The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping

by Warwick Deeping

  SENNEN CLIMBS A WALL

  Sennen got into the third-class compartment rather like a sick animal creeping into a hutch.

  “Wish I were dead.”

  Which was a coward’s wish, and he knew it, though a man cannot always be at the top of his courage, and especially a man of Sennen’s age and build and temperament. He was dark and slight and sallow, and tinged with white at the temples, a serious and rather gentle soul, prematurely aged.

  What a day it had been! Eighty in the shade and both windows of the compartment had been left up. He lowered the window nearest to him and hoped that he would be left to himself, which was not likely. He was going home as he had gone home hundreds of times in the same sort of way, and yet how differently!

  Had he taken that fruit to his wife in the nursing-home and had he heard aright the words they had spoken to him?

  “It is very serious. . . . Yes; a complication, quite unexpected. I’m afraid there is not much hope. . . . No; you must not see her. Come to-morrow.”

  As if that had not been sufficient! It had been sufficient to deal Sennen a blow over the heart, and when that other blow had been dealt him he had felt a kind of dull pain, a vague wonder. He had been called into young Sackville’s office. Of course, everybody knew that Prout & Sackville were amalgamating with another firm, but everybody had hoped that they would be the fortunate indispensables.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sennen, but owing to the new arrangement certain members of our staff will become superfluous.”

  Superfluous! What a word, and to a man of three-and-forty who had gone through the War and had married a French girl, and had craved for nothing but peace.

  Dully, Sennen had asked bland young Sackville a question.

  “When will it be, sir?”

  “At the end of the month.”

  “It’s rather hard. You see—my wife’s dangerously ill. I suppose you couldn’t——?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s not easy to have to do these things. Business is rather beastly—sometimes—Sennen.”

  And Sennen had said: “Yes, when a man’s past forty.”

  He was going home to that little post-war house at Walsham where he and Marie had made such a happy business of being at home. He had nowhere else to go. He could not walk up and down the London streets all night, waiting for the morning and a few words with his dying wife. How hot it was! Usually on such a day as this he would have rushed home and got out the piece of garden-hose secreted in the tool-shed and, having attached it to the scullery tap, flourished a plume of refreshing water over the grass and the beds of their potty but cherished garden. Their water-rate did not allow for the use of a hose, but that was part of the excitement. And Marie’s lettuces and tomatoes! She was such a great little woman for salads. Was this reality—the fact that she would make no more salads?

  The carriage filled up. A fat man sat on Sennen’s pocket and puffed at a foul and bubbling pipe and kept turning an evening paper, but Sennen was not conscious of his fellow-humans. A curious feeling of apartness possessed him. These other people were shadows: he and his tragedy were the sole realities. He sat and stared out of the window, yet the passing country was a mere sunlit blur. He did not recognize the familiar landmarks. Crushed into his corner, he became less and less the little City man and more and more Sennen the Cornishman. He was both awake and asleep.

  The train stopped at Walsham, and Sennen was staring at nothing with wide, brown eyes. The train went on. The fat man got up to get out at Ladybridge; he slammed the door; the train rolled on. Sennen, as though relieved of a sense of pressure, came to life for a moment and glanced about him questioningly.

  “What station was that?”

  A young fellow opposite looked over the top of his paper.

  “Ladybridge.”

  “We’ve passed Walsham?”

  “Yes; twenty minutes ago.”

  Sennen gave a kind of faint, pallid smile and sat back in his corner. The young fellow supposed that he might be feeling the heat.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Firford next station. You can get a train back.”

  “Yes—get a train back.”

  Sennen got out at Firford. He wandered rather aimlessly along the platform to the exit. He spoke to the ticket collector.

  “Passed my station—Walsham. When’s the next train back?”

  “Half an hour.”

  “I think I’ll go out and look round.”

  The ticket collector let him pass.

