diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:21:52 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:21:52 -0700 |
| commit | ebd9dd2bb606525e8087fbbdb0b6d2b6ad9260c1 (patch) | |
| tree | 8da3f90e8d2daecc8997957b7c06d0315bc954ad /3601-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '3601-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 3601-h/3601-h.htm | 29178 |
1 files changed, 29178 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/3601-h/3601-h.htm b/3601-h/3601-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34ceb59 --- /dev/null +++ b/3601-h/3601-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,29178 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Captives, by Hugh Walpole +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Captives, by Hugh Walpole + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Captives + +Author: Hugh Walpole + +Posting Date: April 19, 2009 [EBook #3601] +Release Date: January, 2003 +First Posted: June 6, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAPTIVES *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +The Captives +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Hugh Walpole +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TO +<BR> +ARNOLD BENNETT +<BR> +WITH DEEP AFFECTION +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P> +"I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible +world may not in part depend on the personal response which any of us +may make to the religious appeal. God Himself, in short, may draw vital +strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my own part +I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, +if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, +in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it +is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may +withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight—as if there were +something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities +and faithlessness, are needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our +own hearts from atheisms and fears ..." +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +WILLIAM JAMES. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART I: BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY +</H3> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="90%"> +<A HREF="#chap0101">DEATH OF THE REV. CHARLES CARDINAL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0102">AUNT ANNE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0103">THE LONDON HOUSE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0104">THE CHAPEL</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART II: THE CHARIOT OF FIRE +</H3> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="90%"> +<A HREF="#chap0201">THE WARLOCKS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0202">EXPECTATION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0203">MAGGIE AND MARTIN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0204">MR. CRASHAW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0205">THE CHOICE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0206">THE PROPHET IN HIS OWN HOME</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0207">THE OUTSIDE WORLD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0208">PARADISE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0209">THE INSIDE SAINTS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0210">THE PROPHET</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0211">THE CHARIOT OF FIRE</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART III: THE WITCH +</H3> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="90%"> +<A HREF="#chap0301">THE THREE VISITS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0302">PLUNGE INTO THE OTHER HALF</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0303">SKEATON-ON-SEA</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0304">GRACE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0305">THE BATTLE OF SKEATON: FIRST YEAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0306">THE BATTLE OF SKEATON: SECOND YEAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0307">DEATH OF AUNT ANNE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0308">DEATH OF UNCLE MATHEW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0309">SOUL OF PAUL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0310">THE REVIVAL</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PART IV: THE JOURNEY HOME AGAIN +</H3> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="90%"> +<A HREF="#chap0401">THE DARK ROOM</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0402">HOBGOBLINS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0403">THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0101"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +PART I +</H2> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DEATH OF THE REV. CHARLES CARDINAL +</H3> + +<P> +Death leapt upon the Rev. Charles Cardinal, Rector of St. Dreots in +South Glebeshire, at the moment that he bent down towards the second +long drawer of his washhand-stand; he bent down to find a clean collar. +It is in its way a symbol of his whole life, that death claimed him +before he could find one. +</P> + +<P> +At one moment his mind was intent upon his collar; at the next he was +stricken with a wild surmise, a terror that even at that instant he +would persuade himself was exaggerated. He saw before his clouding eyes +a black pit. A strong hand striking him in the middle of his back flung +him contemptuously forward into it; a gasping cry of protest and all +was over. Had time been permitted him he would have stretched out a +hand towards the shabby black box that, true to all miserly convention, +occupied the space beneath his bed. Time was not allowed him. He might +take with him into the darkness neither money nor clean clothing. +</P> + +<P> +He had been told on many occasions about his heart, that he must not +excite nor strain it. He allowed that to pass as he allowed many other +things because his imagination was fixed upon one ambition, and one +alone. He had made, upon this last and fatal occasion, haste to find +his collar because the bell had begun its Evensong clatter and he did +not wish to-night to be late. The bell continued to ring and he lay his +broad widespread length upon the floor. He was a large and dirty man. +</P> + +<P> +The shabby old house was occupied with its customary life. Down in the +kitchen Ellen the cook was snatching a moment from her labours to drink +a cup of tea. She sat at the deal table, her full bosom pressed by the +boards, her saucer balanced on her hand; she blew, with little heaving +pants, at her tea to cool it. Her thoughts were with a new hat and some +red roses with which she would trim it; she looked out with little +shivers of content at the falling winter's dusk: Anne the kitchen-maid +scoured the pans; her bony frame seemed to rattle as she scrubbed with +her red hands; she was happy because she was hungry and there would be +a beef-steak pudding for dinner. She sang to herself as she worked. +</P> + +<P> +Upstairs in the dining-room Maggie Cardinal, the only child of the Rev. +Charles, sat sewing. She hoard the jangling of the church hell; she +heard also, suddenly, with a surprise that made her heart beat for a +moment with furious leaps, a tapping on the window-pane. Then directly +after that she fancied that there came from her father's room above the +thud of some sudden fall or collapse. She listened. The bell swallowed +all other noise. She thought that she had been mistaken, but the +tapping at the window began again, now insistent; the church bell +suddenly stopped and in the silence that followed one could hear the +slight creak of some bough driven by the sea-wind against the wall. +</P> + +<P> +The curtains were not drawn and where the curve of the hill fell away +the sky was faintly yellow; some cold stars like points of ice pierced +the higher blue; carelessly, as though with studied indifference, +flakes of snow fell, turning grey against the lamp-lit windows, then +vanishing utterly. Maggie, going to the window, saw a dark shapeless +figure beyond the glass. For an instant she was invaded by the terror +of her surprised loneliness, then she remembered her father and the +warm kitchen, then realised that this figure in the dark must be her +Uncle Mathew. +</P> + +<P> +She went out into the hall, pushed back the stiff, clumsy handle of the +door, and stepped on to the gravel path. She called out, laughing: +</P> + +<P> +"Come in! You frightened me out of my life." +</P> + +<P> +As he came towards her she felt the mingled kindness and irritation +that he always roused in her. He stood in the light of the hall lamp, a +fat man, a soft hat pushed to the back of his head, a bag in one hand. +His face was weak and good-tempered, his eyes had once been fine but +now they were dim and blurred; there were dimples in his fat cheeks; he +wore on his upper lip a ragged and untidy moustache and he had two +indeterminate chins. His expression was mild, kindly, now a little +ashamed, now greatly indignant. It was a pity, as he often said, that +he had not more control over his feelings. Maggie saw at once that he +was, as usual, a little drunk. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said. "Come in, Uncle. Father is in church, I think," she +added. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Mathew stepped with careful deliberation into the hall, put his +bag on a chair, and began a long, rambling explanation. +</P> + +<P> +"You know, Maggie, that I would have sent you a post card if I had had +an idea, but, upon my soul, there I was suddenly in Drymouth on +important business. I thought to myself on waking this morning—I took +a room at the 'Three Tuns'—'Why, there are Charles and Maggie whom I +haven't seen for an age.' I'd have sent you a telegram but the truth +is, my dear, that I didn't want to spend a penny more than I must. +Things haven't been going so well with me of late. It's a long story. I +want your father's advice. I've had the worst of luck and I could tell +you one or two things that would simply surprise you—but anyway, there +it is. Just for a night I'm sure you won't mind. To-morrow or the day +after I must be back in town or this thing will slip right through my +fingers. These days one must be awake or one's simply nowhere." +</P> + +<P> +He paused and nodded his head very solemnly at her, looking, as he did +so, serious and important. +</P> + +<P> +It was thus that he always appeared, "for one night only," but staying +for weeks and weeks in spite of the indignant protests of his brother +Charles who had never liked him and grudged the expense of his visits. +Maggie herself took his appearance as she did everything else in her +life with good-tempered philosophy. She had an affection for her uncle; +she wished that he did not drink so much, but had he made a success of +life she would not have cared for him as she did. After all every one +had their weaknesses ... +</P> + +<P> +She steered her uncle into the dining-room and placed him on a chair +beside the fire. In all his movements he attempted restraints and +dignity because he knew that he was drunk but hoped that his niece, in +spite of her long experience of him, would not perceive it. At the same +time he knew that she did perceive it and would perhaps scold him about +it. This made him a little indignant because, after all, he had only +taken the tiniest drop—one drop at Drymouth, another at Liskane +station, and another at "The Hearty Cow" at Clinton St. Mary, just +before his start on his cold lonely walk to St. Dreot's. He hoped that +he would prevent her criticism by his easy pleasant talk, so on he +chattered. +</P> + +<P> +She sat down near him and continuing to sew smiled at him, wondered +what there was for dinner and the kind of mood that her father would be +in when he found his dear brother here. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie Cardinal, at the time, was nineteen years of age. She was +neither handsome nor distinguished, plain indeed, although her mild, +good-natured eyes had in their light a quality of vitality and interest +that gave her personality; her figure was thick and square—she would +be probably stout one day. She moved like a man. Behind the mildness of +her eyes there was much character and resolve in her carriage, in the +strong neck, the firm breasts, the mouth resolute and determined. She +had now the fine expectation of her youth, her health, her optimism, +her ignorance of the world. When these things left her she would +perhaps be a yet plainer woman. In her dress she was not clever. Her +clothes were ugly with the coarse drab grey of their material and the +unskilful workmanship that had created them. And yet there would be +some souls who would see in her health, her youth, the kind sympathy of +her eyes and mouth, the high nobility of her forehead from which her +hair was brushed back, an attraction that might hold them more deeply +than an obvious beauty. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Mathew although he was a silly man was one of these perceptive +souls, and had he not been compelled by his circumstances to think +continually about himself, would have loved his niece very dearly. As +it was, he thought her a fine girl when he thought of her at all, and +wished her more success in life than her "poor old uncle" had had. He +looked at her now across the fireplace with satisfaction. She was +something sure and pleasant in a world that swayed and was uncertain. +He was drunk enough to feel happy so long as he was not scolded. He +dreaded the moment when his brother Charles would appear, and he strove +to arrange in his mind the wise and unanswerable word with which he +would defend himself, but his thoughts slipped just as the firelight +slipped and the floors with the old threadbare carpet. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly the hall door opened with a jangle, there were steps in +the hall, and Old Timmie Carthewe the sexton appeared in the +dining-room. He had a goat's face and a body like a hairpin. +</P> + +<P> +"Rector's not been to service," he said. "There's Miss Dunnett and Mrs. +Giles and the two Miss Backshaws. I'm feared he's forgotten." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie started up. Instantly to her mind came the memory of that +fancied sound from her father's room. She listened now, her head +raised, and the two men, their eyes bleared but their noses sniffing as +though they were dogs, listened also. There were certain sounds, clocks +ticking, the bough scraping on the wall, a cart's echo on the frozen +road, the maid singing far in the depths of the house. Maggie nodded +her head. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go and see," she said. +</P> + +<P> +She went into the hall and stood again listening. Then she called, +"Father! Father!" but there was no answer. She had never in all her +life been frightened by anything and she was not frightened now; +nevertheless, as she went up the stairs, she looked behind her to see +whether any one followed her. +</P> + +<P> +She called again "Father!" then went to his door, pushed it open, and +looked in. The room was cold with a faint scent of tallow candle and +damp. +</P> + +<P> +In the twilight she saw her father's body lying like a shadow stretched +right across the floor, with the grey dirty fingers of one hand +clenched. +</P> + +<P> +After that events followed swiftly. Maggie herself had no time nor +opportunity for any personal emotion save a dumb kind of wonder that +she did not feel more. But she saw all "through a glass darkly." There +had been first that moment when the sexton and Uncle Mathew, still like +dogs sniffing, had peered with their eyes through her father's door. +Then there had been the summoning of Dr. Bubbage from the village, his +self-importance, his continual "I warned him. I warned him. He can't +say I didn't warn him," and then (very dim and far away) "Thank you, +Miss Cardinal. I think I will have a glass if you don't mind." There +had been cook crying in the kitchen (her red roses intended for Sunday +must now be postponed) and the maid sniffing in the hall. There had +been Uncle Mathew, muddled and confused, but clinging to his one idea +that "the best thing you can do, my dear, is to send for your Aunt +Anne." There had been the telegram dispatched to Aunt Anne, and then +after that the house had seemed quite filled with people—ladies who +had—wished to know whether they could help her in any way and even the +village butcher who was there for no reason but stood in the hall +rubbing his hands on his thighs and sniffing. All these persons Maggie +surveyed through a mist. She was calm and collected and empty of all +personality; Maggie Cardinal, the real Maggie Cardinal, was away on a +visit somewhere and would not be back for a time or two. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly as the house had filled so suddenly it emptied. Maggie +found that she was desperately tired. She went to bed and slept +instantly. On waking next morning she was aware that it was a most +beautiful winter's day and that there was something strange in the air. +There came to her then very slowly a sense of her father. She saw him +on the one side, persistently as she had found him in his room, +strange, shapeless, with a crumpled face and a dirty beard that seemed +to be more dead than the rest of him. On the other side she saw him as +she had found him in the first days of her consciousness of the world. +</P> + +<P> +He must have been "jolly" then, large and strong, laughing often, +tossing her, she remembered, to the ceiling, his beard jet-black and +his eyebrows bushy and overhanging. Once that vigour, afterwards this +horror. She shook away from her last vision of him but it returned +again and again, hanging about her over her shoulder like an ill-omened +messenger. And all the life between seemed to be suddenly wiped away as +a sponge wipes figures off a slate. After the death of her mother she +had made the best of her circumstances. There had been many days when +life had been unpleasant, and in the last year, as his miserliness had +grown upon him, his ill-temper at any fancied extravagance had been +almost that of an insane man, but Maggie knew very little of the +affairs of other men and it seemed to her that every one had some +disadvantage with which to grapple. She did not pretend to care for her +father, she was very lonely because the villagers hated him, but she +had always made the best of everything because she had never had an +intimate friend to tell her that that was a foolish thing to do. +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed marvellous how isolated her life had been; she knew +simply nothing about the world at all. +</P> + +<P> +She could not pretend that she was sorry that her father had died; and +yet she missed him because she knew very well that she was now no one's +business, that she was utterly and absolutely alone in the universe. It +might be said that she could not be utterly alone when she had her +Uncle Mathew, but, although she was ignorant of life, she knew her +Uncle Mathew ... Nevertheless, he did something to remove the sharp +alarm of her sudden isolation. Upon the day after her father's death he +was at his very best, his kindest, and most gentle. He was rather +pathetic, having drunk nothing out of respect to the occasion; he felt, +somewhere deep down in him, a persistent exaltation that his brother +Charles was dead, but he knew that it was not decent to allow this +feeling to conquer him and he was truly anxious to protect and comfort +his niece so well as he was able. Early in the afternoon he suggested +that they should go for a walk. Everything necessary had been done. An +answer to their telegram had been received from his sister Anne that +she could not leave London until that night but would arrive at Clinton +St. Mary station at half-past nine to-morrow morning. That would be in +good time for the funeral, a ceremony that was to be conducted by the +Rev. Tom Trefusis, the sporting vicar of Cator Hill, the neighbouring +parish. +</P> + +<P> +The house now was empty and silent. They must escape from that figure, +now decent, clean, and solemn, lying upon the bed upstairs. Mathew took +his niece by the hand and said: +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, a little fresh air is the thing for both of us. It will cheer +you up." +</P> + +<P> +So they went out for a walk together. Maggie knew, with a deep and +intimate experience, every lane and road within twenty miles' radius of +St. Dreot's, There was the high-road that went through Gator Hill to +Clinton and then to Polwint; here were the paths across the fields to +Lucent, the lanes that led to the valley of the Lisp, all the paths +like spiders' webs through Rothin Wood, from whose curve you could see +Polchester, grey and white, with its red-brown roofs and the spires of +the Cathedral thrusting like pointing fingers into the heaven. It was +the Polchester View that she chose to-day, but as they started through +the deep lanes down the St. Dreot's hill she was startled and disturbed +by the strange aspect which everything wore to her. She had not as yet +realised the great shock her father's death had been; she was +exhausted, spiritually and physically, in spite of the deep sleep of +the night before. The form and shape of the world was a little strained +and fantastic, the colours uncertain, now vivid, now vanishing, the +familiar trees, hedges, clouds, screens, as it were, concealing some +scene that was being played behind them. But beyond and above all other +sensations she was conscious of her liberty. She struggled against +this; she should be conscious, before everything, of her father's loss. +But she was not. It meant to her at present not so much the loss of a +familiar figure as the sudden juggling, by an outside future, of all +the regular incidents and scenes of her daily life, as at a pantomime +one sees by a transformation of the scenery, the tables, the chairs, +and pictures the walls dance to an unexpected jig. She was free, free, +free—alone but free. What form her life would take she did not know, +what troubles and sorrows in the future there might be she did not +care—to-morrow her life would begin. +</P> + +<P> +Although unsentimental she was tender-hearted and affectionate, but +now, for many years, her life with her father had been a daily battle +of ever-increasing anger and bitterness. It may be that once he had +loved her; that had been in those days when she was not old enough to +love him ... since she had known him he had loved only money. She would +have loved him had he allowed her, and because he did not she bore him +no grudge. She had always regarded her life, sterile and unprofitable +as it was, with humour until now when, like a discarded dress, it had +slipped behind her. She did not see it, even now, with bitterness; +there was no bitterness for anything in her character. +</P> + +<P> +As they walked Uncle Mathew was considering her for the first time. On +the other occasions when he had stayed in his brother's house he had +been greatly occupied with his own plans—requests for money +(invariably refused) schemes for making money, plots to frighten his +brother out of one or other of his possessions. He had been frankly +predatory, and that plain, quiet girl his niece had been pleasant +company but no more. Now she was suddenly of the first importance. She +would in all probability inherit a considerable sum. How much there +might be in that black box under the bed one could not say, but surely +you could not be so relentless a miser for so long a period without +accumulating a very agreeable amount. Did the girl realise that she +would, perhaps, be rich? Uncle Mathew licked his lips with his tongue. +So quiet and self-possessed was she that you could not tell what she +was thinking. Were she only pretty she might marry anybody. As it was, +with that figure ... But she was a good girl. Uncle Mathew felt kind +and tender-hearted towards her. He would advise her about life of which +he had had a very considerable experience, and of which, of course, she +knew nothing. His heart was warm, although it would have been warmer +still had he been able to drink a glass of something before starting +out. +</P> + +<P> +"And what will you do now, my dear, do you think?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +They had left the deep lanes and struck across the hard-rutted fields. +A thin powder of snow lay upon the land, and under the yellow light of +the winter sky the surface was blue, shadowed with white patches where +the snow had fallen more thickly. The trees and hedges were black and +hard against the white horizon that was tightly stretched like the +paper of a Japanese screen. The smell of burning wood was in the air, +and once and again a rook slowly swung its wheel, cutting the air as it +flew. The cold was so pleasantly sharp that it was the best possible +thing for Uncle Mathew, who was accustomed to an atmosphere of hissing +gas, unwashen glasses, and rinds of cheese. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie did not answer his question but herself asked one. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Mathew, do you believe in religion?" +</P> + +<P> +"Religion, my dear?" answered her uncle, greatly startled at so unusual +a question. "What sort of religion?" +</P> + +<P> +"The kind of religion that father preached about every Sunday—the +Christian religion." +</P> + +<P> +"To tell you the truth, my dear," he answered confidentially, "I've +never had much time to think about it. With some men, you see, it's +part of their lives, and with others—well, it isn't. My lines never +ran that way." +</P> + +<P> +"Was father very religious when he was young?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I can't say that he was. But then we never got on, your father and +I. Our lines didn't run together at all. But I shouldn't have called +him a religious man." +</P> + +<P> +"Then all this time father has been lying?" +</P> + +<P> +Her uncle gazed at her apprehensively. He did not wish to undermine her +faith in her father on the very day after his death, but he was so +ignorant about her, her thoughts and beliefs and desires, that he did +not know what her idea of her father had been. His idea of him had +always been that he was a dirty, miserly scoundrel, but that was not +quite the thing for a daughter to feel, and there was an innocence and +simplicity about Maggie that perplexed him. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't truly say that I ever knew what your father's private feelings +were. He never cared for me enough to tell me. He may have been very +religious in his real thoughts. We never discussed such things." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie turned round upon him. +</P> + +<P> +"I know. You're pretending. You've said to yourself, 'I mustn't tell +her what I think about her father the very day after his death, that +isn't a pleasant thing to do.' We've all got to pretend that he was +splendid. But he wasn't—never. Who can know it better than I? Didn't +he worry mother until she died? Didn't he lead me an awful life always, +and aren't I delighted now that he's dead? It's everything to me. I've +longed for this day for years, and now we've got to pretend that we're +sorry and that it would be a good thing if he were alive. It wouldn't +be a good thing—it would be a bad thing for every one. He was a bad +man and I hated him." +</P> + +<P> +Then, quite suddenly, she cried. Turning away from her uncle she folded +her face in her arms like a small child and sobbed. Standing, looking +at her bent shoulders, her square, ugly figure, her shabby old hat with +its dingy black ribbon, pushed a little to the side of her head, Uncle +Mathew thought that she was a most uncomprehensible girl. If she felt +like that about her father why should she cry; and if she cried she +must surely have some affection for his memory. All he could say was: +</P> + +<P> +"There, there, my dear—Well, well. It's all right." He felt foolish +and helpless. +</P> + +<P> +She turned round at last, drying her eyes. "It's such a shame," she +said, still sobbing, "that that's what I shall feel about him. He's all +I had and that's what I feel. But if you knew—if you knew—all the +things he did." +</P> + +<P> +They walked on again, entering Rothin Wood. "He never tried to make me +religious," she went on. "He didn't care what I felt. I sat in the +choir, and I took a Sunday-school class, and I visited the villagers, +but I, myself—what happened to me—he didn't care. He never took any +trouble about the church, he just gabbled the prayers and preached the +same old sermons. People in the village said it was a scandal and that +he ought to be turned out but no one ever did anything. They'll clean +everything up now. There'll be a new clergyman. They'll mend the holes +in the kitchen floor and the ceiling of my bedroom. It will be all new +and fresh." +</P> + +<P> +"And what will you do, Maggie?" said her uncle, trying to make his +voice indifferent as though he had no personal interest in her plans. +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't thought yet," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I've an idea," he went on. "What do you say to your living with me? A +nice little place somewhere in London. I've felt for a long time that I +should settle down. Your father will have left you a little money—not +much, perhaps, but just enough for us to manage comfortably. And there +we'd be, as easy as anything. I can see us very happy together." +</P> + +<P> +But he did not as yet know his niece. She shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said. "I'm going to live with Aunt Anne and Aunt Elizabeth. +We wouldn't be happy, Uncle, you and I. Our house would always be in a +mess and there are so many things that I must learn that only another +woman could teach me. I never had a chance with father." +</P> + +<P> +He had entered upon this little walk with every intention of settling +the whole affair before their return. He had had no idea of any +opposition—her ignorance of the world would make her easy to adapt. +But now when he saw that she had already considered the matter and was +firmly resolved, his arguments deserted him. +</P> + +<P> +"Just consider a moment," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I think it will be best for me to live with the aunts," she answered +firmly. "They have wished it before. Of course then it was impossible +but now it will do very well." +</P> + +<P> +He had one more attempt. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't be happy there, my dear, with all their religion and the +rest of it—and two old maids. You'll see no life at all." +</P> + +<P> +"That depends upon myself," she answered, "and as to their religion at +least they believe in it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, your Aunt Anne is a very sincere woman," Uncle Mathew answered +grimly. +</P> + +<P> +He was angry and helpless. She seemed suddenly some one with whom it +was impossible to argue. He had intended to be pathetic, to paint +delightful pictures of uncle and niece sheltering snugly together +defended by their affection against a cold and hostile London. His own +eyes had filled with tears as he thought of it. What a hard, +cold-hearted girl she was! Nevertheless for the moment he abandoned the +subject. +</P> + +<P> +That she should go and live with her aunts was not for Maggie in any +way a new idea. A number of years ago when she had been a little girl +of thirteen or fourteen years of age her father had had a most violent +quarrel with his sister Anne. Maggie had never known the exact cause of +this although even at that period she suspected that it was in some way +connected with money. She found afterwards that her father had +considered that certain pieces of furniture bequeathed to the family by +a defunct relation were his and not his sister's. Miss Anne Cardinal, a +lady of strong character, clung to her sofa, cabinet, and porcelain, +bowls, and successfully maintained her right. The Reverend Charles +forbade the further mention of her name by any member of his household. +This quarrel was a grievous disappointment to Maggie who had often been +promised that when she should be a good girl she should go and stay +with her aunts in London. She had invented for herself a strange +fascinating picture of the dark, mysterious London house, with London +like a magic cauldron bubbling beyond it. There was moreover the +further strangeness of her aunt's religion. Her father in his anger had +spoken about "their wicked blasphemy," "their insolence in the eyes of +God," "their blindness and ignorant conceit." Maggie had discovered, on +a later day, from her uncle that her aunts belonged to a sect known as +the Kingscote Brethren and that the main feature of their creed was +that they expected the second coming of the Lord God upon earth at no +very distant date. +</P> + +<P> +"Will it really happen, Uncle Mathew?" she asked in an awe-struck voice +when she first heard this. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all bunkum if you ask me," said her uncle. "And it's had a +hardening effect on your aunts who were kind women once, but they're +completely in the hands of the blackguard who runs their chapel, poor +innocents. I'd wring his neck if I caught him." +</P> + +<P> +All this was very fascinating to Maggie who was of a practical mind +with regard to the facts immediately before her but had beyond them a +lively imagination. Her life had been so lonely, spent for the most +part so far from children of her own age, that she had no test of +reality. She did not see any reason why the Lord God should not come +again and she saw every reason why her aunts should condemn her uncle. +That London house swam now in a light struck partly from the wisdom and +omniscience of her aunts, partly from God's threatened descent upon +them. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne's name was no longer mentioned in St. Dreot's but Maggie did +not forget, and at every new tyranny from her father she thought to +herself—"Well, there is London. I shall be there one day." +</P> + +<P> +As they walked Maggie looked at her uncle. What was he really? He +should be a gentleman and yet he didn't look like one. She remembered +things that he had at different times said to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, look at myself!" he had on earlier days, half-maudlin from "his +drop at the 'Bull and Bush,'" exclaimed to Maggie, "I can't call myself +a success! I'm a rotten failure if you want to know, and I had most +things in my favour to start with, went to Cambridge, had a good +opening as a barrister. But it wasn't quick enough for me. I was +restless and wanted to jump the moon—now look at me! Same with your +father, only he's put all his imagination into money—same as your +aunts have put theirs into religion. We're not like ordinary people, us +Cardinals." +</P> + +<P> +"And have I got a lot of imagination too?" Maggie had asked on one +occasion. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I don't know," her uncle had answered her. "You don't look to +me like a Cardinal at all—much too quiet. But you may have it +somewhere. Look out for a bad time if you have." +</P> + +<P> +Today Maggie's abrupt checking of his projects had made him sulky and +he talked but little. "Damn it all!" he had started out with the most +charming intentions towards the girl and now look at her! Was it +natural conduct in the day after she had lost her only protector? No, +it was not. Had she been pretty he might have, even now, forgiven her, +but today she looked especially plain with her pale face and shabby +black dress and her obstinate mouth and chin. He was uneasy, too, about +the imminent arrival of his sister Anne, who always frightened him and +made him think poorly of the world in general. No hope of getting any +money out of her, nor would Charles have left him a penny. It was a +rotten, unsympathetic world, and Uncle Mathew cursed God as he strutted +sulkily along. Maggie also had fallen into silence. +</P> + +<P> +They came at last out of the wood and stood at the edge of it, with the +pine trees behind them, looking down over Polchester. On this winter's +afternoon Polchester with the thin covering of snow upon its roofs +sparkled like a city under glass. The Cathedral was dim in the mist of +the early dusk and the sun, setting behind the hill, with its last rays +caught the windows so that they blazed through the haze like smoking +fires. Whilst Maggie and her uncle stood there the bells began to ring +for Evensong, and the sound like a faint echo seemed to come from +behind them out of the wood. In the spring all the Polchester orchards +would be white and pink with blossom, in the summer the river that +encircled the city wall would run like a blue scarf between its green +sloping hills—now there was frost and snow and mist with the fires +smouldering at its heart. She gazed at it now as she had never gazed at +it before. She was going into it now. Her life was beginning at last. +When the sun had left the windows and the walls were grey she turned +back into the wood and led the way silently towards home. +</P> + +<P> +The house that night was very strange with her father dead in it. She +sat, because she thought it her duty, in his bedroom. He lay on his +bed, with his beard carefully combed and brushed now, spread out upon +the sheet. His closed eyes and mouth gave him a grave and reverend +appearance which he had never worn in his life. He lay there, under the +flickering candle-light, like some saint who at length, after a life of +severe discipline, had entered into the joy of his Lord. Beneath the +bed was the big black box. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie did not look at her father. She sat there, near the dark window, +her hands folded on her lap. She thought of nothing at all except the +rats. She was not afraid of them but they worried her. They had been a +trouble in the house for a long time past, poison had been laid for +them and they had refused to take it. They had had, perhaps, some fear +of the Reverend Charles, at any rate they scampered and scurried now +behind the wainscoting as though conscious of their release. "Even the +rats are glad," Maggie thought to herself. In the uncertain +candle-light the fancy seized her that one rat, a very large one, had +crept out from his hole, crawled on to the bed, and now sat on the +sheet looking at her father. It would be a horrible thing did the rat +walk across her father's beard, and yet for her life she could not +move. She waited, fascinated. She fancied that the beard stirred a +little as though the rat had moved it. She fancied that the rat grew +and grew in size, now there were many of them, all with their little +sharp beady eyes watching the corpse. Now there were none; only the +large limbs outlined beneath the spread, the waxen face, the ticking +clock, the strange empty shape of his grey dressing-gown hanging upon a +nail on the wall. Where was her father gone? She did not know, she did +not care—only she trusted that she would never meet him again—never +again. Her head nodded; her hands and feet were cold; the candle-light +jumped, the rats scampered ... she slept. +</P> + +<P> +When it was quite dark beyond the windows and the candles were low +Maggie came downstairs, stiff, cold, and very hungry. She felt that it +was wrong to have slept and very wrong to be hungry, but there it was; +she did not pretend to herself that things were other than they were. +In the dining-room she found supper laid out upon the table, cold beef, +potatoes in their jackets, cold beetroot, jelly, and cheese, and her +uncle playing cards on the unoccupied end of the table in a melancholy +manner by himself. She felt that it was wrong of him to play cards on +such an occasion, but the cards were such dirty grey ones and he +obtained obviously so little pleasure from his amusement that he could +not be considered to be wildly abandoning himself to riot and +extravagance. +</P> + +<P> +She felt pleasure in his company; for the first time since her father's +death she was a little frightened and uneasy. She might even have gone +to him and cried on his shoulder had he given her any encouragement, +but he did not speak to her except to say that he had already eaten. He +was still a little sulky with her. +</P> + +<P> +When she had finished her meal she sat in her accustomed chair by the +fire, her head propped on her hands, looking into the flame, and there, +half-asleep, half-awake, memories, conversations, long-vanished scenes +trooped before her eyes as though they were bidding her a long +farewell. She did not, as she sat there, sentimentalise about any of +them, she saw them as they were, some happy, some unhappy, some +terrifying, some amusing, all of them dead and passed, grey and thin, +the life gone out of them. Her mind was fixed on the future. What was +it going to be? Would she have money as her uncle had said? Would she +see London and the world? Would she find friends, people who would be +glad to be with her and have her with them? What would her aunts be +like? and so from them, what about all the other members of the family +of whom she had heard? She painted for herself a gay scene in which, at +the door of some great house, a fine gathering of Cardinals waited with +smiles and outstretched hands to welcome her. Then, laughing at herself +as she always did when she had allowed her fancy free rein, she shook +her head. No, it certainly would not be like that. Relations were not +like that. That was not the way to face the world to encourage romantic +dreams. Her uncle, watching her surreptitiously, wondered of what she +was thinking. Her determined treatment of him that afternoon continued +to surprise him. She certainly ought to make her way in the world, but +what a pity that she was so plain. Perhaps if she got some colour into +her cheeks, dressed better, brushed her hair differently—no, her mouth +would always be too large and her nose too small—and her figure was +absurd. Uncle Mathew considered that he was a judge of women. +</P> + +<P> +He rose at last and, rather shamefacedly, said that he should go to +bed. Maggie wondered at the confusion that she detected in him. She +looked at him and he dropped his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Good night, Uncle Mathew." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her then and noticed by her white face and dark-lined eyes +what a strain the day had been to her. He saw again the figure in the +shabby black hat sobbing in the lane. He suddenly put his arms about +her and held her close to him. She noticed that he smelled of whisky, +but she felt his kindness, and putting her hand on his fat shoulder +kissed once more his cheek. +</P> + +<P> +When he had left her, her weariness came suddenly down upon her, +overwhelming her as though the roof had fallen in. The lamp swelled +before her tired eyes as though it had been an evil, unhealthy flower. +The table slid into the chairs and the cold beef leered at the jelly; +the pictures jumped and the clock ran in a mad scurry backwards and +forwards. +</P> + +<P> +She dragged her dazed body up through the silent house to her bedroom, +undressed, was instantly in bed and asleep. +</P> + +<P> +She slept without dreams but woke suddenly as though she had been flung +into the midst of one. She sat up in bed, knowing from the thumping of +her heart that she was seized with panic but finding, in the first +flash, no reason for her alarm. The room was pitch black with shadows +of light here and there, but she had with her, in the confusion of her +sleep, uncertainty as to the different parts of the room. What had +awakened her? Of what was she frightened? Then suddenly, as one slits a +black screen with a knife, a thin line of light cracked the darkness. +As though some one had whispered it in her ear she knew that the door +was there and the dark well of uncertainty into which she had been +plunged was suddenly changed into her own room where she could +recognise the window, the chest of drawers, the looking-glass, the +chairs. Some one was opening her door and her first thought that it was +of course her father was checked instantly by the knowledge, conveyed +again as though some one had whispered to her, that her father was dead. +</P> + +<P> +The thin line of light was now a wedge, it wavered, drew back to a +spider's thread again, then broadened with a flush of colour into a +streaming path. Some one stood in the doorway holding a candle. Maggie +saw that it was Uncle Mathew in his shirt and trousers. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +He swayed as he stood there, his candle making fantastic leaps and +shallows of light. He was smiling at her in a silly way and she saw +that he was drunk. She had had a horror of drunkenness ever since, as a +little girl, she had watched an inebriated carter kicking his wife. She +always, after that, saw the woman's bent head and stooping shoulders. +Now she knew, sitting up in bed, that she was frightened not only of +Uncle Mathew, but of the house, of the whole world. +</P> + +<P> +She was alone. She realised her loneliness in a great flash of +bewilderment and cold terror as though the ground had suddenly broken +away from her and she was on the edge of a vast pit. There was no one +in the house to help her. Her father was dead. The cook and the maid +were sunk in heavy slumber at the other end of the house. There was no +one to help her. She was alone, and it seemed to her that in the shock +of that discovery she realised that she would always be alone now, for +the rest of her life. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, Uncle Mathew?" she said again. Her voice was steady, +although her heart hammered. Some other part of her brain was wondering +where it was that he had got the drink. He must have had a bottle of +whisky in his room; she remembered his shyness when he said good-night +to her. +</P> + +<P> +He stood in the middle of the floor, swaying on his feet and smiling at +her. The flame of the light rose and fell in jerks and spasms. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought," he said, "I'd come—to see m'little Maggie, m'little +niece, jus' to talk a lill bit and cheer her up—up." He drew nearer +the bed. "She'll be lonely, I said—lonely—very—aren't you—lonely +Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's very late," she said, "and you're dropping grease ail over the +floor with that candle. You go back to bed, uncle. I'm all right. You +go back to bed." +</P> + +<P> +"Go back? No, no, no. Oh no, not back to bed. It'll soon be mornin'. +That'll be jolly-jolly. We'll talk—together till mornin'." +</P> + +<P> +He put the candle on a chair, nearly falling as he did so, then came +towards her. He stood over her, his shirt, open at the neck, +protuberating over his stomach, his short thick legs swaying. His red, +unshaven face with the trembling lips was hateful to her. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly he sat on the edge of her bed and put his hands out towards +her. He caught her hair. +</P> + +<P> +"My little Maggie—my little Maggie," he said. +</P> + +<P> +The fright, the terror, the panic that seized her was like the sudden +rising of some black figure who grew before her, bent towards her and +with cold hard fingers squeezed her throat. For an instant she was +helpless, quivering, weak in every bone of her body. +</P> + +<P> +Then some one said to her: +</P> + +<P> +"But you can manage this." +</P> + +<P> +"I can manage this," she answered almost aloud. +</P> + +<P> +"You're alone now. You mustn't let things be too much for you." +</P> + +<P> +She jumped out of bed, on the farther side away from her uncle. She put +on her dressing-gown. She stood and pointed at the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, uncle, you go back to your room at once. It's disgraceful coming +in the middle of the night and disturbing every one. Go back to bed." +</P> + +<P> +The new tone in her voice startled him. He looked at her in a +bewildered fashion. He got up from the bed. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Maggie—I only—only—" +</P> + +<P> +He stared from her to the candle and from the candle back to her again. +</P> + +<P> +"Now go," she repeated. "Quick now." +</P> + +<P> +He hung his head. "Now you're angry—angry with your poor ole +uncle—poor ole uncle." He looked at her, his eyes puzzled as though he +had never seen her before. +</P> + +<P> +"You're very hard," he said, shaking his head. He stumbled towards the +door—"Very hard," he repeated, and went out, his head still hanging. +</P> + +<P> +She heard him knock his foot against the stairs. Soon there was silence. +</P> + +<P> +She blew out the candle and went back to bed. She lay there, her heart, +at first, throbbing, her eyes straining the darkness. Then she grew +more tranquil. She felt in her heart a strange triumph as though +already she had begun life and had begun it with success. She thought, +before she sank deep into sleep, that anything would yield to one did +one only deal sensibly with it ... After all, it was a fine thing to be +alone. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0102"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AUNT ANNE +</H3> + +<P> +In the morning, however, she discovered no fine things anywhere. The +hours that had elapsed since her father's death had wrought in him a +"sea-change." He had gained nobility, almost beauty. She wondered with +a desolate self-criticism whether during all those years she had been +to blame and not he. Perhaps he had wished for sympathy and intimacy +and she had repulsed him. His little possessions here and there about +the house reproached her. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Mathew had a bad headache and would not come down to breakfast. +She felt indignant with him but also indulgent. He had shown himself +hopelessly lacking in good taste, and good feeling, but then she had +never supposed that he had these things. At the same time the last +support seemed to have been removed from her; it might well be that her +Aunt Anne would not care for her and would not wish to have her in her +house. What should she do then? Whither should she go? She flung up her +head and looked bravely into the face of Ellen, the cook, who came to +remove the breakfast, but she had to bite her lip to keep back the +tears that WOULD come and fill her eyes so that the world was misty and +obscure. +</P> + +<P> +There was, she fancied, something strange about Ellen. In HER eyes some +obscure triumph or excitement, some scorn and derision, Maggie fancied, +of herself. Had the woman been drinking? ... +</P> + +<P> +Then there arrived Mr. Brassy, her father's solicitor, from Cator Hill. +He had been often in the house, a short fat man with a purple face, +clothes of a horsy cut, and large, red, swollen fingers. He took now +possession of the house with much self-importance. "Well, Miss Maggie" +(he blew his words at her as a child blows soap-bubbles). "Here we are, +then. Very sad indeed—very. I've been through the house—got the will +all right. Your aunt, you say, will be with us?" +</P> + +<P> +"My aunt from London. Miss Anne Cardinal. I expect her in half an hour. +She should have arrived at Clinton by the half-past nine train." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well. Yes—yes—indeed, your uncle is also here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. He will be down shortly." +</P> + +<P> +"Very good, Miss Maggie. Very good." +</P> + +<P> +She hated that he should call her Miss Maggie. He had always treated +her with considerable respect, but to-day she fancied that he +patronised her. He placed his hand for a moment on her shoulder and she +shrank back. He felt her action and, abashed a little, coughed and blew +his nose. He strutted about the room. Then the door opened and Ellen +the cook looked in upon them. +</P> + +<P> +"I only wished to see, Miss, whether I could do anything for you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, thank you," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Been with you some time that woman?" said Mr. Brassy. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Maggie, "about five years, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"Hum! Hum—name of Harmer." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Harmer." +</P> + +<P> +"Not married?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," answered Maggie, wondering at this interest. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so far as you know." +</P> + +<P> +"No. She's always Miss Harmer." +</P> + +<P> +"Quite so—quite so. Dear me, yes." +</P> + +<P> +Other people appeared, asked questions and vanished. It seemed to have +been all taken out of her hands and it was strange how desolate this +made her. For so many years she had had the management of that house, +since her fourteenth birthday, indeed. Ugly and dilapidated though the +place had been, it had grown, after a time, to belong to her, and she +had felt as though it were in some way grateful to her for keeping it, +poor thing, together. Now it had suddenly withdrawn itself and was +preparing for the next comer. Maggie felt this quite definitely and +thought that probably it was glad that now its roof would be mended and +its floors made whole. It had thrown her off ... Well, she would not +burden it long. +</P> + +<P> +There were sounds then of wheels on the gravel. The old dilapidated cab +from Clinton with its ricketty windows and moth-eaten seats that smelt +of straw and beer was standing at the door, the horse puffing great +breaths of steam into the frozen air. Her aunt had arrived. Maggie, +standing behind the window, looked out. The carriage door opened, and a +figure, that seemed unusually tall, appeared to straighten itself out +and rose to its full height on the gravel path as though it had been +sitting in the cab pressed together, its head upon its knees. +</P> + +<P> +Then in the hall that was dark even on the brightest day, Aunt Anne +revealed herself as a lady, tall indeed, but not too tall, of a fine +carriage, in a black rather shabby dress and a black bonnet. Her face +was grave and sharply pointed, with dark eyes—sad rather, and of the +pale remote colour that the Virgin in the St. Dreot's east end window +wears. Standing there in the dusky hall, quietly, quite apart from the +little bustle that surrounded her, she seemed to Maggie even in that +first moment like some one wrapt, caught away into her own visions. +</P> + +<P> +"I paid the cabman five shillings," she said very softly. "I hope that +was right. And you are Maggie, are you?" +</P> + +<P> +She bent down and kissed her. Her lips were warm and comforting. +Maggie, who had, when she was shy, something of the off-hand manner of +a boy, said: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. That's all right. We generally give him four and six." +</P> + +<P> +They went into the dining-room where was Mr. Brassy. He came forward to +them, blowing his words at them, rubbing his hands: +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Cardinal—I am honoured—my name is Brassy, your brother's +lawyer. Very, very sad—so sudden, so sudden. The funeral is at twelve. +If there is anything I can do—" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Cardinal did not regard him at all and Maggie saw that this +annoyed him. The girl watched her aunt, conscious of some strange new +excitement at her heart. She had never seen any one who in the least +resembled this remote silent woman. Maggie did not know what it was +that she had expected, but certainly it had not been this. There was +something in her Aunt's face that recalled her father and her uncle, +something in the eyes, something in the width and height of the +forehead, but this resemblance only accentuated the astounding +difference. Maggie's first impression was her ultimate one—that her +aunt had strayed out of some stained-glass window into a wild world +that did not bewilder her only because she did not seriously regard it. +Maggie found herself wondering who had fastened her aunt's buttons and +strings when she rose in the morning, how had she ever travelled in the +right train and descended at the right station? How could she remember +such trifles when her thoughts were fixed on such distant compelling +dreams? The pale oval face, the black hair brushed back from the +forehead, the thin hands with long tapering fingers, the black dress, +the slender upright body—this figure against the cold bright winter +sunlight was a picture that remained always from that day in Maggie's +soul. +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt looked about her as though she had just awaked from sleep. +"Would you care to come up to your room?" asked Maggie, feeling the +embarrassment of Mr. Brassy's presence. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear, thank you—I will," said Miss Cardinal. They moved from the +room, Aunt Anne walking with a strange, almost clumsy uncertainty, +halting from one foot to the other as though she had never learnt to +trust her legs, a movement with which Maggie was to become intensely +familiar. It was as though her aunt had flown in some earlier +existence, and had never become accustomed to this clumsier earthly +fashion. +</P> + +<P> +The spare bedroom was a bright room with a broad high window. The view +was magnificent, looking over the hill that dropped below the vicarage +out across fields and streams to Cator Hill, to the right into the +heart of the St. Dreot Woods, to the left to the green valley through +whose reeds and sloping shadows the Lisp gleamed like a burnished wire +threading its way to the sea. There was a high-backed old-fashioned +chair by the window. Against this Miss Cardinal stood, her thin body +reflected, motionless, as though it had been painted in a long glass +behind her. She gazed before her. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie saw that she was agitated, passionately moved. The sun catching +the hoar-frost on the frozen soil turned the world to crystal, and in +every field were little shallows of blue light; the St. Dreot Woods +were deep black with flickering golden stars. +</P> + +<P> +She tried to speak. She could not. Tears were in her eyes. "It is so +long ... since I ... London," she smiled at Maggie. Then Maggie heard +her say: +</P> + +<P> +The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lack nothing. +</P> + +<P> +He shall feed me in a green pasture; and lead me forth beside the +waters of comfort. +</P> + +<P> +He shall convert my soul, and bring me forth in the paths of +righteousness, for His Name's sake. +</P> + +<P> +Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will +fear no evil; for thou art with me, they rod and thy staff comfort me. +</P> + +<P> +Thou shalt prepare a table before me against them that trouble me: thou +hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full. +</P> + +<P> +But thy loving—kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my +life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. +</P> + +<P> +There was a pause—then Maggie said timidly, "Won't you take off your +bonnet? It will be more comfortable." "Thank you, my dear." She took +off her bonnet and laid it on the bed. Then she resumed her stand at +the window, her eyes lost in the sunny distance. "I did wrong," she +said, as though she were speaking to herself. "I should not have +allowed that quarrel with your father. I regret it now very deeply. But +we always see too late the consequences of our proud self-will." She +turned then. +</P> + +<P> +"Come here, dear," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie came to her. Her aunt looked at her and Maggie was deeply +conscious of her shabby dress, her rough hands, her ugly boots. Then, +as always when she was self-critical, her eyes grew haughty and her +mouth defiant. +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt kissed her, her cool, firm fingers against the girl's warm +neck. +</P> + +<P> +"You will come to us now, dear. You should have come long ago." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie wanted to speak, but she could not. +</P> + +<P> +"We will try to make you happy, but ours is not an exciting life." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's eyes lit up. "It has not," she said, "been very exciting here +always." Then she went on, colour in her cheeks, "I think father did +all he could. I feel now that there were a lot of things that I should +have done, only I didn't see them at the time. He never asked me to +help him, but I wish now that I had offered—or—suggested." +</P> + +<P> +Her lips quivered, again she was near tears, and again, as it had been +on her walk with Uncle Mathew, her regret was not for her father but +for the waste that her life with him had been. But there was something +in her aunt that prevented complete confidence. She seemed in something +to be outside small daily troubles. Before they could speak any more +there was a knock on the door and Uncle Mathew came in. He stood there +looking both ashamed of himself and obstinate. +</P> + +<P> +He most certainly did not appear at his best, a large piece of plaster +on his right cheek showing where he had cut himself with his razor, and +a shabby and tight black suit (it was his London suit, and had lain +crumpled disastrously in his hand-bag) accentuating the undue roundness +of his limbs; his eyes blinked and his mouth trembled a little at the +corners. He was obviously afraid of his sister and flung his niece a +watery wink as though to implore her silence as to his various +misdemeanours. +</P> + +<P> +Brother and sister shook hands, and Maggie, as she watched them, was +surprised to feel within herself a certain sympathy with her uncle. +Aunt Anne's greeting was gentle and kind but infinitely distant, and +had something of the tenderness with which the Pope washes the feet of +the beggars in Rome. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so glad that you were here," she said in her soft voice. "It must +have been such a comfort to Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +"He has been, indeed, Aunt Anne," Maggie broke in eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +Her uncle looked at her with great surprise; after his behaviour of +last night he had not expected this. Reassured, he began a voluble +explanation of his movements and plans, rubbing his hands together and +turning one boot against the other. +</P> + +<P> +He had a great deal to say, because he had seen neither of his sisters +for a very long time. Then he wished to make a good impression because +Maggie, the heiress, would be of importance now. What an idiot he had +been last night. What had he done? He could remember nothing. It was +evident that it had been nothing very bad—Maggie bore him no +grudge—good girl, Maggie. He felt affectionate towards her and would +have told her so had her aunt not been present. These thoughts underlay +his rambling history. He was aware suddenly that his audience was +inattentive. He saw, indeed, that his sister was standing with her back +half-turned, gazing on to the shining country beyond the window. He +ceased abruptly, gave his niece a wink, and when this was unsuccessful, +muttering a few words, stumbled out of the room. +</P> + +<P> +The whole village attended the funeral, not because it liked the Rev. +Charles, but because it liked funerals. Maggie was, in all probability, +the only person present who thought very deeply about the late Vicar of +St. Dreot's. The Rev. Tom Trefusis who conducted the ceremony was a +large red-faced man who had played Rugby football for his University +and spent most of his energy over the development of cricket and +football clubs up and down the county. He could not be expected to have +cared very greatly for the Rev. Charles, who had been at no period of +his life and in no possible sense of the word a sportsman. As he +conducted the service his mind speculated as to the next vicar (the +Rev. Tom knew an excellent fellow, stroke of the Cambridge boat in '12, +who would be just the man) the possibility of the frost breaking in +time for the inter-county Rugby match at Truxe, the immediate return of +his wife from London (he was very fond of his wife), and, lastly, a +certain cramp in the stomach that sometimes "bowled him over" and of +which the taking of a funeral—"here to-day and gone to-morrow"—always +reminded him. +</P> + +<P> +"Wonder how long I'll last," he thought as he stood over the grave of +the Rev. Charles and let his eyes wander over the little white +gravestones that ran almost into the dark wall of St. Dreot Woods as +though they were trying to hide themselves. "Wish the frost 'ud +break—ground'll be as hard as nails." The soil fell, thump, thump upon +the coffin. Rooks cawed in the trees; the bell tolled its cracked note. +The Rev. Charles was crammed down with the soil by the eager spades of +the sexton and his friend, who were cold and wanted a drink. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, meanwhile, watched the final disappearance of her father with +an ever-growing remorse. Ever since her declaration to her uncle during +their walk yesterday this new picture of her father had grown before +her eyes. She had already forgotten many, many things that might now +have made her resentful or at least critical. She saw him as a figure +most disastrously misunderstood. Without any sentimentality in her +vision she saw him lonely, proud, reserved, longing for her sympathy +which she denied him. His greed for money she saw suddenly as a +determination that his daughter should not be left in want. All those +years he had striven and his apparent harshness, sharpness, unkindness +had been that he might pursue his great object. +</P> + +<P> +She did not cry (some of the villagers curiously watching her thought +her a hard-hearted little thing), but her heart was full of tenderness +as she stood there, seeing the humped grey church that was part of her +life, the green mounds with no name, the dark wood, the grey roofs of +the village clustered below the hill, hearing the bell, the rooks, the +healthy voice of Mr. Trefusis, the bark of some distant dog, the creak +of some distant wheel. +</P> + +<P> +"I missed my chance," she thought. "If only now I could have told him!" +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt stood at her side and once again Maggie felt irritation at her +composure. "After all, he was her brother," she thought. She remembered +the feeling and passion with which her aunt had repeated the +Twenty-third Psalm. She was puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +A moment of shrinking came upon her as she thought of the coming London +life. +</P> + +<P> +Then the service was over. The villagers, with that inevitable +disappointment that always lingers after a funeral, went to their +homes. The children remained until night, under the illusion that it +was Sunday. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie spent the rest of the day, for the most part, alone in her room +and thinking of her father. Her bedroom, an attic with a sloping roof, +contained all her worldly possessions. In part because she had always +been so reserved a child, in part because there had been no one in whom +she might confide even had she wished it, she had always placed an +intensity of feeling around and about the few things that were hers. +Her library was very small, but this did not distress her because she +had never cared for reading. Upon the little hanging shelf above her +bed (deal wood painted white, with blue cornflowers) were The Heir of +Redclyffe, a shabby blue-covered copy, Ministering Children, Madame How +and Lady Why, The Imitation of Christ, Robinson Crusoe, Mrs. Beeton's +Cookery Book, The Holy Bible, and The Poems of Longfellow. These had +been given her upon various Christmasses and birthdays. She did not +care for any of them except The Imitation of Christ and Robinson +Crusoe. The Bible was spoilt for her by incessant services and Sunday +School classes; The Heir of Redclyffe and Ministering Children she +found absurdly sentimental and unlike any life that she had ever known; +Mrs. Beeton she had never opened, and Longfellow and Kingsley's Natural +History she found dull. For Robinson Crusoe she had the intense human +sympathy that all lonely people feel for that masterpiece. The +Imitation pleased her by what she would have called its common sense. +Such a passage, for example: "Oftentimes something lurketh within, or +else occurreth from without, which draweth us after it. Many secretly +seek themselves in what they do, and know it not." +</P> + +<P> +"They seem also to live in good peace of mind, when things are done +according to their will and opinion; but if things happen otherwise +than they desire, they are straightway moved and much vexed." +</P> + +<P> +And behind this common sense she did seem to be directly in touch with +some one whom she might find had she more time and friends to advise +her. She was conscious in her lonely hours, that nothing gave her such +a feeling of company as did this little battered red book, and she felt +that that friendliness might one day advance to some greater intimacy. +About these things she was intensely reserved and she spoke of them to +no human being. +</P> + +<P> +Even for the books for whose contents she did not care she had a kindly +feeling. So often had they looked down upon her when she sat there +exasperated, angry at her own tears, rebellious, after some scene with +her father. No other place but this room had seen these old agonies of +hers. She would be sorry after all to leave it. +</P> + +<P> +There were not many things beside the books. Two bowls of blue +Glebeshire pottery, cheap things but precious, a box plastered with +coloured shells, an amber bead necklace, a blue leather writing-case, a +photograph of her father as a young clergyman with a beard and +whiskers, a faded daguerreotype of her mother, last, but by no means +least, a small black lacquer musical-box that played two tunes, "Weel +may the Keel row" and "John Peel,"—these were her worldly possessions. +</P> + +<P> +She sat there; as the day closed down, the trees were swept into the +night, the wind rose in the dark wood, the winter's moon crept pale and +cold into the sky, snow began to fall, at first thinly, then in a +storm, hiding the moon, flinging the fields and roads into a white +shining splendour; the wind died and the stars peeped between the +flakes of whirling snow. +</P> + +<P> +She sat without moving, accusing her heart of hardness, of unkindness. +She seemed to herself then deserving of every punishment. "If I had +only gone to him," she thought again and again. She remembered how she +had kept apart from him, enclosed herself in a reserve that he should +never break. She remembered the times when he had scolded her, coldly, +bitterly, and she had stood, her face as a rock, her heart beating but +her body without movement, then had turned and gone silently from the +room. All her wicked, cold heart that in some strange way cared for +love but could not make those movements towards others that would show +that it cared. What was it in her? Would she always, through life, miss +the things for which she longed through her coldness and obstinacy? +</P> + +<P> +She took her father's photograph, stared at it, gazed into it, held it +in an agony of remorse. She shivered in the cold of her room but did +not know it. Her candle, caught in some draught, blew out, and +instantly the white world without leapt in upon her and her room was +lit with a strange unearthly glow. She saw nothing but her father. At +last she fell asleep in the chair, clutching in her hand the photograph. +</P> + +<P> +Thus her aunt found her, later in the evening. She was touched by the +figure, the shabby black frock, the white tired face. She had been +honestly disappointed in her niece, disappointed in her plainness, in +her apparent want of heart, in her silence and moroseness. Mathew had +told her of the girl's outburst to him against her father, and this had +seemed to her shocking upon the very day after that father's death. Now +when she saw the photograph clenched in Maggie's hand tears came into +her eyes. She said, "Maggie! dear Maggie!" and woke her. Maggie, +stirring saw her aunt's slender figure and delicate face standing in +the snowlight as though she had been truly a saint from heaven. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's first impulse was to rise up, fling her arms around her aunt's +neck and hug her. Had she done that the history of her life might have +been changed. Her natural shyness checked her impulse. She got up, the +photograph dropped from her hand, she smiled a little and then said +awkwardly, "I've been asleep. Do you want me? I'll come down." +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt drew her towards her. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, dear," she said, "don't feel lonely any more. Think of me and +your Aunt Elizabeth as your friends who will always care for you. You +must never be lonely again." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's whole heart responded. She felt its wild beating but she could +do nothing, could say nothing. Her body stiffened. In spite of herself +she withdrew herself. Her face reddened, then, was pale. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, aunt," was all she could say. +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt moved away. Silently they went downstairs together. +</P> + +<P> +At about ten the next morning they were seated in the dining-room—Aunt +Anne, Uncle Mathew, Maggie, and Mr. Brassy. Mr. Brassy was speaking: +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid, Miss Cardinal, that there can be no question about the +legality of this. It has been duly witnessed and signed. I regret +extremely ... but as you can well understand, I was quite unable to +prevent. With the exception of a legacy of 300 Pounds Sterling to Miss +Maggie Cardinal everything goes to Miss Ellen Harmer, 'To whom I owe +more than I can ever possibly—'" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," interrupted Aunt Anne. "This is, I think, the woman who +has been cook here during the last four years?" +</P> + +<P> +"About five, I think," said Mr. Brassy softly. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Mathew was upon his feet, trembling. +</P> + +<P> +"This is monstrous," he stuttered, "absolutely monstrous. Of course an +appeal will be made—undue influence—the most abominable thing." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie watched them all as though the whole business were far from +herself. She sat there, her hands folded on her lap, looking at the +mantelpiece with the ugly marble clock, the letter clip with old soiled +letters in it, the fat green vase with dusty everlastings. Just as on +the night when her uncle had come into her room she had fancied that +some one spoke to her, so now she seemed to hear: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, that's a nasty knock for you—a very nasty knock." +</P> + +<P> +Her father had left all his money, with the exception of 300, Pounds +Sterling to Ellen the cook; Maggie did not, for a moment, speculate as +to the probable total amount. Three hundred pounds seemed to her a very +large sum—it would at any rate give her something to begin life +upon—but the thing that seized and held her was the secret friendship +that must have existed between her father and Ellen—secret friendship +was the first form that the relationship assumed for her. She saw +Ellen, red of face with little eyes and a flat nose upon which flies +used to settle, a fat, short neck, the wheezings and the pantings, the +stumping walk, the great broad back. And she saw her father—first as +the tall, dirty man whom she used to know, with the shiny black +trousers, the untidy beard, the frowning eyes, the nails bitten to the +quick, the ragged shirt-cuffs—then as that veiled shape below the +clothes, the lift of the sheet above the toes, the loins, the stomach, +the beard neatly brushed, the closed yellow eyelids, the yellow +forehead, the rats with their gleaming eyes. In a kind of terror as +though she were being led against her will into some disgusting chamber +where the skulls were stale and the sights indecent, she saw the +friendship of those two—Ellen the cook and her father. +</P> + +<P> +Young, inexperienced though she was, she was old already in a certain +crude knowledge of facts. It could not be said that she traced to their +ultimate hiding-place the relations of her father and the woman, but in +some relation, ugly, sordid, degraded, she saw those two figures +united. Many, many little things came to her mind as she sat there, +moments when the cook had breathlessly and in a sudden heat betrayed +some unexpected agitation, moments when her father had shown confusion, +moments when she had fancied whispers, laughter behind walls, scurrying +feet. She entwined desperately her hands together as pictures developed +behind her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Ah! but she was ashamed, most bitterly ashamed! +</P> + +<P> +The rest of the interview came to her only dimly. She knew that Uncle +Mathew was still upon his feet protesting, that her aunt's face was +cold and wore a look of distressed surprise as though some one had +suddenly been rude to her. +</P> + +<P> +From very, very far away came Mr. Brassy's voice: "I was aware that +this could not be agreeable, Miss Cardinal. But I am afraid that, under +the circumstances, there is nothing to be done. As to undue influence I +think that I should warn you, Mr. Cardinal, that there could be very +little hope ... and of course the expense ... if I may advise you ..." +</P> + +<P> +The voice sank away again, the room faded, the air was still and +painted; like figures on a stage acting before an audience of one +Maggie saw those grotesque persons ... +</P> + +<P> +She did not speak one word during the whole affair. +</P> + +<P> +After a time she saw that Mr. Brassy was not in the room. Her aunt was +speaking to her: +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, dear—I'm so very sorry—so very sorry. But you know that you +will come to us and find a home there. You mustn't think about the +money—" +</P> + +<P> +With a sudden impulse she arose, almost brushing her aunt aside. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! that's not it—that's not it!" she cried. Then, recovering herself +a little, she went on—"It's all right, Aunt Anne. I'm all right. I'm +going out for a little. If I'm not back for lunch, don't wait. +Something cold, anything, tell Ellen—" +</P> + +<P> +At the sudden mention of that name she stopped, coloured a little, +turned away and left the room. In the hall she nearly ran against the +cook. The woman was standing there, motionless, breathing deeply, her +eyes fixed upon the dining-room. When she saw Maggie, she moved as +though she would speak, then something in the girl's face checked her. +She drew back into the shadow. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie left the house. +</P> + +<P> +The brother and sister, remaining in the room, walked towards one +another as though driven by some common need of sympathy and protection +against an outside power. Mathew Cardinal felt a genuine indignation +that had but seldom figured in his life before. He had hated his +brother, always, and never so greatly as at the moments of the man's +reluctant charity towards him. But now, in the first clean uplift of +his indignation, there was no self-congratulation at the justification +of his prophecies. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew him for what he was. But that he could do this! He meant it to +hurt, too—that was like him all over. He had us in his mind. I wish +I'd never taken a penny from him. I'd rather have starved. Yes, I +would—far rather. I've been bad enough, but never a thing like that—" +</P> + +<P> +His sister said quietly: +</P> + +<P> +"He's dead, Mathew. We can do nothing. Maggie, poor child ..." +</P> + +<P> +He approached for an instant more nearly than he had ever done. He took +her hand. There were tears in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"It's good of you, Anne—to take her." +</P> + +<P> +She withdrew her hand—very gently. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish we'd taken her before. She must have had a terrible time here. +I'd never realised ..." +</P> + +<P> +He stood away from her near the window, feeling suddenly ashamed of his +impetuosity. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a strange girl," Anne Cardinal went on. "She didn't seem to feel +this,—or anything. She hasn't, I think, much heart. I'm afraid she may +find it a little difficult with us—" +</P> + +<P> +Mathew was uncomfortable now. His mood had changed; he was sullen. His +sister always made him feel like a disgraced dog. He shuffled on his +feet. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a good girl," he muttered at last, and then with a confused look +about him, as though he were searching for something, he stumbled out +of the room. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Maggie went on her way. She chose instinctively her path, +through the kitchen garden at the back of the village, down the hill by +the village street, over the little bridge that crossed the rocky +stream of the Dreot, and up the steep hill that led on to the outskirts +of Rothin Moor. The day, although she had no eyes for it, was one of +those sudden impulses of misty warmth that surprise the Glebeshire +frosts. The long stretch of the moor was enwrapped by a thin silver +network of haze; the warmth of the sun, seen so dimly that it was like +a shadow reflected in a mirror, struck to the very heart of the soil. +Where but yesterday there had been iron frost there was now soft +yielding earth; it was as though the heat of the central fires of the +world pressed dimly upward through many miles of heavy weighted +resistance, straining to the light and air. Larks, lost in golden mist, +circled in space; Maggie could feel upon her face and neck and hands +the warm moisture; the soil under her feet, now hard, now soft, seemed +to tremble with some happy anticipation; the moor, wrapped in its misty +colour, had no bounds; the world was limitless space with hidden +streams, hidden suns. +</P> + +<P> +The moor had a pathetic attraction for her, because not very long ago a +man and a woman had been lost, only a few steps from Borhedden Farm, in +the mist—lost their way and been frozen during the night. Poor things! +lovers, perhaps, they had been. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie felt that here she could walk for miles and miles and that there +was nothing to stop her; the clang of a gate, a house, a wall, a human +voice was intolerable to her. +</P> + +<P> +Her first thought as she went forward was disgust at her own weakness; +once again she had been betrayed by her feelings. She could remember no +single time when they had not betrayed her. She recalled now with an +intolerable self-contempt her thoughts of her father at the time of the +funeral and the hours that followed. It seemed to her now that she had +only softened towards his memory because she had believed that he had +left her money—and now, when she saw that he had treated her +contemptuously, she found him once again the cruel, mean figure that +she had before thought him. +</P> + +<P> +For that she most bitterly, with an intensity that only her loneliness +could have given her, despised herself. And yet something else in her +knew that that reproach was not a true one. She had really softened +towards him only because she had felt that she had behaved badly +towards him, and the discovery now that he had behaved badly towards +her did not alter her own original behaviour. She did not analyse all +this; she only knew that there were in her longings for affection, a +desire to be loved, an aching for companionship, and that these things +must always be kept down, fast hidden within her. She realised her +loneliness now with a fierce, proud, almost exultant independence. No +more tears, no more leaning upon others, no more expecting anything +from anybody. She was not dramatic in her new independence; she did not +cry defiance to the golden mist or the larks or the hidden sun; she +only walked on and on, stumping forward in her clumsy boots, her eyes +hard and unseeing, her hands clasped behind her back. +</P> + +<P> +Her expectation of happiness in her opening life that had been so +strong with her that other day when she had looked down upon Polchester +was gone. She expected nothing, she wanted nothing. Her only thought +was that she would never yield to any one, never care for any one, +never give to any one the opportunity of touching her. At moments +through the mist came the figure of the cook, stout, florid, +triumphant. Maggie regarded her contemptuously. "You cannot touch me," +she thought. Of her father she would never think again. With both hands +she flung all her memories of him into the mist to be lost for ever ... +</P> + +<P> +She came suddenly upon a lonely farm-house. She knew the place, +Borhedden; it had often been a favourite walk of hers from the Vicarage +to Borhedden. The farmer let rooms there and, because the house was +very old, some of the rooms were fine, with high ceilings, thick stone +walls, and even some good panelling. The view too was superb, across to +the Broads and the Molecatcher, or back to the Dreot Woods, or to the +dim towers of Polchester Cathedral. The air here was fine—one of the +healthiest spots in Glebeshire. +</P> + +<P> +The farm to-day was transfigured by the misty glow; cows and horses +could be faintly seen, ricks burnt with a dim fire. Somewhere dripping +water falling on to stone gave a vocal spirit to the obscurity. The +warm air seemed to radiate about the house like a flame that is +obscured by sunlight. +</P> + +<P> +The stealthy movements of the animals, the dripping of the water, were +the only sounds. To Maggie the house seemed to say something, something +comforting and reassuring. +</P> + +<P> +Standing there, she registered her vow that through all her life she +would care for no one. No one should touch her. +</P> + +<P> +Had there been an observer he might have found some food for his irony +in the contemplation of that small, insignificant figure so ignorant of +life and so defiant of it. He would have found perhaps something +pathetic also. Maggie thought neither of irony nor of pathos, but +turned homewards with her mouth set, her eyes grave, her heart +controlled. +</P> + +<P> +As she walked back the sun broke through the mist, and, turning, she +could see Borhedden like a house on fire, its windows blazing against +the sky. +</P> + +<P> +It was natural that her aunt should wish to return to London as soon as +possible. For one thing, Ellen the cook had packed her clothes and +retired to some place in the village, there to await the departure of +the defeated family. Then the house was not only unpleasant by reason +of its atmosphere and associations, but there were also the definite +discomforts of roofs through which the rain dripped and floors that +swayed beneath one's tread. Moreover, Aunt Elizabeth did not care to be +left alone in the London house. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Mathew left on the day after the funeral. He had one little last +conversation with Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you'll be happy in London," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope so," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"I know you'll do what you can to help your aunts." Then he went on +more nervously. "Think of me sometimes. I shan't be able to come and +see you very often, you know—too busy. But I shall like to know that +you're thinking about me." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's new-found resolution taken so defiantly upon the moor was +suddenly severely tested. She felt as though her uncle were leaving her +to a world of enemies. She drove down her sense of desolation, and he +saw nothing but her quiet composure. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I'll think of you," she answered. "And you must come often." +</P> + +<P> +"They don't like me," he said, nodding his head towards where Aunt Anne +might be supposed to be waiting. "It's not my fault altogether—but +they have severe ideas. It's religion, of course." +</P> + +<P> +She suddenly seemed to see in his eyes some terror or despair, as +though he knew that he was going to drop "this time"—farther than ever +before. +</P> + +<P> +She caught his arm. "Uncle Mathew, what are you going to do? Where will +you live? Take my three hundred pounds if it will help you. I don't +want it just now. Keep it for me." +</P> + +<P> +He had a moment of resolute, clear-sighted honesty. "No, my dear, if I +had it it would go in a week. I can't keep money; I never could. I'm +really better without any. I'm all right. You'll never get rid of +me—don't you fear. We've got more in common than you think, although +you're a good girl and I've gone to pieces a bit. All the same there's +plenty worse than me. Your aunt, for all her religion, is damned +difficult for a plain man to get along with. Most people would find me +better company, after all. One last word, Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +He bent down and whispered to her. "Don't you go getting caught by that +sweep who runs their chapel up in London. He's a humbug if ever there +was one—you mark my words. I know a thing or two. He's done your aunts +a lot of harm, and he'll have his dirty fingers on you if you let him." +</P> + +<P> +So he departed, his last kiss mingled with the usual aroma of whisky +and tobacco, his last attitude, as he turned away, that strange +confusion of assumed dignity and natural genial stupidity that was so +especially his. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie turned, with all her new defiant resolution, to face the world +alone with her Aunt Anne. Throughout the next day she was busied with +collecting her few possessions, with her farewells to the one or two +people in the village who had been kind to her, and with little sudden, +almost surreptitious visits to corners of the house, the garden, the +wood where she had at one time or another been happy. +</P> + +<P> +As the evening fell and a sudden storm of rain leapt up from beneath +the hill and danced about the house, she had a wild longing to stay—to +stay at any cost and in any discomfort. London had no longer interest, +but only terror and dismay. She ran out into the dark and rain-drenched +garden, felt her way to an old and battered seat that had seen in older +days dolls' tea-parties and the ravages of bad-temper, stared from it +across the kitchen-garden to the lights of the village, that seemed to +rock and shiver in the wind and rain. +</P> + +<P> +She stared passionately at the lights, her heart beating as though it +would suffocate her. At last, her clothes soaked with the storm, her +hair dripping, she returned to the house. Her aunt was in the hall. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Maggie, where have you been?" in a voice that was kind but +aghast. +</P> + +<P> +"In the garden," said Maggie, hating her aunt. +</P> + +<P> +"But it's pouring with rain! You're soaking! You must change at once! +Did you go out to find something?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie made no answer. She stood there, her face sulky and closed, the +water dripping from her. Afterwards, as she changed her clothes, she +reflected that there had been many occasions during these three days +when her aunt would have felt irritation with her had she known her +longer. She had always realised that she was careless, that when she +should be thinking of one thing she thought of another, that her +housekeeping and management of shops and servants had been irregular +and undisciplined, but until now she had not sharply surveyed her +weaknesses. Since the coming of her aunt she had been involved in a +perfect network of little blunders; she had gone out of the room +without shutting the door, had started into the village on an errand, +and then, when she was there, had forgotten what it was; there had been +holes in her stockings and rents in her blouses. After Ellen's +departure she had endeavoured to help in the kitchen, but had made so +many mistakes that Aunt Anne and the kitchen-maid had been compelled to +banish her. She now wondered how during so many years she had run the +house at all, but then her father had cared about nothing so that money +was not wasted. She knew that Aunt Anne excused her mistakes just now +because of the shock of her father's death and the events that followed +it, but Maggie knew also that these faults were deep in her character. +She could explain it quite simply to herself by saying that behind the +things that she saw there was always something that she did not see, +something of the greatest importance and just beyond her vision; in her +efforts to catch this farther thing she forgot what was immediately in +front of her. It had always been so. Since a tiny child she had always +supposed that the shapes and forms with which she was presented were +only masks to hide the real thing. Such a view might lend interest to +life, but it certainly made one careless; and although Uncle Mathew +might understand it and put it down to the Cardinal imagination, she +instinctively knew that Aunt Anne, unless Maggie definitely attributed +it to religion, would be dismayed and even, if it persisted, angered. +Maggie had not, after all, the excuse and defence of being a dreamy +child. With her square body and plain face, her clear, unspeculative +eyes, her stolid movements, she could have no claim to dreams. With a +sudden desolate pang Maggie suspected that Uncle Mathew was the only +person who would ever understand her. Well, then, she must train +herself. +</P> + +<P> +She would close doors, turn out lights, put things back where she found +them, mend her clothes, keep accounts. Indeed a new life was beginning +for her. She felt, with a sudden return to the days before her walk on +the moor, that if only her aunts would love her she would improve much +more rapidly. And then with her new independence she assured herself +that if they did not love her she most certainly would not love them ... +</P> + +<P> +That night she sat opposite her aunt beside the fire. The house lay +dead and empty behind them. Aunt Anne was so neat in her thin black +silk, her black shining hair, her pale pointed face, a little round +white locket rising and falling ever so slowly with the lift of her +breast. There were white frills to her sleeves, and she read a slim +book bound in purple leather. Her body never moved; only once and again +her thin, delicate hand ever so gently lifted, turned a page, then +settled down on to her lap once more. She never raised her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +The fire was heavy and sullen; the wind howled; that old familiar +beating of the twigs upon the pane seemed to reiterate to Maggie that +this was her last evening. She pretended to read. She had found a heavy +gilt volume of Paradise Lost with Dore's pictures. She read these words: +</P> + +<P> +Beyond this flood a frozen Continent Lies dark and wilde, beat with +perpetual storms Of whirlwind and dire hail; which on firm land Thaws +not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile; all else deep +snow and ice, A gulf profound as that Serbonian bay Betwixt Damiata and +Mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk; the parching Air Burns +froze, and cold performs the effect of Fire. +</P> + +<P> +Further again, words caught her eye. +</P> + +<P> +Thus roving on In confused march forlorn, th' adventurous Bands With +shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast Viewed first their lamentable +lot, and found No rest; through many a dark and drearie Vaile They +passed, and many a Region dolorous. O'er many a frozen, many a fiery +Alpe, Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens and shades of death, A +Universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good +Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breaks Perverse, all +monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, inutterable, and worse +Than Fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, Gorgons, and Hydras, +and Chimaeras dire. +</P> + +<P> +She did not care for reading, most especially she did not care for +poetry, but to-night she saw the picture. Up to the very bounds of the +house this waste country, filled with beasts of prey, animals with +fiery eyes and incredible names, the long stretch of snow and ice, the +black water with no stars reflected in it, the wind. +</P> + +<P> +A coal crashed in the fire; she gave a little cry. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, what is it?" said Aunt Anne. Then, with a little shake of her +shoulders, she added: "There's a horrid draught. Perhaps you forgot to +close the kitchen-door when you came away, Maggie dear." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie flushed. Of course she had forgotten. She left the room, crossed +the hall. Yes, there was the door, wide open. She locked it, the place +was utterly cold and desolate. She closed the door, stood for a moment +in the little hall. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care what's going to happen!" she cried aloud. So ended her +life in that house. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0103"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LONDON HOUSE +</H3> + +<P> +It was strange after this that the start on the London journey should +be so curiously unexciting; it was perhaps the presence of Aunt Anne +that reduced everything to an unemotional level. Maggie wondered as she +sat in the old moth-eaten, whisky-smelling cab whether her Aunt Anne +was ever moved about anything. Then something occurred that showed her +that, as yet, she knew very little about her aunt. As, clamping down +the stony hill, they had a last glimpse at the corner of the two +Vicarage chimneys, looking above the high hedge like a pair of +inquisitive lunatics, Maggie choked. She pressed her hands together, +pushed her hair from her face and, in so doing, touched her black hat. +</P> + +<P> +"Your hat's crooked, Maggie dear," said her aunt gently. The girl's hot +hands clutched the soft packet of sandwiches and a little black handbag +that yesterday Aunt Anne had bought for her in the village. It was a +shabby little bag, and had strange habits of opening when it was not +expected to do so and remaining shut when something was needed from it. +It gaped now and, just as the cab climbed Cator Hill, it fell forward +and flung the contents on to the floor. Maggie, blushing, looked up +expecting a reproof. She saw that her aunt's eyes were fixed upon the +view; as upon the day of her arrival, so now. Her face wore a look of +rapture. She drank it in. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie also took the last joy of the familiar scene. The Vicarage, like +a grey crouching cat, lay basking on the green hill. The sunlight +flooded the dark wood; galleons of clouds rolled like lumbering vessels +across the blue sky. +</P> + +<P> +"It's lovely, isn't it?" whispered Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Beautiful—beautiful," sighed her aunt. +</P> + +<P> +"I've always loved just this view. I've often walked here just to see +it," Maggie said. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne sat back in her seat. +</P> + +<P> +"It's been hard for me always to live in London. I love the country so." +</P> + +<P> +"So do I," said Maggie, passionately. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment they were together, caught up by the same happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Then Aunt Anne said: +</P> + +<P> +"Why, your bag, dear! The things are all about the place." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie bent down. When she looked up again they had dipped down on the +other side of the hill. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had only once in all her life been in a train, but on this +present occasion she did not find it very thrilling. It was rather like +being in anything else, and her imagination exercised itself upon the +people in the carriage rather than the scenery outside. She was at +first extremely self-conscious and fancied that every one whispered +about her. Then, lulled by the motion of the train and the warmth, she +slept; she was more deeply exhausted by the events of the last week +than she knew, and throughout the day she slumbered, woke, and +slumbered again. +</P> + +<P> +Quite suddenly she awoke with a definite shock to a new world. Evening +had come; there were lights that rushed up to the train, stared in at +the window, and rushed away again. On every side things seemed to +change places in a general post, trees and houses, hedges and roads, +all lit by an evening moon and wrapt in a white and wavering mist. Then +the town was upon them, quite instantly; streets ran like ribbons into +grey folds of buildings; rows of lamps, scattered at first, drew into a +single point of dancing flame; towers and chimneys seemed to jump from +place to place as though they were trying to keep in time with the +train; a bell rang monotonously; wreaths of smoke rose lazily against +the stars and fell again. +</P> + +<P> +When at last she found herself, a tiny figure, standing upon the vast +platform under the high black dome, the noise and confusion excited and +delighted her. She rose to the waves of sound as a swimmer rises in the +sea, her heart beat fast, and she was so eagerly engaged in looking +about her, in staring at the hurrying people, in locating the shrill +screams of the engines, in determining not to jump when the carriages +jolted together, that her little black bag opened unexpectedly once +more and spilled a handkerchief, a hand-mirror, a paper packet of +sweets, a small pair of scissors, and a shabby brown purse upon the +station-floor. She was greatly confused when an old gentleman helped +her to pick them up. The little mirror was broken. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! it's bad luck!" she cried, staring distressfully at the old man. +He smiled, and would have certainly been very agreeable to her had not +Aunt Anne, who had been finding their boxes and securing a cab, arrived +and taken Maggie away. "You shouldn't speak to strange gentlemen, +dear," said Aunt Anne. +</P> + +<P> +But Maggie did not listen. It was characteristic of Anne Cardinal that +she should secure the only four-wheeler in the station, rejecting the +taxi-cabs that waited in rows for her pleasure. Had Maggie only known, +her aunt's choice was eloquent of their future life together. But +Maggie did not know and did not care. Her excitement was intense. That +old St. Dreot life had already swung so far behind her that it was like +a fantastic dream; as they rumbled through the streets, the cries, the +smells, the lights seemed arranged especially for her. She could not +believe that they had all been, just like this, before her arrival. As +with everything, she was busy imagining the World behind this display, +the invisible Circle inside the circle that she saw. +</P> + +<P> +They came into the Strand, and the masses of moving people seemed to +her like somnambulists walking without reason or purpose. She felt as +though there would suddenly come a great hole in the middle of the +street into which the cab would tumble. The noise seemed to her country +ears deafening, and when, suddenly, the lighted letters of some +advertisement flashed out gigantic against the sky, she gave a little +scream. She puzzled her aunt by saying: +</P> + +<P> +"But it isn't really like this, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +To which Aunt Anne could only say: +</P> + +<P> +"You're hungry and tired, dear, I expect." +</P> + +<P> +With one last outrending scream the whole world seemed to fling itself +at the window, open because Aunt Anne thought the cab "had a smell." +"Oosh—O O S H." "OOSH." ... Maggie drew back as though she expected +some one to leap in upon them. Then, with that marvellous and ironical +gift of contrast that is London's secret, they were suddenly driven +into the sleepiest quiet; they stumbled up a street that was like a +cave for misty darkness and muffled echoes. The cab's wheels made a +riotous clatter. +</P> + +<P> +A man posting a letter in a pillar-box was the only figure in the +street. The stars shone overhead with wonderful brilliance, and a +little bell jangled softly close at hand. All the houses were tall and +secret, with high white steps and flat faces. A cat slipped across the +street; another swiftly followed it. +</P> + +<P> +St. Dreot's seemed near at hand again and Ellen the cook not so far +away. Maggie felt a sudden forlornness and desolation. +</P> + +<P> +"What a very quiet street!" she whispered, as though she were afraid +lest the street should hear. +</P> + +<P> +They stopped before one of the flat-faced houses; Aunt Anne rang the +bell, and an old woman with a face like a lemon helped the cabman with +the boxes. Maggie was standing in a hall that smelt of damp and +geraniums. It was intensely dark, and a shrill scream from somewhere +did not make things more pleasant. +</P> + +<P> +"That's Edward the parrot," said Aunt Anne. "Take care not to approach +him too closely, dear, because he bites." +</P> + +<P> +Then they went upstairs, Maggie groping her way and stumbling at the +sharp corners. The darkness grew; she knocked her knee on the corner of +something, cried out, and a suddenly opened door threw a pale green +light upon a big picture of men in armour attacking a fortified town +beneath a thundery sky. This picture wavered and faltered, hung as it +was upon a thin cord strained to breaking-point. Maggie reached the +security of the room beyond the passage, her shoulders bent a little as +though she expected to near at every instant the crashing collapse of +the armoured men. Her eyes unused to the light, she stumbled into the +room, fell into some one's arms, felt that her poor hat was crooked and +her cheeks burning, and then was rebuked, as it seemed, by the piercing +cry of Edward the parrot from the very bowels of the house. +</P> + +<P> +She stammered something to the man who had held her and then let her +go. She was confused, hot and angry. "They'll think me an idiot who +can't enter a room properly." She glared about her and felt as though +she had been taken prisoner by some strange people who lived under the +sea. She was aware, when her eyes were accustomed to the dim light, +that the entrance of herself and her aunt had interrupted the +conversation of three people. Near the fireplace sat a little woman +wearing black mittens and a white lace cap; standing above her with his +arm on the mantelpiece was a thin, battered-looking gentleman with +large spectacles, high, gaunt features and a very thin head of hair; +near the door was the man against whom Maggie had collided. She saw +that he was young, thick-set and restless. She noticed even then his +eyes, bright and laughing as though he were immensely amused. His mouth +opened and closed again, his eyes were never still, and he made fierce +dumb protests with his body, jerking it forward pulling it back, as a +rider strives to restrain an unruly horse. Maggie was able to notice +these things, because during the first moments her Aunt Anne entirely +held the stage. She advanced to the fireplace with her halting +movement, embraced the little lady by the fire with a soft and +unimpassioned clasp. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Elizabeth, here we are, you see," turned to the thin gentleman +saying, "Why you, Mr. Magnus! I thought that you were still in +Wiltshire!" then from the middle of the room addressing the stout young +man: "I'm very glad to see you, Mr. Warlock." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie fancied that the three persons were nervous of her aunt; the +stout young man was amused perhaps at the general situation, but Mr. +Magnus by the fireplace showed great emotion, the colour mounting into +his high bony cheeks and his nostrils twitching like a horse's. Maggie +had been always very observant, and she was detached enough now to +notice that the drawing-room was filled with ugly and cumbrous things +and yet seemed unfurnished. Although everything was old and had been +there obviously for years, the place yet reminded one of a bare chamber +into which, furniture had just been piled without order or arrangement. +Opposite the door was a large and very bad painting of the two sisters +as young girls, sitting, with arms encircled, in low dresses, on the +seashore before a grey and angry sea, and Uncle Mathew as a small, +shiny-faced boy in tight short blue trousers, carrying a bucket and +spade, and a smug, pious expression. The room was lit with gas that +sizzled and hissed in a protesting undertone; there was a big black cat +near the fire, and this watched Maggie with green and fiery eyes. +</P> + +<P> +She stood there by the door tired and hungry; she felt unacknowledged +and forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +"I know I shall hate it," was her thought; she was conscious of her +arms and her legs; her ankle tickled in her shoe, and she longed to +scratch it. She sneezed suddenly, and they all jumped as though the +floor had opened beneath them. +</P> + +<P> +"And Maggie?" said the little lady by the fireplace. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie moved forward with the awkward gestures and the angry look in +her eyes that were always hers when she was ill at ease. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie," said Aunt Anne, "has been very good." +</P> + +<P> +"And she's tired, I'm sure," continued the little lady, who must of +course be Aunt Elizabeth. "The journey was easy, dear. And you had no +change. They gave you footwarmers, I hope. It's been lovely weather. +I'm so glad to see you, dear. I've had no photograph of you since you +were a baby." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth had a way, Maggie thought, of collecting a number of +little disconnected statements as though she were working out a sum and +hoped—but was not very certain—that she would achieve a successful +answer. "Add two and five and three and four ..." The statements that +she made were apparently worlds apart in interest and importance, but +she hoped with good fortune to flash upon the boards a fine result. She +was nervous, Maggie saw, and her thin shoulders were a little bent as +though she expected some one from behind to strike her suddenly in the +small of the back. +</P> + +<P> +"She's afraid of something," thought Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth had obviously not the strong character of her sister +Anne. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said Maggie, looking, for no reason at all, at Mr. Magnus, +"I slept in the train, so I'm not tired." She stopped then, because +there was nothing more to say. She felt that she ought to kiss her +aunt; she thought she saw in her aunt's small rather watery eyes an +appeal that she should do so. The distance, however, seemed infinite, +and Maggie had a strange feeling that her bending down would break some +spell, that the picture in the passage would fall with a ghostly +clatter, that Edward the parrot would scream and shriek, that the gas +would burst into a bubbling horror, that the big black cat would leap +upon her and tear her with its claws. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm not afraid," she thought. And, as though she were defying +the universe, she bent down and kissed her aunt. She fancied that this +act of hers produced a little sigh of relief. Every one seemed to +settle down. They all sat, and conversation was general. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Magnus had a rather melancholy, deprecating voice, but with some +touch of irony too, as though he were used to being called a fool by +his fellow-beings, but after all knew better than they did. He did not +sound at all conceited; only amused with a little gentle melancholy at +his own position. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad to see you so well, Miss Cardinal," he said with an air of +rather old-fashioned courtesy. "I had been afraid that it might have +exhausted you. I only came to welcome you. I must return at once. I +have an article to finish before midnight." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne smiled gently: "No, I'm not tired, thank you. And what has +happened while I have been away?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have been away too, as you know," said Mr. Magnus, "but I understand +that your sister has been very busy—quite a number—" +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth said in her trembling voice: "No. No—Anne—I assure +you. Nothing at all. As you know, the Bible Committee wanted to discuss +the new scheme. Last Tuesday. Mr. Warlock, Mr. Simms, young Holliday, +Miss Martin, Mary Hearst. And Sophie Dunn. AND Mr. Turner. Nothing at +all. It was a wet day. Last Tuesday afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Your mother is quite well, I hope, Mr. Warlock?" said Aunt Anne, +turning to the young man. "Yes—she's all right," he answered. "Just +the same. Amy wants you to go and see her. I was to give you the +message, if you could manage to-morrow sometime; or she'd come here if +it's more convenient. There's something important, she says, but I +don't suppose it's important in the least. You know what she is." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke, laughing. His eyes wandered all round the room and suddenly +settled on Maggie with a startled stare, as though she were the last +person whom he had expected to find there. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. To-morrow afternoon, perhaps—about three, if that would suit +her. How is Amy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, she's all right. As eager to run the world as ever—and she never +will run it so long as she shows her cards as obviously as she does. I +tell her so. But it's no good. She doesn't listen to me, you know." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne, with the incomparable way that she had, brushed all this +very gently aside. She simply said: "I'm glad that she's well." Then +she turned to the other gentleman: +</P> + +<P> +"Your writing's quite satisfactory, I hope, Mr. Magnus." +</P> + +<P> +She spoke as though it had been a cold or a toothache. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled his melancholy ironical smile. "I go on, you know, Miss +Cardinal. After all, it's my bread and butter." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, looking at him, knew that this was exactly the way that he did +not regard it, and felt a sudden sympathy towards him with his thin +hair, his large spectacles and his shabby clothes. But her look at him +was the last thing of which she was properly conscious. The wall beyond +the fireplace, that had seemed before to her dim and dark, now suddenly +appeared to lurch forward, to bulge before her eyes; the floor with its +old, rather shabby carpet rose on a slant as though it was rocked by an +unsteady sea; worst of all, the large black cat swelled like a balloon, +its whiskers distended like wire. She knew that her eyes were burning, +that her forehead was cold, and that she felt sick. She was hungry, and +at the same time was conscious that she could eat nothing. Her only +wish was to creep away and hide herself from every one. +</P> + +<P> +However, through all her confusion she was aware of her determination +not to betray to them that she was ill. "If only the cat wouldn't grow +so fast, I believe I could manage," was her desperate thought. There +was a roaring in her ears; she caught suddenly from an infinite +distance the voice of the stout young man—"She's ill! She's fainting!" +</P> + +<P> +She was aware that she struggled to face him with fierce protesting +eyes. The next thing she knew was that she lay for the second time that +afternoon in his arms. She felt that he laid her, clumsily but gently, +upon the sofa; some one sprinkled cold water on her forehead. Deep down +in her soul she hated and despised herself for this weakness before +strangers. She closed her eyes tightly, desiring to conceal not so much +the others as herself from her scornful gaze. She heard some one say +something about a cup of tea, and she wanted it suddenly with a +desperate, fiery desire, but she would not speak, no, not if they were +to torture her with thirst for days and days—to that extent at least +she could preserve her independence. +</P> + +<P> +She heard her Aunt Elizabeth say something like: "Poor +thing—strain—last week—father—too much." +</P> + +<P> +She gathered all her energies together to say "It hasn't been too much. +I'm all right," but they brought her a cup of tea, and before that she +succumbed. She drank it with eager greed, then lay back, her eyes +closed, and slowly the bars of hot iron withdrew from her forehead. She +slept. +</P> + +<P> +She woke to a room wrapped in a green trembling twilight. She was alone +save for the black cat. The fire crackled, the gas was turned low, and +the London murmur beyond the window was like the hum of an organ. There +was no one in the room; she felt, as she lay there, an increasing +irritation at her weakness. She was afraid too for her future. Did she +faint like this at the earliest opportunity people would allow her no +chance of earning her living. Where was that fine independent life upon +which, outside Borhedden Farm, she had resolved? And these people, her +aunts, the young man, the thin spectacled man, what would they think of +her? They would name it affectation, perhaps, and imagine that she had +acted in such a way that she might gain their interest and sympathy. +Such a thought sent the colour flaming to her cheeks; she sat up on the +sofa. She would go to them at once and show them that she was perfectly +strong and well. +</P> + +<P> +The door opened and Aunt Elizabeth came in, very gently as though she +were going to steal something. She was, Maggie saw now, so little as to +be almost deformed, with a soft pale face, lined and wrinkled, and blue +watery eyes. She wore a black silk wrapper over her shoulders, and soft +black slippers. Alice in Wonderland was one of the few books that +Maggie had read in her childhood; Aunt Elizabeth reminded her strongly +of the White Queen in the second part of that masterpiece. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you're not asleep, dear," said Aunt Elizabeth. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm not," said Maggie. "I'm perfectly all right. I can't think +what made me behave like that. I've never done such a thing before. I'm +ashamed!" +</P> + +<P> +"It was very natural," said Aunt Elizabeth. "You should have had some +tea at once. It was my fault. It's late now. Nine o'clock. My sister +suggests bed. Supper in bed. Very nice, I always think, after a long +journey. It will be fine to-morrow, I expect. We've had beautiful +weather until this morning, when it rained for an hour. Chicken and +some pudding. There's a little Australian wine that my sister keeps in +the house for accidents. I liked it myself when I had it once for +severe neuralgia." +</P> + +<P> +She suddenly, with a half-nervous, half-desperate gesture, put out her +hand and took Maggie's. Her hand was soft like blanc-mange; it had +apparently no bones in it. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was touched and grateful. She liked this little shy, frightened +woman. She would do anything to please her. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't think," she said eagerly, "that I've ever fainted like that +before. I assure you that I've never done anything so silly. You +mustn't think that I'm not strong. I'm strong as a horse—father always +said so. I've come to help you and Aunt Anne in any way I can. You +mustn't think that I'm going to be in the way. I only want to be +useful." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth started and looked at the door. "I thought I heard +something," she said. They both listened. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps it was the parrot," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth smiled bravely. +</P> + +<P> +"There are often noises in an old house like this," she said. The black +cat came towards them, slowly, with immense dignified indifference. He +swung his tail as though to show them that he cared for no one. He +walked to the door and waited; then followed them out of the room. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie found that her bedroom was a room at the top of the house, very +white and clean, with a smell of soot and tallow candle that was new +and attractive. There was a large text in bright purple over the +bed—"The Lord cometh; prepare ye the way of the Lord." From the window +one saw roofs, towers, chimneys, a sweeping arc of sky-lights now spun +and sparkled into pathways and out again, driven by the rumble behind +them that never ceased, although muffled by the closed window. +</P> + +<P> +They talked together for a little while, standing near the window, the +candle wavering in Aunt Elizabeth's unsteady hand. +</P> + +<P> +"We thought you'd like this top room. It's quieter than the rest of the +house. Sometimes when the sweep hasn't been the soot tumbles down the +chimney. You mustn't mind that. Thomas will push open the door and walk +in at times. It's his way." +</P> + +<P> +"Thomas?" said Maggie bewildered. +</P> + +<P> +"Our cat. He has been with us for many years now. Those who know say +that he might have taken prizes once. I can't tell I'm sure. If you +pull that bell when you want anything Martha will come. She will call +you at half-past seven; prayers are in the dining-room at a quarter +past eight. Sometimes the wind blows through the wall-paper, but it is +only the wind." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie drew back the curtains that hid the glitter of the lights. +</P> + +<P> +"Were those great friends of yours, those gentlemen this evening?" +</P> + +<P> +"The one who wears spectacles, Mr. Magnus—yes, he is a very old +friend. He is devoted to my sister. He writes stories." +</P> + +<P> +"What, in the papers?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, in books. Two every year." +</P> + +<P> +"And the other one?" +</P> + +<P> +"That is young Mr. Warlock—he is the son of our minister." +</P> + +<P> +"Does he live near here?" +</P> + +<P> +"He lives just now with his parents. Of late years he has been abroad." +</P> + +<P> +"He doesn't look like the son of a minister," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm afraid—" Aunt Elizabeth suddenly stopped. "His father has +been minister of our chapel for twenty years. He is a great and +wonderful man." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is the chapel?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very near at hand. You will see it to-morrow. To-morrow is Sunday." +</P> + +<P> +There was a long pause. Maggie knew that now was the time when she +should say something friendly and affectionate. She could say nothing. +She stared at her aunt, then at a long mirror that faced her bed, then +at the lighted sky. She felt warmly grateful, eager to show all the +world that she would do her best, that she was ready to give herself to +this new life with all her soul and strength—she could say nothing. +</P> + +<P> +They waited. +</P> + +<P> +At last her aunt said: +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, dear Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, Aunt Elizabeth." +</P> + +<P> +She stole away, leaving the candle upon the chest of drawers; the cat +followed her, swinging his tail. +</P> + +<P> +Left alone, Maggie felt the whole sweep of her excitement. She was +exhausted, her body felt as though it had been trampled upon, she was +so tired that she could scarcely drag her clothes from her, but the +exaltation of her spirit was beyond and above all this. Half undressed +she stood before the long mirror. She had never before possessed a long +looking-glass, and now she seemed to see herself as she really was for +the first time. Was she very ugly and unattractive? Yes, she must be +with that stumpy body, those thick legs and arms, that short nose and +large mouth. And she did not know what to do to herself to make herself +attractive. Other girls knew but she had never had any one who could +tell her. Perhaps she would make girl friends now who would show her. +</P> + +<P> +But, after all, she did not care. She was herself. People who did not +like her could leave her—yes they could, and she would not stir a +finger to fetch them back. +</P> + +<P> +Then, deep down in her soul, she knew that she wanted success, a +magnificent life, a great future. Nay more, she expected it. She had +force and strength, and she would compel life to give her what she +wanted. She laughed at herself in the glass. She was happy, almost +triumphant, and for no reason at all. +</P> + +<P> +She went to her windows and opened them; there came up to her the +tramping progress of the motor-omnibuses. They advanced, like elephants +charging down a jungle, nearer, nearer, nearer. Before the tramp of one +had passed another was advancing, and then upon that +another—ceaselessly, advancing and retreating. +</P> + +<P> +In her nightdress she leaned out of the window, poised, as it seemed to +her, above a swaying carpet of lights. +</P> + +<P> +Life seemed to hold every promise in store for her. +</P> + +<P> +She crossed to her bed, drew the clothes about her and, forgetting her +supper, forgetting all that had happened to her, her journey, her +fainting, the young man, Edward the parrot, she fell into a slumber as +deep, as secure, as death itself. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0104"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CHAPEL +</H3> + +<P> +Maggie woke next morning to a strange silence. Many were the silent +mornings that had greeted her at St. Dreots, but this was silence with +a difference; it was the silence, she was instantly aware, of some one +whose very soul was noise and tumult. She listened, and the sudden +chirping of some sparrows beyond her window only accentuated the sense +of expectation. She had never, in all her days, been so conscious of +Sunday. +</P> + +<P> +She was almost afraid to move lest she should break the spell. +</P> + +<P> +She lay in bed and thought of the preceding evening. Her fainting fit +seemed to her now more than ever unfortunate; it had placed her at a +disadvantage with them all. She could imagine the stout young man +returning to his home and saying: "Their niece has arrived. Seems a +weak little thing. Fainted right off there in the drawing-room." Or her +aunts saying anxiously to one another: "Well, I didn't know she was as +delicate as that. I hope she won't be always ill," ... and she wasn't +delicate—no one stronger. She had never fainted before. The silliness +of it! +</P> + +<P> +The next thing that disturbed her was the comfort and arrangement of +everything. Certainly the drawing-room had not been very orderly, full +of old things badly placed, but this bedroom was clean and tidy, and +the supper last night, so neat on its tray with everything that she +could want! She could feel the order and discipline of the whole house. +And she had never, in all her life, been either orderly or disciplined. +She had never been brought up to be so. How could you be orderly when +there were holes in the bedroom ceiling and the kitchen floor, holes +that your father would never trouble to have mended? +</P> + +<P> +Her aunts would wish her to help in the house and she would forget +things. There passed before her, in that Sunday quiet, a terrible +procession of the things that she would forget. She knew that she would +not be patient under correction, especially under the correction of her +Aunt Anne. Already she felt in her a rebellion at her aunt's aloofness +and passivity. After all, why should she treat every one as though she +were God? Maggie felt that there was in her aunt's attitude something +sentimental and affected. She hated sentiment and affectation in any +one. She was afraid, too, that Anne bullied Aunt Elizabeth. Maggie was +sorry for Aunt Elizabeth but, with all the arrogance of the young, a +little despised her. Why did she tremble and start like that? She +should stand up for herself and not mind what her sister said to her. +Finally, there was something about the house for which Maggie could not +quite account, some uneasiness or expectation, as though one knew that +there was some one behind the door and was therefore afraid to open it. +It may have been simply London that was behind it. Maggie was ready to +attribute anything to the influence of that tremendous power, but her +own final impression was that the people in this house had for too long +a time been brooding over something. "It would do my aunts a lot of +good to move somewhere else," she said to herself. "As Aunt Anne loves +the country so much I can't think why she doesn't live there." There +were many things that she was to learn before the end of the day. +</P> + +<P> +Her thoughts were interrupted by a little whirr and clatter, which, +thin and distant though it was, penetrated into her room. The whirr was +followed by the voice, clear, self-confident and cheerful, of a cuckoo. +Maggie was in an instant out of bed, into the passage and standing, in +her nightdress, before a high, old cuckoo-clock that stood at the top +of the stairs. The wooden bird, looking down at her in friendly +fashion, "cuckooed" eight times, flapped his wings at her and +disappeared. It is a sufficient witness to Maggie's youth and +inexperience that she was enraptured by this event. It was not only +that she had never seen a cuckoo-clock before; she had, for that +matter, never heard of the existence of such a thing. It gave her +greater happiness than any bare mechanical discovery could have done. +The bird seemed to have come to her, in the friendliest way, to remove +some of the chilly passivity of the house. Her greatest fear since her +arrival had been that this was a house "in which nothing was ever going +to happen," and that "she would never get out of it." "It will be just +as it has been all my life, seeing nothing, doing nothing—only instead +of father it will be the aunts." The bird seemed to promise her +adventure and excitement. To most people it would have been only a +further sign of an old-fashioned household far behind the times. To +Maggie it was thrilling and encouraging. He would remind her every hour +of the day of the possibility of fun in a world that was full of +surprises. She heard suddenly a step behind her and a dry voice saying: +</P> + +<P> +"Your hot water, Miss Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +She turned round, blushing at being caught staring up at a cuckoo-clock +like a baby in her nightdress, to face the wrinkled old woman who the +night before had brought her, with a grudging countenance, her supper. +Maggie had thought then that this old Martha did not like her and +resented the extra work that her stay in the house involved; she was +now more than ever sure of that dislike. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I was to be called at half-past seven." +</P> + +<P> +"Eight on Sundays," said the old woman. "I hope you're better this +morning, miss." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie felt this to be deeply ironical and flushed. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm quite well, thank you," she said stiffly. "What time is breakfast +on Sundays?" +</P> + +<P> +"The prayer-bell rings at a quarter to nine, miss." +</P> + +<P> +They exchanged no more conversation. +</P> + +<P> +At a quarter to nine a shrill, jangling bell rang out and Maggie +hurried down the dark staircase. She did not know where the dining-room +was, but by good chance she caught sight of Aunt Elizabeth's little +body moving hurriedly down the passage and hastened after her. She +arrived only just in time. There, standing in a row before four chairs, +their faces red and shining, their hands folded in front of them, were +the domestics; there, with a little high desk in front of her, on the +other side of the long dining-room table was Aunt Anne; here, near the +door, were two chairs obviously intended for Aunt Elizabeth and Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie in her haste pushed the door, and it banged loudly behind her; +in the silent room the noise echoed through the house. It was followed +by a piercing scream from Edward, whom, Maggie concluded, it had +awakened. All this confused her very much and gave her anything but a +religious state of mind. +</P> + +<P> +What followed resembled very much the ceremonies with which her father +had been accustomed to begin the day, except that her father, with one +eye on the bacon, had gabbled at frantic pace through the prayers and +Aunt Anne read them very slowly and with great beauty. She read from +the Gospel of St. John: "These things I command you, that ye love one +another ..."; but the clear, sweet tones of her voice gave no +conviction of a love for mankind. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie looking from that pale remote face to the roughened cheeks and +plump body of the kitchen-maid felt that here there could be no +possible bond. When they knelt down she was conscious, as she had been +since she was a tiny child, of two things—the upturned heels of the +servants' boots and the discomfort to her own knees. These two facts +had always hindered her religious devotions, and they hindered them +now. There had always been to her something irresistibly comic in those +upturned heels, the dull flat surfaces of these cheap shoes. In the +kitchen-maid's there were the signs of wear; Martha's were new and +shining; the house-maid's were smart and probably creaked abominably. +The bodies above them sniffed and rustled and sighed. The vacant, +stupid faces of the shoes were Aunt Anne's only audience. Maggie +wondered what the owners of those shoes felt about the house. Had they +a sense of irritation too or did they perhaps think about nothing at +all save their food, their pay and their young man or their night out? +The pain to her knees pierced her thoughts; the prayers were very +long?—Aunt Anne's beautiful voice was interminable. +</P> + +<P> +Breakfast was quiet and silent. Edward, who received apparently a +larger meal on Sundays than at ordinary times, chattered happily to +himself, and Maggie heard him say complacently, "Poor Parrot?—Poor +Parrot. How do you do? How do you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Service is at eleven o'clock, dear," said Aunt Anne. "We leave the +house at ten minutes to eleven." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, not knowing what to do with the hour in front of her, went up +to her bedroom, found the servant making the bed, came down into the +drawing-room and sat in a dark corner under a large bead mat, that, +nailed to the wall, gave little taps and rustlings as though it were +trying to escape. +</P> + +<P> +She felt that she should be doing something, but what? She sat there, +straining her ear for sounds. "One always seems to be expecting some +one in this house," she thought. The weather that had been bright had +now changed and little gusts of rain beat upon the windows. She thought +with a sudden strange warmth of Uncle Mathew. What was he doing? Where +was he? How pleasant it would be were he suddenly to walk into that +chilly, dark room. She would not show him that she was lonely, but she +would give him such a welcome as he had never had from her before. Had +he money enough? Was he feeling perhaps as desolate amongst strangers +as she? The rain tickled the window-panes. Maggie, with a desolation at +her heart that she was too proud to own, sat there and waited. +</P> + +<P> +She looked back afterwards upon that moment as the last shivering pause +before she made that amazing plunge that was to give her new life. +</P> + +<P> +The sound of a little forlorn bell suddenly penetrated the rain. It was +just such a bell as rang every Sunday from chapels across the +Glebeshire moors, and Maggie knew, when Aunt Elizabeth opened the door +and looked in upon her, that the summons was for her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! my dear (a favourite exclamation of Aunt Elizabeth's) and you're +not ready. The bell's begun. The rain's coming down very hard, I'm +afraid. It's only a step from our door. Your things, dear, as quick as +you can." +</P> + +<P> +The girl ran upstairs and, stayed by some sudden impulse, stood for a +moment before the long mirror. It was as though she were imploring that +familiar casual figure that she saw there not to leave her, the only +friend she had in a world that was suddenly terrifying and alarming. +Her old black dress that had seemed almost smart for the St. Dreot +funeral now appeared most desperately shabby; she knew that her black +hat was anything but attractive. +</P> + +<P> +"What do I care for them all!" her heart said defiantly. "What do they +matter to me!" +</P> + +<P> +She marched out of the house behind the aunts with her head in the air, +very conscious of a hole in one of her thin black gloves. +</P> + +<P> +The street, deserted, danced in the rain; the little bell clanged with +the stupid monotony of its one obstinate idea; the town wore its +customary Sunday air of a stage when the performance is concluded, the +audience vanished and the lights turned down. The aunts had a solemn +air as though they were carrying Maggie as a sacrifice. All these +things were depressing. +</P> + +<P> +They turned out of their own street into a thin, grey one in which the +puddles sprang and danced against isolated milk-cans and a desolate +pillar-box. The little bell was now loud and strident, and when they +passed into a passage which led into a square, rather grimy yard, +Maggie saw that they had arrived. Before her was a hideous building, +the colour of beef badly cooked, with grey stone streaks in it here and +there and thin, narrow windows of grey glass with stiff, iron divisions +between the glass. The porch to the door was of the ugliest grey stone +with "The Lord Cometh" in big black letters across the top of it. Just +inside the door was a muddy red mat, and near the mat stood a gentleman +in a faded frock-coat and brown boots, an official apparently. There +arrived at the same time as Maggie and her aunts a number of ladies and +gentlemen all hidden beneath umbrellas. As they stood in the doorway a +sudden scurry of wind and rain drove them all forward so that there was +some crush and confusion in the little passage beyond the door. +Waterproofs steamed; umbrellas were ranged in dripping disorder against +the wall. The official, who talked in a hushed whisper that was drowned +by the creaking of his boots, welcomed them all with the intimacy of an +old acquaintance. "Oh, Miss Hearst—terrible weather—no, she's not +here yet." "Good morning, Mrs. Smith—very glad you're better. Yes, I +spoke to them about the prayer-books. They promised to return them this +morning ..." and so on. He turned, pushed back a door and led the way +into the chapel. The interior was as ugly as the outside. The walls +were of the coldest grey stone, broken here and there by the lighter +grey of a window. Across the roof were rafters built of that bright +shining wood that belongs intimately to colonial life, sheep-shearing, +apples of an immense size and brushwood. Two lamps of black iron hung +from these rafters. At the farther end of the chapel was a rail of this +same bright wood, and behind the rail a desk and a chair. In front of +the rail was a harmonium before which was already seated a stout and +expectant lady, evidently eager to begin her duties of the day. The +chapel was not very large and was already nearly filled. The +congregation was sitting in absolute silence, so that the passing of +Maggie and her aunts up the aisle attracted great attention. All eyes +were turned in their direction and Maggie felt that she herself was an +object of very especial interest. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne walked first and took what was obviously her own regular seat +near the front. Maggie sat between her two aunts. She could not feel +for the moment anything but a startled surprise at the ugliness of the +building. She had entered at different times the Glebeshire chapels, +but their primitive position and need had given them the spirit of +honest sincerity. Here she had expected she did not know what. Always +from those very early days when she had first heard about her aunts she +had had visions of a strange illuminated place into which God, "riding +on a chariot clothed in flames," would one day come. Even after she had +grown up she had still fancied that the centre of her aunts' strange, +fantastic religion must be a strange, fantastic place. And yet now, as +she looked around her, she was not, to her own surprise, disappointed. +She was even satisfied; the "wonder" was not in the building. Well, +then, it must be in something "inside," something that she had yet to +discover. The chapel had the thrilling quality of a little plain deal +box that carries a jewel. +</P> + +<P> +She examined then the people around her. Women were in a great +majority, a man scattered forlornly amongst them once and again. She +discovered at once the alert eyes of young Mr. Warlock. He was seated +in the side aisle with a thin, severe-looking woman beside him. He +stared straight in front of him, wriggling sometimes his broad back as +though he were a dog tied by a chain. Some one else very quickly +claimed Maggie's attention; this was a girl who, in the seat behind Mr. +Warlock, was as noticeable in that congregation as a bird-of-paradise +amongst a colony of crows. She was wearing a dress of light blue silk +and a large hat of blue with a grey bird in the front of it. +</P> + +<P> +Her hair, beneath the hat, was bright gold, her cheeks were the +brightest pink and her eyes sparkled in a most lovely and fascinating +manner. She was immensely interesting to Maggie, who had never, in her +life, dreamed of anything so dazzling. She was very restless and +animated and self-conscious. There sat at her side a stout and solemn +woman, who was evidently from a strange, almost ironical likeness her +mother. The young lady seemed to regard both the place and the occasion +as the greatest joke in the world. She flung her eyes from one to +another as though inviting some one to share her merriment. +</P> + +<P> +Amongst that black-garbed assembly the blue dress shone out as though +it would attract everything to itself. "She's very pretty," thought +Maggie, who was more conscious of her shabby clothes than ever. But her +chief feeling was of surprise that so brilliant a bird had been able to +penetrate into the chapel at all. "She must be a stranger just come out +of curiosity." Then the girl's eyes suddenly met Maggie's and held +them; the brilliant creature smiled and Maggie smiled in return. She +looked afterwards at Aunt Anne, but Aunt Anne, buried in her book of +devotions, had seen nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly, after a strange wheeze and muffled scream, the harmonium +began. Every one looked up expectantly; Mr. Warlock, alone, appeared +from a door at the right of the screen and took his place behind the +desk. +</P> + +<P> +He stood for a moment facing them before he took his place. He was a +man of great size, old now but holding himself absolutely erect. He was +dressed in a plain black gown with a low, white collar and a white tie. +This long gown added to his height, but the width of the shoulders and +neck, and the carriage of his head showed that he was a man built on a +noble scale. His hair was snow-white and he wore a beard, that was in +startling contrast against his black gown. His cheeks were of high +colour, his eyes blue; he was older than Maggie had expected and must, +she thought, be over seventy. His whole bearing and behaviour was of a +man who had enjoyed great physical health. His expression was mild and +simple, dignified but not proud, utterly unconscious of self, earnest +and determined, lacking in humour perhaps. There was nothing in the +least theatrical about him and yet he conveyed an impression that was +startling and dramatic. His was a figure that would have been noticed +anywhere, if only for its physical health and shining cleanliness. +Maggie felt that to many people there his entrance was a sensation, +sought for and expected by them. So startling was the impression that +he made upon herself that she wondered that the chapel was not crowded +by an excited throng. She liked him at once, felt that she would be at +ease with him as she had never been with anybody in her life. And yet +behind this there was perhaps some subtle sense of disappointment. He +was not mysterious, he did not seem very clever; he was only an old +man, magnificently preserved. There was no fear nor wonder in her +attitude to him. He could not convince her, she thought, of things that +she herself had not seen. +</P> + +<P> +He knelt and prayed for a moment before his desk, then he rose and, +with his hands resting on the wood before him, said: "Let us offer +thanks to Almighty God that He has kept us in safety and in health +during the past week." They all knelt down. He prayed then, in a voice +that was soft and clear and that hid behind the words a little +roughness of accent that was not unpleasant. His prayer was extempore, +and he addressed God intimately and almost conversationally. "Thou +knowest how we are weak and foolish, our faults are all known to Thee +and our blunders are not hid, therefore we thank Thee that Thou hast +not been impatient with us, but, seeing that we are but little children +in Thy hands, hast deemed the thunderbolt too heavy for our heads and +the lightning too blinding for our eyes. With humble hearts we thank +Thee, and pray that Thou wilt keep us mindful of Thy coming, that we +may be found watching, with our loins girt and our lamps lit, waiting +in prayer for Thy dreadful day..." +</P> + +<P> +During this prayer Maggie was conscious of a strange excitement. She +knelt with her eyes tightly closed, but through the darkness she felt +as though he were addressing her alone. She seemed to approach him, to +feel his hands upon her shoulders, to hear his voice in her ears. When +she rose at the ending of the prayer it was as though she had +definitely passed through some door into a new room. Then, rising, she +was conscious that the laughing eyes of the young lady in blue were +again trying to hold her own. She refused to look—she coloured, +hanging her head so that her eyes should not be caught. +</P> + +<P> +For some time she was unaware of the progress of the service. Then the +clear emphasis of his voice caught again her attention. "Our lesson for +to-day," he said, "is from the Fortieth Chapter of Isaiah." He +proceeded to read: +</P> + +<P> +Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. +</P> + +<P> +Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare +is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received +of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. +</P> + +<P> +The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of +the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. +</P> + +<P> +Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be +made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places +plain: +</P> + +<P> +And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it +together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. +</P> + +<P> +The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, +and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:... +</P> + +<P> +The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall +stand for ever. +</P> + +<P> +O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; +O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with +strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, +Behold your God! +</P> + +<P> +Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule +for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. +</P> + +<P> +He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with +his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that +are with young. +</P> + +<P> +How many times had Maggie heard the reading of those words. They +brought instantly back to her her father's voice, the strange snuffling +hurry with which he hastened to the end, his voice hesitating a little +as his wandering eye caught the misbehaviour of some small boy in the +choir. +</P> + +<P> +Now the words were charged with a conviction that was neither forced +nor adopted for dramatic effect. It was as though a herald read some +proclamation for his master who was approaching the gates of the city. +The hymns and prayers that followed seemed to have no importance. The +hymns happened on that day to be familiar ones that Maggie had always +known: "As pants the hart for cooling streams," "Just as I am, without +one plea" and "Jerusalem the golden." These were sung, of course, +slowly, badly and sentimentally, the harmonium screaming in amazing +discords, and the deep and untuneful voices of some members of the +congregation drowning the ladies and placing a general discord upon +everything. Especially distressing was Aunt Elizabeth, who evidently +loved to sing hymns but had little idea of melody or rhythm, and was +influenced entirely by a copious sentiment which overflowed into her +eyes and trembled at the tips of her fingers. +</P> + +<P> +All this was as naive and awkward as is always the singing of English +hymns in English churches by English citizens. The chapel, which had +seemed before to be rising to some strange atmosphere of expectation, +slipped back now to its native ugliness and sterility. The personality +was in the man and in the man alone. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie looked about her, at the faces of the women who surrounded her. +They were grey, strained, ugly in the poor light of the building. The +majority of them seemed to be either servant-girls or women who had +passed the adventurous period of life and had passed it without +adventure. When the time for the sermon arrived Mr. Warlock prayed, his +head bowed, during a moment's silence, then leaning forward on his desk +repeated some of the words of his earlier reading: +</P> + +<P> +Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway +for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill +shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the +rough places plain: ... say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!... +</P> + +<P> +What followed was practical, eloquent, the preaching of a man who had +through the course of a long life addressed men of all kinds and in all +places. But behind the facility and easy flow of his words Maggie +fancied that she detected some urgent insistence that came from the +man's very heart. She was moved by that as though he were saying to her +personally, "Don't heed these outward words of mine. But listen to me +myself. There is something I must tell you. There is no time to lose. +You must believe me. I will compel your belief. Follow me and I will +show what will transform your life." He concluded his sermon with these +words: +</P> + +<P> +"And what of our responsibility? We may compare ourselves, I think, to +men who, banded together on some secret service, wait for the moment +when they are to declare themselves and, by that action, transform the +world. Until that moment comes they must lead their ordinary daily +lives, seem as careless of the future as their fellows, laugh and eat +and work and play as though nothing beyond the business of the day were +their concern. But in their hearts is the responsibility of their +secret knowledge. They cannot be as other men knowing what they do, +they cannot be to one another as they are to other men with the bond of +their common duty shared between them. Much has been given them, much +will be demanded of them; and when the day comes it will not be the +events of that day that will test them but the private history, known +only to themselves and their Master, of the hours that have preceded +that day." +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you what I have often told you before from this same place, +that beside the history of the spirit the history of the body is +nothing—and that history of the spirit is no easy, tranquil progress +from birth to death, but must rather be, if we are to have any history +at all, a struggle, a wrestling, a contest, bloody, unceasing, +uncertain in its issue from the first hour until the last. This is no +mere warning spoken from the lips only by one who, from sheer weekly +necessity, may seem to you formal and official; it is as urgent, as +deeply from the heart as though it were a summons from a messenger who +has come to you directly from his Master. I beg of you to consider your +responsibility, which is greater than that of other men. We are +brothers bound together by a great expectation, a great preparation, a +great trust. We are in training for a day when more will be demanded of +us than of any other men upon the earth. That is no light thing. Let us +hold ourselves then as souls upon whom a great charge is laid." +</P> + +<P> +When he had ended and knelt again to pray Maggie felt instantly the +inevitable reaction. The harmonium quavered and rumbled over the first +bars of some hymn which began with the words, "Cry, sinner, cry before +the altar of the Lord," the man with the brown, creaking boots walked +about with a collection plate, an odour of gas-pipes, badly heated, +penetrated the building, the rain lashed the grey window-panes. Maggie, +looking about her, could not see in the pale, tired faces of the women +who surrounded her the ardent souls of a glorious band. Their belief in +the coming of God had, it seemed, done very little for them. It might +be true that the history of the soul was of more importance than the +history of the body, but common sense had something to say. +</P> + +<P> +Her mind went back inevitably to St. Dreot's church, her father, Ellen +the cook. That was what the history of the spirit had been to her so +far. What reason had she to suppose that this was any more real than +that had been? Nevertheless, when at the end of the sermon she left the +building and went once more into the soaking streets some sense of +expectation was with her, so that she hastened into her aunt's house as +though she would find that some strange event had occurred in her +absence. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing, of course, had occurred. +</P> + +<P> +During the afternoon the rain ceased to fall and a dim, grey light, +born of an intense silence, enveloped the town. About three o'clock the +aunts went out to some religious gathering and Maggie was left to +herself. She discovered in Aunt Elizabeth's bedroom a bound volume of +Good Words, and with this seated herself by the drawing-room fire. Soon +she slept. +</P> + +<P> +She was awakened by a consciousness that some one was in the room and, +sitting up, staring through the gloom, heard a movement near the door, +a rustle, a little jingle, a laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Is any one there?" said a high, shrill voice. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie got up. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm here," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Some one came forward; it was the girl of the blue dress who had smiled +at Maggie in chapel. She held out her hand—"I hope you don't think me +too awful. My name's Caroline Smith. How do you do?" +</P> + +<P> +They shook hands. Maggie, still bewildered by sleep, said, stammering, +"Won't you sit down? I beg your pardon. My aunts—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it isn't the aunts I wanted to see," replied Miss Smith, laughing +so that a number of little bracelets jingled most tunefully together. +"I came to see you. We smiled at one another in chapel. It was your +first time, wasn't it? Didn't you think it all awfully quaint?" +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you sit down?" said Maggie again, "and I'll ring for the lamp." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! don't ring for the lamp. I like the dusk. And we can make friends +so much better without a lamp. I always say if you want to know anybody +really well, don't have a light." +</P> + +<P> +She seated herself near the fire, arranging her dress very carefully, +patting her hair beneath her hat, poking her shoes out from beneath her +skirts, then withdrawing them again. "Well, what do you think of it +all?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie stared. She did not know what to say. She had never met any one +in the least like this before. +</P> + +<P> +"I do hope," Miss Smith went on, "that you don't think me forward. I +daresay you do. But I can't bear wasting time. Of course I heard that +you were coming, so then I looked out for you in chapel to-day. I +thought you looked so nice that I said to mother, 'I'll go and see her +this very afternoon.' Of course I've known your aunts for ages. I'm +always in and out here so that it isn't as bad as it seems. They'll all +be back for tea soon and I want to have a talk first." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you very much," was all that Maggie could think of to say. +</P> + +<P> +"You've come to live here, haven't you?" continued Miss Smith. "I'm so +glad. I think you look so nice. You don't mind my saying that, do you? +I always tell people what I think of them and then one knows where one +is. Now, do tell me—I'm simply dying to know—what do you think of +everything?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Maggie, smiling, "I only arrived here yesterday. It's +rather difficult to say." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I know. I saw Mr. Magnus this morning and he told me that he met +you. He said you were ill. You don't look ill." +</P> + +<P> +"It was very silly of me," said Maggie, "I don't know what made me +faint. I've never done such a thing before." +</P> + +<P> +"I used to faint simply heaps of times when I was a kid," said Miss +Smith, "I was always doing it. I had all sorts of doctors. They thought +I'd never grow up. I'm not very strong now really. They say it's heart, +but I always say it can't be that because I've given it all away." Here +Miss Smith laughed immoderately. +</P> + +<P> +"Weren't they the most terrible set of frumps at chapel this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +She did not wait for an answer, but went on: "Mr. Warlock's all right, +of course. I think he's such a fine-looking man, don't you? Of course +he's old now, but his beard's rather attractive I think. He's a duck, +but isn't that harmonium ghastly? I can't think why they don't buy an +organ, they're most awfully rich I know, and do simply nothing with +their money." +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you go," said Maggie, "if you think it all so dreadful?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I have to go," said Miss Smith, "to please mother. And one has to +do something on Sunday, and besides one sees one's friends. Did you +notice Martin Warlock, Mr. Warlock's son, you know. He was sitting +quite close to me." +</P> + +<P> +"He was here yesterday afternoon," said Maggie quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, was he really? Now that is interesting. I wonder what he came for. +He scarcely ever comes here. Did you like him?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't speak to him," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course he's only been here a little time. He's Mr. Warlock's only +son. He's lived for years abroad and then the other day his aunt died +and left him some money so he came home. His father simply adores him. +They say—but of course I don't know. Don't quote me—that he's been +most awfully wild. Drink, all sorts of things. But of course they'll +say anything of anybody. I think he's got such an interesting face, +don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think," said Maggie, "that you ought to say those things of +any one if you don't know they're true." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! what a darling you are!" said Miss Smith. "You're perfectly +right—one oughtn't. But every one does. When you've lived up here a +little while you will too. And what does it matter? You're sure to hear +it sooner or later. But that's right. You keep me straight. I know I +talk far too much. I'm always being told about it. But what can one do? +Life's so funny—one must talk about it. You haven't seen Miss Avies +and Mr. Thurston yet, have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie. "Not unless I saw them in Chapel this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! they're the ones," said Miss Smith. "No, they weren't there +to-day. They're away on a mission. They make things hum. They quarrel +with Mr. Warlock because they say he isn't noisy enough. Mr. Thurston's +awful and Miss Avies isn't much better. You'll have them on to you soon +enough. But of course I'm not one of the Inside Ones." +</P> + +<P> +"Inside Ones?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, the real ones. They'll be at you after a time and ask you if +you'll join them. The congregation this morning was just anybody who +likes to come. But the real brethren have to swear vows and be baptized +and all sorts of things. But that's only if you believe God's really +coming in a year or two. Of course I don't, although sometimes it makes +one quite creepy—all down one's spine. In case, after all, He really +should come, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Are my aunts inside?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course they are. Miss Anne Cardinal's one of the chief of them. +Miss Avies is jealous as anything of her, but your aunt's so quiet that +Miss Avies can't do anything. I just love your aunts. I think they're +sweet. You will be a friend of mine, won't you? I like you so much. I +like your being quiet and telling me when I talk too much. I sound +silly, I know, but it's really mother's fault, as I always tell her. +She never brought me up at all. She likes me to wear pretty things and +doesn't care about anything else. Poor mother! She's had such a time +with father; he's one of the most serious of all the Brethren and never +has time to think about any of us. Then he's in a bank all the week, +where he can't think about God much because he makes mistakes about +figures if he does, so he has to put it all into Sunday. We will be +friends, won't we?" +</P> + +<P> +It came to Maggie with a strange ironic little pang that this was the +first time that any one had asked for her friendship. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Smith's further confidences were interrupted by the aunts and +behind them, to Maggie's great surprise, Mr. Warlock and his son. The +sudden descent of these gentlemen upon the still lingering echoes of +Miss Caroline Smith's critical and explanatory remarks embarrassed +Maggie. Not so Miss Smith. She kissed both the aunts with an emphasis +that they apparently appreciated for they smiled and Aunt Anne laid her +hand affectionately upon the girl's sleeve. Maggie, watching, felt the +strangest little pang of jealousy. That was the way that she should +have behaved, been warm and demonstrative from the beginning—but she +could not. +</P> + +<P> +Even now she stood back in the shadows of the room, watching them all +with large grave eyes, hoping that they would not notice her. +</P> + +<P> +With Mr. Warlock and his son also Miss Smith seemed perfectly at home, +chattering, laughing up into young Warlock's eyes, as though there were +some especial understanding between them. Maggie, nevertheless, fancied +that he, young Warlock, was not listening to her. His eyes wandered. He +had that same restlessness of body that she had before noticed in him, +swinging a little on his legs set apart, his hands clasped behind his +thick broad back. He had some compelling interest for her. He had had +that, she now realised, since the first moment that she had seen him. +It might be that the things that that girl had told her about him +increased her interest and, perhaps her sympathy? But it was his +strange detached air of observation that held her—as though he were a +being from some other planet watching them all, liking them, but +bearing no kind of relation to them except that of a cheerful +observer—it was this that attracted her. She liked his thick, rough +untidy hair, the healthy red brown of his cheeks, his light blue eyes, +his air of vigour and bodily health. +</P> + +<P> +As she waited she was startled into consciousness by a voice in her +ear. She turned to find the elder Mr. Warlock beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"You will forgive my speaking to you, Miss Cardinal. I saw you at our +Chapel this morning." +</P> + +<P> +His great height towered above her short clumsy figure; he seemed to +peer down at her from above his snowy beard as though he were the +inhabitant of some other world. His voice was of an extreme kindliness +and his eyes, when she looked up at him, shone with friendliness. She +found herself, to her own surprise, talking to him with great ease. He +was perfectly simple, human and unaffected. He asked her about her +country. +</P> + +<P> +"I spend my days in longing to get back to my own place—and perhaps I +shall never see it again. I was born in Wiltshire—Salisbury Plain. My +great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, they all were ministers +of our Chapel there before me. They had no thought in their day of +London. I have always missed that space, the quiet. I shall always miss +it. Towns are not friendly to me." +</P> + +<P> +She told him about St. Dreots, a little about her father. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you're lucky!" he said. "You'll return many times before you +die—and you'll find no change there. Those places do not change as +towns do." +</P> + +<P> +They were standing apart from the others near the window. He suddenly +put his hand on her arm, smiling at her. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," he said. "You don't mind me saying 'My dear,' but an old man +has his privileges—will you come and see us whenever you care to? My +wife will be so glad. I know that at first one can be lonely in this +great place. Just come in when you please." +</P> + +<P> +He took her hand for a moment and then turned back to Aunt Anne, who +was now pouring out tea at a little table by the fire. +</P> + +<P> +Martin Warlock, as his father moved away, came across to her, She had +known that he would do that as though something had been arranged +between them. When he came to her, however, he stood there before her +and had nothing to say. She also had nothing to say. His eyes searched +her face, then he broke out abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you better?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm all right," she answered him brusquely. "Please don't say anything +about yesterday. It was an idiotic thing to do." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I came about to-day—to see how you were," he answered +her, his eyes laughing at her. "I should never have dreamed of coming +otherwise, you know. I saw you in chapel this morning so I guessed you +were all right, but it seemed such bad luck fainting right off the +minute you got here." +</P> + +<P> +"I've never fainted in my life before," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +"No, you don't look the sort of girl who'd faint. But I suppose you've +had a rotten time with your father and all." +</P> + +<P> +His eyes still searched for hers. She determined that she would not +look at him; her heart was beating strangely and, although she did not +look, she could in some sub-conscious way see the rough toss of his +hair against his forehead; she could smell the stuff of his coat. But +she would not look up. +</P> + +<P> +"You're going to live here, aren't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I've only just come back," he went on. +</P> + +<P> +"I know," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! of course; that girl," jerking his head in the direction of the +tea-table and laughing. "She told you. She's been here this afternoon, +hasn't she? She chatters like anything. Don't you believe half she +says." +</P> + +<P> +There was another pause. The voices at the tea-table seemed to come +from very far away. +</P> + +<P> +Then he said roughly, moving a very little nearer to her: +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad you've come." +</P> + +<P> +At that she raised her eyes, her cheeks flushed. She looked him full in +the face, her head up. Her heart thundered in her breast. She felt as +though she were at the beginning of some tremendous adventure—an +adventure enthralling, magnificent—and perilous. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0201"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +PART II +</H2> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +THE CHARIOT OF FIRE +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE WARLOCKS +</H3> + +<P> +There is beyond question, in human nature, such a thing as an inherited +consciousness of God, and this consciousness, if inherited through many +generations, may defy apparent reason, all progress of vaunted +civilisations, and even, it may be suggested, the actual challenge of +death itself. +</P> + +<P> +This consciousness of God had been quite simply the foundation of Mr. +Warlock's history. In the middle of the eighteenth century it expressed +itself in the formula of John Wesley's revival; the John Wesley of that +day preached up and down the length and breadth of Westmoreland, +Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, and being a fighter, a preacher and +a simple-minded human being at one and the same time, received a large +following and died full of years and honours. +</P> + +<P> +It was somewhere about 1830 that this John's grandson, James Warlock, +Martin's grandfather, broke from the main body and led his little flock +on to the wide spaces of Salisbury Plain. James Warlock, unlike his +father and grandfather, was a little sickly man with a narrow chest, no +limbs to speak of and a sharp pale face. Martin had a faded +daguerreotype of him set against the background of the old Wiltshire +kitchen, his black clothes hung upon him like a disguise, his eyes +burning even upon that faded picture with the fire of his spirit. For +James Warlock was a mystic, a visionary, a prophet. He walked and +talked with God; in no jesting spirit it was said that he knew God's +plans and could turn the world into a blazing coal so soon as he +pleased. It was because he knew with certainty that God would, in +person, soon, descend upon the earth that he separated from the main +body and led his little band down into Wiltshire. Here on the broad +gleaming Plain they prepared for God's coming. Named now the Kingscote +Brethren after their new abode, they built a Chapel, sat down and +waited. Then in 1840 the prophet declared that the Coming was not yet, +that it would be in the next generation, but that their preparations +must not be relaxed. He himself prepared by taking to himself a wife, a +calm untroubled countrywoman of the place, that she might give him a +son whom he might prepare, in due course, for his great destiny. John, +father of Martin, was born, a large-limbed, smiling infant, with the +tranquillity of his mother as well as something of the mysticism of his +father. +</P> + +<P> +Upon him, as upon his ancestors, this consciousness of God had most +absolutely descended. Never for a moment did he question the facts that +his father told to him. He grew into a giant of health and strength, +and those who, in those old days, saw them tell that it was a strange +picture to watch the little wizened man, walking with odd emotional +gestures, with little hops and leaps and swinging of the arms beside +the firm long stride of the young man towering above him. +</P> + +<P> +When young John was twenty-three years of age his father was found dead +under a tree upon a summer's evening. His expression was of a man +challenging some new and startling discovery; he had found perhaps new +visions to confront his gaze. They buried him in Kingscote and his son +reigned in his stead. +</P> + +<P> +But they were approaching new and modern times. These old days, of +simple faith and superstition were passing never to return. There were +new elements in the Kingscote company of souls and these elements +demanded freer play both of thought and action. They argued that, as to +them alone out of all the world the time and manner of God's coming was +known, they should influence with their activities some wider sphere +than this Wiltshire village. +</P> + +<P> +John Warlock clung with all his strength to the old world that he knew, +the world that gave him leisure and quiet for contemplation. He had no +wish to bring in converts, to stir England into a frenzy of terror and +anticipation. God gave him no command to spread his beliefs; even his +father, fanatic though he had been, had cherished his own small company +of saints as souls to whom these things, hidden deliberately from the +outside world, had especially been entrusted. +</P> + +<P> +So long as he could he resisted; then when he was about forty, +somewhere around 1880, the Kingscote Brethren moved to London. In this +year, 1907, John Warlock was sixty-seven and the Kingscote Brethren had +had their Chapel in Solomon's Place, behind Garrick Street, for +twenty-seven years. In 1880 John Warlock had married Amelia, daughter +of Francis Stephens, merchant. In 1881 a daughter, Amy, was born to +them; in 1883, Martin; they had no other children. Martin was at the +time of Maggie's arrival in London twenty-four years of age. +</P> + +<P> +Upon a certain fine evening, a fortnight after Martin Warlock's first +meeting with Maggie, he arrived at the door of his house in Garrick +Street, and having forgotten his latch-key, was compelled to ring the +old screaming bell that had long survived its respectable reputable +days. The Warlocks had lived during the last ten years in an upper part +above a curiosity shop four doors from the Garrick Club in Garrick +Street. There was a house-door that abutted on to the shop-door and, +passing through it, you stumbled along a little dark passage like a +rabbit warren, up some crooked stairs, and found yourself in the +Warlock country without ever troubling Mr. Spencer, the stout, hearty, +but inartistic owner of the curiosity shop. +</P> + +<P> +On the present occasion, after pulling the bell, Martin stared down the +street as though somewhere in the dim golden light of its farthest +recesses he would find an answer to a question that he was asking. The +broad sturdy strength of his body, the easy good-temper of his +expression spoke of a life lived physically rather than mentally. And +yet this was only half true. Martin Warlock should at this time have +been a quite normal young man with normal desires, normal passions, +normal instincts. Such he would undoubtedly have been had he not had +his early environment of egotism, mystery and clap-trap—had he, also, +not developed through his childhood and youth his passionate devotion +to his father. The religious ceremonies of his young days had made him +self-conscious and introspective and, although during his years abroad +he had felt on many occasions that he was completely freed from his +early bondage, scenes, thoughts and longings would recur and remind him +that he was celebrating his liberty too soon. The licences that to most +men in their first youth are incidental and easily forgotten engraved +themselves upon Martin's reluctant soul because of that religious sense +that had been driven in upon him at the very hour of his birth. He +could not sin and forget. He sinned and was remorseful, was impatient +at his remorse, sinned again to rid himself of it and was more +remorseful still. The main impulse of his life at this time was his +self-distrust. He fancied that by returning home he might regain +confidence. He longed to rid himself of the conviction that he was "set +aside" by some fate or other, call it God or not as you please. He +thought that he hurt all those whom he loved when his only longing was +to do them good. He used suddenly to leave his friends because he +thought that he was doing them harm. It was as though he heard some +Power saying to him: "I marked you out for my own in the beginning and +you can't escape me. You may struggle as you like. Until you surrender +everything shall turn to dust in your hands." He came back to England +determined to assert his independence. +</P> + +<P> +He gazed now at the placidity of Garrick Street with the intensity of +some challenging "Stand and Deliver!" All that the street had to give +for the moment was a bishop and an actor mounting the steps of the +Garrick Club, an old lady with a black bonnet and a milk-jug, a young +man in a hurry and a failure selling bootlaces. None of them could be +expected to offer reassurance to Martin—none of these noticed him—but +an intelligent observer, had such a stranger to Garrick Street been +present, might have found that gaze of interest. Martin's physical +solidity could not entirely veil the worried uncertain glance that +flashed for a moment and then, with a little reassuring sigh, was gone. +</P> + +<P> +The door opened, a girl looked for a moment into the street, he passed +inside. Having stumbled up the dark stairs, pushed back their private +entrance, hung up his coat in the little hall, with a deliberate effort +he shook off the suspicions that had, during the last moments, troubled +him and prepared to meet his mother and sister. +</P> + +<P> +Because he had a happy, easy and affectionate temperament absence +always gilded his friends with gifts and qualities that their presence +only too often denied. His years abroad had given him a picture of his +mother and sister that the few weeks of his return had already dimmed +and obscured. His mother's weekly letters had, during ten long years, +built up an image of her as the dearest old lady in the world. He had +always, since a child, seen her in a detached way—his deep and +permanent relations had been with his father—but those letters, of +which he had now a deep and carefully cherished pile, gave him a most +charming picture of her. They had not been clever nor deep nor indeed +very interesting, but they had been affectionate and tender with all +the gentleness of the figure that he remembered sitting in its lace cap +beside the fire. +</P> + +<P> +After three weeks of home life he was compelled to confess that he did +not in the least understand his mother. His intuitions about people +were not in fact of a very penetrating character. +</P> + +<P> +His mother appeared to all her world as a "sweet old lady," but even +Martin could already perceive that was not in the least what she really +was. He had seen her old hands tremble with suppressed temper on the +very day after his arrival; he had seen her old lips white with anger +because the maid had brought her the wrong shawl. Old ladies must of +course have their fancies, but his mother had some fixed and fierce +purpose in her life that was quite beyond his powers of penetration. It +might of course have something to do with her attachment to his father. +Attached Martin could see that she was, but at the same time completely +and eternally outside her husband's spiritual life. That might have +been perhaps in the first place by her own desire—she did not want "to +be bothered with all that nonsense." But certainly all these years with +him had worked upon her: she was not perhaps so sure now that it was +all "nonsense." She wanted, it might be, a closer alliance with him, +which she could not have because she had once rejected the chance of +it. Martin did not know; he was aware that there was a great deal going +on in the house that he did not fathom. Amy, his sister, knew. There +was an alliance between his mother and his sister deep and strong, as +he could see—he did not yet know that it was founded very largely on +dislike and fear of himself. +</P> + +<P> +How fantastic these theories of fire and passion must seem, he amused +himself by considering, to any one who knew his mother only from the +outside. She was sitting to-day as always in her little pink and white +chintz drawing-room, a bright fire burning and a canary singing in a +cage beside the window. The rest of the house was ugly and strangely +uninhabited as though the Warlocks had merely pitched their tents for a +night and were moving forward to-morrow, but this little room, close, +smelling of musk and sweet biscuits (a silver box with lemon-shaped +biscuits in it stood on a little table near the old lady), with its +pretty pink curtains, its canary, and its heavy and softly closing +door, was like a place enclosed, dedicated to the world, and ruled by a +remorseless spirit of comfort. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Warlock was only sixty years of age, but she had, a number of +years ago, declared herself an invalid, and now never, unless she drove +on a very fine afternoon, left the house. Whether she were truly an +invalid nobody knew; she presented certainly a most healthy appearance +with her shell-pink cheeks, her snow-white hair, her firm bosom rising +and falling with such gentle regularity beneath the tight and shining +black silk that covered it, her clear bright eyes like shining glass. +She always sat in a deep arm-chair covered with the chintz of the +curtains and filled with plump pillows of pink silk. A white filmy +shawl was spread over her knees, at her throat was a little bright +coquettish blue bow that added, amazingly, to the innocent charm of her +old age. On her white hair, crinkled and arranged as though it were +some ornament, not quite a wig but still apart from the rest of her +body, she wore a lace cap. She was fond of knitting; she made warm +woollen comforters and underclothing for the children of the poor. She +was immensely fond of conversation, being of an inquisitive nature. But +above all was she fond of eating. This covetousness of food had grown +on her as her years had increased. The thought of foods of various +kinds filled many hours of her day, and the desire for pleasant things +to eat was the motive of many of her most deliberate actions. She +cherished warmly and secretly this little lust of hers. None of the +family was aware of the grip that the desire had upon her nor of the +speed with which the desire was growing. She did not ask directly for +the things that she liked, but manoeuvred with little plots and +intrigues to obtain them. The cook in the Warlock household had neither +art nor science at her disposal, but as it happened old Mrs. Warlock +lusted after very simple things. She loved rice-pudding; her heart beat +fast in her breast when she thought of the brown crinkly skin of the +rich warm milk of a true rice-pudding; also she loved hot buttered +toast, very buttery so that it soaked your fingers; also beef-steak +pudding with gravy rich and dark and its white covering thick and +heavy; she also loved hot and sweet tea and the little cakes that Amy +sometimes bought, red and yellow and pink, held in white paper—also +plum-pudding, which, alas! only came at Christmastime and wedding-cake, +which scarcely ever came at all. +</P> + +<P> +This vice, of which she was almost triumphantly conscious as though it +were a proof of her enduring vitality, she clutched eagerly to herself. +She did not wish that any human being should perceive it. Of her +husband she was not afraid—it would never possibly occur to him that +food was of importance to any one; Amy might discover what she pleased, +she was in strong alliance with her mother and would never betray her. +</P> + +<P> +Her fear was of Martin. She feared very deeply his influence upon her +husband. During Martin's absence she and Amy had managed very +successfully to have the house as they wished it; John Warlock, the +master, had been too deeply occupied with the affairs of the soul to be +concerned also with the affairs of the body. +</P> + +<P> +She had, she believed, exercised an increasing influence over him. She +had always loved him with a fierce and selfish love, but now, when he +was nearly seventy, and to both of them only a few years of earthly +ambition could remain, she desired, with all the urgent ferocity of a +human being through whose fingers the last sands of his opportunity are +slipping, to seize and hold and have him entirely hers. He had always +eluded her; although he had once certainly loved her with, at any rate, +a semblance of earthly passion, his spiritual life had always come +between them, holding him from her, helping him to escape when he +pleased, tantalising, sometimes maddening too. She was certainly now +not so ready to dismiss that spiritual life as once she had been. She +was herself an old heathen; for herself she believed in nothing but her +earthly appetites and desires, but for him and for others there might +be something in it, ... and perhaps some day some dreadful thing would +occur ... a chariot of Fire descend upon the Chapel and some sort of a +fierce and hostile God deliver judgment; she only hoped that she would +be dead before then. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile she and Amy had, undoubtedly, during these last years, +increased their influence over him. He was not aware of it, but as he +was growing now older and weaker—he had had trouble with his heart—he +inevitably depended more upon them. The old lady began to count upon +her triumph. Then came Martin's return. +</P> + +<P> +She had forgotten Martin. It is true that she had written to him every +week during his long absence, but her letters had been all part of the +"dear old lady" habit which was put on by her just as an actress +prepares herself, nightly, for a character in which she knows she is +the greatest possible success. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Smith ... No, +we've not heard from Martin now for three weeks. Careless boy! I always +write myself every week so that he may have at any rate one little word +from home ..." +</P> + +<P> +She had never felt that she had any real share in his life; he had +always belonged to his father; nor was she a woman who cared about +children. Martin had long ago become to her simply an opportunity for +further decoration. Since his return it had been quite another affair. +In one moment she had seen her power over her husband shrivel and +disappear. Martin was home again. Martin must be here, Martin must be +there; Martin must see this, Martin must do this. She had seen before +in earlier days the force of her husband's passion when it was roused. +There was something now in his reception of their son that terrified +her. She had at once perceived that Amy was as deeply moved as she. The +girl, plain, awkward, silent, morose, had always adored her father, but +she had never known how to approach him. She was not clever, she had +not been able to enter into his life although she would have done +anything that he desired of her. What she had suffered during those +early years when, as a little ugly girl, she had watched her brother, +accepted, received into the Brotherhood, praised for his wisdom, his +intimacy with God, his marvellous saintly promise, praised for these +things when she had known all his weaknesses, how he had slipped away +to a music-hall when he was only fourteen and smoked and drank there, +how he had laughed at Mr. Thurston's dropping of his "h's" or at Miss +Avies' prayer meetings! No one ever knew what in those years she had +thought of her brother. Then, after Martin had flung it all away and +escaped abroad, she had begun, slowly, painfully, but with dogged +persistence, to make herself indispensable to her father; Martin she +had put out of her mind. He would never return, or, at least, the +interval of his departure should have been severe enough to separate +him for ever from his father ... +</P> + +<P> +In a moment's glance, in a clasp of the hand, in a flash of the eye, +she had seen that love leap up in her father's heart as strong as ever +it had been. Every day of Martin's residence in the house had added +fire to that love. She was a good woman; she struggled hard to beat +down her jealousy. She prayed. She lay for hours at night struggling +with her sins. If Martin had been worthy, if he had shown love in +return, but, from the bottom of her soul, as the days increased she +despised him—despised him for his light heart, his care of worldly +things, his utter lack of comprehension of their father, his scorn, +even now but badly concealed, of all the sanctities that she had in +reverence. +</P> + +<P> +Therefore she drew near to her mother and the two of them watched and +waited ... +</P> + +<P> +His mother was knitting. She lifted to him her pink wrinkled face and, +her spectacles balanced on the end of her nose, smiled the smile of the +dearest old lady in the world. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dear, and have you had a pleasant day?" +</P> + +<P> +"All right, mother, thank you. Funny thing; met a man in the street, +hadn't seen for five years. Saw him last in Rio—Funny thing. Well, we +lunched together. Not a bad fellow—Seen a thing or two, he has." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Warlock counted her stitches. "Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen ... How +nice for you, dear. What was his name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Thompson ... I say," Martin suddenly raised his head as though he +heard something, "where's Amy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Changing. She's been paying a call on the Miss Cardinals. Thought it +would be polite because of the new niece.—Six, seven, eight and nine..." +</P> + +<P> +"What did she think of her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of whom, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of the niece." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't think she liked her very much. She said that she was plain +and silent—and looked cross, Amy thought." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes, Amy would." His face, as was his way when he was vexed, +flushed very slowly, the deeper red rising through the red-brown until, +ceasing in the middle of his forehead, it left a white line beneath his +hair. "She isn't cross a bit." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know, dear. It isn't my opinion. I only tell you what Amy +said. People here don't seem to like her. Mrs. Smith was telling me +yesterday that she's so difficult to talk to and seems to know nothing +about anything, poor girl." +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Smith!" He swung his body on his hips indignantly. "A lot she +knows about anything! I hate that woman and her chattering daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dear, I don't know, I'm sure; Mrs. Smith always seems to me very +kind." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her as though he had suddenly remembered something. +</P> + +<P> +"I say—is it true what Amy says, that I woke you up this morning when +I went out by banging my door?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure you didn't.—Amy shouldn't say such things. And if you did +what does it matter? I sleep so badly that half an hour more or less +makes very little difference." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she says so—" He went on, dropping his voice: "I say, mother, +what's the matter with Amy? Why's she so sick with me? I haven't done +anything to offend her, have I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not. What a silly boy you are, Martin! Nine, ten, eleven ... +There! that's enough for this evening. I'll finish it in another day. +You mustn't mind Amy, Martin. She isn't always very well." +</P> + +<P> +The door opened and Amy came in. She was a tall gaunt woman who looked +a great deal older than her brother. She did not make the best of +herself, brushing her thin black hair straight back from her bony +forehead. She had a habit of half closing her eyes when she peered at +some one as though she could not see. She should, long ago, have worn +spectacles, but from some strange half-conscious vanity had always +refused to do so. Every year her sight grew worse. She was wearing now +a dress of black silk, very badly made, cut to display her long skinny +neck and bony shoulders. She wore her clothes as though she struggled +between a disdain for such vanities and a desire to appear attractive. +Her manner of twisting her eyelids and wrinkling her nose gave her a +peevish expression, but, behind that, there was a hint of pathos, a +half-seen glimpse of a soul that desired friendship and affection. She +was very tall and there was something masculine in the long angularity +of her limbs. She offered a strange contrast to the broad and ruddy +Martin. There was, however, something in the eyes of each—some sudden +surprised almost visionary flash that came and went that showed them to +be the children of the same father. To Mrs. Warlock they bore no +resemblance whatever. Amy stopped when she saw her brother as though +she had not expected him to be there. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Martin," she said—then came forward and sat in a chair opposite +her mother. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Thurston's coming to suppar," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Martin frowned. "Oh, hang it, what for?" he cried. +</P> + +<P> +"He's taking me to Miss Aries' Bible meeting," Amy answered coldly. +"What a baby you are about people, Martin. I should have thought all +your living abroad so much would have made you understanding. But +you're like the rest. You must have every one cut to the same pattern." +</P> + +<P> +Martin looked up for a moment as though he would answer angrily; then +he controlled himself and said, laughing: "I suppose I have my +prejudices like every one else. I daresay Thurston's a very good sort +of fellow, but we don't like one another, and there's an end of it, +Everybody can't like everybody, Amy—why, even you don't like every +one." