have you home whether you want it or not. You never can lift her yourself, and you can’t leave her there. You’d better help me get her into the cab!”
The old man began to gargle strangely in his throat.
“Policeman!” he seemed to say. “If I ‘ad my way—”
“Well, for once you haven’t,” said Tom shortly. “Here, driver, help me lift her in.”
“Where’s she going?” he repeated.
“If you don’t help me at once I’ll see that a policeman is here. I’ve got your number. You’ll hear from me in the morning.”
The man got off his box, cursing. He hesitated a moment, then came across. Together he and Tom lifted the inert mass, pushed it through the door of the cab and settled it in the seat.
“Makin’ my cab dirty and all,” growled the driver.
“Well,” said Tom to the old man, “are you going to see your sister home? If not, I shall take her to the nearest hospital.”
For a moment the old man remained perched up against the wall, his top hat flaunting defiance to the whole world. Suddenly, as though he had been pushed, he came across to the driver.
“Eleven D Porker’s Buildings, Victoria,” he said.
“B?” asked the driver.
“D, you damned fool,” the old man almost shouted.
“Thought you said B,” remarked the driver very amiably.
The old man got in. He was on one side of the motionless Maria, Tom on the other.
That was a remarkable and even romantic ride. The roads were slippery, and the driver, it appeared, a little drunk. The cab rocked like
a drunken boat, and the watery moon, now triumphant over the clouds, the gleaming pavement, the houses, gaunt in the uncertain moonlight, and thin as though they had been cut from black paper, seemed to be inebriated too. Maria shared in the general irresponsibility, lurching from side to side, and revealing, now that her hat was on Tom’s lap, an ancient peeked face with as many lines on it as an Indian’s, and grey, untidy hair. She seemed a lifeless thing enough, and yet Tom had a strange notion that one eye was open, and not only watching, but winking as well.
It would have been the natural thing to have opened her dress and given her air, to have poured whisky or brandy down her throat, to have tickled her with feathers! Tom did none of these things: afterwards he imagined that his inaction was due to the fact that he knew all the time that she had not really fainted.
Not a word was exchanged during the journey. They drove down Victoria Street, turned off on the right of Westminster Cathedral, and drew up in a narrow, dirty street.
A high block had “Porker’s Buildings” printed in large, ugly letters on the fanlight near the door.
“You’d better help me lift her in,” Tom said to the driver. “The old-man’s not good for anything.”
The driver grunted, but helped Maria into the street.
The fresh night air seemed to refresh her. She sighed and then sneezed.
“Maybe she can walk herself,” said the driver.
The door opened of itself, and Tom was in a dark, dingy hall with a faint gas-jet like a ghostly eye to guide him. The old man started up the stairs.
“Can you walk a bit?” Tom asked the old lady.
She nodded. Tom paid the driver and the door closed behind him. It was a hard fight to conquer the stairs, and Maria clung like a heavy bag round her deliverer’s neck; but on the third floor the old man unlocked a door, walked in before them and lighted a candle. He then sat himself down with his back to them, pulled a grimy piece of newspaper out of his pocket, and was apparently at once absorbed in reading.
The room was a wretched enough place. One of the windows was stuffed with brown paper; a ragged strip of carpet covered only a section of the cracked and dirty boards. There was a grimy bed; the fireplace was filled with rubbish.
Tom helped Maria on to the bed and looked about him. Then in a sudden fit of irritation he went up to the old man and shook him by the shoulder.
“Look here,” he said. “This won’t do. You’ve got to do something for her. She may die in the night, or anything. I’ll fetch a doctor, if that’s what you want, or get something from the chemist’s—”
“Oh! go to hell!” said the old man without turning.
An impulse of rage seized Tom, and he caught the old man by the collar, swung him out of the chair, shook him until he was breathless and coughing, then said:
“Now be civil.”
The old man collapsed on the bed near his sister, struggled for breath, then screamed:
“You damned aristocrat! I’ll have you up before the courts for this; invading a man’s peaceable ‘ome—”
Then Maria unexpectedly interfered. She sat up, smoothing her hair with her old trembling fingers. “I’m sure,” she said, in a mincing, apologetic voice, “that we ought to be grateful to the gentleman, Andrew. If it ‘adn’t been for him, I’m sure I don’t know where we’d ‘ave been. It’s your wicked temper you’re always losing. I’ve told you of it again and again — I’m much better now, thank you, sir, and I’m sure I’m properly grateful.”
Tom looked around him, then back at the two old people.
“What a filthy place,” he said. “Haven’t you got anybody to look after you?”
“Me daughter run away with a musical gentleman,” said Maria. “Me ‘usband died of D.T.’s three years back. Andrew and meselfs alone now. We get the Old Age Pension, and manage very nicely, thank you.”
“Well, I’m coming back to-morrow,” said Tom fiercely, turning on the old man. “Do you hear that?”
“If yer do,” said Andrew, “I’ll ‘ave the perlice after you.”
“Oh, no ’e won’t,” said Maria. “That’s only ’is little way. I’m sure we’ll be pleased to see you.”
Tom put some money on the bed and left.
