“That’s a lie,” Mr. Burnaby said flatly. “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.”
“I know you’re talking about. . . .” Marcus stopped. Somehow he didn’t like to mention Hazel’s name to Mr. Burnaby.
“Come on,” Mr. Burnaby urged. “Is her name so wonderful that it can’t even be spoken?” His manner had altered slightly as if he suddenly saw that the situation might not be so bad as he had imagined.
“She’s called Hazel Morley,” Marcus told him in a flat, carefully controlled voice.
Mr. Burnaby let the name, as it were, float in the atmosphere for a few moments, while he studied it. “Hardly out of the top drawer, I should imagine,” he then commented.
Marcus flushed. “I don’t know what drawer she’s out of,” he retorted angrily. “She’s probably out of just as good a drawer as you or I, if it comes to that. You’d think you’d been brought up in a palace or something. You’re a snob, that’s what’s wrong with you.”
“It’s not a question of where one has been brought up,” Mr. Burnaby replied stiffly. “It’s a matter of breeding. There’s no snobbishness in it. There are such things as heredity and good breeding: there’s no sense in shutting one’s eyes to facts. My mother for instance would never have given one of her daughters such a name—very pretty no doubt, but. . . . ” He shrugged his shoulders.
Marcus glowered. “What were your sisters called?” he enquired derisively, “—Emily, Jane, and Elizabeth. We’d a maid called Emily and another called Jane. Their mother must have come out of the same drawer as yours.”
“There’s no need to be offensive,” Mr. Burnaby said. “That’s a cheap remark: besides it has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. I want to know your plans. I’ve a right to know them.”
“I told you I hadn’t any plans,” Marcus answered wearily, “and it’s true. I don’t know what more you want.”
“You must know what you intend to do.”
“I don’t intend to do anything.”
“You mean you’re not going to see her any more,” Mr. Burnaby’s voice became suddenly hopeful, almost congratulatory.
But Marcus, in spite of the nature of his parting with Hazel the night before, had no intention of committing himself to such an extent. He felt that all his troubles were the result of his having bound himself too much to Mr. Burnaby, and he was not going to give any promise that would constitute a fresh bond. “I hope I will see her again,” he said fervently.
All the light died from Mr. Burnaby’s face. It became as cold as ice. “You mean you’re going to marry her?”
“I would like to marry her if I could.”
“Oh you’ll be able to all right,” Mr. Burnaby said scornfully. “It’s always happening. She may pretend to refuse the first time, but she’ll take very good care. . . .”
“You don’t know anything about her,” Marcus broke in hotly.
“I know enough, and enough about you too, to know what’ll happen. You haven’t the least strength of will, and you’re completely callous. My position doesn’t enter your head at all, or if it does you push it aside, because it happens to stand in the way of your sexual desire. You needn’t protest”, he went on raising his voice to prevent Marcus speaking, “that this is something different, that it’s a case of pure love. If you’d slept with her a few times and lived with her for a month you’d be sick to death of her, but then it would be too late. That’s what marriage is for, to make it too late when a man comes to his senses. Of course I don’t know how things are nowadays with contraception and that sort of thing. Perhaps you can get over it without getting married. . . .”
“Oh shut up,” Marcus shouted. “You’ve a horrible, dirty mind.”
Mr. Burnaby stood up. He stared at Marcus with hatred. “Go to her,” he said. “I don’t want to see you again. I wish I’d never had anything to do with you. You’ve spoilt the whole work of my life. I’m too old to train someone else—even if I could find the right person. There’s no point in my going on. I can’t get any further myself, and there’s no one else. I’m going out. Leave me alone.”
He went to the door, but Marcus remained standing where he was, not following him even with his eyes. The door opened and closed. Marcus was alone.