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't," she answered shortly. +</P> + +<P> +She looked for an instant at her mother. Martin caught the glance that +passed between them, and suddenly the discomfort of which he had been +aware as he stood, half an hour before, in the street, returned to him +with redoubled force. What was the matter with everybody? What had he +done? +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'll go and change," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Dinner will be ready in ten minutes, dear," said his mother. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be in time all right," he said. +</P> + +<P> +At the door he almost ran into Mr. Thurston. This gentleman had been +described, on some earlier occasion, by an unfriendly observer as "the +Suburban Savonarola." He was tall and extremely thin with a bony +pointed face that was in some lights grey and in others white. He had +the excited staring eyes of a fanatic, and his hair now very scanty, +was plastered over his head in black shining streaks. He wore a rather +faded black suit, a white low collar and a white bow tie. He had a +habit, at moments of stress, of cracking his fingers. He had a very +pronounced cockney accent when he was excited, at other times he +struggled against this with some success. +</P> + +<P> +He passed from brooding silences into sudden bursts of declamation with +such abruptness that strangers thought him very eloquent. When he was +excited the colour ran into his nose as though he had been drinking, +and often his ears were red. His history was simple. The son of a small +draper in Streatham, he had at an early age joined himself to an +American Revivalist called Harper. When after some six years of +successful enterprise Mr. Harper had been imprisoned for forgery, young +William Thurston had attached himself to a Christian Science Chapel in +Hoxton. Then, somewhere about 1897, he had met Miss Avies at a +Revivalist Meeting in the Albert Hall and, fascinated by her ardent +spirit, transferred his services to the Kingscote Brethren. +</P> + +<P> +He had now risen to a position of great importance in the Chapel; it +was known that he disagreed profoundly with his leader on some vital +questions, and it was thought that he might at a later date definitely +secede and conduct a party of his own. +</P> + +<P> +Certainly he had exceptional energies and gifts of exhortation and +invective not to be despised. Martin politely wished him "Good evening" +and escaped to his room. +</P> + +<P> +As he changed his clothes he tried to translate into definite facts his +vague discomfort. One, he hated that swine Thurston. Two, Amy was vexed +with him (What strange impossible creatures women were!). Third—and by +far the most important of them all—his father wanted to talk to him. +He knew very well that this talk had been preparing for him ever since +his return from abroad. He dreaded it. Oh! he dreaded it most horribly! +</P> + +<P> +He loved his father but with a love that had in it elements of fear, +timidity, every possible sort of awkwardness. Moreover he was helpless. +Ever since that first day when as a tiny child of four or five he had +awakened to behold that figure, enormous in a long night-shirt, +summoning God in the middle of the night with a candle flickering +fantastic shadows on to the wall behind them, Martin had been weak as +putty in his father's hands. Against other men he could stand up; +against that strange company of fears, affections, superstitions, +shadowy terrors, dim expectations that his father presented to him he +could do nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Well—that conversation had to come some time. He must show that he was +a man now, moulded by the world with his own beliefs, purposes, +resolves. But if he did not love him, how much easier it would be! +</P> + +<P> +When he went downstairs he found the old man in the little pink +drawing-room—he looked tired and worn. Martin remembered with alarm +the things that he had heard recently about his father's heart. He +glanced up and the older man's hand fastened on his shoulder; they +stood there side by side. After a few minutes they all went in to +supper. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Thurston's nose was flushed with the success of the mission from +which he had just returned. He had been one of a number whose aim it +had been during the preceding week to bring light and happiness into +the lives of the inhabitants of Putney. They had been obviously +appreciated, as the collection for the week had amounted to between +seventy and eighty pounds. A proper share of this fine result Mr. +Thurston naturally appropriated to his own efforts. His long tapering +fingers were not so clean as they might have been, but this did not +prevent him from waving them in the air and pointing them at imaginary +Putney citizens whom he evoked in support of his statements. +</P> + +<P> +"We 'ad a reelly thumpin' meeting on Thursday—Town Hall—One for the +women in the small 'all hand one for the men in the Main Hall. Almost +no opposition you might say, and when it came to the Hymn singing it +fairly took the roof off. A lot of 'em stopped afterwards—one lad of +eighteen or so is coming over to us 'ere. Butcher's apprentice. Says +'e's felt the Lord pressing him a long way back but the flesh held him. +Might work him up into a very useful lad with the Lord's help. Thank +you, Mrs. Warlock, I will try a bit more of that cold beef if you don't +mind. Pretty place, Putney. Ever been there, Mr. Warlock? Ah, you +should go—" +</P> + +<P> +Amy Warlock listened with the greatest interest; otherwise, it must be +confessed, Mr. Thurston's audience was somewhat inattentive. Mr. +Warlock's mind was obviously elsewhere; he passed his hand through his +beard, his eyes staring at the table-cloth. Mr. Thurston, noticing +this, tried another topic. +</P> + +<P> +"What 'ave you heard, Mrs. Warlock, about the new Miss Cardinal? I +'aven't seen her yet myself." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Warlock, who had just given herself a little piece of beef, some +potato and some spinach, and was arranging these delicacies with the +greatest care upon her plate, just smiled without raising her eyes. Amy +answered— +</P> + +<P> +"I've seen her. I was there this afternoon. I can't say that I found +her very interesting. Plain-ugly in fact. She never opened her mouth +all the afternoon. Caroline Smith tells me that she knows nothing at +all, seen nothing, been nowhere. Bad-tempered I should think." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear, dear," said Mr. Thurston with a gratified sigh, "is it so +reelly?" +</P> + +<P> +Martin looked across at his sister indignantly. "Trust one woman about +another," he said. "Just because she doesn't chatter like a magpie you +concluded she's got nothing to say. It's even conceivable that she +found you dull, Amy." +</P> + +<P> +Amy looked at him with a strange penetrating glance that in some +undefined way increased his irritation. "It's quite possible," she said +quietly. "But I don't think even you, Martin, can call her handsome. As +to her intelligence, she never gave me a chance of judging." +</P> + +<P> +"I've been there several times," said Martin hotly. "I like her +immensely." He felt as soon as he had spoken that it had been a foolish +thing to say. He saw Mr. Thurston smile. In the pause that followed he +felt as though he had with a gesture of the hand flung a stone into a +pool of chatter and scandal whose ripples might spread far beyond his +control. At that moment he hated his sister. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know you knew her so well, dear," said his mother. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know her," he said, "I've only seen her three times. But she +ought to be given her chance. It can't be much fun for her coming here +where she knows no one—after her father suddenly dying. I believe she +was all alone with him." +</P> + +<P> +He had expected his father to defend her. He remembered that he had +apparently liked her. But his father said nothing. There was an awkward +and uncomfortable pause. After supper Mr. Thurston rubbed his hands, +helped Amy Warlock into her cloak, said to the company in general: +</P> + +<P> +"Good night. Should be a very full meeting to-night ... Well, well ... +Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Warlock, I'm sure." +</P> + +<P> +The door was closed, Mrs. Warlock retired into her bedroom; the house +was left to Martin and his father. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Warlock's room was hideous. It opened, somewhat ironically, out of +Mrs. Warlock's pink drawing-room. A huge and exceedingly ugly American +roll-top desk took up much of the room. There were bookshelves into +which books had been piled. Commentaries on the Bible, volumes of +sermons, pamphlets, tattered copies of old religious magazines. A bare +carpet displayed holes and rents. The fireplace was grim with dirty +pieces of paper and untidy shavings. In the midst of this disorder +there hung over the mantelpiece, against the faded grey wall-paper, a +fine copy of Raphael's "Transfiguration." Mr. Warlock lighted a candle +and the flame flickered with changing colours upon the picture's +surface. It had been given to John Warlock many years before by an old +lady who heard him preach and had been, for a week, converted, but on +his demand that she should give her wealth to the poor and fling aside +her passion for Musical Comedy, left him with indignation. The picture +had remained; it hung there now crooked on its cord. +</P> + +<P> +John Warlock was unconscious of the dust and disorder that surrounded +him. His own passion for personal cleanliness sprang from the early +days with his father, to whom bodily cleanliness had been part of a +fanatical mysticism. Partly also by reason of that early training, +sloth, drunkenness, immorality, had no power over him. And of the whole +actual world that surrounded him he was very little conscious except +that he hated towns and longed always for air and space. +</P> + +<P> +So that the windows were open one room was to him as another. +</P> + +<P> +He had often, during his work with the members of his community, been +conscious of his ignorance of the impulses and powers that went up to +make the ordinary sensual physical life of the normal man. His own +troubles, trials, failures were so utterly of another kind that in this +other world his imagination refused to aid him. This had often deeply +distressed him and made him timid and shy in his dealings with men and +women. It was this, more than anything else, that held him back from +the ambition to proselytise. How could he go forth and challenge men's +souls when he could not understand nor feel their difficulties? More +and more as his years advanced had he retired into himself, into his +own mystical world of communion with a God who drew ever nearer and +nearer to him. He humbled himself before men; he did not believe +himself better than they because he had not yielded to their +temptations; but he could not help them; his tongue was tied; he was a +man cut off from his fellows and he knew it. +</P> + +<P> +He had never felt so impatient of his impotence as he did to-night. For +ten years he had been waiting for this interview with his son, and now +that it was come he was timid and afraid as though he had been opposed +by a stranger. He had always known that Martin would return. It had +been his one worldly ambition and prayer to have him at his side again. +When he had thought and dreamt of the time that was coming, he had +thought that it would be simple enough to win the boy back to the old +allegiance and faith to which he had once been bound. Meanwhile the boy +had grown into a man; here was a new Martin deep in experiences, +desires, ambitions of which his father could have no perception. Even +in the moment that he was aware of the possibility of losing his son he +was aware also of the deep almost fanatical resolve to keep him, to +hold him at all costs. +</P> + +<P> +This was to be the test of his whole earthly life. He seemed, as he sat +there, looking across at his boy, to challenge God Himself to take him +from him. It was as though he said: +</P> + +<P> +"This reward at least I have a right to ask. I demand it ..." +</P> + +<P> +Martin, on his side, was conscious of a profound discomfort. He had, +increasingly as the years had passed, wished to take life easily and +pleasantly. Suddenly now another world rose up before him. Yes, another +world. He was not fool enough to dismiss it simply because it did not +resemble his own. Moreover it had been once his, and this was +increasingly borne in upon him. But it all seemed to him now incredibly +old, childish and even fantastic, as though here, in the middle of +London, he had suddenly stepped into a little wood with a witch, a +cottage and a boiling cauldron. Such things could not frighten, of +course—he was no longer a child—and yet because he had once been +frightened some impression of alarm and dismay hovered over him. +</P> + +<P> +During all his normal years abroad he had forgotten the power of +superstition, of dreams and omens; he knew now, as he faced his father, +that the power was real enough. +</P> + +<P> +They talked for a little while of ordinary things; the candle flame +jumped and fell, the shavings rustled strangely in the fireplace, the +"Transfiguration" swung a little on its cord, the colour still +lingering at its heart as the rest of the room moved restlessly under +the ebb and flow of black shadows. Then the candle suddenly blew out. +</P> + +<P> +"A lamp will be better," said Mr. Warlock. +</P> + +<P> +He left the room and Martin sat there, in the darkness, haunted by he +knew not what anticipations. The light was brought, they drew closer +together, sitting in the little glossy pool, the room pitch dark around +them. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Martin," at last Mr. Warlock said, "I want to hear so many +things. Our first time together alone." +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't very much," Martin tried to speak naturally and +carelessly. "I wrote about most things in my letters. Pretty rotten +letters I'm afraid." He laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"And now—what do you intend to do now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't know—Look around for a bit." +</P> + +<P> +There was another long pause. Then Mr. Warlock began again. "When I ask +about your life, my boy, I don't mean where you've lived, how you've +earned your living—I do know all that—you've been very good about +writing. But your real life, what you've been thinking about things, +how you feel about everything ..." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, father—I don't know. One hadn't much time for thinking, you +know. No one did much thinking in Rio. When I was in the Bermudas there +was a fellow ..." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but tell me about yourself." +</P> + +<P> +Then, with a desperate effort, he broke out: +</P> + +<P> +"Father, you'll be badly disappointed in me. I've been feeling it +coming all the time. I can't help it. I'm just like any one else. I +want to have a good time. One's only young once. I'm awfully sorry. I +want to please you in any way I can, but—but—it's all gone—all that +early part. It's simply one's childhood that's finished with." +</P> + +<P> +"And it can't come back?" his father said quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"Never!" Martin's voice was almost a cry as though he were defying +something. +</P> + +<P> +"We are very weak against God's will," his father said, still quietly +as though it were not he that was speaking but some voice in the shadow +behind him. "You are not your own master, Martin." +</P> + +<P> +"I am my own master," Martin answered passionately. "I have been my own +master for ten years. I've not done anything very fine with my life, I +know. I'm just like any one else—but I've found my feet. I can look +after myself against anybody and I'm independent—of every one and of +everything." +</P> + +<P> +His father drew a little closer to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," he said, "I was not so foolish as to expect that you would +come back to us just as you left us. I know that you must have your own +life—and be free—so much as any of us are free at all ..." Then after +a little pause. "What are your plans? What are you going to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," answered Martin, hesitating, "I haven't exactly settled, you +know. I might take a small share in some business, go into the City. +Then at other times I feel I shouldn't like being cooped up in a town +after the life I've led. Sometimes, this last month, I've felt I +couldn't breathe. It was though, are you, all the chimneys were going +to tumble in. When you're out on a field you know where you are, don't +you? So I've thought it would be nice to have a little farm somewhere +in the South, Devonshire or Glebeshire ... And then I'd marry of +course, a girl who'd like that kind of life and wouldn't find it dull. +There'd be plenty of work—a healthy life for children right away from +these towns ... That's my sort of idea, father, but of course one +doesn't know ..." +</P> + +<P> +Martin trailed off into inconsequent words. It was as though his father +were waiting for him to commit himself and would then suddenly leap +upon him with "There! Now, you've betrayed yourself. I've caught you—" +and he had simply nothing to betray, nothing to conceal. +</P> + +<P> +But anything was better than these pauses during which the threats and +anticipations piled up and up, making a monstrous figure out of exactly +nothing at all. +</P> + +<P> +It was not enough to tell himself that between every father and son +there were restraints and hesitations, a division cleft by the +remembrance of the time when one had commanded and the other obeyed. +There were other elements here—for one the element of an old affection +that had once been at the very root of the boy's soul and was now in +the strangest way creeping back to him, as an old familiar, but +forgotten form might creep out of the dark and sit at his feet and +clasp his knees. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said John Warlock. "That's very pleasant. You must feel very +grateful to your aunt Rachel, Martin; she's given you the opportunity +of doing what you like with your life. She spoke to me about it before +she died." +</P> + +<P> +"She spoke to you about it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. She told me that she did it because she wanted to bring you back +to me. She knew of my love for you. We often talked of you together. +She was a faithful servant of God. She believed that God meant to bring +you, through her, back into His arms." +</P> + +<P> +"I might not have come," Martin said with a sudden anger that surprised +himself. "She made no conditions. I might have gone on with my life +there abroad. I am free to lead my own life where and how I please." +</P> + +<P> +"Quite free." His father answered gently. "But she knew that you would +come. Of course you are your own master, Martin—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, but it must be quite clear," Martin cried, the excitement rising +in him as he spoke. He leaned forward almost touching his father's +chair. "I'm not bound to any one by this money. It was awfully jolly of +Aunt Rachel. I'll never forget her—but I'm free. I haven't got to say +that I believe things when I don't, or that I think things that she +thought just because she did ... I don't want to hurt you, father, but +you know that it must have seemed to me pretty odd coming back after +all these years and finding you, all in the same place, doing the same +things, believing in the same things—just like years ago. I've seen +the world a bit, I can tell you—Russia, China, Japan, America, North +and South, India. You believe as far as you can see. What are you to +think when, in every country that you come to, you see people believing +in different things? They can't all be right, you know." +</P> + +<P> +His father said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"But each thinks he's right—and each hates the other. Then, when I +came back and saw a fellow like that man Thurston preaching and laying +down the law, well, it seemed odd enough that any one could be taken in +by it. I hope I don't hurt you, father ... only that's what you want, +isn't it ... to have it out quite plainly? ..." +</P> + +<P> +His father, still very gently and hesitating as though he found it +difficult to catch the words that he wished (his voice had still the +remoteness of some one speaking, who was far from them both), said: +</P> + +<P> +"You'll think it odd, Martin, when you know how often I have to preach +and speak in public, that I should find it hard to talk—but I never, +with any man alone, could find words easily. I know so little. It is +God's punishment for some selfish nervousness and shyness in me, that +even now when I am an old man I cannot speak as one man to another. +There was once, I remember, a young man who had heard me preach and was +moved by my words and begged to see me in private. He came one evening; +he was tempted to commit a terrible sin. He depended upon me to save +him and I could say nothing. I struggled, I prayed, but it was +incredible to me that any man could be tempted to such a thing. I spoke +only conventional words that meant nothing. He went away from me, and +his lost soul is now upon me and will always be ... but, Martin, what I +would say beyond everything is—do not let us separate. Be free as you +must be free, as you should be free—but stay with me—remain with me. +I am an old man; I have longed for you as I think no other father can +ever have longed for his son. They tell me that I cannot live many more +years. God chooses His time. Be with me, Martin, for a little while +even though I may seem old to you and foolish. Perhaps things will come +back to you that you have long forgotten. You were once pledged and it +was a vow that is not easily removed—but it is enough for the present +if you will be with me a little, give me some of your time—give the +old days a chance to come back." He laid his hand upon his son's. +</P> + +<P> +The sudden touch of the dry, hot, trembling skin filled Martin's heart +with the strangest confusion of affection, embarrassment and some +familiar pathos. In just that way ten years before he had felt his +father's hand and had thought: "How old he's getting! ... How I shall +miss him! ... I hope nothing happens to him!" In the very balance of +his father's sentences and the deliberate choice of words there had +been something old-fashioned and remote from all the life and scramble +of Martin's recent years. Now he took his father's hand in his own +strong grasp and said gruffly: +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right, father ... I'm not going while you want me ... You +and I ... always ... it's just the same now." +</P> + +<P> +But even as he spoke he felt as though he were giving some pledge that +was to involve him in far more than he could see before him. Then, with +a happy sense that the sentimental part of the conversation was over, +he began to talk about all kinds of things. He let himself go and even, +after a while, began to feel the whole thing really jolly and pleasant. +His father wanted waking up. He had been here so long, with all these +awful frumps, brooding over one idea, never getting away from this +Religion. +</P> + +<P> +Martin began to imagine himself very cleverly leading his father into a +normal natural life, taking him to see things, making him laugh; it +would do his health a world of good. +</P> + +<P> +Then, quite suddenly, the old man said: +</P> + +<P> +"And what do you remember, Martin, of the old days here, the days when +you were quite small, when we lived in Mason Street?" +</P> + +<P> +What did Martin remember? He remembered a good deal. He was surprised +when he began to think ... "Did he remember ..." his father suggested a +scene, a day—yes, he remembered that. His father continued, as though +it had been for his own pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +The scenes, the hours returned with a vividness and actuality that +thronged the room. +</P> + +<P> +He could see Mason Street with its grocer's shop at the corner, its +Baths and Public Library, the sudden little black dips into the areas +as the houses followed one another, the lamp-post opposite their window +that had always excited him because it leaned inwards a little as +though it would presently tumble. He remembered the fat short cook with +the pink cotton dress who wheezed and blew so when she had to climb the +stairs. He remembered the rooms that would seem bare enough to him now, +he supposed, but were then filled with exciting possibilities—a little +round brown table, his mother's work-box with mother-of-pearl shells +upon the cover, a stuffed bird with bright blue feathers under a glass +case, a screen with coloured pictures of battles and horses and +elephants casted upon it. He remembered the exact sound that the +tinkling bell made when it summoned them to meals, he remembered the +especial smell of beef and carpet that was the dining-room, he +remembered a little door of coloured glass on the first landing, a +cupboard that had in it sugar and apples, a room full of old books +piled high all about the floor upon the dry and dusty boards ... a +thousand other things came crowding around him. +</P> + +<P> +Then, as his father's voice continued, out from the background there +came his own figure, a small, pale, excited boy in short trousers. +</P> + +<P> +He was immensely excited—that was the principal thing. It was evening, +the house seemed to swim in candlelight and smoke through which things +could be seen only dimly. +</P> + +<P> +Something wonderful was about to happen to him. He was in a state of +glory, very close to God, so close that he could almost see Him sitting +with His long white beard in the middle of a cloud, watching Martin +with interest and affection. He was pleased with Martin and Martin was +pleased with himself. At the same time as his pleasure he was aware +that the stuff of his new black trousers tickled his knees and that he +was hungry. +</P> + +<P> +He saw his small sister Amy for a moment and expressed quite +effectively by a smile and nod of the head his immeasurable superiority +to her ... +</P> + +<P> +They, he and his father, drove in a cab to the Chapel. Of what followed +then he was now less aware. He remembered that he was in a small room +with two men, that they all took off their clothes (he remembered that +one man, very stout and red, looked funny without his clothes), that +they put on long white night-shirts, that his was too long for him and +that he tripped over it, that they all three walked down the centre of +the Chapel, which was filled with eyes, mouths and boots, and that he +was very conscious of his toe-nails, which had never been exposed in +public before, that they came to a round stone place filled with water +and into this after the two men he was dipped, that he didn't scream +from the coldness, of the water although he wanted to, that he was +wrapped in a blanket and finally carried home in an ecstasy of triumph. +</P> + +<P> +What happiness followed! The vitality of it swept down upon him now, so +that he seemed never to have lived since then. He was the chosen of God +and every one knew it. What a little prig and yet how simple it had all +been, without any consciousness of insincerity or acting on his part. +God had chosen him and there he was, for ever and ever safe and happy. +</P> + +<P> +It was not only that he was assured that when the moment arrived he +would have, in Heaven, a "good time"—it was that he was greatly +exalted, so that he gave his twopence a week pocket-money to his +school-fellows, never pulled Amy's hair, never teased his mother's +canary. He had been aware, young though he was, of another life. He +prayed and prayed, he went to an endless succession of services and +meetings. There was Mr. Bates, one of the leading brethren then, who +loved him and spoilt him ... above all, through and beyond it all, +there was his father, who adored him and whom he adored. +</P> + +<P> +That adoration—of God, of his father, of life itself! Was it possible +that a small boy, normal and ordinary enough in other ways, could feel +so intensely such passions? +</P> + +<P> +The dark room was crowding him with figures and scenes. A whole world +that he had thought dead and withered was beating—urgently, +insistently, upon his consciousness. +</P> + +<P> +In another instant he did not know what surrender, what acknowledgement +he might have made. It seemed to him that nothing in life was worth +while save to receive again, in some fashion, that vitality that he had +once known. +</P> + +<P> +The door was flung open; a stream of light struck the dark; the +shadows, memories, fled, helter-skelter, like crackling smoke into the +air. +</P> + +<P> +Amy stood in the doorway, blinking at him, scowling. He knew, for some +undefined reason, that he could not meet his father's eyes. He jumped +up and walked to the window. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0202"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +EXPECTATION +</H3> + +<P> +Maggie developed marvellously during her first weeks in London. It +could not truthfully be said that her aunts gave her great opportunity +for development; so far as they were concerned she might as well have +been back in the green seclusion of St. Dreots. +</P> + +<P> +It is true that she accompanied her Aunt Elizabeth upon several +shopping expeditions, and on one hazardous afternoon they penetrated +the tangled undergrowth of Harrods' Stores; on all these occasions +Maggie was too deeply occupied with the personal safety and happiness +of her aunt to have leisure for many observations. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth always started upon her shopping expeditions with the +conviction that something terrible was about to happen, and the +expectation of this overwhelming catastrophe paralysed her nerves. +Maggie wondered how it could have been with her when she had ventured +forth alone. She would stand in the middle of the street hesitating as +to the right omnibus for her to take, she was often uncertain of the +direction in which she should go. She would wave her umbrella at an +omnibus, and then when it began to slacken in answer to her appeal, +would discover that it was not the one that she needed, and would wave +her umbrella furiously once more. Then when at last she had mounted the +vehicle she would flood the conductor with a stream of little +questions, darting her eyes angrily at all her neighbours as though +they were gathered there together to murder her at the earliest +opportunity. She would be desperately confused when asked to pay for +her ticket, would be unable to find her purse, and then when she +discovered it would scatter its contents upon the ground. In such an +agony would she be at the threatened passing of her destination that +she would spring up at every pause of the omnibus, striking her nearest +neighbour's eye or nose with her umbrella, apologising nervously, and +then, because she thought she had been too forward with a stranger, +staring fiercely about her and daring any one to speak to her. Upon the +day that she visited Harrods' she spent the greater part of her time in +the lift because she always wished to be somewhere where she was not, +and because it always went up when she wished it to go down and down +when she wished it to go up. Maggie, upon this eventful occasion, did +her best, but she also was bewildered, and wondered how any of the +attendants found their way home at night. Before the end of the +afternoon Aunt Elizabeth was not far from tears. "It isn't cutlery we +want. I told the man that it was saucepans. They pay us no attention at +all. You aren't any help to me, Maggie." They arrived in a room filled +with performing gramophones. This was the final blow. Aunt Elizabeth, +trembling all over, refused either to advance or retreat. "Will you +please," said Maggie very firmly to a beautifully clothed young man +with hair like a looking-glass, "show us the way to the street?" He +very kindly showed them, and it was not until they were in the homeward +omnibus that Aunt Elizabeth discovered that she had bought nothing at +all. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, although Maggie collected but little interesting detail +from these occasions, she did gather a fine general impression of +whirling movement and adventure. One day she would plunge into +it—meanwhile it was better that she should move slowly and assemble +gradual impressions. The solid caution that was mingled in her nature +with passionate feeling and enthusiasm taught her admirable wisdom. +Aunt Anne, it seemed, never moved beyond the small radius of her home +and the Chapel. She attended continually Bible-meetings, +prayer-meetings, Chapel services. She had one or two intimate friends, +a simple and devout old maid called Miss Pyncheon, Mr. Magnus, whom +Maggie had seen on the day of her arrival, Mr. Thurston, to whom Maggie +had taken an instant dislike, and Amy Warlock. She visited these people +and they visited her; for the rest she seemed to take no exercise, and +her declared love for the country did not lead her into the Parks. She +was more silent, if possible, than she had been at St. Dreots, and read +to herself a great deal in the dark and melancholy drawing-room. +Although she talked very little to Maggie, the girl fancied that her +eye was always upon her. There was a strange attitude of watchfulness +in her silent withdrawal from her scene as though she had retired +simply because she could see the better from a distance. +</P> + +<P> +She liked Maggie to read the Bible to her, and for an hour of every +evening Maggie did this. For some reason the girl greatly disliked this +hour and dreaded its approach. It was perhaps because it seemed to +bring before her the figure of her father, the words as they fell from +her lips seemed to be repeated by him as he stood behind her. Nothing +was more unexpected by her than the way that those last days at St. +Dreots crowded about her. They should surely have been killed by the +colours and interests of this new life. It appeared that they were only +accentuated by them. Especially did she see that night when she had +watched beside her father's dead body ... she saw the stirring of the +beard, the shape of the feet beneath the sheet, the flicker of the +candle. Apart from this one hour of the day, however, she was happy, +excited, expectant. What it was that she expected she did not exactly +know, but there were so many things that life might now do for her. One +thing that very evidently it did not intend to do for her was to make +her tidy, careful, and a good manager. Old Martha, the Cardinal +servant, was her sworn enemy, and, indeed, with reason. It seemed that +Maggie could not remember the things that she was told: lighted lamps +were left long after they should have been extinguished, one night the +bathroom was drowned in water by a running tap, her clothes were not +mended, she was never punctual at meal-times. And yet no one could call +her a dreamy child. She could, about things that interested her, be +remarkably sharp and penetrating. She had a swift and often successful +intuition about characters; facts and details about places or people +she never forgot. She had a hard, severe, entirely masculine sense of +independence, an ironic contempt for sentimentality, a warm, ardent +loyalty and simplicity in friendship. Her carelessness in all the +details of life sprang from her long muddled years at St. Dreots, the +lack of a mother's guidance and education, the careless selfishness of +her father's disregard of her. She struggled, poor child, passionately +to improve herself. She sat for hours in her room working at her +clothes, trying to mend her stockings, the holes in her blouses, the +rip of the braid at the bottom of her skirt. She waited listening for +the cuckoo to call that she might be in exact time for luncheon or +dinner, and then, as she listened, some thought would occur to her, +and, although she did not dream, her definite tracking of her idea +would lead her to forget all time. Soon there would be Martha's knock +on the door and her surly ill-tempered voice: +</P> + +<P> +"Quarter of an hour they've been sitting at luncheon, Miss." +</P> + +<P> +And her clothes! The aunts had said that she must buy what was +necessary, and she had gone with Aunt Elizabeth to choose all the right +things. They had, between them, bought all the wrong ones. Maggie had +no idea of whether or no something suited her; a dress, a hat that +would look charming upon any one else looked terrible upon her; she did +not know what was the matter, but nothing became her! +</P> + +<P> +Her new friend, Caroline Smith, laughing and chattering, tried to help +her. Caroline had very definite ideas about dress, and indeed spent the +majority of her waking hours in contemplation of that subject. But she +had never, she declared, been, in all her life, so puzzled. She was +perfectly frank. +</P> + +<P> +"But it looks AWFUL, Maggie dear, and yesterday in the shop it didn't +seem so bad, although that old pig wouldn't let us have it the way we +wanted. It's just as it is with poor mother, who gets fatter and +fatter, diet herself as she may, so that she can wear nothing at all +now that looks right, and is only really comfortable in her +night-dress. Of course you're not FAT, Maggie darling, but it's your +figure—everything's either too long or too short for you. You don't +mind my speaking so frankly, do you? I always say one's either a friend +or not, and if one's a friend why then be as rude as you please. What's +friendship for?" +</P> + +<P> +They were, in fact, the greatest possible friends. Maggie had never +possessed a girl-friend before. She had, in the first days of the +acquaintance, been shy and very silent—she had been afraid of going +too far. But soon she had seen that she could not go too far and could +not say too much. She had discovered then a multitude of new +happinesses. +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing, she found, too small, too unimportant to claim +Caroline's interest. Caroline wished to know everything, and soon +Maggie disclosed to her many things that she had told to no other human +being in her life before. It could not honestly be said that Caroline +had many wise comments to make on Maggie's experiences. Her attitude +was one of surprised excitement. She was amazed by the most ordinary +incidents and conversations. She found Maggie's life quite incredible. +</P> + +<P> +"You must stop me, Maggie, if I hurt your feelings. But really! ... +Why, if poor father had treated me like that I'd have gone straight out +of the house and never come back. I would indeed ... Well, here you are +now, dear, and we must just see each other as often as ever we can!" +</P> + +<P> +They made a strange contrast, Maggie so plain in her black dress with +her hair that always looked as though it had been cut short like a +boy's, her strong rough movements, and Caroline, so neat and shining +and entirely feminine that her only business in the world seemed to be +to fascinate, beguile and bewilder the opposite sex. Whatever the aunts +may have thought of this new friendship, they said nothing. Caroline +had her way with them as with every one else. Maggie wondered often as +to Aunt Anne's, real thoughts. But Aunt Anne only smiled her dim cold +smile, gave her cold hand into the girl's warm one and said, "Good +afternoon, Caroline. I hope your father and mother are well." "They're +dears, you know," Caroline said to Maggie; "I do admire your Aunt Anne; +she keeps to herself so. I wish I could keep to myself, but I never was +able to. Poor mother used to say when I was quite little, 'You'll only +make yourself cheap, Carrie, if you go on like that. Don't make +yourself cheap, dear.' But what I say is, one's only young once and the +people who don't want one needn't have one." +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless there were, even in these very early days, directions into +which Maggie did not follow her new friend. Young as she was in many +things, in some ways she was very old indeed. She had been trained in +another school from Caroline; she felt from the very first that upon +certain questions her lovely friend was inexperienced, foolish and +dangerously reckless. On the question of "men," for instance, Maggie, +with clear knowledge of her father and her uncle, refused to follow +Caroline's light and easy excursions. Caroline was disappointed; she +had a great deal to say on the subject and could speak, she assured +Maggie, from a vast variety of experience: "Men are all the same. What +I say is, show them you don't care 'that' about them and they'll come +after you. Not that I care whether they do or no. Only it's fun the way +they go on. You just try, Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +But Maggie had her own thoughts. They were not imparted to her friend. +Nothing indeed appeared to her more odd than that Caroline should be so +wise in some things and so foolish in others. She did not know that it +was her own strange upbringing that gave her independent estimates and +judgments. +</P> + +<P> +The second influence that, during these first weeks, developed her soul +and body was, strangely enough, her aunt's elderly friend, Mr. Magnus. +If Caroline introduced her to affairs of the world, Mr. Magnus +introduced her to affairs of the brain and spirit. +</P> + +<P> +She had never before known any one who might be called "clever." Her +father was not, Uncle Mathew was not; no one in St. Dreots had been +clever. Mr. Magnus, of course, was "clever" because he wrote books, two +a year. +</P> + +<P> +But to be an author, was not a claim to Maggie's admiration. As has +been said before, she did not care for reading, and considered that the +writing of books was a second-rate affair. The things that Mr. Magnus +might have done with his life if he had not spent it in writing books! +She regarded him with the kind indulgence of an elder who watches a +child brick-building. He very quickly discovered her attitude and it +amused him. They became the most excellent friends over it. She on her +side very quickly discovered the true reason of his coming so often to +their house; he loved Aunt Anne. At its first appearance this discovery +was so strange and odd that Maggie refused to indulge it. Love seemed +so far from Aunt Anne. She greeted Mr. Magnus from the chill distance +whence she greeted the rest of the world—she gave him no more than she +gave any one else—But Mr. Magnus did not seem to desire more. He +waited patiently, a slightly ironical and self-contemptuous worshipper +at a shrine that very seldom opened its doors, and never admitted him +to its altar. It was this irony that Maggie liked in him; she regarded +herself in the same way. Their friendship was founded on a mutual +detachment. It prospered exceedingly. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie soon discovered that Mr. Magnus was very happy to sit in their +house even though Aunt Anne was not present. His attitude seemed to be +that the atmosphere that she left behind her was enough for him and +that he could not, in justice, expect any more. Before Maggie's arrival +he had had but a slender excuse for his continual presence. He could +not sit in the empty drawing-room surveying the large and ominous +portrait of the Cardinal childhood, quite alone save for Thomas, +without seeming a very considerable kind of fool. And to appear that in +the eyes of Aunt Anne, who already regarded mankind in general with +pity, would be a mistake. +</P> + +<P> +Now that Maggie was here he might come so often as he pleased. Many was +the dark afternoon through the long February and March months that they +sat together in the dim drawing-room, Maggie straining her eyes over an +attempted reform of some garment, Mr. Magnus talking in his mild +ironical voice with his large moon-like spectacles fixed upon nothing +in particular. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Magnus did all the talking. Maggie fancied that, all his life, he +had persisted in the same gentle humorous fashion without any especial +attention as to the wisdom, agreement or even existence of his +audience. She fancied that all men who wrote books did that. They had +to talk to "clear their ideas." She raised her eyes sometimes and +looked at him as he sat there. His shabby, hapless appearance always +appealed to her. She knew that he was, in reality, anything but +hapless, but his clothes never fitted him, and it was impossible for +him to escape from the Quixotic embarrassments of his thin hair, his +high cheek-bones, his large spectacles. His smile, however, gave him +his character; when he smiled—and he was always smiling—you saw a man +independent, proud, wise and gentle. He was not a fool, Mr. Magnus, +although he did love Aunt Anne. +</P> + +<P> +To a great deal that he said Maggie paid but little attention; it was, +she felt, not intended for her. She had, in all her relations with him, +to struggle against the initial disadvantage that she regarded all men +who wrote books with pity. She was not so stupid as not to realise that +there were a great many fine books in the world and that one was the +better for reading them, but, just because there were, already, so many +fine ones, why write more that would almost certainly be not so fine? +He tried to explain, to her that some men were compelled to write and +could not help themselves. +</P> + +<P> +"I wrote my first book when I was nineteen. One morning I just began to +write, and then it was very easy. Then everything else was easy. The +first publisher to whom I sent it accepted it. It was published and had +quite a success. I thought I was made for life. Anything seemed +possible to one. After all, so far as one's possibilities went one was +on a level with any one—Shakespeare, Dante, any one you like. One +might do anything... . I published a book a year, after that, for ten +years—ten years ten books, and then awoke to the fact that I was +nothing at all and would never be anything—that I would never write +like Shakespeare, and, a matter of equal importance, would never sell +like Mrs. Henry Wood. Not that I wished to write like any one else. I +had a great idea of keeping to my own individuality, but I saw quite +clearly that what I had in myself—all of it—was no real importance to +any one. I might so well have been a butcher or baker for all that it +mattered. I saw that I was one of those unfortunate people—there are +many of them—just in between the artists and the shopkeepers. I was an +artist all right, but not a good enough one to count; had I been a +shopkeeper I might have sold my goods." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, here's your question, Miss Cardinal. Why on earth did I go +on writing? ... Simply because I couldn't help myself. Writing was the +only thing in the world that gave me happiness. I thought too that +there might be people, here and there, unknown to me who cared for what +I did. Not many of course—I soon discovered that outside the small +library set in London no one had ever heard of me. When I was younger I +had fancied that that to me fiery blazing advertisement: "New Novel by +William Magnus, author of ..." must cause men to stop in the street, +exclaim, rush home to tell their wives, 'Do you know Magnus' new novel +is out?'—now I realised that by nine out of every ten men and five out +of every ten women the literary page in the paper is turned over with +exactly the same impatience with which I turn over the betting columns. +Anyway, why not? ... perfectly right. And then by this time I'd seen my +old books, often enough, lying scattered amongst dusty piles in +second-hand shops marked, 'All this lot 6d.' Hundreds and hundreds of +six-shilling novels, dirty, degraded, ashamed ... I'd ask, sometimes, +when I was very young, for my own works. 'What's the name? What? +Magnus?—No, don't stock him. No demand. We could get you a copy, +sir...' There it is. Why not laugh at it? I was doing perhaps the most +useless thing in the world. A commonplace little water-colour, hung on +a wall, can give happiness to heaps of people; a poor piece of music +can do a thousand things, good and bad, but an unsuccessful +novel—twenty unsuccessful novels! A whole row, with the same history +awaiting their successors ... 'We welcome a new novel by Mr. William +Magnus, who our readers will remember wrote that clever story ... The +present work seems to us at least the equal of any that have preceded +it.' ... A fortnight's advertisement—Dead silence. Some one in the +Club, 'I see you've written another book, old man. You do turn 'em +out.' A letter from a Press Agency who has never heard of one's name +before, 'A little sheaf of thin miserable cuttings.' ... The Sixpenny +Lot ... Ouf! And still I go on and shall go on until I die. Perhaps +after all I'm more justified than any of them. I'm stripped of all +reasons save the pleasure, the thrill, the torment, the hopes, the +despairs of the work itself. I've got nothing else out of it and shall +get nothing ... and therefore I'm justified. Now do you understand a +little, Miss Cardinal?" +</P> + +<P> +She half understood. She understood that he was compelled to do it just +as some men are compelled to go to race meetings and just as Uncle +Mathew was compelled to drink. +</P> + +<P> +But she nevertheless thought it a dreadful pity that he was unable to +stop and interest himself in something else. Then he could see it so +plainly and yet go on! She admired and at the same time pitied him. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed, this private history of Mr. Magnus, at first sight so far +from Maggie's immediate concerns, her new life, her aunts, the Chapel +and the Chapel world. It was only afterwards, when she looked back, +that she was able to see that all these private affairs of private +people radiated inwards, like the spokes of a wheel, towards the +mysterious inner circle—that inner circle of which she was already +dimly aware, and of which she was soon to feel the heat and light. She +was, meanwhile, so far impressed by Mr. Magnus' confidences that she +borrowed one of his novels from Caroline, who confided to her that she +herself thought it the dullest and most tiresome of works. "To be +honest, I only read a bit of it—I don't know what it's about. I think +it's downright silly." +</P> + +<P> +This book bore the mysterious title of "Dredinger." It was concerned +apparently with the experiences of a young man who, buying an empty +house in Bloomsbury, discovered a pool of water in the cellar. The +young man was called Dredinger, which seemed to Maggie an unnatural +kind of name. He had an irritating habit of never finishing his +sentences, and the people he knew answered him in the same inconclusive +fashion. The pool in the cellar naturally annoyed him, but he did +nothing very practical about it, allowed it to remain there, and +discussed it with a Professor of Chemistry. Beyond this Maggie could +not penetrate. The young man was apparently in love with a lady much +older than himself, who wore pince-nez, but it was an arid kind of love +in which the young man discovered motives and symptoms with the same +dexterous surprise with which he discovered newts and tadpoles in the +cellar-pond. Maggie bravely attacked Mr. Magnus. +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't he have men in to clear up the pond and lay a new floor?" +she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"That was just the point," said Mr. Magnus. "He couldn't." +</P> + +<P> +"Why couldn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Weakness of character and waiting to see what would happen." +</P> + +<P> +"He talked too much," she answered decisively. "But are there houses in +London with ponds in them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lots," said Mr. Magnus. "Only the owners of the houses don't know it. +There is a big pond in the Chapel. That's what Thurston came out of." +</P> + +<P> +This was beyond Maggie altogether. An agreeable thing, however, about +Mr. Magnus was that he did not mind when you disliked his work. He +seemed to expect that you would not like it. He was certainly a very +unconceited man. +</P> + +<P> +A more important and more interesting theme was Mr. Magnus' reason for +being where he was. What was he doing here? What led him to the Chapel +doors, he being in no way a religious man? +</P> + +<P> +"It was like this," he told her. "I was living in Golders Green, and +suddenly one morning I was tired of the country that wasn't country, +and the butcher boy and the postman. So I moved as far into the centre +of things as I could and took a room in St. Martin's Lane close at hand +here. Then one evening I was wandering about, a desolate Sunday evening +when the town is given over to cats. I suddenly came across the Chapel. +I like going into London churches by chance, there's always something +interesting, something you wouldn't expect. The Chapel simply +astonished me. I couldn't imagine what they were all about, it wasn't +the ordinary London congregation, it was almost the ordinary London +service and yet not quite; there was an air of expectation and even +excitement which is most unusual in a London church. Then there was +Warlock. Of course one could see at once that he was an extraordinary +man, a kind of prophet all on his own; he was as far away from that +congregation as Columbus was from his crew when he first sighted the +Indies." +</P> + +<P> +"I've met one or two prophets in my time, and their concern has always +been with their audience first, themselves second and their vision +last. Warlock is the other way round. He should have been a hermit, not +the leader of a community. Well, it interested me. I came again and +again ... I'm going to stay on now until the end." +</P> + +<P> +"The end?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"The end of myself or the Chapel, whichever comes first. I wrote a +story once—a very bad one—about some merchants—why merchants I don't +know—who were flung on a desert island. It was all jungle and +desolation, and then suddenly they came upon a little white Temple. It +doesn't matter what happened afterwards. I've myself forgotten most of +it, but I remember that the sailors used the Temple in different ways +to keep their hopes and expectations alive. Their expectations that one +day a ship would come and save them ... and so far as I remember they +became imaginative about the Temple, and fancied that the Unknown God +of it would help them to regain their private affairs: one of them +wanted to get back to his girl, another to his favourite pub, another +to his money-making, another to his collection of miniatures. And they +used to sit and look at the Temple day after day and expect something +to happen. When the ship came at last they wouldn't go into it because +they couldn't bear to think that something should happen at last and +they not be there to see it. Oh yes, one of them went back, I remember. +But his actual meeting with his girl was so disappointing in comparison +with his long expectation of it in front of the Temple that he took the +next boat back to the island ... but he never found it again. He +travelled everywhere and died, a disappointed man, at sea." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Magnus was fond of telling little stories, obscure and pointless, +and Maggie supposed that it was a literary habit. On this occasion he +continued to talk quite naturally for his own satisfaction. "Yes, one +can make oneself believe in anything. I have believed in all sorts of +things. In England, of course, people have believed in nothing except +that things will always be as they always have been—a useful belief +considering that things have never been as they always were. In the old +days, when the Boer War hadn't interfered with tradition, it must have +seemed to any one who wasn't a young man pretty hopeless, but now I +don't know. Imagination's breaking in ... Warlock's a prophet. I've got +fascinated, sitting round this Chapel, as badly as any of them. Yes, +one can be led into belief of anything." +</P> + +<P> +"And what do you believe in, Mr. Magnus?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, not in myself anyway, nor Thurston, nor Miss Avies ... But in +your Aunt perhaps, and Warlock. The only thing I'm sure of is that +there's something there, but what it is of course I can't tell you, and +I don't suppose I shall ever know. The story of Sir Galahad, Miss +Cardinal—it seems mid-Victorian to us now—but it's a fine story and +true enough." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, who knew nothing of mid-Victorianism, was silent. +</P> + +<P> +He ended with: "Mind you decide for yourself. That's the great thing in +life. Don't you believe anything that any one tells you. See for +yourself. And if there's something of great value, don't think the less +of it because the people who admire it aren't worth very much. Why +should they be? And possibly after all it's only themselves they're +admiring ... There's a fearful lot of nonsense and humbug in this +thing, but there's something real too ..." +</P> + +<P> +He changed his note, suddenly addressing himself intently to her as +though he had a message to deliver. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't think me impertinent. But your Aunt Anne. See as much of her as +you can. She's devoted to you, Miss Cardinal. You mayn't have seen +it—she's a reserved woman and very shy of her feelings, but she's +spoken to me ... I hope I'm not interfering to say this, but perhaps at +first you don't understand her. She loves you, you're the first human +being I do believe that she's ever loved." +</P> + +<P> +What was there then in Maggie that started up in rebellion at this +unexpected declaration? She had been sitting there, tranquil, soothed +with a happy sense that her new life was developing securely for her in +the way that she would have it. Suddenly she was alert, suspicious, +hostile. +</P> + +<P> +"What has she said to you?" she asked quickly, frowning up at him and +drawing back as though she were afraid of him. He was startled at the +change in her. +</P> + +<P> +"Said?" he repeated, stammering a little. "Why only ... Nothing ... +except that she cared for you and hoped that you would be happy. She +was afraid that it would all be strange for you at first ... Perhaps I +have been interfering ..." +</P> + +<P> +"No," Maggie interrupted quickly. "Not you. Only I must lead my own +life. I must, mustn't I? I don't want to be selfish, but I can begin +for myself now. I have a little money of my own—and I MUST make my own +way. I don't want to be selfish," she repeated, "but I must be free. I +don't understand Aunt Anne. She never seems to care for me. I want to +do everything for her I can, but I don't want to be under any one ever +any more." +</P> + +<P> +She was so young when she said this that he was suddenly moved to an +affectionate fatherly tenderness—but he knew her now too well to show +it. +</P> + +<P> +"No, you mustn't be selfish," he answered her almost drily. "We can't +lead our lives quite alone, you know—every step we take we affect some +one somewhere. Your aunt doesn't want your liberty—she wants your +affection." +</P> + +<P> +"She wants to make me religious," Maggie brought out, staring at Mr. +Magnus. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, if you see that, you don't understand her," he answered. "How +should you—yet? She cares so deeply for her religion that she wishes +naturally any one whom she loves to share it with her. But if you +don't—" +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't?" cried Maggie, springing up from her seat and facing him. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure she would wish to influence no one," he continued gravely. +"You've seen for yourself how apart her life is. She is too conscious +of the necessity for her own liberty—" +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't liberty, it's slavery," Maggie caught him up passionately. +"Do you suppose I haven't watched all these weeks? What does her +religion do but shut her off from everything and everybody? Is she kind +to Aunt Elizabeth? No, she isn't, and you know it. Would she care if we +were all of us buried in the ruins of this house to-morrow? Not for a +single moment. And it's her religion. I hate religion. I hate it! ... +and since I've been in this house I've hated it more and more. You +don't know what it was like with father. I don't think of it now or +talk of it, but I know what it made of HIM. And now it's the same here, +only it takes them in a different way. But it's the same in the end—no +one who's religious cares for any one. And they'd make the same of me. +Aunt Anne would—the same as she's made of Aunt Elizabeth. They haven't +said much yet, but they're waiting for the right moment, and then +they'll spring it upon me. It's in the house, it's in the rooms, it's +in the very furniture. It's as though father had come back and was +driving me into it. And I want to be free, I want to lead my own life, +to make it myself. I don't want to think about God or Heaven or Hell. I +don't care whether I'm good or bad... . What's the use of my being here +in London and never seeing anything. I'll go into a shop or something +and work my fingers to the bone. They SHAN'T catch me. They SHAN'T ... +If Uncle Mathew were here ..." +</P> + +<P> +She broke off suddenly, breathless, staring at Mr. Magnus as though she +had not been aware until now that he was in the room. To say that her +outburst astonished him was to put it very mildly indeed. She had +always been so quiet and restrained; she had seemed so happy and +tranquil. +</P> + +<P> +He blushed, pushed his spectacles with his fingers, then finally +stammered: +</P> + +<P> +"I'd no idea—that—that you hated it so much." +</P> + +<P> +She was quiet and composed again. "I don't hate it," she answered very +calmly. "Only they shan't tie me—no one shall. And in the house it's +as though some one were watching behind every door. It used to be just +the same at home. When people think a lot about religion something +seems to get into a place. Why, truly, Mr. Magnus, I've wondered once +or twice lately, in spite of myself, whether they mayn't be right after +all and God's going to come in a chariot and set the world on fire." +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds silly, but when you see the way Aunt Anne and Mr. Warlock +believe things it almost makes them true." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie finally added: "You mustn't think me selfish. I'm very very +grateful for all their kindness. I'm very happy. It's all splendid +compared with what life used to be at home—but I fancy sometimes that +the aunts think I'm just going to settle down here for ever and be like +them—and I'm not—I'm afraid of Aunt Anne." +</P> + +<P> +"Afraid of her?" said Mr. Magnus. "Ah, you mustn't be that." +</P> + +<P> +"She has some plan in her head. I know she has—" +</P> + +<P> +"No plan is set except for your good," said Mr. Magnus. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want any one to bother about my good," answered Maggie. "I can +look after that for myself." +</P> + +<P> +This little conversation revealed Maggie to Mr. Magnus in an entirely +new light. He had thought her, until now, a good simple girl, entirely +ignorant of life and eager to be taught. The sudden discovery of her +independence distressed him. He left the house that afternoon with many +new points to consider. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Maggie had kept from him the true root of the matter. She had +said nothing of Martin Warlock. She had said nothing, even to herself, +about him, and yet the consciousness of her meeting with him was always +with her as a fire smoulders in the hold of a ship, burning stealthily +through the thick heart of the place, dim and concealed, to burst +suddenly, with a touch of the wind, into shining flame. +</P> + +<P> +It was after her talk to Mr. Magnus that she suddenly saw that Martin +Warlock was always in her thoughts, and then, because she was Maggie +and had never been deceitful to herself or to any one else, she faced +the fact and considered it. She knew that she was ignorant of the world +and of life, that she knew nothing about men and, although she had many +times fancied to herself what love must be like, she did not tell +herself now that it was love that had come to her. +</P> + +<P> +She saw him as a desirable companion; she thought that he would make a +most interesting friend; she would like to make her experiences of life +with him at her side. She would be free and he would be free, but they +would exchange confidences. +</P> + +<P> +And then because she was very simple and had learnt nothing of the +difference between the things that decent girls might do and the things +they might not she began to consider the easiest way of meeting him. +She intended to go to him simply as one human being to another and tell +him that she liked him and hoped that they would often see one another. +There were no confused issues nor questions of propriety before Maggie. +Certainly she was aware that men took advantage of girls' weakness—but +that was, as in the case of Uncle Mathew, when they had drunk too +much—and it was the fault of the girls, too, for not looking after +themselves. Maggie felt that she could look after herself anywhere. She +was more afraid, by far, of her Aunt Anne than of any man. +</P> + +<P> +It happened on the very day after that conversation with Mr. Magnus +that Aunt Anne said at luncheon: +</P> + +<P> +"I think, Maggie dear, if you don't mind, that you and I will pay a +call on Mrs. Warlock this afternoon. You have not been there yet. +To-day will be a very good opportunity." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's mind flew at once to her clothes. She had been with Caroline +Smith to that young lady's dressmaker, a thin and sharp-faced woman +whose black dress gleamed with innumerable pins. Maggie had been +pinched and measured, pulled in here and pulled out there. Then there +had been afternoons when she had been "fitted" under Caroline's +humorous and critical eye. Finally the dress had been delivered, only +two days ago, in a long card-board box; it waited now for the great +occasion. +</P> + +<P> +The great occasion had, in the guise of the Warlock family, surely +arrived. Maggie's heart beat as she went up to her room. When at last +she was wearing the dress, standing before her mirror, her cheeks were +red and her hands shook a little. +</P> + +<P> +The dress was very fine—simple of course and quite plain, but elegant +as no dress of Maggie's had ever been elegant. There surely could not +anywhere be a more perfect black dress, and yet, as Maggie gazed, she +was aware that there was something not quite right. She was always +straightforward with herself; yes, the thing that was not quite right +was her own stupid shape. Her figure was too square, her back was too +short, her hands too large. She had a moment of acute disgust with +herself so that she could have torn the dress from her and rushed into +her old obscure and dingy black again. Of what use to dress her up? She +would always look wrong, always be awkward and ungainly ... tears of +disappointment gathered slowly in her eyes. Then her pride reasserted +itself; she raised her head proudly and laughed at her anxious gaze. +There was still her new hat. She took it from the bed and put it on, +sticking big pins into it, moving back from the mirror, then forward +again, turning her back, standing on her toes, suddenly bowing to +herself and waving her hand. +</P> + +<P> +She was caught thus, laughing into the mirror, by old Martha, who +pushed her sour face through the door and said: "They've been waiting +this long time for you, Miss." +</P> + +<P> +"All right, Martha," Maggie answered sharply, annoyed that she should +be found, posturing and bowing, by the woman. "Why didn't you knock?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did knock, Miss. You were that occupied you didn't hear me." The old +woman was grinning. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie went downstairs, her heart still beating, her cheeks still +flushed. She did hope that Aunt Anne would be pleased. Aunt Anne, +although she never said anything about clothes, must, of course, notice +such things, and if she loved Maggie as Mr. Magnus said she did, then +she would "show her approval." The girl stood for a moment on the +bottom step of the staircase looking at her aunt who was waiting for +her in the little dark hall. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dear—I'm waiting," she said. +</P> + +<P> +The burning eyes of Thomas the cat watched from the deep shadows. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so sorry. I was dressing," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt said nothing more and they left the house. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, as always when she walked with Aunt Anne, was aware that they +made a strange couple, she so short and the other so tall, she with her +sturdy masculine walk, her aunt with her awkward halting movement. They +went in silence. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie longed for a word of approval; a short sentence such as "How +nice you're looking, Maggie," or "I like your dress, Maggie," or +"That's a new dress, dear—I like it," would be enough. After that +Maggie felt that she could face a multitude of wild and savage +Warlocks, that she could walk into the Warlock drawing-room with a fine +brave carriage, above all, that she would feel a sudden warm affection +for her aunt that would make all their future life together easy. +</P> + +<P> +But Aunt Anne said nothing. She looked exactly as she had looked upon +her first appearance at St. Dreots, so thin and tall, with her pale +tapering face and her eyes staring before her as though they saw +nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, as they turned up into Garrick Street, said: +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you like my new dress, aunt." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne turned to her for a moment, smiled gently and then vaguely, +as though her mind were elsewhere, answered: +</P> + +<P> +"I liked your old dress better, dear." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's face flamed; her temper flared into her eyes. For a moment she +had wild thoughts of breaking into open rebellion. She hated her dress, +she hated London, above all, she hated Aunt Anne. That lady's happy +unconsciousness that anything had occurred drove the girl into furious +irritation. Well, it was hopeless then, Mr. Magnus could say what he +pleased, her aunt did not care for her—she would not mind did she fall +dead in the street before her. The words in Maggie's mind were: "You +don't look at me. I'm not a human being to you at all. But I won't live +with you. I'll go my own way. You can't keep me if you never speak to +me nor think of me." But in some dark fashion that strange impassivity +held her. Aunt Anne had her power ... +</P> + +<P> +They climbed the dim crooked staircase behind the antiquary's wall. +They rang the Warlock bell and were admitted. Maggie did not know what +it was that she had expected, but it was certainly not the pink, warm +room of Mrs. Warlock. +</P> + +<P> +The heavy softly closing door hemmed them in, the silent carpet folded +about their steps; the canary twittered, the fire spurted and crackled. +But at once the girl's heart went out to old Mrs. Warlock; she looked +so charming in her white cap and blue bow, her eyes were raised so +gently to Maggie's face and her little hand was so soft and warm. +</P> + +<P> +The meeting between Anne Cardinal and Mrs. Warlock was very gracious. +Aunt Anne gravely pressed the old lady's hand, looked at her with her +grave distant eyes, then very carefully and delicately sat down. +</P> + +<P> +Amy Warlock came in; Maggie had met her before and disliked her. +Conversation dealt decently and carefully with the weather, the canary +and Maggie's discovery of London. Maggie was compelled to confess that +she was afraid that she had not discovered London at all. She felt Amy +Warlock's sharp eyes upon them all and, as always when she was in +company that was, she thought, suspicious of her, she became hot and +uncomfortable, she frowned and spoke in short, almost hostile, +sentences. +</P> + +<P> +"They're laughing at my new clothes," she thought, "I wish I'd worn my +old ones ... and anyway these hurt me." She sat up very stiffly, her +hands on her lap, her eyes staring at the little bright water-colour on +the wall opposite. Mrs. Warlock, like a trickling, dancing brook, +continued her talk: +</P> + +<P> +"Of course there's the country. I was brought up as a girl just outside +Salisbury ... So many, many years ago—I always tell my boy that I'm +such an old woman now that I don't belong to his world at all. Just to +sit here and see the younger generation go past. Don't regret your +youth, Miss Cardinal. You'll want it back again one day. I said to +Martin only yesterday ..." +</P> + +<P> +Neither Aunt Anne nor Amy Warlock had anything to say, so that quite +suddenly on the entrance of tea, conversation dropped. They all sat +there and looked at one another. There was a large silver tray with +silver tea-things upon it and a fat swelling china dish that held hot +buttered toast. There was a standing wicker pyramid containing bread +and butter, plates of little yellow and red cakes, shortbread and very +heavy plum cake black with currants. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Warlock had ceased all conversation, her eyes were fixed upon the +preparations for tea. The door opened and John Warlock and his son came +in. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's eyes lighted when she saw Martin Warlock. She behaved as she +might have done had she been in her own room at St. Dreots. She sprang +up from her chair and stood there, smiling, waiting for him. First his +father shook hands with her, then Martin came and stood beside her, +laughing. +</P> + +<P> +His face was flushed and he seemed excited about something, but she +felt nothing save her pleasure at meeting him, and it was only when he +had moved on to her aunt that she was conscious once more of Amy +Warlock's eyes, and wondered whether she had behaved badly in jumping +up to meet him. +</P> + +<P> +As she considered this her anger and her confusion at her anger +increased. She saw that Martin was talking to her aunt and did not look +at her. Perhaps he also had thought her forward; of course that horrid +sister of his would think everything that she did wrong. But did he? +Surely he understood. She wanted to ask him and then wanted to go home +and leave them all. She saw that her teacup was trembling in her hand. +She steadied it upon her knee and then her knee began to quiver, and +all the time Amy Warlock watched her. She thought then that she must +assert herself and show that she was not confused nor timid, so she +began in a high-strained voice to talk to Mrs. Warlock. She told Mrs. +Warlock that she found Harrods' a confusing place, that she had not yet +visited Westminster Abbey, that her health was quite good, that she had +no brothers and no sisters, that she could not play the piano, and that +she was afraid that she never read books. +</P> + +<P> +It was after the last of these interesting statements that she was +suddenly aware of the sound of her own voice, as though it had been a +brazen gong beating stridently in the vastness of a deserted Cathedral. +She saw the old lady take two pieces of buttered toast from the china +dish, hold them tenderly in her hand and fling them a swift, bird-like +glance before she devoured them; during that moment's vision Maggie +discovered what so many people of vaster experience both of life and of +Mrs. Warlock had never discovered; namely, that the old lady cared more +for her food than her company. Maggie was suddenly less afraid of the +whole family. She looked up then at Martin as though she thus would +prove her new courage and, he glancing across at the same moment, they +smiled. He left his father's side and, coming over to her, sat down +close to her. He dropped his voice in speaking to her. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been wanting to see you," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" she asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he answered, smiling at her as though he wanted to tell her +something privately. "I feel as though we'd got a lot to tell one +another ... I'm a stranger here really quite as much as you." +</P> + +<P> +"No, you're not," she said. "You can't be so MUCH a stranger anywhere +because you've been all over the world and are ready for anything." +</P> + +<P> +"And you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't seem to manage the simplest things. Aunt Elizabeth and I get +lost the moment we move outside the door ... Do you like my dress?" she +asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why!" he said, obviously startled by such a question. "It's—it's +splendid!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you know it isn't," she answered quickly, dropping her voice into +a confidential statement. "It's all wrong. I thought you'd know why as +you've been everywhere. Caroline Smith helped me to choose it, and it +looked all right until I wore it. It's me ... I'm hopeless to fit. +Caroline says so. I don't care about clothes—if only I looked just +like anybody else I'd never bother again—but it's so tiresome to have +taken so much trouble and then for it to be all wrong." +</P> + +<P> +Martin was then aware of many things—that this was a strange unusual +girl, that she reassured him as to her interest, her vitality, her +sincerity as no girl had ever done before, that his sister was aware of +their intimate conversation and that she resented it, and that he must +see this girl again and as soon as possible. He was as liable as any +young man in the world to the most sudden and most violent enthusiasms, +but they had been enthusiasms for a pretty face, for a sensual appeal, +for a sentimental moment. Here there was no prettiness, no sensuality, +no sentiment. There was something so new that he felt like Cortez upon +his peak in Darien. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right," he reassured her urgently. "It's all right. I promise +you it is. The great thing is to look yourself. And you'll never be the +least like any one else." He meant that to be the first open +declaration of his own particular discovery of her, but he was aware +that his sentence could have more than one interpretation. +Uncomfortably conscious then of his sister's regard of them, he looked +up and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Amy, Miss Cardinal's been telling me how confusing London is to her. +You've got as good an idea of London as any one in the world. You +should take her to one or two places and show her things." +</P> + +<P> +Amy Warlock, every line of her stiff body firing at them both her +hostility, answered: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't think Miss Cardinal would care for me as a guide. <I>I</I> +shouldn't be able to show her interesting things. We have scarcely, I +should fancy, enough in common. Miss Cardinal's interests are, I +imagine, very different from my own." +</P> + +<P> +The tone, the words, fell into the sudden silence like a lighted match +into water. Maggie, her head erect, her voice, in spite of herself, +trembling a little, answered: +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Miss Warlock, I shouldn't think of troubling you. It's very kind +of your brother, but one must make one's discoveries for oneself, +mustn't one? ... I am already beginning to find my way about." +</P> + +<P> +After that the tea-party fell into complete disruption. Maggie, +although she did not look, could feel Martin's anger like a flame +beside her. She was aware that Aunt Anne and Mr. Warlock were, like +some beings from another world, distant from the general confusion. Her +one passionate desire was to get up and leave the place; to her intense +relief she heard Aunt Anne's clear voice: +</P> + +<P> +"I think, Mrs. Warlock, we must be turning homewards. Shall I send you +those papers about the Perteway's Mission? ... Such splendid work. I +think it would interest you." +</P> + +<P> +It was as though a hole had suddenly opened in the floor of the neat +little drawing-room and they were all hurrying to leave without, if +possible, tumbling into it. There was a general shaking of hands. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Warlock said kindly to Maggie: +</P> + +<P> +"Do come soon again, dear. It does an old lady good to see young faces." +</P> + +<P> +Martin was near the door. He almost crushed Maggie's hand in his: "I +must see you—soon," he whispered. +</P> + +<P> +Free from the house Maggie and her aunt walked home in complete +silence. Maggie's heart was a confusion of rage, surprise, loneliness +and pride. No one had ever behaved like that to her before. And what +had she done? What was there about her that people hated? ... Why? ... +Why? She felt as though, in some way, it had all been Aunt Anne's +fault. Why did not Aunt Anne speak? Well, if they all hated her she +would go on her own way. She did not care. +</P> + +<P> +But alone in her room, her face, indignant, proud, quivering, +surprising her in the long mirror by its strangeness, and causing her +to feel, because it did not seem to belong to her, more lonely than +ever, she burst out: +</P> + +<P> +"I can't stand it. I CAN'T stand it. I'll get away ... so soon as ever +I can!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0203"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MAGGIE AND MARTIN +</H3> + +<P> +That moment in her bedroom altered for Maggie the course of all her +future life. She had never before been, consciously, a rebel; she had, +only a week before, almost acquiesced in the thought that she would +remain in her aunts' house for the rest of her days; now Mr. Magnus, +the Warlocks, and her new dress had combined to fire her determination. +She saw, quite suddenly, that she must escape at the first possible +moment. +</P> + +<P> +The house that had been until now the refuge into which she had escaped +became the jumping-off place for her new adventure. +</P> + +<P> +Until now the things in the house had been there to receive her as one +of themselves; from this moment they were there to prevent, if +possible, her release. She felt everything instantly hostile. They +all—Thomas the cat, Edward the parrot, the very sofas and chairs and +cushions—were determined not to let her go. +</P> + +<P> +She saw, more than ever before, that her aunts were preparing some +religious trap for her. They were very quiet about it; they did not +urge her or bully her, but the subtle, silent influence went on so that +the very stair-carpet, the very scuttles that held the coal, became +secret messengers to hale her into the chapel and shut her in there for +ever. After her first visit there the chapel became a nightmare to +her—because, at once, she had felt its power. She had known—she had +always known and it had not needed Mr. Magnus to tell her—that there +was something in this religion—yes, even in the wretched dirt and +disorder of her father's soul—but with that realisation that there was +indeed something, had come also the resolved conviction that life could +not be happy, simple, successful unless one broke from that power +utterly, refused its dictates, gave no hearing to its messages, +surrendered nothing—absolutely nothing—to its influence. Had not some +one said to her once, or was it not in her little red A Kempis, that +"once caught one might never escape again"? +</P> + +<P> +She would prove that, in her own struggle and independence, to be +untrue. The chapel should not have her, nor her father's ghost, nor the +dim half-visualised thoughts and memories that rose like dark shadows +in her soul and vanished again. She would believe in nothing save what +she could see, listen to nothing that was not clear and simple before +her. She was mistress of her own soul. +</P> + +<P> +She did not, in this fashion, think things out for herself. To herself +she simply expressed it that she was going to lead her own life, to +earn her own living, to fight for herself; and that the sooner she +escaped this gloomy, damp, and ill-tempered house the better. She would +never say her prayers again; she would never read the Bible again to +herself or any one else; she would never kneel on those hard chapel +kneelers again; she would never listen to Mr. Warlock's sermons +again—once she had escaped. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile she said nothing at all to herself about Martin Warlock, who +was really at the root of the whole matter. +</P> + +<P> +She began at once to take steps. Two years before this a lady had paid, +with her sister, a short visit to St. Dreots and had taken a great +liking to Maggie. They had made friends, and this lady, a Miss +Katherine Trenchard, had begged Maggie to let her know if she came to +London and needed help or advice. Miss Trenchard divided her life +between London and a place called Garth in Roselands in Glebeshire, and +Maggie did not know where she would be now—but, after some little +hesitation, she wrote a letter, speaking of the death of her father and +of her desire to find some work in London, and directed it to Garth. +</P> + +<P> +Now of course she must post it herself—no allowing it to lie on the +hall-table with old Martha to finger it and the aunts to speculate upon +it and finally challenge her with its destiny. +</P> + +<P> +On a bright evening when the house was as dark as a shut box and an +early star, frightened at its irregular and lonely appearance, suddenly +flashed like a curl of a golden whip across the sky, Maggie slipped out +of the house. She realised, with a triumphant and determined nod of her +head, that she had never been out alone in London before—a ridiculous +and shameful fact! She knew that there was a pillar-box just round the +corner, but because she had a hat upon her head and shoes upon her feet +she thought that she might as well post it in the Strand, an EXCITING +river of tempestuous sound into which she had as yet scarcely +penetrated. She slipped out of the front door, then waited a moment, +looking back at the silent house. No one stirred in their street; the +noise of the Strand came up to her like wind beyond a valley. She must +have felt, in that instant, that she was making some plunge into +hazardous waters and she must have hesitated as to whether she would +not spring back into the quiet house, lock and bolt the door, and never +go out again. But, after that one glance, she went forward. +</P> + +<P> +She had never before in her life been on any errand alone, and at this +evening hour the Strand was very full. She stood still clinging to the +safe privacy of her own street and peering over into the blaze and +quiver of the tumult. In the Strand end of her own street there were +several dramatic agencies, a second-hand book and print shop with piles +of dirty music in the barrow outside the window, a little restaurant +with cold beef, an ancient chicken, hard-boiled eggs and sponge cakes +under glass domes in the window; everywhere about her were dim doors, +glimpses of twisting stairs, dusty windows and figures flitting up and +down, in and out as though they were marionettes pulled by invisible +strings to fulfil some figure. +</P> + +<P> +These were all in the dusk of the side-street; a large draper's with +shirts and collars and grinning wax boys in sailor suits caught with +its front windows the Strand lamps. It was beside the shop that Maggie +stood for an instant hesitating. She could see no pillar-box; she could +see nothing save the streams of human beings, slipping like water +between the banks of houses. +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated, clinging to the draper's shop; then, suddenly catching +sight of the pillar-box a few yards down the street, she let herself +go, had a momentary sensation of swimming in a sea desperately crowded +with other bodies, fought against the fierce gaze of lights that beat +straight upon her eyes, found the box, slipped in the letter, and then, +almost at once, was back in her quiet quarters again. +</P> + +<P> +She turned and, her heart beating, hurried home. The house door was +still ajar. She pushed it back, slipped inside, caught her breath and +listened. Then she closed the door softly behind her, and with that +little act of attempted secrecy realised that she was now a rebel, that +things could never be, for her, the same again as they had been a +quarter of an hour ago. That glittering crowd, the lamps, the smells, +the sounds, had concentrated themselves into a little fiery charm that +held her heart within a flaming circle. She felt the most audacious +creature in the world—and also the most ignorant. Not helpless—no, +never helpless—but so ignorant that all her life that had seemed to +her, a quarter of an hour ago, so tensely crowded with events and +crises was now empty and barren like the old straw-smelling cab at +home. She did not want to offend her aunts and hurt their feelings, but +she was a living, breathing, independent creature and she must go her +own way. Neither they nor their chapel should stop her—no, not the +chapel nor any one in it. +</P> + +<P> +She was standing, motionless, in the dark cold hall, wondering whether +any one had heard her enter, when she was suddenly conscious of two +eyes that watched her—two steady fiery eyes suspended as it seemed in +mid air. She realised that it was the cat. The cat hated her and she +hated it. She had not realised that before, but now with the +illumination of the lighted street behind her she realised it. The cat +was the spirit of the chapel watching her, spying upon her to see that +she did not escape. The cat knew that she had posted her letter and to +whom she had posted it. She advanced to the bottom of the stair and +said: "Brr. You horrid thing! I hate you!" and instantly the two fiery +eyes had vanished, but now in their place the whole house seemed to be +watching, so silent and attentive was it—and the odour of damp +biscuits and wet umbrellas seemed to be everywhere. +</P> + +<P> +Just then old Martha came out with a lamp in her hand, and standing +upon a chair, lit the great ugly gas over the middle of the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Miss Maggie," she said in her soft, surprised whisper, looking as +she always did, beyond the girl, into darkness. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been out," said Maggie, defiantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Not all alone, miss?" +</P> + +<P> +"All alone," said Maggie. "Why not? I can look after myself." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there's your uncle waiting in the drawing-room—just come," said +the old woman, climbing down from the chair with that silent +imperturbable discontent that always frightened Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Mathew! Here! in this house!" Maggie, even in the moment of her +first astonishment, was amazed at her own delight. That she should ever +feel THAT about Uncle Mathew! Truly it showed how unhappy she had been, +and she ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and pushed back the +drawing-room door. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Mathew!" she cried. +</P> + +<P> +Then at the sight of him she stood where she was. The man who faced +her, with all his old confusion of nervousness and uneasy geniality, +was, indeed, Uncle Mathew, but Uncle Mathew glorified, shabbily +glorified and at the same time a little abashed as though she had +caught him in the act of laying a mine that would blow up the whole +house. He was wearing finer clothes than she had ever seen him in +before—a frock coat, quite new but fitting him badly, so that it was +buttoned too tightly across his stomach and loose across the back. He +had a white flower in his button-hole, and a rather soiled white +handkerchief protruded from his breast-pocket. One leg of his dark grey +trousers had been creased in two places, and there were little spots of +blood on his high white collar because he had cut himself shaving. His +complexion was of the same old suppressed purple, but his little eyes +were bright and shining and active; they danced towards Maggie. His +scanty locks had been carefully brushed over his bald head, and his +hands, although they were still puffed and swollen, were whiter than +Maggie had ever seen them. +</P> + +<P> +But it was in the end his attitude of confused defiance that made her +pause. What had he been doing, or what did he intend to do? He was +prosperous, she could see, and knowing him as she did, she was afraid +of his prosperity. She had never in her life realised so clearly as she +did now that he was a wicked old man—and still she was glad to see +him. He was an odd enough creature in that room, and that, she was +aware, pleased her. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my dear," he said very genially, as though they met again after +an hour's parting, "how are you? I'm very glad to see you—looking so +well too. And quite smart. Your aunts dressed you up. I thought I must +look at you. I'm staying just round the corner, and my first thought +was 'I wonder how she's getting on in all that tom-foolery. You bet +she's keeping her head.' And so you are. One can see at a glance." +</P> + +<P> +She went up to him, kissed him, and smelt whisky and some scent that +had geraniums in it. He put his arm round her, with his old unsteady +gesture, and held her to him for a moment, then patted her back with +his large, soft hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Your aunt's a long time. I've been waiting half an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"They've been to some meeting." She stood looking at him with her fine +steady gaze that had always made him afraid of her, and did so, to his +own surprise, again now. He had thought that his clothes would have +saved him from that; his fingers felt at his button-hole. Looking at +him she said: +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle, I want to get away—out of this—at once. No, they aren't +horrid to me. Every one's been very kind. But I'm afraid of it all—of +never getting out of it—and I want to be independent ..." She stopped +with a little breathless gasp because she heard the hall-door close. +"Ah, they're here! Don't tell them anything. We'll talk afterwards ..." +</P> + +<P> +His eyes glittered with satisfaction. "I knew you would, my dear. I +knew you wouldn't be able to stand it ... I'll get you out of it ... +Trust me!" +</P> + +<P> +The door opened and Aunt Anne came in. She had been prepared by Martha +for her visitor, and she came forward to him now with the dignity and +kindly patronage of some lady abbess receiving the miscreant and +boorish yokel of a neighbouring village. And yet how fine she was! As +Maggie watched her, she thought of what she would give to have some of +that self-command and dignity and decision. Was it her religion that +gave her that? Or only her own self-satisfaction? No; there was +something behind Aunt Anne, something stronger than she, something that +Mr. Warlock also knew ... and it was this something that Uncle Mathew +met with his own hostility as he looked up now at his sister and +greeted her: +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mathew! You never told us. I would have hurried back, and now +Elizabeth, I'm afraid, has gone on to see some friends. She will be so +disappointed. But at least you've had Maggie to entertain you." +</P> + +<P> +A quick glance was exchanged between uncle and niece. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said, "we've had a talk, Anne, thank you. And it doesn't +matter about Elizabeth, because I'm staying close here in Henrietta +Street, and I'll be in again if I may. I just looked in to ask whether +Maggie might come and have dinner with me at my little place to-night. +It's a most respectable place—I'll come and fetch her, of course, and +bring her back afterwards." +</P> + +<P> +Of course Aunt Anne could not refuse, but oh! how Maggie saw that she +wanted to! The battle that followed was silent. Uncle Mathew's eyes +narrowed themselves to fiery malicious points; he dropped them and +moved his feet restlessly on the soft carpet. +</P> + +<P> +"Quite respectable!" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne smiled gently. "Why, of course, Mathew. I know you'll look +after Maggie. It will be a change for her. She's been having rather a +dull time here, I'm afraid." +</P> + +<P> +Then there was silence. Maggie wanted to speak, but the words would not +come, and she had the curious sensation that even if she did find them +no one would hear them. +</P> + +<P> +Then Uncle Mathew suddenly said good-bye, stumbled over his boots by +the door, shot out, "Seven o'clock, Maggie"—and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that will be nice for you, Maggie," said Anne, looking at her. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Maggie. "You don't mind, do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No dear, of course not." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want me to do?" Maggie broke out desperately. "I know I'm +not satisfying you and yet you won't say anything. Do tell me—and I'll +try—anything—almost anything ..." +</P> + +<P> +Then the sudden memory of her own posted letter silenced her. Was that +readiness to do "anything"? Had that not been rebellion? And had she +not asked Uncle Mathew to help her to escape? The consciousness of her +dishonesty coloured her cheek with crimson. Then Aunt Anne, very +tenderly, put her hand on her shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you really do anything—for me, Maggie—for me?" Her voice was +gentle and her eyes had tears in them. "If you will—there are things +very close to my heart—" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie turned away, trembling. She hung her head, then with a sudden +movement walked to the door. +</P> + +<P> +"You must tell me," she said, "what you want. I'll try—I don't +understand." +</P> + +<P> +Then as though she was aware that she was fighting the whole room which +had already almost entrapped her and that the fight was too much for +her, she went. +</P> + +<P> +When she came to her own room and thought about her invitation she +wished, with a sudden change of mood, that she had a pretty frock or +two. She would have loved to have been grand to-night, and now the best +that she could do was to add her coral necklace and a little gold +brooch that years ago her father had given her, to the black dress that +she was already wearing. She realised, with a strange little pang of +loneliness, that she had not had one evening's fun since her arrival in +London—no, not one—and she would not have captured to-night had Aunt +Anne been able to prevent it. +</P> + +<P> +Then as her mind returned back to her uncle she felt with a throb of +excited anticipation that perhaps after all this evening was to prove +the turning-point of her life. Her little escape into the streets, her +posting of the letter, had been followed so immediately by Uncle +Mathew's visit, and now this invitation! +</P> + +<P> +"No one can keep me if I want to go," and the old cuckoo-clock outside +seemed to tick in reply: +</P> + +<P> +"Can no one keep her if she wants to go?" +</P> + +<P> +She finished her preparations; as she fastened the coral necklace round +her neck the face of Martin Warlock was suddenly before her. He had +been perhaps at her elbow all day. +</P> + +<P> +"I like him and I think he likes me," she said to the mirror. "I've got +one friend," and her thought still further was that even if he didn't +like her he couldn't prevent her liking him. +</P> + +<P> +She went down to the drawing-room and found Uncle Mathew, alone, +waiting for her. +</P> + +<P> +"Here I am, Maggie," he said. "And let's get out of this as quick as we +can." +</P> + +<P> +"I must go and say good-night to the aunts," she said. +</P> + +<P> +She went upstairs to Aunt Anne's bedroom. Entering it was always to her +like passing into a shadowed church after the hot sunshine—the long, +thin room with high slender windows, the long hard bed, of the most +perfect whiteness and neatness, the heavy black-framed picture of "The +Ascension" over the bed, and the utter stillness broken by no sound of +clock or bell—even the fire seemed frozen into a glassy purity in the +grate. +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt was sitting, as so often Maggie found her, in a stiff-backed +chair, her hands folded on her lap, staring in front of her. Her eyes +were like the open eyes of a dead woman; it was as though, with a great +effort of almost desperate concentration, she were driving her vision +against some obstinate world of opposition, and the whole of life had +meanwhile stayed to watch the issue. +</P> + +<P> +A thin pale light from some street lamp lay, a faintly golden shadow, +across the white ceiling. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie stood by the door. +</P> + +<P> +"I've come to say good-night, aunt." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Maggie dear, is that you?" The pale oval face turned towards her. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't be very late, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hadn't I better have a key, not to bother Martha?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martha won't have gone to bed." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie felt as though her whole evening would be spoilt did she know +that Martha was waiting for her at the end of it. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but it will be such a pity—" +</P> + +<P> +"Martha will let you in, dear. Come and kiss me; I hope that you'll +enjoy yourself." +</P> + +<P> +And then the strangest thing happened. Maggie bent down. She felt a +tear upon her cheek and then the thin strong arms held her, for an +instant, in an almost threatening embrace. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, dear aunt," she said; but, outside the room, she had to +stand for a moment in the dark passage to regain her control; her heart +was beating with wild unreasoning terror. Although she had brushed her +cheek with her hand the cold touch of the tears still lingered there. +</P> + +<P> +Outside the house they were free. It looked so close and dark behind +them that Maggie shivered a little and put her arm through her uncle's. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right," he said, patting her hand. "We're going to enjoy +ourselves." +</P> + +<P> +She looked up and saw Martin Warlock facing her. The unexpected meeting +held both of them silent for a moment. To her it seemed that he had +risen out of the very stones of the pavement, at her bidding, to make +her evening wonderful. He looked so strong, so square, so solid after +the phantom imaginations of the house that she had left, that the sight +of him was a step straight into the heart of comfort and reassurance. +</P> + +<P> +"I was just coming," he said, looking at her, "to leave a note for Miss +Cardinal—from my father—" +</P> + +<P> +"She's in," Maggie said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it wasn't to bother her—only to leave the note. About some +meeting, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"We're just going out. This is my uncle—Mr. Warlock." +</P> + +<P> +The two men shook hands. +</P> + +<P> +Mathew Cardinal smiled. His eyes closed, his greeting had an urgency in +it as though he had suddenly made some discovery that gratified and +amused him. "Very glad to meet you—very glad, indeed, sir. Any friend +of my niece's. I know your father, sir; know him and admire him." +</P> + +<P> +They all turned down the street together. Uncle Mathew talked, and +then, quite suddenly, stopping under a lamp-post as though within the +circle of light his charm were stronger, he said: +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose, Mr. Warlock, you wouldn't do me the great, the extreme, +honour of dining with myself and my niece at my humble little inn +to-night? A little sudden—I hope you'll forgive the discourtesy—but +knowing your father—" +</P> + +<P> +Martin looked straight into Maggie's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, please do!" she said, her heart beating, as it seemed, against her +eyes so that she dropped them. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—" he hesitated. "It's very good of you, Mr. Cardinal—very kind. +As a matter of fact I was going to dine alone to-night—just a chop, +you know, somewhere—if it's really not inconvenient I'll be +delighted—" +</P> + +<P> +They walked on together. +</P> + +<P> +As they passed into Garrick Street, she knew that she had never in all +her life been so glad to be with any one, that she had never so +completely trusted any one, that she would like to be with him often, +to look after him, perhaps, and to be looked after by him. +</P> + +<P> +Her feeling for him was almost sexless, because she had never thought, +as most girls do, of love and the intrigue and coquetry of love. She +was so simple as to be shameless, and at once, if he had asked her then +in the street to marry him she would have said yes without hesitation +or fear, or any analysis. She would like to look after him as well as +herself—there were things she was sure that she could do for him—and +she would be no burden to him because she intended, in any case, to +lead her own life. She would simply lead it with a companion instead of +without one. +</P> + +<P> +He must have felt as he walked with her this trust and simplicity. She +was certainly the most extraordinary girl whom he had ever met, and +he'd met a number ... +</P> + +<P> +He could believe every word she said; he had never known any one so +direct and simple and honest, and yet with that she was not a fool, as +most honest girls were. No, she was not a fool. He would have given +anything to be as sure of himself ... +</P> + +<P> +She was plain—but then was she? As they passed beneath the light of a +street lamp his heart gave a sudden beat. Her face was so GOOD, her +eyes so true, her mouth so strong. She was like a boy, rather—and, of +course, she was dressed badly. But he wanted to look after her. He was +sure that she knew so little of the world and would be so easily +deceived ...But who was he to look after any one? +</P> + +<P> +He knew that she would trust him utterly, and trust him not only +because she was ignorant of the world, but also because she was herself +so true. At the thought of this trust his heart suddenly warmed, partly +with shame and partly with pride. +</P> + +<P> +They walked very happily along laughing and talking. They turned into +Henrietta Street, misty with lamps that were dim in a thin evening fog, +and at the corner of the street, facing the Square, was Uncle Mathew's +hotel. It was a place for the use, in the main, of commercial +gentlemen, and it was said by eager searchers after local colour, to +have retained a great deal of the Dickens spirit. In the hall there was +a stout gentleman with a red nose, a soiled waiter, a desolate palm and +a large-bosomed lady all rings and black silk, in a kind of wooden +cage. Down the stairs came a dim vapour that smelt of beef, whisky and +tobacco, and in the distance was the regular click of billiard-balls +and the brazen muffled tones of a gramophone. Uncle Mathew seemed +perfectly at home here, and it was strange to Maggie that he should be +so nervous with Aunt Anne, his own sister, when he could be so happily +familiar with the powdered lady in the black silk. +</P> + +<P> +"We're to have dinner in a private room upstairs," said Uncle Mathew in +a voice that was casual and at the same time important. He led the way +up the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had read in some old bound volume at home a very gruesome +account of the "Life and Misdeeds of Mr. Palmer, the Rugeley Poisoner." +The impression that still remained with her was of a man standing in +the shadowy hall of just such an hotel as this, and pouring poison into +a glass which he held up against the light. This picture had been +vividly with her during her childhood, and she felt that this must have +been the very hotel where those fearful deeds occurred, and that the +ghost of Mr. Palmer's friend must, at this very moment, be writhing in +an upstairs bedroom—"writhing," as she so fearfully remembered, bent +"like a hoop." +</P> + +<P> +However, these reminiscences did not in the least terrify her; she +welcomed their definite outlines in contrast with the shadowy +possibilities of her aunts' house. And she had Martin Warlock ... She +had never been so happy in all her life. +</P> + +<P> +A dismal little waiter with a very soiled shirt and a black tie under +his ear, guided them down into a dark passage and flung open the door +of a sitting-room. This room was dark and sizzling with strange noises; +a gas-jet burning low was hissing, some papers rustled in the breeze +from the half-opened window, and a fire, overburdened with the weight +of black coal, made frantic little spurts of resistance. +</P> + +<P> +A white cloth was laid on the table, and there were glasses and knives +and forks. A highly-coloured portrait of her late Majesty Queen +Victoria confronted a long-legged horse desperately winning a race in +which he had apparently no competitors. There was a wall-paper of +imitation marble and a broken-down book-case with some torn paper +editions languishing upon it. Beyond the open window there was a purple +haze and a yellow mist—also a bell rang and carts rattled over the +cobbles. The waiter shut out these sights and sounds, gave the +tablecloth a stroke with his dirty hand, and left the room. +</P> + +<P> +They continued their cheerful conversation, Martin laughing at nothing +at all, and Maggie smiling, and Uncle Mathew stroking his mouth and +sharpening his eyes and standing, in his uneasy fashion, first on one +leg and then on the other. Maggie realised that her uncle was trying to +be most especially pleasant to young Warlock. She wondered why; she +also remembered what he had said to her about Martin's father ... No, +he had changed. She could not follow his motives as she had once been +able to do. Then he had simply been a foolish, drunken, but +kindly-intentioned old man. +</P> + +<P> +Then Mr. Warlock on his side seemed to like her uncle. That was an +extraordinary thing. Or was he only being friendly because he was +happy? No, she remembered his face as he had joined them that evening. +He had not been happy then. She liked him the more because she knew +that he needed help ... The meal, produced at last by the poor little +waiter, was very merry. The food was not wonderful—the thick pea-soup +was cold, the sole bones and skin, the roast beef tepid and the +apple-tart heavy. The men drank whiskies and sodas, and Maggie noticed +that her uncle drank very little. And then (with apologies to Maggie) +they smoked cigars, and she sat before the dismal fire in an old +armchair with a hole in it. +</P> + +<P> +Martin Warlock talked in a most delightful way about his travels, and +Uncle Mathew asked him questions that were not, after all, so stupid. +What had happened to him? Had Maggie always undervalued him, or was it +that he was sober now and clear-headed? His fat round thighs seemed +stronger, his hands seemed cleaner, the veins in his face were not so +purple. She remembered the night when he had come into her room. She +had been able to manage him then. Would she be able to manage him now? +</P> + +<P> +After dinner he grew very restless. His eyes wandered to the door, then +to his watch, then to his companions; he smiled uneasily, pulling his +moustache; then—jumping to his feet, tried to speak with an easy +self-confidence. +</P> + +<P> +"I must leave you for a quarter of an hour ... A matter of business, +only in this hotel. Downstairs. Yes. A friend of mine and a little +matter. Urgent. I'm sure you'll forgive me." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Maggie was frightened. She was here in a strange hotel in +a strange room with a man whom she scarcely knew. Then she looked up +into young Warlock's face and was reassured. She could trust him. +</P> + +<P> +He stood with his arm on the shabby, dusty mantelpiece, looking down +upon her with his good-natured kindly smile, so kindly that she felt +that he was younger than she and needed protection in a world that was +filled with designing Uncle Mathews and mysterious Aunt Annes and +horrible Miss Warlocks. +</P> + +<P> +He, on his side, as he looked down at her, was surprised at his own +excitement. His heart was beating, his hand trembling—before this +plain, ordinary, unattractive girl! Unattractive physically—but not +uninteresting. One of the most interesting human beings whom he had +ever met, simply because she was utterly unlike any one else. He felt +shame before her, because he knew that she would believe every word +that he said. In that she was simple, but "he would be bothered if she +was simple in anything else." She had made up her mind—he knew it as +well as though she had told him—to trust him absolutely, and he knew +well enough how little he was to be trusted. And because of that faith +and because of that trust he felt that she was more reliable than he +could have believed that changing fickle human being would ever be. How +secure he might feel with her! +</P> + +<P> +Then, as he thought that, he realised how troubled he was about his +life at home during the last weeks. Amy hated him, his mother hid +herself from him, and his father's love frightened him. Already he had +found himself telling lies to avoid the chapel services and the +meetings with Thurston and the rest. His father's love for him had +something terrible in it, and, although he returned it, he could not +live up to that fire and heat. +</P> + +<P> +No; he saw that he would not be able to remain for long at home. On the +other hand, go back to the old wandering life he would not. He had had +enough of that and its rotten carelessness and shabbiness. What a girl +this would be to settle down with somewhere! So strange that she would +be always interesting, so faithful that she would be always there! Nor +was he entirely selfish. Her childishness, her ignorance, appealed to +him for protection. She had no one but those old aunts to care for her, +she was poor and rebellious and ignorant. Warlock was kind-hearted +beyond the normal charity of man—much of his weakness came from that +very kindness. +</P> + +<P> +As he saw which way he was going he tried to pull himself back. He +could not protect her—he had the best of reasons for knowing why. He +could do her nothing but harm ... and yet he went on. +</P> + +<P> +He took a chair close to her and sat down. He, who had known in his +time many women, could see how happy she was. That happiness excited +him. Suddenly he held her hand. She did not remove it. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here," he began, and he was surprised at the hoarseness of his +voice, "your uncle will be back in a moment, and we never have a chance +of being alone. I've wanted to talk to you ever since I first saw you." +</P> + +<P> +He felt her hand move in his. That stir was so helpless that he +suddenly determined to be honest. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you'll trust me, won't you?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you mustn't," he went on hurriedly, his eyes on the door. "I'm +not worse, I suppose, than other men, but all the same I'm not to be +trusted. And when I say I'm not to be trusted I mean that I myself +don't know whether I'll keep my word from one minute to another. I'm +sure you don't know very much about men. I could see it at once from +the way you spoke." +</P> + +<P> +She looked up, her clear, unconfused, unquestioning eyes facing him. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew my father well," she said. "We were quite alone for years +together. And then Uncle Mathew—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, your father, your uncle," he answered quickly. "They don't count. +What I mean is that you mustn't think men are scoundrels just because +they act badly. I swear that nine out of ten of them never mean to do +any harm." +</P> + +<P> +"And they think they're speaking the truth at the time. But anything +'does' for them and then they're in a mess, and all they think about is +how to get out of it. Then it's every man for himself ..." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"I've always known that I'd have to manage for myself," she said. "I've +never expected any one to do anything for me, so I'm not likely to be +disappointed now." +</P> + +<P> +He moved a little closer to her and held her hand more firmly; even as +he did so something in his heart reproached him, but now the reproach +was very far away, like an echo of some earlier voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know you're a wonderful girl?" he said. "I knew you were from +the first moment I saw you. You're the most independent person I've +ever known. You can't guess how I admire that! And all the same you're +not happy, are you? You want to get out of it, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +She thought for a little while before she nodded her head. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose as a fact." she said, "I do. If you want to know—and you +mustn't tell anybody—I've posted a letter to a lady whom I met once +who told me if ever I wanted anything to write to her. I've asked her +for some work. I've got three hundred pounds of my own. It isn't very +much, I know, but I could start on it ... I don't want to do wrong to +my aunts, who are very kind to me, but I'm not happy there. It wouldn't +be true to say I'm happy. You see," she dropped her voice a little, +"they want to make me religious, and I've had so much of that with +father already. I feel as though they were pressing me into it somehow, +and that I should wake up one morning and find I should never escape +again. There's so much goes on that I don't understand. And it isn't +only the chapel. Aunt Anne's very quiet, but she makes you feel quite +helpless sometimes. And perhaps one will get more and more helpless the +longer one stays. I don't want to be helpless ever—nor religious!" she +ended. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's just my position," he continued eagerly. "I came home as +happily as anything. I'd almost forgotten all that had been when I was +a boy, how I was baptized and thought I belonged to God and was so +proud and stuck up. That all seems nonsense when you're roughing it +with other men who think about nothing but the day's work. Then I came +home meaning to settle down. I wanted to see my governor too. I've +always cared for him more than any one else in the world ... but I tell +you now I simply don't know what's going on at home. They want to catch +me in a trap. That's what it feels like. To make me what I was as a +kid. It's strange, but there's more in it than you'd think. You +wouldn't believe the number of times I've thought of my young days +since I've been home. It's as though some one was always shoving them +up in front of my face. All I want, you know, is to be jolly. To let +other people alone and be let alone myself. I wouldn't do any one any +harm in the world—I wouldn't really. But it's as though father wanted +me to believe all the things he believes, so that he could believe them +more himself. Perhaps it's the same with your aunt ..." Then he added, +"But they're sick people. That explains a lot." +</P> + +<P> +"Sick?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. My governor's got heart—awfully bad. He might go off at any +moment if he had a shock. And your aunt—don't you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Cancer. They all say so. I thought you'd have known." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" Maggie drew in her breath. She shuddered. "Poor Aunt Anne! Oh, +poor Aunt Anne! I didn't know." +</P> + +<P> +She felt a sudden rush of confused emotion. A love for her aunt, desire +to help her, and at the same time shrinking as though she saw the whole +house which had been, from the first, unhappy to her was now diseased +and evil and rotten. The hot life in her body told her against her +moral will that she must escape, and her soul, moving in her and +speaking to her, told her that now, more than ever, she must stay. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, poor, poor Aunt Anne," she said again. +</P> + +<P> +He moved and put his arm around her. He had meant it simply as a +movement of sympathy and protection, but when he felt the warmth of her +body against his, when he realised how she went to him at once with the +confidence and simplicity of a child, when he felt the hot irregular +beat of her heart, his own heart leapt, his arm was strengthened like a +barrier of iron against the world. +</P> + +<P> +He had one moment of desperate resistance, a voice of protest calling +to him far, far away. His hand touched her neck; he raised her face to +his and kissed her, once gently, kindly, then, passionately again and +again. +</P> + +<P> +She shivered a little, as though surrendering something to him, then +lay quite still in his arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie! Maggie!" he whispered. +</P> + +<P> +Then she raised her head and herself kissed him. +</P> + +<P> +There was a noise on the door. They separated; the door opened and in +the sudden light a figure was visible holding a glass. +</P> + +<P> +For a blind instant Maggie, returning from her other world, thought it +the figure of Mr. Palmer of Rugeley. +</P> + +<P> +It was, of course, Uncle Mathew. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0204"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MR. CRASHAW +</H3> + +<P> +Uncle Mathew saw Maggie back to her door, kissed her and left her. On +their way home he did not once mention Martin Warlock to her. +</P> + +<P> +He left her as he heard the bolt turn in the door, hurrying away as +though he did not want to be seen. Maggie went in to find old Martha +with her crabbed face watching her sourly. But she did not care, +nothing could touch her now. Even the old woman, cross with waiting by +the fading kitchen fire, noticed the light in the girl's eyes. She had +always thought the girl hard and ungracious, but now that face was +soft, and the mouth smiling over its secret thoughts, and the eyes +sleepy with happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie could have said: "I'm wild with joy, Martha. I know what love +is. I had never thought that it could be like this. Be kind to me +because it's the greatest night of my life." +</P> + +<P> +Martha said: "There's some milk hotted for you, Miss, and some +biscuits. There on the table by the stairs." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't want anything, Martha, thank you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Your aunt said you was to have it." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie drank it down, Martha watching her. Then she went upstairs +softly, as though her joy might awaken the whole house. She lay +wide-eyed on her bed for hours, then fell into a heavy sleep, deep, +without dreams. +</P> + +<P> +When, in the quieter light of the morning, she considered the event, +she had no doubts nor hesitations. She loved Martin and Martin loved +her. Soon Martin would marry her and they would go away. Her aunt would +be sorry of course, and his father, perhaps, would be angry, but the +sorrow and anger would be only for a little while. Then Martin and she +would live happily together always—happily because they were both +sensible people, and her own standard of fidelity and trust was, she +supposed, also his. She did not think very deeply about what he had +said to her; it only meant that he wanted to escape from his family, a +desire in which she could completely sympathise. She had loved him, as +she now saw, from the first moment of meeting, and she would love him +always. She would never be alone again, and although Martin had told +her that he was weak, and she knew something about men, she was aware +that their love for one another would be a thing apart, constant, +unfaltering, eternal. She had read no modern fiction; she knew nothing +about psychology: she was absolutely happy ... +</P> + +<P> +And then in that very first day she discovered that life was not quite +so simple. In the first place, she wanted Martin desperately and he did +not come; and although she had at once a thousand sensible reasons for +the impossibility of his coming, nevertheless strange new troubles and +suspicions that she had never known before rose in her heart. She had +only kissed him once; he had only held her in his arms for a few +moments ...She waited, looking from behind the drawing-room curtains +out into the street. How could he let the whole day go by? He was +prevented, perhaps, by that horrible sister of his. When the dusk came +and the muffin-man went ringing his bell down the street she felt +exhausted as though she had been running for miles ... +</P> + +<P> +Then with sudden guilty realisation of the absorption that had held her +all day she wondered how much her aunt had noticed. +</P> + +<P> +During the afternoon when she had been watching the streets from behind +the curtain Aunt Elizabeth had sat sewing, Thomas the cat lumped before +the fire, the whole room bathed in afternoon silence. Maggie had +watched as though hypnotized by the street itself, marking the long +squares of light, the pools of shadow, the lamp-posts, the public-house +at the corner, the little grocer's shop with cases of oranges piled +outside the door, the windows on the second floor of the dressmaker's, +through which you could see a dummy-figure and a young woman with a +pale face and shiny black hair, who came and glanced out once and +again, as though to reassure herself that the gay world was still there. +</P> + +<P> +The people, the horses and carts, the cabs went on their way. Often it +seemed that this figure must be Martin's—now this—now this ... And on +every occasion Maggie's heart rose in her breast, hammered at her eyes, +then sank again. Over and over she told to herself every incident of +yesterday's meeting. Always it ended in that same wonderful climax when +she was caught to his breast and felt his hand at her neck and then his +mouth upon hers. She could still feel against her skin the rough warm +stuff of his coat and the soft roughness of his cheek and the stiff +roughness of his hair. She could still feel how his mouth had just +touched hers and then suddenly gripped it as though it would never let +it go; then she had been absorbed by him, into his very heart, so that +still now she felt as though with his strong arms and his hard firm +body he was around her and about her. +</P> + +<P> +Oh, she loved him! she loved him! but why did he not come? Had he been +able only to pass down the street and smile up to her window as he went +that would have been something. It would at least have reassured her +that yesterday was not a dream, an invention, and that he was still +there and thought of her and cared for her ... +</P> + +<P> +She pulled herself together. At the sound of the muffin-man's bell she +came back into her proper world. She would be patient; as she had once +resolved outside Borhedden Farm, so now she swore that she would owe +nothing to any man. +</P> + +<P> +If she should love Martin Warlock it would not be for anything that she +expected to get from him, but only for the love that she had it in her +to give. If good came of it, well, if not, she was still her own master. +</P> + +<P> +But more than ever now was it impossible to be open with her aunts. How +strange it was that from the very beginning there had been concealments +between Aunt Anne and herself. Perhaps if they had been open to one +another at the first all would have been well. Now it was too late. +</P> + +<P> +Tea came in, and, with tea, Aunt Anne. It was the first time that day +that Maggie had seen her, and now, conscious of the news that Martin +had given her, she felt a movement of sympathy, of pity and affection. +Aunt Anne had been in her room all day, and she seemed as she walked +slowly to the fire to be of a finer pallor, a more slender body than +ever. Maggie felt as though she could see the firelight through her +body, and with that came also the conviction that Aunt Anne knew +everything, knew about Martin and the posted letter and the thoughts of +escape. Maggie herself was tired with the trial of her waiting day, she +was exhausted and was beating, with all her resolve, against a +disappointment that hammered with a thundering noise, somewhere far +away in the recesses of her soul. So they all drew around the fire and +had their tea. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne, leaning back in her chair, her beautiful hands stretched out +on the arms, a fine white shawl spread on her knees, asked Maggie about +last night. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you enjoyed yourself, dear." "Very much, Aunt Anne. Uncle +Mathew was very kind." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you do?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie flushed. It was deceit and lies now all the time, and oh! how +she hated lies! But she went on: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know, Aunt Anne, I think Uncle Mathew is so changed. He's +younger and everything. He talked quite differently last night, about +his business and all that he's doing. He's got his money in malt now, +he says." +</P> + +<P> +"Whose money?" asked Aunt Anne. +</P> + +<P> +"His own, he says. I never knew he had any. But he says yes, it's in +malt. It's not a nice hotel, though, where he lives." +</P> + +<P> +"Not nice, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I didn't like it. But it's only for men really of course." +</P> + +<P> +"I think he'd better take you somewhere else next time. I'll speak to +him. By the way, Maggie dear, Martha tells me you went out yesterday +afternoon all alone—into the Strand. I think it would be better if you +were to tell us." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's cheeks were hot. She set back her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"How does Martha know?" she asked quickly. "I only went for a +moment—only for a little walk. But I'm grown up, Aunt Anne. Surely I +can go out by myself if ..." she stopped, looking away from them into +the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't that, dear," Aunt Anne said very gently. "It's only that +you've been so little a time in London that you can't know your way +about yet. And London's a strange place. It might be unpleasant for you +alone. I'd rather that you told us first." +</P> + +<P> +Then Maggie delivered her challenge. +</P> + +<P> +"But, aunt, I won't be always here. I'm going off to earn my living +soon, aren't I?" +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth drew her breath in sharply. Aunt Anne said quietly: +</P> + +<P> +"You are free, dear, quite free. But whilst I am not quite myself—I +don't want to be selfish, dear—but you are a great comfort to us, and +when I am stronger certainly you shall go ... even now if you wish, of +course ... but my illness." +</P> + +<P> +Even as she spoke—and it was the first time that she had ever +mentioned her illness—she caught at her breast and pressed her hand +there as though she were in great pain. Maggie sprang to her side. She +caught the girl's hand with hers and held her. Maggie could feel her +swift agonized breathing. Then with a little sigh the moment had +passed. Maggie still knelt there looking up into her aunt's face. +</P> + +<P> +Martha's voice was heard at the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Martin Warlock, Miss. Could you see him? ..." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Martha," said Aunt Anne, her voice calm and controlled. "Ask him +to come up." +</P> + +<P> +She had abandoned so completely any idea that he might still come that +she could not now feel that it was he. She withdrew from her aunt's +side and stood in the shadow against the wall. +</P> + +<P> +Although her heart beat wildly her whole mind was bent upon composure, +upon showing nothing to her aunts, and on behaving to him as though she +scarcely knew him, but so soon as he entered the room some voice cried +in her: "He is mine! He is mine!" She did not stir from her wall, but +her eyes fastened upon him and then did not move. He was wearing the +same clothes as yesterday; his tie was different, it had been black and +now it was dark blue. He looked quiet and self-possessed and at his +ease. His rough stiff hair was carelessly brushed as always; +good-humour shone from his eyes, he smiled, his walk had the sturdy +broad strength of a man who is absolutely sure of himself but is not +conceited. He seemed to have no trouble in the world. +</P> + +<P> +He greeted the aunts, then shook hands with Maggie. He gave her one +glance and she, suddenly feeling that that glance had not the things in +it that she had wanted, was frightened, her confidence left her, she +felt that if she did not have a word alone with him she would die. +</P> + +<P> +He sat down near Aunt Anne. +</P> + +<P> +"No, thank you, I won't have any tea," he said. "We're dining very +early to-night because Father and Amy have a meeting right away over +Golders Green way somewhere. It's really on a message from him that I +came." +</P> + +<P> +He did not look at her, placed like a square shadow against the dusky +wall. He sat, leaning forward a little, his red-brown hand on his knee, +his leg bulging under the cloth of his trouser, his neck struggling +behind his collar—but his smile was pleasant and easy, he seemed +perfectly at home. +</P> + +<P> +"My father wonders whether you will mind some friends of Miss Avies +sitting with you in your pew to-morrow evening. She has especially +asked—two of them ... ladies, I believe. But it seems that there will +be something of a crowd, and as your pew is always half empty— He +would not have asked except that there seems nowhere else." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne graciously assented. +</P> + +<P> +"But, of course, Mr. Warlock, Maggie will be going with us, but still +there will be room. Mr. Crashaw is going to speak after all, I hear. I +was afraid that he would have been too ill." +</P> + +<P> +Martin laughed. "He is staying with us, you know, and already he is +preparing himself. He's about the oldest human being I've ever seen. He +must be a hundred." +</P> + +<P> +"He's a great saint," said Aunt Anne. +</P> + +<P> +"He's always in a terrible temper though," said Martin. "He mutters to +himself—and he eats nothing. His room is next to mine, and he walked +up and down all night talking. I don't know how he keeps alive." +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps Aunt Anne thought Martin's tone irreverent. She relapsed into +herself and seemed suddenly, with a spiritual wave of the hand, to have +dismissed the whole company. +</P> + +<P> +Martin took his leave. He barely touched Maggie's hand, but his eyes +leapt upon hers with all the fire of a greeting too long delayed. His +lips did not move, but she heard the whisper "Soon!" Then he was gone. +</P> + +<P> +Soon! She felt as though she could not wait another instant but must +immediately run after him, follow him into the street, and make clear +his plans both for himself and her. +</P> + +<P> +Then, continuing her struggle of the long day, she beat into herself +endurance; she was in a new world, in a world with roads and cities, +mountains, rivers, seas and forests that had to be traversed by her, to +be learnt and remembered and conquered, and for the success of this she +must have her own spirit absolutely aloof and firm and brave. She loved +him. That must be enough for her, and meanwhile she need not lose her +common sense and vision of everyday life ...But meanwhile it hurt. She +was now twice as lonely as she had been before because she did not know +what he intended to do, and always with her now there was something +strange and unknown that might at any moment be stronger than she. +</P> + +<P> +But by next morning she had conquered herself. She would see him at +Chapel that night and perhaps have a word with him, and so already she +had arrived at her now lover's calendar of dates and seasons. There was +the time before she would see him and the time after—no other time +than that. +</P> + +<P> +The trouble that weighed upon her most heavily was her deceitfulness to +the aunts. Fifty times that day she was on the edge of speaking and +telling them all, but she was held back by the vagueness of her +relations to Martin. Were they engaged? Did he even love her? He had +only kissed her. He had said nothing. No, she must wait, but with this +definite sense of her wickedness weighing upon her—not wickedness to +herself, for that she cared nothing, but wickedness to them—she tried, +on this day, to be a pattern member of the household, going softly +everywhere that she was told, closing doors behind her, being punctual +and careful. Unhappily it was a day of misfortune, it was one of Aunt +Anne's more worldly hours and she thought that she would spend it in +training Maggie. Very good—but Maggie dropped a glass into which +flowers were to have been put, she shook her pen when she was +addressing some envelopes so that some drops of ink were scattered upon +the carpet, and, in her haste to be punctual, she banged her bedroom +door so loudly that Aunt Anne was waked from her afternoon nap. +</P> + +<P> +A scene followed. Aunt Anne showed herself very human, like any other +aunt justly exasperated by any other niece. +</P> + +<P> +"I sometimes despair of you, Maggie. You will not think of others. I +don't wish to be hard or unjust, but selfishness is the name of your +greatest weakness." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, standing with her hands behind her, a spot of ink on her nose +and her short hair ruffled, was hard and unrepentant. +</P> + +<P> +"You must send me away," she said; "I'm not a success here. You don't +like me." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne looked at Maggie with eyes that were clear and cold like deep +unfriendly waters. "You mustn't say that. We love you, but you have +very much to learn. To-night I shall speak to Miss Avies and arrange +that you go to have a talk with her sometimes. She is a wise woman who +knows many things. My sister and I are not strong enough to deal with +you, and we are weakened perhaps by our love for you." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to go to-night," Maggie said, then she burst out: "Oh, +can't I lead an ordinary life like other girls—be free and find things +out for myself, not only go by what older people tell me—earn my +living and be free? I've never lived an ordinary life. Life with Father +wasn't fair, and now—" +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne put out her arm and drew her towards her. "Poor Maggie ... +Aren't you unfair to us? Do you suppose really that we don't love you? +Do you think that I don't understand? You shall be free, afterwards, if +you wish—perfectly free—but you must have the opportunity of learning +what this life is first, what the love of God is, what the +companionship of Him is. If after you have seen you still reject it, we +will not try to keep you. But it is God's will that you stay with us +for a time." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know that it is God's will?" asked Maggie, melted +nevertheless, as she always was by any sign of affection. +</P> + +<P> +"He has told me," Aunt Anne answered, and then closed her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie went away with a sensation of being tracked by some stealthy +mysterious force that was creeping ever closer and closer upon her, +that she could only feel but not see. For instance, she might have said +that she would not go to Chapel to-night, and she might have taken her +stand upon that. And yet she could not say that. Of course she must go +because she must see Martin, but even if she had known that he would +not be there she would have gone. Was it curiosity? Was it +reminiscence? Was it superstition? Was it cowardice? Was it loneliness? +All these things, perhaps, and yet something more than they ... +</P> + +<P> +All through the afternoon of the lovely November day she anticipated +that evening's services as though it were in some way to be a climax. +She knew that it was to be for all of them an especial affair. She had +heard during the last days much discussion of old Mr. Crashaw. He was +an old man with, apparently, a wonderful history of conversions behind +him. His conversions had been, it seemed, of the forcible kind, seizing +people by the neck and shoving them in; he was a fierce and militant +kind of saint; he believed, it seemed, in damnation and eternal hell +fire, and could make you believe in them too; his accent was on the +tortures rather than the triumphs of religion. +</P> + +<P> +But Maggie had other thoughts, in this, outside Mr. Crashaw. She had +never lost the force of that first meeting with Mr. Warlock; she had +avoided him simply because she was afraid lest he should influence her +too much, but now after her friendship with Martin she felt that she +could never meet old Mr. Warlock frankly again. What he would say to +her if he knew that she meant to take his son away from him she knew +well enough. On every side there was trouble and difficulty. She could +not see a friend anywhere unless it was Caroline, whom she did not +completely trust, and Mr. Magnus, whom her deception of her aunt would, +she knew, most deeply distress. Meanwhile she was being pushed forward +more and more into the especial religious atmosphere of the house, the +Chapel and the Chapel sect. Of no use to tell herself that this was +only a tiny fragment of the whole world, that there, only five yards +away from her, in the Strand, was a life that swept past the Chapel and +its worshippers with the utmost, completest indifference. She had +always this feeling that she was caught, that she could only escape by +a desperate violent effort that would hurt others and perhaps be, for +herself, a lasting reproach. She wanted so simple a thing ... to be +always with Martin, working, with all this confusing, baffling, +mysterious religion behind her; this simple thing seemed incredibly +difficult of attainment. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, when they started that evening for the Chapel she felt, +in spite of herself, a strange almost pleasurable excitement. There +was, in that plain, ugly building some force that could not be denied. +Was it the force of the worshippers' belief? Was it the force of some +outside power that watched ironically the efforts of those poor human +beings to discover it? Was it the love of a father for his children? +No, there was very little love in this creed—no more than there had +been in her father's creed before. As she walked along between her +aunts her brain was a curious jumble of religion, Martin, and how she +was ever going to learn to be tidy and punctual. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I won't care," was the resolution with which she always brought +to an end her discussions and misgivings. "I'm myself. Nobody can touch +me unless I let them." +</P> + +<P> +It was a most lovely evening, very pale and clear with an orange light +in the sky like the reflection of some far distant towering fire. The +air was still and the rumble of the town scarcely penetrated into their +street; they could hear the ugly voice of the little Chapel bell +jangling in the heart of the houses, there was a scent of +chrysanthemums from somewhere and a very faint suggestion of snow—even +before they reached the Chapel door a few flakes lazily began to fall. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was thinking now only of Martin. There was a gas-lamp already +lighted in the Chapel doorway, and this blinded her eyes. She had hoped +that he would be there, waiting, so that he might have a word with her +before they went in, but when they were all gathered together under the +porch she saw with a throb of disappointment that he was not there. She +saw no one whom she knew, but it struck her at once that here was a +gathering quite different from that of the first time that she had come +to the Chapel. There seemed to be more of the servant class; rather +they were older women with serious rapt expressions and very silent. +There were men too, to-night, four or five gathered together inside the +passage, standing gravely, without a word, not moving, like statues. +Maggie was frightened. She felt like a spy in an enemy's camp, and a +spy waiting for an inevitable detection, with no hope of securing any +news. As she went up the aisle behind her aunts her eyes searched for +Martin. She could not see him. Their seat was close to the front, and +already seated in it were the austere Miss Avies and two lady friends. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was maliciously pleased to observe that Miss Avies had not +expected these additions to her number and was now in danger of an +uncomfortable squashing; there was, indeed, a polite little struggle +between Miss Avies and Aunt Anne as to who should have the corner with +a wooden arm upon which to rest. Miss Avies' two friends, huddled and +frightened like fledglings suddenly surprised by a cuckoo, stirred +Maggie's sympathy. She disliked Miss Avies from the very first moment. +Miss Avies had a pale, thin, pointed face with no eyebrows, grey eyes +dim and short-sighted, and fair colourless hair brushed straight back +under a hard, ugly black hat. +</P> + +<P> +At the same time she was nervous, emotional, restless; something about +her was always moving—her lips, her hands, her shoulders, her eyes. +She was fierce and hostile and ineffectual, one felt, so long as she +was by herself. Maggie did not, of course, notice all this at the time, +but in after years she always looked back on the pale, thin, +highly-strung Miss Avies as the motive of most of the events that +followed this particular evening. It was as though she felt that Miss +Avies' weight, not enough in itself to effect any result, when thrown +into the balance just turned everything in one direction. It had that +result, at any rate, upon Maggie herself. +</P> + +<P> +She soon lost, however, consideration of Miss Avies in the wider +observation of the Chapel and its congregation. It was, as it had been +on the occasion of her first visit to it, stuffy, smelling of gas and +brick and painted wood, ugly in its bareness and unresponsiveness—and, +nevertheless, exciting. The interior of the building had the air of one +who has watched some most unusual happenings and expects very shortly +to watch them again. Even the harmonium seemed to prick up its wooden +ears in anticipation. And to-night the congregation thrilled also with +breathless expectation. As Maggie looked round upon them she could see +that they were throbbing with the anticipation of some almost sensuous +delight. By now they had filled the Chapel to its utmost limits, but +there was not one human being there who did not seem to have the +appearance of having been especially selected from other less +interesting human beings. It was not that the forces that surrounded +her were especially interesting, but she felt that all of them had +taken on some especial dramatic character from the occasion. Such +personalities as Aunt Anne and Miss Avies were in any case vivid and +dramatic, but to-night Aunt Elizabeth and the placidly rotund Mrs. +Smith, who was sitting in the front row with her mouth open, and simple +little Miss Pyncheon, Aunt Anne's friend, were remarkable and +exceptional. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly Maggie caught sight of Martin. He was sitting in the +extreme right next the wall; his ill-tempered sister was next to him. +Maggie could only see his head and shoulders, but she realised at once +that he had been, for a long time, trying to catch her eye. He smiled +at her an intimate peculiar smile that sent the blood flooding to her +face and made her heart beat with happiness. At the moment of her +smiling she realised that Miss Avies' dim eye was upon her. What right +had Miss Avies to watch over her? She set back her shoulders, sat up +stiffly, and tried to look as old as she might—that was not, +unhappily, very old. That smile exchanged with Martin had made her +happy for ever. Miss Avies was of less than no importance at all ... +</P> + +<P> +The little bell ceased its jangling, the harmonium began a quavering +prelude, and from a door at the back, behind the little platform and +desk, three men entered: first Mr. Thurston; then a little crooked man +who must, Maggie knew, be Mr. Crashaw; finally, in magnificent +contrast, Mr. Warlock. A quiver of emotion passed over the +Chapel—there was then a hushed expectant pause. +</P> + +<P> +"Brothers and sisters, let us pray," said Mr. Thurston. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had not seen him before; she wondered what strange chance had +led him and Mr. Warlock to work together. In every movement of the +body, in every tone of the voice, Thurston showed the professional +actor—his thoughts were all upon himself and the effect that he was +making. So calculated was he in his attitude that his eyes betrayed +him, having in their gleam other thoughts, other intentions very far +away from his immediate business in the Chapel. Maggie, watching him, +wondered what those thoughts were. His voice was ugly, as were all his +movements; his sharp actor's face, with the long rather dirty black +hair, the hooked nose, the long dirty fingers which moved in and out as +though they worked of themselves—all these things were false and +unmoving. But behind his harsh voice, gross accent and melodramatic +tone there was some power, the power of a man ambitious, ruthless, +scornful, self-confident. He did not care a snap of his fingers for his +congregation, he laughed at their beliefs, he made use of their +credulity. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh God," he prayed, his voice now shrill and quivering and just out of +tune, so that it jarred every nerve in Maggie's body, "Thou seest what +we are, miserable sinners not worthy of Thy care or goodness, sunk deep +in the mire of evil living and evil 'abits, nevertheless, oh God, we, +knowing Thy loving 'eart towards Thy sinful servants, do pray Thee that +Thou wilt give us Thy blessing before we leave this Thy 'ouse this +night; a new contrite 'eart is what we beg of Thee, that we may go out +into this evil world taught by Thee to search out our ways and improve +our thoughts, caring for nothing but Thee, following in Thy footsteps +and making ready for Thy immediate Coming, which will be in Thine own +good time and according to Thy will." +</P> + +<P> +"This we pray for the sake of Thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who +died for our sins upon the bloody Cross." +</P> + +<P> +"Amen." +</P> + +<P> +From between her hands Maggie watched those two strange eyes wandering +about the Chapel, picking up here a person, there a person, wondering +over this, wondering over that, and always, in the end, concerned not +about these things at all but about some other more ultimate +loneliness, fear or expectation, something that set him apart and made +him, as are all men in the final recesses of their spirit, as lonely as +though he were by himself on a desert island. +</P> + +<P> +The thrill of anticipation faded through the Chapel as Thurston +continued his prayer. He had not to-night, at any rate, power over his +audience—the thing that they were waiting for was something that he +could not satisfy. A restlessness was abroad; coughing broke out once, +twice, then everywhere; chairs creaked, sighs could be heard, some one +moved to the door. Thurston seemed to realise his failure; with a +sudden snap of impatience he brought prayer to an end and rose to his +feet. +</P> + +<P> +"We will sing," he said, "No. 341. 'Bathed in the blood of the Lamb.'" +</P> + +<P> +The singing of the hymn roused the excitement of the congregation to +even more than its earlier pitch. The tune was a moving one, beginning +very softly, beseeching God to listen, then, more confident, rising to +a high note of appeal: +</P> + +<P> +By all Thy sores and bloody pain Come down and heal our sins again; +</P> + +<P> +falling, after that, to a note of confidence and security in the last +refrain: +</P> + +<P> +By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb We beseech Thee— +</P> + +<P> +In spite of the crudity of the words and the simplicity of the tune +Maggie had tears in her eyes. The whole Chapel was singing now, singing +as though the sins of the world could be redeemed only by the force and +power of this especial moment. Maggie was caught up with the rest. She +found herself singing parts of the second verse, then in the third she +was carried away, had forgotten herself, her surroundings, even Martin. +There was something real in this, something beyond the ugliness of the +Chapel and its congregation. She remembered what Mr. Magnus had said: +"If there's something of great value, don't think the less of it +because the people, including yourself, who admire it, aren't worth +very much. Why should they be?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked for a moment at Aunt Anne and saw her in an ecstasy, singing +in her cracked tuneless voice, a smile about her lips and in her eyes, +that gazed far, far beyond that Chapel. Maggie felt the approach of +tears; she stopped singing—softly the refrain of the last verse came: +</P> + +<P> +By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb We beseech Thee! +</P> + +<P> +The hymn over, Mr. Warlock read the Bible and then offered up a long +extempore prayer. Strangely enough Mr. Warlock brought Maggie back to +reality—strangely because, on an earlier occasion, he had done exactly +the opposite. She realised at once that he was not happy to-night. +Before, he had been himself caught up into the mood that held the +Chapel; to-night he was fighting against a mood that was then outside +him, a mood with which he did not sympathise and in which he could not +believe. +</P> + +<P> +She saw that he was unhappy, he spoke slowly, without the spontaneity +and force that he had used before; once he made a long pause and you +could feel throughout the Chapel a wave of nervous apprehension, as +though every one were waiting to see whether he would fight his way +through or not. Maggie felt her earlier emotion sentimental and false, +it was as though he had said to her: "But that's not the true thing; +that's cheap sham emotion. That's what they're trying to turn our great +reality into. I'm fighting them and you must help me." +</P> + +<P> +He was fighting them. She could imagine Mr. Thurston's scornful lip, +hidden now by his hands. As Mr. Warlock went on with his dignified +sentences, his restraint and his reverence, she could fancy how +Thurston was saying to himself: "But what's the good of this? It's +blood and thunder we want. The old feller's getting past his work. He +must go." +</P> + +<P> +But it was Mr. Warlock's reality of which she was afraid. As he +continued his prayer she felt all her old terror return, that terror +that she had known on the night her father died, during the hours that +she had watched beside his dead body, at the moment when she had first +arrived at the house in London, during her first visit to the Chapel, +when she had said good-night to her aunt before going out with Uncle +Mathew ... And now Mr. Warlock was sweeping her still farther inside. +The intensity of his belief forced hers. There was something real in +this power of God, and you could not finish with it simply by +disregarding it. She felt, as she had felt so often lately, that some +one was suddenly going to rise and demand some oath or promise from her +that she, in her panic, would give her word and then would be caught +for ever. +</P> + +<P> +"By the love of Thy dear Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the promise +of Thy second coming, we beseech Thee" ... finished Mr. Warlock. +</P> + +<P> +During all this time the atmosphere of the Chapel had been growing +hotter and hotter and closer and closer. It had always its air of being +buried deep under ground, bathed in a kind of sunken heat that found +its voice in the gas that hissed and sizzled overhead; near the door +was a long rail on which coats might be hung, and now these garments +could be seen, swaying a little to and fro, like corpses of condemned +men. +</P> + +<P> +The bare ugliness of the building with its stone walls, its rows of +wooden seats, its grey windows, its iron-hung gas-lamps, its ugly desk +and platform, was veiled now in a thin steaming heat that rose mistily +above the heads of the kneeling congregation and seemed to hide strange +shapes and shadows in its shifting depths. Every one was swimming in an +uncertain world; the unreality grew with the heat. Maggie herself, at +the end of Mr. Warlock's prayer, felt that her test of a real solid and +unimaginative world was leaving her. She was expectant like the rest, +as ready to believe anything at all. +</P> + +<P> +Out of the mist rose Mr. Crashaw. This was a little old man with a +crabbed face and a body that seemed to have endured infernal twistings +in some Inquisitioner's torture-chamber. Maggie learnt afterwards that +he had suffered for many years from intolerable rheumatism, but +to-night the contortions and windings of the body with which he climbed +up onto the platform, and then the grimaces that he made as his large +round head peered over the top of the desk, might have struck any less +solemn assemblage as farcical. He wore an old shiny black frock coat +and a white rather grimy tie fastened in a sharp little bow. His face +was lined like a map, his cheeks seamed and furrowed, his forehead a +wilderness of marks, his scanty hair brushed straight back so that the +top of his forehead seemed unnaturally shiny and bald; his hands, with +which he clutched the side of his desk, were brown and wrinkled and +grasping like a monkey's. His eyes were the eyes of a fanatic, but they +were not steady and speculative like Warlock's or glowing and distant +like Aunt Anne's, but rather angry and restless and pugnacious; they +were the eyes of a madman, but of a madman who can yet calculate upon +and arrange his position in the world. He was mad for his own purposes, +and could, for these same purposes, bind his madness to its proper +bounds. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to Maggie at first rather pathetic with his little twisted +body and his large round head. Very soon it was emotions quite other +than pity that she was feeling. She saw at once that he was a practised +preacher, and she who had, with the exception of Mr. Warlock, never +heard a fine preacher, was at once under the sway of one of the ablest +and most dramatic orators of his time. His voice was sweet and clear, +and seemed strange enough coming from that ugly and malevolent +countenance. Only the head and the grasping hands could be seen, but +sometimes the invisible body was driven with such force against the +desk that it seemed that it must fling the thing over, down into the +congregation. +</P> + +<P> +"My brothers and sisters," he began, "I have come to-night to give you +a warning, and this warning is given to you not as the expression of a +personal opinion but as the declaration of an assumed fact. Disregard +it or not as you please, but I shall have done my duty in pointing out +to you the sure and certain meaning of my message." +</P> + +<P> +"I, a sinner like the rest of you, live nevertheless in the fear of +hell fire. Hell fire has become, I think, to many of the present +generation a mockery and a derision. I come to tell you that it is no +mockery, that it as surely lies there, a blazing furnace, in front of +us as though we saw it with our own eyes ..." +</P> + +<P> +With his own eyes he had surely seen it. They were fixed now in a +frenzy of realisation upon some distant vision, and, with a shiver, the +Chapel followed his gaze. It is easy enough to laugh at bare and +conventional words stripped of the atmosphere and significance of their +original surroundings. The merest baby in this twentieth century can +laugh at the flames of hell and advance a string of easy arguments +against the probability of any such melodramatic fulfilment of the +commonplace and colourless lives that the majority of us lead, but +Maggie was in no mood to laugh that night. +</P> + +<P> +Before five minutes had passed she found herself shivering where she +sat. The Chapel was convicted of Sin, and of Sin of no ordinary +measure. The head that rested like a round ball on the surface of the +desk thrust conviction into every heart: "You think that you may +escape, you look at your neighbours, every one of you, and say, 'He is +worse than I. I am safe,' but I tell you that not one man or woman here +shall be secure unless he turn instantly now to God and beg for mercy..." +</P> + +<P> +As he continued he did indeed bear the almost breathless urgency of one +who has been sent on in advance to announce the imminence of some awful +peril. No matter what the peril might be; simply through the Chapel +there passed the breath of some coming danger. Impossible to watch him +and not realise that here was a man who had seen something with his own +eyes that had changed in a moment the very fabric of his life. Thurston +might be a charlatan who played with the beliefs of his dupes, Warlock +might be a mystic whose vision was in the future and not in the +past—Crashaw knew. +</P> + +<P> +He painted, quietly, without fine words but with assurance and +conviction, his belief in the punishment of mankind. God was almost now +upon the threshold of their house. He was at the very gates of their +city, and with Him was coming a doom as sure and awful as the sentence +of the earthly judge on his earthly victim. +</P> + +<P> +"Punishment! Punishment! ... We have grown in this careless age to +laugh at punishment. A future life? There is no future life. God? There +is no God! Even were He to come upon us we could escape from Him. We +could make a very good case for ourselves. This world is safe, secure, +founded upon our markets, our treasuries, our laws and commandments, +our conventions of decent behaviour, our police and our ministers. God +cannot touch us. We are secure ... I tell you that at this very moment +this earth in which you trust is trembling under you, at this instant +everything in which you believed is undermined and is betraying you. +You have been given your opportunity—you are refusing it—and God is +upon you." +</P> + +<P> +His voice changed suddenly to tones of a marvellous sweetness. He +appealed, pleaded, implored. The ugliness of his face and body was +forgotten, he was simply a voice issuing from space, sent to save a +world. +</P> + +<P> +"And we here—the few of us out of this huge city gathered together +here—it is not too late for us. Let us surrender ourselves. Let us go +to Him and say that we are His, that we await His coming and obey His +law ... Brothers and sisters, I am as you are, weak and helpless and +full of sin, but come to Him, come to Him, come to Him! ... There is +help for us all, help and pity and love. Love such as none of us have +ever known, love that cannot fail us and will be with us until +eternity!" +</P> + +<P> +He stepped out from behind the desk, stood before them all with his +little stunted, twisted body, his arms held out towards them. There +followed then an extraordinary scene—from all over the Chapel came +sobs and cries. A man rose suddenly from the back of the building and +cried aloud, "Lord, I believe! Help Thou mine unbelief." One of the +women who had come with Miss Avies fell upon her knees and began to +sob, crying hysterically: "Oh God, have mercy! God have mercy!" Women +pressed up the two aisles, some of them falling on their knees there +where they had stood, others coming to the front and kneeling there. +Somewhere they began to sing the hymn that had already been sung that +evening, a few voices at first, then more, then all singing together: +</P> + +<P> +"By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb We beseech Thee!" +</P> + +<P> +Everywhere now women were crying, the Chapel was filled with voices, +sobs, cries and prayers. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Crashaw stood there, motionless, his arms outstretched. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie did not know what she felt. She seemed deprived of all sensation +on one side, and, on the other, fear and excitement; both joy and +disgust held her. She could not have told any one what her sensations +were; she was trembling from head to foot as though with cold. But +behind everything she had this terror, that at any moment she might be +drawn forward to do something, to give some pledge that would bind her +for all her life. She felt as though some power were urging her to +this, and as though the Chapel and every one in it was conscious of the +struggle. +</P> + +<P> +What might have happened she would never know. She felt a touch on her +sleeve, and, turning round, saw Aunt Anne's eyes looking up at her out +of a face that was so white and the skin of it so tightly drawn that it +was like the face of a dead woman. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm in great pain, Maggie. I think you must take me home," she heard +her aunt say. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne took her arm, they went out followed by Aunt Elizabeth. The +fresh evening air that blew upon Maggie's forehead seemed suddenly to +make of the Chapel a dim, incredible phantom; faintly from behind the +closed door came the echo of the hymn. The street was absolutely +still—no human being was in sight, only an old cab stationed close at +hand waiting for a possible customer; into this they got. The pale, +almost white, evening sky, with stars in sheets and squares and pools +of fire, shone with the clear radiance of glass above them. Maggie +could see the stars through the dirty windows of the cab. +</P> + +<P> +They were quite silent all the way home. Aunt Anne sitting up very +straight, motionless, her fingers still on Maggie's arm. +</P> + +<P> +Inside the house there was Jane. She seemed at once to under-stand, +and, with Aunt Elizabeth, led Aunt Anne up the dark stairs. +</P> + +<P> +They disappeared, leaving Maggie alone in the hall, whose only sound +was the ticking clock from the stairs and only light the dim lamp above +the door. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0205"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CHOICE +</H3> + +<P> +She waited for some time alone in the hall listening for she knew not +what. Her departure from the Chapel had been too abrupt to allow her in +a moment to shake off the impression of it—above all, the impression +of Mr. Crashaw standing there, his arms stretched out to her, his eyes +burning her through and through with the urgent insistence of his +discovery. +</P> + +<P> +She was tired, her head ached horribly, she would have given everything +at that moment for a friend who would care for her and protect her from +her own wild fears. She did not know of what she was afraid, but she +knew that she felt that she would rather do anything than spend the +night in that house. And yet what could she do? How could she escape? +She knew that she could not. Oh! if only Martin would come! Where was +he? Why could he not carry her off that very night? Why did he not come? +</P> + +<P> +She gazed desperately about her. Could she not leave the house there +and then? But where should she go? What could she do without a friend +in London? She stood there, clasping and unclasping her hands, looking +up at the black stairs, listening for some sound from above, fancying a +ghost in every darkening corner of the place. +</P> + +<P> +Then her common sense reasserted itself. It was something, at any rate, +that she was out of the Chapel, away from Mr. Crashaw's piercing eyes, +Mr. Thurston's rasping voice, Mr. Warlock's reproachful melancholy. She +felt this evening as though by struggling with all her strength she +could shut the gates upon new experiences that were fighting to enter +into her soul, but must, at all costs to her own happiness, be +defeated. No such thing as ghosts, no such thing as a God, be He kind, +tender, cruel or loving—nothing but what one can see, can touch, can +confront with one's physical strength. She had been to a service at a +Methodist chapel, her aunt had been ill, to-morrow there would be +daylight and people hurrying down the street about their business, work +and shops and food and sun ... No such thing as ghosts! Nothing but +what you can see! +</P> + +<P> +"And I'll get some work without wasting a minute," she thought, nodding +her head. "In a shop if necessary—or I could be a governess—and then +when he is free, Martin will be with me." +</P> + +<P> +She climbed on a chair and turned down the hall-gas as she had seen +Martha do. She went to the door and slipped the chain into its socket +and turned the lock. She listened for a moment before she started +upstairs, she saw Mr. Crashaw's eyes in the dark—she heard his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Punishment! Punishment!..." +</P> + +<P> +She suddenly started to run up the black stairs, stumbled, ran faster +through the passage under the picture of the armed men, arrived at last +in her room, breathless. +</P> + +<P> +During her undressing she stopped sometimes to listen. Her aunt's +bedroom was on the floor below hers, and she certainly could hear +nothing through the closed doors, and yet she fancied, as she stood +there, that the sound of sobbing came up to her and, twice, a sharp cry. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose I'm terribly selfish," she thought, "I ought to want to go +and help Aunt Anne, and I don't." No, she didn't. She wanted to run +away from the house, miles and miles and miles. She climbed into bed +and thought of her escape. If Miss Trenchard did not answer her letter, +then she could go off to Uncle Mathew, greatly though she disliked the +thought of that; then she could live on her three hundred pounds and +look about until she found work or Martin came for her. +</P> + +<P> +But so ignorant was she of the world that she did not in the least know +how she could get her three hundred pounds. But Uncle Mathew would +know. She thought of him standing in the doorway at the hotel, holding +up a glass, then she thought of Martin, and so fell asleep. +</P> + +<P> +She woke suddenly to find some one standing in her open doorway and +holding up a candle. That some one was old Martha, looking strange +enough in a nightdress, her scanty grey hairs untidily about her neck +and a dirty red shawl over her shoulders. Maggie blinked at the light +and sat up in bed. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It's your aunt, Miss—Miss Anne. She's very bad. She wants you to go +to her." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and slippers and +followed the servant. +</P> + +<P> +As she hurried along the dark passage she was still only half-awake; +her soul had not returned into her body, but her body was awake and +vibrating with the knowledge that the soul was soon coming to it, and +coming to it with great news, with the consciousness of a marvellous +experience. For at the instant when Martha awoke her she had been +dreaming of Martin, dreaming of him physically, so that it was his body +against hers, his hand hot and dry in hers cool and soft, his cheek +rough and strong against hers smooth and pale. There had been no +sentimentality or weakness in her dream. They had been confident and +sure and defiant together, and it had been real life for her, so real +that this dream life in which now she moved down the shadowy passage +was about her as green water is about one when one swims under waves. +</P> + +<P> +It was only slowly, as the cold air of the house at night cleared her +eyes and her throat and her breast, that she came to the world +consciousness again and surrendered her lover back to the shades and +felt a sudden frightened fear lest, after all, she should never really +know that ecstasy of which she had just been dreaming. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless it was still with a great consciousness of Martin that she +entered her aunt's bedroom. Before she entered she turned round for a +moment to Martha. +</P> + +<P> +"What must I do?" she asked. "What will she want me to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's only," said Martha, "if the pains come on very bad, to give her +some drops. They're in a little green bottle by her bed. Five drops ... +yes, miss, five drops in a little green bottle. Only if the pains is +very bad. She's brave—wonderful. I'd 'ave sat up till morning willing, +and so of course would Miss Elizabeth. But she seemed to want you, +miss." +</P> + +<P> +They were like two conspirators whispering there in the dark. The room +within was so still. Maggie very softly pushed back the door and +entered. She walked a few steps inside the room and hesitated. There +was no sound in the room at all, utter stillness so that Maggie could +hear her own breathing as though it were some one else at her side +warning her. Then slowly things emerged, the long white bed first, +afterwards a shaded lamp beside it, a little table with bottles, a +chair—beyond the circle of lighted shadow there were shapes, near the +window a high glass, a dark shade that was the dressing-table, and +faint grey squares where the windows hung. +</P> + +<P> +In the room was a strange scent half wine, half medicine, and beyond +that the plain tang of apples partially eaten, a little smell of oil +too from the lamp—very faintly the figure of the Christ above the bed +was visible. Maggie moved forward to the bed, then stopped again. She +did not know what to do; she could see a dark shadow on the pillow that +must she knew be her aunt's hair, and yet she did not connect that with +her aunt. The room was cold and, she felt, of infinite space. The smell +of the wine and the medicine made her shy and awkward as though she +were somewhere where she should not be. +</P> + +<P> +There came a little sigh, and then a very quiet, tired voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, is that you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Aunt Anne." +</P> + +<P> +She came very close to the bed, and suddenly, as though a curtain had +been drawn back, she could see her aunt's large eyes and white sharp +face. +</P> + +<P> +"It was very good of you, dear, to come. I felt ashamed to wake you up +at such an hour, but I wanted you. I felt that only you must be with me +to-night. It was a call from God. I felt that it must be obeyed. Sit +down, dear. There, on that chair. You're not cold, are you?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie sat down, gathering her dressing-gown close about her. She was +not even now drawn right out of her dream, and the room seemed +fantastic, to rise and fall a little, and to be filled with sound, just +out of hearing. For a time she was so sleepy that she nodded on her +chair, and the green lamp swelled and quivered and the very bed seemed +to sway in the dark, but soon the cold air cleared her head, and she +was wide awake, staring before her at the grey window-panes. Her aunt +did not for a long time speak again. Maggie sat there her mind a maze +of the Chapel, old Crashaw, Miss Avies, and Martin. Slowly the cold +crept into her feet and her hands, but her head now was burning hot. +Then suddenly her aunt began to talk in a dreamy rather lazy voice, not +her natural daily tone which was always very sharp and clear. She +talked on and on; sometimes her sentences were confused and unfinished, +sometimes they seemed to Maggie to have no meaning; once or twice the +voice dropped so low that Maggie did not catch the words, but always +there was especial urgency behind the carelessness as though every word +were being spoken for a listener's benefit—a listener who sat perhaps +with pencil and notebook somewhere in the dark behind them. +</P> + +<P> +"So sorry ... so sorry, Maggie dear ... so sorry," the words ran up and +down. "I hadn't meant to take you away before the service was over. +Elizabeth could have ... sometimes my pain is very bad and I have to +lie down, you know. But it's nothing—nothing really—only I'm glad, +rather, that you should share all our little troubles, because then +you'll know us better, won't you? Dear Maggie, there's been something +between us all this time, hasn't there? Ever since our first +meeting—and it's partly been my fault. I wasn't good at first, I +wanted to be kind, but I was stiff and shy. You wouldn't think that I'm +shy? I am, terribly. I always have been since I was very little, and +just to enter a room when other people are there makes me so +embarrassed ... I remember once when mother was alive her scolding me +because I wouldn't come in to a tea-party. But I couldn't; I stood +outside the door in an agony, doing everything to make myself go +in—but I couldn't ... But now I've come to love you, dear, although of +course you have your faults. But they are faults of your age, +carelessness, selfishness. They are nothing in the eyes of God, who +understands all our weaknesses. And you must learn to know Him, dear. +That is my only prayer now. If I am taken, if I go before the great +day—if it be His will—then I pray always, now that I may leave you in +my place, waiting for Him as I have waited, trusting Him as I have +trusted ... you saw to-night what it means to us, what it must mean to +any one who has listened. There were times, years ago, when I had not +turned to God, when I did not care, when I thought of earthly love ... +God drew me to Himself ... You too must come, Maggie—you must come. +You mustn't stay outside—you are asked, you are invited—perhaps you +will be compelled ..." +</P> + +<P> +The voice sank: Maggie's teeth chattered in her head from the cold, and +her foot had gone to sleep. She felt obstinate and rebellious and +frightened, she could not think clearly, and the words that came from +her, suddenly, seemed to her not to be her own. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne, I want to do everything that you and Aunt Elizabeth think I +should, but I must be myself, mustn't I? I'm grown up now; I've got my +three hundred pounds and I don't think I want to be religious. I'm very +grateful to you and Aunt Elizabeth, but I'm not a help to you much, I'm +afraid. I know I'm very careless, I do want to be better, and that's +all the more reason, perhaps, why I should go out and earn my own +living. I'd learn more quickly then. But I do love you and Aunt +Elizabeth ..." +</P> + +<P> +She broke off; she did not love them. She knew that she did not. The +only human being in all the world whom she loved was Martin. +Nevertheless there did come to her suddenly then a new tenderness for +her aunt; the actual sight of her pain in the Chapel had deeply touched +her and now her eagerness for escape was mingled with a longing to be +affectionate and good. +</P> + +<P> +But Aunt Anne did not seem to have heard. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you sure you're not cold, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, aunt." +</P> + +<P> +Their hands touched. +</P> + +<P> +"But you are. Put that rug over you. That one at the end of the bed. +I'm quiet now. I think perhaps I shall sleep a little." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there anything I can do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps turn the lamp down, dear. That's it. A little more. Now, if +you'd just raise my pillow. There, behind my head. That's the way! Why, +what a good nurse you are!" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, as tenderly as she could, turned the pillow, patted it, placed +it beneath her aunt's head. She was close against her aunt's face, and +the eyes seemed suddenly so fierce and urgent, so insistent and +powerful, that seeing them was like the discovery of some blazing fire +in an empty house. Most of all, they were terrified eyes. Maggie went +back to her chair. After that, she sat there during the slow evolution +of Eternity; Eternity unrolled itself before her, on and on and on, +grey limitless mist and space, comfortless, lifeless, hopeless. She had +been for many weeks leading a thoroughly unwholesome life in that old +house with those old women. She did not herself know how unhealthy it +had been, but she knew that she missed the wide fields and downs of +Glebeshire, the winds that blew from the sea round Borhedden, the air +that swirled and raced up and down the little stony strata of St. +Dreot. Now she had been kept indoors, had had no fun of any kind, had +looked forward to Mr. Magnus as her chief diversion. Then Martin had +come, and suddenly she had seen how dangerously her life was hemming +her in. She was losing courage. She would soon be afraid to speak for +herself at all; she would soon ... +</P> + +<P> +In a panic at these thoughts, and feeling as though some one was trying +to push her down into a coffin whilst she was still alive, she began +hurriedly to speak, although she did not know whether her aunt were +asleep or no. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I ought to tell you, Aunt Anne, that I wrote a letter some +days ago and posted it myself. It was to a lady who knew Father once in +Glebeshire, and she said that if ever I wanted help I was to write to +her, and so—although perhaps I oughtn't to have done it without asking +you first, still I was afraid you mightn't want me to—so I sent it. I +wouldn't like to hurt your feelings, Aunt Anne, and it isn't that I'm +not happy with you and Aunt Elizabeth, but I ought to be earning my own +living, oughtn't I? And I've only got my three hundred pounds, haven't +I? I'm not complaining, but I don't know about anything yet, do I? I +can't even find my way when I'm out with Aunt Elizabeth. And I'm afraid +I'll never be really good enough to be religious. Perhaps if Father'd +wanted me to be I might be now, but he never cared ... I hope you won't +be angry, Aunt Anne, but I didn't like to-night—I didn't really. When +I was there I thought that soon I'd begin to cry like the others, but +it was only because every one else was crying—not because I wanted to. +I hope you won't be angry, but I'm afraid I'll never be religious as +you and Aunt Elizabeth want me to be; so don't you think it will be +better for me to start learning something else right away?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie poured all this out and then felt immense relief. At last she +was honest again; at last she had said what she felt, and they knew it +and could never say that she hadn't been fair with them. She felt that +her speech had cleared the air in every kind of way. She waited for her +aunt's reply. No sound came from the bed. Had her aunt heard? Perhaps +she slept. Maggie waited. Then timidly, and softly she said: +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne ... Aunt Anne ..." +</P> + +<P> +No reply. Then again in a whisper: +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne ... Aunt Anne ..." +</P> + +<P> +Supposing Aunt Anne ... Maggie trembled, then, commanding herself to be +calm, she bent towards the bed. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne, are you asleep?" +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly Aunt Anne's face was there, the eyes closed, the mouth, the +cheeks pale yellow in the faint reflection from the lamp. There was no +stir, no breath. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne, Aunt Anne," Maggie whispered in terror now. Then she saw +that her aunt was sleeping; very, very faintly the sheets rose and fell +and the fingers of the hand on the coverlet trembled a little as though +they were struggling to wake. +</P> + +<P> +Then Aunt Anne had heard nothing after all. But it might be that she +was pretending, just to see what Maggie would say. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne," whispered Maggie once more and for the last time. Then she +sat back on her seat again, her hands folded, staring straight in front +of her. After that she did not know for how long she sat there in a +state somewhere between dream and reality. The room, although it never +lost its familiarity, grew uncouthly strange; shapes grey and dim +seemed to move beneath the windows, humping their backs, spinning out +into long limbs, hands and legs and gigantic fingers. The deadest hour +of the night was come; the outside world seemed to press upon the +house, the whole world cold, thick, damp, lifeless, like an animal +slain and falling with its full weight, crushing everything beneath it. +Perhaps she slept—she did not know. Martin seemed to be with her, and +against them was Aunt Anne, her back against the door, her hands +spread, refusing to let them pass. The room joined in the struggle, the +floor slipped beneath their tread, the curtain swayed forward and +caught them in its folds, the lamp flickered and flickered and +flickered ... +</P> + +<P> +She was awake suddenly, quite acutely aware of danger. She rubbed her +eyes, turned, and in the dim shadow saw her aunt sitting up in bed, her +body drawn up to its intensest height, her hands pressing down, flat +upon the bed. Her eyes stared as though they would break down all +boundaries, but her lips trembled like the lips of a little child. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne, what is it?" Maggie whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the pain—" Her voice was far away as though some one were +speaking from the passage outside the door. "It's the pain ... I can't +... much more ..." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie remembered what Martha had told her about the drops. She found +the little green bottle, saw the glass by the side of it. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she heard Aunt Anne: "Oh no ... Oh no! God I can't ... God, I +can't ... I can't." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie bent over the bed; she put her hand behind her aunt's back and +could feel the whole body quivering, the flesh damp beneath the +night-dress. She steadied her, then put the glass to her lips. +</P> + +<P> +The cry was now a little whisper. "No more ... I can ... no more." Then +more softly still: "Thy will, oh Lord. As thou wilt—Our Father, which +art in Heaven, Hallowed ... Hallowed ... Hallowed..." +</P> + +<P> +She sank down on to her pillows. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it better?" Maggie asked. +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt caught her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"You mustn't leave me. I shan't live long, but you must stay with me +until I go. Promise me! Promise me!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I can't promise," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You must stay. You must stay." +</P> + +<P> +"No I can't promise." Then suddenly kneeling down by the bed she put +her hand on the other's arm: "Aunt Anne, I'll do anything for +you—anything—to make you better—if I can help ... but not a promise, +I can't promise." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but you will stay," Aunt Anne's whisper trembled with its +certainty. +</P> + +<P> +That seemed the climax of the night to Maggie then. She felt that she +was indeed held for eternity by the house, the Chapel, and something +beyond the Chapel. The scent of the medicine, the closeness of the +room, the darkness and the sickness, seemed to close all about her ... +She was at the bottom of a deep well, and she would never get out, she +would never get out ... +</P> + +<P> +The door slowly, very softly opened, and old Martha looked in. +</P> + +<P> +"She's been very bad," whispered Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, I heard something. That's why I came. You gave her the drops?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"She'll sleep a bit now. I'll take your place, Miss Maggie. It's time +you went back to your bed." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie crept away. +</P> + +<P> +She came down to breakfast to find the house bathed in sunlight and the +parrot singing hoarsely "And her golden hair was hanging down her +back." Aunt Elizabeth was there, cheerful and almost merry in her +bird-like fashion. The world was normal, ghosts out of fashion, and +this morning was the day on which the silver was cleaned. This last was +Maggie's business, and very badly she did it, never being "thorough," +and having a fatal habit of thinking of other things. Porridge, eggs +and bacon, marmalade— +</P> + +<P> +"And—her golden hair was hanging—" croaked Edward. +</P> + +<P> +"Your aunt won't come down this morning, Maggie. She's much better. The +sun's shining. A little walk will be a good thing. I'll buy the calico +that Anne talked about. Your aunt's better." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie felt ashamed of herself. What desperate silly feelings had she +allowed last night? How much she had made of that service, and how weak +she was to give way so easily! +</P> + +<P> +"I'll clean the silver," she thought. "I'll do it better than +ever"—but unfortunately she had a hole in her stocking, and Aunt +Elizabeth, like a sparrow who has found a worm, told her about it. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Crashaw's coming to tea this afternoon," she concluded. +</P> + +<P> +"That's why Anne's staying in bed—to be well enough." The stocking and +Mr. Crashaw dimmed a little of the morning's radiance, but behind them +was the thought, "Martin must come to-day. It was like a message his +look last night." She even sang to herself as she scrubbed at the +silver. +</P> + +<P> +They spent a domestic morning. Aunt Elizabeth did not go for her walk, +but instead stayed in the dining-room and, seated at the end of the +long dining-table, her head just appearing above the worn and soiled +green table-cloth, tried to discipline the week's household accounts. +She worked sucking one finger after another and poking her pencil into +her ears. +</P> + +<P> +"One pound, three shillings—ham, ham, ham—?" +</P> + +<P> +At one moment she invited the cook to assist her, and that lady, +crimson from the kitchen fire, bared arms akimbo, stated that she was +not only the most economical woman in London, but was also, thanks to +her upbringing, one of the most sober and virtuous, and if Miss +Cardinal had anything to say against— +</P> + +<P> +Oh no! Aunt Elizabeth had nothing to say against, only this one pound, +three shillings— +</P> + +<P> +Well, the cook couldn't help that; she wasn't one to let a penny out of +her fingers where it shouldn't go. +</P> + +<P> +So the morning hummed along; luncheon-time came, the silver was all +cleaned, the stockings changed, and there was roast chicken. Thomas, +with his wicked eyes, came slowly, majestically upon the scene—but +even he was not sinister to-day, being interested in his own greed +rather than other persons' sins. +</P> + +<P> +All this time Maggie refused to think. Martin would come, then she +would see. +</P> + +<P> +Martin ... Martin ... Martin ... She went up into her bedroom and +whispered the name over and over to herself whilst she tried to mend +her stocking. She flung the stocking down and gazed out of the window +on to a world that was all golden cloud and racing watery blue. The +roofs swam like floating carpets in the sun, detached from the brick +and mortar beneath them, carried by the racing clouds. It was only at +that sudden gaze that she realised that she was a prisoner. All her +alarm came back to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Why can't I go out? I'll put on my hat and just walk out. No one can +stop me. No one ..." +</P> + +<P> +But she knew that she could not. Something more must happen first. She +turned from the window with a little shudder, finished very clumsily +her stocking, and as the cuckoo clock struck halfpast three went down +to the drawing-room. +</P> + +<P> +There to her surprise, she found Caroline Smith. The events of the last +few days had, a little, dimmed Caroline from her memory. She had not +seen Caroline for a fortnight. She did not know that she especially +wanted to see Caroline now. However, it was very certain that Caroline +wanted to see her. The young woman was dressed in rose-coloured silk +that stood out from her slim body almost like a crinoline, and she had +a straw funnel-shaped hat with roses perched on the side of her lovely +head. She kissed Maggie many times, and then sitting down with her +little sharp black shoes poked out in front of her, she ran on: +</P> + +<P> +"It's been too bad, Maggie, dear; it's simply ages since we had a +moment, isn't it, but it hasn't been my fault. Father's been +ill—bronchitis—and I've had to help Mother. Father's been so happy, +he's just been able to lie in bed for days and think about God. None of +those tiresome people at the Bank to interrupt him, and chicken and +jelly as much as he liked. He was so unhappy yesterday when he had to +go back to work, poor dear ... But, Maggie, I hear you were at the +service last night. How did you like it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Like it?" said Maggie. "I don't know that it's a thing one likes, +exactly." +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't one? I don't know. I'm not one of the Inside Saints, you know, +and I wouldn't be if they wanted me to he. But you're one now, they +say, and I never would have thought it. You don't look a bit like one, +and I shouldn't have dreamt that you'd ever stand that sort of thing. +You look so matter-of-fact." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was on the point of bursting out that she was not an Inside +Saint, and would never be one, when caution restrained her. She had +learnt already that her gay young companion was not as trustworthy as +best friends ought to be. +</P> + +<P> +"It was the first time, last night," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know, and Miss Cardinal was ill and had to come away in the +middle, didn't she? It must have been a simply awful meeting, because +Mother came back as limp as anything. She'd been crying buckets, and +has a dreadful headache to-day. I suppose Mr. Crashaw gave it them. +I've never heard him, but I've seen him. Horrid old monkey—I hope Miss +Cardinal's better to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, thank you," said Maggie. "She's better." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's a good thing. I'm so glad. And you, you darling, what did +you think of it all? I'm sure you didn't cry buckets. I can see you +sitting there as quiet as anything, like a little Quaker. I'd like to +have gone just to have seen you. I hear Martin Warlock was there too. +Was he?" +</P> + +<P> +"He was," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Fancy that! I wonder what he went for. His father made him, I expect. +You know they say he's getting on awfully badly at home and that there +are quarrels all the time. I don't know, of course, but his sister +can't stand him. She's always showing her feelings—not very good +taste, I think, but Mr. Thurston eggs her on. They'll be making a match +of it one day, those two ... I say, Maggie—" Caroline drew her chair +close. "I'll give you a secret. You won't tell any one, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly not—if you tell me not to," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Martin Warlock and I—ever since he came back. Oh! I don't say +it's anything really. But he's attracted by me and would like to go +farther. He'll be asking me to marry him one of these days, and then +I'll have fun. He would have done the other day if I'd let him. I like +him rather, don't you? He's getting a bit fat, of course, but he's got +nice eyes, and then he's a real man. I like real men. But there, you'll +be thinking me coarse, I know you will. I'm not coarse really, only +impulsive. You don't like me, honestly, if it were known. Oh no! you +don't! I can tell. I always know. But I don't care—I love you. You're +a darling—and what I say is if you love some one, just love them. +Never mind what they think. Don't you agree with me? But you wouldn't. +You wouldn't think of loving anybody. But I'm not really bad—only +careless, Mother says—" +</P> + +<P> +What Mother said could not be known, because the door opened and Martha +announced Mr. Crashaw. The old man, leaning on a walking stick, came +forward and greeted Maggie and Caroline with good-temper and +amiability. He was indeed in day-time a very mild old man, and it was +difficult for Maggie to believe that this was the same who last night +had frightened her out of her wits and led her to the edge of such +strange suspicions. He was more than ever like a monkey, with his bony +brown forehead, protuberant eyes and large mottled nose, and he sat +there all huddled up by his rheumatism, a living example of present +physical torments rather than future spiritual ones. It was apparent at +once that he liked pretty young women, and he paid Caroline a number of +flattering attentions, disregarding Maggie with a frankness that +witnessed to a life that had taught one lesson at least, never on any +occasion to waste time. Maggie did not mind—it amused her to see her +terror of the night before transformed into a mere serenading crippled +old gentleman, and to see, too, the excited pleasure with which +Caroline accepted even such decayed attentions as these. But what was +it that had persuaded her last night? Why did she now spend her time +half in one world and half in another? Which world was the real one? +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne very soon joined them, and this quiet, composed figure only +added to Maggie's scorn of her last night's terrors. Was this the same +who had struggled with such agony, who had made Maggie feel that she +was caught in a trap and imprisoned for ever? +</P> + +<P> +The sun beat hotly upon the carpet. Caroline's rose-coloured silk shone +and glowed, the tea was poured out, and there was chatter about the +warm winter that it was and how time passed, and how fashions changed, +and how you never saw a four-wheeler now, and what they were turning +Kingsway into, and what they were turning the Law Courts out of, and +even once, by Mr. Crashaw, a word about the Lyceum Theatre, where some +one was playing the Merchant of Venice, which was a fine play and could +do no one any harm. +</P> + +<P> +"But I daresay," said Mr. Crashaw, "that this young lady here goes to +nothing but plays every night of her life." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mr. Crashaw," said Caroline, tossing her head. "If that's the +kind of life you fancy I lead you're completely mistaken. Theatres +indeed! Never do I put so much as the tip of my nose inside one. Father +thinks they're wrong and so does Mother say she does, although I know +she likes them, really; but any way that doesn't matter because I never +have a moment to myself—sitting at home sewing, that's the way I spend +my days, Mr. Crashaw." +</P> + +<P> +It was the very last way she really spent them, as Maggie perfectly +well knew. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Crashaw either was +deceived. However, he gave a wicked wink with the eye that was least +rheumatic and said something about "a beautiful young lady like Miss +Smith wasted on sewing and darning," and Caroline smiled and said +something about "one day perhaps"—and Aunt Anne looked remotely +benevolent. What did she think of all this, Maggie wondered? What did +she think of her great preacher, her prophet, wasting the few hours of +life that remained to him over such a business? They had some secret +understanding, perhaps, as though they said to one another, "We know, +you and I, what are our real intentions beneath all this. We only do +what we must." +</P> + +<P> +Understanding or no, Mr. Crashaw sprang up with unexpected activity +when Caroline departed and announced his intention of conducting her to +her door. He made his adieus and then hobbled along after the +rose-coloured silk as though this was his last chance of warming his +hands at the flame of life. +</P> + +<P> +When they were gone, Aunt Anne said: +</P> + +<P> +"I am going back to bed, Maggie, dear. Martha will send me up some +supper later. Elizabeth has gone to Lambeth to see a friend, so make +yourself busy until seven, dear. If I want anything I'll ring." +</P> + +<P> +When she was left alone in the darkening room she stood there thinking. +Why should she not go out and find Martin? She did not care what any +one thought. She would go to his house and ask for him. She had waited +and waited ... She wanted him so, she wanted him so desperately! +</P> + +<P> +Then Martha opened the door and announced him, yes, really announced +him, saying: "It's young Mr. Warlock, Miss, and he says if your aunts +isn't in you'll do." +</P> + +<P> +"Ask him to come up, Martha," said Maggie, and then held herself there, +rooted, where she stood so that she should not run to him and fling her +arms round his neck. She felt at once with that quick perception that +was hers, in spite of her ignorance of life, that this was no moment +for love-making, and that he wanted something quite other from her. +</P> + +<P> +He closed the door behind him, looked round the room, didn't come to +her, but stayed where he was. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been trying to see you all day," he said. "How long have we got +alone do you think?" She never took her eyes from his face. "Until +seven probably. Aunt Elizabeth's in Lambeth and Aunt Anne's in bed." +</P> + +<P> +"That's luck." He drew a breath of relief, then moved over to the +fireplace. "Maggie, I've come to say we mustn't see one another any +more." +</P> + +<P> +Some one, some vast figure shadowy behind her, moved suddenly forward +and caught her in his arms and his embrace was deadly cold. She stood +where she was, her hands at her side, looking steadfastly at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" she said. "Because—because—the fact is, I've been wrong +altogether. Maggie, I'm not the sort of man for you to have anything to +do with. You don't know much about life yet, do you? I'm about the +first man you've ever met, aren't I? If you'd met another man before +me, you'd have cared for him as much." +</P> + +<P> +She said nothing and he seemed to be confused by her steady gaze, +because he looked down and continued to speak as though to himself: +</P> + +<P> +"I knew at once that there was danger in our meeting. With other girls +they can look after themselves. One hasn't any responsibility to them. +It's their own affair, but you believe every word a fellow says. And if +we'd been friends it wouldn't have mattered, but from the very first we +weren't that—we were something more." +</P> + +<P> +"You were so different from any other girl. I've wanted to be good to +you from the beginning, but now I see that if we go on I shall only be +bad. It all comes in the end to my being bad—really bad—and I want +you to know it." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said Maggie, "that I've thought very +much whether you're good or bad. And it doesn't matter. I can look +after myself." +</P> + +<P> +"No, you can't," he said vehemently, making a step towards her and then +suddenly stopping. "That's just it—you can't. I've been thinking all +the time since the other evening when we were together, and I've seen +that you believe every word I say and you trust me. I don't mean to +tell lies—I don't know that I'm worse than most other men—but I'm not +good enough for you to trust in all the same. I've been knocking about +for years, and I suppose I've had most of my idealism knocked out of +me. Anyway I don't believe in most people, and you still do. I'm not +going to be the one to change you." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I know more about life than you think," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"No, how can you? You've never had a chance of seeing any of it. You'd +get sick of me in no time. I'm moody and selfish and bad-tempered. I +used to drink a bit too. And I can't be faithful to women. I might +think I was going to be faithful to you and swear I would be—and then +suddenly some one would come along. I thought for a bit I'd just go on +with you and see what came of it. You're so unusual, you make me want +to be straight with you; but I've seen it wouldn't be fair. I must just +slip out of your path and you'll forget me, and then you'll meet a much +better man than I and be happy. I'm queer—I have funny moods that last +for days and days sometimes. I seem to do every one harm I come in +touch with. There's my father now. I love him more than any one in the +world, and yet I make him unhappy all the time. I'm a bad fellow to be +with—" +</P> + +<P> +He stopped suddenly, looked at her and laughed. "It isn't any good, +Maggie ... You haven't any idea what a sweep I am. You'd hate me if you +really knew." +</P> + +<P> +She looked steadily back at him. "We haven't much time," she said, +speaking with steady, calm conviction as though she had, for years, +been expecting just such a conversation as this, and had thought out +what she would say. "Aunt Elizabeth can come back earlier than she +said. Perhaps I shall say something I oughtn't to. I don't care. The +whole thing is that I love you. I suppose it's true that I don't know +anything about men, but I'd be poor enough if my love for you just +depended on your loving me back, and on your being good to me and all +the rest of it. I've never had any one I could love until you came, but +now that you have come it can't be anything that you can do that can +alter it. If you were to go away I'd still love you, because it's the +love in me that matters, not what I get for it. Perhaps you'll make me +unhappy, but anyway one will be unhappy some of the time." +</P> + +<P> +She went up to him and kissed him. "I know Caroline Smith or some one +would be very shocked if they thought I'd said such things to you, but +I can't help what they say." +</P> + +<P> +He had a movement to catch her and hold her, but he kept himself off, +moved away from her, turning his back to her. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't understand ... you don't understand," he repeated. "You +know nothing about men, Maggie, and you know nothing about me. I tell +you I wouldn't be faithful to you, and I'd be drunk sometimes, and I'd +have moods for days, when I'd just sulk and not speak to a soul. I +think those moods some damned sort of religion when I'm in them, but +what they really are is bad temper. You've got to know it, Maggie. I'd +be rotten to you, however much I wanted not to be." +</P> + +<P> +"That's my own affair," she answered. "I can look after myself. And for +all the rest, I'm independent and I'll always be independent. I'll love +you whether you're good to me or bad." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," he suddenly wheeled round to her, "you'd better have it +... I'm married already." +</P> + +<P> +She took that with a little startled cry. Her eyes searched his face in +a puzzled fashion as though she were pursuing the truth. Then she said +like a child who sees some toy broken before its eyes: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Nobody knows—not a soul. It was a mad thing—four years ago in +Marseille I met a girl, a little dressmaker there. I went off my head +and married her, and then a month later she ran off with a merchant +chap, a Greek. I didn't care; we got on as badly as anything ... but +there you are. No one knows. That's the whole thing, Maggie. I thought +at first I wouldn't tell you. I was beginning to care for you too much, +as a matter of fact, and then when your uncle asked me to dinner, I +told myself I was a fool to go. Then when I saw how you trusted me, I +thought I'd be a cad and let it continue, but somehow ... you've got +an influence over me ... You've made me ashamed of things I wouldn't +have hesitated about a year ago. And the funny thing is it isn't your +looks. I can say things to you I couldn't to other women, and I'll tell +you right away that there are lots of women attract me more. And yet +I've never felt about any woman as I do about you, that I wanted to be +good to her and care for her and love her. It's always whether they +loved me that I've thought about ... Well, now I've told you, you see +that I'd better go, hadn't I? You see ... you see." +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got to think. It makes a difference, of course. Can we meet after +a week and talk again?" +</P> + +<P> +"Much better if I don't see you any more. I'll go away +altogether—abroad again." +</P> + +<P> +"No—after a week—" +</P> + +<P> +"Much better not." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Come here after a week. And if we can't be alone I'll give you a +letter somehow ... Please, Martin—you must." +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, just think—" +</P> + +<P> +"No—after a week." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, then," he turned on her fiercely. "I've been honest. I've +told you. I've done all I can. If I love you now it isn't my fault." +</P> + +<P> +He left the room, not looking at her again. And she stood there, +staring in front of her. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0206"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE PROPHET IN HIS OWN HOME +</H3> + +<P> +Martin walked into the street with a confused sense of triumph and +defeat, that confusion that comes to all sensitive men at the moment +when they are stepping, against their will, from one set of conditions +into another. He had gone into that house, only half an hour ago, +determined to leave Maggie for ever—for his good and hers. He came +back into the street realising that he was now, perhaps for the first +time, quite definitely involved in some relation with her—good, bad, +safe, dangerous he did not know—but involved. He had intended to tell +her nothing of his marriage—and he had told her. He had intended to +treat their whole meeting as something light, passing, +inconsiderable—he had instead treated it as something of the utmost +gravity. He had intended, above all, to prove to himself that he could +do what he wished—he had found that he had no power. +</P> + +<P> +And so, as he stepped through the dim gold-dust of the evening light he +was stirred with an immense sense of having stepped, definitely at +last, across the threshold of new adventure and enterprise. All kinds +of problems were awaiting solution—his relation to his father, his +mother, his sister, his home, his past, his future, his sins and his +weaknesses—and he had meant to solve them all, as he had often solved +them in the past, by simply cutting adrift. But now, instead of that, +he had decided to stay and face it all out, he had confessed at last +that secret that he had hidden from all the world, and he had submitted +to the will of a girl whom he scarcely knew and was not even sure that +he liked. +</P> + +<P> +He stopped at that for a moment and, standing in a little pool of +purple light under the benignant friendliness of a golden moon new +risen and solitary, he considered it. No, he did not know whether he +liked her—it was interest rather that drew him, her strangeness, her +strength and loneliness, young and solitary like the moon above +him—and yet—also some feeling softer than interest so that he was +suddenly touched as he thought of her and spoke out aloud: "I'll be +good to her—whatever happens, by God I'll be good to her," so that a +chauffeur near him turned and looked with hard scornful eyes, and a +girl somewhere laughed. With all his conventional dislike of being in +any way "odd" he walked hurriedly on, confused and wondering more than +ever what it was that had happened to him. Always before he had known +his own mind—now, in everything, he seemed to be pulled two ways. It +was as though some spell had been thrown over him. +</P> + +<P> +It was a lovely evening and he walked slowly, not wishing to enter his +house too quickly. He realised that he had, during the last weeks, +found nothing there but trouble. And if Maggie wished, in spite of what +he had told her, to go on with him? And if his father, impatient at +last, definitely asked him to stay at home altogether and insisted on +an answer? And if his gradually increasing estrangement with his sister +broke into open quarrel? And if, strangest of all, this religious +business, that in such manifestations as the Chapel service of last +night he hated with all his soul, held him after all? +</P> + +<P> +He was in Garrick Street, outside the curiosity shop, his latchkey in +his hand. He stopped and stared down the street as he had done once +before, weeks ago. Was not the root of all his trouble simply this, +that he was becoming against his will interested, drawn in? That there +were things going on that his common sense rejected as nonsense, but +that nevertheless were throwing out feelers like the twisting threats +of an octopus, touching him now, only faintly, here for a second, there +for a second, but fascinating, holding him so that he could not run +away? Granted that Thurston was a charlatan, Miss Avies a humbug, his +sister a fool, his father a dreamer, Crashaw a fanatic, did that mean +that the power behind them all was sham? Was that force that he had +felt when he was a child simply eager superstition? What was behind +this street, this moon, these hurrying figures, his own daily life and +thoughts? Was there really a vast conspiracy, a huge involving plot +moving under the cardboard surface of the world, a plot that he had by +an accident of birth spied upon and discovered? +</P> + +<P> +Always, every day now, thoughts, suspicions, speculations were coming +upon him, uninvited, undesired, from somewhere, from some one. He did +not want them he wanted only the material physical life of the ordinary +man. It must be because he was idling. He would get work at once, join +with some one in the City, go abroad again ... but perhaps even then he +would not escape. Thoughts like those of the last weeks did not depend +for their urgency on place or time. And Maggie, she was mixed up in it +all. He was aware, as he hesitated before opening the door, of the +strangest feeling of belonging to her, not love, nor passion, not +sentiment even. Only as though he had suddenly realised that with new +perils he had received also new protection. +</P> + +<P> +He went upstairs with a feeling that he was on the eve of events that +would change his whole world. +</P> + +<P> +As Martin climbed to the top of the black crooked staircase he was +conscious, as though it had been shown him in a vision, that he was on +the edge of some scene that might shape for him the whole course of his +future life. He had been aware, once or twice before, of such a +premonition, and, as with most men, half of him had rejected and half +of him received the warning. To-day, however, there were reasons enough +for thinking this no mere baseless superstition. With Maggie, with his +father, with his sister, with his own life the decision had got to be +taken, and it was with an abrupt determination that he would end, at +all costs, the fears and uncertainties of these last weeks that he +pushed back the hall-door and entered. He noticed at once strange +garments hanging on the rack and a bright purple umbrella which +belonged, as he knew, to a certain Mrs. Alweed, a friend of his +mother's and a faithful servant of the Chapel, stiff and assertive in +the umbrella-stand. There was a tea-party apparently. Well, he could +not face that immediately. He would have to go in afterwards ... +meanwhile ... +</P> + +<P> +He turned down the passage, pushed back his father's door and entered. +He paused abruptly in the doorway; there, standing in front of the +window facing him, his pale chin in the air, his legs apart, +supercilious and self-confident, stood Thurston. His father's desk was +littered with papers, rustling and blowing a little in the breeze from +the window that was never perfectly closed. +</P> + +<P> +One candle, on the edge of the desk, its flame swaying in the air was +the only light. Martin's first impulse was to turn abruptly back again +and go up to his room. He could not speak to that fellow now, he could +not! He half turned. Then something stopped him: +</P> + +<P> +"Halloo!" he said. "Where's father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't know," said Thurston, sucking the words through his teeth. "I've +been wanting him too." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, as he isn't here—" said Martin fiercely. +</P> + +<P> +"No use me waiting? Quite so. All the same I'm going to wait." +</P> + +<P> +The two figures were strangely contrasted, Martin red-brown with +health, thick and square, Thurston pale with a spotted complexion, dim +and watery eyes, legs and arms like sticks, his black clothes shabby +and his boots dusty. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless at that moment it was Thurston who had the power. He moved +forward from the window. "Makes you fair sick to see me anywhere about +the 'ouse, doesn't it? Oh, I know ... You can't kid me. I've seen from +the first. You fair loathe the sight of me." +</P> + +<P> +"That's nothing to do with it," said Martin uneasily. "Whether we like +one another or not, there's no need to discuss it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, isn't there?" said Thurston, coming a little closer so that he was +standing now directly under the light of the candle. "Why not? Why +shouldn't we? What's the 'arm? I believe in discussing things myself. I +do really. I've said to myself a long way back. 'Well, now, the first +time I get 'im alone I'll ask him why 'e does dislike me. I've always +been civil to him,' I says to myself, 'and yet I can't please him—so +I'll just ask him straight.'" +</P> + +<P> +Martin shrugged his shoulders; he wanted to leave the room, but +something in Thurston held him there. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose we aren't the sort to get on together. We haven't got enough +in common," he said clumsily. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know about that," Thurston said in a friendly conversational +tone. "I shouldn't wonder if we've got more in common than you'd fancy. +Now I'll tell you right out, I like you. I've always liked you, and +what's more I always shall. Whatever you do—" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care," broke in Martin angrily, "whether you like me or not." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I know you don't," Thurston continued quietly. "And I know what +you think of me, too. This is your idea of me, I reckon—that I'm a +pushing, uneducated common bounder that's just using this religious +business to shove himself along with; that's kidding all these poor old +ladies that 'e believes in their bunkum, and is altogether about as +low-down a fellow as you're likely to meet with. That's about the +colour of it, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +Martin said nothing. That was exactly "the colour of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, well," Thurston continued, a faint flush on his pale cheeks. "Of +course I know that all right. And I'll tell you the idea that I might +'ave of you—only might 'ave, mind you. Why, that you're a stuck-up +ignorant sort of feller, that's been rolling up and down all over +Europe, gets a bit of money, comes over and bullies his father, thinks +'e knows better than every one about things 'e knows nothing about +whatever—" +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, Thurston," Martin interrupted, stepping forward. "I tell +you I don't care a two-penny curse what a man like—" +</P> + +<P> +"I only said might, mind you," said Thurston, smiling. "It's only a +short-sighted fool would think that of you really. And I'm not a fool. +No, really, I'm not. I've got quite another idea of you. My idea is +that you're one of us whether you want to be or not, and that you +always will be one of us. That's why I like you and will be a friend to +you too." +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you I don't want your damned friendship," Martin cried. "I +don't want to have anything to do with you or your opinion or your +plans or anything else." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right," said Thurston. "I quite understand. It's natural +enough to feel as you do. But I'm afraid you'll 'ave to 'ave something +to do with me. I'm not quite what you think me, and you're not quite +what you think yourself. There's two of each of us, that's the truth of +it. I may be a sham and a charlatan, one part of me, I don't know I'm +sure. I certainly don't believe all your governor does. I don't believe +all I say and I don't say all I think. But then 'oo does? You don't +yourself. I'll even tell you straight out that when I just came into +the business I laughed at the lot of 'em, your father and all. 'A silly +lot o' softs they are,' I said to myself, 'to believe all that +nonsense.' But now—I don't know. When you've been at this game a bit +you scarcely know what you do believe, that's the truth of it. There +may be something in it after all. Sometimes ... well, it 'ud surprise +you if you'd seen all the things I have. Oh, I don't mean ghosts and +spirits and all that kind of nonsense. No, but the kind of thing that +'appens to people you'd never expect. You're getting caught into it +yourself; I've watched you all along. But that isn't the point. The +point is that I'm not so bad as you think, nor so simple neither. And +life isn't so simple, nor religion, nor love, nor anything as you think +it. You're young yet, you know. Very young." +</P> + +<P> +Martin turned back to the door. +</P> + +<P> +"All very interesting, Thurston," he said. "You can think what you +like, of course. All the same, the less we see of one another—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Thurston slowly, smiling. "That'll be a bit difficult—to +avoid one another, I mean. You see, I'm going to marry your sister." +</P> + +<P> +Martin laughed. Inside him something was saying: "Now, look out. This +is all a trap. He doesn't mean what he says. He's trying to catch you." +</P> + +<P> +"Going to marry Amy? Oh no, you're not." +</P> + +<P> +Thurston did not appear to be interested in anything that Martin had to +say. He continued as though he were pursuing his own thoughts. "Yes ... +so it'll be difficult. I didn't think you'd like it when you heard. I +said to Amy, 'E won't like it,' I said. She said you'd been too long +away from the family to judge. And so you have, you know. Oh! Amy and +I'll be right enough. She's a fine woman, your sister." +</P> + +<P> +Martin burst out: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, that settles it. It simply settles it. That finishes it." +</P> + +<P> +"Finishes what?" asked Thurston, smiling in a friendly way. +</P> + +<P> +"Never you mind. It's nothing to do with you. Has my father consented?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes ... said all 'e wanted was for Amy to be 'appy. And so she will +be. I'll look after her. You'll come round to it in time." +</P> + +<P> +"Father agrees ... My God! But it's impossible! Don't you see? Don't +you see? I ..." +</P> + +<P> +The sudden sense of his impotence called back his words. He felt +nothing but rage and indignation against the whole set of them, against +the house they were in, the very table with the papers blowing upon it +and the candle shining ... Well, it made his own affair more +simple—that was certain. He must be off—right away from them all. +Stay in the house with that fellow for a brother-in-law? Stay when ... +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right," said Thurston, moistening his pale dry lips with his +tongue. "You'll see it in time. It's the best thing that could 'appen. +And we've got more in common than you'd ever suppose. We 'ave, really. +You're a religious man, really—can't escape your destiny, you know. +There's religious and non-religious and it doesn't matter what your +creed is, whether you're a Christian or a 'Ottentot, there it is. And +if you're religious, you're religious. I may be the greatest humbug on +the market, but I'm religious. It's like 'aving a 'are lip—you'll be +bothered with it all your life." +</P> + +<P> +But what more Thurston may have said Martin did not hear: he had left +the room, banging the door behind him. On what was his indignation +based? Injured pride. And was he really indignant? Was not something +within him elated, because by this he had been offered his freedom? +Thurston marry his sister? ... He could go his own way now. Even his +father could not expect him to remain. +</P> + +<P> +And he wanted Maggie—urgently, passionately. Standing for a moment +there in the dark passage he wanted her. He was lonely, disregarded, +despised. +</P> + +<P> +They did not care for him here, no one cared for him anywhere—only +Maggie who was clear-eyed and truthful and sure beyond any human being +whom he had ever known. Then, with a very youthful sense of challenging +this world that had so grossly insulted him by admitting Thurston into +the heart of it, he joined the tea-party. There in the pink, close, +sugar-smelling, soft atmosphere sat his mother, Amy, Mrs. Alweed and +little Miss Pyncheon. His mother, with her lace cap and white hair and +soft plump hands, was pouring tea through a strainer as though it were +a rite. On her plate were three little frilly papers that had held +sugary cakes, on her lips were fragments of sugar. Amy, in an ugly grey +dress, sat severely straight upon a hard chair and was apparently +listening to Miss Pyncheon, but her eyes, suspicious and restless, +moved like the eyes of a newly captured animal. Mrs. Alweed, stout in +pink with a large hat full of roses, smiled and smiled, waiting only +for a moment when she could amble off once again into space safe on the +old broad back of her family experiences, the only conversational steed +to whose care she ever entrusted herself. She had a son Hector, a +husband, Mr. Alweed, and a sister-in-law, Miss Alweed; she had the +greatest confidence in the absorbed attention of the slightest of her +acquaintances. "Hector, he's my boy, you know—although why I call him +a boy I can't think—because he's twenty-two and a half—he's at +Cambridge, Christs College—well, this morning I had a letter ..." she +would begin. She began now upon Martin. His mind wandered. He looked +about the little room and thought of Thurston. Why was he not more +angry about it all? He had pretended to be indignant, he had hated +Thurston as he stood there ... But had he? Half of him hated him. Then +with a jerk Thurston's words came back to him: "There's two of each of +us, that's the truth of it." "Two of each of us ..." Sitting there, +listening to Mrs. Alweed's voice that flowed like a river behind him, +he saw the two figures, saw them quite clearly and distinctly, flesh +and blood, even clothes and voices and smile. And he knew that all his +life these two figures had been growing, waiting for the moment when he +would recognise them. One figure was the Martin whom he knew—brown, +healthy, strong and sane; a figure wearing his clothes, his own +clothes, the tweeds and the cloths, the brogues and the heavy boots, +the soft untidy hats; the figure was hard, definite, resolute, +quarrelling, arguing, loving, joking, swearing all in the sensible way. +It was a figure that all the world had understood, that had been drunk +often enough, lent other men money, been hard-up and extravagant and +thoughtless. "A good chap." "A sensible fellow." "A pal." "No flies on +Warlock." That was the kind of figure. And the life had been physical, +had never asked questions, had never known morbidity, had lived on what +it saw and could touch and could break ... And the other figure! That +was, physically, less plainly seen. No, there it was, standing a little +away from the other, standing away, contemptuously, despising it, +deriding it. Fat, soft, white hanging cheeks, wearing anything to cover +its body, but shining in some way through the clothes, so that it was +body that you saw. A soft body, hands soft and the colour of the flesh +pale and unhealthy. But it was the eyes that spoke: the mouth trembled +and was weak, the chin was fat and feeble, but the eyes lived, +lived—were eager, fighting, beseeching, longing, captive eyes! +</P> + +<P> +And this figure, Martin knew, was a prey to every morbid desire, rushed +to sensual excess and then crept back miserably to search for some +spiritual flagellation. Above all, it was restless, as some one presses +round a dark room searching for the lock of the door, restless and +lonely, cowardly and selfish, but searching and sensitive and even +faithful, faithful to something or to some one ... pursued also by +something or some one. A figure to whom this world offered only +opportunities for sin and failure and defeat, but a figure to whom this +world was the merest shadow hiding, as a shade hides a lamp, the life +within. Wretched enough with its bad health, its growing corpulence, +its weak mouth, its furtive desires, but despising, nevertheless, the +strong, healthy figure beside it. Thurston was right. Men are not born +to be free, but to fight, to the very death, for the imprisonment and +destruction of all that is easiest and most physically active and most +pleasant to the sight and touch ... +</P> + +<P> +"And so Hector really hopes that he'll be able to get down to us for +Christmas, although he's been asked to go on this reading party. Of +course, it's simply a question as to whether he works better at home or +with his friends. If he were a weak character, I think Mr. Alweed would +insist in his coming home, but Hector really cares for his work more +than anything. He's never been very good at games; his short sight +prevents him, poor boy, and as he very justly remarked, when he was +home last holidays, 'I don't see, mother, how I am going to do my duty +as a solicitor (that's what he hopes to be) if I don't work now. Many +men regard Cambridge as a time for play. Not so I.'" +</P> + +<P> +"But I hope that if Hector comes home this Christmas he'll attend the +Chapel services. The influence your father might have on such a boy as +Hector, Mr. Warlock, a boy, sensitive and thoughtful ... I was saying, +Miss Pyncheon, that Hector—" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pyncheon was the soul of good-nature—but she was much more than +that. She was by far the most sensible, genial, and worldly of the +Inside Saints; it was, in fact, astonishing that she should be an +Inside Saint at all. +</P> + +<P> +Of them all she impressed Martin the most, because there was nothing of +the crank about her. She went to theatres, to the seaside in the +summer, took in The Queen, and was a subscriber to Boots' Circulating +Library. She dressed quietly and in excellent taste—in grey or black +and white. She had jolly brown eyes and a dimple in the middle of her +chin. She was ready to discuss any question with any one, was +marvellously broad-minded and tolerant, and although she was both poor +and generous, always succeeded in making her little flat in Soho Square +pretty and attractive. +</P> + +<P> +Her chief fault, perhaps, was that she cared for no one especially—she +had neither lovers nor parents nor sisters nor brothers, and to all her +friends she behaved with the same kind geniality, welcoming one as +another. She was thus aloof from them all and relied upon no one. The +centre of her life was, of course, her religion, but of this she never +spoke, although strangely enough no one doubted the intensity of her +belief and the reality of her devotion. +</P> + +<P> +She was a determined follower of Mr. Warlock; what he said she +believed, but here, too, there seemed to be no personal attachment. She +did not allow criticism of him in her own presence, but, on the other +hand, she never spoke as though it would distress her very greatly to +lose him. He was a sign, a symbol ... If one symbol went another could +be found. +</P> + +<P> +To Martin she was the one out-standing proof of the reality of the +Chapel. All the others—his sister, Miss Avies, Thurston, Crashaw, the +Miss Cardinals, yes, and his father too, were, in one way or another, +eccentric, abnormal, but Miss Pyncheon was the sane every-day world, +the worldly world, the world of drinks and dinners, and banks and +tobacconists, and yet she believed as profoundly as any of them. What +did she believe? She was an Inside Saint, therefore she must have +accepted this whole story of the Second Coming and the rest of it. Of +course women would believe anything ... Nevertheless ... +</P> + +<P> +He scarcely listened to their chatter. He was forcing himself not to +look at his sister, and yet Thurston's news seemed so extraordinary to +him that his eye kept stealing round to her to see whether she were +still the same. Could she have accepted him, that bounder and cad and +charlatan? He felt a sudden cold chill of isolation as though in this +world none of the ordinary laws were followed. "By God, I am a stranger +here," he thought. It was not until after dinner that night that he was +alone with his father. He had resolved on many fine things in the +interval. He was going to "have it out with him," "to put his foot +down," "to tell him that such a thing as Thurston's marriage to his +sister was perfectly impossible." And then, for the thousandth time +since his return to England he felt strangely weak and irresolute. He +did wish to be "firm" with his father, but it would have been so much +easier to be firm had he not been so fond of him. "Soft, sentimental +weakness," he called it to himself, but he knew that it was something +deeper than that, something that he would never be able to deny. +</P> + +<P> +He went into his father's study that night with a strange dismal +foreboding as though he were being drawn along upon some path that he +did not want to follow. What was his father mixed up with all this +business for? Why were such men as Thurston in existence? Why couldn't +life be simple and straightforward with people like his father and +himself and that girl Maggie alone somewhere with nothing to interfere? +Life was never just as you wanted it, always a little askew, a little +twisted, cynically cocking its eye at you before it vanished round the +corner? He didn't seem to be able to manage it. Anyway, he wasn't going +to have that fellow Thurston marrying his sister. +</P> + +<P> +He found his father lying back in his arm-chair fast asleep, looking +like a dead man, his long thin face pale with fatigue, his eyelids a +dull grey, his mouth tightly closed as though in a grim determination +to pursue some battle. And at the sight of him thus worn out and beaten +Martin's affection flooded his heart. He stood opposite his father +looking at him and loving him more deeply than he had ever done before. +</P> + +<P> +"I will take him away from all this," was his thought, "these Thurstons +and all—out of all this ... We'll go off abroad somewhere. And I'll +make him fat and happy." +</P> + +<P> +Then his father suddenly woke up, with a start and a cry: "Where am I?" +... Then he suddenly saw Martin. "Martin," he said, smiling. +</P> + +<P> +Martin smiled back and then began at once: "Father, this isn't true +about Thurston, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +He saw, as he had often done before, that his father had to call +himself up from some world of vision before he could realise even his +surroundings. Martin he recognised intuitively with the recognition of +the spirit, but he seemed to take in the details of the room slowly, +one by one, as though blinded by the light. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—I've been dreaming," he said, still smiling at Martin helplessly +and almost timidly. "I'm so tired these days—suddenly—I usen't to be +..." He put his hand to his forehead, then laid it on Martin's knee, +and the strength and warmth of that seemed suddenly to fill him with +vigour. +</P> + +<P> +"You're never tired, are you?" he asked as a child might ask an elder. +</P> + +<P> +"Very seldom," answered Martin, "I say, father, what is all this about +Thurston?" +</P> + +<P> +"Thurston ... Why, what's he been doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"He says he's engaged to Amy." The disgust of the idea made Martin's +words, against his will, sharp and angry. +</P> + +<P> +"Does he? ... Yes, I remember. He spoke to me about it." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course it's simply his infernal cheek ..." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Warlock sighed. "I don't know, I'm sure. Amy seemed to wish it." +</P> + +<P> +Martin felt then more strongly than before the Something that drove +him. It said to him: "Now, then ... here's a thing for you to make a +row about—a big row. And then you can go off with Maggie." But, on the +other hand, there was Something that said: "Don't hurt him. Don't hurt +him. You may regret it all your life if ..." +</P> + +<P> +If what? He didn't know. He was always threatened with regretting +things all his life. The blow was always going to fall. And that +pleasant very British phrase came back to him, "He would put his foot +down"—however—he was very angry—very angry. +</P> + +<P> +He burst out: "Oh, but that's absurd, father. Impossible—utterly. +Thurston in the family? Why, you must see yourself how monstrous it +would be. Amy's got some silly, sentimental whim and she's got to be +told that it won't do. If you ask me, I don't think Amy's improved much +since I was away. But that's not the question. The idea of Thurston's +disgusting. You can't seriously consider it for a minute..." +</P> + +<P> +"Why is Thurston disgusting, my boy?" +</P> + +<P> +Martin hated to be called "my boy"—it made him feel so young and +dependent. +</P> + +<P> +"You've only got to look at him!" Martin jumped up, disregarding his +father's hand, and began to stamp about the room. "He's a cad—he's not +your friend, father. He isn't, really. He'd like to out you from the +whole thing if he could. He thinks you're old-fashioned and behind the +times, and all he thinks about is bringing in subscriptions and +collecting new converts. He's like one of those men who beat drums +outside tents in a fair ... He's a sickening man! He doesn't believe in +his religion or anything else. I should think he's crooked about money, +and immoral probably too. You're much too innocent, father. You're so +good and trustful yourself that you don't know how these fellows are +doing you in. There's a regular plot against you and they'd be most +awfully pleased if you were to retire. They're not genuine like you. +They simply use the Chapel for self-advertisement and making money. Of +course there are some genuine ones like the Miss Cardinals, but +Thurston's an absolute swindler ..." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped short at that. He had said more than he had intended and he +was frightened suddenly. He swung round on his heel and looked at his +father. +</P> + +<P> +"Come here, Martin." He came across the room. "Closer. Now, tell me. +We're good friends, aren't we?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, father." +</P> + +<P> +He put his hand on his son's shoulder. "Do you know that I love you +more than anything in the whole world? More, I'm sometimes terribly +afraid, than God Himself. I can't help myself. I love you, Martin, so +that it's like hunger or thirst ... It's the only earthly passion that +I've ever had. And I'll tell you another thing. It's the one terror of +my earthly life that you'll leave me. Now that I've got you back I'm +afraid every time you go out of the house that you'll run away, round +the corner, and never come back again. I love you and I'm not going to +let you go again.—Not until—until—the Time has come ... What does it +matter to you and me what Thurston and Amy do? God will come and He +will find us both together—you and I—and He will take us up and keep +us together and we shall never be separated any more ... I love your +strength, Martin, your happiness, your youth—all the things I've never +had. And you're not going to leave me, not though Amy married a hundred +Thurstons ..." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Warlock's grip on his son's shoulder was iron. +</P> + +<P> +Martin bent down and sat on the arm of his dusty leather chair to bring +himself on to the same level. He put his arm round his father and drew +him close to him. Maggie, Life, Money, Adventure—everything seemed to +draw away from him and he saw himself, a little boy, pattering on bare +feet down the aisle towards the font—just as though a spell had been +cast over him. +</P> + +<P> +They sat close together in silence. Then slowly the thought of Thurston +came back again. Martin drew away a little. +</P> + +<P> +"All the same, father," he said, "Thurston mustn't marry Amy." +</P> + +<P> +"They're only engaged. There's no question of marriage yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Then they are engaged?" Martin drew right away, standing up again. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, they're engaged." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'm not going to stand it. I tell you I won't stay here if +Thurston marries Amy." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Warlock sighed. "Well then, let's leave it, my boy. I daresay +they'll never marry." +</P> + +<P> +"No. I won't have it. It's too serious to leave." +</P> + +<P> +His father's voice was sharper suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we won't talk about it just now, Martin, if you don't mind." +</P> + +<P> +"But I must. You can't leave a thing like that. Thurston will simply +own the place ..." +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you, Martin, to leave it alone." They were both angry now. +</P> + +<P> +"And I tell you, father, that if you let Thurston marry Amy I leave the +house and never come back again." +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't that rather selfish of you? You've been away all these years. +You've left us to ourselves. You come back suddenly without seeing how +we live or caring and then you dictate to us what we're to do. How can +you expect us to listen?" +</P> + +<P> +"And how can you expect me to stay?" Martin broke into a torrent of +words: "I'm miserable here and you know that I am. Mother and Amy hate +me and you're always wrapped up in your religion. What kind of a place +is it for a fellow? I came back meaning that you and I should be the +best pals father and son have ever been, but you wouldn't come out with +me—you only wanted to drag me in. You tell me always to wait for +something. To wait for what? I don't know. And nobody here does seem to +know. And I can't wait for ever. I've got to lead my own life and if +you won't come with me I must go off by myself—" +</P> + +<P> +He was following his own ideas now—not looking at his father at all. +"I've discovered since I've been home that I'm not the sort of fellow +to settle down. I suppose I shall go on wandering about all my days. +I'm not proud of myself, you know, father. I don't seem to be much good +to any one, but the trouble is I don't want to be much better. I feel +as though it wouldn't be much good if I did try. I can't give up my own +life—for nobody—not even for you—and however rotten my own life is +I'd rather lead it than some one else's." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped and then went on quietly, as though he were arguing +something out with himself: "The strange thing is that I do feel this +place has got a kind of a hold on me. When you remind me of what I was +like as a kid I go right back and feel helpless as though you could do +anything with me you like. All the same I don't believe in this +business, father—all this Second Coming and the rest of it. We're in +the Twentieth Century now, you know, and everybody knows that that kind +of thing is simply impossible. Only an old maid or two ... Why, I don't +believe you believe in it really, father. That's why you're so keen on +making me believe. But I don't; it's no use. You can't make me. I don't +believe there's any God at all. If there were a God he'd let a fellow +have more free will ..." +</P> + +<P> +He was interrupted by an extraordinary cry. He turned to see his father +standing, one hand pressed back on the chair, his face white, his eyes +black and empty, like sightless eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Martin! That's blasphemy! ... Take care! Take care! ... Oh, my son, my +son! ..." +</P> + +<P> +Then he suddenly collapsed backwards, crouching on to the chair as +though he were trying to flee from some danger. Martin sprang towards +him. He caught him round the body, holding him to him—something was +leaping like a furious animal inside his father's breast. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" he cried, desperately frightened. +</P> + +<P> +"It's my heart," Warlock answered in a voice very soft and distant. +"Bad ... Excitement ... Ring that bell ... Amy ..." +</P> + +<P> +A moment later Amy entered. She came quickly into the room, she said +nothing—only gave Martin one look. +</P> + +<P> +She gave her father something from a little bottle, kneeling in front +of him. +</P> + +<P> +At last she turned to her brother. "You'd better go," she said. "You +can do nothing here." +</P> + +<P> +Miserable, repentant, feeling as though he had no place in the world +and yet eager too to defend himself, he left the room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0207"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE OUTSIDE WORLD +</H3> + +<P> +Maggie had a week. +</P> + +<P> +She did not need it. From the first half-hour after Martin's leaving +her her mind was made up. This question of marriage did not, on further +reflection, very greatly disturb her. She had known, in her time, a +number of married people and they had been invariably unhappy and +quarrelsome. The point seemed to be that you should be, in some way, +near the person whom you loved, and she had only loved one person in +all her life, and intended never to love another. Even this question of +love was not nearly so tangled for her as it would be for any more +civilised person. She knew very little about marriage and only in the +most sordid fashion about sexual relations which were definitely +connected in her mind with drunken peasants and her father's cook. They +had nothing at all to do with Martin. +</P> + +<P> +The opinion of the world was an unknown factor in her vision, she only +knew of the opinion of her aunts and Miss Warlock and with these she +was already in rebellion. +</P> + +<P> +She would have been in great trouble had she supposed that this woman +still loved Martin and needed him, but that, from what Martin had said, +was obviously not so. No, it was all quite clear. They would escape +together, out of this tangle of unnatural mysteries and warnings, and +live happily for ever after in the country. +</P> + +<P> +As to Martin's self-portrait, that did not greatly distress her. She +had never supposed that he or any one else was "good." She had never +known a "good" person. Nor did it occur to her, in her pristine state +of savagery, that you loved any one the less for their drawbacks. She +would rather be with Martin at his worst than with any one else at +their best—that was all. +</P> + +<P> +Half-an-hour was enough time to settle the whole affair. She then +waited patiently until the end of the week. She did not quite know how +she would arrange a meeting, but that would, she expected, arrange +itself. +</P> + +<P> +Two events occurred that filled her mind and made the week pass +quickly. One was that she received an answer to her adventurous letter, +the other was a remarkable conversation with Miss Caroline Smith. The +answer to her letter was lying on her plate when she came down to +breakfast, and Aunt Elizabeth was watching it with an excited stare. +</P> + +<P> +It read as follows: +</P> + +<P> +14 BRYANSTON SQUARE. +</P> + +<P> +Dear Miss CARDINAL, +</P> + +<P> +Of course I remember you perfectly. I wondered whether you would write +to me one day. I am married now and live most of the year in London. +Would you come and see me at Bryanston Square? I am nearly always at +home at tea-time. If you are free would you perhaps come next Friday? +</P> + +<P> +It will be so nice to see you again. +</P> + +<P> +Yours sincerely, +</P> + +<P> +KATHERINE MARK. "You've got a letter, dear. Your aunt isn't quite so +well this morning, I'm afraid. Scrambled eggs." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she looked her aunt in the face without any confusion. How +strangely her decision about Martin had altered her relationship now to +every one! What did it matter whether any one were angry? "I ought to +have told you, Aunt Elizabeth. I wrote about a fortnight ago to a lady +who came once to see us at home. She was a Miss Trenchard then. She +said that if ever I wanted any help I was to write to her. So I have +written—to ask her whether she can find me any work to do, and she has +asked me to go and see her." +</P> + +<P> +"Work," said Aunt Elizabeth. "But you won't go away while your aunt's +so ill." +</P> + +<P> +Wouldn't she? Maggie didn't know so much about that. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to be independent," said Maggie, trying to fix Aunt Elizabeth's +eyes. "It isn't fair that I should be a burden to you." +</P> + +<P> +"You're no burden, dear." Aunt Elizabeth looked uneasily round the +room. "Your aunt depends on you." +</P> + +<P> +"Depends on me for what?" +</P> + +<P> +"For everything." +</P> + +<P> +"Then she oughtn't to, Aunt Elizabeth, I've said it again and again. +I'm not fit for any one to depend on. I'm forgetful and careless and +untidy. You know I am. And I'm different from every one here. I'm very +grateful to Aunt Anne, but I'm not good enough for her to depend on." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth blinked nervously. +</P> + +<P> +"She's got very little. You mustn't take away all she has." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not all she has," answered Maggie, knowing that she was becoming +excited and cross. "I don't belong to any one except myself." "And +Martin" her soul whispered. Then she added, suddenly moved by remorse +as she looked at Aunt Elizabeth's meek and trembling face, "You're so +good to me, both of you, and I'm so bad. I'll give you anything but my +freedom." +</P> + +<P> +"You talk so strangely, dear," said Aunt Elizabeth. "But there are so +many things I don't understand." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie took the letter up to her bedroom and there read it a number of +times. It all seemed wonderful to her, the stamped blue address, the +rich white square notepaper, and above all the beautiful handwriting. +She thought of her own childish scrawl and blushed, she even sat down, +there and then, at her dressing-table and, with a pencil, began to +imitate some of the letters. +</P> + +<P> +On Friday! To-day was Tuesday. Bryanston Square. Wherever was Bryanston +Square, and how would she find it? She determined to ask Caroline Smith. +</P> + +<P> +She had not long to wait for her opportunity. On Wednesday evening +about half-past five Miss Smith poked her head into the Cardinal +drawing-room to discover Maggie sitting with her hands on her lap +looking down on to the street. +</P> + +<P> +"Are your aunts anywhere?" asked Caroline. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie. "Aunt Anne's in bed and Aunt Elizabeth's at Miss +Pyncheon's." +</P> + +<P> +"That's right," said Caroline, "because I haven't seen you, darling, +for ages." +</P> + +<P> +"The day before yesterday," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You're a literal pet," said Caroline kissing her. "I always +exaggerate, of course, and it's so sweet of you to tell me about it." +She rushed off to the fire and spread out her blue skirt and dangled +her feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it cold and dark? You funny dear, not to have the blinds down +and to sit staring into the beastly street like that ... I believe +you're in love." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie came to herself with a start, got up and slowly went over to the +fire. +</P> + +<P> +"Caroline, where's Bryanston Square?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you pet, don't you know where Bryanston Square is?" cried Caroline +suddenly fixing her bright eyes upon Maggie with burning curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +"If I did I wouldn't ask," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Quite right—neither you would. Well, it's near Marble Arch." +</P> + +<P> +"But I don't know where the Marble Arch is." +</P> + +<P> +"Lord!" cried Caroline. "And she's been in London for months. You +really are a pet. Well, what you'd better do is to get into the first +taxi you see and just say 'Bryanston Square.'" +</P> + +<P> +How stupid of her! She might have thought of that for herself. +</P> + +<P> +"Is there a park near Bryanston Square?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Of course—Hyde Park." +</P> + +<P> +"And is it open at six?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. You can't shut Hyde Park." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie pursued her thoughts. Caroline watched her with intense +curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want with a Park, you darling?" she asked at last. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, nothing," said Maggie, slowly. Then she went on, laughing: "I've +been asked out to tea—for the first time in my life. And I'm terribly +frightened." +</P> + +<P> +"How exciting!" said Caroline clapping her hands. "Who's it with?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a Mrs. Mark. She was a Miss Trenchard. She used to live in +Glebeshire. She's going to find me some work to do." +</P> + +<P> +"Work!" cried Caroline. "Aren't you going to stay with your aunts then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to be independent," said Maggie slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well!" said Caroline, amazed. +</P> + +<P> +Could Maggie have seen just then into Miss Smith's mind and could she +only have realised that, with Miss Smith, every action and intention in +the human heart pivoted upon love-affairs and love-affairs only, she +might have been warned and have saved much later trouble. She was +intent on her own plans and was thinking of Caroline only as a possible +agent. +</P> + +<P> +"Caroline," she asked, "would you take a note for me to some one?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," said Caroline. "Who is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Martin Warlock," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +At the name she suddenly blushed crimson. She knew that Caroline was +looking at her with eager curiosity. She suspected then that she had +done something foolish and would have given anything to recall her +words, but to recall them now seemed only to make it the more +suspicious. +</P> + +<P> +"It's only something his sister wanted to know," she said casually. "I +thought you'd be seeing him soon. I hardly ever do." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I'm going up there to-night," said Caroline staring at Maggie. +"Well, I'll give it you before you go," then she went on as casually as +she could. "What's been happening lately?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you know all about the excitement," said Caroline sitting +back in the faded arm-chair with her blue dress spread all about her +like a cloud. +</P> + +<P> +"What excitement?" said Maggie, pulling herself up, with a desperate +struggle, from her own private adventures. +</P> + +<P> +"What! you don't know?" Caroline exclaimed in an awed whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"Know what?" Maggie asked, rather crossly, repenting more and more of +asking Caroline to carry her note. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, where DO you live? ... All about Mr. Warlock and his visions!" +</P> + +<P> +"I've heard nothing at all," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +This was unexpected joy to Caroline, who had never imagined that there +would be any one so near the Inner Saints as Maggie who yet knew +nothing about these recent events. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you really know nothing about it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't you wonderful?" said Caroline. "What happened was this. About +three weeks ago Mr. Warlock had a vision in the middle of the night. He +saw God at about three in the morning." +</P> + +<P> +"How did he see God?" asked Maggie, awed in spite of herself. +</P> + +<P> +Caroline's voice dropped to a mysterious whisper. "He just woke up and +there God was at the end of the bed. Of course he's not spoken to me +about it, but apparently there was a blaze of light and Something in +the middle. And then a voice spoke and told Mr. Warlock that on the +last night of this year everything would be fulfilled." +</P> + +<P> +"What did He mean?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Different people think He meant different things," said Caroline. "Of +course there's most fearful excitement about it. Mr. Warlock's had two +since." +</P> + +<P> +"Two what?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Two visions. Just like the first. The blazing light and the voice and +telling him that the last night of the year's to be the time." Caroline +then began to be carried away by her excitement. She talked faster and +faster. "Oh! You don't know what a state every one's in! It's causing +all sorts of divisions. First there are all his own real believers. +Miss Pyncheon, your aunts, and the others. My father's one. They all +believe every word he says. They're all quite certain that the last day +of this year is to be the time of the Second Coming. They won't any of +them, look a minute further than that. Father doesn't care a bit now +what mother does with the money because, he says, we shan't want any +next year. Mother isn't so sure so she's taking as much care of it as +ever, and of course it's nice for her now to have it all in her own +hands. They're all of them doing everything to make themselves ready. +It doesn't matter how aggravating you are, father never loses his +temper now. He's so sweet that it's maddening. Haven't you noticed how +good your aunts are?" +</P> + +<P> +"They're always the same," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Well. I expect they're different really. Then there's the middle-class +like Mr. Thurston and Miss Avies who pretend to believe all that Mr. +Warlock says, but of course, they don't believe a word of it, and they +hope that this will prove his ruin. They know there won't be any Second +Coming on New Year's Eve, and then they think he will be finished and +they'll be able to get rid of him. So they're encouraging him to +believe in all this, and then when the moment comes they'll turn on +him!" +</P> + +<P> +"Beasts!" said Maggie suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I daresay you're right," said Caroline. "Only it does make me +laugh, all of it. Thurston and Miss Avies have all their plans made, +only now they're quarrelling because Thurston wants to marry Amy +Warlock and Miss Avies meant him to marry her!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is Mr. Thurston going to marry Miss Warlock?" cried Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"So they say," said Caroline again watching Maggie curiously. "Well, +anyway, Miss Avies is the strongest of the lot really. I'd back her +against anybody. I'm terrified of her myself, I tell you frankly. She'd +wring any one's neck for twopence. Oh yes, she would! ... Then there +are the third lot who simply don't believe in Mr. Warlock's visions at +all and just laugh at him. People like Miss Smythe and Mrs. Bellaston. +A lot of them are leaving the chapel. Mr. Warlock won't listen to +anybody. He's getting stranger and stranger, and his heart's so bad +they say he might die any day if he had a shock. Then he's always +quarrelling with Martin." +</P> + +<P> +Caroline suddenly stopped. She looked at Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Martin's a terrible trial to his father," she said. +</P> + +<P> +But Maggie was secure now. +</P> + +<P> +"Is he?" she asked indifferently. Then she added slowly, "What do you +believe, Caroline?" +</P> + +<P> +"What do I believe?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, about Mr. Warlock's visions." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of course, it's only because he's ill and prays for hours without +getting off his knees, and won't eat enough, that he sees things. And +yet I don't know. There may be something in it. If I were on my knees +for weeks I'd never see anything. But I'll be terribly sorry for Mr. +Warlock if the time comes and nothing happens. He'll just have to go." +</P> + +<P> +They sat a little longer together and then Caroline said: "Well, +darling, I must be off. Where's that note?" She hesitated, looking at +Maggie with a wicked gleam in her pale blue eyes. "You know, Maggie, I +can't make up my mind. I've had an offer of marriage." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so glad, Caroline," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but I don't know what to do. It's a man—Mr. Purdie. His father's +ever so rich and they've got a big place down at Skeaton." +</P> + +<P> +"Where's that?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't you know? Skeaton-on-Sea. It's a seaside resort. I've known +William for a long time. His father knows father. He came to tea last +week, and proposed. He's rather nice although he's so silent." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you marry him then?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I know Martin Warlock's going to ask me. It's been getting +closer and closer. I expect he will this week. Of course, he isn't so +safe as William, but he's much more exciting. And he's got quite a lot +of money of his own." +</P> + +<P> +Strange, the sure, confident, happy security that Maggie felt in her +heart at this announcement. +</P> + +<P> +"I should wait for Martin Warlock," she said. "He'd be rather fun to +marry." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think so?" answered Caroline. "Do you know, I believe I will. +You're always right, you darling ... Only suppose I should miss them +both. William won't wait for ever! Got that note, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was defiant. She would just show the creature that she wasn't +afraid of her. She'd give her the note and she might imagine what she +pleased. +</P> + +<P> +She got a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote hurriedly. +</P> + +<P> +The week is up on Friday. Will you meet me that evening at a quarter +past six under the Marble Arch? MAGGIE. +</P> + +<P> +The boldness, the excitement of this inflamed her. It was so like her +to challenge any action once she was in it by taking it to its furthest +limit. She put it in an envelope and wrote Martin's name with a +flourish. +</P> + +<P> +"There!" she said, giving it to Caroline. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said Caroline, and with a number of rather wet and +elaborate kisses (Maggie hated kissing) departed. +</P> + +<P> +But her afternoon was not yet over; hardly had Caroline left when the +door was opened and Miss Avies was shown in. Maggie started up with +dismay and began to stammer excuses. Miss Avies brushed them aside. +</P> + +<P> +"It doesn't matter," she said. "You'll do as well—even, it may be, +better." +</P> + +<P> +A strange woman Miss Avies! Maggie had, of course, seen her at Chapel, +but this was the first time that they had been alone together. Miss +Avies was like a thin rod of black metal, erect and quivering and +waiting to strike. Her long sallow face was stiff, not with outraged +virtue, or elaborate pride, or burning scorn, but simply with the +accumulated concentration of fiery determination. She was the very +symbol of self-centred energy, inhuman, cold, relentless. Her hair was +jet black and gleamed like steel, and she had thick black eyebrows like +ink-marks against her forehead of parchment. Her eyes were dead, like +glass eyes, and she had some false teeth that sometimes clicked in her +mouth. She wore a black dress with no ornament and thin black gloves. +</P> + +<P> +She did not seem, however, to Maggie unkindly, as she stood there, +looking about the room rather short-sightedly. (She would not wear +glasses. Could it have been vanity?) She was not hostile, nor scornful, +nor even patronising ... but had Maggie been struck there, dead at her +feet she would not have moved a step to help her. Her voice was ugly, +with a crack in it, as though it needed oil. Maggie, as she looked at +her, did not need to be told that she did not believe in Mr. Warlock's +mysticism. She came across and shook Maggie's hand. Her touch was cold +and stiff and a little damp like that of a wet stone. +</P> + +<P> +"Sorry your Aunt's out," she said, "but I can talk to you for a while." +She looked at Maggie for a moment. Then she said: +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you clear out of all this?" +</P> + +<P> +The voice was so abrupt and the words so unexpected that Maggie jumped. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't I?" she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you," said Miss Avies. "You've no place here in all this +business. You don't believe in it, do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"And you don't want to use it for something you do believe in?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie. "Well then, clear out." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, colouring a little, said: +</P> + +<P> +"My aunts have been very good to me. I oughtn't to leave them." +</P> + +<P> +"Fiddlesticks," said Miss Avies. "Your life's your own, not your +aunts'." +</P> + +<P> +She sat down and stayed bolt upright and motionless near the fire; she +flung a thin dark shadow like a stain on the wall. There was a long +pause between them. After that abrupt opening there seemed to be +nothing to say. Maggie's thoughts also were elsewhere. She was wishing +now passionately that she had not given that note to Caroline. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly Miss Avies said, "What do you do with yourself all day?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie laughed. "Try and make myself less careless, Miss Avies." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Avies replied, "You'll never make yourself less careless. We are +as we are." +</P> + +<P> +"But don't you think," said Maggie, "that one can cure one's faults?" +</P> + +<P> +"One gets rid of one only to make room for another ... But that doesn't +matter. The point is that one should have an ambition. What's your +ambition, child?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie didn't answer. Her ambition was Martin, but she couldn't tell +Miss Avies so. +</P> + +<P> +At last, after a long pause, as Miss Avies still seemed to be waiting, +she answered: +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose that I want to earn my living—to be independent." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, leave this place then," said Miss Avies. "There's no +independence here." Then added, as though to herself. "They think +they're looking for the face of God ... It's only for themselves and +their vanity they're looking." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie said, to break another of the long pauses that seemed to be +always forming between them: +</P> + +<P> +"I think every one ought to earn their own living, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Avies shook her head. "You're very young—terribly young. I've got +no advice to give you except to lead a healthy life somewhere away from +these surroundings. We're an unnatural lot here and you're a healthy +young creature ... Have you got a lover?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie smiled. "I've got a friend," she said. Miss Avies sighed. +"That's more than I've got," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Not that I've time for one," she added. She got up. "I won't wait for +your aunt," she said, "I've left a note downstairs ... You clear out as +soon as you can, that's my advice to you." +</P> + +<P> +She said good-bye, looking into Maggie's clear eyes. She was suddenly +less inhuman, the touch of her hand was warmer. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you cheat yourself into believing in the Deity," she said, and +was gone. +</P> + +<P> +When Friday arrived Maggie had not seen Caroline again, and she could +not tell whether the note had been safely delivered or no. She was not +sure what she had better do. Caroline might hare done anything with the +note, torn it up, burnt it, lost it, forgotten it altogether. Well, +that was a risk that Maggie must take. If he did not appear she would +wait a little while and then come away. They must soon meet in any +case. They had all their lives before them. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne was up again—very, very pale now and so thin that the light +seemed to shine through her making her more of a stained window saint +than ever. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie told her about the visit, Aunt Anne looked at her curiously. She +seemed so weak and frail that Maggie suddenly felt warm maternal love. +Rather shyly she put her hand upon her aunt's: "I won't go away until +you're better—" +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne nodded her head. +</P> + +<P> +"I know you won't, dear," she said. "Don't be out late to-day. We shall +be anxious about you." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had made a promise and was terrified when she thought of it. +Suppose her aunt did not get better for years and years? +</P> + +<P> +People often had long lingering illnesses with no apparent change in +their condition. To Maggie a promise was an utterly final thing. She +could not dream that one ever broke one's word. She trembled now when +she thought of what she had done. She had been entrapped after all and +by her own free will. +</P> + +<P> +In her little room as she was putting on her hat she suddenly prayed to +a God, of whom she knew nothing, that her aunt might get better soon. +</P> + +<P> +She started out on her great adventure with a strange self-assurance as +though loving Martin had given her the wisdom of all the ages. +</P> + +<P> +Turning down the street towards the Strand she found almost at once a +taxi-cab drawn up, as though it had been waiting there especially for +her like an eloping coach in a romantic tale. A fat red-faced fellow +with a purple nose, a cloth cap and a familiar vague eye, as though he +always saw further than he intended, waited patiently for her to speak. +</P> + +<P> +Boldly, as though she had done such things all her life, she said, +"Fourteen Bryanston Square." Then she slipped in and was hidden from +the gay world. She sat there, her hands on her lap staring at the three +crimson rolls in the neck of her driver. She was thinking of nothing, +nothing at all. Did she struggle to think? Only words would come, +"Martin," or "Bryanston Square," or "cab," again and again, words that +did not mean anything but physical sensations. "Martin" hot fire at the +throat, "Bryanston Square" an iron rod down the spine, and "cab" dust +and ashes in the eyes. +</P> + +<P> +She tried to look at herself in the little mirror opposite her, but she +could only catch the corner of her cheek and half her hat. But she +minded less about her appearance now. If Martin could love her it did +not matter what others thought—nevertheless she pulled her hat about a +little and patted her dress. The cab stopped and she felt desperately +lonely. Did any one care about her anywhere? No, no one. She could have +cried with pity at the thought of her own loneliness. +</P> + +<P> +"One and sixpence, Miss," said the cabman in so husky a voice. +</P> + +<P> +She gave it to him. +</P> + +<P> +"What's this?" he asked, looking at it. +</P> + +<P> +"One and sixpence," she answered timidly, wondering at his sarcastic +eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh well, o' course," he said, looking her all over. +</P> + +<P> +She knew instinctively that he demanded more. She found another +sixpence. "Is that enough?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed ashamed. +</P> + +<P> +"If I 'adn't a wife sick—" he began. +</P> + +<P> +She ran up the high stone steps and rang a bell. The episode with the +driver had disturbed her terribly. It had shown in what a foreign world +she was. All her self-confidence was gone. She had to take a pull at +herself and say: "Why, Maggie, you might be ringing the dentist's bell +at this moment." +</P> + +<P> +That helped her, and then the thought of Martin. She saw his boyish +smile and felt the warm touch of his rough hand. When the maid was +there instead of the green door, she almost said: "Is Martin in?" +</P> + +<P> +But she behaved very well. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Mark?" she said in precisely the voice required. +</P> + +<P> +The maid smiled and stood aside. And then into what a world she +entered! A world of comfort and reassurance, of homeliness and +kindliness, without parrots and fierce-eyed cats and swaying pictures +of armoured men—a world of urbanity and light and space. There was a +high white staircase with brown etchings in dark frames on the white +walls. There was a thick soft carpet and a friendly fat grandfather +clock. Many doors but none of them mysterious, all ready to be opened. +</P> + +<P> +She climbed the staircase and was shown into a room high and gaily +coloured and full of flowers. She saw the deep curtains, blue silk shot +with purple, the chairs of blue silk and a bowl of soft amber light +hanging from the ceiling. A mass of gold-red chrysanthemums flamed +against the curtains. Several people were gathered round a tea-table +near the fire. +</P> + +<P> +She stood lost on the thick purple carpet under the amber light, all +too brilliant for her. She had come from a world of darkness, owl-like +she must blink before the blaze. Some one came forward to her, some one +so kind and comforting, so easy and unsurprised that Maggie suddenly +felt herself steadied as though a friend had put an arm around her. +Before she had felt: "This light—I am shabby." Now she felt, "I am +with friendly people." She was surprised at the way that she was +suddenly at her ease. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Mark was not beautiful, but she had soft liquid eyes and her hand +that held Maggie's was firm and warm and strong. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me introduce you," said Mrs. Mark. "That is Miss Trenchard, and +that Mr. Trenchard. This is my husband. Philip, this is Miss Cardinal." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Trenchard must be forty, Maggie thought. She was plump and +thick-set, with a warm smile. Then Mr. Trenchard was a clergyman—he +would be stout were he not so broad. His face was red, his hair snowy +white, but he did not look old. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled at Maggie as though he had known her all his life. Then there +was Mr. Mark, who was stocky and thick, and reminded Maggie of Martin, +although his face was quite different, he looked much cleverer and not +such a boy; he was not, in fact, a boy at all. "I'm sure he thinks too +hard," decided Maggie, who had habits of making up her mind at once +about people. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there's no one to be frightened about here," she decided. And +indeed there was not! It was as though they had all some especial +reason for being nice to her. Perhaps they saw that she was not in her +own world here. And yet they did not make her feel that. She drank in +the differences with great gulps of appreciation, but it was not they +who insisted. +</P> + +<P> +Here were light and colour and space above all—rest. Nothing was about +to happen, no threat over their heads that the roof would fall beneath +one's feet, that the floor would sink. No sudden catching of the breath +at the opening of a door, no hesitation about climbing the stairs, no +surveillance by the watching Thomas, no distant clanging of the Chapel +bell. How strange they all seemed, looking back from this safe harbour. +The aunts, the Warlocks, Thurston, Mr. Crashaw, Caroline—all of them. +There the imagination set fire to every twig—here the imagination was +not needed, because everything occurred before your eyes. +</P> + +<P> +She did not figure it all out in so many words at once, but the +contrast of the two worlds was there nevertheless. Why had she been so +anxious, so nervous, so distressed? There was no need. Had she not +known that this other world existed? Perhaps she had not. She must +never again forget it ... +</P> + +<P> +Katherine Mark was so kind and friendly, her voice so soft and her +interest so eager, that Maggie felt that she could tell her anything. +But their talk was not to come just yet—first there must be general +conversation. +</P> + +<P> +The clergyman with the white hair and the rosy face laughed a great +deal in a schoolboy kind of way, and every time that he laughed his +sister, who was like a pippin apple with her sunburnt cheeks, looked at +him with protecting eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"She looks after him in everything," said Maggie to herself. He was +called Paul by them all. +</P> + +<P> +"He's my cousin, you know, Miss Cardinal," said Mrs. Mark. "And yet I +scarcely ever see him. Isn't it a shame? Grace makes everything so +comfortable for him ..." +</P> + +<P> +Grace smiled, well pleased. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Paul's devotion to his parish ..." she said in calm, happy, +self-assured voice, as though she'd never had a surprise in her life. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure it isn't either of those things," thought Maggie to herself. +"He's lazy." +</P> + +<P> +Lazy but nice. She had never seen a clergyman so healthy, so happy so +clean and so kind. She smiled across the table at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know Skeaton?" he asked her. Skeaton! Where had she heard of +the place? Why, of course, it was Caroline! +</P> + +<P> +"Only yesterday I heard of it for the first time," she said. "A friend +of mine knows some one there." +</P> + +<P> +"Beastly place," said Mr. Mark. "Sand always blowing into your eyes." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. and Mrs. Trenchard got up to go. +</P> + +<P> +He stood a moment holding Maggie's hand. "If ever you come to Skeaton, +Miss Cardinal," he said, "we shall be delighted ..." His eyes she +noticed were light blue like a baby's. She felt that he liked her and +would not forget her. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, Paul," said Miss Trenchard, rather sharply Maggie fancied. +</P> + +<P> +Soon afterwards Philip departed. "Must finish that beastly thing," he +assured his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"It's an article," Katherine Mark explained. "He's always writing about +politics. I hate them, so he pretends to hate them too. But he doesn't +really. He loves them." +</P> + +<P> +"I know nothing about politics," said Maggie with profound truth. "Your +husband must be very clever." +</P> + +<P> +"He's better than that," said Katherine with pride; "I hate perfect +people, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, indeed I do!" said Maggie from the bottom of her heart. They then +came to her particular business. +</P> + +<P> +"I would like to get some work to do," said Maggie, "that would make me +independent. I have three hundred pounds of my own." +</P> + +<P> +"What can you do?" asked Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you shorthand and type?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I can't," said Maggie; "but I'll learn." +</P> + +<P> +"Must you be independent soon?" asked Katherine. "Are you unhappy where +you are?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie paused. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't tell me anything you oughtn't to," said Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"No," answered Maggie. "It isn't that exactly. I'm not happy at home, +but I think that's my fault. My aunts are very good. But I want to be +free. It is all very religious where I am, and they want me to believe +in their religion. I'm afraid I'm not religious at all. Then I don't +want to be dependent on people. I'm very ignorant. I know nothing about +anything, and so long as I am kept with my aunts I shall never learn." +</P> + +<P> +She stopped abruptly. She had thought suddenly of Martin. His coming +had altered everything. How could she say what she wanted her life to +be until her relation to him were settled? Everything depended on that. +</P> + +<P> +This sense of Martin's presence silenced her. "If I can feel," she said +at last, "that I can ask your advice. I have nobody ... We all seem ... +Oh! how can I make you understand properly! You never will have seen +anything like our house. It is all so queer, so shut-up, away from +everything. I'm like a prisoner ..." +</P> + +<P> +And that is perhaps what she was like to Mrs. Mark, sitting there in +her funny ill-fitting clothes, her anxious old-fashioned face as of a +child aged long before her time. Katherine Mark, who had had, in her +life, her own perplexities and sorrows, felt her heart warm to this +strange isolated girl. She had needed in her own life at one time all +her courage, and she had used it; she had never regretted the step that +she had then taken. She believed therefore in courage ... Courage was +eloquent in every movement of Maggie's square reliant body. +</P> + +<P> +"She could be braver than I have ever been," she thought. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Cardinal," she said, "I want you to come here whenever you can. +You haven't seen our boy, Tim, yet—one and a half—and there are so +many things I want to show you. Will you count yourself a friend of the +house?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie blushed and twisted her hands together. +</P> + +<P> +"You're very good," she said, "but ... I don't know ... perhaps you +won't like me, or what I do." +</P> + +<P> +"I do like you," said Katherine. "And if I like any one I don't care +what they do." +</P> + +<P> +"All the same," said Maggie, "I don't belong ... to your world, your +life. I should shock you, I know. You might be sorry afterwards that +you knew me. Supposing I broke away ..." +</P> + +<P> +"But I broke away myself," said Katherine, "it is sometimes the only +thing to do. I made my mother, who had been goodness itself to me, +desperately unhappy." +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you do that?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Because I wanted to marry my husband." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I love a man too," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I do hope you'll be happy!" said Katherine. "As happy as I am." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie, shaking her head, "I don't expect to be happy." +</P> + +<P> +She seemed to herself as she said that to be hundreds of miles away +from Katherine Mark and her easy life, the purple curtains and her +amber light. +</P> + +<P> +"Not happy but satisfied," she said. +</P> + +<P> +She saw that it was five minutes past six. "I must go," she said. +</P> + +<P> +When they said good-bye Katherine bent forward and kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +"If ever, in your life. I can help in any way at all," she said, "come +to me." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll do that," promised Maggie. She coloured, and then herself bent +forward and kissed Katherine. "I shall like to think of you—and all +this—" she said and went. +</P> + +<P> +She was let out into the outer world by the smiling maid-servant. +Bryanston Square was dark with purple colour as though the purple +curtains inside the house had been snipped off from a general curtained +world. There was a star or two and some gaunt trees with black pointing +fingers, and here a lighted window and there a shining doorway; behind +it all the rumble of a world that disregarded love and death and all +the Higher Catechism. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie confronted a policeman. +</P> + +<P> +"Please, can you tell me where the Marble Arch is?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Straight ahead, Miss," he answered, pointing down the street, "you +can't miss it." +</P> + +<P> +And she could not. It soon gleamed white ahead of her against the thick +folds of the sky. When she saw it her heart raced in front of her, like +a pony, suddenly released, kicking its heels. And her thoughts were so +strangely wild! The lovely night, yes, purple like Mrs. Mark's curtains +and scented oranges, chrysanthemums, boot-polish and candied sugar.—Oh +yes! how kind they had been—nice clergyman, fat a little, but young in +spite of his white hair, and Aunt Anne in bed under the crucifix +struggling and Mr. Crashaw smiling lustfully at Caroline ... The long +black streets, strips of silk and the lamps like fat buttons on a coat, +there was a cat! Hist! Hist! A streak of black against black ... and +the Chapel bell ringing and Thomas' fiery eyes ... +</P> + +<P> +Behind all this confusion there was Martin, Martin, Martin. Creeping +nearer and nearer as though he were just behind her, or was it that she +was creeping nearer and nearer to him? She did not know, but her heart +now was beating so thickly that it was as though giants were wrapping +cloth after cloth round it, hot cloths, but their hands were icy cold. +No, she was simply excited, desperately, madly excited. +</P> + +<P> +She had never been excited before, and now, with the excitement, there +was mingled the strangest hot pain and cold pity. She noticed that now +her knees were trembling and that if they trembled much more she would +not be able to walk at all. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Maggie, steady your knees!" she said to herself. But look, the +houses now were trembling a little too! Ridiculous those smart houses +with their fine doors and white steps to tremble! No, it was her heart, +not the houses ... +</P> + +<P> +"Do I look queer?" she thought; "will people be looking at me?" +</P> + +<P> +Ideas raced through her head, now like horses in the Derby. +</P> + +<P> +"Woof! Poof! Off we go!" St. Dreot's, that square piece of grass on the +lawn with the light on it, her clothes, the socks that must be mended, +Caroline's silk and the rustle it made, shops, houses, rivers, seas, +death—yes, Aunt Anne's cancer ... and then, with a great upward surge +like rising from the depths of the sea after a dive, Martin! Martin, +Martin! ... For a moment then she had to pause. She had been walking +too fast. Her heart jumped, then ran a step or two, then fell into a +dead pause ... She went on, seeing now nothing but two lamps that +watched her like the eyes of a giant. +</P> + +<P> +She was there! This was a Marble Arch! All by itself in the middle of +the road. She crossed to it, first went under it, then thought that he +would not see her there so came out and stood, nervously rubbing her +gloved hands against one another and turning her head, like a bird, +swiftly from side to side. She didn't like standing there. It seemed to +make her so prominent. Men stared at her. He should have been there +first. He might have known ... But perhaps Caroline never gave him the +letter. At that thought her heart really did stop. She was terrified at +once as though some one had told her disastrous news. She would not +wait very long; then she would go home ... +</P> + +<P> +She saw him. He stood only a little away from her staring about him, +looking for her. She felt that she had not seen him for years; she +drank in his sturdiness, his boyish face, his air of caring nothing for +authority. She had not seen his dark blue overcoat before. He stood +directly under a lamp, swaying ever so little on his heels, his +favourite, most characteristic, movement. He stood there as though he +were purposely giving her a portrait that she might remember for the +rest of her days. She was too nervous to move and then she wanted that +wonderful moment to last, that moment when she had realised that he had +come to meet her, that he was there, amongst all those crowds, simply +for her, that he was looking for her and wanting her, that he would be +bitterly disappointed did she not come ... +</P> + +<P> +She saw him give a little impatient jerk of the head, the same movement +that she had seen him make in Chapel. That jerk set her in motion +again, and she was suddenly at his side. She touched his arm; he turned +and his eyes lit with pleasure. They smiled at one another and then, +without a word, moved off towards the park. He took her arm and put it +through his. She felt the warm thick stuff of the blue coat, and +beneath that the steady firm beat of his heart. They walked closely +together, his thigh pressed against hers, and once and again her hair +brushed his cheek. She was so shy that, until they were through the +gates of the park, she did not speak. Then she said: +</P> + +<P> +"I was so afraid that Caroline would not give you the note." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, she gave it me all right." He pressed her arm closer to him. "But +I expect that she read it first." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, is she like that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, she's like that ..." +</P> + +<P> +There was another pause; they turned down the path to the right towards +the trees that were black lumps of velvet against the purple sky. There +were no stars, and it was liquidly dark as though they ploughed through +water. Maggie felt suffocated with heat and persecuted by a strange +weariness; she was suddenly so tired that it was all that she could do +to walk. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm tired ..." she murmured—"expecting you—afraid that you wouldn't +come." +</P> + +<P> +"I believe that I would have come," he answered quite fiercely, "even +if I hadn't had the note—I was determined to see you to-night some +way. But you know, Maggie, it had better be for the last time ..." +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, whispering, "it's the first time." +</P> + +<P> +"Let's sit down here," he said. "We're alone all right." +</P> + +<P> +There was no seat near them. The trees made a cave of black above them, +and in front of them the grass swept like a grey beach into mist. There +was no sound save a distant whirr like the hum of a top that died to a +whisper and then was lashed by some infuriated god to activity again. +</P> + +<P> +They sat close together on the bench. She felt his arm move out as +though he would embrace her, then suddenly he drew back. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, "until we've talked this out we've got to be like +strangers. We can't go on, you know, Maggie, and it's no use your +saying we can." +</P> + +<P> +She pressed her hands tightly together. "I can convince him better," +she thought to herself, "if I'm very quiet and matter-of-fact." So, +speaking very calmly and not looking at him, she went on: +</P> + +<P> +"But, Martin, you promised last time that it would depend on me ... You +said that if I didn't mind your being married and was willing to take +risks that we would go on together. Well, I've thought all about it and +I know that I'd rather be miserable with you than happy with any one +else. But then I shouldn't be miserable. You seem to think you could +make me miserable just as soon as you like. But that depends on myself. +If I don't want to be miserable nobody can make me be." She paused. He +moved a little closer and suddenly took her hand. +</P> + +<P> +She drew it away and went on: +</P> + +<P> +"Don't think I'm inexperienced about this, Martin. You say I know +nothing about men. Perhaps I don't. But I know myself. I know what I +want, and I can look after myself. However badly you treated me, it +would be you that I was with all the time." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, Maggie," he answered, speaking rapidly and as though he were +fiercely protesting against some one. "It isn't that at all. You say +you know yourself—but then I know myself. It isn't only that I'm a +rotten fellow. It is that I seem to bring a curse on every one I'm fond +of. I love my father, and I've come back and made him miserable. It's +always like that. And if I made you miserable it would be the worst +thing I ever did ... I don't even know whether I love you. If I do it's +different from any love I've ever had. Other women I'd be mad about. +I'd go for them whatever happened and got them somehow, and I wouldn't +care a bit whether they were happy or no. But I feel about you almost +as though you were a man—not sensually at all, but that safe steady +security that you feel for a man sometimes ... You're so restful to be +with. I feel now as though you were the one person in the world who +could turn me into a decent human being. I feel as though we were just +meant to move along together; but then some other woman would come like +a fire and off I'd go ... Then I'd hate myself worse than ever and be +really finished." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie looked at him. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't love me then, Martin?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes I do," he answered suddenly, "I keep telling myself that I don't, +but I know that I do. Only it's different. It's as though I were loving +myself, the better part of myself. Not something new and wildly +exciting, but something old that I had known always and that had always +been with me. If I went away now. Maggie, I know I'd come back one +day—perhaps years afterwards—but I know I'd come back. It's like that +religious part of me, like my legs and my arms. Oh! it's not of my own +comfort I'm doubting, but it's you! ... I don't want to hurt you, +Maggie darling, just as I've hurt every one I loved—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll come with you, Martin," said Maggie, "as long as you want me, and +if you don't want me, later you will again and I'll be waiting for you." +</P> + +<P> +He put his arm round her. She crept up close to him, nestled into his +coat and put her hand up to his cheek. He bent down his head and they +kissed. +</P> + +<P> +After that there could be no more argument. What had he not intended to +press upon her? With what force arid power had he not planned to +persuade her? How he would tell her that he did not love her, that he +would not be faithful to her, that he would treat her cruelly. Now it +was all gone. With a gesture of almost ironic abandonment he flung away +his scruples. It was always so; life was stronger than he. He had +tried, in this at least, to behave like a decent man. But life did not +want him to be decent ... +</P> + +<P> +And how he needed that rest that she gave him! As he felt her close up +against him, folded into him with that utterly naif and childish trust +that had allured and charmed him on the very first occasion, he felt +nothing but a sweet and blessed rest. He would not think of the future. +He would not ... HE WOULD NOT. And perhaps all would be well. As he +pressed her closer to him, as he felt her lips suddenly strike through +the dark, find his check and then his mouth, as he felt her soft +confident hand find his and then close and fold inside it like a +flower, he wondered whether this once he might not force things to be +right. It was time he took things in hand. He could. He must ... +</P> + +<P> +He began to whisper to her: +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie darling ... It mayn't be bad. I'll find out where this other +woman is and she shall divorce me. I'll arrange it all. And we'll go +away somewhere where I can work, and we won't allow anybody to +interfere. After all, I'm older now. The mess I've been in before is +because I always make wrong shots ..." +</P> + +<P> +His words ceased. Their hearts were beating too tumultuously together +for words to be possible. Maggie did not wish to speak, she could not. +She was mingled with him, her heart his, her lips his, her check his +... She did not believe that words would come even though she wished +for them. She was utterly happy—so utterly that she was, as it were, +numb with happiness. They murmured one another's names. +</P> + +<P> +"Martin." +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie! ..." +</P> + +<P> +At last, dreaming, scarcely knowing what they did, like two children in +a dark wood, they wandered towards home. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0208"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PARADISE +</H3> + +<P> +Maggie had never really been happy before. She had of course not known +this; her adventures in introspection had been very few, besides she +had not known what happiness looked like; her father, her uncle, and +her aunts were not exactly happy people ... +</P> + +<P> +Now she flung herself without thought or care into a flood of +happiness, and as sometimes occurs in life, she was granted by the +gods, beneficent or ironic as you please, a period of security when +everything menacing or dangerous withdrew and it seemed as though the +whole world were in a conspiracy to cheat her into confidence. She was +confident because she did not think; she simply did not think at all. +She loved Martin and Martin loved her; cased in that golden armour, she +confronted her aunts and the house and the world behind the house with +a sublime and happy confidence. She loved her aunts now, she loved +Martha and the parrot and the cat, and she could not believe that they +did not all love her. Because Martin loved her the rest of the world +must also do so, and if they did not she would compel them. +</P> + +<P> +For three whole weeks the spell lasted, for three marvellous golden +weeks. When she looked back afterwards she wondered that she had not +seen many things, warnings, portents, whatever you please to call them. +But for three weeks she saw nothing but Martin, and for three weeks he +saw nothing but Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +She began her career of defiance at once by informing Aunt Anne that +she was now going out every morning to do her shopping. Considering the +confinement to the house that her life had always been, this was such a +declaration of independence as those walls had never encountered +before. But Aunt Anne never turned one of her shining neatly ordered +hairs. "Shopping, my dear?" she asked. "Yes," said Maggie, looking her +full in the face. "What sort of shopping, dear?" "Oh, I don't know," +said Maggie. "There's always something every day." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had an uncomfortable feeling that her aunt had in some way +mysteriously defeated her by this sudden abandonment of all protest, +and for a moment the mysterious house closed around her, with its +shadows and dim corners and the little tinkling Chapel hell in the +heart of it. But the thought of Martin dissolved the shadows, and off +she went. +</P> + +<P> +They agreed to meet every morning at eleven o'clock outside Hatchards, +the bookseller's, in Piccadilly. They chose that place because you +could look into a bookseller's window for quite a long time without +seeming odd, and there were so many people passing that no one noticed +you. Their habit then was to walk to the corner of the Green Park and +there climb on to the top of a motor omnibus and go as far as they +could within the allotted time. Maggie never in after life found those +streets again. They had gone, she supposed, to Chelsea, to St. John's +Wood, to the heart of the city, to the Angel, Islington, to Westminster +and beyond, but places during those three weeks had no names, streets +had no stones, houses no walls, and human figures no substantiality. +They tried on one or two occasions to go by Tube, but they missed the +swing of the open air, the rush of the wind, and their independence of +men and women. Often he tried to persuade her to stay with him for +luncheon and the afternoon, but she was wiser than he. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, "everything depends on keeping them quiet. A little +later on it will be lovely. You must leave that part of it to me." +</P> + +<P> +She promised him definitely that soon they should go to a matinee +together, but she would not give her word about a whole evening. In +some strange way she was frightened of the evening, although she had +already pledged her word to him on something much more final: "No," she +thought to herself, "when the moment comes for me to leave everything, +I will go, but he shall know that I am not doing it cheaply, simply for +an evening's fun." He felt something of that too, and did not try to +persuade her. He hugged his unselfishness; for the first time in his +life it seemed to him that he wanted to follow somebody else's will; +with the other women it had been so different, if they had not wanted +to obey him he had left them. But indeed all through these three weeks +they were discovering themselves and one another, and, as though it +were part of the general conspiracy, only the best part of themselves. +On the top of the 'bus, as they sat close together, their hands locked +under his overcoat, the world bumping and jolting, and jogging about +their feet, as though indeed public houses and lamp-posts and cinemas +and town halls and sweet-shops were always jumping up tiptoe to see +whether they couldn't catch a glimpse of the lovers, Martin and Maggie +felt that they were really divine creatures, quite modestly divine, but +nevertheless safe from all human ravages and earthly failings, wicked +and cowardly thoughts, and ambitions and desires. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, during those three weeks Maggie saw nothing of Martin's +weaknesses, his suspicions and dreads, his temper and self-abasement. +The nobility that Martin had in him was true nobility, his very +weaknesses came from his sharp consciousness of what purity and +self-sacrifice and asceticism really were, and that they were indeed +the only things for man to live by. During those weeks he saw so truly +the sweetness and fidelity and simplicity of Maggie that his conscience +was killed, his scruples were numbed. He did not want during those +weeks any sensual excitement, any depravity, any license. A quiet and +noble asceticism seemed to him perfectly possible. He burst out once to +Maggie with: "I can't conceive, Maggie, why I ever thought life +complicated. You've straightened everything out for me, made all the +troubles at home seem nothing, shown me what nonsense it was wanting +the rotten things I was always after." +</P> + +<P> +But Maggie had no eloquence in reply—she could not make up fine +sentences; it embarrassed her dreadfully to tell him even that she +loved him, and when he was sentimental it was her habit to turn it off +with a joke if she could. She wanted terribly to ask him sometimes what +he had meant when he said that he didn't love her as he had loved other +women. She had never the courage to ask him this. She wondered +sometimes why it had hurt her when he had said he loved her as though +she were a man friend, without any question of sex. "Surely that's +enough for me," she would ask herself, "it means that it's much more +lasting and safe." And yet it was not enough. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, during these weeks she found his brotherly care of her +adorable, he found her shyness divine. +</P> + +<P> +"Every other woman I have ever been in love with," he told her once, "I +have always kept asking them would they ever change, and would they +love me always, and all that kind of nonsense. A man always begins like +that, and then the time comes when he wishes to God they would change, +and they won't. But you're not like that, Maggie, I know you'll never +change, and I know that I shall never want you to." "No, I shall never +change," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +At the very beginning of the three weeks a little incident occurred +that was trivial enough at the time, but appeared afterwards as +something significant and full of meaning. This incident was a little +talk with poor Mr. Magnus. Maggie always thought of him as "poor Mr. +Magnus." He seemed so feckless and unsettled, and then he wrote novels +that nobody wanted to buy. He always talked like a book, and that was +perhaps one reason why Maggie had avoided him during these last months. +Another reason had been that she really could not be sure how far he +was in the general conspiracy to drive her into the Chapel. He would +not do that of his own will she was sure, but being in love with Aunt +Anne he might think it his sacred duty, and Maggie was terrified of +"sacred duties." Therefore when, three days after that great evening in +the park, he caught her alone in the drawing-room, her first impulse +was to run away; then she looked at him and found that her love for the +world in general embraced him too "if only he won't talk like a book," +she thought to herself. +</P> + +<P> +He looked more wandering than ever with his high white collar, his +large spectacles, and his thin, dusty hair; the fire of some hidden, +vital spirit burnt beneath those glasses, and his face was so kindly +that she felt ashamed of herself for having avoided him so often. +</P> + +<P> +"Both the aunts are at Miss Avies'." she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," he said, looking at her rather blankly. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I'll come another time," and he turned towards the door. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she cried. "You won't—I haven't seen you for months." +</P> + +<P> +"That's not my fault," he answered. "I thought we were to have been +friends, and you've run away every time you saw the corner of my dusty +coat poking round the door." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "I have—I've been frightened of every one lately." +</P> + +<P> +"And you're not now?" he asked, looking at her with that sudden bright +sharpness that was so peculiarly his. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm not," she answered. "I'm frightened of nobody." +</P> + +<P> +He said nothing to that, but stared fixedly in front of him. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm in a bad mood," he said. "I've been trying for weeks to get on +with a novel. Just a fortnight ago a young man and a young woman took +shelter from the rain in the doorway of a deserted house—they're still +there now, and they haven't said a word to one another all that time." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"They simply won't speak," he answered her. +</P> + +<P> +"Well then, I should start another story," said Maggie brightly. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," he said, shaking his head. "What's the use of starting one if you +know you're never going to finish it, what's the use of finishing it if +you know no one is ever going to read it?" Maggie shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"You've changed. When I saw you last you told me that you didn't mind +whether any one ever read them or not, and that you just wrote them +because you loved doing them." +</P> + +<P> +"Every author," said Mr. Magnus gloomily, "says that to himself when he +can't sell his books, but it's all vainglory, I'm afraid." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't help being glad," Maggie answered. "There are such interesting +things you might do. I can't imagine why any one writes books now when +there are so many already in existence that nobody's read." +</P> + +<P> +He wasn't listening to her. He looked up suddenly and said quite wildly: +</P> + +<P> +"It's terrible all this that's going on. You know about it, of +course—Warlock's visions I mean and the trouble it's making. I'm +outside it and you're outside it, but we're being brought into it all +the same—how can we help it when we love the people who are in it? +It's so easy to say that it's nonsense, that people ought to be wiser +nowadays; that it's hysteria, even insanity—I know all that and, of +course, I don't believe for a moment that God's coming in a chariot of +fire on New Year's Eve especially for the benefit of Thurston, Miss +Avies and the rest, but that doesn't end it—it ought to end it, but it +doesn't. There's more in some people's madness than in other people's +sanity, and anyway, even if it's all nonsense it means life or death to +your aunt and some of the others, and it means a certain breaking up of +all this place. And it probably means the triumph of a charlatan like +Thurston and the increase of humbug in the world and the discouragement +of all the honest adventurers. I call myself an adventurer, you know, +Miss Maggie, although I'm a poor specimen—but I'm damned if it isn't +better to be a poor adventurer than to be a fat, swollen, contented +stay-at-home who can see just as far as his nose and his cheque-book +and might be just as well dead as alive—I beg your pardon," he added +suddenly, "for swearing—I'm not myself, I'm not really." +</P> + +<P> +She could see indeed that he was in great agitation of mind, and some +of this agitation communicated itself to her. Had she not been selfish +in forgetting all this through her own happiness? He was right, she was +part of it all, whether she wished or no. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you think," she asked, dropping her voice a little, "is the +real truth about it?" +</P> + +<P> +"The real truth"—he looked at her suddenly with a tender, most +charming smile that took away his ugliness. "Ah, that's a tremendous +question. Part of the truth is that Warlock's been praying so much and +eating so little that it would be odd indeed if he didn't see visions +of some sort. And part of the truth is that there are a lot of women in +the world who'll believe simply anything that you tell them. It's part +of the truth, too, that there are scoundrels in the world who will take +advantage of anybody's simple trust to fill their pockets. But that's +not all," he went on, shaking his head, "no, that's not all. It's part +of the truth that there is a mystery, and that human beings will go on +searching whatever all the materialists and merchants in the world can +try to do to stop them. I remember years ago an old man, a little off +his dot, telling my father that he, the old man, was a treasure hunter. +He told my father that the world was divided into two halves, the +treasure hunters and the Town Councillors, and that the two halves +would never join and never even meet. My father, who was a practical +man, said that the old idiot should be shut up in an asylum, and +eventually I believe he was. 'We'll have him going off one day,' my +father said, 'in a cargo boat with a map in his pocket, looking for +gold pieces.' But it wasn't gold pieces he was after." +</P> + +<P> +To Maggie it was always irritating the way that Mr. Magnus would wander +away from the subject. She brought him back now with a jerk. +</P> + +<P> +"No, but what do you think is going to happen?" she asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," he answered. "I can't tell, but I know all my happiness +here is coming to an end, and I don't know what I shall do. If I were a +strong man I would go out and find all the other treasure hunters, all +the vicious ones, and the diseased, and the drunkards and the +perverted, and I would try to found some kind of a society so that they +should recognise one another all the world over and shouldn't feel so +lonely and deserted and hopelessly done for. I don't mean a society for +improving them, mind you, or warning them or telling them they'll go to +prison if they don't do better, that's none of my business. But it +seems to be a solemn fact that you aren't a treasure hunter until +there's something wrong with you, until you've got a sin that's +stronger than you are, or until you've done something that's +disgraceful in the eyes of the world—not that I believe in weakness or +in giving way to things. No one admires the strong and the brave more +than I do. I think a man's a fool if he doesn't fight as hard as he +can. But there's a brotherhood of the dissatisfied and the uneasy and +the anxious-hearted, and I believe it's they who will discover the +Grail in the end if it's ever going to be discovered at all." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off, then said restlessly: "I think things out, you know, and +at last I come to a conclusion, and it ends by being a platitude that +all the goody, goody books have said times without number. But all the +same that doesn't prevent it from being my discovery. It's nothing to +do with goodness and nothing to do with evil, it's nothing to do with +strength, and nothing to do with weakness; it simply is that there are +some people who want what they can see and no more, and there are +others, the baffled, fighting and disordered others, for whom nothing +that they can see with their mortal eyes is enough, and who'll be +restless all their days with their queer little maps and their +mysterious, thumbed directions to some island or other that they'll +never reach and never even get a ship for." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped and there was a long silence between them, Maggie was silent +because she never knew what to say when he burst into parables and +divided mankind, under strange names, into different camps. And yet +this time she did know a little what he was after. There was that house +of Katharine Mark's the other day, with its comfort and quiet and kind +smiling clergyman—and there was this strange place with all of them in +an odd quiver of excitement waiting for something to happen. But she +couldn't speak to him about that, she couldn't say anything to him at +all. He cleared his throat as though he were embarrassed and were +conscious that he had been making a fool of himself. Maggie felt that +he was disappointed in her. She was sorry for that, but she was as she +was. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm glad you're happy," he said, looking at her wistfully. He +got up and stood awkwardly looking at her. +</P> + +<P> +"I want you to promise me something," he said, "that's really what I +came for. I want you to promise that you won't in any case leave your +aunts before the New Year." +</P> + +<P> +She got up, looked at him and gave him her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said. "I promise that." +</P> + +<P> +The year had only a week or two more to run and she was not afraid of +that little space of time. He seemed to want to say something more, but +after hesitating he suddenly made a bolt for the door and she could +hear him stumbling downstairs. +</P> + +<P> +She forgot him almost as soon as he had left the house, but his words +nevertheless brought her to consider her aunts. Next morning at +breakfast time she had a further reason to consider them. Aunt +Elizabeth met her, when she came downstairs, with a very grave face. +</P> + +<P> +"Your aunt's had a terrible night," she said. "She's insisted on coming +downstairs—I told her not. She never listens to anything I say." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie could see that something more than ordinary had occurred. Aunt +Elizabeth was on the edge of tears, and in so confused a state of mind +that she put sugar into her egg, and then ate it with a puzzled air as +though she could not be sure why it tasted so strange. When Aunt Anne +came in it was plain enough that she had wrestled with demons during +the night. Maggie had often seen her before battling with pain and +refusing to be defeated. Now she looked as though she had but risen +from the dead. It was a ghost in very truth that stood there; a ghost +in black silk dress with white wristbands and a stiff white collar, +black hair, so tightly drawn back and ordered that it was like a +shining skull-cap. Her face was white, with the effect of a chalk +drawing into which live, black, burning eyes had been stuck. But it was +none of these things that frightened Maggie. It was the expression +somewhere in the mouth, in the eyes, in the pale bony hands, that spoke +of some meeting with a torturer whose powers were almost +omniscient—almost, but not quite. Pain, sheer physical, brutal pain, +came into the room hulking, steering behind Aunt Anne's shoulder. It +grinned at Maggie and said, "You haven't begun to feel what I can do +yet, but every one has his turn. You needn't flatter yourself that +you're going to escape." +</P> + +<P> +When Aunt Anne moved now it was with infinite caution, as though she +were stalking her enemy and was afraid lest any incautious gesture +should betray her into his ambush. No less marked than her torture was +her courage and the expectation that sustained that courage. She had +her eyes set upon something very sure and very certain. Maggie was +afraid to think what that expectation might be. But Maggie had grown +during these last weeks. She did not now kiss her aunt and try to show +an affection which was not so genuine as she would have liked it to be +by nervous little demonstrations. She said gravely: +</P> + +<P> +"I am so sorry, Aunt Anne, that you have had so bad a night. Shall I +stay this morning and read to you?" +</P> + +<P> +Even as she spoke she realised with sharp pain what giving up her +meeting with Martin meant. +</P> + +<P> +"What were you going to do, dear?" asked Aunt Anne, her eyes seeing as +ever far beyond Maggie and the room and the house. As she spoke Thomas, +the cat, came forward and began rubbing himself very gently, as though +he were whispering something to his mistress, against her dress. Maggie +had an impulse, so strong that it almost defeated her, to burst out +with the whole truth. She almost said: "I'm going out to meet Martin +Warlock, whom I love and with whom I'm going to live." She hated +deceit, she hated lies. But this was some one else's secret as well as +her own, and telling the truth now would only lead to much pain and +distress, and then more lies and more deceit. +</P> + +<P> +So she said: +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to Piccadilly to get some things for Aunt Elizabeth." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Aunt Elizabeth, "she saves me a great deal of trouble. +She's a good girl." +</P> + +<P> +"I know she's a good girl," said Aunt Anne softly. +</P> + +<P> +It was strange to remember the time not so long ago when to run out of +the house and post a letter had seemed a bold defiant thing to do +threatened with grave penalties. The aunts had changed their plans +about her and had given her no reasons for doing so. No reasons were +ever given in that house for anything that was done. The more Maggie +went out, the more she was drawn in. +</P> + +<P> +On her way to Martin that morning the figure of Aunt Anne haunted her. +She felt for a brief moment that she would do anything, yes, even +surrender Martin, to ease her aunt's pain. And then she knew that she +would not, and she called herself cruel and selfish and felt for an +instant a dark shadow threatening her because she was so. But when she +saw Martin outside Hatchard's she forgot it all. It was a strange thing +that during those weeks they neither of them asked any questions about +their home affairs. It was as though they both inwardly realised that +there was trouble for them of every kind waiting outside and that they +could only definitely realise their happiness by building a wall around +themselves. They knew perhaps in their secret hearts, or at any rate +Martin knew, that they could not hold their castle for long. But is not +the gift of three perfect weeks a great thing for any human being to be +given—and who has the temerity, the challenging audacity, to ask with +confidence for even so much? +</P> + +<P> +On this particular morning Martin said to her: +</P> + +<P> +"Before we get into the 'bus, Maggie, you've got to come into a shop +with me." He was especially boyish and happy and natural that morning. +It was strange how his face altered when he was happy. His brow was +clear, his eyes were bright, and he had a kind of crooked confident +smile that must have won anybody's heart. His whole carriage was that +of a boy who was entering life for the first time with undaunted +expectation that it could give him nothing but the best and jolliest +things. Maggie as she looked at him this morning caught her breath with +the astonishing force of her love for him. "Oh, how I'll look after +him," was her thought. "He shall never be unhappy again." +</P> + +<P> +They crossed the street together, and stood for a moment close together +on the kerb in the middle way as though they were quite alone in the +world. She caught his arm and they ran before a charging motor-'bus, +laughing. People turned back and looked at them, so happy they seemed. +They walked up Bond Street and Martin drew her into a jeweller's. She +had never possessed any ornament except her coral necklace in all her +life and she knew now for the first time how terribly she liked +beautiful things. It was useless of her to pretend that she did not +know that he was going to give her something. She did not pretend. A +very thin old man, who looked like one of the prophets, drawn out of +the wilderness and clothed by the most fashionable of London tailors, +looking over their shoulders as he talked to them because he saw at +once that they were not customers who were likely to add very much to +his shop's exchequer, produced a large tray, full of rings that +glittered and sparkled and danced as though they'd been told to show +themselves off to the best possible advantage. But for Maggie at once +there was only one possible ring. It was a thin hoop of gold with three +small pearls set in the middle of it; nothing very especial about it, +it was in fact less striking than almost any other ring in the tray. +Maggie looked at the ring and the ring looked at Maggie. It was as +though the ring said, "I shall belong to you whether you take me or no." +</P> + +<P> +"Now," said Martin with a little catch in his throat, "you make your +choice, Maggie." He was not a millionaire, but he did honestly intend +that whatever ring she chose she should have. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Maggie, whispering because the shop was so large and the +prophet so indifferent, "don't you think you'd better choose?" +</P> + +<P> +At the same time she felt the anxious gaze of the three little pearls +upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Martin, "I want to give you what you'd like." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like what you'd like," said Maggie, still whispering. +</P> + +<P> +At this banality the prophet made a little impatient movement as though +he really could not be expected to stand waiting there for ever. Also a +magnificent lady, in furs so rich that you could see nothing of her but +her powdered nose, was waving ropes of pearls about in a blase manner +very close to them, and Maggie had a strange, entirely unreasonable +fear that this splendour would suddenly turn round and snatch the +little pearl ring and go off with it. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like that one," said Maggie, pointing. She heard the prophet sniff +his contempt, but she did not care. +</P> + +<P> +Martin, although he would willingly have given her the most gorgeous +ring in the shop, was delighted to find that her taste was so good, and +like herself. He had great ideas about taste, some of his secret fears +had been lest her strange uncouth upbringing should have caused her to +like gaudy things. He could have hugged her before them all when she +chose that particular ring, which he had himself noticed as the +prettiest and neatest there. +</P> + +<P> +"Just see whether it fits, darling," he said. At the word "darling" the +prophet cast another despairing look about the shop, as though he knew +well the length of time that lovers could take over these things if +they once put their hearts into it. Maggie was ashamed of her stubby +finger as she put her hand forward—but the ring fitted exactly. +</P> + +<P> +"That's right," said Martin, "Now we'll have this put into a case." +</P> + +<P> +"How wonderful he is," thought Maggie. Not as other women might have +thought, "I wonder how many times he's done this before." Maggie +thought then that it would be more proper to retire a little so that +she should not know the price—and she stood in the doorway of the +shop, looking upon the wind and weather in Bond Street and the +magnificent motor car that belonged to the lady with the pearls and a +magnificent chauffeur, who was so superior that it was probable that +the lady with the pearls belonged to him—and she saw none of these +things, but was conscious of herself and Martin wrapt together in a +mist of happiness that no outside force could penetrate. +</P> + +<P> +As they walked away from the shop she said: "Of course I won't be able +to wear it." +</P> + +<P> +He put the little square box, wrapped in tissue paper, into her hand, +and answered: "You can wear it on a ribbon under your dress." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes," she whispered, pressing his hand for a moment. +</P> + +<P> +They did not climb on to a 'bus that morning, but walked ahead blindly, +blissfully, they did not know whither. They were now in wild days at +the end of November and the weather was tempestuous, the wind blowing +with a screaming fury and black clouds scudding across the sky like +portents. Little heavy drops of rain fell with a sudden urgency as +though they were emphasising some secret; figures were swept through +the streets and the roar of the wind was so vehement that the traffic +seemed to make no sound. And yet nothing happened—no great storm of +rain, no devastating flood. It was a day of warning. +</P> + +<P> +They noticed nothing of the weather. It might have been a world of +burning sunshine for all they saw of it. +</P> + +<P> +"You know," said Martin, "I've never liked giving any one anything so +much as I liked giving you that ring." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I could give you something too," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you can," he said. "Some little thing that I'll carry about with +me always ... Oh, Maggie!" he went on. "Isn't it strange how easy it is +to be good when no one worries you. These last ten days with you I +couldn't have done anything wrong if I tried. It isn't fair to say we +can help ourselves. We can't. Something just comes along and seizes you +and makes you do wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't know," said Maggie. "Don't let's talk about those things. +It's like Mr. Magnus, who says we're treasure hunters or pools of +water, or old men in asylums. I don't understand all that. I'm just +Maggie Cardinal.—All the same I believe one can do what one wants to. +I don't believe people can make one do things." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think any one could make me not love you if they tried? I shall +love you always, whatever happens. I know I shall never change. I'm not +one to change. I'm obstinate. Father used to say 'obstinate as a pig.'" +</P> + +<P> +That made her think of the old days at St. Dreot's, just then, as they +seemed, so remote. She began to tell him of those old days, of the +Vicarage, of the holes in the floor and the ceiling, of her loneliness +and the way the villagers used to talk, of her solitary walks and +looking down on to Polchester from the hill-top, of her father's sudden +death, of Uncle Mathew ... +</P> + +<P> +"He's a funny old codger," said Martin. "What does he do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said Maggie. "I really don't know how he lives I'm +afraid it's something rather bad." +</P> + +<P> +"I've known men like that," said Martin, "plenty, but it's funny that +one of them should be connected with you. It doesn't seem as though you +could have anything to do with a man like that." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I like him!" said Maggie. "He's been very kind to me often. +When I was all alone after father died he was very good—" She stopped +abruptly remembering how he'd come into her bedroom. "Drink's been his +trouble, and never having any money. He told me once if he had money +he'd never do a thing he shouldn't." "Yes," said Martin. "That's what +they always say when they haven't any money, and then when they have +any it's worse than ever." +</P> + +<P> +He was thinking, perhaps, of himself. At any rate to stop remorseful +thoughts he began to tell her about his own childhood. +</P> + +<P> +"Mine was very different from yours, Maggie," he said. "I wasn't +lonely. You don't know what a fuss people made of me. I was conceited, +too. I thought I was chosen, by God, out of all the world, that I was +different from every one else, and better too. When I was only about +nine, at home one Sunday they asked me if I'd say a prayer, and I did, +before them all, made it up and went on for quarter of an hour. Lord! I +must have been an awful child. And outside the religious time I was as +wicked as I could be. I used to go down into the kitchen and steal the +food and I'd dress up as a ghost to frighten Amy and I'd break mother's +china. I remember once, after we'd had a service in the drawing-room +and two girls had gone into hysterics, I stole down into the kitchen in +my nightdress to get some jam and I found one of the Elders making love +to the cook. They were both so fat and he had his coat and waistcoat +off and he was kissing her neck. My word, they were frightened when +they saw me standing there! After that I could do what I liked with the +cook ... We used to have prayer meetings in the drawing-room, and +sometimes father would pray so hard that the glass chandelier would +shake and rattle till I used to think it would come down." +</P> + +<P> +"And the funny thing was that one minute I'd be pinching Amy who was +kneeling next to me and the next I'd be shaking with religion and +seeing God standing right in front of me by the coal-scuttle. Such a +mix-up! ... it was then and so it is now. Amy always hated me. She was +really religious and she thought I was a hypocrite. But I wasn't +altogether. There was something real in it and there still is." +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't you go to school?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"No, that was the mistake. They never sent me. Father loved me too much +and he wanted to keep me always with him. He tried to teach me himself +but I never learnt anything. I always knew I could turn them round my +little finger. I always knew he'd rather do anything than make me +unhappy. Sometimes we had lovely times together, sitting in the dusk in +the front of the fire. Do you know, Maggie, I've never changed in my +love for father? I've changed in everything else, but in that never. +Yet I've hurt him over and over and over again. I've done things ..." +Here he broke off. To-day was to be happy; they must build up their +walls faster, faster, faster to keep the world out. He would think of +nothing, nothing but the present. The wind blew and the heavy drops of +rain fell, one and one and one, slowly between the gusts. Ho drew her +close to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you cold?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, Martin dear." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose we should turn back." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it's getting late." +</P> + +<P> +"It will seem hours until to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"And to me too." +</P> + +<P> +They were at the end of the Green Park. There was no one there. They +kissed and clung together and Maggie's hand was warm inside his coat. +Then they turned back and entered the real world once more ... +</P> + +<P> +"Now we must have our matinee," Martin said. Maggie could not refuse +and besides she herself wanted it so badly. Also the three weeks were +drawing to a close, and although she did not know what was in store for +them, she felt, in some mysterious way, that trouble was coming. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, we'll have our matinee," she said. +</P> + +<P> +It was a terrific excitement for her, apart altogether from her love +for Martin. She had, of course, never been to a theatre. She could not +imagine in the least what it was like. It so happened, by a wonderful +chance, that a note came from Katherine Mark asking her to tea. She +showed this to the aunts and said that she would accept it. She wrote +to Katherine Mark and refused and told Martin that for that Wednesday +afternoon she was quite free until at least seven o'clock. She wove +these deceits with strong disgust. She hated the lies, and there were +many, many times when she was on the edge of confessing everything to +the aunts. But the thought of what would follow that confession held +her back. She could not make things harder for Martin. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless she wondered why when she felt, in herself, no shame al +all at the things that she was doing, she should have to lie to cover +those things up. But everything in connection with the Chapel seemed to +lie.—The place was wrapped in intrigue and double-dealing. How long +would it be before she and Martin were out of it all? +</P> + +<P> +She was to meet him by one of the lions in Trafalgar Square. She bought +a golden chrysanthemum which she stuck into the belt of her black dress +and she wore her coral necklace. She was tired of black. She sometimes +thought she would spend all her Three Hundred Pounds on clothes ... +To-day, as soon as she was out of the house and had turned the corner +into King William Street, she slipped on her ring. She kissed it before +she put her glove on. He was waiting there looking like a happy +schoolboy, that way that she loved him to look. That slow crooked smile +of his, something that broke up his whole face into geniality and +friendliness, how she adored him when he looked like that! He was +wearing clothes of some rough red-brown stuff and a black knitted tie— +</P> + +<P> +She was carrying something, a little parcel in tissue paper. She +pressed it into his hand when they met. He opened it, just like a boy, +chuckling, his eyes shining, his fingers tearing the paper in his +eagerness. Her present was a round locket of thin plain gold and inside +was the funniest little black faded photograph of Maggie, her head +only, a wild untidy head of hair, a fat round schoolgirl face—a +village snapshot of Maggie taken in St. Dreot's when she was about +fifteen. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all I had," she said. "I remembered it the other day and I found +it. A travelling photographer took it one day. He came to the village +and every one was taken, father and all. It's very bad but it was the +only one." +</P> + +<P> +"It's wonderful," said Martin, and truly it was wonderful. It had +caught by a marvellous chance, in spite of its shabby faded darkness, +the very soul of Maggie. Was it her hair, her untidy hair, or the +honesty of her eyes, or the strength and trustiness of her mouth? But +then it was to any one who did not know her the bad dim photograph of +an untidy child, to any one who did know her the very stamp and witness +of Maggie and all that she was. Maggie had spent twenty-five shillings +on the locket (she had had three pounds put away from her allowance in +her drawer). +</P> + +<P> +It was a very simple locket, thin plain gold round and smooth, but +good, and it would last. +</P> + +<P> +"You darling," whispered Martin. "There couldn't have been anything +more like you if you'd been taken by the grandest photographer in +London." +</P> + +<P> +They started off towards Shaftesbury Avenue where the theatre was, and +as they went a funny little incident occurred. They were both too happy +to talk and Maggie was too happy even to think. Suddenly she was aware +that some one was coming towards her whom she knew. She looked and +tugged herself from that world of Martin and only Martin in which she +was immersed. It was the large, smiling, rosy-cheeked, white-haired +clergyman, Mr. Trenchard. Yes, certainly it was he. He had recognised +her and was stopping to speak to her. Martin moved on a little and +stood waiting for her. She was confused and embarrassed but pleased too +because he seemed glad to see her. He looked the very picture of a +well-dressed, kindly, genial friend who had known her all his life. He +was wearing a beautifully shining top-hat and his stiff white collar +gleamed. Yes, he was glad to see her and he said so. He remembered her +name. "Miss Cardinal," he called her. How had she been? What had she +been doing? Had she seen Mrs. Mark? He was staying with his sister at +Brown's Hotel in Somewhere—she didn't catch the name of the street. +His sister would be so glad if she would come and see them one day. +Would she come? He wouldn't tie her down, but she had only to write and +say she was coming ... +</P> + +<P> +He took her hand and held it for a moment and looked in her eyes with +the kindliest friendliest regard. He was glad to have seen her. He +should tell his sister ... +</P> + +<P> +He was gone and Maggie really could not be sure what she had said. +Something very silly she could be certain. Stupid the pleasure that his +few words had given her, but she felt once again, as she had felt in +Katherine Mark's drawing-room, the contact with that other world, that +safe, happy, comfortable, assured world in which everything was exactly +what it seemed. She was glad that he liked her and that his sister +liked her. Then she could not be so wild and odd and uncivilised as she +often was afraid that she was. She rejoined Martin with a little added +glow in her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"Who was that?" Martin asked her rather sharply. +</P> + +<P> +She told him. +</P> + +<P> +"One of those humbugging parsons," he said. "He stood over you as +though he'd like to eat you." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm sure he's not a humbug," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd be taken in by anybody," he told her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, I shouldn't," she said. "Now forget him." +</P> + +<P> +And they did. By the time they had reached Piccadilly Circus they were +once more deep, deep in one another. They were back in their dark and +gleaming wood. +</P> + +<P> +The Lyric Theatre was their destination. Maggie drew a breath as they +stepped into the hall where there stood two large stout commissionaires +in blue uniforms, gold buttons, and white gloves. People pushed past +them and hurried down the stairs on either side as though a theatre +were a Nothing. Maggie stood there fingering her gloves and feeling +lonely. The oil painting of a beautiful lady with a row of shining +teeth faced her. There were also some palms and a hole in the wall with +a man behind it. +</P> + +<P> +Soon they too passed down the stairs, curtains were drawn back, and +Maggie was sitting, quite suddenly, in a large desert of gold and red +plush, with emptiness on every side of it and a hungry-looking crowd of +people behind a wooden partition staring at her in such a way that she +felt as though she had no clothes on. She gave a hurried glance at +these people and turned round blushing. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't they sit with us?" she whispered to Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"They're the Pit and we're the Stalls," he whispered to her, but that +comforted her very little. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't people come and sit where we are?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes; we're early," he told her. +</P> + +<P> +Soon she was more composed and happier. She sat very close to Martin, +her knee against his and his hand near to hers, just touching the +outside of her palm. Her ring sparkled and the three little pearls +smiled at her. As he breathed she breathed too, and it seemed to her +that their bodies rose and fell as one body. Without looking directly +at him, which would, she knew, embarrass him before all those hungry +people behind her, she could out of the corner of her eye see the ruddy +brown of his cheek and the hard thick curve of his shoulder. She was +his, she belonged to no one else in the world, she was his utterly. +Utterly. Ever so swiftly and gently her hand brushed for an instant +over his; he responded, crooking his little finger for a moment inside +hers. She smiled; she turned round and looked at the people +triumphantly, she felt a deep contented rest in her heart, rich and +full, proud and arrogant, the mother, the lover, the sister, the child, +everything to him she was ... +</P> + +<P> +People came in, the theatre filled, and a hum of talk arose, then the +orchestra began to tune, and soon music was playing, and Maggie would +have loved to listen but the people must chatter. +</P> + +<P> +When suddenly the lights went down the only thing of which she was +conscious was that Martin's hand had suddenly seized hers roughly, +sharply, and was crushing it, pressing the ring into the flesh so that +it hurt. Her first excited wondering thought then was: +</P> + +<P> +"He doesn't care for me any more only as a friend.—There's the other +now ..." and a strange shyness, timidity, and triumph overwhelmed her +so that her eyes were full of tears and her body trembling. +</P> + +<P> +But as the play continued she must listen. It was her very first play +and soon it was thrilling to her so that she forgot, for a time, even +Martin. Or rather Martin was mingled with it, absorbed in it, part of +it, and she was there too sharing with him the very action of the +story. It was a very old-fashioned play about a little Charity girl who +was brought up by a kindly middle-aged gentleman who cared for nothing +but books. He brought her up on his own plan with a view to marrying +her afterwards. But meanwhile, of course, she saw a handsome young +soldier who was young like herself, and she was naturally bored with +the studious gentleman. Maggie shared all the feelings of the Charity +girl. Had she been brought up, say by a man like Mr. Trenchard and then +had met Martin, why, of course, she could have gone only one way. +</P> + +<P> +The soldier was not like Martin, being slim and curled and beautiful, +nor was the studious gentleman like Mr. Trenchard, being thin and tall +with a face like a monk and a beautiful voice. But the girl was like +Maggie, prettier of course, and with artful ways, but untidy a little +and not very well educated. At the first interval, when the lights were +up and the band was playing and the people walking, Martin whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you like it, Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +"I love it," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +And then they just sat there, without another word between them, +pressed close together. +</P> + +<P> +A little song ran through the play—one of Burns's most famous songs, +although Maggie, who had never read anything, did not know that. The +verses were: +</P> + +<P> +O my luve's like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June: O my +luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune! +</P> + +<P> +As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I: And I will luve +thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry: +</P> + +<P> +Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun; I +will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run. +</P> + +<P> +And fare thee weel, my only Luve, And fare thee weel a while! And I +will come again, my Luve, Tho' it were ten thousand mile. +</P> + +<P> +First the handsome soldier sang this to the Charity girl, and then, +because it was a sentimental tune, it was always turning up through the +play, and if one of the characters were not singing it the orchestra +was quietly playing it. Maggie loved it; she was not sentimental but +she was simple, and the tune seemed at once to belong to herself and to +Martin by natural right. +</P> + +<P> +As the story developed it became more unreal and Maggie's unerring +knowledge of the difference between sense and nonsense refused to +credit the tall handsome villainness who confronted the Charity girl at +the ball. The Charity girl had no right to be at the ball and people +stood about in unnatural groups and pretended not to listen to the loud +development of the plot and no one seemed to use any of their +faculties. Then at the end, when the middle-aged gentleman nobly +surrendered his Charity girl to the handsome soldier, the little tune +came back again and all was well. +</P> + +<P> +They came out of the theatre into lights and shadows and mists cabs and +omnibuses and crowds of people ... Maggie clung to Martin's arm. It +seemed to her, dazzled for an instant, that a great are of white +piercing light cut the black street and that in the centre of this arc +a tree, painted green, stood, and round the tree figures, dark shapes, +and odd shadows danced. She shaded her eyes with her hand. The long +shining line of Shaftesbury Avenue ran out, from her feet, into thick +clusters of silver lights. The tree had vanished and now there were +policemen and ladies in hats and strange mysterious houses. She caught +above it all, between the roofs, the pale flat river of the evening sky +and in this river stars like golden buttons floated. The moon was there +too, a round amber coin with the laughing face stamped upon it. +</P> + +<P> +"What time is it?" she asked Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"Half-past five," he said. "How early the moon rises. It's only +climbing now. See the chimney's tossing it about." +</P> + +<P> +"I must get home." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no." He held her arm fiercely. "You must come to tea. That's part +of the programme. We have plenty of time before seven o'clock." She +knew that she ought to return. Something seemed to tell her, as she +stood there, that now was the moment to break this off. But when his +hand was on her arm, when he was so close to her, she could not leave +him. She would have one hour more ... He took her across the street, +down into darkness, up into light. Then they went into a shop, up some +stairs, and were suddenly in a little room with a table with a cloth, a +window looking out into the lamp-lit square, cherry-coloured curtains +and gay hunting pictures on the walls. Martin pushed a bell in the wall +and a stout waiter, perspiring, smiling, a napkin in his hand, came to +the door. "Tea," said Martin, and he vanished. "It's all right," he +said, drawing her to a creaking wicker armchair near the empty +fireplace. "No one will interrupt us. They know me here. I ordered the +room yesterday." Tea came, but she could not eat anything. In some +strange way that moment in the theatre when he had pressed her hand had +altered everything. She recognised in herself a new Maggie; she was +excited with a thick burning excitement, she was almost sleepy with the +strain of it and her cheeks were hot, but her throat icy cold. When she +told him that she wasn't hungry, he said, "I'm not either." Then he +added, not looking at her, "That fellow won't be back for an hour." He +came and stood by her looking down on her. He bent forward over the +chair and put his hands under her chin and pressed her face up towards +his. But he did not kiss her. Then he took her hands and pulled her +gently out of the chair, sat down on it himself, then, still very +tenderly, put his arms round her and drew her down to him. She lay back +against him, her cheek against his, his arms tight around her. He +whispered to her again and again, "Darling ... Darling ... Darling." +She felt now so terribly part of him that she seemed to have lost all +her own identity. His hands, softly, tenderly passed up and down her +body, stroking her hair, her cheeks, her arms. Her mouth was against +his cheek and she was utterly motionless, shivering a little sometimes +and once her hand moved up and caught his and then moved away again. At +last, as it seemed from an infinite distance, his voice came to her, +speaking to her. "Maggie, darling," he said, "don't go back till late +to-night. You can say that those people asked you to stay to dinner. +Your aunts can't do anything. Nothing can happen. Stay with me here and +then later we'll go and have dinner at a little place I know ... and +then come back here ... come back here ... like this. Maggie, darling, +say you will. You must. We mayn't have another chance for so long. +You're coming to me afterwards. What does it matter, a week or two +earlier? What does it matter, Maggie? Stay here. Let us love one +another and have something to think about ... to remember ... to +remember ... to remember ..." His voice seemed to slip away into +infinity as voices in a dream do. She could not say anything because +she was in a dream too. She could only feel his hand stroking her face. +He seemed to take her silence for consent. He suddenly kissed her +furiously, pressing her head back until it hurt. That woke her. She +pushed his arms back and sprang up. Her hands were trembling. She shook +her head. "No, Martin. No, not now." "Why not?" He looked at her +angrily from the chair. His face was altered, he was frowning, his eyes +were dark. "I'm not going to stay now." Her voice shook in spite of +herself. With shaking hands she patted her dress. "Why not?" he asked +again. "I'm not. I promised the aunts. Not now. It would spoil +everything." "Oh, very well." He was furious with her. He wouldn't meet +her eyes. "Not now." She felt that she would cry; tears flooded her +eyes. "It's been so lovely ... Martin ... Don't look like that. Oh, I +love you too much!" She broke off. With a sudden movement she fell at +his feet; kneeling there, she drew his hands to her face, she kissed +them, the palms of his hands over and over again. His anger suddenly +left him. He put his arms round her and kissed her, first her eyes, +then her cheeks, then, gently, her mouth. "All right," he said. "Only I +feel somehow ... I feel as though our time had come to an end." "But it +shan't?" He turned upon her fiercely, held her hands, looked in her +face. "Maggie, do you swear that you'll love me always, whatever I am, +whatever I do?" "I swear," she answered, gazing into his eyes, "that +I'll love you always, whatever you are, whatever you do." Then she went +away, leaving him by the table, staring after her. In the street she +saw that her chrysanthemum was in pieces, torn and scattered and +destroyed. She slipped off the ring and put it into her pocket, then, +with forebodings in her heart, as though she did indeed know that her +good time was over, she turned towards home. She was right. Her good +time was over. That night she was left alone. Martha let her in and, +regarding her darkly, said nothing. The aunts also said nothing, +sitting all the evening under the green shade of the lamp in the +drawing-room, Aunt Anne reading a pamphlet, Aunt Elizabeth sewing. +Maggie pretended to read but she saw no words. She saw only the green +lamp like a dreadful bird suspended there and Aunt Anne's chiselled +sanctity. Over and over again she reasoned with herself. There was no +cause for panic. Nothing had happened to change things—and yet—and +yet everything was changed. Everything had been changed from that +moment when Martin pressed her hand in the theatre. Everything! ... +Danger now of every sort. She could be brave, she could meet anything +if she were only sure of Martin. But he too seemed strange to her. She +remembered his dark look, his frown when she had refused him. Oh, this +loneliness, this helplessness. If she could be with him, beside him, +she would fear nothing. That night, the first faint suspicion of +jealousy, of doubt, an agonising dart of pain at the knowledge of what +it would mean to her now if he left her, stirred in her breast. This +room was stifling. She got up from her chair, went to the window, +looked out between the thick curtains at the dark deserted street. +"What is it, Maggie?" "Nothing, Aunt Anne." "You're very restless, +dear." "It's close. May I open the door?" "A little, dear." She opened +the door and then sat there hearing the Armed Men sway ever so +slightly, tap, tap, against the wall in the passage. That night she +scarcely slept at all, only tumbling into sudden nightmare dreams when +something had her by the throat and Martin was not there. In the +morning as soon as she could escape she hurried to Piccadilly. Martin +was waiting for her. When she saw him she realised at once that her +good time was indeed over. His face was white and strained. He scarcely +looked at her but stared anxiously up and down the street. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she asked breathlessly. "Look here, Maggie," he began, +still scarcely looking at her. "I must get back at once. I only came to +tell you that we must drop our meetings for the next day or two—until +it's blown over." +</P> + +<P> +"Until what's blown over," she asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"It's my father. I don't know what exactly has happened. They'll none +of them tell me, damn them. It's Caroline Smith. She's been talking to +Amy about you and me. I know that because of what Amy said about you at +breakfast this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"What did she say?" +</P> + +<P> +"She wouldn't speak out. She hinted. But she admitted that Caroline +Smith had told her something. But she doesn't matter. Nothing matters +except father. He mustn't be excited just now. His heart's so bad. Any +little thing ... We must wait." +</P> + +<P> +She saw that he was scarcely realising her at all. She choked down all +questions that concerned themselves. She simply agreed, nodding her +head. +</P> + +<P> +He did look at her then, smiling as he used to do. +</P> + +<P> +"It's awfully hard on us. It won't be for more than a day or two. But I +must put things right at home or it will be all up. I don't care for +the others, of course, but if anything happened to father through me +..." He told her to write to the Charing Cross post-office. He would do +the same. In a day or two it would be all right. He pressed her hand +and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +When she looked about her the street seemed quite empty although it was +full of people. She threw up her head. She wouldn't be beaten by +anybody ... only, it was lonely going back to the house and all of them +... alone ... without Martin. +</P> + +<P> +She cried a little on her way home. But they were the last tears she +shed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0209"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE INSIDE SAINTS +</H3> + +<P> +Maggie, when she was nearly home, halted suddenly. She stopped as when +on the threshold of a room that should be empty one sees waiting a +stranger. If at the end of all this she should lose Martin! ... +</P> + +<P> +There was the stranger who had come to her now and would not again +depart. She recognised the sharp pain, the almost unconscious pulling +back on the sudden edge of a dim pit, as something that would always be +with her now—always. One knows that in the second stage of a great +intimacy one's essential loneliness is only redoubled by close +companionship. One asks for so much more, and then more and more, but +that final embrace is elusive and no physical contact can surrender it. +But she was young and did not know that yet. All she knew was that she +would have to face these immediate troubles alone, that she would not +see him for perhaps a week, that she would not know what his people at +home were doing, and that she must not let any of these thoughts come +up into her brain. She must keep them all back: if she did not, she +would tumble into some foolish precipitate action. +</P> + +<P> +When she reached home she was obstinate and determined. At once she +found that something was the matter. During luncheon the two aunts sat +like statues (Aunt Elizabeth a dumpy and squat one). Aunt Anne's +aloofness was coloured now with a very human anger. Maggie realised +with surprise that she had never seen her angry before. She had been +indignant, disapproving, superior, forbidding, but never angry. The +eyes were hard now, not with religious reserve but simply with bad +temper. The mist of anger dimmed the room, it was in the potatoes and +the cold dry mutton, especially was it in the hard pallid knobs of +cheese. And Aunt Elizabeth, although she was frightened by her sister's +anger on this occasion, shared in it. She pursed her lips at Maggie and +moved her fat, podgy hand as though she would like to smack Maggie's +cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was frightened—really frightened. The line of bold independence +was all very well, but now risks were attached to it. If she swiftly +tossed her head and told her aunts that she would walk out of the house +they might say "Walk!" and that would precipitate Martin's crisis. She +knew from the way he had looked at her that morning that his thoughts +were with his father, and it showed that she had travelled through the +first stage of her intimacy with him, that she could not trust him to +put her before his own family troubles. At all costs she must keep him +safe through these next difficult weeks, and the best way to keep him +safe was herself to remain quietly at home. +</P> + +<P> +Of all this she thought as she swallowed the hostile knobs of cheese +and drank the tepid, gritty coffee. +</P> + +<P> +She followed her aunts upstairs, and was not at all surprised when Aunt +Elizabeth, with an agitated murmur, vanished into higher regions. She +followed Aunt Anne into the drawing-room. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne sat in the stiff-backed tapestry chair by the fire. Maggie +stood in front of her. She was disarmed at that all-important moment by +her desperate sensation of defenceless loneliness. It was as though +half of herself—the man-half of herself—had left her. She tried to +summon her pluck but there was no pluck there. She could only want +Martin, over and over again inside herself. Had any one been, ever so +hopelessly ALONE before? +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, I am angry," said Aunt Anne. She said it as though she meant +it. Amazing how human this strange aloof creature had become. As though +some coloured saint bright with painted wood and tinsel before whom one +stood in reverence slipped down suddenly and with fingers of flesh and +blood struck one's face. Her cheeks were flushed, her beautiful hands +were no longer thin but were hard and active. +</P> + +<P> +"What have I done, aunt?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You have not treated us fairly. My sister and I have done everything +for you. You have not made it especially easy for us in any way, but we +have tried to give you what you wanted. You have repaid is with +ingratitude." +</P> + +<P> +She paused, but Maggie said nothing. She went on: +</P> + +<P> +"Lately—these last three weeks—we have given you complete liberty. I +advised that strongly against my sister's opinion because I thought you +weren't happy. You didn't make friends amongst our friends, and I +thought you should have the chance of finding some who were younger and +gayer than we were. Then I thought we could trust you. You have many +faults, but I believed that you were honest." +</P> + +<P> +"I am honest!" Maggie broke in. Her aunt went on: +</P> + +<P> +"You have used the liberty we gave you during these weeks to make +yourself the talk of our friends. You have been meeting Mr. Martin +Warlock secretly every day. You have been alone with him in the Park +and at the theatre. I know that you are young and very ignorant. You +could not have known that Martin Warlock is a man with whom no girl who +respects herself would be seen alone—" +</P> + +<P> +"That is untrue!" Maggie flamed out. +</P> + +<P> +"—and," went on Aunt Anne, "we would have forgiven that. It is your +deceit to ourselves that we cannot forget. Day after day you were +meeting him and pretending that you went to your other friends. I am +disappointed in you, bitterly disappointed. I saw from the first that +you did not mean to care for us, now, as well, you have disgraced us—" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie began: "Yes, I have been seeing Martin. I didn't think it +wrong—I don't now. I didn't tell you because I was afraid that you +would stop me—" +</P> + +<P> +"Then that shows that you knew it was wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"No, Aunt Anne—only that you would think it was wrong. I can only go +by myself, by what I feel is wrong I mean. I've always had to, all my +life. It would have been no good doing anything else at home, because +father—" +</P> + +<P> +She pulled herself up. She was not going to defend herself or ask for +pity. She said, speaking finally: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I have been out with Martin every day. I went to the theatre with +him, too, and also had tea with him." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie could see Aunt Anne's anger rising higher and higher like water +in a tube. Her voice was hard when she spoke again—she pronounced +judgment: +</P> + +<P> +"We see now that you were right when you said that you had better leave +us. You are free to go as soon as you wish. You have, of course, your +money, but if you care to stay with us until you have found some work +you must now obey our rules. While you remain with us you must not go +out unless my sister or I accompany you." Then her voice changed, +softening a little. She suddenly raised her hands in a gesture of +appeal: "Oh, Maggie, Maggie, turn to God. You have rebelled against +Him. You have refused to listen to His voice. The end of that can be +only misery. He loves, but He also judges. Even now, within a day, a +week, He may come with judgment. Turn to Him, Maggie, not because I +tell you but because of the Truth. Pray with me now that He may help +you and give you strength." +</P> + +<P> +Because she felt that she had indeed treated them badly and must do +just now what they wished, she knelt down on the drawing-room carpet. +Aunt Anne also knelt down, her figure stiff like iron, her raised hands +once again delicate and ghost-like. +</P> + +<P> +"O Lord God," she prayed, "this Thy servant comes to Thee and prays +that Thou wilt give her strength in her struggle with the Evil One. She +has been tempted and is weak, but Thou art strong to save and wilt not +despise the least of these Thy children." +</P> + +<P> +"Come, O Lord the Father, and take Thy daughter into Thy loving care, +and when Thou comest, in all Thy splendour, to redeem the world, I pray +that Thou wilt find her waiting for Thee in holiness and meekness of +heart." +</P> + +<P> +They rose. Maggie's knees were sore with the stiff carpet. The family +group watched her from the wall ironically. +</P> + +<P> +She saw that in spite of the prayer Aunt Anne had not forgiven her. She +stood away from her, and although her voice now was not so hard, it had +lost altogether the tender note that it used to have. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Maggie, you must promise us that you will not see Martin Warlock +again." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie flushed. "No, aunt, I can't promise that." +</P> + +<P> +"Then we must treat you as a prisoner whilst you are with us." +</P> + +<P> +"If he wants to see me I must see him." +</P> + +<P> +They looked at one another. Aunt Anne was like a man just then. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well. Until you give us your promise we must see ourselves that +you do not disgrace us." +</P> + +<P> +There was no more to be said. It was as though a heavy iron door had +rolled to. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne passed Maggie and left the room. +</P> + +<P> +Well, then, there was the situation. As she remained in the empty room +she felt relief because now she knew where she was. +</P> + +<P> +If only she could keep in touch with Martin then nothing else at all +mattered. But that must be, otherwise she felt that she would rush at +them all and tread them down and break doors and windows to get at him. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, how they must all have been talking! She felt no especial +anger against Caroline Smith. It had been her own fault for trusting +that note to her honour. Caroline had no honour, of course. Maggie +might have guessed that from the way that she talked about other +people. And then probably she herself was in love with Martin ... She +sat down, staring in front of her, thinking. They all knew, Amy +Warlock, Mr. Thurston, Miss Avies—knew about that wonderful, +marvellous thing, her love for Martin, his for her. They were turning +it over in their hands, soiling it, laughing at it, sneering at it. And +what were they doing to Martin? At that thought she sprang up and began +hurriedly to walk about. Oh, they must leave him alone! What were they +saying to him? They were telling him how ridiculous it was to have +anything to do with a plain, ugly girl! And he? Was he defending her? +At the sudden suggestion of his disloyalty indignation fought in her +with some strange, horrible suspicion. Yes, it would come back, that +thought. He was weak. He had told her that he was. He was weak. She +KNEW that he was. She would not lie to herself. And then at the thought +of his weakness the maternal love in her that was the strongest +instinct in her character flooded her body and soul, so that she did +not mind if he were weak, but only wanted to defend him, to protect him +... +</P> + +<P> +Strangely, she felt more sure of him at that moment when she was +conscious of his weakness than she had been when she asserted his +strength. Beneath that weakness he would be true to her because he +needed her. No one else could give him what she did; he had said so +again and again. And it would always be so. He would have to come back +to her however often he denied her. +</P> + +<P> +She felt happier then. She could face them all. She had been bad to her +aunts, too. She had done them harm, and they had been nothing but +goodness to her. Apart from leaving Martin she would do all, these next +weeks, to please them. +</P> + +<P> +She went up to her bedroom, and when she reached it she realised, with +a little pang of fright, that she was a prisoner. No more meetings +outside Hatchards, no more teas, no more walks ... She looked out of +the window down into the street. It was a long way down and the figures +walking were puppets, not human at all. But the thing to be thought of +now was the question of letters. How was she to get them to the Strand +Office and receive from them Martin's letters in return? After long, +anxious thought there seemed to be only one way. There was a +kitchen-maid, Jane, who came every morning to the house, did odd jobs +in the kitchen, and went home again in the evening. Maggie had seen the +girl about the house a number of times, had noticed her for her +rebellious, independent look, and had felt some sympathy with her +because she was under the harsh dominion of Martha. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had spoken to her once or twice and the girl had seemed +grateful, smiling in a kind of dark, tearful way under her untidy hair. +Maggie believed that she would help her; of course the girl would get +into trouble were she discovered, and dismissal would certainly follow, +but it was clear enough that she would not in any case be under +Martha's government very long. Martha never kept kitchen-maids for more +than a month at a time. +</P> + +<P> +She sat down at once and wrote her first letter, sitting on her bed. +</P> + +<P> +DARLING MARTIN—There has been an explosion here. The aunts have told +me to give you up. I could not promise them that I would not see you +and so I am a prisoner here until I leave them altogether. I won't +leave them until after the New Year, partly because I gave a promise +and partly because it would make more trouble for you if I were turned +out just now. I can't leave the house at all unless I am with one of +them, so I am going to try and send the letters by the kitchen-maid +here who goes home every day, and she will fetch yours when she posts +mine. I'll give her a note to tell the post people that she is to have +them. Martin, dear, try and write every day, even if it's only the +shortest line, because it is dreadful to be shut up all day, and I +think of you all the time and wonder how you are. Don't be unhappy, +Martin—that's the one thing I couldn't bear. If you're not, I'm not. +There's no reason to be unhappy about me. I'm very cheerful indeed if I +know that you are all right. You are all right, aren't you? I do want +to know what happened when you got home. I quite understand that the +one thing you must do now is to keep your father well and not let +anything trouble him. If the thought of me troubles him, then tell him +that you are thinking of nothing but him now and how to make him happy. +But don't let them change your feeling for me. You know me better than +any of them do and I am just as you know me, every bit. The aunts are +very angry because they say I deceived them, but they haven't any right +to tell me who I shall love, have they? No one has. I am myself and +nobody's ever cared for me except you—and Uncle Mathew, so I don't see +why I should think of anybody. The aunts never cared for me +really—only to make me religious. +</P> + +<P> +But, Martin, never forget I love you so much I can never change. I'm +not one who changes, and although I'm young now I shall be just the +same when I'm old. I have the ring and I look at it all the time. I +like to think you have the locket. Please write, dear Martin, or I'll +find it very difficult to stay quiet here, and I know I ought to stay +quiet for your sake. +</P> + +<P> +Your loving, +</P> + +<P> +MAGGIE. +</P> + +<P> +She put it in an envelope, wrote the address as he had told her, and +then set out to find Jane. It was four o'clock in the afternoon now and +the house, on this winter's day, was dark and dim. +</P> + +<P> +The gas was always badly lit in the passages, spitting and muttering +like an imprisoned animal. The house was so quiet when Maggie came out +on to the stairs that there seemed to be no one in it. She found her +way down into the hall and saw Thomas the cat there, moving like a +black ghost along the floor. He came up to her and rubbed himself in +his sinister, mysterious way against her dress. When she turned towards +the green baize door that led towards the kitchen regions he stood back +from her, stole on to the lower steps of the staircase and watched her +with steady, unblinking eyes. She pushed the door and went through into +the cold passage that smelt of cheese and bacon and damp earth. There +seemed to be no one about, and then suddenly the pantry door opened and +Jane came out. She stopped when she saw Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Martha?" asked Maggie in a low voice. +</P> + +<P> +The whisper seemed to tell Jane at once that this was to be a +confidential matter. She jerked with a dirty thumb in the direction of +the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +"In there. Cooking the dinner," she whispered back. She was untidy, +there were streaks of black on her face, but her eyes looked up at +Maggie with a friendly, roguish glance, as though they had already +something in common. Maggie saw that she had no time to lose. She came +close to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Jane," she said, "I'm in trouble. It's only you who can help me. +Here's a letter that I want posted—just in the ordinary way. Can you +do that for me?" +</P> + +<P> +Jane, suddenly smiling, nodded her head. +</P> + +<P> +"And there's something else," Maggie went on. "To-morrow morning, +before you come here, I want you to go to the Strand post-office—you +know the one opposite the station—and ask for a letter addressed to +me. I've written on a piece of paper here that you're to be given any +letters of mine. Give it to me somehow when no one's looking. Do you +understand?" +</P> + +<P> +Jane nodded her head. Maggie gave her the note and also half-a-crown, +but Jane pushed back the money. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want no money," she said in a hoarse whisper. "You're the only +one here decent to me." +</P> + +<P> +At that moment the kitchen door opened and Martha appeared. When she +saw Jane she came up to her and said: "Now then, idling again! What +about the potatoes?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at Maggie with her usual surly suspicion. +</P> + +<P> +"I came down for a candle," Maggie said, "for my room. Will you give me +one, please?" +</P> + +<P> +Jane had vanished. +</P> + +<P> +Martin, meanwhile, after Maggie left him, had returned home in no happy +state. There had leapt upon him again that mood of sullen impatient +rebellion that he knew so well—a mood that really was like a +possession, so that, struggle as he—might, he seemed always in the +grip of some iron-fingered menacing figure. +</P> + +<P> +It was possession in a sense that to many normal, happy people in this +world is so utterly unknown that they can only scornfully name it +weakness and so pass on their way. But those human beings who have +suffered from it do in very truth feel as though they had been caught +up into another world, a world of slavery, moral galley-driving with a +master high above them, driving them with a lash that their chained +limbs may not resist. Such men, if they try to explain that torment, +can often point to the very day and even hour of their sudden slavery; +at such a tick of the clock the clouds gather, the very houses and +street are weighted with a cold malignity, thoughts, desires, impulses +are all checked, perverted, driven and counter-driven by a mysterious +force. Let no man who has not known such hours and the terror of such a +dominion utter judgment upon his neighbour. +</P> + +<P> +To Martin the threat of this conflict with his father over Maggie was +the one crisis that he had wished to avoid. But his character, which +was naturally easy and friendly and unsuspicious, had confused him. +Those three weeks with Maggie had been so happy, so free from all +morbidity and complication, that he had forgotten the world outside. +For a moment when Maggie had told him that she had given her note to +Caroline he had been afraid, but he had been lulled as the days passed +and nothing interfered with their security. Now he was suddenly plunged +into the middle of a confusion that was all the more complicated +because he could not tell what his mother and his, sister were +thinking. He knew that Amy had disliked him ever since his return, and +that that dislike had been changed into something fiercer since his +declared opposition to Thurston. His mother he simply did not +understand at all. She spoke to him still with the same affection and +tenderness, but behind the words he felt a hard purpose and a +mysterious aloofness. +</P> + +<P> +She was not like his mother at all; it was as though some spy had been +introduced into the house in his mother's clothing. +</P> + +<P> +But for them he did not care; it was his father of whom he must think. +Here, too, there was a mystery from which he was deliberately kept. He +knew, of course, that they were all expecting some crisis; as the days +advanced he could feel that the excitement increased. He knew that his +father had declared that he had visions and that there was to be a +revelation very shortly; but of these visions and this revelation he +heard only indirectly from others. His father said nothing to him of +these things, and at the ordinary Chapel services on Sunday there was +no allusion to them. He knew that the Inside Saints had a society and +rules of their own inside the larger body, and from that inner society +he was quite definitely excluded. Of that exclusion he would have been +only too glad had it not been for his father, but now when he saw him +growing from day to day more haggard and worn, more aloof from all +human society, when lie saw him wrapped further and further into some +strange and as it seemed to him insane absorption, he was determined to +fight his way into the heart of it. His growing intimacy with Maggie +had relieved him, for a moment, of the intensity of this other anxiety. +Now suddenly he was flung back into the very thick of it. His earlier +plan of forcing his father out of all this network of chicanery and +charlatanism now returned. He felt that if he could only seize his +father and forcibly abduct him and take him away from Amy and Thurston +and the rest, and all the associations of the Chapel, he might cure him +and lead him back to health and happiness again. +</P> + +<P> +And yet he did not know. He had not himself escaped from it all by +leaving it, and then that undermining bewildering suspicion that +perhaps after all there was something in all of this, that it was not +only charlatanism, confused and disconcerted him. He was like a man who +hears sounds and faint cries behind a thick wall, and there are no +doors and windows, and the bricks are too stout to be torn apart. +</P> + +<P> +He had been behind that wall all his life ... +</P> + +<P> +Amy's allusion to Maggie in the morning had been very slight, but had +shown quite clearly that she had heard all, and probably more, than the +truth. When he returned that morning he found his mother alone, +knitting a pink woollen comforter, her gold spectacles on the end of +her nose, her fresh lace cap crisp and dainty on her white hair—the +very picture of the dearest old lady in the world. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother," he began at once, "what did Amy mean this morning about +myself and Maggie Cardinal?" +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie who, dear?" his mother asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie Cardinal—the Cardinal niece, you know," he said impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"Did she say anything? I don't remember." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, mother. You remember perfectly well. She said that they were all +talking about me and Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +"Did she?" The old lady slowly counted her stitches. "Well, dear, I +shouldn't worry about what they all say—whoever 'they' may be." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't care for that," he answered contemptuously, "although all +the same I'm not going to have Amy running that girl down. She's been +against her from the first. What I want to know is has Amy been to +father with this? Because if she has I'm going to stop it. I'm not +going to have her bothering father with bits of gossip that she's +picked up by listening behind other peoples' key-holes." +</P> + +<P> +Amy, meanwhile, had come in and heard this last sentence. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Martin," she said quietly. +</P> + +<P> +He turned to her with fury. "What did you mean at breakfast," he asked, +"by what you said about myself and Maggie Cardinal?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him with contempt but no very active hostility. +</P> + +<P> +"I was simply telling you something that I thought you ought to know," +she said. "It is what everybody is saying—that you and she have been +meeting every day for weeks, sitting in the Park after dark together, +going to the theatre. People draw their own conclusions, I suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"How much have you told father of this?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know at all what father has heard," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +"You've been that girl's enemy since the first moment that she came +here," he continued, growing angrier and angrier at her quiet +indifference. "Now you're trying to damage her character." +</P> + +<P> +"On the contrary," she answered, "I told you because I thought you +ought to know what people were saying. The girl doesn't matter to me +one way or another—but I'm sorry for her if she thinks she cares for +you. That won't bring her much happiness." +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly her impassivity had a strange effect upon him. He could +not answer her. He left them both, and went up to his room. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as he had closed the door of his bedroom he knew that his bad +time was come upon him. It was a physical as well as a spiritual +dominion. The room visibly darkened before his eyes, his brain worked +as it would in dreams suggesting its own thoughts and wishes and +intentions. A dark shadow hung over him, hands were placed upon his +eyes, only one thought came before him again and again and again. "You +know, you have long known, that you are doomed to make miserable +everything that you touch, to ruin every one with whom you come in +contact. That is your fate, and you can no more escape from it than you +can escape from your body!" +</P> + +<P> +How many hours of this kind he had known in Spain, in France, in South +America. Often at the very moment when he had thought that he was at +last settling down to some decent steady plan of life he would be +jerked from his purpose, some delay or failure would frustrate him, and +there would follow the voice in his ear and the hands on his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed as though he had been pledged to something in his early +life, and because he had broken from that pledge had been pursued ever +since ... +</P> + +<P> +He stripped to the waist and bathed in cold water; even then it seemed +to him that his flesh was heavy and dull and yellow, that he was +growing obese and out of all condition. He put on a clean shirt and +collar, sat down on his bed and tried to think the thing out. To +whomsoever he had done harm in the past he would now spare Maggie and +his father. He was surprised at the rush of tenderness that came over +him at the thought of Maggie; he sat there for some time thinking over +every incident of the last three weeks; that, at least, had been a good +decent time, and no one could ever take it away from them again. He +looked at her picture in the locket and realised, as he looked at it, a +link with her that he had never felt with any woman before. "All the +same," he thought, "I should go away. She'd mind it at first, but not +half as much as she'd mind me later on when she saw what kind of a chap +I really was. She'd be unhappy for a bit, but she'd soon meet some one +else. She's never seen a man yet except me. She'd soon forget me. She's +such a kid." +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless when he thought of beginning that old wandering life again +he shrank back. He had hated it—Oh! how he'd hated it! And he didn't +want to leave Maggie. He was in reality beginning to believe that with +her he might pull himself right out of this morass of weakness and +indecision in which he had been wallowing for years. And yet what sort +of a life could he offer her? He did not believe that he would ever now +be able to find this other woman whom he had married, and until he had +found her and divorced her Maggie's position would be impossible. She, +knowing nothing of the world, could disregard it, but HE knew, knew +that daily, hourly recurrence of alights and insults and +disappointments, knew what that life could make after a time of women +in such a position; even though she did not mind he would mind for her +and would reproach himself continually. +</P> + +<P> +No, it was impossible. He must go away secretly, without telling her +... Then, at that, he was pulled up again by the thought of his father. +He could not leave him until this crisis, whatever it might be, was +over. A very little thing now might kill him, and at the thought of +that possibility he jumped up from his bed and swore that THAT +catastrophe at least must be prevented. His father must live and be +happy and strong again, and he, Martin, must see to it. +</P> + +<P> +That was his charge and his sacred duty above all else. +</P> + +<P> +Strong in this thought he went down to his father's room. He knocked on +the door. There was no answer, and he went in. The room was in a mess +of untidiness. His father was walking up and down, staring in front of +him, talking to himself. +</P> + +<P> +At the sound of the door he turned, saw Martin and smiled, the old +trusting smile of a child, that had been, during his time abroad, +Martin's clearest memory of him. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, is that you? Come in." +</P> + +<P> +Martin came forward and his father put his arm round his neck as though +for support. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm tired—horribly tired." Martin took him to the shabby broken +arm-chair and made him sit down. Himself sat in his old place on the +arm of the chair, his hand against his father's neck. +</P> + +<P> +"Father, come away—just for a week—with me. We'll go right off into +the country to Glebeshire or somewhere, quite alone. We won't see a +soul. We'll just walk and eat and sleep. And then you'll come back to +your work here another man." +</P> + +<P> +"No, Martin. I can't yet. Not just now." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not, father?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have work, work that can't be left." +</P> + +<P> +"But if you go on like this you'll be so that you can't go on any +longer. You'll break down. You know what the doctor said about your +heart. You aren't taking any care at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps ... perhaps ... but for a week or two I must just go on, +preparing ... many things ... Martin." +</P> + +<P> +He suddenly looked up at his son, putting his hand on his knee. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, father." +</P> + +<P> +"You're being good now, aren't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Good, father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes ... Not doing anything you or I'd be ashamed of. I know in the +past ... but that's been forgotten, that's over. Only now, just now, +it's terribly important for us both that you should be good ... like +you used to be ... when you were a boy." +</P> + +<P> +"Father, what have people been saying to you about me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing—nothing. Only I think about you so much. I pray about you all +the time. Soon, as you say, we'll go away together ... only now, just +now, I want you with me here, strong by my side. I want your help." +</P> + +<P> +Martin took his father's hand, felt how dry and hot and feverish it was. