WILTON'S HOLIDAY
When Jack Wilton first came to Marois Bay, none of us dreamed that hewas a man with a hidden sorrow in his life. There was something aboutthe man which made the idea absurd, or would have made it absurd if hehimself had not been the authority for the story. He looked sothoroughly pleased with life and with himself. He was one of those menwhom you instinctively label in your mind as 'strong'. He was sohealthy, so fit, and had such a confident, yet sympathetic, look abouthim that you felt directly you saw him that here was the one person youwould have selected as the recipient of that hard-luck story of yours.You felt that his kindly strength would have been something to lean on.
As a matter of fact, it was by trying to lean on it that Spencer Claygot hold of the facts of the case; and when young Clay got hold ofanything, Marois Bay at large had it hot and fresh a few hours later;for Spencer was one of those slack-jawed youths who areconstitutionally incapable of preserving a secret.
Within two hours, then, of Clay's chat with Wilton, everyone in theplace knew that, jolly and hearty as the new-comer might seem, therewas that gnawing at his heart which made his outward cheeriness simplyheroic.
Clay, it seems, who is the worst specimen of self-pitier, had gone toWilton, in whom, as a new-comer, he naturally saw a fine freshrepository for his tales of woe, and had opened with a long yarn ofsome misfortune or other. I forget which it was; it might have been anyone of a dozen or so which he had constantly in stock, and it isimmaterial which it was. The point is that, having heard him out verypolitely and patiently, Wilton came back at him with a story whichsilenced even Clay. Spencer was equal to most things, but even he couldnot go on whining about how he had foozled his putting and been snubbedat the bridge-table, or whatever it was that he was pitying himselfabout just then, when a man was telling him the story of a wreckedlife.
'He told me not to let it go any further,' said Clay to everyone hemet, 'but of course it doesn't matter telling you. It is a thing hedoesn't like to have known. He told me because he said there wassomething about me that seemed to extract confidences--a kind ofstrength, he said. You wouldn't think it to look at him, but his lifeis an absolute blank. Absolutely ruined, don't you know. He told me thewhole thing so simply and frankly that it broke me all up. It seemsthat he was engaged to be married a few years ago, and on the weddingmorning--absolutely on the wedding morning--the girl was taken suddenlyill, and--'
'And died?'
'And died. Died in his arms. Absolutely in his arms, old top.'
'What a terrible thing!'
'Absolutely. He's never got over it. You won't let it go any further,will you old man?'
And off sped Spencer, to tell the tale to someone else.
* * * * *
Everyone was terribly sorry for Wilton. He was such a good fellow, sucha sportsman, and, above all, so young, that one hated the thought that,laugh as he might, beneath his laughter there lay the pain of thatawful memory. He seemed so happy, too. It was only in moments ofconfidence, in those heart-to-heart talks when men reveal their deeperfeelings, that he ever gave a hint that all was not well with him. As,for example, when Ellerton, who is always in love with someone, backedhim into a corner one evening and began to tell him the story of hislatest affair, he had hardly begun when such a look of pain came overWilton's face that he ceased instantly. He said afterwards that thesudden realization of the horrible break he was making hit him like abullet, and the manner in which he turned the conversation practicallywithout pausing from love to a discussion of the best method of gettingout of the bunker at the seventh hole was, in the circumstances, atriumph of tact.
Marois Bay is a quiet place even in the summer, and the Wilton tragedywas naturally the subject of much talk. It is a sobering thing to get aglimpse of the underlying sadness of life like that, and there was adisposition at first on the part of the community to behave in hispresence in a manner reminiscent of pall-bearers at a funeral. Butthings soon adjusted themselves. He was outwardly so cheerful that itseemed ridiculous for the rest of us to step softly and speak withhushed voices. After all, when you came to examine it, the thing washis affair, and it was for him to dictate the lines on which it shouldbe treated. If he elected to hide his pain under a bright smile and alaugh like that of a hyena with a more than usually keen sense ofhumour, our line was obviously to follow his lead.
We did so; and by degrees the fact that his life was permanentlyblighted became almost a legend. At the back of our minds we were awareof it, but it did not obtrude itself into the affairs of every day. Itwas only when someone, forgetting, as Ellerton had done, tried toenlist his sympathy for some misfortune of his own that the look ofpain in his eyes and the sudden tightening of his lips reminded us thathe still remembered.
Matters had been at this stage for perhaps two weeks when Mary Campbellarrived.