  Sennen had never been to Firford. It had remained a mere village, untouched by the splurge of new houses, for it was a little too far from town to suit either the pockets or the time-tables of the black-coated brotherhood. But, to Sennen, Firford as Firford was less than nothing. He passed through it, but he did not see it. His legs took him through the village as though they had been wound up and would go on walking until the person who was Stephen Sennen decided that they should stop. He was conscious of a most strange feeling of unreality; life had no object and objects no solidity. The country beyond the village—with its pinewoods and its gorse and heather—was like a dim tapestry, faded and thin. He walked. He seemed to lose all sense of time and space; he was a mere dull, confused pain drifting upon a pair of legs; there was a part of him that was vaguely aware of a railway station and of a train to be caught, and of a place called Walsham; but these realities were like trivial memories left over from some other world.

  He took a lane that diverged into the pinewoods. He did not will himself to go that way. Possibly the evening gloom of the trees and the blue shadows under them attracted him, offering a sense of coolness, of a peace. The dark wood was like a cool hand laid upon the hot forehead of the dying day. He met no one. A great silence and solitude encompassed him. The last rays of the sun lingered upon the red throats and the green tops of the trees. Twilight was at hand. He realized it merely as a gentle darkness spreading among the tree-trunks.

  But this world seemed real, most strangely real, while London and the Southern Railway and houses became less than shadows. He wandered on. The lane branched and, taking the left-hand fork, he came quite suddenly upon a different greenness, the greenness of old beech trees shutting in a park. A grey stone wall stretched right and left under the branches of the trees. It seemed to have no end and no beginning; it was like the grey body of some monstrous and mystical snake encircling the earth.

  Sennen stood and stared at the wall. His impulse was to climb it, though he could not explain the impulse and did not try to explain it. He seemed to be obeying an instinct. He approached the wall, got his hands on the top of it and his toes in the crevices, and hauled himself up. A branch brushed his face. He straddled the wall for a few seconds, and then let himself down into the green gloom under the trees. He had a feeling as of being in another world, a strange, secret world. He had left that other hustling world behind.

  Something drew him on. He passed through the belt of beeches into a little park where old trees stood like dark green obelisks and pyramids. He saw a yellow sky and what seemed to him to be another mass of trees and the twisted chimneys of an old house. There was a gleam of water under the afterglow. Everything was very secret and still.

  Normally, Sennen would have thought: “I’m trespassing; I’ve no right here. I ought to get out of this.” But the Sennen of this August twilight had a feeling of rightness. Besides, what did it matter what happened to him in some other man’s park. Nothing mattered; he was vaguely forty and about to be unemployed, and Marie was dying. Also, all this English greenness and the twilight were so very gentle that he accepted them as though they had been prepared for him. It felt cool here, with a strange, refreshing coolness, and he walked on to explore, heading towards those banks of foliage that seemed to enclose a garden.

  Suddenly he stood and gazed at a wicket gate in an oak fence. He seemed to have seen that gate before, and the path that disappeared between the massive yews and hollies. A queer idea came into his head.r />
  “That gate was meant.”

  He took off his hat and passed a hand across his forehead. What did the words mean? Was he a little touched in the head? But he knew—somehow—that he was going to pass through that gate, though he did not know what was behind those walls of foliage.

  He went through the gate and along the grass path between the yews and the hollies. The sky was a deep, dark blue above his head. A star blinked. The stillness was extraordinary. Not a leaf moved. His own footsteps seemed soundless, as though he was gliding over dark water in a world that knew no wind. The path ended suddenly and opened into another path or walk that stretched to the west in one broad sweep, its dark green turf seeming to meet the pale primrose of the western sky.

  Sennen stood still. For a moment he felt like a startled child who, trespassing in a garden, comes suddenly upon an unexpected figure, some grotesque shape, a tree in a dark wood that mimics a brown bear or a man with a club. This broad walk or terrace-way was lined by strange shapes and, outlined against the fading sky, they stood black and mysterious and huge. There were castles and crowns and the heads of strange beasts, human figures that held banners or spears. And then he realized that all these shapes were trees, yews clipped into scores of fantastic emblems.

