MARADICK IN A NEW RÔLE—HE AFTERWARDS SEES TONY’S
FACE IN A MIRROR
He didn’t precisely know what his feelings were; he was too hot, and the whole thing was too much of a surprise for him to think at all; the thing that he did most nearly resemble, if he had wanted similes, was some sharply contested citadel receiving a new attack on its crumbling walls before the last one was truly over.
But that again was not a simile that served with any accuracy, because he was so glad, so tumultuously and intensely glad, to see her. He wanted to keep that moment, that instant when she was coming down the path towards him, quite distinct from all the other moments of his life in its beauty and colours, and so he focussed in his mind the deep green of the trees and their purple shadows on the path, the noise that two birds made, and the deep rustle as of some moving water that her dress sent to him as she came.
He sat there, one hand on each knee, looking straight before him, motionless.
Mrs. Lester had that morning done her utmost to persuade her husband to “play a game.” She was brimming over with sentiment, partly because of the weather, partly because Treliss always made her feel like that, partly because it was “in the air” in some vague way through Tony.
She did not understand it, but she knew that she had one of her “fits,” a craving for excitement, for doing anything that could give one something of a fling.
But her talk with her husband had also partly arisen from her realisation of her feeling for Maradick. She was not a very serious woman, she took life very lightly, but she knew that her affection for her husband was by far the best and most important thing in her.
She knew this through all the passing and temporary moods that she might have, and she had learnt to dread those moods simply because she never knew how far she might go. But then Fred would be so provoking! As he was just now, for instance, paying no attention to her at all, wrapped in his stupid writing, talking about nerves and suggesting doctors.
But she had tried very hard that morning to awaken him to a sense of the kind of thing that was happening to her. She had even, with a sudden sense of panic, suggested leaving the place altogether, hinting that it didn’t suit her. But he had laughed.
She had, in fact, during these last few days, been thinking of Maradick a great deal. For one thing, she hated Mrs. Maradick; she had never in her life before hated anyone so thoroughly. She took people easily as a rule and was charitable in her judgment, but Mrs. Maradick seemed to her to be everything that was bad. The little woman’s assumption of a manner that quite obviously could never belong to her, her complacent patronage of everybody and everything, her appearance, everything seemed to Mrs. Lester the worst possible; she could scarcely bear to stay in the same room with her. She had, therefore, for Maradick a profound pity that had grown as the days advanced. He had seemed to her so patient under what must be a terrible affliction. And so “the game” had grown more serious than usual, serious enough to make her hesitate, and to run, rather as a frightened child runs to its nurse, to Fred for protection. But Fred wouldn’t listen, or, what was worse, listened only to laugh. Well, on Fred’s head be it then!
She had not, however, set out that afternoon with any intention of finding him; she was, indeed, surprised when she saw him there.
They both, at once, felt that there was something between them that had not been there before; they were both nervous, and she did not look at him as she sat down.
“How lazy we are!” she, said. “Why, during the last week we’ve been nothing at all but ‘knitters in the sun!’ I know that’s a nice quotation out of somewhere, but I haven’t the least idea where. But, as a matter of fact, it’s only the irresponsible Tony who’s been rushing about, and he’s made up for most of us.”
She was dressed in her favourite colour, blue, the very lightest and palest of blue. She had a large picture hat tied, in the fashion of a summer of a year or two before, with blue ribbon under her chin; at her belt was a bunch of deep crimson carnations. She took one of them out and twisted it round in her fingers.
She looked up at him and smiled.
“You’re looking very cool and very cross,” she said, “and both are irritating to people on a hot day. Oh! the heat!” She waved her carnation in the air. “You know, if I had my way I should like to be wheeled about in a chair carved out of ice and sprayed by cool negroes with iced rose water! There! Isn’t that Théophile Gautier and Théodore de Banville and the rest? Oh dear! what rot I’m talking; I’m——”
“I wish,” he said, looking her all over very slowly, “that you’d be yourself, Mrs. Lester, just for a little. I hate all that stuff; you know you’re not a bit like that really. I want you as you are, not a kind of afternoon-tea dummy!”
“But I am like that,” she said, laughing lightly, but also a little nervously. “I’m always like that in hot weather and at Treliss. We’re all like that just now, on the jump. There’s Lady Gale and Sir Richard and Alice Du Cane, and Rupert too, if he wasn’t too selfish, all worrying their eyes out about Tony, and there’s Tony worrying his eyes out about some person or persons unknown, and there’s my husband worrying his eyes out about his next masterpiece, and there’s you worrying your eyes out about——” She paused.
“Yes,” said Maradick, “about?”
“Oh! I don’t know—something. It was easy enough to see as one came along. I asked Alice Du Cane; she didn’t know. What was she talking to you for?”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“Oh! I don’t know; only she’s on the jump like the rest of us and hasn’t honoured anyone with her conversation very much lately. The place has got hold of you. That’s what it is. What did I tell you? Treliss is full of witches and devils, you know, and they like playing tricks with people like yourself, incredulous people who like heaps of eggs and bacon for breakfast and put half a crown in the plate on Sundays. I know.”
He didn’t say anything, so she went on:
“But I suppose Alice wanted to know what Tony was doing. That’s what they all want to know, and the cat will be out of the bag very soon. For my part, I think we’d all better go away and try somewhere else. This place has upset us.” Suddenly her voice dropped and she leant forward and put her hand for a moment on his knee. “But please, Mr. Maradick—we’re friends—we made a compact the other day, that, while we were here, you know, we’d be of use to each other; and now you must let me be of use, please.”
That had never failed of its effect, that sudden passing from gay to grave, the little emotional quiver in the voice, the gentle touch of the hand; but now she was serious about it, it was, for once, uncalculated.
And it had its effect on him. A quiver passed through his body at her touch; he clenched his hands.
“Yes,” he said in a low voice, “but I don’t think you can help me just now, Mrs. Lester. Besides, I don’t think that I want any help. As you say, we’re all a little strained just now; the weather, I suppose.” He paused and then went on: “Only, you don’t know what it is to me to have you for a friend. I’ve thought a good deal about it these last few days. I’ve not been a man of very many friends, women especially little.”
“Life,” she said, “is so difficult.” She liked to talk about life in the abstract; she was not a clever woman and she never pretended to keep pace with her husband in all his ideas, but, after all, it was something to be able to talk about life at all—if one said that it was “queer” or “difficult” or “odd” there was a kind of atmosphere.
She said it again; “Life is so difficult . . . one really doesn’t know.”
“I had never known,” he answered, looking steadily in front of him, “until these last weeks how difficult it was. You’ve made it that, you know.”
She broke in nervously, “Oh, surely, Mr. Maradick.”
She was suddenly frightened of him. She thought she had never seen anyone so strong and fierce. She could see the veins stand out on the back of his hands and the great curve of his arm as he leant forward.