Sex attraction is so purely a question of the taste of the individualthat the wise man never argues about it. He accepts its vagaries aspart of the human mystery, and leaves it at that. To me there was nocharm whatever about Mary Campbell. It may have been that, at themoment, I was in love with Grace Bates, Heloise Miller, and ClariceWembley--for at Marois Bay, in the summer, a man who is worth his saltis more than equal to three love affairs simultaneously--but anyway,she left me cold. Not one thrill could she awake in me. She was smalland, to my mind, insignificant. Some men said that she had fine eyes.They seemed to me just ordinary eyes. And her hair was just ordinaryhair. In fact, ordinary was the word that described her.
But from the first it was plain that she seemed wonderful with Wilton,which was all the more remarkable, seeing that he was the one man of usall who could have got any girl in Marois Bay that he wanted. When aman is six foot high, is a combination of Hercules and Apollo, andplays tennis, golf, and the banjo with almost superhuman vim, his pathwith the girls of a summer seaside resort is pretty smooth. But, whenyou add to all these things a tragedy like Wilton's, he can only bedescribed as having a walk-over.
Girls love a tragedy. At least, most girls do. It makes a maninteresting to them. Grace Bates was always going on about howinteresting Wilton was. So was Heloise Miller. So was Clarice Wembley.But it was not until Mary Campbell came that he displayed any realenthusiasm at all for the feminine element of Marois Bay. We put itdown to the fact that he could not forget, but the real reason, I nowknow, was that he considered that girls were a nuisance on the linksand in the tennis-court. I suppose a plus two golfer and a Wildingesquetennis-player, such as Wilton was, does feel like that. Personally, Ithink that girls add to the fun of the thing. But then, my handicap istwelve, and, though I have been playing tennis for many years, I doubtif I have got my first serve--the fast one--over the net more than halfa dozen times.
But Mary Campbell overcame Wilton's prejudices in twenty-four hours. Heseemed to feel lonely on the links without her, and he positively eggedher to be his partner in the doubles. What Mary thought of him we didnot know. She was one of those inscrutable girls.
And so things went on. If it had not been that I knew Wilton's story, Ishould have classed the thing as one of those summer love-affairs towhich the Marois Bay air is so peculiarly conducive. The only reasonwhy anyone comes away from a summer at Marois Bay unbetrothed isbecause there are so many girls that he falls in love with that hisholiday is up before he can, so to speak, concentrate.
But in Wilton's case this was out of the question. A man does not getover the sort of blow he had had, not, at any rate, for many years: andwe had gathered that his tragedy was comparatively recent.
I doubt if I was ever more astonished in my life than the night when heconfided in me. Why he should have chosen me as a confidant I cannotsay. I am inclined to think that I happened to be alone with him at thepsychological moment when a man must confide in somebody or burst; andWilton chose the lesser evil.
I was strolling along the shore after dinner, smoking a cigar andthinking of Grace Bates, Heloise Miller, and Clarice Wembley, when
Ihappened upon him. It was a beautiful night, and we sat down and drankit in for a while. The first intimation I had that all was not wellwith him was when he suddenly emitted a hollow groan.
The next moment he had begun to confide.
'I'm in the deuce of a hole,' he said. 'What would you do in myposition?'
'Yes?' I said.
'I proposed to Mary Campbell this evening.'
'Congratulations.'
'Thanks. She refused me.'
'Refused you!'
'Yes--because of Amy.'
It seemed to me that the narrative required footnotes.
'Who is Amy?' I said.
'Amy is the girl--'
'Which girl?'
'The girl who died, you know. Mary had got hold of the whole story. Infact, it was the tremendous sympathy she showed that encouraged me topropose. If it hadn't been for that, I shouldn't have had the nerve.I'm not fit to black her shoes.'
Odd, the poor opinion a man always has--when he is in love--of hispersonal attractions. There were times when I thought of Grace Bates,Heloise Miller, and Clarice Wembley, when I felt like one of the beaststhat perish. But then, I'm nothing to write home about, whereas thesmallest gleam of intelligence should have told Wilton that he was akind of Ouida guardsman.
'This evening I managed somehow to do it. She was tremendously niceabout it--said she was very fond of me and all that--but it was quiteout of the question because of Amy.'
'I don't follow this. What did she mean?'
'It's perfectly clear, if you bear in mind that Mary is the mostsensitive, spiritual, highly strung girl that ever drew breath,' saidWilton, a little coldly. 'Her position is this: she feels that, becauseof Amy, she can never have my love completely; between us there wouldalways be Amy's memory. It would be the same as if she married awidower.'
'Well, widowers marry.'
'They don't marry girls like Mary.'
