Short Stories 1895-1926

by Walter De la Mare

  ‘Well,’ said Judy, sitting suddenly back, and turning to me her fire-flushed face in the gloaming, ‘you’ll let the chance go by, then?’

  ‘What chance?’ I managed to ask rather thickly, staring blankly into those eyes of childlike sincerity, and could say no more.

  ‘The chance of telling him that I am not a co — a worthless humbug – a mere, silly, selfish, odious every-man’s – flirt!’

  ‘He’s an utter blackguard, if he thinks a tenth of it.’

  ‘But does he? You said just now “only in excess”.’

  She continued to confront me with shining eyes that yet were not shining only, but still and calm and brave and truthful.

  I stooped down, and rather gingerly removed the tiny poker from its absorbing environment.

  ‘Who?’ I all but spluttered.

  ‘Who? What?’ said Judy, still unstirring.

  ‘Oh, who’s the man?’ said I, tired out. And then it seemed the glowing fire, everything, went black, and only by sheer blindman’s intuition I had found and seized her hand. ‘If you do ask him,’ I said, ‘as sure as you’re a heartless, hopeless hypocrite, I’ll blow his brains out.’

  She never stirred; and gradually the darkness thinned away, and left me utterly sick and cold. I tried in vain to withdraw my hands.

  ‘Harry, Harry,’ she said very quickly, as if to race eternal silence, ‘won’t you understand? Won’t you, dear? That would be suicide.’

  1 Lady’s Realm, May 1908, ‘by W.D.L.M.’

  Promise at Dusk1

  A doctor hears many strange stories, which must for ever remain a secret confidence between himself and his patients. But the story that my old friend, whom we will call Purcell, told me cannot, I think, be so considered. We were sitting one evening in his long garden, just after the fall of dusk, smoking together. His wife had been dangerously (but quite triumphantly) ill; and this was a few evenings afterwards.

  ‘You know, of course,’ he said half apologetically, ‘that she has always been very nervous and high-strung; at least —’ He broke off and puffed softly on, narrowing his eyes, his hands resting one over the other on his knee. A robin was chattering in the lilac bushes. ‘I don’t think I ever told you how we actually met. There’s no harm in telling…Is there?’

  ‘Well, that’s best answered when I’ve heard,’ I replied. And we laughed.

  Well, you remember – oh, years ago – when I used to live with my mother at Witchelham? It was an absurdly long journey from town. But she liked the country; and so, nearly two hours every day of my life, except Saturdays and Sundays, were spent in rumbling up and down on that antediluvian branch line.

  I believe they bought their carriages second-hand. We had an amazing collection of antiques. The stations, too, were that kind of stranded Noah’s ark in a garden, which make it rather jolly to look out of the window in the summer, with their banks of flowers, and martins in the eaves. A kind of romance hung over the very engines. You felt in some of the carriages like a savant confronted with a papyrus he can’t read. It was all very vague, of course. But there it was.

  One evening, a Tuesday in December, I left my office rather later than usual. There had been a lofty fog most of the day; all the lights flared yellow and amber, and the traffic was muffled to a woolly roar. The station was nearly empty. An early train, the 5.3, coming in late, had carried off most of the usual passengers, and only just we few long-distance ones were left.

  I walked slowly along the platform, past the silent, illuminated carriages, and got into No. 3399 – a ‘Second’. The number, of course, I noticed afterwards. It was cushioned in deep crimson, lit unusually clearly with oil; half a window-strap was gone, and the strings of the luggage bracket hung down in one corner – like a cockatrice’s tent. It was haunted, too, by the very faintest of fragrances, as if it had stood all the summer with windows wide open in a rose garden.

  I sat down in the right-hand corner facing the engine, and began to read. Footsteps passed now and again; fog signals detonated out of space; a whistle sounded, and then, rather like an indolent and timid centipede, we crept out of the station. I read on until I presently found that I hadn’t for quite some little while been following the sense of what I was reading. Back I went a page or two, and failed again.