“Yes,” he went on roughly, “I’m not fooling. I’d never seen what life was before. These last weeks, you and other things have shown me. I thought it was life just going on in an office, making money, dining at home, sleeping. Rot! That’s not life. But now! now! I know. I was forty. I thought life was over. Rot! life’s beginning. I don’t care what happens, I’m going to take it. I’m not going to miss it again. Do you see? I’m not going to miss it again. A man’s a fool if he misses it twice.”
He was speaking like a drunken man. He stumbled over his words; he turned round and faced her. He saw the ribbon under her chin rise and fall with her breathing. She was looking frightened, staring at him like a startled animal. He saw her dress in a blue mist against the golden path and the green trees, and out of it her face rose white and pink and a little dark under the eyes and then shadows under the sweeping hat. He began to breathe like a man who has been running.
She put out her hand with a gesture as though she would defend herself, and gave a little cry as he suddenly seized and crushed it in his.
He bent towards her, bending his eyes upon her. “No, it’s rot, missing it again. My wife never cared for me; she’s never cared. Nobody’s cared, and I’ve been a fool not to step out and take things. It isn’t any use just to wait, I see that now. And now we’re here, you and I. Just you and I. Isn’t it funny? I’m not going to make love to you. That’s rot, there isn’t time. But I’ve got you; I’m strong!”
She was terrified and shrunk back against the seat, but at the same time she had an overwhelming, overpowering realisation of his strength. He was strong. His hand crushed hers, she could see his whole body turning towards her as a great wave turns; she had never known anyone so strong before.
“Mr. Maradick! Please! Let me go!”
Her voice was thin and sharp like a child’s. But he suddenly leaned forward and took her in his arms; he crushed her against him so that she could feel his heart beating against her like a great hammer. He turned her head roughly with his hand and bent down and kissed her. His mouth met hers as though it would never go.
She could not breathe, she was stifled—then suddenly he drew back; he almost let her fall back. She saw him bend down and pick up his hat, and he had turned the corner of the path and was gone.
He did not know how he left the garden. He did not see it or realise it, but suddenly he found himself in the stretch of cornfield that reached, a yellow band, from horizon to horizon. The field ran down the hill, and the little path along which he stumbled crept in and out across the top of the slope. Below the corn was the distant white road, and curving round to the left was the little heap of white cottages that stand, stupidly, almost timidly, at the water’s edge. Then beyond that again was the wide blue belt of the sea. The corn was dark brown like burnt sugar at the top and a more golden yellow as it turned trembling to the ground. The scarlet poppies were still split in pools and lakes and rivers across its breast, and it seemed to have caught some of their colour in its darker gold.
Still not knowing what he was doing, he sat down heavily on a little green mound above the path and looked with stupid, half-closed eyes at the colour beneath him. He did not take it in, his heart was still beating furiously; every now and again his throat moved convulsively, his hands were white against his knee.
But, through his dazed feelings, he knew that he was glad for what he had done. Very glad! A kind of strange triumph at having really done it! There was something pounding, drumming through his veins that was new—a furious excitement that had never been there before.
He felt no shame or regret or even alarm at possible consequences. He did not think for an instant of Mrs. Maradick or the girls. His body, the muscles and the nerves, the thick arms, the bull neck, the chest like a rock—those were the parts of him that were glad, furiously glad. He was primeval, immense, sitting there on the little green hill with the corn and the sea and the world at his feet.
He did not see the world at all, but there passed before his eyes, like pictures on a shining screen, some earlier things that had happened to him and had given him that same sense of furious physical excitement. He saw himself, a tiny boy, in a hard tight suit of black on a Sunday afternoon in their old home at Rye. Church bells were ringing somewhere, and up the twisting, turning cobbles of the street grave couples were climbing. The room in which he was hung dark and gloomy about him, and he was trying to prevent himself from slipping off the shiny horsehair chair on which he sat, his little black-stockinged legs dangling in the air. In his throat was the heavy choking sensation of the fat from the midday dinner beef. On the stiff sideboard against the wall were ranged little silver dishes containing sugar biscuits and rather dusty little chocolates; on the opposite side of the room, in a heavy gilt frame, was the stern figure of his grandmother, with great white wristbands and a sharp pointed nose.
He was trying to learn his Sunday Collect, and he had been forbidden to speak until he had learnt it; his eyes were smarting and his head was swimming with weariness, and every now and again he would slip right forward on the shiny chair. The door opened and a gentleman entered, a beautiful, wonderful gentleman, with a black bushy beard and enormous limbs; the gentleman laughed and caught him up in his arms, the prayer-book fell with a clatter to the floor as he buried his curly head in the beard. He did not know now, looking back, who the gentleman had been, but that moment stood out from the rest of his life with all its details as something wonderful, magic. . . .
And then, later—perhaps he was about fifteen, a rather handsome, shy boy—and he was in an orchard. The trees were heavy with flowers, and the colours, white and pink, swung with the wind in misty clouds above his head. Over the top of the old red-brown wall a girl’s face was peeping. He climbed an old gnarled tree that hung across the wall and bent down towards her; their lips met, and as he leaned towards her the movement of his body shook the branches and the petals fell about them in a shower. He had forgotten the name of the little girl, it did not matter, but the moment was there.
And then again, later still, was the moment when he had first seen Mrs. Maradick. It had been at some evening function or other, and she had stood with her shining shoulders under some burning brilliant lights that swung from the ceiling. Her dress had been blue, a very pale blue; and at the thought of the blue dress his head suddenly turned, the corn swam before him and came in waves to meet him, and then receded, back to the sky-line.
But it was another blue dress that he saw, not Mrs. Maradick’s—the blue dress, the blue ribbon, the trees, the golden path. His hands closed slowly on his knees as though he were crushing something; his teeth were set.
Everything, except the one central incident, had passed from his mind, only that was before him. The minutes flew past him; in the town bells struck and the sun sank towards the sea.
He made a great effort and tried to think connectedly. This thing that had happened would make a great change in his life, it would always stand out as something that could never be altered. Anyone else who might possibly have had something to say about it—Mrs. Maradick, Mr. Lester—didn’t count at all. It was simply between Mrs. Lester and himself.
A very faint rose-colour crept up across the sky. It lingered in little bands above the line of the sea, and in the air immediately above the corn tiny pink cushions lay in heaps together; the heads of the corn caught the faint red glow and held it in the heart of their dark gold.
The sheer physical triumph began to leave Maradick. His heart was beating less furiously and the blood was running less wildly through his veins.
He began to wonder what she, Mrs. Lester, was thinking about it. She, of course, was angry—yes, probably furiously angry. Perhaps she would not speak to him again; perhaps she would tell her husband. What had made him do it? What had come to him? He did not know; but even now, let the consequences be what they might, he was not sorry. He was right whatever happened.
A long time passed. He was sunk in a kind of lethargy. The pink cushions in the sky sent out fingers along the blue to other pink cushions, and ribbons of gold were drawn across and across until they met in a golden flame above the water. The sun was sinking and a little wind had stirred the sea, the waves were tipped with gold.