I couldn't help feeling that this was a bit of luck for the widowers;but I didn't say so. One has always got to remember that opinionsdiffer about girls. One man's peach, so to speak, is another man'spoison. I have met men who didn't like Grace Bates, men who, if HeloiseMiller or Clarice Wembley had given them their photographs, would haveused them to cut the pages of a novel.
'Amy stands between us,' said Wilton.
I breathed a sympathetic snort. I couldn't think of anything noticeablysuitable to say.
'Stands between us,' repeated Wilton. 'And the damn silly part of thewhole thing is that there isn't any Amy. I invented her.'
'You--what!'
'Invented her. Made her up. No, I'm not mad. I had a reason. Let mesee, you come from London, don't you?'
'Yes.'
'Then you haven't any friends. It's different with me. I live in asmall country town, and everyone's my friend. I don't know what it isabout me, but for some reason, ever since I can remember, I've beenlooked on as the strong man of my town, the man who's _all right_.Am I making myself clear?'
'Not quite.'
'Well, what I am trying to get at is this. Either because I'm a strongsort of fellow to look at, and have obviously never been sick in mylife, or because I can't help looking pretty cheerful, the whole ofBridley-in-the-Wold seems to take it for granted that I can't possiblyhave any troubles of my own, and that I am consequently fair game foranyone who has any sort of worry. I have the sympathetic manner, andthey come to me to be cheered up. If a fellow's in love, he makes abee-line for me, and tells me all about it. If anyone has had abereavement, I am the rock on which he leans for support. Well, I'm apatient sort of man, and, as far as Bridley-in-the-Wold is concerned, Iam willing to play the part. But a strong man does need an occasionalholiday, and I made up my mind that I would get it. Directly I got hereI saw that the same old game was going to start. Spencer Clay swoopeddown on me at once. I'm as big a draw with the Spencer Clay type ofmaudlin idiot as catnip is with a cat. Well, I could stand it at home,but I was hanged if I was going to have my holiday spoiled. So Iinvented Amy. Now do you see?'
'Certainly I see. And I perceive something else which you appear tohave overlooked. If Amy doesn't exist--or, rather, never did exist--shecannot stand between you and Miss Campbell. Tell her what you have toldme, and all will be well.'
He shook his head.
'You don't know Mary. She would never forgive me. You don't know whatsympathy, what angelic sympathy, she has poured out on me about Amy. Ican't possibly tell her the whole thing was a fraud. It would make herfeel so foolish.'
'You must risk it. At the worst, you lose nothing.'
He brightened a little.
'No, that's true,' he said. 'I've half a mind to do it.'
'Make it a whole mind,' I said, 'and you win out.'
I was wrong. Sometimes I am. The trouble was, apparently, that I didn'tknow Mary. I am sure Grace Bates, Heloise Miller, or Clarice Wembleywould not have acted as she did. They might have been a trifle stunnedat first, but they would soon have come round, and all would have beenjoy. But with Mary, no. What took place at the interview I do not know;but it was swiftly perceived by Marois Bay that the Wilton-Campbellalliance was off. They no longer walked together, golfed together, andplayed tennis on the same side of the net. They did not even speak toeach other.
* * * * *
The rest of the story I can speak of only from hearsay. How it becamepublic property, I do not know. But there was a confiding strain inWilton, and I imagine he confided in someone, who confided in someoneelse. At any rate, it is recorded in Marois Bay's unwritten archives,from which I now extract it.
* * * * *
For some days after the breaking-off of diplomatic relations, Wiltonseemed too pulverized to resume the offensive. He mooned about thelinks by himself, playing a shocking game, and generally comportedhimself like a man who has looked for the escape of gas with a lightedcandle. In affairs of love the strongest men generally behave with themost spineless lack of resolution. Wilton weighed thirteen stone, andhis muscles were like steel cables; but he could not have shown lesspluck in this crisis in his life if he had been a poached egg. It waspitiful to see him.
Mary, in these days, simply couldn't see that he was on the earth. Shelooked round him, above him, and through him, but never at him; whichwas rotten from Wilton's point of view, for he had developed a sort ofwistful expression--I am convinced that he practised it before themirror after his bath--which should have worked wonders, if only hecould have got action with it. But she avoided his eye as if he hadbeen a creditor whom she was trying to slide past on the street.
She irritated me. To let the breach widen in this way was absurd.Wilton, when I said as much to him, said that it was due to herwonderful sensitiveness and highly strungness, and that it was just onemore proof to him of the loftiness of her soul and her shrinking horrorof any form of deceit. In fact, he gave me the impression that, thoughthe affair was rending his vitals, he took a mournful pleasure incontemplating her perfection.
