by Hugh Walpole
“Why, of course,” I answered. “I’ll be delighted. Whom shall I invite?”
“Nobody,” she answered. “I want to talk to you.”
I was flattered and pleased. Any widower of over fifty is pleased when any woman wants to come and have tea with him alone. Besides, I liked Miss Cather — liked her surprisingly. In the first place, she liked me, found my mind “truly realistic” and my brain well balanced. But in reality I liked her, I think, because I was beginning to discover in her a certain freshness and childishness and even naïveté of soul which I had certainly not expected at first. But seriousness and balance and austerity of manner did not go nearly as deep as it pretended. She knew not nearly as much about life as she herself fancied.
When she came she had some difficulty in beginning. At last it was out. Captain Jones had proposed to her. Of course, it was quite absurd, and of course, she had refused him. He didn’t know her at all, and she knew quite enough about him to be sure that they would never get on. Nevertheless — nevertheless — What did I — did I know? — At least, what she meant was that she liked Captain Jones, had liked him from the beginning, but there were certain things about him that puzzled her — Now I knew him well. Would I tell her?
“I don’t know him well,” I interrupted her. “That’s a mistake — we’re not intimate at all, but I do know him well enough to be sure that he’s a good man. He’s a splendid man!” I ended with perhaps a little more enthusiasm than I had myself expected.
She talked a little more, and then I challenged her.
“The fact of the matter is, Miss Cather,” I said, “that you’re in love with him and intend to marry him.”
At this she shook her head indignantly. No, that was not true at all. She did not love him — of course she did not. But there was something about him — difficult for her to describe — his childishness, his simplicity — he needed looking after — Oh, he did need looking after!
As she said that the whole of the sweetness that was in her nature shone in her eyes and made her austere, unyielding, almost plain as she was, for the moment divine.
“Of course you’re going to marry him,” I repeated. She shook her head, but this time leas surely.
Then, looking me full in the face, and speaking with great solemnity as though she were uttering a profound and supremely important truth, she remarked:
“Any woman who did marry him would have to stop that lying.”
“Lying!” I repeated feebly.
“Yea, lying — the stories he tells.”
“But they aren’t lies,” I said. “At leasts not exactly.”
She emptied then all the vials of her wrath upon my head. Not liest And what were they then? What were those romances if they were not liest Was I trying to defend lies in general or only Captain Jones’s lies in particular t Did I not realise the harm: that he did with his stories t What had we all been about that we had not pulled him up long ago!
“Can’t you conceive it as possible, Miss Cather,” I asked her, “that lies should occasionally do good rather than harm? I don’t mean really bad lies, of course — lies told to hurt people — but gorgeous lies, magnificent lies; lies that keep your sense of fantasy, your imagination alive; lies that paint your house a fairy palace and your wife a goddess?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Lester,” she answered me. “I must confess I’m disappointed in you, but I suppose one never knows with a novelist — But never mind — thank you for your tea — I can only assure you that any woman who marries Captain Jones will have to reform him first. Good-night” Even after this I did not realise the situation that was upon us. I saw now what I had not seen before, that she did, in truth, care for Bomb Jones — that that same affection would affect all our lives I had not yet perceived. Then, two days later, came the next development.
I was sitting in Peter’s flat waiting for his return, when Bomb burst in. He was a creature transfigured, whether by triumph or rage I could not immediately tell. He stood there, out of breath, swelling out his chest, struggling for words, panting. At last they came.
“Where’s Peter? Oh, where’s Peter? Not back. But he must be back. It’s always his time to be here just now. He must be here! Lester, I’m dumfounded. I’ve no strength left in me. I’m finished. What do you think? Oh, but you’ll never guess — you couldn’t—”
“Miss Gather’s accepted you,” I interrupted.
“How did you know? How the devil — —” He stared at me as though his eyes were struggling with an unaccustomed light— “Well, she has, if you want to know, and that’s remarkable enough, but that’s not the only thing — She — she—”
He paused, then flung it at me with the strangest burst of mingled rage, incredulity, bewilderment, and wonder— “She says I’m a liar!”
He looked at me, waiting.
“A liar?” I feebly repeated.
“A liar! She says she’ll only marry me on one condition — that I stop my lying. When she first said it I thought she was laughing at me, then I suddenly saw that she was in the deadliest earnest. I asked her what she meant. She said that she couldn’t conceive that I didn’t know, that I must know, how wicked it was to tell the untruthful stories that I did, the harm that they worked and so on. I! A liar! I! — Why, you might say it about some fellows, but about me!... Why, Lester, she simply didn’t believe that I’d had any of the fun, been to any of the places, seen anything.... Of course, I see what it is. She’s never been anywhere, seen anything herself. Everything’s strange to her. But to say that everyone knew I was a liar.... Lester, tell me. You’ve been about. You know I’m not a liar, don’t you?”
His astonishment was the most genuine thing I’d ever faced. I admit that I was staggered by it. I had not, of course, supposed that he had deliberately said to himself: “Now to-day I’m going to tell a lie so as to astonish those fellows,” but I had imagined that he knew quite well it had not all been true.
But here, in the face of his most ingenuous astonishment, what was I to say?