The breeze blew about his cheeks and he shivered. It must be late; the sun was setting, the field of corn was sinking into silver mist from out of which the poppies gleamed mysteriously. Suddenly he thought of Tony. He had forgotten the boy. He had come back to the hotel probably by now; he remembered that he had said that he must be back in time for dinner. But Tony’s affairs seemed very far away; he did not feel that he could talk about things to-night, or, indeed, that he could talk to anyone. He could not go back to the hotel just yet. The sun had touched the sea at last, and, from it, there sprung across the softly stirring water a band of gold that stretched spreading like a wing until it touched the little white houses now sinking into dusk. The sky was alive with colour and the white road ran in the distance, like a ribbon, below the corn.
The bells struck again from the town; he rose and stood, an enormous dark figure, against the flaming sky. There was perfect stillness save for the very gentle rustle of the corn. In the silence the stars came out one by one, the colours were drawn back like threads from the pale blue, and across the sea only the faintest gold remained; a tiny white moon hung above the white houses and the white road, the rest of the world was grey. The lights began to shine from the town.
He was cold and his limbs ached; the dim light, the mysterious hour began to press about him. He had a sudden wish, a sudden demand for company, people, lights, noise.
Not people to talk to, of course; no, he did not want anyone to talk to, but here, in this silence, with the mysterious rustling corn, he was nervous, uneasy. He did not want to think about anything, all that he wanted now was to forget. He could not think; his brain refused, and there was no reason why he should bother. To-morrow—to-morrow would do. He stumbled down the path through the field; he could not see very well, and he nearly fell several times over the small stones in his path; he cursed loudly. Then he found the hard white road and walked quickly down, past the little white houses, over the bridge that crossed the river, up into the town.
His need for company increased with every step that he took; the loneliness, the half light, the cold breeze were melancholy. He turned his head several times because he thought that some one was following him, but only the white road gleamed behind him, and the hedges, dark barriers, on either side.
The lights of the town came to him as a glad relief. They were not very brilliant; in the first streets of all the lamps were very wide apart, and in between their dim splashes of yellow were caverns of inky blackness.
These streets were almost deserted, and the few people that passed hurried as though they were eager to reach some more cheerful spot. Very few lamps burnt behind the windows, but Maradick felt as though the houses were so many eyes eagerly watching him. Everything seemed alive, and every now and again his ear caught, he fancied, the sound of a measured tread in his rear. He stopped, but there was perfect silence.
His exultation had absolutely left him. He felt miserably depressed and lonely. It seemed to him now that he had cut off his two friends with a sudden blow for no reason at all. Mrs. Lester would never speak to him again. Tony, on his return, would be furious with him for not being there according to his solemn promise. Lady Gale and Alice Du Cane would lose all their trust in him; his wife would never rest until she had found out where he had been that night, and would never believe it if she did find out. He now saw how foolish he had been not to go back to the hotel for dinner; he would go back now if it were not too late; but it was too late. They would have finished by the time that he was up the hill again.
He was hungry and tired and cold; he greeted the lights of the market-place with joy. It was apparently a night of high festival. The lamps on the Town Hall side showed crowds of swiftly moving figures, dark for a moment in the shadows of the corner houses and then suddenly flashing into light. The chief inn of the town, “The Green Feathers,” standing flamboyantly to the right of the grey tower, shone in a blazing radiance of gas. Two waiters with white cloths over their arms stood on the top stair watching the crowd. Behind them, through the open door, was a glorious glimpse of the lighted hall.
The people who moved about in the market were fishermen and country folk. Their movement seemed aimless but pleasant; suddenly some one would break into song, and for a moment his voice would rise, as a fish leaps from the sea, and then would sink back again. There was a great deal of laughter and a tendency to grow noisier and more ill-disciplined.
Maradick, as he pushed his way through the crowd, was reminded of that first night when Tony and he had come down; the dance and the rest! What ages ago that seemed now! He was another man. He pushed his way furiously through the people. He was conscious now of tremendous appetite. He had not eaten anything since lunch, and then only very little. He was tired both mentally and physically; perhaps after a meal he would feel better.
He walked wearily up the steps of “The Green Feathers” and accosted one of the waiters. He must have food, a room alone, quiet. Maradick commanded respect; the waiter withdrew his eye reluctantly from the crowd and paid attention. “Yes—fish—a cutlet—a bottle of Burgundy—yes—perhaps the gentleman would like the room upstairs. It was a pleasant room. There was no one there just now; it overlooked the market, but, with the windows down, the noise——”
The idea of overlooking the market was rather pleasant; the people and the lights would be there and, at the same time, there would be no need to talk to anyone. Yes, he would like that room. He walked upstairs.
There was much movement and bustle on the ground floor of the inn, chatter and laughter and the chinking of glasses, but above stairs there was perfect silence. The waiter lighted candles, two massive silver candlesticks of venerable age, and entered the long dining-room carrying them in front of him. He explained that they had not lighted this room with gas because candles were more in keeping. He hinted at the eighteenth century and powder and ruffles. He almost pirouetted as he held the candles and bent to put them on the table by the window. He was most certainly a waiter with a leg.
He did, beyond question, suit the room with its long gleaming walls and long gleaming table. The table at which he was to dine was drawn up close to the window, so that he could watch the antics of the square. The candle-light spread as far as the long table and then spread round in a circle, catching in its embrace a tall mirror that ran from the ceiling to the floor. This mirror was so placed that a corner of the square, with its lights and figures and tall dark houses, was reflected in it.
The room seemed close, and Maradick opened the window a little and voices came up to him. In places the people were bathed in light and he could see their faces, their eyes and their mouths, and then in other parts there was grey darkness, so that black figures moved and vanished mysteriously. The tower reminded him curiously of the tower in his dream; it rose black against the grey light behind it.
His dinner was excellent; the waiter was inclined to be conversational. “Yes, it was some kind o’ feast day. No, he didn’t know exactly. The place was full of superstitions—no, he, thank Gawd, was from London—yes, Clapham, where they did things like Christians—there were meringues, apple-tart, or custard—yes, meringues.” He faded away.
Voices came up to the room. Vague figures of three people could be seen below the window. The quavering voice of an old man pierced the general murmurs of the square.
“Well, ’e’d seen the first wasp of the season, as early back as April; yus, ’e was minded to give ’im a clout, but ’e missed it.” The wasp figured largely in the discussion. They were all three rapidly reaching that stage when excessive affection gives place to inimical distrust. The old man’s voice quavered on. “If ’e called’iswoman names then ’e didn’t see why ’e shouldn’t call’iswoman names.” This led to futile argument. But the old man was obstinate.
Stars burnt high over the roofs in a silver cluster, and then there trailed across the night blue a pale white path like silk that was made of other stars—myriads of stars, back in unlimited distance, and below them there hung a faint cloud of golden light, the reflexion from the lamps of the tower.