Now one afternoon Wilton took his misery for a long walk along theseashore. He tramped over the sand for some considerable time, andfinally pulled up in a little cove, backed by high cliffs and dottedwith rocks. The shore around Marois Bay is full of them.
By this time the afternoon sun had begun to be too warm for comfort,and it struck Wilton that he could be a great deal more comfortablenursing his wounded heart with his back against one of the rocks thantramping any farther over the sand. Most of the Marois Bay scenery issimply made as a setting for the nursing of a wounded heart. The cliffsare a sombre indigo, sinister and forbidding; and even on the finestdays the sea has a curious sullen look. You have only to get away fromthe crowd near the bathing-machines and reach one of these small covesand get your book against a rock and your pipe well alight, and you cansimply wallow in misery. I have done it myself. The day when HeloiseMiller went golfing with Teddy Bingley I spent the whole afternoon inone of these retreats. It is true that, after twenty minutes ofcon
templating the breakers, I fell asleep; but that is bound to happen.
It happened to Wilton. For perhaps half an hour he brooded, and thenhis pipe fell from his mouth and he dropped off into a peacefulslumber. And time went by.
It was a touch of cramp that finally woke him. He jumped up with ayell, and stood there massaging his calf. And he had hardly got rid ofthe pain, when a startled exclamation broke the primeval stillness; andthere, on the other side of the rock, was Mary Campbell.
Now, if Wilton had had any inductive reasoning in his composition atall, he would have been tremendously elated. A girl does not creep outto a distant cove at Marois Bay unless she is unhappy; and if MaryCampbell was unhappy she must be unhappy about him; and if she wasunhappy about him all he had to do was to show a bit of determinationand get the whole thing straightened out. But Wilton, whom grief hadreduced to the mental level of an oyster, did not reason this out; andthe sight of her deprived him of practically all his faculties,including speech. He just stood there and yammered.
'Did you follow me here, Mr Wilton?' said Mary, very coldly.
He shook his head. Eventually he managed to say that he had come thereby chance, and had fallen asleep under the rock. As this was exactlywhat Mary had done, she could not reasonably complain. So thatconcluded the conversation for the time being. She walked away in thedirection of Marois Bay without another word, and presently he lostsight of her round a bend in the cliffs.
His position now was exceedingly unpleasant. If she had such a distastefor his presence, common decency made it imperative that he should giveher a good start on the homeward journey. He could not tramp along acouple of yards in the rear all the way. So he had to remain where hewas till she had got well off the mark. And as he was wearing a thinflannel suit, and the sun had gone in, and a chilly breeze had sprungup, his mental troubles were practically swamped in physicaldiscomfort.
Just as he had decided that he could now make a move, he was surprisedto see her coming back.
Wilton really was elated at this. The construction he put on it wasthat she had relented and was coming back to fling her arms round hisneck. He was just bracing himself for the clash, when he caught hereye, and it was as cold and unfriendly as the sea.
'I must go round the other way,' she said. 'The water has come up toofar on that side.'
And she walked past him to the other end of the cove.
The prospect of another wait chilled Wilton to the marrow. The wind hadnow grown simply freezing, and it came through his thin suit and roamedabout all over him in a manner that caused him exquisite discomfort. Hebegan to jump to keep himself warm.
He was leaping heavenwards for the hundredth time, when, chancing toglance to one side, he perceived Mary again returning. By this time hisphysical misery had so completely overcome the softer emotions in hisbosom that his only feeling now was one of thorough irritation. It wasnot fair, he felt, that she should jockey at the start in this way andkeep him hanging about here catching cold. He looked at her, when shecame within range, quite balefully.
'It is impossible,' she said, 'to get round that way either.'
One grows so accustomed in this world to everything going smoothly,that the idea of actual danger had not yet come home to her. From whereshe stood in the middle of the cove, the sea looked so distant that thefact that it had closed the only ways of getting out was at the momentmerely annoying. She felt much the same as she would have felt if shehad arrived at a station to catch a train and had been told that thetrain was not running.
She therefore seated herself on a rock, and contemplated the ocean.Wilton walked up and down. Neither showed any disposition to exercisethat gift of speech which places Man in a class of his own, above theox, the ass, the common wart-hog, and the rest of the lower animals. Itwas only when a wave swished over the base of her rock that Mary brokethe silence.
'The tide is coming _in_' she faltered.
She looked at the sea with such altered feelings that it seemed adifferent sea altogether.
There was plenty of it to look at. It filled the entire mouth of thelittle bay, swirling up the sand and lashing among the rocks in afashion which made one thought stand out above all the others in hermind--the recollection that she could not swim.
'Mr Wilton!'
Wilton bowed coldly.