  Then I put the book down, and found myself in this rather clearly-lit old crimson carriage alone – quite curiously alone. You know what I mean; just as one is alone in a ballroom when the guests have said good-bye after a dance; just as one’s alone after a funeral. It pressed on me. I was rather tired, and perhaps a little run down, so that I keenly welcomed all such vague psychological nuances. The carriage was vacant then, richly, delicately, absorbingly vacant.

  Who had gone out? I know this sounds like utter nonsense. I assure you, though, it was just as it affected me then. There was first this very faint suggestion of flowers in this almost sinister amber lamplight; that was nothing in itself; but there was also an undefined presence of someone, a personality of someone here, too, as obviously reminiscent of a reality as the perfume was reminiscent of once-real flowers.

  The 5.29 did not stop near town, loitered straight on to Thornwood, missed Upland Bois, and launched itself into Witchelham. All that interminable journey – for the fog had fallen low with nightfall – I sat and brooded on this curious impression, on all such impressions, however faint and illusory. So deep did I fall into reverie that when I came to myself and looked up, I was first conscious that the train was at a standstill, and next that I was no longer alone. In the farther and opposite corner of the carriage a lady was sitting. The air between us was the least bit dimmed with fog. But I saw her, none the less, quite clearly – a lady in deep black.

  Her right hand was gloveless and lay in her lap. On her left hand her chin was resting, so that the face was turned away from me towards the black glass of the window. Whether it was her deep mourning, her utter stillness, something in her attitude, I cannot say. I only know that I had never seen such tragic and complete dejection in any human creature before. And yet something was wanting, something was absent. How can I describe it? I can only say it was as if I was dreaming her there. She was absolutely real to my mind, to myself; and yet I knew, by some extraordinary inward instinct, that if I did but turn my head, withdraw my eyes, she would be gone.

  I watched her without stirring, simply watched her, overwhelmed with interest and pity, and a kind of faint anxiety or apprehension. And suddenly, I cannot more exactly express it, I became conscious that my eyes were out of focus, that they were fixed with extreme attention on – nothing at all.

  I cannot say I was alarmed, nor even astonished. It was rather vexation, disappointment. But as I looked, glancing about me, I became conscious of a small, oblong, brown-paper package, lying partly hidden under the armrest of the seat only just now so mysteriously occupied, and as mysteriously vacated.

  Directly I became aware of it, it seemed, of course, extraordinarily conspicuous. Could I by the faintest chance in the world have overlooked it on first entering the carriage? I see now that it must have been so. But at the time I was convinced it was impossible.

  I took up the package, felt it, shook it, and then, without the least excuse or compunction in the world, untied the string and opened the plain wooden case within. It contained a small six-chambered revolver. It was inlaid with mother-of-pearl – a beautiful, deadly little weapon. I scrutinized it for a moment almost in confusion, then I flung down the carriage window, just in time to see the face of the station-master momentarily illumined in the fog as we crept out of Thornwood. I hastily shut the box and packed it, paper and all, into my pocket.

  It was entirely intuitive, simply the irresistible caprice of the moment, but I felt I could not surrender it; I felt certain that I should sooner or later meet with its owner. I would surrender it then.

  The next day seemed interminable. Fog still hung over the city. I longed to get back to my haunted carriage. I felt vaguely expectan
t, as if some very distant, scarcely audible voice were calling to me, questioningly, appealingly. I was convinced that my ghost was really a ghost, a phantasm, an apparition – not an hallucination. Surely an event so rare and inexplicable must have a sequel.

  Out into the misty street (which, in the mist, indeed seemed thronged with phantoms) I turned once more that evening with an excitement I cannot describe – such an excitement as one feels when one is about to meet again a long-absent, a very close and intimate friend.

  Again the 5.3 had befriended me. The platform was nearly empty when the 5.29 backed slowly into the station. I had expected no obstacle, had encountered none. Here was my 3399, its lamp, perhaps, not quite so lustrous, its crimson a little dimmed.

  I entered and sat down in my corner, like a spider in its newly-spun web. What prompted such certainty, such conviction, I cannot conceive. The few minutes passed, passengers walked deliberately by. Some glanced in; one old lady, with a reticule and gold spectacles, peered hesitatingly, peered again, all but entered, and, as if suddenly alarmed, hastily withdrew. We were already late.