Maradick’s dinner had done him good. He sat, with his chair tilted slightly forward, watching the square. The magnificent waiter had appeared suddenly, had caught the food in a moment with a magical net, as it were, and had disappeared. He had left whisky and soda and cigarettes at Maradicks side; the light of two candles caught the shining glass of the whisky decanter and it sparkled all across the table.
The question of Tony had come uppermost again; that seemed now the momentous thing. He ought to have been there when Tony came back. Whatever he had done to Mrs. Lester, or she to him—that matter could be looked at from two points of view at any rate—he ought to have gone back and seen Tony. The apprehension that he had felt during the afternoon about the boy returned now with redoubled force. His dream, for a time forgotten, came back with all its chill sense of warning. That man Morelli! Anything might have happened to the boy; they might be waiting for him now up at the hotel, waiting for both of them. He could see them all—Lady Gale, Alice Du Cane, Mrs. Lester, his wife. He had in a way deserted his post. They had all trusted him; it was on that condition that they had granted him their friendship, that they had so wonderfully and readily opened their arms to him. And now, perhaps the boy . . .
He drank a stiff whisky-and-soda, his hand trembling a little so that he chinked the glass against the decanter.
He felt reassured. After all, what reason had he for alarm? What had he, as far as Morelli was concerned, to go upon? Nothing at all; merely some vague words from Punch. The boy was perfectly all right. Besides, at any rate, he wasn’t a fool. He knew what he was about, he could deal with Morelli, if it came to that.
He drank another whisky-and-soda and regarded the mirror. It was funny the way that it reflected that corner of the square, so that without looking at all out of the window you could see figures moving, black and grey, and then suddenly a white gleaming bit of pavement where the light fell. His head became undoubtedly confused, because he fancied that he saw other things in the mirror. He thought that the crowd in the square divided into lines. Some one appeared, dancing, a man with a peaked cap, dancing and playing a pipe; and the man—how odd it was!—the man was Morelli! And suddenly he turned and danced down the lines of the people, still piping, back the way that he had come, and all the people, dancing, followed him! They passed through the mirror, dancing, and he seemed to recognise people that he knew. Why, of course! There was Tony, and then Janet Morelli and Lady Gale, Mrs. Lester, Alice Du Cane; and how absurd they looked! There was himself and Mrs. Maradick! The scene faded. He pulled himself up with a jerk, to find that he was nodding, nearly asleep; the idea of the music had not been entirely a dream, however, for a band had gathered underneath the window. In the uncertain light they looked strangely fantastic, so that you saw a brass trumpet without a man behind it, and then again a man with his lips pressed blowing, but his trumpet fading into darkness.
The crowd had gathered round and there was a great deal of noise; but it was mostly inarticulate, and, to some extent, quarrelsome. Maradick caught the old man’s voice somewhere in the darkness quavering “If ’e calls my old woman names then I’ll call ’is old woman . . .” It trailed off, drowned in the strains of “Auld Lang Syne,” with which the band, somewhat mistakenly, had commenced.
The time was erratic; the band too, it seemed, had been drinking, even now he could see that they had mugs at their sides and one or two of them were trying to combine drink and music.
One little man with an enormous trumpet danced, at times, a few steps, producing a long quivering note from his instrument.
The crowd had made a little clearing opposite the window, for an old man with a battered bowler very much on one side of his head was dancing solemnly with a weary, melancholy face, his old trembling legs bent double.
Maradick felt suddenly sick of it all. He turned back from the window and faced the mirror. He was unutterably tired, and miserable, wretchedly miserable. He had broken faith with everybody. He was no use to anyone; he had deceived his wife, Lady Gale, Tony, Mrs. Lester, everybody. A load of depression, like a black cloud, swung down upon him. He hated the band and the drunken crowd; he hated the place, because it seemed partly responsible for what had happened to him; but above all he hated himself for what he had done.
Then suddenly he looked up and saw a strange thing. He had pulled down the window, and the strains of the band came very faintly through; the room was strangely silent. The mirror shone very clearly, because the moon was hanging across the roofs on the opposite side of the square. The corner of the street shone like glass. Nearly all the crowd had moved towards the band, so that that part of the square was deserted.
Only one man moved across it. He was coming with a curious movement; he ran for a few steps and then walked and then ran again. Maradick knew at once that it was Tony. He did not know why he was so certain, but as he saw him in the mirror he was quite sure. He felt no surprise. It was almost as though he had been expecting him. He got up at once from his chair and went down the stairs; something was the matter with Tony. He saw the waiter in the hall, and he told him that he was coming back; then he crossed the square.
Tony was coming with his head down, stumbling as though he were drunk. He almost fell into Maradick’s arms. He looked up.
“You! Maradick! Thank God!”
He caught hold of his arm; his face was white and drawn. He looked twenty years older. His eyes were staring, wide open.
“I say—take me somewhere where I—can have a drink.”
Maradick took him, without a word, back to the inn. He gulped down brandy.
Then he sighed and pulled himself together. “I say, let’s get back!” He did not loosen his hold of Maradick’s arm. “Thank God you were here; I couldn’t have faced that hill alone . . . that devil . . .” Then he said under his breath, “My God!”
Maradick paid his bill and they left. They passed the crowd and the discordant band and began to climb the hill. Tony was more himself. “I say, you must think me a fool, but, my word, I’ve had a fright! I’ve never been so terrified in my life.”
“Morelli!” said Maradick.
“Yes; only the silly thing is, nothing happened. At least nothing exactly. You see, I’d been there a deuce of a time; I wanted to speak to him alone, without Janet, but he wouldn’t let her go. It was almost as if he’d meant it. He was most awfully decent all the afternoon. We fooled about like anything, he and all of us, and then I had to give up getting back to dinner and just risk the governor’s being sick about it. We had a most ripping supper. He was topping, and then at last Janet left us, and I began. But, you know, it was just as if he knew what I was going to say and was keeping me off it. He kept changing the subject—pleasant all the time—but I couldn’t get at it. And then at last my chance came and I asked him. He didn’t say anything. He was sitting on the other side of the table, smiling. And then suddenly, I don’t know what it was, I can’t describe it, but I began to be terrified, horribly frightened. I’ve never felt anything like it. His face changed. It was like a devil’s. You could only see his eyes and his white cheeks and the tips of his ears, pointed. He was still laughing. I couldn’t stir, I was shaking all over. And then he began to move, slowly, round the table, towards me. I pulled myself together; I was nearly fainting, but I rushed for the door. I got out just as he touched me, and then I ran for my life.”
He was panting with terror at the recollection of it. They were on the top of the hill. He turned and caught Maradick’s hand. “I say,” he said, “what does it mean?”
WHY IT IS TO BE THE TWENTY-SEVENTH, AND WHAT THE
CONNEXION WAS BETWEEN JANET’S BEING FRIGHTENED
AND TOBY’S JOINING THE GREAT MAJORITY
They all met at tea on the next afternoon, and for the gods who were watching the whole affair from the sacred heights of Olympus, it must have been a highly amusing sight.