For a few moments he stood reflecting. Mr. Burnaby had been right to call him callous. He wasn’t moved by Mr. Burnaby’s distress. He was sorry for him, but he was more sorry for himself. He saw Mr. Burnaby’s point of view, but he was determined not to accept it. He was the injured party, and he would maintain that opinion. Meantime he wondered if Mr. Burnaby intended to commit suicide. He had often discussed suicide with Marcus, and Marcus knew that the idea of it at any rate was attractive to him. He knew too, that once, when Mr. Burnaby was a boy, he had tried to poison himself with laudanum, but taking too much had been violently sick instead. If he committed suicide now Marcus would be free. He might be troubled afterwards by feelings of guilt and remorse, but he would probably be able to suppress such feelings.
Having reached the conclusion that he would like Mr. Burnaby to die, Marcus followed him out to make sure that he did not kill himself. He didn’t know quite why he did this. He imagined that his behaviour was governed purely by convention. One tried to prevent people committing suicide; he was doing the correct thing.
CHAPTER XXIX
MARCUS overtook Mr. Burnaby on the back drive and fell in beside him. Mr. Burnaby did not look up. They walked slowly towards the gate, and passed through it onto the smooth, sandy road. It was a sultry evening.
A fisherman, wearing a blue jersey, heavy serge trousers and rubber boots was coming towards them. On his head was a worn, grey tweed cap. He had blue eyes and a red, weather-beaten face. He was old, and a little stooped. They both knew him well. He was one of their nearest neighbours, and besides his share in a fishing boat was the owner of a ten-acre farm. As they approached he took a short clay pipe from his mouth. “Nice evenin’,” he said, with a friendly smile.
“Yes, isn’t it,” Marcus responded, but Mr. Burnaby neither looked up, nor spoke.
The fisherman gazed at them with a kind of innocent curiosity, and Marcus, who had an idea how shrewd such innocence could be, made an effort to distract his attention. “It’s a great change from yesterday,” he remarked.
“Aye,” the fisherman agreed, “but the rain was needed. It did a power o’ good. We could do with more yet.”
They all went on; but when Marcus glanced round a little later he saw that the fisherman had stopped and was staring after them. “Another witness for the inquest,” he reflected, and he decided afresh that there must be no inquest.
Presently Mr. Burnaby turned into a narrow cart-track. Marcus knew that it led to a small glen, and came out eventually at a cottage on the lower slopes of Slieve Pennion. They had been there once or twice before, gathering wild-flowers for a collection they had begun two summers before: recently this collection had been neglected. There were plenty of wild-flowers blooming now, Marcus noticed, on the banks at either side of the lane and among the low, wind-bent trees.
Suddenly Mr. Burnaby stepped from the track and Marcus made to follow him. For the first time since they had left the house Mr. Burnaby looked at Marcus. It was not a friendly look but as well as hostility, there was an expression of intolerable anguish in his deep, grey eyes. “Leave me alone, can’t you,” he ejaculated hoarsely. “I’m going to vomit.”
Marcus stopped, and Mr. Burnaby disappeared behind a clump of bushes. Was he really being sick, Marcus wondered, or was this merely a ruse to get by himself? He watched the bushes anxiously, considering the possibility that Mr. Burnaby might at this very moment be killing himself. Yet he didn’t think it very likely. So far as Marcus knew, Mr. Burnaby didn’t possess either a pistol or a revolver, and it was not probable
that he carried poison about with him. He had a penknife of course, but Marcus didn’t believe that he had sufficient savage resolution to cut his own throat. All the same Marcus decided to go and see what was happening.
He took a step or two towards the bushes, but was brought up by the sound of Mr. Burnaby clearing his throat and spitting. Mr. Burnaby had been sick then: certainly he had looked sick enough, with his face a sort of pale khaki-green and his eyes rolling. Marcus didn’t think that he himself could ever be quite so miserable as that.
Mr. Burnaby reappeared, wiping his lips with a coloured silk handkerchief. He seemed slightly better. Marcus felt curious. “Were you sick?” he asked. His voice sounded detached and rather brutal.