  Almost, as he went slowly over the grass, he expected some of these creatures to move, and once he did fancy that the jaws of a strange beast opened. He paused to stare at the grotesque head. The sky was growing dark, but the twilight lingered. And then he heard a clock striking with a note like a bell. He counted the strokes—one to twelve.

  Midnight? But how absurd! He pulled out his own watch, and in the dim light the hands stood at nine. He wandered on. This wall of the yews seemed endless, and suddenly he was startled and more than startled. There was the clang as of a sword striking metal, and from a great yew clipped like a sentry-box a white figure emerged, a shape in shining armour, sword raised.

  Sennen recoiled, but the figure remained motionless outside the dark niche cut in the tree, and Sennen tried to laugh.

  “Hallo, old chap——”

  He took two steps towards the knight in armour and suddenly the sword fell and struck the shield, and with that same clanging sound the figure drew back into its recess. Sennen stood and stared. His skin felt cold. He assured himself that he had been scared by some ridiculous, mechanical toy, some rich man’s whimsical jest.

  But was it just that? Had he invaded the garden of some wealthy and eccentric soul? Why was he afraid? Why did his skin tingle and creep? And this most strange feeling of reality in the midst of unreality?

  He avoided that recess in the clipped yew. He took the other side of the grass walk. He had gone about ten yards when a plume of water shot up from the snout of a dolphin. A fountain. He seemed to see the dim glitter of it; but when he went near and held out a hand towards the grey moisture his hand remained dry.

  Again he was more than startled. He touched his mouth with his fingers. Yes—they were dry; and when he stood in the midst of that visible spray—it had no moisture.

  “What’s the matter with me?”

  But that question was like the place itself: a mouth that was silent, a suggestion of eyes that saw and remained invisible. His sense of wonder increased. That creepy feeling left him. He became aware of a sense of profound and expectant curiosity. He seemed to see the end of this gallery of strange shapes; and, walking on, he came to a low, stone wall with a seat set against it. On the other side of the wall there was a drop of fifteen feet, and Sennen saw the sheen of water, the still, dark surface of a pool. He leant against the wall. He felt himself trembling with expectancy. What would he see and hear? Something? Yes, he seemed to know that in this most strange place other things would happen. But not with terror or with malignity. He divined a gentleness, a beautiful melancholy.

  What was that? A violin? Yes, somewhere a violin was being played; but the music was unfamiliar, like nothing that he had heard before. It made him think of that fountain that was not water. It suggested string music without strings.

  He sat down on the seat. The music ceased. He was aware of a gradual radiance spreading behind him, the light of a rising moon. The rays struck along the broad, grass walk with the strange shapes guarding it on either side.

  Something moved in the moonlight, and Sennen rose from the stone seat. A figure approached between the clipped yews, and Sennen saw it as the figure of a little old man. It came briskly towards the seat, as though it knew that someone was waiting there.

  “Now,” thought Sennen, “apologies—or something stranger than that.”

  The old man’s clothes were of other times. He wore a big beaver hat, black knee-breeches and white stockings, and a tail-coat with brass buttons. His shoes had buckles. He raised his hat and gave Sennen a little bow.

  “Good evening, sir. I expected you.”

  Sennen returned the bow.

  “I’m afraid I’m trespassing.”

  “Not at all, sir, not at all. Let us sit down. Or perhaps you would prefer to walk.”

  “As you please, sir,” said Sennen.

  The little old man sat down and, removing that hat with the big brim, laid it carefully on the seat. He had a very white head, and eyes tucked away under bushy eyebrows, and one of those firm, plump faces that are neither old nor young. He struck Sennen as being a mixture of drollness and dignity; he was both puckish and punctilious. An eccentric old gentleman—very.