Mrs. Lawrence was the only person who might really be said to be “right out of it,” and she had, beyond question, “her suspicions”; she hadseenthings, she had noticed. She had always, from her childhood, been observant, and anyone could see, and so on, and so on; but nevertheless, she was really outside it all and was the only genuine spectator, as far as mere mortals went.
For the rest, things revolved round Sir Richard; it being everyone’s hidden intention, for reasons strictly individual and peculiar, to keep everything from him for as long a period as possible. But everybody was convinced that he saw further into the matter than anyone else, and was equally determined to disguise his own peculiar cleverness from the rest of the company.
Tony was there, rather quiet and subdued. That was a fact remarked on by everybody. Something, of course, had happened last night; and here was the mystery, vague, indefinite, only to be blindly guessed at, although Maradick knew.
The fine shades of everybody’s feelings about it all, the special individual way that it affected special individual persons, had to be temporarily put aside for the good of the general cause, namely, the hoodwinking and blinding of the suspicions of Sir Richard; such a business! Conversation, therefore, was concerned with aeroplanes, about which no one present had any knowledge at all, aeroplanes being very much in their infancy; but they did manage to cover a good deal of ground during the discussion, and everyone was so extraordinarily and feverishly interested that it would have been quite easy for an intelligent and unprejudiced observer to discover that no one was really interested at all.
Lady Gale was pouring out tea, and her composure was really admirable; when one considers all that she had to cover it was almost superhuman; but the central fact that was buzzing beyond all others whatever in her brain, whilst she smiled at Mrs. Lester and agreed that “it would be rather a nuisance one’s acquaintances being able to fly over and see one so quickly from absolutely anywhere,” was that her husband had, as yet, said nothing whatever to Tony about his last night’s absence. That was so ominous that she simply could not face it at all; it meant, it meant, well, it meant the tumble, the ruin, the absolute débâcle of the house; a “house of cards,” if you like, but nevertheless a house that her admirable tact, her careful management, her years of active and unceasing diplomacy, had supported. What it had all been, what it had all meant to her since Tony had been anything of a boy, only she could know. She had realised, when he had been, perhaps, about ten years old, two things, suddenly and sharply. She had seen in the first place that Tony was to be, for her, the centre of her life, of her very existence, and that, secondly, Tony’s way through life would, in every respect, be opposed to his father’s.
It would, she saw, be a question of choice, and from the instant of that clear vision her life was spent in the search for compromise, something that would enable her to be loyal to Tony and to all that his life must mean to him, and something that should veil that life from his father. She was, with all her might, “keeping the house together,” and it was no easy business; but it was not until the present crisis that it seemed an impossible one.
She had always known that the moment when love came would be the moment of most extreme danger.
She had vowed to her gods, when she saw what her own marriage had made of her life, that her son should absolutely have his way; he should choose, and she would be the very last person in the world to stop him. She had hoped, she had even prayed, that the woman whom he should choose would be some one whom her husband would admit as possible. Then the strength of the house would be inviolate and the terrible moment would be averted. That was, perhaps, the reason that she had so readily and enthusiastically welcomed Alice Du Cane. The girl would “do” from Sir Richard’s point of view, and Lady Gale herself liked her, almost loved her. If Tony cared, why then . . . and at first Tony had seemed to care.
But even while she had tried to convince herself, she knew that it was not, for him at any rate, the “real thing.” One did not receive it like that, with that calmness, and even familiar jocularity, when the “real thing” came. But she had persuaded herself eagerly, because it would, in nearly every way, be so suitable.
And then suddenly the “real thing” had come, come with its shining eyes and beautiful colour; Tony had found it. She had no hesitation after that. Tony must go on with it, must go through with it, and she must prevent Sir Richard from seeing anything until it was all over. As to that, she had done her best, heaven knew, she had done her best. But circumstances had been too strong for her; she saw it, with frightened eyes and trembling hands, slipping from her grasp. Why had Tony been so foolish? Why had he stayed out again like that and missed dinner? Why was he so disturbed now? It was all threatening to fall about her ears; she saw the quarrel; she saw Tony, arrogant, indignant, furious. He had left them, never to return. She saw herself sitting with her husband, old, ill, lonely, by some desolate fireside in an empty house, and Tony would never return.
But she continued to discuss aeroplanes; she knew another thing about her husband. She knew that if Tony was once married Sir Richard might storm and rage but would eventually make the best of it. The house must be carried on, that was one of his fixed principles of life; Tony single, and every nerve should be strained to make his marriage a fitting one, but Tony married! Why then, curse the young fool, what did he do it for? . . . but let us nevertheless have a boy, and quick about it!
Provided the girl were possible—the girlmustbe possible; but she had Maradick’s word for that. He had told Alice that she was “splendid!” Yes, let the marriage only take place and things might be all right, but Sir Richard must not know.
And so she continued to discuss aeroplanes. “Yes, there was that clever man the other day. He flew all round the Crystal Palace; what was his name? Porkins or Dawkins or Walker; she knew it was something like Walker because she remembered at the time wondering whether he had anything to do with the Walkers of Coming Bridge—yes, such nice people—she used to be a Miss Temple—yes, theDaily Mailhad offered a prize.”
At the same time, Tony’s face terrified her. He was standing by the window talking to Alice. She had never seen him look like that before, so white and grave and stern—years older. What had he been doing last night?
She gave Mrs. Lawrence her third cup of tea. “Yes, but they are such tiny cups—oh! there’s nothing. No, I’ve never been up in a balloon—not yet—yes, I’m too old, I think; it doesn’t do, you know, for me at my age.”
Supposing it were all “off.” Perhaps it might be better; but she knew that she would be disappointed, that she would be sorry. One didn’t get the “real thing” so often in life that one could afford to miss it. No, he mustn’t miss it—oh, hemustn’tmiss it. The older she grew, the whiter her hair, the stiffer her stupid bones, the more eagerly, enthusiastically, she longed that every young thing—not only Tony, although he, of course, mattered most—should make the most of its time. They didn’t know, dear people, how quickly the years and the stiffness and the thinning of the blood would come upon them. She wanted them all, all the world under thirty, to romp and live and laugh and even be wicked if they liked! but, only, they must not miss it, theymustnot miss the wonderful years!
Sir Richard was perfectly silent. He never said more than a word or two, but his immobility seemed to freeze the room. His hands, his head, his eyes never moved; his gaze was fixed on Tony. He was sitting back in his chair, his body inert, limp, but his head raised; it reminded the terrified Mrs. Lawrence of a snake ready to strike.
Mrs. Lawrence found the situation beyond her. She found a good many situations beyond her, because she was the kind of person whom people continually found it convenient to leave out.
Her attempts to force a way in—her weapons were unresting and tangled volubility—always ended in failure; but she was never discouraged, she was not clever enough to see that she had failed.
She was sitting next to Sir Richard, and leant across him to talk to Lady Gale. Mrs. Maradick and Mrs. Lester were sitting on the other side of the table, Maradick talking spasmodically to Lester in the background; Alice and Tony were together at the window.