“No, not actually,” Mr. Burnaby retorted angrily. “It passed off.”
Marcus wondered if Mr. Burnaby were a little annoyed at this lack of sympathy on the part of his stomach. He was faintly amused, but he didn’t smile. He was genuinely sorry for Mr. Burnaby. He was glad he hadn’t been sick, because if he had it would have indicated an extra violence of emotion. Not that his emotion was not violent enough, but the failure to vomit in a way set a limit to it, left it perhaps still within the bounds of comprehension.
The walk continued. They went on up the mountain, avoiding the cottage and reaching eventually another track which brought them down again to the road they had left. Marcus was fearful that they might encounter Hazel, that she might have chosen this direction for a walk, either alone, or with Joanna, or with her family. But they met no one at all, and at last, when it was nearly dusk, came back to The Garrison.
Mr. Burnaby went straight through the hall and up the stairs in the tower. Marcus still followed him, on past his own room, right to the very top. On the landing, outside the study, Mr. Burnaby spoke again. “What’s the use of going on like this?” he demanded. “I’m sick of you. You’re contemptible. I never want to set eyes on you again.”
“What do you want me to do then?” Marcus inquired.
Mr. Burnaby regarded him with deliberate loathing. “I don’t care what you do—only go away, leave me. Is that not plain enough?”
“All right,” Marcus said. “I will go away.”
“You needn’t pretend you care,” Mr. Burnaby told him. “You don’t care in the slightest. You’re completely without feeling in the matter. You want nothing but to get your own way, and at the same time to justify yourself to your conscience—or whatever it is does you instead of a conscience. There’s no sense in being a hypocrite about it. You can’t have it both ways.”
All this sounded so like the truth that Marcus found some difficulty in answering. Did he care? It was very hard to know what he felt. Though he pitied Mr. Burnaby, he pitied himself more. He felt that in not taking Mr. Burnaby at his word, in not leaving him, he was doing a great deal. He could do more of course. He could tell Mr. Burnaby that he was prepared to give up Hazel completely, that he was determined never to see her again. Then Mr. Burnaby would be pleased. He would treat the whole affair as a temporary weakness of the flesh. He would be glad that Marcus had come to his senses. He would be very kind about it, and assure Marcus that in a week or two he would have quite got over it all. But Marcus couldn’t bear to allow him this smug triumph: he couldn’t bear to let his love for Hazel be treated so cheaply—and more than anything he couldn’t bear to leave himself without a faint flicker of hope that somewhere, somehow, he might meet Hazel. He had deliberately made such a reunion extremely unlikely. If Providence should bring them together again, he couldn’t commit himself to act in the same way a second time. He had to have some hope, some comfort for his imagination. And nothing would have induced him to describe to Mr. Burnaby his parting from Hazel. He imagined the half-tolerant, ironical sympathy with which the description would be received—the superior air of contempt. No: that parting was something for himself alone, for himself and Hazel too perhaps, if she didn’t prefer to forget it—a sad, secret memory.
Mr. Burnaby was standing in an attitude of impatience with his hand on the door-handle of his study. He wished to shut himself in there, to sit by himself, and brood. “Go away,” he cried querulously. “Leave me. What’s the good of hanging round like this? I’ve told you I don’t want to see you again—and you don’t want to see me. Is that not enough? Don’t pester me. You’re worthless.”
“Yes, it is enough,” Marcus said slowly, making up his mind at last. “I’ll go tomorrow, first thing. I’ll get the first train.”
“You’ve got your own way: you ought to be happy,” Mr. Burnaby sneered.
“Yes,” Marcus agreed. “I ought to be happy.” The last words were no more than a whisper: he added out loud, “I am sorry all the same. I’m sorry I’ve let you down. I’m sorry I’ve made you unhappy.”