“No, Jones, of course not — lies is the wrong word altogether, but I do think that sometimes you’ve exaggerated.”
He stared at me.
“Do they all think that?”
“Well, yes, they do—”
He resembled then nothing so much as a balloon from which the air has suddenly been withdrawn. He sat down.
“My God,” he said, suddenly dropping his head between his great red hands. “It’s true then.”
It was at that moment that I saw the catastrophe that was upon us. I saw what Bomb would be without his tales: he would be dull, ordinary, colourless — nothing. The salient thing, the life, the salt, the savour would be withdrawn from him. And not only Bomb, but all of us — myself, Peter, young Gale, Alice Galleon, even Maradick. I saw, by my own experience, how we should suffer. I saw slipping away from under my very nose the whole of that magical world that Bomb had created; and above all, that magical London, the fairy palaces, the streets paved with gold, the walls of amethyst; the dark, shuttered windows opened for an instant to betray the gleaming, anxious eyes; the bearded foreigner conveying his sacred charge through the traffic of Trafalgar Square; the secrets and mysteries of the Bond Street jewellers.... I saw all that and more. But, after all, that was not the heart of the matter. We could get on without our entertainment; even Peter had been brought to life again whether Bomb went on with him or no. The tragedy was in Bomb’s own soul; Helen Cather was slaying him as surely as though she stuck a dagger into his heart And she did not know it — She did not know that she was probably marrying him for that very energy of imagination that she was bent upon destroying. Only, months after she had married him, she would discover, with a heavy and lifeless Bomb upon her hands, what it was that she had done.
“Look here, Jones,” I said. “Don’t take it too seriously. Miss Cather didn’t know what she was saying. Don’t you promise her anything. She’ll forget—”
“Don’t promise her!” He looked up at me wildly. “I have promised her! Of course I have — Don’t I love her? Didn’t I love her the first moment that I saw her? I’m never going to tell anyone about anything again.”
Well, all my worst anticipations were at once fulfilled. You may think that this story is about a very small affair, but I ask you to take some friend of yours and be aware that he is in process, before your eyes, of dying from some slow poison skilfully administered by someone. You may not in the beginning have cared very greatly for the man, but the poignancy of the drama is such that before long you are drawn into the very heart of it; it is like a familiar nightmare; you are held there paralysed, longing to rush in and prevent the murder and unable to move.
In no time at all I had developed quite an affection for Jones, so pathetic a figure was he.
Beneath the stem gaze of his beloved Helen (“not quite of Troy,” as someone said of her) he became a commonplace, dull, negligible creature, duller, save for the pathos of his position, than human. Very quickly we lost any sense of chagrin or disappointment at our own penalties in the absorption of “longing to do something for Bomb.” Again and again we discussed the affair. Bomb’s soul must be saved; but how? Before our eyes a tragedy was developing. In another month they would be married; Helen Cather would marry the greatest bore in Europe, and about six months after marriage would discover that she had done so.
Bomb was already miserable, sitting there silent and morose, his tongue tied, adoring Helen, but saying nothing to her lest he should be accused of “romancing.”
At last Peter insisted that I should speak to her — she liked me better than she did the others — she would listen to me. Needless to say, she did not. Not only did she not listen, but turned on me ferociously.
“I’m proud of Benedick!” she cried. “I’ve cured him of the only fault he had. If you think I’m going to turn him back into a liar again, Mr. Lester, just for the entertainment of yourself and your friends, you’re greatly mistaken. You have a strange notion of morality.”
She was proud, but she was uneasy. She realised that he was not happy, that, in one way or another, the spring had gone out of him — yes, thank God, she was uneasy.
Well, there was the situation. There was apparently nothing to be done, no way out. This is simply the story, after all, of our blindness. Just as we had not seen the influence that was to check our Bomb, so we did not see the influence that would make his fancy flow again. It’s a wonderful world, thank God!
About a week before the wedding Peter Westcott said to me:
“Lester, don’t you think that Bomb’s reviving a little again?” I fancied I had seen something. Bomb was a little brighter, a little less heavy... yes, I had noticed.
“His fancy is being fed again somewhere,” said Peter again. “Where? He tells us no stories.”
No, he certainly did not. His determination to achieve perfect accuracy was painful. It was a case of —
“Where have you been, Bomb?”
“Oh, just down to the bank to cash a cheque. The Joint Stock branch in Wigmore Street. I took a bus up Regent Street and got off at the Circus—” and so on, and so on.
Nevertheless, he was reviving. The Old Man was being blown back into him just as surely as one pride of Helen Cather’s determination had let it out. Where was he feeding his imagination? How had he got round his Helen’s autocracy without her knowing it? Because she did not know. She was completely satisfied — she was even more than satisfied, she was — I watched her. Something was happening to her, too. She was dressing differently. Her austerity was dropping from her. She did her hair in a new way, no longer pulling it back, harsh and austere, from her forehead, but letting it have freedom and colour. She had very pretty hair....
She was wearing bright colours and pretty hats....
What was happening?