  And then, just at the last moment, as the doors were beginning to slam, I heard with extraordinary distinctness what it seemed I had for long been waiting for – a light and hurried footfall. It paused, came nearer, paused again, and then (although I simply could not turn my head to look) I knew that there, looking in on me, searchingly, anxiously, stood framed in the misty doorway – my ghost.

  Still she hesitated. But it was too late to retreat. She entered, for I heard the rustling of her gown. And then, at once, the train began to move. At last, when we were really rumbling on, I managed to turn my head. There she sat, completely in black, her left hand in her lap, her chin lightly resting on the other, her eyes gazing gravely and reflectively, yet with a curious fixity, out of the window. She did not stir. So slim, so unreal, she looked in her dead black, it seemed almost that this might be illusion, too – this, too, an apparition. Almost, but how surely, how convincingly, not quite.

  It sounds absurd, but so absorbed again I grew in watching her, so lost in thought, I think I sighed. Whether or not, she suddenly turned her head and looked at me with startled eyes and parted lips. And, I think, the faintest red rose in her cheeks.

  I leaned forward. ‘You won’t please misunderstand me – my speaking, I mean. I think, perhaps, if I might explain … you would forgive me …’ I blundered on.

  She raised her eyebrows, faintly and distantly smiling. But I felt vaguely certain that somehow she had foreseen my being there. ‘I don’t quite see why one should have to explain,’ she said indifferently. ‘You could not ask me to forgive anything that would need forgiveness. But tonight, you must please excuse me. I am so very tired I don’t really think I could listen. I know I couldn’t answer.’

  ‘It’s only this, just this,’ I replied in confusion. ‘Something has happened: I can’t explain now; only if I should seem inexcusably inquisitive – horribly so, perhaps – you will understand when I do explain … You need but answer yes or no to three brief questions – I cannot tell you how deeply interested I am in their answers. May I?’

  She frowned a little, and turned again to the window. ‘What is the first question?’ she asked coldly.

  ‘The first is – please don’t suppose that I do not already know the answer, instinctively, as it were, en rapport – have you ever travelled in this carriage before, No. 3399?’

  Could you imagine a more inane way of putting it? I knew that she had, with absolute certainty. But, none the less, she feigned to be unsure. Her eyes scrutinized every corner, but indifferently, and finally settled on the broken netting. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘But as for the number – I don’t think I knew railway carriages were numbered.’ She turned her eyes again directly on mine.

  ‘Were you alone?’ I said, and held my breath.

  She frowned. ‘I don’t see —’ she began. ‘But, yes,’ she broke off obstinately. ‘It was the night before last. I was alone.’

  I turned for a moment to the window. ‘The last question,’ I went on slowly, ‘could only possibly be forgiven to one who was a very real, or hoped to be a very real, faithful friend.’ We looked gently and calmly, and just in that curious instantaneous way, immortally as it were, into each other’s eyes.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘You were in extreme trouble?’

  She did not at once reply. Her beautiful face grew not paler, more shadowy. She leaned one narrow hand on the crimson seat, and still looked with utterly frank, terribly miserable, desolate eyes into mine. ‘I think – I had got beyond,’ she said.

  What sane thing could I offer for a confidence so generous and so childlike? ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s the same world for all.’

  She shook her head and smiled. ‘I remember one quite, quite different. But still,’ she continued gravely, as if speaking to herself, and still leaning on her hand, ‘it is nearly over now. And I can take an interest, a real interest, in what you might tell me; I mean, as to how you came to know, and why you ask.’

  I told her simply of my dream, the hallucination, psychic experience, or whatever you may care to call it.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I did sit here. It is very, very strange. It …’ and then, she stopped as if waiting, as if fearing to go on.

  I said nothing for a moment, knowing not what to say. At last I took out the little wooden case just as it was. ‘I cannot ask forgiveness now,’ I said, ‘but this – is it yours?’

  She nodded with a slight shudder. Every trace of colour left her face.