He turned, and as he descended the stairs, he heard Mr. Burnaby go into the study and close the door behind him. Well, he was happy. He could see a new life ahead of him, a new, bright world. He could forget Mr. Burnaby, or nearly forget him, push him into a dark part of his mind where he would only be troublesome occasionally. Of course he had not done nearly all that he might have done. A saint would have behaved differently: a saint would not have taken his own happiness into account. But he was not a saint, and he had stood a good deal from Mr. Burnaby. He knew he was forsaking a great work: but why should he, more than anyone else, give up all that was sweetest in life for the sake of a possible great good, something that might after all turn out to be nothing?
Now that he had reached a decision he felt quiet and relieved. It was as if he had volunteered for a rocket-trip to the moon and been told that after all he wouldn’t be needed. Ordinary life was there for him again.
He washed and prepared for bed. He locked his door as usual. Strangely, since the return of the physical Mr. Burnaby, it was only of the physical Mr. Burnaby that he was afraid. He felt that there was a possibility that Mr. Burnaby might try to murder him in the night, but with the door locked he was safe from that.
He got into bed and blew out his candle. He was exhausted and fell asleep immediately.
He awoke in the morning with a delightful feeling of freshness and freedom. He remembered all that had happened and was glad that he was going away. He looked up at the window, and saw the bright, morning sky. He thought of meeting Hazel again. He would write to her when he got home and ask her to meet him as soon as she returned to Belfast.
He looked at his watch: it was almost a quarter to eight. It was unlikely that Mr. Burnaby would come down for breakfast. Marcus might never need to see him again. Mr. Burnaby, quite clearly, did not want to see him, and he, certainly, did not want to see Mr. Burnaby. He was quite justified in slipping away quietly after breakfast—more, it was the best thing to do. He had better get up at once, and pack as much as possible before breakfast. He threw back the clothes and sprang out of bed, as if he were back at school and it was the last day of term.
Two envelopes were lying on the carpet half under the door. They must have been put there at some time during the night. Letters from Mr. Burnaby. Marcus looked at them with a feeling of apprehension. If there had only been one it might have meant that Mr. Burnaby had committed suicide; that would be bad enough, but two. . . . He must want to make it up. For a moment Marcus thought of moving one of the rugs up to the door and leaving the letters on the floor beneath it. Mr. Burnaby would find them after he had gone, and think that Marcus himself had never seen them.
They were both addressed simply ‘Marcus’, but across the top of one of them was written, ‘Second letter. Read the other first.’ The first said:
I am completely miserable. I can’t go on without you. Forget what I said. Don’t go away. We must carry on somehow. I can see your point of view more than you think. I am sorry I behaved as I did. Come and tell me that it is all right.
J.B.
Marcus opened the second note. Like the first it was written in pencil. He read:
Don’t think I admit your behaviour is excusable in any way. You have treated me badly and shown that whatever respect I had for you was founded on an illusion. I don’t forgive you. When I said I saw your point of view I didn’t mean that I accepted it or regarded it as anything but base. Do as you like.
J.B.
Marcus read these letters coldly, and with a feeling of horror. He knew at once what he would have to do, and that all his hopes of freedom were shattered. There was no need now to pack. He saw too, that for the time being at any rate, he would have to treat Mr. Burnaby almost as if he were sick mentally. He would be tied to him. His imprisonment would be just as rigorous as before, and partly because he saw it now so clearly as an imprisonment, infinitely more irksome. He felt inclined to get back into bed and pull the bedclothes over his head. But he didn’t. After considering the bleak prospect for a minute or two he crossed the landing to the bathroom. He washed and dressed rather more carefully than usual; then he put on his outdoor shoes and went upstairs to see Mr. Burnaby.
Mr. Burnaby was sitting up in bed, very small and lean and haggard. He was unshaven and the bristles on his face were white. He was looking at the doorway when Marcus came in, but after a glance at Marcus’s face, he turned his head away quickly and lay down in the bed. “What do you want?” he demanded roughly.
Marcus hardly knew how to reply. “I got your letters,” he said at last.
“Did you read the second one?”
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