Maradick had not spoken to Mrs. Lester since their parting on the day before. He was waiting now until her eyes should meet his; he would know then whether he were forgiven. He had spent the morning on the beach with his girls. He had come up to lunch feeling as he usually did after a few hours spent in their company, that they didn’t belong to him at all, that they were somebody else’s; they were polite to him, courteous and stiffly deferential, as they would be to any stranger about whom their mother had spoken to them. Oh! the dreariness of it!
But it amused him, when he thought of it, that they, too, poor innocent creatures, should be playing their unconscious part in the whole game. They were playing it because they helped so decisively to fill in the Epsom atmosphere, or rather the way that he himself was thinking of Epsom—the particular greyness and sordidness and shabbiness of the place and the girls.
He had come up to lunch, therefore, washing his hands of the family. He had other things to think of. The immediate affair, of course, was Tony, but he had had as yet no talk with the boy. There wasn’t very much to say. It had been precisely as he, Maradick, had expected.
Morelli had refused to hear of it and Tony had probably imagined the rest. In the calm light of day things that had looked fantastic and ominous in the dark were clear and straightforward.
After all, Tony was very young and over-confident. Maradick must see the man himself. And so that matter, too, was put aside.
“Yes,” Lester was saying, “we are obviously pushing back to Greek simplicity, and, if it isn’t too bold a thing to say, Greek morals. The more complicated and material modern life becomes the more surely will all thinking men and lovers of beauty return to that marvellous simplicity. And then the rest will have to follow, you know, one day.”
“Oh yes,” said Maradick absently. His eyes were fixed on the opposite wall, but, out of the corners of them, he was watching for the moment when Mrs. Lester should look up. Now he could regard yesterday afternoon with perfect equanimity; it was only an inevitable move in the situation. He wondered at himself now for having been so agitated about it; all that mattered was how she took it. The dogged, almost stupid mood had returned. His eyes were heavy, his great shoulders drooped a little as he bent to listen to Lester. There was no kindness nor charity in his face as he looked across the floor. He was waiting; in a moment she would look up. Then he would know; afterwards he would see Morelli.
“And so, you see,” said Lester, “Plato still has the last word in the matter.”
“Yes,” said Maradick.
Mrs. Lawrence was being entirely tiresome at the tea-table. The strain of the situation was telling upon her. She had said several things to Sir Richard and he had made no answer at all.
He continued to look with unflinching gaze upon Tony. She saw from Lady Gale’s and Mrs. Lester’s curious artificiality of manner that they were extremely uneasy, and she was piqued at their keeping her, so resolutely, outside intimacy.
When she was ill at ease she had an irritating habit of eagerly repeating other people’s remarks with the words a little changed. She did this now, and Lady Gale felt that very shortly she’d be forced to scream.
“It will be such a nuisance,” said Mrs. Lester, still continuing the “flying” conversation, “about clothes. One will never know what to put on, because the temperature will always be so very different when one gets up.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lawrence eagerly, “nobody will have the slightest idea what clothes to wear because it may be hot or cold. It all depends——”
“Some one,” said Lady Gale, laughing, “will have to shout down and tell us.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lawrence, “there’ll have to be a man who can call out and let us know.”
Tony felt his father’s eyes upon him. He had wondered why he had said nothing to him about his last night’s absence, but it had not really made him uneasy. After all, that was very unimportant, what his father or any of the rest of them did or thought, compared with what Morelli was doing. He was curiously tired, tired in body and tired in mind, and he couldn’t think very clearly about anything. But he saw Morelli continually before him. Morelli coming round the table towards him, smiling—Morelli . . . What was he doing to Janet?
He wanted to speak to Maradick, but it was so hard to get to him when there were all these other people in the room. The gaiety had gone out of his eyes, the laughter from his lips. Maradick was everything now; it all depended on Maradick.
“You’re looking tired,” Alice said. She had been watching him, and she knew at once that he was in trouble. Of course anyone could see that he wasn’t himself, but she, who had known him all his life, could see that there was more in it than that. Indeed, she could never remember to have seen him like that before. Oh! if he would only let her help him!
She had not been having a particularly good time herself just lately, but she meant there to be nothing selfish about her unhappiness. There are certain people who are proud of unrequited affection and pass those whom they love with heads raised and a kind of “See what I’m suffering for you!” air. They are incomparable nuisances!
Alice had been rather inclined at first to treat Tony in the same sort of way, but now the one thought that she had was to help him if only he would let her! Perhaps, after all, it was nothing. Probably he’d had a row with the girl last night, or he was worried, perhaps, by Sir Richard.
“Tony,” she said, putting her hand for a moment on his arm, “we are pals, aren’t we?”
“Why, of course,” pulling himself suddenly away from Janet and her possible danger and trying to realise the girl at his side.
“Because,” she went on, looking out of the window, “I’ve been a bit of a nuisance lately—not much of a companion, I’m afraid—out of sorts and grumpy. But now I want you to let me help if there’s anything I can do. There might be something, perhaps. You know”—she stopped a moment—“that I saw her down on the beach the other day. If there was anything——”
She stopped awkwardly.
“Look here,” he began eagerly; “if you’re trying to find out——” Then he stopped. “No, I know, of course you’re not. I trust you all right, old girl. But if you only knew what a devil of a lot of things are happening——” He looked at her doubtfully. Then he smiled. “You’re a good sort, Alice,” he said, “I know you are. I’m damned grateful. Yes, I’m not quite the thing. There are a whole lot of worries.” He hesitated again, then he went on: “I tell you what youcando—keep the family quiet, you know. Keep them off it, especially the governor. They trust you, all of them, and you can just let them know it’s all right. Will you do that?”
He looked at her eagerly.
She smiled back at him. “Yes, old boy, of course. I think I can manage Sir Richard, for a little time at any rate. And in any case, it isn’t for very long, because we’re all going away in about a week; twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth, I think Lady Gale said.”
Tony started. “Did she?” he said. “Are you sure of that, Alice? Because it’s important.”
“Yes. I heard Lady Gale discussing it with Sir Richard last night.”
“By Jove. I’m glad to know that. Well, anyhow, Alice, I’ll never forget it if you help us. We want it, by Jove.”
She noticed the “we.” “Oh, that’s all right,” she said, smiling back at him. “Count on me, Tony.”
At that moment a general move was made. The meal, to everyone’s infinite relief, was over. Mrs. Lester got up slowly from her chair, she turned round towards Maradick. For an instant her eyes met his; the corners of her mouth were raised ever so slightly—she smiled at him, then she turned back to his wife.
“Mrs. Maradick,” she said, “do come over and sit by the window. There’ll be a little air there. The sun’s turned the corner now.”
But Mrs. Maradick had seen the smile. Suddenly, in a moment, all her suspicions were confirmed. She knew; there could be no doubt. Mrs. Lester, Mrs. Lester and her husband—her husband, James. Dear, how funny! She could have laughed. It was quite a joke. At the same time, she couldn’t be well, because the room was turning round, things were swimming; that absurd carpet was rising and flapping at her.