Out in the street he paused. What was the matter with him? He stood in the street looking up at the Westminster Cathedral Tower and the thin sheeting of sky now clear — a pale, boundless sea in which two or three little stars were remotely sailing. What was the matter with him?
He felt a strange stirring and trembling about him. He had some of the pain and hurt that a man feels when he is first revived from some drowning adventure. But it was a pain and hurt of the soul, not of the body. His heart beat expectantly, as though around the corner of the lonely street a wonderful stranger might suddenly be expected to appear. He even strained his eyes against the shadows, piercing them and finding only more shadows behind them.
He even felt tired and exhausted, as though he had but now passed through a great emotional experience.
And all these sensations were clear and precious to him. He treasured them, standing there, breathing deeply, as though he were in new air of some high altitude. The boom of Big Ben came suddenly across the silence like a summoning voice across waste, deserted country, and he went home....
When he awoke next morning he was aware that something had happened to him, and he did not know what it was. He lay there definitely beating back an impulse to spring out of bed, hurry through his bath, dress, and have breakfast, and then — what? He had not felt such an impulse since his return from France, and it could not be that he felt it now simply because he had, last night, met two dirty, bedraggled old people and helped them home.
He laughed. Sheraton, hanging his shirt on the back of a chair, turned.
“Well, you’re feeling better this morning, sir,” he said.
“Yes, I am,” said Tom, “and I’m damned if I know why.” Nevertheless, although he did not know why, before the morning was out he found himself once more behind Victoria Street and climbing the stairs of Porker’s Buildings. He had strange experiences that morning. To many they would have been disappointing. The old man was silent: not a word would he say. Has attitude was one of haughty, autocratic superiority. Maria disgusted Tom. She was polite, cringing even, and as poisonous as a snake. She stated her wants quite modestly: had it not been for her age you would have thought her a typical image of the down-trodden, subjected poor. Her eyes glittered.
“Well, you are a nasty old creature.” Tom turned from her and shook Andrew by the shoulder.
“Well?” said Andrew.
“There’s nothing now I can do?” asked Tom.
“Except get out,” said Andrew.
Another old woman came in — then a young man. A fine specimen this last — a local prize-fighter, it appeared — chest like a wall, thick, stumpy thighs, face of a beetroot colour, nose twisted, ears like saucers. The old woman, Maria’s friend, was voluble. She explained a great deal to Tom. She was used, it seemed, to speaking in public. They could afford, she explained, to be indifferent to the “Quality” now, because a time was very shortly coming when they would have everything, and the Quality nothing. It had happened far away in Russia, and it was about to happen hem A good thing too.... At last the poor peoplé could appear as they really were, hold their heads up. Only a month or two...
“You’re a Bolshevist,” said Tom.
Long words did not distress the old lady. “A fine time’s coming,” she said.
Maria did not refuse the food and the finery and the money. “You think,” said Tom, as a final word to her old lady friend, “that I’m doing this because I’m charitable, because I love you, or some nonsense of that kind. Not at all. I’m doing it because I’m interested, and I haven’t been interested in anything for months.”
He arranged with the pugilist to be present at his next encounter, somewhere in Blackfriars, next Monday night.
“It’s against the Bermo
ndsey Chick,” Battling Bill explained huskily. “I’ve got one on him. Your money’s safe enough....”
Tom gave Maria a parting smile.
“I don’t like you,” he said, “and I can see that you positively hate me, but we’re getting along very nicely....”
It is at this point that Claribel again takes up the narrative. It was, of course, not many days before, in Tom’s own world, “What’s happened to Tom?” was on everyone’s lips.
Claribel was interested as anyone, and she had, of course, her own theories. These theories changed from day to day, but the fact, patent to the world and beyond argument, was that Tom was “Nobody” no longer. Life had come back to him; he was eagerly, passionately “out” upon some secret quest.
It amused Claribel to watch her friends and relations as they set forth, determined to lay bare Tom’s mystery. Mrs. Matcham, who had her own very definite reasons for not allowing Tom to escape, declared that of course it was a “woman.” But this did not elucidate the puzzle. Had it been some married woman, Tom would not have been so perfectly “open” about his disappearances. He never denied for a moment that he disappeared; he rather liked them to know that he did. It was plainly nothing of which he was ashamed. He had been seen at no restaurants with anyone — no chorus-girl, no girl at all, in fact. Dollie Pym-Dorset, who was a little sharper than the others, simply because she was more determinedly predatory, declared that Tom was learning a trade.
“He will turn up suddenly one day,” she said, “as a chauffeur, or an engineer, or a bootblack. He’s trying to find something to fill up his day.”
“He’s found it,” Lucile cried with her shrill laugh. “Whatever it is, it keeps him going. He’s never in; Sheraton declares he doesn’t know where he goes. It’s disgusting....”
Old Lord Ferris, who took an indulgent interest in all the Duddon developments because of his paternal regard for Mrs. Matcham, declared that it was one of these new religions. “They’re simply all over the place; a feller catches ’em as he would the measles. Why, I know a chap..
But no. Tom didn’t look as though he had found a new religion. He had made no new resolutions, dropped no profanities, lost in no way his sense of humour. No, it didn’t look like a religion.