  ‘You left it in the train on Monday?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And today’ – it was a wild, improbable guess – ‘today you came to town to look for it, to inquire about it?’

  She did not answer, merely sat transfixed, with hard, unmoving eyes and trembling lip.

  ‘I can’t help what you may think, how you may resent my asking. I can’t shirk responsibility. I know this is not an accident. I cannot believe it was an accident which sent me here last night. I cannot believe God ever meant any trouble, any grief, to have this for an end. If I give it you, will you promise me something?’

  She did not answer.

  ‘You must promise me,’ I said.

  ‘What am I to promise you?’ she said, her eyes burning in her still, white, furious face.

  ‘Need I say?’

  She leaned her elbows on her knees, did not look at me again, merely talked, talked on, as if to her reflection, in that dim crimson, fronting her eyes.

  ‘It is just as it happens, I suppose,’ she said. ‘It’s just this miserable thing we call life, all the world over. You hadn’t the ghost of a right to open it – not the faintest right in the world. It is all sheer inference, that is all. As for believing, there’s not the faintest proof – not the faintest. Who can care now? But, no; somehow you got to know, without the least mercy or compunction. Who would believe you? It is simply a blind, pitiless ruse, I suppose … And so … you have compelled me, forced me to confess, to explain what no one on earth dreams of, or suspects – you, a complete stranger. Isn’t my life my own, then? Oh yes, I know all that. I know all that … I refuse. You will understand, please, I will not promise.

  ‘Who,’ she cried, flinging scoffingly back her head, ‘who gave you my life? Who gave you the right to question, to persecute me?’ And then, suddenly, she hid her face in her hands. ‘What am I saying, what am I saying?’ she almost whispered. ‘I don’t know what I am saying.’

  ‘Please, please,’ I said, ‘don’t think of me. It doesn’t in the least matter what you think, or say, of me. Listen, only listen; you must, you must promise.’

  ‘I can’t, I can’t!’ she cried, rising to her feet and facing me once more. The train was slowing down. Here, then, was her station. Was I, after all, to be too late? I, too, stood up.

  ‘Think what you will of me,’ I said, ‘I am only, only your friend, now and always. I do believ
e that I was sent here. I don’t understand why, or how: but I cannot, cannot, I mustn’t leave you, until you promise.’

  Something seemed to stoop, to look out of her eyes into mine. How can I possibly put the thought into words? – a fear, a haunting, terrible sorrow and despair, simply, I suppose, her soul’s, her spirit’s last glance of utter weariness, utter hopelessness; a challenge, a defiance. I know not what I prayed, or to whom, but pray I did, gazing blindly into her face. And then it faded, fainted, died away, that awful presence in those dark beautiful eyes.

  She put out her hand with a sob, like a tired-out, beaten child.

  ‘I promise,’ she said …

  My friend stopped speaking. Night had fallen deep around us. The garden lay silent, tree and flower obscure and still, beneath the feebly shining stars. We turned towards the house. A white blind in an upper window glimmered faintly in the darkness. And we heard a tiny, impatient, angry, inarticulate voice, crying, crying.

  ‘Well,’ I said, taking his arm, and waving my hand, with my best professional smile, towards the window, ‘she has kept her promise, hasn’t she?’

  1 First published in English Review, January 1919, and Living Age, 8 February 1919, where it was called ‘The Promise’; later published in Argosy, August 1956.

  Two Days in Town1

  Katie and I gazed steadfastly at Katie’s aunt; and Katie’s aunt blinked gently and benignly in reply.

  ‘Our plan is, you see,’ I proceeded concisely, ‘to make as much of the time we have at our disposal as we possibly can. It’s so short to do all in.’

  Katie’s aunt smiled again, and shook her head.

  ‘You mustn’t speak so thickly, Jimmie,’ said Katie, ‘and shouting’s not a bit of good unless you speak clearly too – like this … What Jimmie is trying to say, Auntie, dear,’ began Katie, with an energy that astounded me in so frail a body, ‘is, that as you only have two days in town to see everything, we must go everywhere as soon as ever we can.’