She put her hand on the tea-table and steadied herself; then she smiled back at Mrs. Lester.
“Yes, I’ll bring my work over,” she said.
The rest of the company seemed suddenly to have disappeared; Maradick and Tony had gone out together, Lady Gale and Alice, followed by Sir Richard and Lester, had vanished through another door; only Mrs. Lawrence remained, working rather dismally at a small square piece of silk that was on some distant occasion to be christened a table-centre.
Mrs. Maradick sometimes walked on her heels to increase her height; she did so now, but her knees were trembling and she had a curious feeling that the smile on her face was fixed there and that it would never come off, she would smile like that always.
As she came towards the table where Mrs. Lester was another strange sensation came to her. It was that she would like to strangle Mrs. Lester.
As she smiled at her across the table her hands were, in imagination, stretching with long twisting fingers and encircling Mrs. Lester’s neck. She saw the exact spot; she could see the little blue marks that her fingers would leave. She could see Mrs. Lester’s head twisted to one side and hanging in a stupid, silly way over her shoulder. She would draw her fingers very slowly away, because they would be reluctant to let go. Of course it was a very stupid, primitive feeling, because ladies that lived in Epsom didn’t strangle other ladies, and there were the girls to be thought of, and it wouldn’t really do at all. And so Mrs. Maradick sat down.
“It is quite cool,” she said as she brought out her work, “and after such a hot day, too.”
Mrs. Lester enjoyed the situation very much. She knew quite well that Maradick had been watching her anxiously all the afternoon. She knew that he was waiting to see what she was going to do about yesterday. She had not been quite sure herself at first. In fact, directly after he had left her she had been furiously angry; and then she had been frightened and had gone to find Fred, and then had cried in her bedroom for half an hour. And then she had dried her eyes and had put on her prettiest dress and had come down to dinner intending to be very stiff and stately towards him. But he had not been there; no one had known where he was. Mrs. Maradick had more or less conveyed that Mrs. Lester could say if she wanted to, but of course she wouldn’t.
However, she really didn’t know. The evening was stupid, tiresome, and very long. As the hours passed memories grew stronger. No one had ever held her like that before. She had never known such strength. She was crushed, gasping. There was a man! And after all, it didn’t matter; there was nothingwronginthat. Of course he oughtn’t to have done it. It was very presumptuous and violent; but then that was just like the man.
It was the kind of thing that he did, the kind of thing, after all, that he was meant to do! In the Middle Ages, of course, would have been his time. She pictured him with some beautiful maiden swung across the crupper, and the husband, fist in air but impotent—that was the kind of man.
And so she had smiled at him, to show him that, after all, she wasn’t very angry. Of course, she couldn’t be always having it; she didn’t even mean that she’d altogether forgiven him, but the whole situation was given an extra piquancy by the presence of Mrs. Maradick. She didn’t mean any harm to the poor little spectacle of a woman, but to carry him off from under her very nose! Well! it was only human nature to enjoy it!
“You must come and see us, dear Mrs. Maradick, both of you, when you’re back in town. We shall so like to see more of you. Fred has taken enormously to your husband, and it’s so seldom that he really makes a friend of anyone.”
“Thank you so much,” said Mrs. Maradick, smiling, “we’ll be sure to look you up. And you must come out to Epsom one day. People call it a suburb, but really, you know, it’s quite country. As I often say, it has all the advantages of the town and country with none of their disadvantages. A motor-van comes down from Harrods’ every day.”
“That must be delightful,” said Mrs. Lester.
“And Lord Roseberry living so near makes it so pleasant. He’s often to be seen driving; he takes great interest in the school, you know—Epsom College for doctors’ sons—and often watches their football!”
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Lester.
Mrs. Maradick paused and looked out of the window. What was she going to do? What was she going to do? The great black elms outside the window swept the blue sky like an arch. A corner of the lawn shone in the sun a brilliant green, and directly opposite a great bed of sweet-peas fluttered like a swarm of coloured butterflies with the little breeze. What was she to do?
She was feeling now, suddenly, for the first time in her selfish, self-centred life utterly at a loss. She had never been so alone before. There had always been somebody. At Epsom there had been heaps of people; and, after all, if the worst came to the worst, there had always been James. She had never, in all these years, very actively realised that he was there, because she had never happened to want him; there had always been so many other people.
Now suddenly all these people had gone. Epsom was very, very far away, and, behold, James wasn’t there either!
She realised, too, that if it had been some one down in the town, a common woman as she had at first imagined it, it would not have hurt so horribly. But that some one like Mrs. Lester should care for James, should really think him worth while, seemed at one blow to disturb, indeed to destroy all the theories of life in general and of James in particular that had governed her last twenty years.
What could she see? What could any one of them see in him? she asked herself again and again.
Meanwhile, of course, it must all be stopped somehow. They must go away at once. Or perhaps it would be better to be quiet for a day or two and see. They would all be gone in a week or so. And then Epsom again, and everything as it had been and none of this—she called it “intrigue.”
“I’m so glad,” said Mrs. Lester, smiling, “that Tony Gale has taken so strong a liking to your husband. It’s so good for a boy of that age to have some one older. . . . He’s a charming boy, of course, but they always need some one at that age just to prevent them from doing anything foolish.”
Thiswas fishing, Mrs. Maradick at once felt. She couldn’t see exactly what Mrs. Lester wanted, but shedidwant something, and she wasn’t going to get it. She had a sudden desire to prove to Mrs. Lester that she was a great deal more to her husband than appeared on the surface. A great deal more, of course, than any of the others were. For the first time in their married life she spoke of him with enthusiasm.
“Ah! James,” she said, “is splendid with young men. Only I could really tell the world what he has been to some of them. They take to him like anything. There’s something so strong and manly about him—and yet he’s sympathetic. Oh! I could tell you——” She nodded her head sagaciously.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lester; “I can’t tell you how I admire him, how we all do, in fact. He must be very popular in Epsom.”
“Well, as a matter of fact he rather keeps himself to himself there. They all like him enormously, of course; but he doesn’t want anything really except just the family—myself and the girls, you know. He’s a very domestic man, he always has been.”
“Yes, one can see that,” said Mrs. Lester, smiling. “It’s delightful when one sees that nowadays. It so seldom happens, I am afraid. You must be very proud of him.”
“I am,” said Mrs. Maradick.
The impulse to lean over and take Mrs. Lester’s head and slowly bend it back until the bones cracked was almost too strong to be resisted.
Mrs. Maradick pricked her finger and stopped the blood with her handkerchief. Both ladies were silent. The last rays of the sun as it left the corner of the lawn fell in a golden shower upon the sweet-peas.
Mrs. Lawrence could be heard counting her stitches.