'Mr Wilton, the tide. It's coming IN.'
Wilton glanced superciliously at the sea.
'So,' he said, 'I perceive.'
'But what shall we do?'
Wilton shrugged his shoulders. He was feeling at war with Nature andHumanity combined. The wind had shifted a few points to the east, andwas exploring his anatomy with the skill of a qualified surgeon.
'We shall drown,' cried Miss Campbell. 'We shall drown. We shall drown.We shall drown.'
All Wilton's resentment left him. Until he heard that pitiful wail hisonly thoughts had been for himself.
'Mary!' he said, with a wealth of tenderness in his voice.
She came to him as a little child comes to its mother, and he put hisarm around her.
'Oh, Jack!'
'My darling!'
'I'm frightened!'
'My precious!'
It is in moments of peril, when the chill breath of fear blows upon oursouls, clearing them of pettiness, that we find ourselves.
She looked about her wildly.
'Could we climb the cliffs?'
'I doubt it.'
'If we called for help--'
'We could do that.'
They raised their voices, but the only answer was the crashing of thewaves and the cry of the sea-birds. The water was swirling at theirfeet, and they drew back to the shelter of the cliffs. There they stoodin silence, watching.
'Mary,' said Wilton in a low voice, 'tell me one thing.'
'Yes, Jack?'
'Have you forgiven me?'
'Forgiven you! How can you ask at a moment like this? I love you withall my heart and soul.'
He kissed her, and a strange look of peace came over his face.
'I am happy.'
'I, too.'
A fleck of foam touched her face, and she shivered.
'It was worth it,' he said quietly. 'If all misunderstandings arecleared away and nothing can come between us again, it is a small priceto pay--unpleasant as it will be when it comes.'
'Perhaps--perhaps it will not be very unpleasant. They say thatdrowning is an easy death.'
'I didn't mean drowning, dearest. I meant a cold in the head.'
'A cold in the head!'
He nodded gravely.
'I don't see how it can be avoided. You know how chilly it gets theselate summer nights. It will be a long time before we can get away.'
She laughed a shrill, unnatural laugh.
'You are talking like this to keep my courage up. You know in yourheart that there is no hope for us. Nothing can save us now. The waterwill come creeping--creeping--'
'Let it creep! It can't get past that rock there.'
'What do you mean?'
'It can't. The tide doesn't come up any farther. I know, because I wascaught here last week.'
For a moment she looked at him without speaking. Then she uttered a cryin which relief, surprise, and indignation were so nicely blended thatit would have been impossible to say which predominated.
He was eyeing the approaching waters with an indulgent smile.
'Why didn't you tell me?' she cried.
'I did tell you.'
'You know what I mean. Why did you let me go on thinking we were indanger, when--'
'We _were_ in danger. We shall probably get pneumonia.'
'Isch!'
'There! You're sneezing already.'
'I am not sneezing. That was an exclamation of disgust.'
'It sounded like a sneeze. It must have been, for you've every reasonto sneeze, but why you should utter exclamations of disgust I cannotimagine.'
'I'm disgusted with you--with your meanness. You deliberately trickedm
e into saying--'
'Saying--'
She was silent.
'What you said was that you loved me with all your heart and soul. Youcan't get away from that, and it's good enough for me.'
'Well, it's not true any longer.'
'Yes, it is,' said Wilton, comfortably; 'bless it.'
'It is not. I'm going right away now, and I shall never speak to youagain.'
She moved away from him, and prepared to sit down.
'There's a jelly-fish just where you're going to sit,' said Wilton.
'I don't care.'
'It will. I speak from experience, as one on whom you have sat sooften.'
'I'm not amused.'
'Have patience. I can be funnier than that.'
'Please don't talk to me.'
'Very well.'
She seated herself with her back to him. Dignity demanded reprisals, sohe seated himself with his back to her; and the futile ocean ragedtowards them, and the wind grew chillier every minute.
Time passed. Darkness fell. The little bay became a black cavern,dotted here and there with white, where the breeze whipped the surfaceof the water.
Wilton sighed. It was lonely sitting there all by himself. How muchjollier it would have been if--
A hand touched his shoulder, and a voice spoke--meekly.
'Jack, dear, it--it's awfully cold. Don't you think if we wereto--snuggle up--'
He reached out and folded her in an embrace which would have arousedthe professional enthusiasm of Hackenschmidt and drawn gutturalcongratulations from Zbysco. She creaked, but did not crack, beneaththe strain.
'That's much nicer,' she said, softly. 'Jack, I don't think the tide'sstarted even to think of going down yet.'
'I hope not,' said Wilton.
The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories Page 3