  “You have a wonderful garden, sir,” said Sennen.

  The dark eyes observed him.

  “How did you get in?”

  “I’m ashamed to say I climbed over the wall.”

  The old gentleman went through the action of taking snuff and, producing a big yellow silk handkerchief, dusted his coat with it.

  “Quite in order. But you have failed to appreciate the fact, sir, that the climbing of walls is inevitable.”

  “How so, sir?”

  “There is always a wall, sir. What we call a mystery. You solve a mystery by climbing over it.”

  “Does your wall, sir——?”

  The old gentleman interrupted him.

  “For instance, the wall between this world and the next, the wall between you and us. Of course—in these highly scientific days you people remain on the other side of the wall and ignore it, or explain it away, or scoff at the idea that there can be anything on the other side of the wall. Why—you are not even allowed to be conscious.”

  “Of course,” said Sennen to himself, “this nice old fellow is quite mad. That accounts for the garden.”

  And then his host startled him.

  “I’m sorry your wife is so ill, Mr. Sennen.”

  Sennen was voiceless. Now, how on earth did the old fellow know? And his name, too.

  “Yes; she’s dying——”

  He gulped, and the old fellow looked at him kindly.

  “I must speak to them about that. I suppose you want her. Of course you want her.”

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “You want her to remain on your side of the wall?”

  Sennen’s voice was unsteady.

  “I shouldn’t want to live—if she——”

  The old fellow nodded and made a show of taking more snuff.

  “Exactly. Also, Messrs. Prout & Sackville might change their minds. I’ll have them spoken to.”

  Said Sennen, with a kind of desperate impulsiveness:

  “Look here, sir—who are you? . . .”

  And things seemed to fade away.

  * * *

  Sennen woke to find himself lying on the grass at the bottom of a stone wall. It was daylight. A labourer was standing on the edge of the grass, staring at him.

  Sennen sat up.

  “Hallo! Good morning. I seem to have been asleep.”

  The man grinned.

  “I’d say so, mister. And you’ve been lying on your hat.”

  Sennen recovered his hat and persuaded it back into shape. He was b
eginning to remember.

  “I say—can you tell me who lives in the house in there?”

  “What house?”

  “The house with the twisted chimneys and all those yews clipped like animals and men in the garden.”

  “There ain’t no house.”

  They stared at each other.

  “And there ain’t no garden. You’ve been dreaming, mister. I’ve heard tell how there used to be a house.”

  Sennen got up and looked at the wall. There were no beech trees. He scrambled up and looked over the wall, and saw a grass field with a few cows in it.

  “Well—I’m damned!” he said.

  What the labourer said to himself was:

  “Reckon you were drunk last night.”

  * * *

  Sennen found his way back to Firford, and had a wash and was shaved at the village barber’s. A little inn near the station gave Sennen breakfast: coffee, bread and butter, and cold ham, though he did not eat much ham. He should have felt desperately depressed, and yet he did not feel depressed. His dream—he called it a dream—remained with him very vividly; it seemed to him that there might be a suggestion of hope in it. But to save his own face he assumed an attitude of cynicism.

  He caught the nine-three from Firford. It became full of the usual people going to their usual work and, as the compartment filled up at Walsham, Sennen felt himself being entered and possessed by habit and by all the details of a life of routine. He became again the Sennen of Prout & Sackville’s. At Waterloo he went at once down the familiar steps and along the sloping way to the platform where the City train waited. He produced his twopence. He would be late at the office, but he was quite callous about it.

  When Sennen pushed open the familiar swing-door, Bates, the commissionaire, looked up from his desk. Bates was a fatherly person with a bald head and a huge, black moustache and with a pleasant plumpness at the waist-line.

  “ ’Morning, Mr. Sennen. Mr. Sackville has been asking for you.”

  “I’m late.”

  “I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it, sir. Mr. Sackville wants to see you. Told me to tell you to go straight to his private room.”