Meanwhile Mrs. Lester’s smile had had its effect upon Maradick. He had waited, tortured, for the smile to come, but now it was all right. They were still friends. He could not see it any farther than that. After all, why should he trouble to look at it any more deeply? They were friends. He would be able to talk to her again; he would see her smile again. If she did not want him to behave like that, if she did not want him to hold her hand, he was ready to obey in anything. But they were still friends. She was not angry with him.
His depression took wings and fled. He put his arm on Tony’s shoulder as they went down the stairs. “Well, old chap,” he said, “I’m off to see Morelli now. You can bet that it will be all right. Things looked a bit funny last night. They always do when one’s tired and it’s dark. Last night, you see, you imagined things.”
But Tony looked up at him quietly with grave eyes.
“No,” he said, “there was nothing to imagine. It was just as I told you. Nothing happened. But I know now that there’s something in what the chaps in the town said. I believe in devils now. But my God, Maradick”—he clutched the other’s arm—“Janet’s down there. It isn’t for myself I care. He can do what he likes to me. But it’sher, we must get her away or there’s no knowing. . . . I didn’t sleep a wink last night, thinking what he might be doing to her. He may carry her away somewhere, where one can’t get at her; or he may do—God knows. But that’s what he said last night, just that! that she wasn’t for me or for anyone, that she wasneverfor anyone—that he would keep her.” Tony broke off.
“I’m silly with it all, I think,” he said, “it’s swung me off my balance a bit. One can’t think; but it would be the most enormous help if you’d go and see. It’s the uncertainty that’s so awful. If I could just know that it’s all right . . . and meanwhile I’m thinking out plans. It’s all got to happen jolly soon now. I’ll talk when you come back. It’s most awfully decent of you. . . .”
Maradick left him pacing the paths with his head down and his hands clenched behind his back.
He found Morelli sitting quietly with Janet and Miss Minns in the garden. They had had tea out there, and the tea-things glittered and sparkled in the sun. It would have been difficult to imagine anything more peaceful. The high dark red brick of the garden walls gave soft velvet shadows to the lawn; the huge tree in the corner flung a vast shade over the beds and paths; rooks swung slowly above their heads through the blue spacious silence of the summer evening; the air was heavy with the scent of the flowers.
Morelli came forward and greeted Maradick almost eagerly. “What! Have you had tea? Sure! We can easily have some more made, you know. Come and sit down. Have a cigar—a pipe? Right. I wondered when you were going to honour us again. But we had young Gale in yesterday evening for quite a long time.”
Janet, with a smile of apology, went indoors. Miss Minns was knitting at a distance. This was obviously the right moment to begin, but the words would not come. It all seemed so absurd in this delicious garden with the silence and the peace, and, for want of a better word, the sanity of it all; all the things that Maradick had been thinking, Tony’s story and the fantastic scene in the market-place last night, that and the ideas that had sprung from it, were all so out of line now. People weren’t melodramatic like that, only one had at times a kind of mood that induced one to think things, absurd things.
But Morelli seemed to be waiting for Maradick to speak. He sat gravely back in his chair watching him. It was almost, Maradick thought, as though he knew what he had come there for. It was natural enough that Morelli should expect him, but he had not imagined precisely that kind of quiet waiting for him. He had to clear all the other ideas that he had had, all the kind of picture that he had come with, out of his head. It was a different kind of thing, this sheltered, softly coloured garden with its deep shadows and high reds and browns against the blue of the sky. It was not, most emphatically it was not, melodrama.
The uncomfortable thought that the quiet eyes and grave mouth had guessed all this precipitated Maradick suddenly into speech. The peace and silence of the garden seemed to mark his words with a kind of indecency. He hurried and stumbled over his sentences.
“Yes, you know,” he said. “I thought I’d just come in and see you—well, about young Gale. He told me—I met him—he gave me to understand—that he was here last night.” Maradick felt almost ashamed.
“Yes,” said Morelli, smiling a little, “we had some considerable talk.”
“Well, he told me, that he had said something to you about your daughter. You must forgive me if you think that I’m intrusive at all.”
Morelli waved a deprecating hand.
“But of course I’m a friend of the boy’s, very fond of him. He tells me that he spoke about your daughter. He loves Miss Morelli.”
Maradick stopped abruptly.
“Yes,” said Morelli gently, “he did speak to me about Janet. But of course you must look on it as I do; two such children. Mind you, I like the boy, I liked him from the first. He’s the sort of young Englishman that we can’t have too much of, you know. My girl wouldn’t be likely to find a better, and I think she likes him. But of course they’re too young, both of them. You must feel as I do.”
Could this be the mysterious terror who had frightened Tony out of his wits? This gentle, smiling, brown-faced little man lying back there so placidly in his chair with his eyes half closed? It was impossible on the face of it. Absurd! And perhaps, after all, who knew whether it wouldn’t be better to wait? If Morelli really felt like that about it and was prepared eventually to encourage the idea; and then after all Janet might be introduced gradually to the family. They would see, even Sir Richard must see at last, what a really fine girl she was, fine in every way. He saw her as she had stood up to meet him as he stepped across the lawn, slim, straight, her throat rising like a white stem of some splendid flower, her clear dark eyes pools of light.
Oh! they must see if you gave them time. And, after all, this was rather carrying the matter with a high hand, this eloping and the rest!
The garden had a soothing, restful effect upon him, so that he began to be sleepy. The high red walls rose about him on every side, the great tree flung its shadow like a cloud across, and the pleasant little man smiled at him with gentle eyes.
“Oh yes, of course, they are very young.”
“And then there’s another thing,” went on Morelli. “I don’t know, of course, but I should say that young Gale’s parents have something else in view for him in the way of marriage. They’re not likely to take some one of whom they really know nothing at all. . . . They’ll want, naturally enough, I admit, something more.” He paused for a moment, then he smiled. “But perhaps you could tell me,” he said.
Maradick had again the sensation that the man knew perfectly well about the whole affair, about the Gales and Alice and Tony, and even perhaps about himself. He also felt that whatever he could say would be of no use at all; that Morelli was merely playing with him, as a cat plays with a mouse.
Meanwhile he had nothing to say.
“Well, you see,” he began awkwardly, “as a matter of fact, they haven’t had the opportunity—the chance, so to speak, of knowing—of meeting Miss Morelli yet. When they do——”
“They’ve been here,” broke in Morelli quietly, “some weeks now. Lady Gale could have called, I suppose, if she had been interested. But I gather that Gale hasn’t told her; hasn’t, indeed, told any of them. You see,” he added almost apologetically, “she is my only child; she has no mother; and I must, in a way, see to these things.”
Maradick agreed. There was really nothing to be said. It was perfectly true that the Gales didn’t want Janet, wouldn’t, in fact, hear of her. The whole affair seemed to lose a great deal of its immediate urgency in this quiet and restful place, and the fact that Morelli was himself so quiet and restful was another motive for waiting. The girl was in no danger; and, strangely enough, Maradick seemed to have lost for the first time since he had known Morelli the sense of uneasy distrust that he had had for the man; he was even rather ashamed of himself for having had it at all.