The day came when the problem was solved. Bomb’s old mother came up to town, a dear old lady of nearly eighty, who adored Bomb and thought him perfection. She came up for the wedding. She was to see Helen for the first time. It was agreed that the meeting should be at Hortons, a nice, central spot. We were gathered there waiting — old Mrs. Jones with her lace cap and bright pink cheeks, Peter, Bomb, and myself. Helen was late.
“You know, Benedick,” said the old lady in a voice like a withering canary, “you’ve told me very little about Helen. I’ve no real idea of her at all.”
A moment’s pause, and Bomb had sprung to his feet. Peter and I, spiritually, so to speak, rushed towards one another. This was the old attitude. We had not seen Bomb stand like this, his legs spread apart, his chest out, his eyes flashing, for weeks. The old attitude, the old voice, the old Bomb.
“Helen, mother!” he cried, and he was off.
The picture that he drew! It was about as much like the real Helen Cather as the Venus de Milo is like Miss Mary Pickford in the pictures; but it was a glorious picture, the portrait of a goddess, a genius, a Sappho. The phrases tumbled from his lips in the good old way — it was all the old times come back again. And how his imagination worked! How magnificently he flung his colours about, with what abandon he splashed and sprawled! For a breathless ten minutes we listened.
“Dear me,” said old Mrs. Jones, “I do hope she’s a good girl as well.”
For myself I sat there entranced. The old Bomb was not lost. He had found, or Fate had found him, a safe outlet after all. He could see Helen as before he had seen the whole world, and it would do for him as well. His soul was saved.
The one question that now remained was how would Helen take this glorification of herself? Would she not resent it as deeply as she had resented the earlier “lies”?
On the answer to that question hung the whole of the future of their married life.
I was soon to have my answer. Helen came in. I did not perceive that old Mrs. Jones felt very deeply the contrast between reality and her son’s picture. Her son was all that she saw.
He took her home. I walked away with Helen. Before we parted she turned to me. Happiness was burning in her face.
“Mr. Lester,” she said, “you’ve been a good friend to both of us. You were all wrong about Benedick, but I know that you meant it well.” She hesitated a little. “I’m terribly happy, almost too happy to be safe. Of course, I know that Benedick is a little absurd about me, has rather an exaggerated idea of me. But that’s good for me, really it is. Nobody ever has before, you know, and it’s only Benedick who’s seen what I really am. I knew that I had all sorts of things in me that ought to come out, but no one encouraged them. Everyone laughed at them. But Benedick has seen them, and I’m going to be what he sees me. I feel free! Free for the first time in my life! You don’t know how wonderful that is!”
She pulled the bright purple scarf more closely over her shoulders.
“We’ve done something for one another, he and I, really, haven’t we? He’s freed me, and I — well, I’ve stopped those terrible untruths of his in spite of you all. I don’t believe he’ll ever tell a lie again! Good-night. We’ll see lots of you after we’re married, won’t we? Oh, we’re going to be so happy—”
“Yes — now I believe you are,” I answered.
“What do you mean, now?” she asked. “Didn’t you always think so?”
“There was a moment when I wasn’t sure,” I said. “But I was wrong. You’re going to be splendidly happy.”
And so they are....
THE END
Selected Non-Fiction
Walpole’s home on Catbells, overlooking Derwentwater, in Cumbria
JOSEPH CONRAD
CONTENTS
I. BIOGRAPHY
II. THE NOVELIST
III. THE POET
IV. ROMANCE AND REALISM
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH CONRAD’S PRINCIPAL WRITINGS
AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY
Joseph Conrad, 1904
The first edition’s title page
TO
SIR SIDNEY COLVIN
IN FRIENDSHIP
I. BIOGRAPHY
I
To any reader of the books of Joseph Conrad it must be at once plain that his immediate experiences and impressions of life have gone very directly to the making of his art. It may happen often enough that an author’s artistic life is of no importance to the critic and that his dealing with it is merely a personal impertinence and curiosity, but with the life of Joseph Conrad the critic has something to do, because, again and again, this writer deliberately evokes the power of personal reminiscence, charging it with the burden of his philosophy and the creation of his characters.
With the details of his life we cannot, in any way, be concerned, but with the three backgrounds against whose form and colour his art has been placed we have some compulsory connection.
Joseph Conrad (Teodor Josef Konrad Karzeniowski) was born on 6th December 1857, and his birthplace was the Ukraine in the south of Poland. In 1862 his father, who had been concerned in the last Polish rebellion, was banished to Vologda. The boy lived with his mother and father there until his mother died, when he was sent back to the Ukraine. In 1870 his father died.
Conrad was then sent to school in Cracow and there he remained until 1874, when, following an absolutely compelling impulse, he went to sea. In the month of May, 1878, he first landed on English ground; he knew at that time no English but learnt rapidly, and in the autumn of 1878 joined the Duke of Sutherland as ordinary seaman. He became a Master in the English Merchant Service in 1884, in which year he was naturalised. In 1894 he left the sea, whose servant he had been for nearly twenty years: he sent the manuscript of a novel that he had been writing at various periods during his sea life to Mr Fisher Unwin. With that publisher’s acceptance of Almayer’s Folly the third period of his life began. Since then his history has been the history of his books.