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be with you," he said. "I promise that. Don't you listen to what +any one says. I won't leave you." He would like to have gone on and +asked other questions, but the old man seemed so worn out and exhausted +that he was afraid of distressing him, so he just sat there, his hands +on his shoulders, and suddenly the white head nodded, the beard sank +over the breast and huddled up in the chair as though life itself had +left him; the old man slept. +</P> + +<P> +During the next four days Martin and Maggie corresponded through the +fair hands of Jane. He wrote only short letters, and over them he +struggled. He seemed to see Maggie through a tangled mist of persons +and motives and intentions. He could not get at the real Maggie at all, +he could not even get at his real feelings about her. He knew that +these letters were not enough for her, he could feel behind her own a +longing for something from him more definite, something that would +bring her closer to him. He was haunted by his picture of her sitting +in that dismal house, a prisoner, waiting for him, and at last, at the +end of the four days, he felt that he must, in some way or other see +her. Then she herself proposed a way. +</P> + +<P> +"To-morrow night (Friday)," she wrote, "the aunts are going to a +meeting. They won't return until after eight o'clock. During most of +that time Martha will be in the kitchen cooking, and Jane (who is +staying late that night) has promised to give me a signal. I could run +out for quarter of an hour and meet you somewhere close by and risk +getting back. Jane will be ready to let me in. Of course, it may fail, +but things can't be worse than they are ... I absolutely forbid you to +come if you think that this can make anything worse for you at home. +But I MUST see you, Martin ... I feel to-night as though I couldn't +stand it any longer (although I've only had five days of it!), but I +think that if I met you, really you, for only five minutes, I could +bear it then for weeks. Let me know if you agree to this, and if so +where we could meet about 7.30." +</P> + +<P> +The mere thought of seeing her was wonderful. He would not have +believed a month ago that it could have come to mean so much to him. +</P> + +<P> +He wrote back: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. At the corner of Dundas Street, by the Pillar Box, 7.30." +</P> + +<P> +He knew that she had been to that dark little street with her aunts to +see Miss Pyncheon. +</P> + +<P> +The night, when it came, was misty, and when he reached the place she +was at once in his arms. She had been there more than five minutes, she +had thought that he was not coming. Martha had nearly caught her ... +</P> + +<P> +He kissed her hair and her eyes and her mouth, holding her to him, +forgetting everything but her. She stayed, quiet, clinging to him as +though she would never let him go, then she drew away. +</P> + +<P> +"Now we must walk about or some one will see us," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"We've only got five minutes. Martin, what I want to know is, are you +happy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said. +</P> + +<P> +They walked like ghosts, in the misty street. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then I am," she said. "Only your letters didn't sound very +happy." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you hold on till after the New Year?" They were walking hand in +hand, her fingers curled in his palm. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said. "If you're happy." +</P> + +<P> +"There are troubles of course," he said. "But I don't care for Amy and +the rest. It's only father that matters. I can't discover how much he +knows. If I knew that I'd be much happier. We'll be all right, Maggie, +if nothing happens to him." +</P> + +<P> +With a little frightened catch in her throat she asked him: +</P> + +<P> +"How do you mean, if anything happens to him?" +</P> + +<P> +"If anything happened to him—" she could feel his hand stiffen round +hers; "through me—then—why then—I'd leave you—everything—I'd have +to." +</P> + +<P> +"Leave me! ... Oh Martin! No!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'd go. I'd go—I don't know where to. I don't know what I'd do. I'd +know then that I must leave every one alone, always, for +ever—especially you." +</P> + +<P> +"No. You'd need me more than ever." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't understand, Maggie. I'd be impossible after that. If father +suffered through me that would be the end of it—the end of everything." +</P> + +<P> +"Martin, listen." She caught his arm, looking up, trying to see his +face. "If anything like that did happen that would be where you'd want +me. Don't you see that you COULDN'T harm me EXCEPT by leaving me?" +</P> + +<P> +"You can reason it as you like, Maggie, but I know myself. I know the +impulse would be too strong—to go away and hide myself from everybody. +I've felt it before—when I've done something especially bad. It's +something in me that I've known all my life." Then he turned to her: +"But it's all right. Nothing shall happen to the old man. I'll see that +it doesn't. We've only got to wait a fortnight, then I'll get him away +for a holiday. And once he's better I can leave him. It WILL be all +right. It SHALL." +</P> + +<P> +Then he bent down to her. "You know, Maggie, I love you more, far more +than I ever thought. Even if I went away you'd be the only one I'd +love. I never dreamt that I'd care for any one so much." +</P> + +<P> +He felt her tremble under his hand when he said that. +</P> + +<P> +She sighed. "Now I can go back," she said. "I'll say that over to +myself again and again." +</P> + +<P> +They stayed a little longer, he put his arms round her again and held +her so close to him that she could feel his heart throbbing. Then when +they had kissed once more she went away. +</P> + +<P> +She returned safely. Jane opened the door for her, mysteriously, as +though she enjoyed her share in the conspiracy. Maggie sped upstairs, +and now with Martin's words in her ears, had enough to stiffen her back +for the battle. +</P> + +<P> +The next move in the affair was on the following afternoon when Maggie, +alone in the drawing-room, beheld Caroline Smith in the doorway. +</P> + +<P> +"She's got cheek enough for anything," was Maggie's first thought, but +she was not aware of the true magnificence of that young woman's +audacity until she found her hand seized and her cheek kissed. +</P> + +<P> +Caroline, in fact, had greeted her with precisely her old spontaneous +enthusiasm. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, darling, where have you been all these days—but WEEKS it is +indeed! You might at least have sent me just a word. Life simply hasn't +been the same without you! You pet! ... and you look tired! Yes, you +do. You've been overworking or something, all because you haven't had +me to look after you!" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie gravely withdrew, and standing away from the shining elegance of +her friend said: +</P> + +<P> +"Caroline—I want to know something before we go any further. What I +want to know is—why did you read that note that I asked you to give to +Martin Warlock?" +</P> + +<P> +Caroline stared in amazement. "My dear, what IS the matter? Are you ill +or something? Oh, you are. I can see you are! You poor darling! Read +your note? What note, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"The note I gave you a month ago—one evening when you were here." +</P> + +<P> +"A note! A month ago. My dear! As though I could ever remember what I +did a MONTH ago! Why, it's always all I can manage to remember what I +did yesterday. Did you give me a note, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie began to be angry. "Of course I did. You remember perfectly +well. I gave it to you for Martin Warlock. You let him have it, but +meanwhile you read it, and not only that but told everybody else about +it." +</P> + +<P> +Caroline's expression changed. She was suddenly sulky. Her face was +like that of a spoilt child. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Maggie Cardinal, if you call that being a friend! To say that I +would ever do such a thing!" +</P> + +<P> +"You know you did!" said Maggie quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"Read your letters? As though I'd want to! Why should I? As though I +hadn't something more interesting to do! No thank you! Of course you +have been getting yourself into a mess. Every one knows that. That's +why I came here to-day—to show you that I was a REAL friend and didn't +mind WHAT people said about you! When they were all talking about you +last night, and saying the most DREADFUL things, I defended you and +said it wasn't really your fault, you couldn't have told what a rotten +sort of a man Martin Warlock was—" +</P> + +<P> +"That's enough," said Maggie. "I don't want your defence, thank you. +You're mean and deceitful and untrue. You never have been a friend of +mine, and I don't want ever to see you again!" +</P> + +<P> +Caroline Smith was horrified. "Well, upon my word. Isn't that +gratitude? Here am I, the only person in this whole place would take +any trouble with you! When the others all said that you were plain and +stupid and hadn't anything to say for yourself I stuck to you. I did +all I could, wasting all my time going to the dressmaker with you and +trying to make you look like something human, and this is the way you +repay me! Well, there's a lesson for me! Many's the time mother's said +to me, 'Carry, you'll just ruin yourself with that kind heart of yours, +laying yourself out for others when you ought to be seeing after +yourself. You've got too big a heart for this world.' Doesn't it just +show one? And to end it all with accusing me of reading your letters! +If you choose to sit in the park after dark with a man who everybody +knows—" +</P> + +<P> +"Either you're going to leave this room or I am," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you!" said Caroline, tossing her head. "I haven't the slightest +desire to stay, I assure you! Only you'll be sorry for this, Maggie +Cardinal, you will indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +With a swish of the skirts and a violent banging of the door she was +gone. +</P> + +<P> +"The only friend I had," thought Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +The next development was an announcement from Aunt Anne that she would +like Maggie to accompany her to a meeting at Miss Avies'. Aunt Anne did +not explain what kind of a meeting it would be, and Maggie asked no +questions. She simply replied that she would go. She had indeed by this +time a very considerable curiosity of her own as to what every one +thought was going to happen in ten days' time. Perhaps this meeting +would enlighten her. It did. +</P> + +<P> +On arriving at Miss Avies' gaunt and menacing apartment she found +herself in the very stronghold of the Inside Saints. It was a strange +affair, and Maggie was never to see anything quite like it again. In +the first place, Miss Avies' room was not exactly the place in which +you would have expected to discover a meeting of this kind. +</P> + +<P> +She lived over a house-agent's in John Street, Adelphi. Her +sitting-room was low-ceilinged with little diamond-paned windows. The +place was let furnished, and the green and red vases on the +mantelpiece, the brass clock and the bright yellow wallpaper were +properties of the landlord. To the atmosphere of the place Miss Avies, +although she lived there for a number of years, had contributed nothing. +</P> + +<P> +It had all the desolate forlornness of a habitation in which no human +being has dwelt for a very long time; there was dust on the +mantelpiece, a melancholy sputtering of coal choked with cinders and +gasping for breath in the fireplace, stuffy hot clamminess beating +about the unopened windows. Along the breadth of the faded brown carpet +some fifty cane-bottomed chairs were pressed tightly in rows together, +and in front of the window, facing the chairs, was a little wooden +table with a chair beside it, on the table a glass of water and a Bible. +</P> + +<P> +When Maggie and her aunts entered the chairs were almost all occupied +and they were forced to sit at the end of the last row but one. The +meeting had apparently not yet begun, and many heads were turned +towards them as they took their places. Maggie fancied that the glances +directed at herself were angry and severe, but that was very possibly +her imagination. She soon recognised people known to her—Miss +Pyncheon, calm and placid; Mrs. Smith, Caroline's mother, very stout, +hot, and self-important; Amy Warlock, proud and severe; and Miss Avies +herself standing, like a general surveying his forces, behind the table. +</P> + +<P> +The room was draughty and close and had a confused smell of oil-cloth +and geraniums, and Maggie knew that soon she would have a headache. She +fancied that already the atmosphere was influencing the meeting. From +where she sat she could see a succession of side faces, and it was +strange what a hungry, appealing look these pale cheeks and staring +eyes had. Hungry! Yes, that's what they all were. She thought, +fantastically, for a moment, of poor Mr. Magnus's Treasure Hunters, and +she seemed to see the whole of this company in a raft drifting in +mid-ocean, not a sail in sight and the last ship's biscuit gone. +</P> + +<P> +They were not, taken altogether, a very fine collection, old maids and +young girls, many of them apparently of the servant class, one or two +sitting with open mouths and a vacancy of expression that seemed to +demand a conjurer with a rabbit and a hat. Some faces were of the true +fanatic cast, lit with the glow of an expectancy and a hope that no +rational experience had ever actually justified. One girl, whom Maggie +had seen with Aunt Anne on some occasion, had especially this prophetic +anticipation in the whole pose of her body as she bent forward a +little, her elbows on her knees her chin on her hands, gazing with wide +burning eyes at Miss Avies. This girl, whom Maggie was never to see +again hung as a picture in the rooms of her mind for the rest of her +life—the youth, the desperate anxiety as of one who throws her last +piece upon the gaming-table, the poverty of the shabby black dress, the +real physical austerity and asceticism of the white cheeks and the thin +arms and pale hands—this figure remained a symbol for Maggie. She used +to wonder in after years, when fortune had carried her far enough away +from all this world, what had happened to that girl. But she was never +to know. +</P> + +<P> +There were faces, too, like Miss Pyncheon's, calm, contented, +confident, old women who had found in their religion the panacea of all +their troubles. There were faces like Mrs. Smith's, coarse and vulgar, +out for any sensation that might come along, and ready instantly to +express their contempt if the particular "trick" that they were +expecting failed to come off; other faces, again, like Amy Warlock's, +grimly set upon secret thoughts and purposes of their own, faces +trained to withstand any sudden attack on the emotions, but eager, too, +like the rest for some revelation that was to answer all questions and +satisfy all expectations. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie wondered, as she looked about her, how she could have raised in +her own imagination, around the Chapel and its affairs, so formidable +an atmosphere of terror and tyrannic discipline. Here gathered together +were a few women, tired, pale, many of them uneducated, awaiting like +children the opening of a box, the springing into flower of a dry husk +of a seed, the raising of the curtain on some wonderful scene. Maggie, +as she looked at them, knew that they must be disappointed, and her +heart ached for them all, yes, even for Amy Warlock, her declared +enemy. She lost, as she sat there, for the moment all sense of her own +personal history. She only saw them all tired and hungry and expectant; +perhaps, after all, there WAS something behind it all—something for +which they had a right to be searching; even of that she had not sure +knowledge—but the pathos and also the bravery of their search touched +and moved her. She was beginning to understand something of the beauty +that hovered like a bird always just out of sight about the ugly walls +of the Chapel. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever they want, poor dears," she thought, "I do hope they get it." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Avies opened the meeting with an extempore prayer: then they all +stood up and sang a hymn, and their quavering voices were thin and +sharp and strained in the stuffy close-ceilinged room. The hymn, like +all the other Chapel hymns that Maggie had heard, had to do with "the +Blood of the Lamb," "the sacrifice of Blood," "the Blood that heals." +There was also a refrain: +</P> + +<P> + And, when Thou comest, Lord, we pray That Thou wilt spare Thy<BR> +sword, Or on that grim and ghastly day Who will escape the Lord? WHO +will escape the Lord? +</P> + +<P> +There were many verses to this hymn, and it had a long and lugubrious +tune, so that Maggie thought that it would never end, but as it +proceeded the words worked their effect on the congregation, and at the +last there was much emotion and several women were crying. +</P> + +<P> +Then they all sat down again and the meeting developed a very +business-like side. There was a great deal of discussion as to dates, +places, appointments, and Maggie was amused to discover that in this +part of the proceedings Mrs. Smith had a great deal to say, and took a +very leading place. +</P> + +<P> +The gathering became like any other assemblage of ladies for some +charitable or social purpose, and there were the usual disputes and +signs of temper and wounded pride; in all those matters Miss Avies was +a most admirable and unflinching chairman. +</P> + +<P> +Then at last the real moment came. Miss Avies got up to speak. She +stood there, scornful, superior, and yet with some almost cynical +appeal in her eyes as though she said to them: "You poor fools! No one +knows better than I the folly of your being here, no one knows better +than I how far you will, all of you, be from realising any of your +dreams. Tricked, the lot of you!—and yet—and yet—go on believing, +expecting, hoping. Pray, pray that I may be wrong and you may be right." +</P> + +<P> +What she actually said was as follows: "This will be our last meeting +before the end of the year. What will come to all of us before we all +meet again no one can say, but this we all know, that we have, most of +us, been living now for many years in expectation. We have been taught, +by the goodness of God, to believe that we must be ready at any moment +to obey His call, and that call may come, in the middle of our work, of +our prayers, of our love for others, of our pursuit of our own +ambitions, and that whenever it does come we must be ready to obey it. +We have been told by our great and good Master, who has been set over +us for our guidance by God Himself, that that call may now be very +near. Whatever form it may take we must accept it, give up all we have +and follow Him. That is understood by all of us. I will not say more +now. This is not the time for any more directions from me. We must +address ourselves, each one of us, to God Himself, and ask Him to +prepare us so that we may be as He would have us on the day of His +coming. I suggest now before we part that we share together in a few +minutes of private prayer." They all rose, and Maggie, before she knelt +down, caught a sudden glimpse of the pale girl whom she had noticed +earlier standing for a moment as though she were about to make some +desperate appeal to them all. Some words did indeed seem to come from +her lips, but the scraping of chairs drowned every other sound. +Nevertheless that figure was there, the hands stretched out, the very +soul struggling through the eyes for expression, the body tense, +sacred, eloquent, like the body of some young prophetess. Then all were +on their knees, and Maggie, too, her face in her hands, was praying. It +was, perhaps, the first time in her life that she had actively, +consciously, of her own volition prayed. The appeal formed itself as it +were without her own agency. +</P> + +<P> +"God—if there is a God—give me Martin. I care for nothing else but +that. If You will give me Martin for my own always, ever, I will +believe in You. I will worship You and say prayers to You, and do +anything You tell me if You give me Martin. Oh God! I ought to have +him. He is mine. I can do more for him than any one else can—I can +make him happy and good. I know I can. God give him to me and I will be +your slave. God, give me Martin—God, give me Martin." +</P> + +<P> +She rose, as it were, from the depths of the sea, from great darkness +and breathlessness and exhaustion. For a moment she could not see the +room nor any detail, but only one pale face after another, like a +pattern on a wall, hiding something from her. +</P> + +<P> +She stood bewildered beside her aunts, not hearing the strains of the +last hymn nor the quaver of Aunt Anne's trembling voice beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"God, give me Martin," was her last challenge in the strange pale +silence that floated around her. Then suddenly, as though she had +pushed open a door and gone through, she was back in the world again, a +flood of sound was about her ears, and in front of her the red face of +Mrs. Smith, her mouth wide open, like the mouth of an eager fish, +singing about "the Blood of the Lamb" with unctuous satisfaction ... +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0210"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE PROPHET +</H3> + +<P> +The year 1907 had four more days of life: it crept to its grave through +a web and tangle of fog. It was not one of the regular yellow devils +who come and eat up London, first this part, and then that, then +disgorge a little, choking it all up only to snap at it and swallow it +down all bewildered a quarter of an hour after. This was a cobweb fog +spun, as it might be, by some malignant central spider hidden darkly in +his lair. The vapouring-like filmy threads twisted and twined their way +all over London, and for four days and nights the town was a city of +ghosts. Buildings loomed dimly behind their masks of silver tissue, +streets seemed unsubstantial, pavements had no foundation, streams of +water appeared to hang glittering in mid-air, men and horses would +suddenly plunge into grey abysses and vanish from sight, church-bells +would ring peals high up in air, and there would be, it seemed, no +steeple there for them to ring from. As the sun behind the fog rose and +set so the mist would catch gold and red and purple into the vapours, +strange gleams of brass and silver as though behind its web armies +flaunting their colours were marching through the sky; down on the very +earth itself horses staggered and stumbled on the thin coating of +greasy mud that covered everything; men opened their doors to look out +on to the world, and instantly into the passages there floated such +strange forms and shadows in misty shape that it seemed as though the +rooms were suddenly invaded by a flock of spirits. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes for half an hour the fog lifted and bright blue sky gleamed +like a miraculous lake suddenly discovered in the heart of the +boundless waste, then vanished again. Suddenly, with a whisk of the +immortal broom, the web was torn, the spider slain, the world clear +once more—but, in the obscurity and dusk, 1907 had seen his chance and +vanished. +</P> + +<P> +Warlock, long before this, had lost consciousness of external sights +and sounds. He could not have told any one when it was that the two +worlds had parted company. For many many years he had been conscious of +both existences, but during his youth and middle-age they had seemed to +mingle and go along together. He had believed in both equally and had +been a citizen of both. Then gradually, as time passed, he had seemed +to have less and less hold upon the actual physical world. He saw it +suddenly with darkened vision; his wife and daughter, and indeed all +human beings, except in so far as they were souls to be saved for the +Lord, became less and less realities. Only Martin was flesh and blood, +to be loved and longed for and feared for just as he had always been. +All the physical properties of life—clothes, food, household +possessions, money—became of less and less importance to him. Had Amy +not watched over him he would have been many days without any food at +all, and one day he come into the living-room at breakfast-time clothed +in a towel. All this had come upon him with vastly increased power +during the last months. In Chapel, and whenever he had work to do in +connection with the Chapel, he was clear-headed and practical, but in +things to do with this world he was now worse than a child. +</P> + +<P> +He was conscious of this increasing difficulty to deal with both +worlds. It was because one world—the world of God—was opening out +before him so widely and with so varied and thrilling a beauty that +there was less and less time to be spared for the drab realities of +physical things. +</P> + +<P> +All his life he had been preparing, and then suddenly the call had +come. Shortly after Martin's return he had known in Chapel, one +evening, that God was approaching. It had happened that that day, owing +to his absorption in his work, he had eaten nothing, and there had come +to him, whilst praying to the congregation, a sensation of faintness so +strong that for a moment he thought he would fall from his seat. Then +it had passed, to give way to a strange, thrilling sense of expectancy. +It was as though a servant had opened the door and had announced: "My +master is coming, sir—" He had felt, indeed, as though he had been +lifted up, in the sheet of Paul the Apostle, to meet his God. There had +been the most wonderful sense of elevation, a clearing of light, a +gentler freshness in the air, a sudden sinking to remoteness of human +voices and mundane sounds. From that moment in the Chapel life had been +changed for him. He never seemed to come down again from that +mysterious elevation. Human voices sounded far away from him; he could +be urged, only with the greatest difficulty, to take his food, and he +frequently did not recognise members of his own congregation when they +came to see him. He waited now, waited, waited, for this visitation +that was approaching him. He could have no doubts of it. +</P> + +<P> +Then one night he woke from a deep sleep. He was conscious that his +room was filled with a smoky light; in his heart was such an ecstasy +that he would have thought that the joy would kill him. +</P> + +<P> +Something spoke to him, telling him to prepare, that he had been +chosen, and that further signs would come to him. He fell on his knees +beside the bed and remained there in a trance until daylight. He had +heard the voice of God, he had seen His light, he had been chosen as +His servant. Some weeks later a second visitation came to him, similar +to the first, but telling him that at the last hour of the present year +God would come in His own person to save the world, and that he must +make this known to a few chosen spirits that they might prepare ... +</P> + +<P> +The whole brotherhood then was at length justified; they alone, out of +all men in the world, had believed in the Second Coming of the Lord, +and so God had chosen them. He had no doubt at all about his visions at +this time. They seemed to him as real and sure as the daily traffic of +the streets and the monotonous progress of the clock. +</P> + +<P> +Eagerly, with the confident resolution of a child, he told his news to +the leaders of the Chapel, Thurston, Miss Avies, and one or two others. +Then a special meeting of the Inside Saints was called and, in the +simplest language, he described exactly what had occurred. He did not +at first perceive the effect that his news had. Then, dimly, through +the mist of his prayers and ecstasies, he realised that his message had +created confusion. There was in the first place the question as to +whether the whole congregation should be told. He found that he could +not decide about this, and when he left the judgment to Thurston, +Thurston told him that, in his opinion, "the less that they knew about +it the better." It was then that the first suspicion came to him as to +whether some of the Saints "doubted." He questioned Thurston as to the +effect of this message upon the Saints. Thurston explained to him that +"many of them had been very troubled. They had not expected It to come +so soon." Thurston explained that they were, after all, only poor human +clay like the rest of mankind, and to prepare for a Second Coming in +general, something that might descend upon the world, say, in a hundred +years' time, was very different from a Judgment that might be expected, +definitely, in about three weeks. One or two of them, in fact, had left +the Chapel. Others begged for some clearer direction: "Give it them a +bit more clearly, Master. Tell 'em a few facts what the Lord God looked +like and 'ow He spoke and in what kind of way He was coming. Supposing +He wasn't to come after all ..." +</P> + +<P> +It was then that the trouble that had been smouldering for so long +between Thurston and the Master burst into flame. For half an hour the +Master lost his temper like an ordinary human being. Thurston said very +little but listened with a quiet and sarcastic smile. Then he went +away. Warlock was left in a torment of doubt and misery. That night he +was in his room, until the dawn, on his knees, wrestling with God. He +accused himself because, during these latter months, he had removed +himself from human contact with his congregation. He had been so intent +upon God that he had forgotten his flock. Now he hardly knew how to +approach them. The thought of a personal interview with the Miss +Cardinals, or Miss Pyncheon, or Mr. Smith filled him with a strange shy +terror. He seemed to have nothing more to say to them, and he blamed +himself bitterly because he had been intent upon his own salvation +rather than theirs. +</P> + +<P> +Thurston's words sent him groping back through the details of the +visions. And there were no details. For himself there had been enough +in the light, the ecstasy, the contact, but these others who had not +themselves felt this, nor seen its glory, demanded more. +</P> + +<P> +He began then, in an agony of distress, to question himself as to +whether he had not dreamt his visions. He wrestled with God, beseeching +Him to come again and give him a clearer message. Night after night +passed and he waited for some further vision, but nothing was granted +him. Then he thought that perhaps he himself was now cursed for leaving +God. God had come to him and revealed Himself to him in unmistakable +signs, and yet he was doubting Him and demanding further help. +</P> + +<P> +As the weeks passed he perceived more and more clearly that there was +every kind of division and trouble in the Chapel. Many members left and +wrote to him telling him why they had done so. In his own household he +felt that Amy no longer gave him any confidence. She attended to him +more carefully than before, watched over him as though he were a baby, +but made no allusion to the services or the Chapel or any meeting. He +seemed, as the weeks passed, to be lonelier and lonelier, and he looked +upon this as punishment for his own earlier selfishness. He was pulled +then two ways. On the one hand it seemed to him that he would only hear +God's full message if he withdrew further and further from the world, +on the other he felt that he was letting his followers slip away from +him now at the very moment when he should be closest to them, advising, +helping, encouraging. This divided impulse was a torture, and as the +weeks went on he ate less and less and slept scarcely at all. He had +been for a long time past in delicate health owing to the weakness of +his heart, and now he began to look strange indeed, with his bright +gaunt face with its prominent cheek-bones, his eyes straining to see +beyond his actual vision, his flowing white beard. His doctor, a +cheerful, commonplace little man, a member of the Chapel, although not +a Saint, tried to do his best with him, but his visits only led to +scenes of irritation, and Warlock obeyed none of his commands. After a +visit on the afternoon of Christmas Eve he took Amy aside: +</P> + +<P> +"Look here," he said, "unless you keep a stricter eye on your father +than you have been doing he'll be leaving you altogether." +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him with that odd dark impassivity that seemed to +remove her so deliberately from her fellow-beings. +</P> + +<P> +"It's very well to talk like that," she said. "But how is any one to +have any control over him? He listens to nothing that we say, and if we +insist he's in a frenzy of irritation." +</P> + +<P> +"Can your mother do nothing?" the doctor asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother?" Amy smiled. "No, mother can do nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said the doctor, "any sudden shock will kill him—I warn you." +</P> + +<P> +When the fog came down upon the city Warlock was already in too thick a +fog of his own to perceive it. +</P> + +<P> +He was sure now of nothing. It seemed as though all the spirits of the +other world now were taunting him, but he felt that this was the work +of the Devil, who wished to destroy his faith before the Great Day +arrived. He thought now that the Devil was closely pursuing him, and he +seemed to hear first his taunting whisper and then the voice of God +encouraging him: "Well done, my good and faithful servant." +</P> + +<P> +He had lost now almost all consciousness of what he really expected to +happen when the Day arrived, but he was dimly aware that if nothing +happened at all his whole influence with his people would be gone. +Nevertheless this did not trouble him very greatly; the congregation of +the Chapel seemed now dimly remote. The only human being who was not +remote was Martin; his love for his son had not been touched by his +other struggles, it had been even intensified. But the love had grown a +terror, ever increasing, lest Martin should leave him. He seemed to +hear dimly, beyond the wall of the mysterious world into whose regions +he was ever more deeply passing, sentences, vague, without human +agency, accusing Martin of sins and infidelities and riotous living. +Sometimes he was tempted to go further into this and challenge Martin's +accusers, but fear held him back. Martin had been a good son since his +return to England, yes, he had, and he had forsaken his evil ways and +was going to be with his father now until the end, his last refuge +against loneliness. Every one else had left him or was leaving him, but +Martin was there. Martin hadn't deceived him, Martin was a good boy ... +a good boy ... and then, as it seemed to him, with Martin's hand in his +own he would pass off into his world of strange dreams and desperate +prayer and hours of waiting, listening, straining for a voice ... +</P> + +<P> +During that last night before New Year's Eve an hour came to him when +he seemed to be left utterly alone. Exhausted, faint, dizzy with want +of sleep and food, he knelt before his bed; his room seemed to be +filled with devils, taunting him, tempting him, bewildering and +blinding him. He rose suddenly in a frenzy, striking out, rushing about +his room, crying ... then at last, exhausted, creeping back to his bed, +falling down upon it and sinking into a long dreamless sleep. +</P> + +<P> +They found him sleeping when they came to call him and they left him. +He did not wake until the early afternoon; his brain seemed clear and +his body so weak that it was with the greatest difficulty that he +washed and put on some clothes. +</P> + +<P> +The room was dark with the fog; lamps in the street below glimmered +uncertainly, and voices and the traffic of the street were muffled. He +opened his door and, looking out, heard in the room below Martin's +voice raised excitedly. Slowly he went down to meet him. +</P> + +<P> +Martin also had reached, on that last day of the year, the very end of +his tether. During the last ten days he had been fighting against every +weakness to which his character was susceptible. With the New Year he +felt that everything would be well; he could draw a new breath then, +find work somewhere away from London, have Maggie perhaps with him, and +drive a way out of all the tangle of his perplexities. But even then he +did not dare to face the future thoroughly. Would his father let him +go? Was he, after all his struggles, to give way and ruin Maggie's +position and future? Could he be sure, if he look her away with him, +that then he would keep straight, and that his old temptations of women +and drink and general restlessness would be conquered? Perhaps. There +had never been a surer proof that his love for Maggie was a real and +unselfish love than his hesitation on that wretched day when he seemed +utterly deserted by mankind, when Maggie seemed the only friend he had +in the world. +</P> + +<P> +Everything was just out of reach, and some perverse destiny prevented +him from realising any desire that had a spark of honesty and decency +in it. It was not wonderful that in the midst of his loneliness and +unhappiness he should have been tempted back to the old paths again, +men, women, places that for more than three months now he had been +struggling to abandon. +</P> + +<P> +All that day he struggled with temptation. He had not seen Maggie for a +week, and during the last three days he had not heard from her, the +adventurous Jane having defied the aunts and left. +</P> + +<P> +At luncheon he asked about his father, whom he had not seen for two +days. +</P> + +<P> +"Father had a very bad night. He's asleep now." +</P> + +<P> +"There's something on to-night, isn't there?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a service," Amy answered shortly. +</P> + +<P> +"Father oughtn't to go," he went on. "I suppose your friend Thurston +can manage." +</P> + +<P> +Amy looked at him. "Father's got to go. It's very important." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of course, if you want to kill father with all your beastly +services—" he broke in furiously. +</P> + +<P> +"It won't be—" Amy began, and then, as though she did not trust +herself to continue, got up and left the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother," he said, "why on earth don't you do something?" +</P> + +<P> +"I, dear?" she looked at him placidly. "In what way?" +</P> + +<P> +"They're killing father between them with all these services and the +rest of the nonsense." +</P> + +<P> +"Your father doesn't listen to anything I say, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"He ought to go away for a long rest." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dear, perhaps he will soon. You know I have nothing to do with +the Chapel. That was settled years ago. I wouldn't interfere for a +great deal." +</P> + +<P> +Martin turned fiercely upon her saying: +</P> + +<P> +"Mother, don't you care?" +</P> + +<P> +"Care, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, about father—his living and getting well again and being happy +as he used to be. What's happened to this place?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him in the strangest way. He suddenly felt that he'd +never seen her before. +</P> + +<P> +"There are a number of things, Martin, that you don't understand—a +number of things. You are away from us for years, you come back to us +and expect things to be the same." +</P> + +<P> +"You and Amy," he said, "both of you, have kept me out of everything +since I came back. I believe you both hate me!" +</P> + +<P> +She got up slowly from her seat, slowly put her spectacles away in +their case, rubbed her fat little hands together, then suddenly licked +inquisitively one finger as an animal might do. She spoke to him over +her shoulder as she went to the door: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no, Martin, you speak too strongly." +</P> + +<P> +Left then to his own devices he, at last, wandered out into the foggy +streets. After a while he found himself outside a public-house and, +after a moment's hesitation, he went in. He asked the stout, rubicund +young woman behind the counter for a whisky. She gave him one; he drank +that, and then another. +</P> + +<P> +Afterwards he had several more, leaning over the bar, speaking to no +one, seeing no one, hearing nothing, and scarcely tasting the drink. +When he came out into the street again he knew that he was half +drunk—not so drunk that he didn't know what he was doing. Oh dear, no. +HE could drink any amount without feeling it. Nevertheless he had drunk +so little during these last weeks that even a drop ... How foggy the +streets were ... made it difficult to find your way home. But he was +all right, he could walk straight, he could put his latch-key into the +door at one try, HE was all right. +</P> + +<P> +He was at home again. He didn't stop to hang up his hat and coat but +went straight into the dining-room, leaving the door open behind him. +He saw that the meal was still on the table just as they'd left it. Amy +was there too. +</P> + +<P> +He saw her move back when he came in as though she were afraid to touch +him. +</P> + +<P> +"You're drunk!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not. You're a liar, Amy. You've always been a liar all your life." +</P> + +<P> +She tried to pass him, but he stood in the middle of the door. +</P> + +<P> +"No, you don't," he said. "We've got to have this out. What have you +been spreading scandal about me and Maggie Cardinal for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Let me go," she said again. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me that first. You've always tried to do me harm. Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I hate the sight of you," she answered quickly. "As you've +asked me, you shall have a truthful answer. You've never been anything +but a disgrace to us ever since you were a little boy. You disgraced us +at home and then abroad; now you've come back to disgrace us here +again." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a lie," he repeated. "I've not disgraced anybody." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it won't be very long before you finish ruining that wretched +girl. The best you can do now is to marry her." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't do that," he said. "I'm married already." She did not answer +that hut stared at him with amazement. +</P> + +<P> +"But never mind that," he went on. "What if I am a bad lot? I don't +know what a bad lot is exactly, but if you mean that I've lived with +women and been drunk, and lost jobs because I didn't do the work, and +been generally on the loose, it's true, of course. But I meant to live +decently when I came home. Yes, I did. You can sneer as much as you +like. Why didn't you help me? You're my sister, aren't you? And now I +don't care what I do. You've all given me up. Well, give me up, and +I'll just go to bits as fast as I can go! If you don't want me there +are others who do, or at any rate the bit of money I've got. You've +kept me from the only decent girl I've ever known, the one I could have +been straight with—" +</P> + +<P> +"Straight with!" Amy broke in. "How were you going to be straight if +you're married already?" +</P> + +<P> +He would have answered her but a sound behind him made him turn. He +wheeled round and saw his father standing almost up against him. He had +only time for a horrified vision of the ghostlike figure, the staring +eyes, the open mouth, the white cheeks. The old man caught his coat. +</P> + +<P> +"Martin, what was that? What did you say? ... No, no ... I can't bear +that now. I can't, I can't." +</P> + +<P> +He turned and made as though he would run up the stairs, catching about +him like a child the shabby old dressing-gown that he was wearing. At +the first step he stumbled, clutching the bannister to save himself. +</P> + +<P> +Martin rushed to him, putting his arms round him, holding him close to +him. "It's all right, father ... It's not true what you heard ... It's +all right." +</P> + +<P> +His father turned, putting his arms round his neck. +</P> + +<P> +Martin half helped, half carried him up to his bedroom. He laid him on +his bed and then, holding his hand, sat by his side all through the +long dim afternoon. +</P> + +<P> +About, five Warlock suddenly revived, sat up, arid with the assistance +of Martin dressed properly, had some tea, and went down to his study. +He sat down in his chair, then suddenly looking up at his son he said: +</P> + +<P> +"Did you and Amy have a quarrel this afternoon?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, father," said Martin. +</P> + +<P> +"That's right. I thought—I thought ... I don't know ... My head's +confused. You've been a good boy, Martin, haven't you? There's no need +for me to worry, is there?" +</P> + +<P> +"None, father," Martin said. +</P> + +<P> +After a while Martin said: +</P> + +<P> +"Father, don't go to Chapel to-night." +</P> + +<P> +Warlock smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"I must go. That's all right ... Nothing to worry about." +</P> + +<P> +For some while he sat there, Martin's hand in his; Martin did not know +whether he were asleep or not. +</P> + +<P> +At about ten he ate and drank. At eleven he started with Amy and +Thurston for the Chapel. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0211"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CHARIOT OF FIRE +</H3> + +<P> +When Jane, scolded by Aunt Anne for an untidy appearance, gave notice +and at once departed, Maggie felt as though the ground was giving way +under her feet. +</P> + +<P> +A week until the New Year, and no opportunity of hearing from Martin +during that time. Then she laughed at herself: +</P> + +<P> +"You're losing your sense of proportion, my dear, over this. Laugh at +yourself. What's a week?" +</P> + +<P> +She did laugh at herself, but she had not very much to base her +laughter upon. Martin's last letters had been short and very uneasy. +She had already, in a surprising fashion for one so young, acquired a +very wise and just estimate of Martin's character. +</P> + +<P> +"He's only a boy," she used to say to herself and feel his elder by at +least twenty years. Nevertheless the thought of his struggling on there +alone was not a happy one. She longed, even though she might not advise +him, to comfort him. She was beginning to realise something of her own +power over him and to see, too, the strange mixture of superstition and +self-reproach and self-distrust that overwhelmed him when she was not +with him. She had indeed her own need of struggle against superstition. +Her aunts continued to treat her with a quiet distant severity. Aunt +Elizabeth, she fancied, would like to have been kind to her, but she +was entirely under the influence of her sister, and there, too, Maggie +was generous enough to see that Aunt Anne behaved as she did rather +from a stern sense of duty than any real unkindness. Aunt Anne could +not feel unkindly; she was too far removed from human temper and +discontent and weakness. Nevertheless she had been deeply shocked at +the revelation of Maggie's bad behaviour, and it was a shock from +which, in all probability she would never recover. +</P> + +<P> +"WE'LL never be friends again." Maggie thought, watching her aunt's +austere composure from the other side of the dining-table. She was sad +at the thought of that, remembering moments—that first visit to St. +Dreot's, the departure in the cab, the night when she had sat at her +aunt's bedside—that had given glimpses of the kind human creature Aunt +Anne might have been had she never heard of the Inside Saints. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, during these last days, did everything that her aunts told her. +She was as good and docile as she could be. But, oh! there were some +dreary hours as she sat, alone, in that stuffy drawing-room, trying to +sew, her heart aching with loneliness, her needle always doing the +wrong thing, the clock heavily ticking, Thomas watching her from the +mat in front of the fire, and the family group sneering at her from the +wall-paper. +</P> + +<P> +It was during these hours that superstitious terrors gained upon her. +Could it be possible that all those women whom she had seen gathered +together in Miss Avies's room really expected God to come when the +clock struck twelve on the last night of the year? It was like some old +story of ghosts and witches that her nurse used to tell her when she +was a little girl at St. Dreot's. And yet, in that dark dreary room, +almost anything seemed possible. After all, if there was a God, why +should He not, one day, suddenly appear? And if He wished to spare +certain of His servants, why should He not prepare them first before He +came? There were things just as strange in the Old and New Testament. +But if He did come, what would His Coming be like? Would every one be +burnt to death or would they all be summoned before some judgment and +punished for the wicked things they had done? Would her father perhaps +return and give evidence against her? And poor Uncle Mathew, how would +he fare with all his weaknesses? Her efforts at laughing at herself +rescued her from some of the more incredible of these pictures. +Nevertheless the uncertainty remained and only increased her +loneliness. Had Martin been there in five minutes they would, together, +have chased all these ghosts away. But he was not there. And at the +thought of him she would have to set her mouth very firmly, indeed, to +prevent her lips from trembling. She took out her ring and kissed it, +and looked at the already tattered copy of the programme of the play to +which they had been, and recalled every minute of their walks together. +</P> + +<P> +Christmas Day was a very miserable affair. There were no presents and +no festivities. They went to Chapel and Mr. Thurston preached the +sermon. Maggie did, however, receive one letter. It was from Uncle +Mathew. He wrote to her from some town in the north. He didn't seem +very happy, and asked her whether she could possibly lend him five +pounds. Alluding with a characteristic vagueness to "business plans of +the first importance that were likely to mature very shortly." +</P> + +<P> +She told Aunt Anne that she wanted five pounds of her money, but she +did not say for what she needed them. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne gave her the money at once without a word—as though she +said: "We have given up all control of you except to see that you +behave decently whilst you are still with us." +</P> + +<P> +When the fog arrived it seemed to penetrate every nook and corner of +the house. The daily afternoon walk that Maggie took with Aunt +Elizabeth was cancelled because of the difficulty of finding one's way +from street to street and "because some rude man might steal one's +money in the darkness," and Maggie was not sorry. Those walks had not +been amusing, Aunt Elizabeth having nothing to say and being fully +occupied with keeping an eye on Maggie, her idea apparently being that +the girl would suddenly dash off to freedom and wickedness and be lost +for ever. Maggie had no such intention and developed during these weeks +a queer motherly affection for both the aunts, so lost they were and +helpless and ignorant of the world! "My dear," said Maggie to herself, +"you're a bit of a fool as far as common-sense goes, but you're nothing +to what they are, poor dears." She tried to improve herself in every +way for their benefit, but her memory was no better. She forgot all the +things that were, in their eyes, the most important—closing doors, +punctuality for meals, neat stitches, careful putting away of books and +clothes. +</P> + +<P> +Once, during a walk, she said to Aunt Elizabeth: +</P> + +<P> +"I am trying, Aunt Elizabeth. Do you think Aunt Anne sees any +improvement?" +</P> + +<P> +And all Aunt Elizabeth said was: +</P> + +<P> +"It was a great shock to her, what you did. Maggie—a great shock +indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +When the last day of the year arrived Maggie was surprised at the +strange excitement that she felt. It was excitement, not only because +of the dim mysterious events that the evening promised, but also +because she was sure that this day would settle the loneliness of +herself and Martin. After this they would know where they stood and +what they must do. Old Warlock loomed in front of her as the very +arbiter of her destiny. On his action everything turned. Oh! if only +after this he were well enough for Martin to be happy and at ease about +him! She was tempted to hate him as she thought of all the trouble that +he had made for her. Then her mind went back to that first day long ago +when he had spoken to her so kindly and bidden her come and see him as +often as she could. How little she had known then what the future held +for her! And now around his tall mysterious figure not only her own +fate but that of every one else seemed to hang. Her aunts, Amy, Miss +Pyncheon, Miss Avies, Thurston, that strange girl at the meeting, with +them all his destiny was involved and they with his. +</P> + +<P> +As the day advanced and the silver fog blew in little gusts about the +house, making now this corner now that obscure, drifting, so that +suddenly, when the door opened, the whole passage seemed full of smoke, +clearing, for a moment, in the street below, showing lamp-posts and +pavements and windows, and then blowing down again and once more hiding +the world, she felt, in spite of herself, that she was playing a part +in some malignant dream. "It can't be like this really," she told +herself. "If I were to go to tea now with Mrs. Mark and sit in her +pretty drawing-room and talk to that clergyman I wouldn't believe a +word of it." And yet it was true enough, her share in it. As the +afternoon advanced her sensations were very similar to those that she +had had when about to visit the St. Dreot's dentist, a fearsome man +with red hair and hands like a dog's paws. She saw him now standing +over her as she sat trembling in the chair, a miserable little figure +in a short untidy frock. She used to repeat to herself then what Uncle +Mathew had once told her: "This time next year you'll have forgotten +all about this," but when it was a question of facing the immensities +of the Last Day that consolation was strangely inapt. It was dusk very +early and she longed for Martha to bring the lamp. +</P> + +<P> +At last it came and tea and Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Anne had not appeared +all day. Then long dreary hours followed until supper, and after that +hours again until ten o'clock. +</P> + +<P> +She had not been certain, all this time, whether the aunts meant to +take her to the service with them. She had supposed that her +introduction to the meeting at Miss Avies's meant that they intended to +include her in this too, but now, as the evening advanced, in a fit of +nervous terror she prayed within herself that they would not take her. +If the end of the world were coming she would like to meet it in her +bed. To go out into those streets and that ugly unfriendly Chapel was a +horrible thing to do. If this were to be the end of the world how she +did wish that she might have been allowed to know nothing about it. And +those others—Miss Pyncheon and the rest who devoutly believed in the +event—how were they passing these last hours? +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it isn't true! It can't be true!" she said to herself. "It's a +shame to frighten them so!" +</P> + +<P> +By eleven o'clock the excitement of the day had wearied her so that she +fell fast asleep in the arm-chair beside the fire. She woke to find +Aunt Anne standing over her. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a quarter past eleven. It's time to put on your things," she +said. So she was to go! She rose and, in spite of herself, her limbs +were trembling and her teeth chattered. To her surprise Aunt Anne bent +forward and kissed her on the forehead. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie," she said, "if I've been harsh to you during these weeks I'm +sorry. I've done what I thought my duty, but I wouldn't wish on this +night that we should have any unkindness in our hearts towards one +another." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's all right," Maggie said awkwardly. +</P> + +<P> +She went up to put on her things; then the three of them went out into +the dark foggy street together. +</P> + +<P> +Because it was New Year's Eve there were many people about, voices +laughing and shouting through the mist and then some one running with a +flaring light, then some men walking singing in chorus. The aunts said +nothing as they went. Maggie's thoughts were given now to wondering +whether Martin would be there. She tied her mind to that, but behind it +was the irritating knowledge that her teeth were chattering and her +knees trembling and that she did not maintain her courage as a Cardinal +should. +</P> + +<P> +As they entered the Chapel the hoarse ugly clock over the door grunted +out half-past eleven. The Chapel seemed on Maggie's entering it to be +half in darkness, there was a thin splutter of gas over the +reading-desk at the far end and some more light by the door, but the +centre of the building was a shadowy pool. Only a few were present, +gathered together in the middle seats below the desk, perhaps in all a +hundred persons. Of these three-quarters were women. The aunts and +Maggie went into their accustomed seat some six rows from the front. +When Maggie rose from her knees and looked about her she recognised at +once that only the Inside Saints were here. +</P> + +<P> +Amongst the men she recognised Mr. Smith, Caroline's father, two old +men, brothers, who had followed Mr. Warlock from their youth, and a +young pale man who had once been to tea with her aunts. Martin she saw +at once was not there. +</P> + +<P> +For some time, perhaps for ten minutes, they all sat in silence, and +only the gruff comment of the clock sounded in the building. Then the +lights went up with a flare and Thurston, followed by Mr. Warlock, +entered. It was at that moment that Maggie had a revelation. The faces +around her seemed to be suddenly gathered in front of her, and it was +with a start of surprise that she suddenly realised: "Oh, but they +don't believe in this any more than I do!" The faces around her were +agitated, with odd humble beseeching looks, as though they were +helpless utterly and were hoping that some one would suddenly come and +lead them somewhere that they might be comfortable again and at ease. +</P> + +<P> +There was not to-night, as there had been on other occasions (and +especially during that service that Mr. Crashaw had conducted), any +sign of religious and mystical excitement. The people seemed huddled +together in the cold and draughty place against their will, and the +very fact that the Chapel was only half full chilled the blood. No +drama of exultation here, no band of God's servants gloriously +preparing to meet Him, only the frightened open-mouthed gaze of a +little gathering of servant girls and old maids. That was Maggie's +first impression; then, when the service began, when the first hymn had +been sung and Thurston had stumbled into his extempore prayer. Maggie +found herself caught into a strange companionship with the people +around her. Not now ecstasy nor the excitement of religious fanaticism +nor the superstitious preparation for some awful events—none of these +emotions now lifted her into some strained unnatural sphere—no, +nothing but a strange sympathy and kindness and understanding that she +had never known in all her life before. She felt the hunger, the +passionate appeal: "Oh God come! Prove Thyself! We have waited so long. +We have resisted unbelievers, we have fought our own doubts and +betrayals, give us now a Sign! something by which we may know Thee!" +and with that appeal the conviction in the hearts of almost all present +that nothing would happen, that God would give no sign, that the age of +miracles was past. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why did He want to be so definite," she thought. "Why couldn't He +have left them as they were without forcing them to this." +</P> + +<P> +They were sitting down now, and Thurston, with his cheap sense of the +dramatic and false emphasis, was reading from the New Testament. Maggie +looked to where Mr. Warlock was, a little to the right of Thurston, in +his black gown, his head a little lowered, his hands on his lap. +</P> + +<P> +When she saw him she was touched to the very heart. Why, he had aged in +the last month a hundred years! He looked, sitting there, so frail and +helpless that it seemed wonderful that he should have been able to get +there at all. +</P> + +<P> +His hair seemed to have an added intensity of whiteness to-night, and +his beard lay against the black cloth of his gown with a contrast so +sharp that it was unreal. Maggie fancied, as she watched him, that he +was bewildered and scarcely knew where he was. Once he looked up and +round about him; he put his hand to his brow and then let it fall as +though he had no longer any control over it. +</P> + +<P> +She was now so touched by the pathos of his helplessness that she could +think of nothing else and longed to go to him and comfort him. Time +stole on and it was now ten minutes to twelve. They sang another hymn, +but the voices were very weak and feeble and the words quivered round +the building in a ghostly whisper. Then Thurston came to the Master and +gave him his arm and led him to the reading-desk. The old man seemed +for a moment as though he would fall, then, holding to the front of the +desk, he spoke in a very weak and faltering voice. Maggie could not +catch many of his words: "My children—only a little time—Our +preparation now is finished ... God has promised ... Not the least of +these His little ones shall perish ... Let us not fear but be ready to +meet Him as our Friend ... our Friend ... God our Father ..." Then in a +stronger voice: "Now during these last minutes let us kneel in silent +prayer." +</P> + +<P> +They all knelt down. Maggie had no thoughts, no desire except that the +time might pass; she seemed to kneel there asleep waiting for the +moment when some one should tell her that the time had gone and she was +safe. The moments dragged eternally; a thrilling suspense like a flood +of water pouring into an empty space had filled the Chapel. No one +moved. Suddenly into the heart of the silence there struck the first +note of the clock tolling the hour. With Maggie it was as though that +sound liberated her from the spell that had been upon her. She looked +up; she saw the master standing, his hands stretched out, his face +splendid with glory and happiness. +</P> + +<P> +He looked beyond them all, beyond the Chapel, beyond the world. He gave +one cry: +</P> + +<P> +"My God, Thou art come." Some other words followed but were caught up +and muffled. He fell forward, collapsing in a heap against the desk. +His head struck the wood and then he lay there perfectly still. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie could only dimly gather what happened after the sound of that +fall. There seemed to her to be a long and terrible silence during +which the clock continued remorselessly to strike. The Chapel appeared +to be a place of shadows as though the gas had suddenly died to dim +haloes; she was conscious that people moved about her, that Aunt Anne +had left them, and that Aunt Elizabeth was saying to her again and +again: "How terrible! How terrible! How terrible!" +</P> + +<P> +Then as though it were some other person, Maggie found herself very +calmly speaking to Aunt Elizabeth. +</P> + +<P> +"Are we to wait for Aunt Anne?" she whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"Anne said we were to go home." +</P> + +<P> +"Then let's go," whispered Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +They went to the door, pushing, it seemed, through shadows who +whispered and forms that vanished as soon as one looked at them. +</P> + +<P> +Out in the open air Maggie was aware that she was trembling from head +to foot, but a determined idea that she must get Aunt Elizabeth home at +once drove her like a goad. Very strange it was out here, the air +ringing with the clamour of bells. The noise seemed deafening, whistles +blowing from the river, guns firing and this swinging network of bells +echoing through the fog. Figures, too, ran with lights, men singing, +women laughing, all mysteriously in the tangled darkness. +</P> + +<P> +They were joined at once by Aunt Anne, who said: +</P> + +<P> +"God has called him home," by which Maggie understood that Mr. Warlock +was dead. +</P> + +<P> +They went home in silence. Inside the hall Aunt Elizabeth began to cry. +Aunt Anne put her arm around her and led her away; they seemed +completely to forget Maggie, leaving her standing in the dark hall by +herself. +</P> + +<P> +She found a candle and went up to her room. The noise in the streets +had ceased quite suddenly as though some angry voice had called the +world to order. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie undressed and lay down in her bed. She lay there staring in +front of her without closing her eyes. She watched the grey dawn, then +the half-light, then, behind her blind, bright sunshine. The fog was no +more. +</P> + +<P> +The strangest fancies and visions passed through her brain during that +time. She saw Mr. Warlock hanging forward like a sack of clothes, the +blood trickling stealthily across his beard. Poor old man! What were +the others all thinking now? Were they sorry or glad? Were they +disappointed or relieved? After all, he had, perhaps, spoken the truth +so far as he was himself concerned. God had come for him. He was now it +might be happy somewhere at peace and at rest. Then like a flash of +lightning across the darkness came the thought of Martin. What had he +said? "If anything happened to his father—" +</P> + +<P> +The terror of that made her heart stop beating. She wanted instantly to +go to him and see what he was doing. She even rose from her bed, +stumbled in the darkness towards her dressing-table, then remembered +where she was and what time and went back and sat upon her bed. +</P> + +<P> +She sat there, her fingers tightly pressed together, staring in front +of her until the morning came. She felt at her heart a foreboding worse +than any pain that she had ever known. She determined that, directly +after breakfast, whatever the aunts would say, she would go to his +house and demand to see him. She did not mind who might try to prevent +her, she would fight her way through them all. Only one look, one word +of assurance from him, and then she could endure anything. That she +must have or she would die. +</P> + +<P> +At last Martha knocked on the door; she had her bath, dressed, still +with this terrible pain at her heart. +</P> + +<P> +She was alone at breakfast, she drank some coffee, then went up to the +drawing-room to think for a moment what course she should pursue. The +room was flooded with sunlight that struck the fire into a dead, +lifeless yellow. +</P> + +<P> +As she stood there she heard through the open door voices in the hall. +But before she had heard the voices she knew that it was Martin. +</P> + +<P> +Martha was expostulating, her voice following his step up the hall. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall go and tell my mistress," Maggie heard. +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin came in. +</P> + +<P> +When she saw him she stood speechless where she was. The change in him +terrified her so that her heart seemed to leap into her throat choking +her. The colour had drained from his face, leaving it dry and yellow. +He had an amazing resemblance to his father, his eyes had exactly the +same bewildered expression as though he were lost and yet he seemed +quite calm, his only movement was one hand that wandered up and down +his waistcoat feeling the buttons one after the other. +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her as though he did not know her, and yet he spoke her +name. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie," he said, "I've come to say good-bye. You know what I said +before. Well, it's come true. Father is dead, and I killed him." +</P> + +<P> +With a terrible effort, beating down a terror that seemed personally to +envelop her, she said: +</P> + +<P> +"No, Martin. I saw him die. It wasn't you, Martin dear." +</P> + +<P> +"It was I," he answered. "You don't know. I came into the house drunk +and he heard what I said to Amy. He nearly died then. The doctor in the +evening said he must have had some shock." +</P> + +<P> +She tried to come to him then. She was thinking: "Oh, if I've only got +time I can win this. But I must have time. I must have time." +</P> + +<P> +He moved away from her, as he had done once before. +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway, it doesn't matter," he said. "I've killed him by the way I've +been behaving to him all these months. I'm going away where I can't do +any harm." +</P> + +<P> +She desperately calmed herself, speaking very quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen, Martin. You haven't done him any harm. He's happier now than +he's been for years. I know he is. And that doesn't touch us. You can't +leave me now. Where you go I must go." +</P> + +<P> +"No," he answered. "No, Maggie. I ought to have gone before. I knew it +then, but I know it absolutely now. Everything I touch I hurt, so I +mustn't touch anything I care for." +</P> + +<P> +She put her hands out towards him; words had left her. She would have +given her soul for words and she could say nothing. +</P> + +<P> +She was surrounded with a hedge of fright and terror and she could not +pass it. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to see then in her eyes her despair. For an instant he +recognised her. Their eyes met for the first time; she felt that she +was winning. She began eagerly to speak: "Listen, Martin dear. You +can't do me any harm. You can only hurt me by leaving me. I've told you +before. Just think of that and only that." +</P> + +<P> +The door opened and Aunt Anne came in. +</P> + +<P> +He turned to her very politely. "I beg your pardon for coming, Miss +Cardinal," he said. "I know what you must think of me, but it's all +right. I've only come to say good-bye to Maggie. It's all right. +Neither you nor Maggie will be bothered with me again." +</P> + +<P> +He turned to the open door. Aunt Anne stood aside to let him pass. +Maggie said: +</P> + +<P> +"Martin, don't go! Martin, don't leave me! Don't leave me, Martin!" +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to break then in his resolution. +</P> + +<P> +"It's better. It's better," he cried, as though he were shouting +himself down, and then pushing Aunt Anne with his arm he hurried out +almost running, his steps stumbling down the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie ran to the door. Her aunt stopped her, holding her back. +</P> + +<P> +"It's better, Maggie dear," she said very gently, repeating Martin's +words. +</P> + +<P> +The sound of the hall door closing echoed through the house. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie struggled, crying again and again: "Let me go! Let me go! I must +go with him! I can't live without him! Let me go!" +</P> + +<P> +She fought then, and with one hand free hit Aunt Anne's face, twisting +her body. Then, suddenly weak, so that she saw faintness coming towards +her like a cloak, she whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Aunt Anne, let me go! Oh, Aunt Anne, let me go! Please, please, +let me go!" +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the house was darkened, at her feet was a gulf of blackness, +and into it she tumbled, down, far down, with a last little gasping +sigh of distress. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0301"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +PART III +</H2> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +THE WITCH +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE THREE VISITS +</H3> + +<P> +On a spring day, early in March of the next year, 1908, Mathew Cardinal +thought that he would go and discover how his niece was prospering. He +had seen nothing of her for a very long time. +</P> + +<P> +He did not blame himself for this, but then he never blamed himself for +anything. A fate, often drunken and always imbecile, was to blame for +everything that he did, and he pitied himself sincerely for having to +be in the hands of such a creature. He happened to be just now very +considerably frightened about himself, more frightened than he had been +for a very long time, so frightened in fact that he had drunk nothing +for weeks. For many years he had been leading a see-saw existence, and +the see-saw had been swung by that mysterious force known as Finance. +He had a real gift for speculation, and had he been granted from birth +a large income he might have ended his days as a Justice of the Peace +and a Member of Parliament. Unfortunately he had never had any private +means, and he had never been able to make enough by his mysterious +speculations to float him into security—"Let me once get so far," he +would say to himself, "and I am a made man." But drink, an easy +tolerance of bad company, and a rather touching conceit had combined to +divorce him from so fine a destiny. He had risen, he had fallen, made a +good thing out of this tip, been badly done over that, and missed +opportunity after opportunity through a fuddled brain and an +overweening self-confidence. +</P> + +<P> +Last year for several months everything had succeeded; it was during +that happy period that he had visited Maggie. Perhaps it was well for +his soul that success had not continued. He was a man whom failure +improved, having a certain childish warmth of heart and simplicity of +outlook when things went badly with him. Success made him abominably +conceited, and being without any morality self-confidence drove him to +disastrous lengths. Now once more he was very near destruction and he +knew it, very near things like forging and highway robbery, and other +things worse than they. He knew that he was very near; he peered over +into the pit and did not wish to descend. He was not a bad man, and had +he not believed himself to be a clever one all might yet have been +well. The temptation of his cleverness lured him on. A stroke of the +pen was a very simple thing... +</P> + +<P> +To save his soul he thought that he would go and see Maggie. His +affection for her, conceited and selfish though it was, was the most +genuine thing in him. For three-quarters of the year he forgot her, but +when life went badly he thought of her again—not that he expected to +get anything out of her, but she was good to him and she knew nothing +about his life, two fine bases for safety. +</P> + +<P> +"What have they been doing to her, those damned hypocrites, I wonder," +was his thought. He admired, feared, and despised his sisters. "All +that stuff about God" frightened him in spite of himself, and he knew, +in his soul, that Anne was no hypocrite. +</P> + +<P> +He rang the bell and faced Martha. He had dressed himself with some +care and was altogether more tidy just then, having a new mistress who +cared about outside appearances. Also, having been sober for nearly two +months, he looked a gentleman. +</P> + +<P> +"Is my niece at home?" he asked, blinking because he was frightened of +Martha. +</P> + +<P> +She did not seem to be prepared to let him in. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Maggie has been very ill," she said, frowning at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Ill?" That really hurt him. He stammered, "Why? ... When?" +</P> + +<P> +She moved aside then for him to pass into the hall. He came into the +dark stuffy place. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Martha. "Just after Christmas. Brain-fever, the doctors +said. They thought she'd die for weeks. Had two doctors ... You can't +see her, sir," she ended grumpily. +</P> + +<P> +Then Aunt Anne appeared, coming through the green-baize door. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mathew," she said. Mathew thought how ill she looked. +</P> + +<P> +"They're all ill here," he said to himself. +</P> + +<P> +"So Maggie's ill," he said, dropping his eyes before her as he always +did. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Aunt Anne answered. "She was very ill indeed, poor child. I'm +glad to see you, Mathew. It's a long time since you've been." +</P> + +<P> +He thought she was gentler to him than she had been, so, mastering his +fear of her, fingering his collar, he said: +</P> + +<P> +"Can't I see her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm not ... I think you might. It might do her good. She wants +taking out of herself. She comes down for an hour or two every day now. +I'll go and see." She left him standing alone there. He looked around +him, sniffing like a dog. How he hated the house and everything in it! +Always had ... You could smell that fellow Warlock's trail over +everything. The black cat, Tom, came slipping along, looked for a +moment as though he would rub himself against Mathew's stout legs, then +decided that he would not. Mysterious this place like a well, with its +green shadows. No wonder the poor child had been ill here. At the +thought of her being near to death Mathew felt a choke in his throat. +Poor child, never had any fun all her life and then to die in a green +well like this. And his sisters wouldn't care if she did, hard women, +hard women. Funny how religion made you hard, darn funny. Good thing +he'd been irreligious all his life. Think of his brother Charles! There +was religion for you, living with his cook and preaching to her next +morning. Bad thing religion! +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne returned, coming down the stairs with that queer halting gait +of hers. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie's in the drawing-room," she said. "She'll like to see you." +</P> + +<P> +As they went up, Aunt Anne said: "Be careful with her, Mathew. She's +still very weak. Don't say anything to upset her?" +</P> + +<P> +He mumbled something in his throat. Couldn't trust him. Of course they +couldn't. Never had ... Fine sort of sisters they were. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was sitting by the fire, a shawl over her shoulders. By God, but +she looked ill. Mathew had another gulp in his throat. Poor kid, but +she did look ill. Poor kid, poor kid. +</P> + +<P> +"Sorry you've been bad, Maggie," he said. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up, smiling with pleasure, when she saw who it was. Yes, she +was really pleased to see him. But how different a smile from the old +one! No blood behind it, none of that old Maggie determination. He was +filled with compassion. He took a chair close beside her and sat down, +leaning towards her, his large rather sheepish eye gazing at her. +</P> + +<P> +"What's been the matter?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," Maggie said. "I was suddenly ill one day, and after +that I didn't know any more for weeks. But I'm much better now." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm delighted to hear that anyway," he said heartily. He was +determined to cheer her up. "You'll be as right as rain presently." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I shall. I've felt so lazy, as though I didn't want to do +anything. Now I must stir myself." +</P> + +<P> +"Have the old women been good to you?" he asked, dropping his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Very," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Not bothering you about all their religious tommy-rot?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked down at her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"And that hypocritical minister of theirs hasn't been at you again?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Warlock's dead," she answered very quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"Warlock dead!" Uncle Mathew half rose from his chair in his +astonishment. "That fellow dead! Well, I'm damned, indeed I am. That +fellow—! Well, there's a good riddance! I know it isn't good form to +speak about a man who's kicked the bucket otherwise than kindly, but he +was a weight on my chest that fellow was, with his long white beard and +his soft voice ... Well, well. To be sure! Whatever will my poor +sisters do? And what's happened to that young chap, his son, nice lad +he was, took dinner with us that day last year?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's gone away," said Maggie. Mathew, stupid though he was, heard +behind the quiet of Maggie's voice a warning. He flung her a hurried +surreptitious look. Her face was perfectly composed, her hands still +upon her lap. Nevertheless he said to himself, "Danger there, my boy! +Something's happened there!" +</P> + +<P> +And yet his curiosity drove him for a moment further. +</P> + +<P> +"Gone, has he? Where to?" +</P> + +<P> +"He went abroad," said Maggie, "after his father's death. I don't know +where he's gone." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, did he? Pity! Restless, I expect—I was at his age." +</P> + +<P> +There was a little pause between them when Maggie sat very quietly +looking at her hands. Then, smiling, she glanced up and said: +</P> + +<P> +"But tell me about yourself, Uncle Mathew. You've told me nothing." +</P> + +<P> +He fidgeted a little, shifting his thick legs, stroking his nose with +his finger. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know that I've anything very good to tell you, my dear. Truth +is, I haven't been doing so very well lately." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Uncle, I'm sorry!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's nothing to make yourself miserable about, my dear. I always turn +my corners. Damn rocky ones they are sometimes too. Everything's turned +itself wrong these last weeks, either too soon or too late. I don't +complain, all the same it makes things a bit inconvenient. Thank you +for that five pounds you sent me, my dear, very helpful it was I can +tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you want another five pounds?" she asked him. He struggled with +himself. His hesitation was so obvious that it was quite touching. She +put her hand on his knee. +</P> + +<P> +"Do have another five pounds, Uncle. It won't be difficult for me at +all. I've been spending nothing all these weeks when I've been ill. +Please do." +</P> + +<P> +He shook his head firmly. +</P> + +<P> +"No, my dear, I won't. As I came along I said to myself, 'Now, you'll +be asking Maggie for money, and when she says "Yes" you're not to take +it'—and so I'm not going to. I may be a rotter—but I'm not a rotten +rotter." +</P> + +<P> +He clung to his decision with the utmost resolve as though it were his +last plank of respectability. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't believe," he said to her with great solemnity, "that things +can really go wrong. I know too much. It isn't men like me who go +under. No. No." +</P> + +<P> +He saw then her white face and strange grey ghostly eyes as though her +soul had gone somewhere on a visit and the house was untenanted. He +felt again the gulp in his throat. He bent forward, resting his fat +podgy hand on her knee. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you worry, Maggie dear. I've always noticed that things are +never bad for long. You've still got your old uncle, and you're young, +and there are plenty of fish in the sea ... there are indeed. You cheer +up! It will be all right soon." +</P> + +<P> +She put her hands on his. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh I'm not—worrying." But as she spoke a strange strangled little sob +had crept unbidden into her throat, choking her. +</P> + +<P> +He thought, as he got up, "It's that damned young feller I gave dinner +to. I'd like to wring his neck." +</P> + +<P> +But he said no more, bent closer and kissed her, said he was soon +coming again, and went away. +</P> + +<P> +After he had gone the house sank into its grey quiet again. What was +Maggie thinking? No one knew. What was Aunt Anne thinking? No one knew +... But there was something between these two, Maggie and Aunt Anne. +Every one felt it and longed for the storm to burst. Bad enough things +outside with Mr. Warlock dead, members leaving right and left, and the +Chapel generally going to wrack and ruin, but inside! +</P> + +<P> +Old Martha, who had never liked Maggie, felt now a strange, +uncomfortable pity for her. She didn't want to feel pity, no, not she, +pity for no one, and especially not for an ugly untidy girl like that, +but there it was, she couldn't help herself! Such a child that girl, +and she'd been as nearly dead as nothing, and now she was suffering, +suffering awful ... Any one could see ... All that Warlock boy. Martha +had seen him come stumbling down the stairs that day and had heard +Maggie's cry and then the fall. Awful noise it made. Awful. She'd stood +in the hall, looking up the stairs, her heart beating like a hammer. +Yes, just like a hammer! Then she'd gone up. It wasn't a nice sight, +the poor girl all in a lump on the floor and Miss Anne just as she +always looked before one of her attacks, as though she were made of +grey glass from top to toe ... +</P> + +<P> +But Martha hadn't pitied Maggie then. Oh, no. Might as well die as not. +Who wanted her? No one. Not even her young man apparently. +</P> + +<P> +Better if she died. But slowly something happened to Martha. Not that +she was sentimental. Not in the least. But thoughts would steal +in—steal in just when you were at your work. The girl lying there so +good and patient—all the pots and pans winking at you from the +kitchen-wall. Must remember to order that ketchup—cold last night in +bed—think another blanket ... yes, very good and patient. Can't deny +it. Always smiles just that same way. Smiles at every one except Miss +Arne. Won't smile at her. Wonder why not? Something between those two. +What about dinner? A little onion fry—that's the thing these damp +days—Onion fry—Onion Fry. ONION FRY ... One last look back before the +world is filled with the sense, smell, and taste of it.—Poor girl, so +white and so patient—the young man will never come back—never ... +never ... ONION FRY. +</P> + +<P> +No; no one knew what Maggie was thinking. No one found out until Maggie +had her second visitor, Miss Avies. +</P> + +<P> +When Martha opened the door to Miss Avies she was astonished. Miss +Avies hadn't been near the house since old Warlock died. What was she +wanting here now, with her stiff back and bossy manner. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know whether you can see—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh nonsense, it's Maggie Cardinal I want to see. She's now in the +drawing-room sitting on a chair with a shawl on by the fire. Don't tell +me!" +</P> + +<P> +Martha quivered with anger. "The doctor's orders is—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to be doctor to-day," she said, and strode inside. She went +upstairs and found Aunt Elizabeth sitting with Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do, Miss Cardinal?" They shook hands, Miss Avies standing +over Aunt Elizabeth like the boa constrictor raised above the mouse. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right ... No, I don't want to see your sister. And to be +quite honest, I don't want to see you either. It's your niece I want to +see. And alone—" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly—it's only the doctor said—" +</P> + +<P> +"Not to excite her. I know. But I'm not going to excite her. I'm going +to give her some medicine. You come back in half an hour from now. Will +you? That's right. Thank you so much." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Elizabeth, unhappy, uncomfortable, filled with misgivings, as in +these days she always was, left the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there ... that's right," said Miss Avies, settling herself in +the opposite side of the fire from Maggie and looking at her with not +unfriendly eyes. "How are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh much better, thank you," said Maggie. "Ever so much better." +</P> + +<P> +"No, you're not," said Miss Avies. "And you're only lying when you say +you are. You'll never get better unless you do what I tell you—" +</P> + +<P> +"What's that?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Face things. Face everything. Have it all out. Don't leave a bit of it +alone, and then just keep what's useful." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't quite know what you mean," said Maggie—but the faint colour +had faded from her cheeks and her hands had run together for protection. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Avies's voice softened—"I'm probably going away very soon," she +said, "going away and not coming back. All my work's over here. But I +wanted to see you before I went. You remember another talk we had here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You remember what I told you?" +</P> + +<P> +"You told me not to stay here," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I did," said Miss Avies, "and I meant it. The matter with you is +that you've been kept here all this time without any proper work to do +and that's been very bad for you and made you sit with your hands +folded in front of you, your head filling with silly fancies." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie couldn't help smiling at this description of herself. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you smile," said Miss Avies vigorously, "but it's perfectly true." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's all right now." said Maggie, "because I am going away—as +soon as ever I'm well enough." "What to do?" asked Miss Avies. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't quite know yet," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I know," said Miss Avies. "You're going away to brood over that +young man." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh I know ... It seems cruel of me to speak of it just when you've had +such a bad time, but it's kindness really. If I don't force you to +think it all out and face it properly you'll be burying it in some +precious spot and always digging it up to look at it. You face it, my +girl. You say to yourself—well, he wasn't such a wonderful young man +after all. I can lead my life all right without him—of course I can. +I'm not going to be dependent on him and sigh and groan and waste away +because I can't see him. I know what it is. I've been through it +myself." +</P> + +<P> +Then there was a pause; then Maggie suddenly looked up and smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"But you're quite wrong, Miss Avies. I've no intention of not facing +Martin, and I've no intention either of having my life ruined because +he's not here. At first, when I was very ill, I was unhappy, and then I +saw how silly I was." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" said Miss Avies with great pleasure. "You've got over it +already! I must say I'm delighted because I never thought much of +Martin Warlock if you want to know, my dear. I always thought him a +weak young man, and he wouldn't have done you any good. I'm +delighted—indeed I am." +</P> + +<P> +"That's not true either," said Maggie quietly. "If by getting over it +you mean that I don't love Martin you're quite wrong. I loved him the +first moment I saw him and I shall love him in just the same way until +I die. I don't think it matters what he does or where he is so far as +loving him goes. But that doesn't mean I'm sitting and pining. I'm not." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Avies looked at her with displeasure. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the same thing then," she said. "You may fancy you're going to +lead an ordinary life again, but all the time you'll just be waiting +for him to come back." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie, "I shall not. I've had plenty of time for thinking +these last weeks, and I've made up my mind to his never coming +back—never at all. And even if he did come back he mightn't want me. +So I'm not going to waste time about it. I shall find work and make +myself useful somewhere, but I shall always love Martin just as I do +now." +</P> + +<P> +"You're very young," said Miss Avies, touched in spite of herself. +"Later on you'll find some one much better than young Warlock." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I shall," said Maggie. "But what's the use of that if he isn't +Martin? I've heard people say that before—some one's 'better' or +'stronger' or 'wiser.'—But what has that got to do with it? I love +Martin because he's Martin. He's got a weak character you say. That's +why he wants me, and I want to be wanted more than anything on earth." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How you've grown these last +weeks!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you want to know how I love Martin," said Maggie, "so that there +shall be no mistake about it? Well, I can't tell you. I couldn't tell +any one. I don't know how I love him, but I know that I shall never +change or alter all my life—even though he never comes back again. +I've given over being silly," she went on. "There were days and days at +first when I just wanted to die. But now I'm going to make my own life +and have a good time—and never stop loving Martin for one single +second." +</P> + +<P> +"Supposing," said Miss Avies, "some one wanted to marry you? Would you?" +</P> + +<P> +"It would depend," said Maggie; "if I liked him and he really wanted me +and I could help him I might. Only, of course, I'd tell him about +Martin first." +</P> + +<P> +She went on after a little pause: "You see, Miss Avies, I haven't been +very happy with my aunts, and I always thought it was their fault that +I wasn't. But during these weeks when I've been lying in bed I saw that +it was my own fault for being so gloomy about everything. Now that I've +got Martin—" +</P> + +<P> +"Got him!" interrupted Miss Avies; "why, you've only just lost him!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I haven't," answered Maggie. "He didn't go away because he hated +me or was tired of me, he went away because he didn't want to do me any +harm, and I think he cared for me more just at that minute than he'd +ever done before. So I've nothing to spoil my memory of him. I daresay +we wouldn't have got on well, together, I don't think I would ever have +fascinated him enough to keep him with me for very long—but now I know +that he loved me at the very moment he went away and wasn't thinking +how ugly I was or what a nasty temper I had or how irritating I could +be." +</P> + +<P> +"But, my dear child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How can you say you +loved one another if you were always quarrelling and expecting to +part?" "We weren't always quarrelling," said Maggie. "We weren't +together enough, but if we had been it wouldn't have meant that we +didn't love one another. I don't think we'd ever been very happy, but +being happy together doesn't seem to me the only sign of love. Love +seems to me to be moments of great joy rising from every kind of +trouble and bother. I don't call tranquillity happiness." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you have thought things out," said Miss Avies, "and all of us +considering you so stupid—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going to squash myself into a corner any more," said Maggie. +"Why should I? I find I'm as good as any one else. I made Martin love +me—even though it was only for a moment. So I'm going to be shy no +longer." +</P> + +<P> +"And here was I thinking you heart-broken," said Miss Avies. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going out into the world," said Maggie half to herself. "I'm going +to have adventures. I've been in this house long enough. I'm going to +see what men and women are really like—I know this isn't real here. +And I want to discover about religion too. Since Martin went away I've +felt that there was something in it. I can't think what and the aunts +can't think either; none of you know here, but some one must have found +out something. I'm going to settle what it all means." +</P> + +<P> +"You've got your work cut out," said Miss Avies. "I'll come and see you +again one day soon." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, do," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +When Miss Avies had gone Maggie realised that she had been talking with +bravado—in fact she hid her head in the cushion of the chair and cried +for at least five minutes. Then she sat up and wiped her eyes because +she heard Aunt Anne coming. When Aunt Anne came towards her now she was +affected with a strange feeling of sickness. She told herself that that +was part of her illness. She did not hate Aunt Anne. For some weeks, +when she had risen slowly from the nightmare that the first period of +her illness had been, she hated Aunt Anne, hated her fiercely, +absorbingly, desperately. Then suddenly the hatred had left her, and +had she only known it she was from that moment never to hate any one +again. A quite new love for Martin was suddenly born in her, a love +that was, as yet, like the first faint stirring of the child in the +mother's womb. This new love was quite different from the old; that had +been acquisitive, possessive, urgent, restless, and often terribly +painful; this was tranquil, sure, utterly certain, and passive. The +immediate fruit of it was that she regarded all human creatures with a +lively interest, an interest too absorbing to allow of hatred or even +active dislike. Her love for Martin was now like a strong current in +her soul washing away all sense of irritation and anger. She regarded +people from a new angle. What were they all about? What were they +thinking? Had they too had some experience as marvellous as her meeting +with and parting from Martin? Probably; and they too were shy of +speaking of it. Her love for Martin slowly grew, a love now independent +of earthly contact and earthly desire, a treasure that would be hers so +long as life lasted, that no one could take from her. +</P> + +<P> +She no longer hated Aunt Anne, but she did not intend to live with her +any more. So soon as she was well enough she would go. That moment of +physical contact when Aunt Anne had held her back made any more +relation between them impossible. There was now a great gulf fixed. +</P> + +<P> +The loneliness, the sense of desperate loss, above all the agonising +longing for Martin, his step, his voice, his smile—she faced all these +and accepted them as necessary companions now on her life's journey, +but she did not intend to allow them to impede progress. She wondered +now about everybody. Her own experience had shown her what strange and +wonderful things occur to all human beings, and, in the face of this, +how could one hate or grudge or despise? She had a fellowship now with +all humanity. +</P> + +<P> +But she was as ignorant about life as ever. The things that now she +wanted to know! About Aunt Anne, for instance. How had she been +affected by Mr. Warlock's death and the disappointment of her +expectations? The Chapel now apparently was to be taken over by +Thurston, who had married Amy Warlock and was full of schemes and +enterprises. Maggie knew that the aunts went now very seldom to Chapel, +and the Inside Saints were apparently in pieces. Was Aunt Anne utterly +broken by all this? She did not seem to be so. She seemed to be very +much as she had been, except that she was in her room now a great deal. +Her health appeared, on the whole, to be better than it had been. And +what was Aunt Elizabeth thinking? And Martha? And Miss Avies? And +Caroline Smith? ... +</P> + +<P> +No, she must get out into the world and discover these things for +herself. She did not know how the way of escape would come, but she was +certain of its arrival. +</P> + +<P> +It arrived, and through her third visitor. Her third visitor was Mrs. +Mark. +</P> + +<P> +When Katherine Mark came in Maggie was writing to Uncle Mathew. She put +aside her writing-pad with a little exclamation of surprise. Mrs. Mark, +the very last person in all the world whom she had expected to see! As +she saw her come in she had a swift intuition that this was Destiny now +that was dealing with her, and that a new scene, involving every sort +of new experience and adventure, was opening before her. More than ever +before she realised how far Katherine Mark was from the world in which +she, Maggie, had during all these months been living. Katherine Mark +was Real—Real in her beautiful quiet clothes, in her assurance, her +ease, the sense that she gave that she knew life and love and business +and all the affairs of men at first hand, not only seen through a mist +of superstition and ignorance, or indeed not seen at all. +</P> + +<P> +"This is what I want," something in Maggie called to her. +</P> + +<P> +"This will make me busy and quiet and sensible—at last—" +</P> + +<P> +When Katherine Mark sat down and took her hand for a moment, smiling at +her in the kindliest way, Maggie felt as though she had known her all +her life. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I'm so glad you've come!" she cried spontaneously; and then, as +though she felt she'd gone too far, she blushed and drew back. +</P> + +<P> +But Katherine held her hand fast. +</P> + +<P> +"I wrote," she said, "some weeks ago to you, and your aunt answered the +letter saying you were very ill. Then, as I heard nothing of you, I was +anxious and came to see what had happened. You've not kept your word, +Maggie, you know. We were to have been great friends, and you've never +been near me." +</P> + +<P> +At the use of her Christian name Maggie blushed with pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't come," she said. "I didn't want to until—until—until some +things had settled themselves." +</P> + +<P> +"Well—and they have?" asked Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—they have," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"What's been the matter?" asked Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"I was worried about something, and then I was ill," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"And you're not worried now?" said Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going to give in to it, anyway," said Maggie. "As soon as I'm +well, I'm off. I'll find some work somewhere." +</P> + +<P> +"I've got a plan," said Katherine. "It came into my head the moment I +saw you sitting there. Will you come and stay with us for a little?" +</P> + +<P> +That sense that Maggie had had when she saw Katherine of fate having a +hand in all of this deepened now and coloured her thoughts, so that she +could feel no surprise but only a curious instinct that she had been +through all this scene before. +</P> + +<P> +"Stay with you!" she cried. "Oh, I should love to!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's good," said Katherine. "Your aunts won't mind, will they?" +</P> + +<P> +"They can't keep me," said Maggie. "I'm free. But they won't want to. +Our time together is over—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll come and fetch you to-morrow," said Katherine. "You shall stay +with us until you're quite well, and then we'll find some work for you." +</P> + +<P> +"Why are you good to me like this?" Maggie asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not good to you," Katherine answered, laughing. "It's simply +selfish. It will be lovely for me having you with me." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you don't know," said Maggie, throwing up her head. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't think I'll come. I'm frightened. I'm not what you think. +I'm untidy and careless and can't talk to strangers. Perhaps I'll lose +you altogether as a friend if I come." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll never do that," said Katherine, suddenly bending forward and +kissing her. "I don't change about people. It's because I haven't any +imagination, Phil says." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall make mistakes," Maggie said. "I've never been anywhere. But I +don't care. I can look after myself." +</P> + +<P> +The thought of her three hundred pounds (which were no longer three +hundred) encouraged her. She kissed Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't change either," she said. +</P> + +<P> +She had a strange conversation with Aunt Anne that night, strange as +every talk had always been because of things left unsaid. They faced +one another across the fireplace like enemies who might have been +lovers; there had been from the very first moment of this meeting a +romantic link between them which had never been defined. They had never +had it out with one another, and they were not going to have it out +now; but Maggie, who was never sentimental, wondered at the strange +mixture of tenderness, pity, affection, irritation and hostility that +she felt. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne, I'm going away to-morrow," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"To-morrow!" Aunt Anne looked up with her strange hostile arrogance. +"Oh no, Maggie. You're not well yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Mark," said Maggie, "the lady I told you about, is coming in a +motor to fetch me. She will take me straight to her house, and then I +shall go to bed." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"You know that it's better for me to go," said Maggie. "We can't live +together any more after what happened. You and Aunt Elizabeth have been +very very good to me, but you know now that I'm a disappointment. I +haven't ever fitted into the life here. I never shall." +</P> + +<P> +"The life here is over," said Aunt Anne. "Everything is over—the house +is dead. Of course you must go. If you feel anger with me now or +afterwards remember that I have lost every hope or desire I ever had. I +don't want your pity. I want no one's pity. I wanted once your +affection, but I wanted it on my own terms. That was wrong. I do not +want your affection any longer; you were never the girl I thought you. +You're a strange girl, Maggie, and you will have, I am afraid, a very +unhappy life." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I will not," said Maggie. "I will have a happy life." +</P> + +<P> +"That is for God to say," said Aunt Anne. +</P> + +<P> +"No, it is not," said Maggie. "I can make my own happiness. God can't +touch it, if I don't let Him." +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, you're blasphemous," said Aunt Anne, but not in anger. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not," said Maggie. "When I came here first I didn't believe in +God, but now—I'm not sure. There's something strange, which may be God +for all I know. I'm going to find out. If He has the doing of +everything then He's taken away all I cared for, and I'm not going to +give Him the satisfaction of seeing that it hurt; if He didn't do it, +then it doesn't matter." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll believe in Him before you die, Maggie," said Aunt Anne. "It's +in you, and you won't escape it. I thought it was I who was to bring +you to Him, but I was going too fast. The Lord has His own time. You'll +come to Him afterwards." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," cried Maggie. "I'm so glad I'm going somewhere where it won't be +always religion, where they'll think of something else than the Lord +and His Coming. I want real life, banks and motor-cars and shops and +clothes and work ..." +</P> + +<P> +She stopped suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne was doing what Maggie had never seen her do before, even in +the worst bouts of her pain—she was crying ... cold solitary lonely +tears that crept slowly, reluctantly down her thin cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"I meant to do well. In everything I have done ill ... Everything has +failed in my hands—" +</P> + +<P> +Once again, as long before at St. Dreot's, Maggie could do nothing. +</P> + +<P> +There was a long miserable silence, then Aunt Anne got up and went away. +</P> + +<P> +Next day Katherine came in a beautiful motor-car to fetch Maggie. +Maggie had packed her few things. Bound her neck next her skin was the +ring with three pearls ... +</P> + +<P> +She said good-bye to the house: her bedroom beneath which the +motor-omnibuses clanged, the sitting-room with the family group, the +passage with the Armed Men, the dark hall with the green baize door ... +then good-bye to Aunt Elizabeth (two kisses), Aunt Anne (one kiss), +Martha, Thomas the cat, the parrot ... all, everything, good-bye, +good-bye, good-bye! +</P> + +<P> +May I never see any of you again. Never, never, never, never! ... +</P> + +<P> +She was helped into the car, rugs were wrapped round her, there was a +warm cosy smell of rich leather, a little clock ticked away, a silver +vase with red and blue flowers winked at her, and Katherine was there +close beside her ... +</P> + +<P> +Never again, never again! And yet how strange, as they turned the +corner of the street down into the Strand, Maggie felt a sudden pang of +regret, of pathos, of loneliness, as though she were leaving something +that had loved her dearly, and leaving it without a word of +friendliness. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor dear!" She wanted to return, to tell it ... to tell it what? She +had made her choice. She was plunging now into the other half of the +world, and plunging not quite alone, because she was taking Martin with +her. +</P> + +<P> +"I do hope you won't mind, dear," said Katherine. "My cousin Paul—the +clergyman you met once—is staying with us. He and his sister. No one +else." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I shan't mind," said Maggie. Her fingers, inside her blouse, +tightly clutched the little pearl ring. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0302"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PLUNGE INTO THE OTHER HALF +</H3> + +<P> +For a week Maggie was so comfortable that she could think of nothing +but that. It must be remembered that she had never before known what +comfort was, never at St. Dreot's, never at Aunt Anne's, and these two +places had been the background of all her life. +</P> + +<P> +She had never conceived of the kind of way that she now lived. Her +bedroom was so pretty that it made her almost cry to look at it: the +wall-paper scattered with little rosy trees, the soft pink cretonne on +the chairs, the old bureau with a sheet of glass covering its surface +that was her dressing-table, the old gold mirror—all these things were +wonders indeed. She was ordered to have breakfast in bed; servants +looked after her with a kindliness and ease and readiness to help that +she had never dreamed of as possible. The food was wonderful; there was +the motor ready to take her for a drive in the afternoon, and there was +the whole house at her service, soft and cosy and ordered so that it +seemed to roll along upon its own impulse without any human agency. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe if every one went away and left it," she thought, "it would +go on in exactly the same way." +</P> + +<P> +Figures gradually took their places in front of this background. The +principals at first were Katherine and Philip, Henry and Millicent, +Katherine's brother and sister, Mr. Trenchard senior, Katherine's +father, Lady Rachel Seddon, Katherine's best friend, and Mr. Faunder, +Katherine's uncle. She saw at once that they all revolved around +Katherine; if Katherine were not there they would not hold together at +all. They were all so different—so different and yet so strangely +alike. There was, for instance, Millicent Trenchard, whom Maggie liked +best of them all after Katherine. Millie was a young woman of +twenty-one, pretty, gay, ferociously independent, enthusiastic about +one thing after another, with hosts of friends, male and female, none +of whom she took very seriously. The love of her life, she told Maggie +almost at once, was Katherine. She would never love any one, man or +woman, so much again. She lived with her mother and father in an old +house in Westminster, and Maggie understood that there had been some +trouble about Katherine's marriage, so that, although it happened three +years ago, Mrs. Trenchard would not come to see Katherine and would not +allow Katherine to come and see her. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was Henry, a very strange young man. He was at Cambridge and +said to be very clever. He did indeed seem to lead a mysterious life of +his own and paid very little attention to Maggie, asking her once +whether she did not think The Golden Ass wonderful, and what did she +think of Petronius; and when Maggie laughed and said that she was glad +to say she never read anything, he left her in an agitated horror. Lady +Rachel Seddon was very grand and splendid, and frightened Katherine. +She was related to every kind of duke and marquis, and although that +fact did not impress Maggie in the least, it did seem to remove Lady +Rachel into quite another world. +</P> + +<P> +But they were all in another world—Maggie discovered that at once. +They had, of course, every sort of catch-word and allusion and joke +that no one but themselves and the people whom they brought into the +house understood; Katherine was kindness itself. Philip too (he seemed +to Maggie a weak, amiable young man) took a lot of trouble about her, +but they did not belong to her nor she to them. +</P> + +<P> +"And why should they?" said Maggie to herself. "I must look on it as +though I were staying at a delightful hotel and were going on with my +journey very soon." +</P> + +<P> +There was somebody, however, who did not belong any more than Maggie +did, and very soon he became Maggie's constant companion—this was the +Rev. Paul Trenchard, Katherine's cousin. +</P> + +<P> +From the very moment months ago, when Maggie and he had first met in +Katherine's drawing-room, they had been friends. He had liked her, +Maggie felt, at once. She on her side was attracted by a certain +childlike simplicity and innocence. This very quality, she soon saw, +moved the others, Philip and Henry and Mr. Trenchard senior, to +derision. They did not like the Rev. Paul. They chaffed him, and he was +very easily teased, because he was not clever and did not see their +jokes. This put Maggie up in arms in his defence at once. But they had +all the layman's distrust of a parson. They were all polite to him, of +course, and Maggie discovered that in this world politeness was of the +very first importance, so that you really never said what you thought +nor did what you wanted to. They frankly could not understand why +Katherine asked the parson to stay, but because they loved Katherine +they were as nice to him as their natures would allow them to be. Paul +did not apparently notice that they put him outside their life. He was +always genial, laughed a great deal when there WAS no reason to laugh +at all, and told simple little stories in whose effect he profoundly +believed. He was supported in his confidence by his sister Grace, who +obviously adored him. She too was "outside" the family, but she seemed +to be quite happy telling endless stories of Paul's courage and +cleverness and popularity. She did indeed believe that Skeaton-on-Sea, +where Paul had his living, was the hub of the universe, and this amused +all the Trenchard family very much indeed. It must not be supposed that +Paul and his sister were treated unkindly. They were shown the greatest +courtesy and hospitality, but Maggie knew that that was only because it +was the Trenchard tradition to do so, and not from motives of affection +or warmth of heart. +</P> + +<P> +They could be warm-hearted; it was wonderful to see the way that they +all adored Katherine, and they had many friends for whom they would do +anything, but the Rev. Paul seemed to them frankly an ass, and they +would be glad when he went away. +</P> + +<P> +He did not seem to Maggie an ass. She thought him the kindest person +she had ever known, kinder even than Katherine, because with Katherine +there was the faintest suspicion of patronage; no, not of +patronage—that was unfair ... but of an effort to put herself in +exactly Maggie's place so that she might understand perfectly what were +Maggie's motives. With Paul Trenchard there was no effort, no +deliberate slipping out of one world into another one. He was frankly +delighted to tell Maggie everything—all about Skeaton-on-Sea and its +delights, about the church and its marvellous east window, about the +choir and the difficulties with the choir-boys and the necessity for +repairing the organ, about the troubles with the churchwardens, +especially one Mr. Bellows, who, in his cantankerous and dyspeptic +objections to everything that any one proposed, became quite a lively +figure to Maggie's imagination, about the St. John's Brotherhood which +had been formed to keep the "lads" out of the public-houses and was +doing so well, about the Shakespeare Reading Society and a Mrs. Tempest +(who also became a live figure in Maggie's brain), "a born tragedian" +and wonderful as Lady Macbeth and Katherine of Aragon. Skeaton slowly +revealed itself to Maggie as a sunny sparkling place, with glittering +sea, shining sand, and dark cool woods, full of kindliness, too, and +friendship and good-humour. Paul and Grace Trenchard seemed to be the +centre of this sunshine. How heartily Paul laughed as he recounted some +of the tricks and escapades of his "young scamps." "Dear fellows," he +would say, "I love them all ..." and Grace sat by smiling and nodding +her head and beaming upon her beloved brother. +</P> + +<P> +To Maggie, fresh from the dark and confused terrors of the Chapel, it +was all marvellous. Here was rest indeed, here, with Martin cherished +warmly in her heart, she might occupy herself with duties and +interests. Here surely she would be useful to "somebody." She heard a +good deal of an old Mr. Toms, "a little queer in his head, poor man," +who seemed to figure in the outskirts of Skeaton society as a warning +and a reassurance. ("No one in Skeaton thinks of him in any way but +tenderly.") Maggie wondered whether he might not want looking after ... +</P> + +<P> +The thought gradually occurred to her that this kindly genial clergyman +might perhaps find her some work in Skeaton. He even himself hinted at +something ... She might be some one's secretary or housekeeper. +</P> + +<P> +About Grace Trenchard Maggie was not quite so sure. She was kindness +itself and liked to hold Maggie's hand and pat it—but there was no +doubt at all that she was just a little bit tiresome. Maggie rebuked +herself for thinking this, but again and again the thought arose. Grace +was in a state of perpetual wonder, everything amazed her. You would +not think to look at her flat broad placidity that she was a creature +of excitement, and it might be that her excitement was rather +superficial. She would say: "Why! Just fancy, Maggie! ... To-day's +Tuesday!" Then you wondered what was coming next and nothing came at +all. She had endless stories about her adventures in the streets of +London, and these stories were endless because of all the details that +must be fitted in, and then the details slipped out of her grasp and +winked at her maliciously as they disappeared. The fact was perhaps +that she was not very clever, but then Maggie wasn't very clever +either, so she had no right to criticise Miss Trenchard, who was really +as amiable as she could be. Henry Trenchard said once to Maggie in his +usual scornful way: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Grace! ... She's the stupidest woman in Skeaton, which means the +stupidest woman in the world." +</P> + +<P> +The Trenchards, Maggie thought, were rather given to scorning every one +save themselves. Even Philip, who was not a Trenchard, had caught the +habit. Katherine, of course, despised no one and liked every one, but +that was rather tiresome too. +</P> + +<P> +In fact at the end of her first week Maggie thought that as soon as +possible she would find a room for herself somewhere and start to earn +her living. She discovered that she was developing a new sensitiveness. +When she was living with the aunts she had not minded very seriously +the criticisms made upon her; she had indeed been disappointed when +Aunt Anne had not admired her new dress, and she had hated Amy +Warlock's rudeness, but that was because Martin had been involved. This +new sensitiveness worried her; she hated to care whether people laughed +at the way she came into a room or whether she expressed foolish +opinions about books and pictures. She had always said just what she +thought, but now, before Philip's kindly attention and Mr. Trenchard +senior's indulgence (he wrote books and articles in the papers), she +hated her ignorance. Paul Trenchard knew frankly nothing about Art. "I +know what I like," he said, "and that's enough for me." He liked +Watts's pictures and In Memoriam and Dickens, and he heard The Messiah +once a year in London if he could leave his parish work. He laughed +about it all. "The souls of men! The souls of men!" he would say. "That +is what I'm after, Miss Cardinal. You're not going to catch them with +the latest neurotic novel, however well it's written." +</P> + +<P> +Oh, he was kind to her! He was kinder and kinder and kinder. She told +him everything—except about Martin. She told him all about her life at +St. Dreot's and her father and Uncle Mathew, the aunts and the Chapel. +</P> + +<P> +He was frankly shocked by the Chapel. "That's not the way to get into +heaven," he said. "We must be more patient than that. The daily round, +the daily task, that's the kind." +</P> + +<P> +His physical presence began to pervade all her doings. He was not +handsome, but so clean, so rosy, and so strong. No mystery about him, +no terrors, no invasions from the devil. Everything was clear and +certain. He knew just where he was and exactly whither he was going. +One afternoon, when they were out in the motor together, he took +Maggie's hand under the rug and he held it so calmly, so firmly, with +so kindly a benevolence that she could not be frightened or +uncomfortable. He was like a large friendly brother ... +</P> + +<P> +One day he called her Maggie. He blushed and laughed. "I'm so sorry," +he said. "It slipped out. I caught it from Katherine." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, please, ... never mind," she answered. "Miss Cardinal's so stiff." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you must call me Paul," he said. +</P> + +<P> +A little conversation that Maggie had after this with Millicent showed +her in sharp relief exactly where she stood in relation to the +Trenchard family. They had been out in the motor together. Millie had +been shopping and now they were rolling back through the Park. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you happy with us, Maggie?" Millicent suddenly asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Very happy," Maggie answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I hope you are," said Millicent. "I don't think that as a family +we're very good at making any one happy except ourselves. I think we're +very selfish." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't think you're selfish," said Maggie, "but I think you're +sufficient for yourselves. I don't fancy you really want any one from +outside." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't think the others do. I do though. You don't suppose I'm +going to stay in the Trenchard bosom for ever, do you? I'm not, I +assure you. But what you've said means that you don't really feel at +home with us." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think I want to feel at home with you," Maggie answered. "I +don't belong to any of you. Contrast us, for instance. You've got +everything—good looks, money, cleverness, position. You can get what +you like out of life. I've got nothing. I'm plain, poor, awkward, +uneducated—and yet you know I wouldn't change places with any one. I'd +rather be myself than any one alive." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you would," said Millicent, nodding her head. "That's you all +over. I felt it the moment you came into the house. You're adventurous. +We're not. Katherine was adventurous for a moment when she married +Philip, but she soon slipped back again. But you'll do just what you +want to always." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall have to," said Maggie, laughing. "There's no one else to do it +for me. It isn't only that I don't belong to you—I've never belonged +to any one, only one person—and he's gone now. I belong to him—and +he'll never come back." +</P> + +<P> +"Were you frightfully in love?" asked Millie, deeply interested. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"He oughtn't to have gone away like that," said Millicent. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he ought," said Maggie. "He was quite right. But don't let's +bother about that. I've got to find some place now where I can work. +The worst of it is I'm so ignorant. But there must be something that I +ran do." +</P> + +<P> +"There's Paul," said Millie. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he cares like anything for you. You must have noticed. It began +after the first time he met you. He was always asking about you. Of +course every one's noticed it." +</P> + +<P> +"Cares for me," Maggie repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, of course. He's wanted to marry for a long time. Tired of Grace +bossing him, I expect. That doesn't sound very polite to you, but I +know that he cares for you apart from that—for yourself, I mean. And I +expect Grace is tired of housekeeping." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's feelings were very strange. Why should he care about her? Did +she want him to care? A strange friendly feeling stole about her heart. +She was not alone then, after all. Some one wanted her, wanted her so +obviously that every one had noticed it—did not want her as Martin had +wanted her, against his own will and judgment. If he did offer her his +home what would she feel? +</P> + +<P> +There was rest there, rest and a real home, a home that she had never +in all her life known. Of course she did not love him in the least. His +approach did not make her pulses beat a moment faster, she did not long +for him to come when he was not there—but he wanted her! That was the +great thing. He wanted her! +</P> + +<P> +"Of course if he asked you, you wouldn't really think of marrying him?" +said Millicent. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said Maggie slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"What! Marry him and live in Skeaton!" Millicent was frankly amazed. +"Why, Skeaton's awful, and the people in it are awful, and Grace is +awful. In the summer it's all nigger-minstrels and bathing-tents, and +in the winter there isn't a soul—" Millicent shivered. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie smiled. "Of course it seems dull to you, but my life's been very +different. It hasn't been very exciting, and if I could really help +him—" she broke off. "I do like him," she said. "He's the kindest man +I've ever met. Of course he seems dull to you who have met all kinds of +brilliant people. I hate brilliant people." +</P> + +<P> +The car was in Bryanston Square. Just before it stopped Millie bent +over and kissed Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you're a darling," she said. +</P> + +<P> +But Millie didn't think Maggie "a darling" for long—that is, she did +not think about her at all for long; none of the family did. +</P> + +<P> +So quiet was Maggie, so little in any one's way that, at the end of a +fortnight, she made no difference to any one in the house. She was much +better now, looking a different person, colour in her cheeks and light +in her eyes. During her illness they had cut her hair and this made her +look more than ever like a boy. She wore her plain dark dresses, black +and dark blue; they never quite fitted and, with her queer odd face, +her high forehead, rather awkward mouth, and grave questioning eyes she +gave you the impression that she had been hurried into some disguise +and was wearing it with discomfort but amusement. Some one who met her +at the Trenchards at this time said of her: "What a funny girl! She's +like a schoolboy dressed up to play a part in the school speeches." Of +course she was not playing a part, no one could have been more entirely +natural and honest, but she was odd, strange, out of her own world, and +every one felt it. +</P> + +<P> +It was, perhaps, this strangeness that attracted Paul Trenchard. He +was, above everything, a kindly man-kindly, perhaps a little through +laziness, but nevertheless moved always by distress or misfortune in +others. Maggie was not distressed—she was quite cheerful and entirely +unsentimental—nevertheless she had been very ill, was almost +penniless, had had some private trouble, was an orphan, had no friends +save two old aunts, and was amazingly ignorant of the world. +</P> + +<P> +This last was, perhaps, the thing that struck him most of all. He, too, +was ignorant of the world, but he didn't know that, and he was amazed +at the things that Maggie brushed aside as unimportant. He found that +he was beginning to think of her as "my little heathen." His attitude +was the same as that of a good missionary discovering a naked but +trusting native. +</P> + +<P> +The thought of training this virgin mind was delightful to him. +</P> + +<P> +He liked her quaintness, and one day suddenly, to his own surprise, +when they were alone in the drawing-room, he kissed her, a most chaste +kiss, gently on the forehead. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh. my dear child—" he said in a kind of dismay. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him with complete confidence. So gentle a kiss had it +been that it had been no more than a pressure of the hand. +</P> + +<P> +A few days later Katherine spoke to her. She came up to her bedroom +just as Maggie was beginning to undress. Maggie stood in front of the +glass, her evening frock off, brushing her short thick hair before the +glass. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you made any plans yet, dear?" asked Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"No." she said. "Not yet." +</P> + +<P> +Katherine hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got a confession to make," she said at last. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie turned to look at her with her large childish eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I do hope you've done something wrong," she said, laughing, +"something really bad that I should have to 'overlook.'" +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" asked Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie only said: "We'd be more on a level then." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think it's anything very bad. But the truth is, Maggie, that I +didn't ask you here only for my own pleasure and to make you well. +There was a third reason." +</P> + +<P> +"I know," said Maggie; "Paul." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear!" said Katherine, amazed. "How did you guess? I never should +have done." +</P> + +<P> +"Paul's asked you to find out whether I like him," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I do like him." said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't think that I've been unfair," said Katherine. They were sitting +now side by side on Maggie's bed and Katherine's hand was on Maggie's +knee. "I'll tell you exactly how it happened. Paul was interested in +you from the moment that he saw you at my house ever so long ago. He +asked ever so many questions about you, and the next time he stayed he +wanted me to write and ask you to come and stay. Well, I didn't. I knew +from what you told me that you cared for somebody else, and I didn't +want to get Paul really fond of you if it was going to be no good. You +see, I've known Paul for ages. He's nearly ten years older than I, but +he used to come and stay with us at Garth, when he was at Cambridge and +before he was a clergyman." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm very fond of him. I know the others think he's stupid simply +because he doesn't know the things that they do, but he's good and kind +and honest, and just exactly what he seems to be." +</P> + +<P> +"I like him," repeated Maggie, nodding her head. +</P> + +<P> +"He's been wanting to be married," went on Katherine, "for some time. +I'm going to tell you everything so that I shall have been perfectly +fair. Grace wants him to be married too. All her life she's looked +after him and he's always done exactly what she told him. He's rather +lazy and it's not hard for some one to get an influence over him. Well, +she's not really a very good manager. She thinks she is, but she isn't. +She arranges things and wants things to stay just where she puts them, +but she arranges all the wrong unnecessary things. Still, it's easy to +criticise, and I'm not a very good manager myself. I think she's +growing rather tired of it and would like some one to take it off her +hands. Of course Paul must marry the right person, some one whom she +can control and manage, and some one who won't transplant her in Paul's +affection. That's her idea. But it's all nonsense, of course. You can't +have your cake and eat it. She simply doesn't understand what marriage +is like. When Paul marries she'll learn more about life in a month than +she's learnt in all her days. Well, Maggie, dear, she thinks you're +just the girl for Paul. She thinks she can do what she likes with you. +She thinks you're nice, of course, but she's going to 'form' you and +'train' you. You needn't worry about that, you needn't really, if you +care about Paul. You'd manage both of them in a week. But there it +is—I thought I ought to warn you about Grace." +</P> + +<P> +"As to Paul, I believe you'd be happy. You'd have your home and your +life and your friends. Skeaton isn't so bad if you live in it, I +believe, and Paul could get another living if you weren't happy there." +</P> + +<P> +Did Katherine have any scruples as she pursued her argument? A real +glance at Maggie's confiding trustful gaze might have shaken her +resolve. This child who knew so little about anything—was Skeaton the +world for her? But Katherine had so many philanthropies that she was +given to finishing one off a little abruptly in order to make ready for +the next one. +</P> + +<P> +She was interested just now in a scheme for adopting illegitimate +babies. She thought Maggie an "angel" and she just longed for her to be +happy. Nevertheless Maggie was very ignorant, and it was a little +difficult to see what trade or occupation she would be able to adopt. +She was nearly well now and Katherine did not know quite what to do +with her. Here was an admirable marriage, something that would give a +home and children and friends. What could be better? She had just +passed apparently through a love affair that could have led to no +possible good—solve the difficulty, make Maggie safe for life, and +pass on to the illegitimate babies! +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, I don't love him," said Maggie, staring in front of her. +</P> + +<P> +"But you like him," said Katherine. "It isn't as though Paul were a +very young man. He wouldn't expect anything very romantic. He isn't +really a romantic man himself." +</P> + +<P> +"And I shall always love Martin," pursued Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Katherine's own romance had fulfilled itself so thoroughly that it had +almost ceased to be romantic. The Trenchard blood in her made her a +little impatient of unfulfilled romances. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think, Maggie, dear," she said gently, "that it would be +better to forget him?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't," said Maggie, moving away from Katherine. "And I should +have to tell Paul about him. I'd tell Paul the exact truth, that if I +married him it was because I liked him and I thought we'd be good +friends. I see quite clearly that I can't sit for ever waiting for +Martin to come back, and the sooner I settle to something the better. +If Paul wants a friend I can be one, but I should never love him—even +though Martin wasn't there. And as to the managing, I'm dreadfully +careless and forgetful." +</P> + +<P> +"You'd soon learn," said Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think I should?" asked Maggie. "I don't know, I'm sure. As to +Grace, I think we'd get on all right. There's a greater difficulty than +that though." +</P> + +<P> +"What?" asked Katherine as Maggie hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"Religion," said Maggie. "Paul's a clergyman and I don't believe in his +religion at all. Two months ago I'd have said I hated all religion—and +so would you if you'd had a time like me. But since Martin's gone I'm +not so sure. There's some-thing I want to find out... But Paul's found +out everything. He's quite sure and certain. I'd have to tell him I +don't believe in any of his faith." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell him, of course," said Katherine. "I think he knows that already. +He's going to convert you. He looks forward to it. If he hadn't been so +lazy he'd have been a missionary." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me about Skeaton," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"I've only been there once," said Katherine. "Frankly, I didn't like it +very much, but then I'm so used to the Glebeshire sea that it all +seemed rather tame. There was a good deal of sand blowing about the day +I was there, but Paul's house is nice with a garden and a croquet-lawn, +and—and—Oh! very nice, and nice people next door I believe." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad it's not like Glebeshire," said Maggie. "That's a point in +its favour. I want to be somewhere where everything is quiet and +orderly, and every one knows their own mind and all the bells ring at +the right time and no one's strange or queer, and—most of all—where +no one's afraid of anything. All my life I've been with people who were +afraid and I've been afraid myself. Now Paul and Grace are not afraid +of anything." +</P> + +<P> +"No, they're not," said Katherine, laughing. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly Maggie broke out: +</P> + +<P> +"Katherine! Tell me truly. Does Paul want me, does he need me? Does he +indeed?" +</P> + +<P> +The storm of appeal in Maggie's voice made Katherine suddenly shy; +there was a hint at loneliness and desolation there that was something +beyond her reach. She wanted to help. She was suddenly frightened at +her urging of Paul's suit. Something seemed to say to her: "Leave this +alone. Don't take the responsibility of this. You don't understand ..." +</P> + +<P> +But another voice said: "Poor child ... all alone, penniless, without a +friend. What a chance for her! Paul such a kind man." +</P> + +<P> +So she kissed Maggie, and said: "He wants you dreadfully, Maggie dear." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's cheeks flushed. +</P> + +<P> +"That's nice," she said in her most ordinary voice. "Because no one +ever has before, you know." +</P> + +<P> +Paul's proposal came the very next day. It came after luncheon in a +corner of the drawing-room. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie knew quite well that it was coming. She was lying in a long +chair near the fire, a shawl over her knees. It was a blustering day at +the end of February. The windows rattled, and the wind rushing down the +chimney blew the flame into little flags and pennants of colour. +</P> + +<P> +Paul came and stood by the fire, warming his hands, his legs spread +out. Maggie looked at him with a long comprehensive glance that took +him in from head to foot. She seemed to know then that she was going to +marry him. A voice seemed to say to her: "Look at him well. This is the +man you're going to live with. You'd better realise him." +</P> + +<P> +She did realise him; his white hair, his rosy cheeks, his boyish nose +and mouth and rounded chin, his broad chest, thick long legs and large +white hands—soft perhaps, but warm and comfortable and safe. Maggie +could think of little else as she looked at him but of how nice it +would be to lay her head back on that broad chest, feel his arms around +her, and forget—forget—forget! +</P> + +<P> +That was what she needed—forgetfulness and work ... She did not love +him—no, not one little atom. She had never felt less excitement about +anybody, but she liked him, respected him, and trusted him. And he +wanted her, wanted her desperately, Katherine had said, that was the +chief thing of all. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie!" he said suddenly, turning round to her. "Would you ever think +of marrying me?" +</P> + +<P> +She liked that directness and simplicity, characteristic of him. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think I'd be much of a success, Paul," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He saw at once from that that she did not intend instantly to refuse +him. His rosy cheeks took on an added tinge of colour and he caught a +chair, drew it up to her long one and sat down, bending eagerly towards +her. +</P> + +<P> +"Leave that to me," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I oughtn't to think of it," she answered, shaking her head. "And for +very good reasons. For one thing I'm not in love with you, for another +I'm not religious, and for a third I'm so careless that I'd never do +for your wife." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I knew about the first," he said eagerly. "I knew you didn't +love me, but that will come, Maggie. It MUST come ..." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie shook her head. "I love some one else," she said, "and I always +will. But he's gone away and will never come back. I've made up my mind +to that. But if he did come back and wanted me I couldn't promise that +I wouldn't—" She broke off. "You can see that it wouldn't do." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I can't see," he said, taking her hand. "I can see that you like +me, Maggie. I can see that we're splendid friends. If your +other—friend—has left you altogether, then—well, time makes a great +difference in those things. I think after we'd been together a +little—Oh, Maggie, do!" he broke off just like a boy. "Do! We suit +each other so well that we MUST be happy, and then Grace likes you—she +likes you very much. She does indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"Let's leave Grace out of this," Maggie said firmly. "It's between you +and me, Paul. It's nobody else's affair. What about the other two +objections? I don't believe in your faith at all, and I'm unpunctual +and forgetful, and break things." +</P> + +<P> +Strangely she was wanting him urgently now to reassure her. She +realised that if now he withdrew she would be faced with a loneliness +more terrible than anything that she had known since Martin had left +her. The warm pressure of his hand about hers reassured her. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie dear," he said softly, "I love you better because you're young +and unformed. I can help you, dear, and you can help me, of course; I'm +a dreadful old buffer in many ways. I'm forty, you know, and you're +such a child. How old are you, Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty! Fancy! And you can like an old parson—well, well ... If you +care for me nothing else matters. God will see to the rest." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't like leaving things to other people," Maggie said slowly. "Now +I suppose I've shocked you. But there you are; I shall always be +shocking you." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing that you can say will shock me," he answered firmly. "Do you +know that that's part of the charm you have for me, you dear little +wild thing? If you will come and live with me perhaps you will see how +God works, how mysterious are His ways, and what He means to do for +you—" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie shivered: "Oh, now you're talking like Aunt Anne. I don't want +to feel that I'm something that some one can do what he likes with. I'm +not." +</P> + +<P> +"No. I know you're not," Paul answered eagerly. "You're very +independent. I admire that in you—and so does Grace—" +</P> + +<P> +"Would Grace like us to marry?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the desire of her heart," said Paul. +</P> + +<P> +"But how can you want to marry me when you know I don't love you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Love's a strange thing. Companionship can make great changes. You like +me. That is enough for the present. I can be patient. I'm not an +impetuous man." +</P> + +<P> +He was certainly not. He was just a large warm comfortable creature +far, far from the terrified and strangely travelled soul of Martin ... +Insensibly, hardly realising what she did, Maggie was drawn towards +Paul. He drew close to her, moved on to the sofa, and then with one arm +about her let her head rest against his chest. Maggie could neither +move nor speak. She only felt a warm comfort, an intense desire for +rest. +</P> + +<P> +Very, very gently he bent down and kissed her forehead. The clock +ticked on. The flames of the fire spurted and fell. Maggie's eyes +closed, she gave a little sigh, and soon, her cheek against his +waistcoat, like a little child, was fast asleep. +</P> + +<P> +The engagement was a settled thing. Every one in the house was +relieved. Maggie herself felt as though she had found lights and +safety, running from a wood full of loneliness and terror. She was +sharp enough to see how relieved they all were that she was 'settled.' +They were true kindly people, and now they were more kind to her than +ever: that showed that they had been uneasy about her. She was 'off +their hands now.' +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, when she saw this in the faces of Philip and Mr. Trenchard, and +even of Millicent, was glad that she was engaged. She was somebody's +now; she had friends and a home and work now, and she would banish all +that other world for ever. For ever? ... How curious it was that from +the moment of her engagement her aunts, their house, the Chapel, and +the people around it began to press upon her attention with a pathos +and sentiment that she had never felt before. She went to see the +aunts, of course, and sat in the old drawing-room for half-an-hour, and +they were kind and distant. They were glad that she was to be married; +they hoped that she would be happy. Aunt Anne looked very ill, and +there was a terrible air of desertion about the house as though all the +life had gone out of it. Maggie came away very miserable. Then she said +to herself: "Now, look here. You're in a new house now. You've got to +think of nothing but that—nothing, nothing, nothing ..." +</P> + +<P> +She meant Martin. She might think of Martin (how indeed could she help +it?) but she was not to long for him. No, no ... not to long for him. +She did wish that she could go to sleep more quickly when she went to +bed. +</P> + +<P> +Paul and Grace were very kind to her. Paul was just the big elder +brother that she loved him to be. No more sentiment than that. A kiss +morning, a kiss evening, that was all. Grace behaved to them both with +a motherly indulgence. Maggie saw that she considered that she had +arranged the whole affair. There were signs that she intended to +arrange everything for Maggie. Well, it was rather pleasant just now to +have things arranged for you. Maggie had only one wish—that Grace +would not take so long to explain everything. Maggie always ran ahead +of her long before she had finished her involved sentences and then had +to curb her impatience. However one would get used to Grace; one would +have to because she was going to live with them after they were +married. Maggie had hoped that it would be otherwise, but it was at +once obvious that neither Paul nor Grace dreamt of being separated. +</P> + +<P> +The wedding was to be as soon as possible, and very, very quiet. In a +little church close by, no bridesmaids, everything very simple. Maggie +was glad of that. She would have hated a church full of staring people. +She enjoyed immensely buying her trousseau. Paul was very generous with +his money; it was evident that Grace thought him too generous. Maggie +and Katherine went together to buy things, and Katherine was a darling. +Maggie fancied that Katherine was not quite easy in her mind about her +share in the affair. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't expect Skeaton to be wildly exciting, Maggie dear, will +you?" she said. "You'll find plenty to do and there are lots of nice +people, I'm sure, and you'll come up and stay with us here." +</P> + +<P> +"I think it sounds delightful," said Maggie. "If you'd lived for years +in St. Dreot's, Katherine, you wouldn't talk about other places being +dull. It isn't excitement I want. It's work." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you let Grace bully you," said Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +"Bully me? Grace?" Maggie was very astonished. "Why, she's the kindest +old thing. She wants me to do everything." +</P> + +<P> +"So she says," said Katherine doubtfully. "But she's very jealous of +Paul. How much she'll really like giving up her authority when it comes +to the point I don't know. You stick up to her. Paul's weak." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think he is." said Maggie rather indignantly. "Grace always +does what he says." "Yes, just now," said Katherine. +</P> + +<P> +And Maggie had one funny little conversation with Henry Trenchard. That +wild youth catching her alone one day said abruptly: +</P> + +<P> +"What the devil have you done it for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Done what?" asked Maggie, her heart beating a little faster. Strangely +Henry reminded her of Martin. He alone of all the Trenchards had +something that was of that other world. +</P> + +<P> +"Engaged yourself to Paul," said Henry. +</P> + +<P> +"Why shouldn't I?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't love him—of course you couldn't. You're not his sort in the +least. You're worth a million Pauls." +</P> + +<P> +This was so odd for Henry, who was certainly not given to compliments, +that Maggie burst out laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you may laugh," said Henry. "I know what I'm talking about. Have +you ever seen Paul asleep after dinner?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you had. That might have saved you. Have you ever seen Grace +lose her temper?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie, this time a little uneasily. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here," he came close to her, staring at her with those eyes of +his that could be very charming when he liked. "Break it off. Say you +think it's a mistake. You'll be miserable." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed I shan't," said Maggie, tossing her head. "Whatever happens I'm +not going to be miserable. No one can make me that." +</P> + +<P> +"So you think," Henry frowned. "I can't think what you want to be +married for at all. These days women can have such a good time, +especially a woman with character like you. If I were a woman I'd never +marry." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't understand," said Maggie. "You haven't been lonely all your +life as I have, and you're not afraid of making yourself cheap +and—and—looking for some one who doesn't want—you. It's so easy for +you to talk. And Paul wants me—really he does—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he does," said Henry slowly. "He's in love with you all right. +I'm as sorry for Paul as I am for you." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie laughed. "It's very kind of you to be sorry," she said, "but you +needn't trouble. I believe we can look after ourselves." +</P> + +<P> +For a quarter of an hour after this conversation she was a little +uneasy. He was a clever boy, Henry; he did watch people. But then he +was very young, It was all guesswork with him. +</P> + +<P> +She became now strangely quiescent; her energy, her individuality, her +strength of will seemed, for the time, entirely to have gone. She +surrendered herself to Grace and Paul and Katherine and they did what +they would with her. +</P> + +<P> +Only once was she disturbed. Two nights before the wedding she dreamt +of Martin. It did not appear as a dream at all. It seemed to her that +she had been asleep and that she suddenly woke. She was gazing, from +her bed, into her own room, but at the farther end of it instead of the +wall with the rosy trees and the gold mirror was another room. This +room was strange and cheerless with bare boards, a large four-poster +bed with faded blue hangings, two old black prints with +eighteenth-century figures and a big standing mirror. In front of the +bed, staring into the mirror, was Martin, He was dressed shabbily in a +blue reefer coat. He looked older than when she had seen him last, was +stouter and ill, with white puffy cheeks and dark shadows under his +eyes. She saw him very clearly under the light of two candles that +wavered a little in the draught. +</P> + +<P> +He was staring into the mirror, absorbed apparently in what he saw +there. She cried his name and he seemed to start and turn towards the +door listening. Then the picture faded. She woke to find herself +sitting up in bed crying his name ... +</P> + +<P> +In the morning she drove this dream away from her, refusing to think of +it or listen to it, but somewhere far down in her soul something +trembled. +</P> + +<P> +The wedding was over so quickly that she scarcely realised it. There +was the stuffy little church, very empty and dusty, with brass plates +on the wall. She could hear, in the street, rumblings of carts and the +rattle of wheels; somewhere a barrel-organ played. The clergyman was a +little man who smiled upon her kindly. When Paul put the ring on her +finger she started as though for a moment she awoke from a dream. She +was glad that he looked so clean and tidy. Grace was wearing too grand +a hat with black feathers. In the vestry Paul kissed her, and then they +walked down the aisle together. She saw Katherine and Millie and Henry. +Her fingers caught tightly about Paul's stout arm, but she would have +been more at home she thought with Uncle Mathew just then. +</P> + +<P> +It was a nice bright spring day, although the wind blew the dust about. +They had a meal in Katherine's house and some one made a speech, and +Maggie drank some champagne. She hoped she looked nice in her grey silk +dress, and then caught sight of herself in a glass and thought she was +as ever a fright. +</P> + +<P> +"My little wild thing—mine now," whispered Paul. She thought that +rather silly; she was not a wild thing, but simply Maggie Cardinal. Oh, +no! Maggie Trenchard ... She did not feel Maggie Trenchard at all and +she did not suppose that she ever would. +</P> + +<P> +They were to have a fortnight alone at Skeaton before Grace came. +Maggie was glad of that. Paul was really nicer when Grace was not there. +</P> + +<P> +They were all very kind to her. They had given her good +presents—Millie some silver brushes, Henry some books, Philip a fan, +and Katherine a most beautiful dressing-bag. Maggie had never had such +things before. But she could have wished for something from her own +people. She had written to Uncle Mathew but had not heard from him. +</P> + +<P> +At the very last moment, on the morning of the wedding day, a present +came from the aunts—an old box for handkerchiefs. The cover was inlaid +with sea-shells and there was a little looking-glass inside. +</P> + +<P> +Very soon it was all over and then to her own intense surprise she was +alone in the train with Paul. What had she expected? She did not +know—but somehow not this. +</P> + +<P> +They were in a first-class carriage. Paul was doing the thing nobly. He +sat close to her, his broad knee against her dress. How broad his knee +was, a great expanse of black shining cloth. He took her hand and +rested it on the expanse, and, at the touch of the stuff and the throb +of the warm flesh beneath it, she shivered a little and would wish to +have drawn her hand away. He seemed so much larger than she had +expected; from his knee to his high shining white collar was an immense +distance and midway there was a thick gold watch-chain rising and +falling as he breathed. He smelt very faintly of tooth-powder. +</P> + +<P> +But on the whole she was comfortable; only the thin gold ring round her +finger felt strange. Deep in a little pocket inside her blouse was the +ring with the three little pearls. +</P> + +<P> +"I do hope, Maggie darling," he said, "you don't think it strange our +not going somewhere else for our honeymoon. My lads will be expecting +me back—I was kept longer in London than I should have been—by you, +you little witch. My witch now—" +</P> + +<P> +He put his arm round her waist and urged her head towards his coat. But +her hat, her beautiful hat that had cost so much more than she had ever +spent on a hat before, was in the way. It struck into his chin. They +were both uncomfortable and then, thank heaven, the train slowed down; +they were at a station and some one got into their carriage, a stout +man, all newspaper and creases to his trousers. That, in the +circumstances, was a great relief and soon Maggie dozed, seeing the +telegraph wires and the trees like waving hands through a mist of sleep. +</P> + +<P> +As she fell asleep she realised that this was only the second time in +all her life that she had been in a train. Some one bawled in her car +"Skeaton! Skeaton!" and she looked up to find a goat-faced porter +gazing at her through the window. She was on a storm-driven platform, +her husband's arm was through hers, she was being helped into an old +faded cab. Now they were driving down a hill, under a railway-arch, +along a road with villas and trees, trees and villas, and then villas +alone. What a wind! The bare branches were in a frenzy, and from almost +every villa blew little pennons of white curtains. "They like to have +their windows open any way," she thought. Paul said very little; he was +obviously nervous of how she would take it all. She took it all very +well. +</P> + +<P> +"What pretty houses!" she said. "And here are the shops!" +</P> + +<P> +Only a few—a sweet-shop, a grocer's, a stationer's with "Simpson's +Library" on the door, a post-office. +</P> + +<P> +"The suburbs," said Paul. +</P> + +<P> +What a wind! It rolled up the road like a leaping carpet, you could +almost see its folds and creases. No one about—not a living soul. +</P> + +<P> +"The cab I ordered never came. Lucky thing there was one there," said +Paul. +</P> + +<P> +Not a soul about. Does any one live here? She could not see much +through the window, and she could hear nothing because the glass +rattled so. +</P> + +<P> +"Here we are!" The cab stopped with a jerk. Here they were then. A gate +swung to behind them, there was a little drive with bushes on either +side of it and then the house. +</P> + +<P> +Not a very handsome house, Maggie thought. A dull square grey with +chimneys like ears in exactly the right places. Some pieces of paper +were whirled up and down by the wind, they danced about the horse's +feet. She noticed that the door-handles needed polishing. A cavernous +hall, a young girl with untidy hair and a yelping dog received them. +</P> + +<P> +"That's Mitch!" said Paul. "Dear old Mitch. How are you, dear old +fellow? Down Mitch! Down! There's a good dog." +</P> + +<P> +The young girl was terrified of Maggie. She gulped through her nose. +</P> + +<P> +"I've put tea in the study, sir," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Tea at once, little woman, eh?" said Paul. "I'm dying for some. Thank +you, Emily. All well? That's right. Dear, dear, It IS nice to be home +again." +</P> + +<P> +Yes, he was nervous, poor Paul. She felt a great tenderness for him, +but she could not say the right words. She should have said: "It is +nice," but it was not. The hall was so cold and dark, and all over the +house windows were rattling. +</P> + +<P> +They went straight into the study. What a room! It reminded Maggie at +once, in its untidiness and discomfort, of her father's, study, and +that thought struck a chill into her very heart, so that she had to +pause for a moment and control herself. There were piles of newspapers +heaped up against the shelves; books run to the ceiling, old, old books +with the covers tumbling off them. On the stone mantelpiece was a +perfect litter—old pipes, bundles of letters, a ball of string, some +yellow photographs, a crucifix and a small plant dead and shrivelled in +its pot. +</P> + +<P> +"Now then, darling. Hurrah for some tea!" +</P> + +<P> +She poured it out and he watched her in an ecstasy. Strangely she began +to be frightened and a little breathless, as though the walls of the +room were slowly closing in. The tea had been standing a long time, it +was very strong and chill. +</P> + +<P> +The house was a firing-ground of rattle and whirs, but there were no +human sounds anywhere. There was dust all over the room. +</P> + +<P> +They had said nothing for some time. +</P> + +<P> +He spoke suddenly, his voice husky and awkward, as though he were +trying a new voice for the first time. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie!" he said. "Don't sit so far away. Come over here." +</P> + +<P> +She crossed over to him. He, with an arm that seemed to be suddenly of +iron, pulled her on to his knee. She was rebellious. Her whole body +stiffened. She did not want this, she did not want this! Some voice +within cried out: "Take care! Take care!" ... He pressed her close to +him; he kissed her furiously, savagely, her eyes, her mouth, her cheek. +She could feel his heart pounding beneath his clothes like a savage +beast. His hands were all about her; he was crushing her so that she +was hurt, but she did not feel that at all; there was something else ... +</P> + +<P> +With all her might she fought down her resistance. This was her duty. +She must obey. But something desolate and utterly, utterly lonely crept +away and cried bitterly, watching her surrender. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0303"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SKEATON-ON-SEA +</H3> + +<P> +She was swinging higher, higher, higher—swinging with that delightful +rhythm that one knows best in dreams, lazily, idly, and yet with +purpose and resolve. She was swinging far above the pain, the +rebellion, the surrender. That was left for ever; the time of her +tears, of her loneliness was over. Above her, yet distant, was a golden +cloud, soft, iridescent, and in the heart of this lay, she knew, the +solution of the mystery; when she reached it the puzzle would be +resolved, and in a wonderful tranquillity she could rest after her +journey. Nearer and nearer she swung; the cloud was a blaze of gold so +that she must not look, but could feel its warmth and heat already +irradiating about her. Only to know! ... to connect the two worlds, to +find the bridge, to destroy the gulf! +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly the rhythm changed. She was descending again; slowly the +cloud diminished, a globe of light, a ball of fire, a dazzling star. +The air was cold, her eyes could not penetrate the dark; with a sigh +she awoke. +</P> + +<P> +It was early morning, and a filmy white shadow pervaded the room. For a +moment she did not know where she was; she saw the ghostly shadows of +chairs, of the chest of drawers, of a high cupboard. Then the large +picture of "The Crucifixion," very, very dim, reminded her. She knew +where she was; she turned and saw her husband sleeping at her side, +huddled, like a child, his face on his arm, gently breathing, in the +deepest sleep. She watched him. There had been a moment that night when +she had hated him, hated him so bitterly that she could have fought him +and even killed him. There had been another moment after that, when she +had been so miserable that her own death seemed the only solution, when +she had watched him tumble into sleep and had herself lain, with +burning eyes and her flesh dry and hot, staring into the dark, ashamed, +humiliated. Then the old Maggie had come to her rescue, the old Maggie +who bade her make the best of her conditions whatever they might be, +who told her there was humour in everything, hope always, courage +everywhere, and that in her own inviolable soul lay her strength, that +no one could defeat her did she not defeat herself. +</P> + +<P> +Now, most strangely, in that early light, she felt a great tenderness +for him, the tenderness of the mother for the child. She put out her +hand, touched his shoulder, stroked it with her hand, laid her head +against it. He, murmuring in his sleep, turned towards her, put his arm +around her and so, in the shadow of his heart, she fell into deep, +dreamless slumber. +</P> + +<P> +At breakfast that morning she felt with him a strange shyness and +confusion. She had never been shy with him before. At the very first +she had been completely at her ease; that had been one of his greatest +attractions for her. But now she realised that she would be for a whole +fortnight alone with him, that she did not know him in the least, and +that he himself was strangely embarrassed by his own discoveries that +he was making. +</P> + +<P> +So they, both of them, took the world that was on every side of them, +put it in between them and left their personal relationship to wait for +a better time. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was childishly excited. She had, for the first time in her life, +a house of her own to order and arrange; by the middle of that first +afternoon she had forgotten that Paul existed. +</P> + +<P> +She admitted to herself at once, so that there should be no pretence +about the matter, that the house was hideous. "Yes, it's hideous," she +said aloud, standing in the middle of the dining-room and looking about +her. It never could have been very much of a house, but they (meaning +Paul and Grace) had certainly not done their best for it. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had had no education, she had not perhaps much natural taste, +but she knew when things and people were sympathetic, and this house +was as unsympathetic as a house could well be. To begin with, the +wall-papers were awful; in the dining-room there was a dark dead green +with some kind of pink flower; the drawing-room was dressed in a kind +of squashed strawberry colour; the wall-paper of the staircases and +passages was of imitation marble, and the three bedrooms were pink, +green, and yellow, perfect horticultural shows. +</P> + +<P> +It was the distinctive quality of all the wall-papers that nothing +looked well against them, and the cheap reproductions in gilt frames, +the religious prints, the photographs (groups of the Rev. Paul at +Cambridge, at St. Ermand's Theological College, with the Skeaton Band +of Hope) were all equally forlorn and out of place. +</P> + +<P> +It was evident that everything in the house was arranged and intended +to stay for ever where it was, the chairs against the walls, the +ornaments on the mantelpieces, the photograph-frames, the plush mats, +the bright red pots with ferns, the long blue vases, and yet the +impression was not one of discipline and order. Aunt Anne's house had +been untidy, but it had had an odd life and atmosphere of its own. This +house was dead, utterly and completely dead. The windows of the +dining-room looked out on to a lawn and round the lawn was a stone wall +with broken glass to protect it. "As though there were anything to +steal!" thought Maggie. But then you cannot expect a garden to look its +best at the beginning of April. "I'll wait a little," thought Maggie. +"And then I'll make this house better. I'll destroy almost everything +in it." +</P> + +<P> +About mid-day with rather a quaking heart Maggie penetrated the +kitchen. Here were gathered together Alice the cook, Emily the +housemaid, and Clara the between maid. +</P> + +<P> +Alice was large, florid, and genial. Nevertheless at once Maggie +distrusted her. No servant had any right to appear so wildly delighted +to see a new mistress. Alice had doubtless her own plans. Emily was +prim and conceited, and Clara did not exist. Alice was ready to do +everything that Maggie wanted, and it was very apparent at once that +she had not liked "Miss Grace." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, that'll be much better than the way Miss Grace 'ad it, Mum. In +their jackets, Mum, very well. Certainly. That would be better." +</P> + +<P> +"I think you'd better just give us what seems easiest for dinner, +Cook," said Maggie, thereby handing herself over, delivered and bound. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, Mum—I'm sure I'll do my best," said Alice. +</P> + +<P> +Early on that first afternoon she was taken to see the Church. For a +desperate moment her spirits failed her as she stood at the end of the +Lane and looked. This was a Church of the newest red brick, and every +seat was of the most shining wood. The East End window was flaming +purple, with a crimson Christ ascending and yellow and blue disciples +amazed together on the ground. Paul stood flushed with pride and +pleasure, his hand through Maggie's arm. +</P> + +<P> +"That's a Partright window," he said with that inflection that Maggie +was already beginning to think of as "his public voice." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid, Paul dear," said Maggie, "I'm very ignorant." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't know Partright? Oh, he's the great man of the last thirty +years—did the great East window of St. Martin's, Pontefract. We had a +job to get him I can tell you. Just look at that purple." +</P> + +<P> +"On the right you'll see the Memorial Tablet to our brave lads who fell +in the South African War—Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori—very +appropriate. Brave fellows, brave fellows! Just behind you, Maggie, is +the Mickleham Font, one of the finest specimens of modern stone-work in +the county—given to us by Sir Joseph Mickleham—Mickleham Hall, you +know, only two miles from here. He used to attend morning service here +frequently. Died five years ago. Fine piece of work!" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie looked at it. It was enormous, a huge battlement of a font in +dead white stone with wreaths of carved ivy creeping about it. +</P> + +<P> +"It makes one feel rather shivery," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you must see our lectern," said Paul eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +And so it continued. There was apparently a great deal to be said about +the Lectern, and then about the Choir-Screen, and then about the +Reredos, and then about the Pulpit, and then about the Vestry, and then +about the Collecting-Box for the Poor, and then about the Hassocks, and +finally about the Graveyard ... To all this Maggie listened and hoped +that she made the proper answers, but the truth of the matter was that +she was cold and dismayed. The Chapel had been ugly enough, but behind +its ugliness there had been life; now with the Church as with the house +there was no life visible. Paul, putting his hand on her shoulder, said: +</P> + +<P> +"Here, darling, will be the centre of our lives. This is our temple. +Round this building all our happiness will revolve." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear," said Maggie. She was taken then for a little walk. They +went down Ivy Road and into Skeaton High Street. Here were the shops. +Mr. Bloods, the bookseller's, Tunstall the butcher, Toogood the grocer, +Father the draper, Minster the picture-dealer, Harcourt the +haberdasher, and so on. Maggie rather liked the High Street; it +reminded her of the High Street in Polchester, although there was no +hill. Out of the High Street and on to the Esplanade. You should never +see an Esplanade out of the season, Katherine had once said to Maggie. +That dictum seemed certainly true this time. There could be no doubt +that this Esplanade was not looking its best under the blustering March +wind. Here a deserted bandstand, there a railway station, here a dead +haunt for pierrots, there a closed and barred cinema house, here a row +of stranded bathing-machines, there a shuttered tea-house—and not a +living soul in sight. In front of them was a long long stretch of sand, +behind them to right and left the huddled tenements of the town, in +front of them, beyond the sand, the grey sea—and again not a living +soul in sight. The railway line wound its way at their side, losing +itself in the hills and woods of the horizon. +</P> + +<P> +"There are not many people about, are there?" said Maggie. Nor could +she wonder. The East wind cut along the desolate stretches of silence, +and yet how strange a wind! It seemed to have no effect at all upon the +sea, which rolled in sluggishly with snake-like motion, throwing up on +the dim colourless beach a thin fringe of foam, baring its teeth at the +world in impotent discontent. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! there's a boy!" cried Maggie, amazed at her own relief. "How often +do the trains come in?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we don't have many trains in the off-season," said Paul. "They +put on several extra ones in the summer." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what's the sand doing?" Maggie cried. +</P> + +<P> +She had seen sand often enough in her own Glebeshire, but never sand +like this. Under the influence of the wind it was blowing and curving +into little spirals of dust; a sudden cloud, with a kind of personal +animosity rose and flung itself across the rails at Maggie and Paul. +They were choking and blinded—and in the distance clouds of sand rose +and fell, with gusts and impulses that seemed personal and alive. +</P> + +<P> +"What funny sand!" said Maggie again. "When it blows in Glebeshire it +blows and there's a perfect storm. There's a storm or there isn't. +Here—" She broke off. She could see that Paul hadn't the least idea of +what she was speaking. +</P> + +<P> +"The sand is always blowing about here," he said. "Now what about tea?" +</P> + +<P> +They walked back through the High Street and not a soul was to be seen. +</P> + +<P> +"Does nobody live here?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"The population," said Paul quite gravely, "is eight thousand, four +hundred and fifty-four." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I see," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +They had tea in the dusty study again. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to change this house," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Change it?" asked Paul. "What's my little girl going to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"She's going to destroy ever so many things," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better wait," said Paul, moving a little away, "until Grace +comes back, dear. You can consult with her." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie said nothing. +</P> + +<P> + Next day Mrs. Constantine, Miss Purves, and Mrs. Maxse came to tea.<BR> +They had tea in the drawing-room all amongst the squashed strawberries. +Three large ferns in crimson pots watched them as they ate. Maggie +thought: "Grace seems to have a passion for ferns." She had been +terribly nervous before the ladies' arrival—that old nervousness that +had made her tremble before Aunt Anne at St. Dreot's, before the +Warlocks, before old Martha. But with it came as always her sense of +independence and individuality. +</P> + +<P> +"They can't eat me," she thought. It was obvious at once that they did +not want to do anything of the kind. They were full of kindness and +curiosity. Mrs. Constantine took the lead, and it was plain that she +had been doing this all her life. She was a large black and red woman +with clothes that fitted her like a uniform. Her hair was of a raven +gleaming blackness, her cheeks were red, her manner so assured and +commanding that she seemed to Maggie at once like a policeman directing +the traffic. The policeman of Christian Skeaton she was, and it did not +take Maggie two minutes to discover that Paul was afraid of her. She +had a deep bass voice and a hearty laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"I can understand her," thought Maggie, "and I believe she'll +understand me." +</P> + +<P> +Very different Miss Purves. If Mrs. Constantine was the policeman of +Skeaton, Miss Purves was the town-crier. She rang her bell and +announced the news, and also insisted that you should tell her without +delay any item of news that you had collected. +</P> + +<P> +In appearance she was like any old maid whose love of gossip has led +her to abandon her appearance. She had obviously surrendered the idea +of attracting the male, and flung on her clothes—an old black hat, a +grey coat and skirt—with a negligence that showed that she cared for +worthier things. She gave the impression that there was no time to be +lost were one to gather all the things in life worth hearing. +</P> + +<P> +If Mrs. Constantine stood for the police and Miss Purves the +town-crier, Mrs. Maxse certainly represented Society. She was dressed +beautifully, and she must have been very pretty once. Her hair was now +grey, but her cheeks had still a charming bloom. She was delicate and +fragile, rustling and scented, with a beautiful string of pearls round +her neck (this, in the daytime, Maggie thought very odd), and a large +black hat with a sweeping feather. Her voice was a little sad, a little +regretful, as though she knew that her beautiful youth was gone and was +making the best of what she had. +</P> + +<P> +She told Maggie that "she couldn't help" being an idealist. +</P> + +<P> +"I know it's foolish of me," she said in her gentle voice, smiling her +charming smile. "They all tell me so. But if life isn't meant to be +beautiful, where are we? Everything must have a meaning, mustn't it, +Mrs. Trenchard, and however often we fail—and after all we are only +human—we must try, try again. I believe in seeing the best in people, +because then they live up to that. People are what we make them, don't +you think?" +</P> + +<P> +"The woman's a fool," thought Maggie. Nevertheless, she liked her +kindness. She was so strangely driven. She wished to think of Martin +always, never to forget him, but at the same time not to think of the +life that was connected with him. She must never think of him as some +one who might return. Did that once begin all this present life would +be impossible—and she meant to make this new existence not only +possible but successful. Therefore she was building, so hard as she +could, this new house; the walls were rising, the rooms were prepared, +every window was barred, the doors were locked, no one from outside +should enter, and everything that belonged to it—Paul, Grace, the +Church, these women, Skeaton itself, her household duties, the +servants, everything and every one was pressed into service. She must +have so much to do that she could not think, she must like every one +else so much that she could not want any one else—that other world +must be kept out, no sound nor sight of it must enter ... If even she +could forget Martin. What had he said to her. "Promise me whatever I +am, whatever I do, you will love me always"—and she had promised. Here +she was married to Paul and loving Martin more than ever! As she looked +at Mrs. Constantine she wondered what she would say did she know that. +Nevertheless, she had not deceived Paul ... She had told him. She would +make this right. She would force this life to give her what she needed, +work and friends and a place in the world. Her face a little white with +her struggle to keep her house standing, she turned to her guests. She +was afraid that she did not play the hostess very well. She felt as +though she were play-acting. She repeated phrases that she had heard +Katherine Mark use, and laughed at herself for doing so. She suspected +that they thought her very odd, and she fancied that Mrs. Constantine +looked at her short hair with grave suspicion. +</P> + +<P> +Afterwards, when she told Paul this, he was rather uncomfortable. +</P> + +<P> +"It'll soon be long again, dear, won't it?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you like it short then?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I like it, but there's no reason to be unusual, is there? We +don't want to seem different from other people, do we, darling?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said Maggie. "We want to be ourselves. I don't think I +shall ever grow my hair long again. It's so much more comfortable like +this." +</P> + +<P> +"If I ask you, dear," said Paul. +</P> + +<P> +"No, not even if you ask me," she answered, laughing. +</P> + +<P> +She noticed then, for the first time, that he could look sulky like a +small school-boy. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Paul," she said. "If you wanted to grow a beard I shouldn't like +it, but I shouldn't dream of stopping you." +</P> + +<P> +"That's quite different," he answered. "I should never dream of growing +a beard. Grace won't like it if you look odd." +</P> + +<P> +"Grace isn't my teacher," said Maggie with a sudden hot hostility that +surprised herself. +</P> + +<P> +She discovered, by the way, very quickly that the three ladies had no +very warm feelings for Grace. They showed undisguised pleasure at the +thought that Maggie would now be on various Committees instead of her +sister-in-law. +</P> + +<P> +"It will be your place, of course, as wife of the vicar," said Mrs. +Constantine. "Hitherto Miss Trenchard—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I couldn't be on a Committee," cried Maggie. "I've never been +on one in my life. I should never know what to do." +</P> + +<P> +"Never been on a Committee!" cried Miss Purves, quivering with +interest. "Why, Mrs. Trenchard, where have you been all this time?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm only twenty," said Maggie. They certainly thought it strange of +her to confess to her age like that. "At home father never had any +Committees, he did it all himself, or rather didn't do it." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Constantine shook her head. "We must all help you," she said. +"You're very young, my dear, for the responsibilities of this parish." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I am," said Maggie frankly. "And I'll be very glad of anything +you can tell me. But you mustn't let me be Treasurer or Secretary of +anything. I should never answer any of the letters, and I should +probably spend all the money myself." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, you shouldn't say such things even as a joke," said Mrs. +Constantine. +</P> + +<P> +"But it isn't a joke," said Maggie. "I'm terribly muddleheaded, and +I've no idea of money at all. Paul's going to teach me." +</P> + +<P> +Paul smiled nervously. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie will soon fit into our ways," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure she will." said Mrs. Constantine very kindly, but as though +she were speaking to a child of ten. +</P> + +<P> +The bell rang and Mr. Flaunders the curate came in. He was very young, +very earnest, and very enthusiastic. He adored Paul. He told Maggie +that he thought that he was the very luckiest man in the world for +having, so early in his career, so wonderful a man as Paul to work +under. He had also adored Grace, but very quickly showed signs of +transferring that adoration to Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Trenchard's splendid," he said. "I do admire her so, but you'll +be a great help to us all. I'm so glad you've come." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, how do you know?" asked Maggie. "You've only seen me for about +two minutes." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, one can tell," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie liked his enthusiasm, but she couldn't help wishing that his +knees wouldn't crack at unexpected moments, that he wasn't quite so +long and thin, and that he wouldn't leave dried shaving-soap under his +ears and in his nostrils. She was puzzled, too, that Paul should be so +obviously pleased with the rather naif adoration. "Paul likes you to +praise him," she thought a little regretfully. +</P> + +<P> +So, for the moment, these people, the house and the Church, fitted in +her World. For the rest of the fortnight she was so busy that she never +went on to the beach nor into the woods. She shopped every morning, +feeling very old and grown-up, she went to tea with Mrs. Constantine +and Mrs. Maxse, and she sat on Paul's knee whenever she thought that he +would like her to. She sat on Paul's knee, but that did not mean that, +in real intimacy, they approached any nearer to one another. During +those days they stared at one another like children on different sides +of a fence. They were definitely postponing settlement, and with every +day Maggie grew more restless and uneasy. She wanted back that old +friendly comradeship that there had been before their marriage. He +seemed now to have lost altogether that attitude to her. Then on the +very day of Grace's return the storm broke. It was tea-time and they +were having it, as usual, in his dusty study. They were sitting someway +apart—Paul in the old leather armchair by the fire, his thick body +stretched out, his cheerful good-humoured face puckered and peevish. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie stood up, looking at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Paul, what's the matter?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Matter," he repeated. "Nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes, there is ... You're cross with me." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm not. What an absurd idea!" He moved restlessly, turning half +away, not looking at her. She came close up to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, Paul. There is something the matter. We haven't been +married a fortnight yet and you're unhappy. Whatever else we married +for we married because we were going to be friends. So you've just got +to tell me what the trouble is." +</P> + +<P> +"I've got my sermon to prepare," he said, not looking at her, but half +rising in his chair. "You'd better go, darling." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going to," she answered, "until you've told me why you're +worrying." +</P> + +<P> +He got up slowly and seemed then as though he were going to pass her. +Suddenly he turned, flung his arms round her, catching her, crushing +her in his arms, kissing her wildly. +</P> + +<P> +"Love ... love me ... love me," he whispered. "That's what's the +matter. I didn't know myself before I married you, Maggie. All these +years I've lived like a fish and I didn't know it. But I know it now. +And you've got to love me. You're my wife and you've got to love me." +</P> + +<P> +She would have given everything that she had then to respond. She felt +an infinite tenderness and pity for him. But she could not. He felt +that she could not. He let her go and turned away from her. She thought +for a moment wondering what she ought to say, and then she came up to +him and gently put her hand on his shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Be patient, Paul," she said. "You know we agreed before we married +that we'd be friends at any rate and let the rest come. Wait ..." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait!" he turned round eagerly, clutching her arm. "Then there is a +chance, Maggie? You can get to love me—you can forget that other man?" +</P> + +<P> +She drew back. "No, you know I told you that I should never do that. +But he'll never come back nor want me again and I'm very fond of you, +Paul—fonder than I thought. Don't spoil it all now by going too fast—" +</P> + +<P> +"Going too fast!" he laughed. "Why, I haven't gone any way at all. I +haven't got you anywhere. I can hardly touch you. You're away from me +all the time. You're strange—different from every one ..." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know anything about women. I've learnt a lot about myself this +week. It isn't going to be as easy as I thought." +</P> + +<P> +She went up to him, close to him, and said almost desperately: "We MUST +make this all right, Paul. We can if we try. I know we can." +</P> + +<P> +He kissed her gently with his old kindness. "What a baby you are. You +didn't know what you were in for ... Oh, we'll make it all right." +</P> + +<P> +They sat close together then and drank their tea. After all, Grace +would be here in an hour! They both felt a kind of relief that they +would no longer be alone. +</P> + +<P> +Grace would be here in an hour! Strange how throughout all these last +days Maggie had been looking forward to that event with dread. There +was no definite reason for fear; in London Grace had been kindness +itself and had shown real affection for Maggie. Within the last week +she had written two very affectionate letters. What was this, then, +that hung and hovered? It was in the very air of the house and the +garden and the place. Grace had left her mark upon everything and every +one, even upon the meagre person of Mitch the dog. Especially upon +Mitch, a miserable creeping fox-terrier with no spirits and a tendency +to tremble all over when you called him. He had attached himself to +Maggie, which was strange, because animals were not, as a rule, +interested in her. Mitch followed her about, looking up at her with a +yellow supplicating eye. She didn't like him and she would be glad when +Grace collected him again—but why did he tremble? +</P> + +<P> +She realised, in the way that she had of seeing further than her nose, +that Grace was going to affect the whole of her relations with Paul, +and, indeed, all her future life. She had not realised that in London. +Grace had seemed harmless there and unimportant. Already here in +Skeaton she seemed to stand for a whole scheme of life. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had moved and altered a good many of the things in the house. +She had discovered a small attic, and into this she had piled pell-mell +a number of photographs, cheap reproductions, cushions, worsted mats, +and china ornaments. She had done it gaily and with a sense of clearing +the air. +</P> + +<P> +Now as Grace's hour approached she was not so sure. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm not afraid," she reassured herself with her favourite +defiance. "She can't eat me. And it's my house." +</P> + +<P> +Paul had not noticed the alterations. He was always blind to his +surroundings unless they were what he called "queer." +</P> + +<P> +There was the rattle of the cab-wheels on the drive and a moment later +Grace was in the hall. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Paul—Maggie, dear ..." +</P> + +<P> +She stood there, a very solid and assured figure. She was square and +thick and reminded Maggie to-day of Mrs. Noah; her clothes stood cut +out around her as though they had been cut in wood. She had her large +amiable smile, and the kiss that she gave Maggie was a wet, soft, and +very friendly one. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I think I'll have tea at once without taking my hat off. In Paul's +study? That's nice ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Such a journey! But +astonishing! Just fancy! I got into Charing Cross and then—! Why! +Here's the study! Fancy! ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Well? That's +right. Why, there's tea! That's right. Everything just as it was. +Fancy! ..." She took off her gloves, smiled, seated herself more +comfortably, then began to look about the room. Suddenly there came: +"Why, Paul, where's the Emmanuel football group?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a moment's silence. Maggie felt her heart give a little bump, +as it seemed to her, right against the roof of her mouth. Paul (so like +him) had not noticed that the football group had vanished. He stared at +the blank place on the wall where it had once been. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Grace ... I don't know. I never noticed it wasn't there." +</P> + +<P> +"I took it down," said Maggie. "I thought there were too many +photographs. It's in the attic." +</P> + +<P> +"In the attic? ... Fancy! You put it away, did you, Maggie? Well, +fancy! Shan't I make the tea, Maggie, dear? That tea-pot, it's an old +friend of mine. I know how to manage it." +</P> + +<P> +They changed seats. Grace was as amiable as ever, but now her eyes +flashed about from place to place all around the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, this is a new kind of jam. How nice! As I was saying, I got into +Charing Cross and there wasn't a porter. Just fancy! At least there was +a porter, an old man, but when I beckoned to him he wouldn't move. +Well, I was angry. I can tell you, Paul, I wasn't going to stand that, +so I-what nice jam, dear. I never knew Mitchell's had jam like this!" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't get it at Mitchell's," said Maggie. "I've changed the grocer. +Mitchell hasn't got anything, and his prices are just about double +Brownjohn's ..." +</P> + +<P> +"Brownjohn!" Grace stared, her bread and jam suspended. "Brownjohn! +But, Maggie dear, he's a dissenter." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh. Maggie!" said Paul. "You should have told me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why!" said Maggie, bewildered. "Father never minded about dissenters. +Our butcher in St. Dreot's was an atheist and—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well," said Grace, her eyes still flashing about like goldfish +in a pool. "You didn't know, dear. Of course you didn't. I'm sure we +can put it right with Mitchell, although he's a sensitive man. I'll go +and see him in the morning. I am glad I'm back. Well, I was telling you +... Where was I? ... about the porter—" +</P> + +<P> +Something drove Maggie to say: +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather have a good grocer who's a dissenter than a bad one who +goes to church—" +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie," said Paul, "you don't know what you're saying. You don't +realise what the effect in the parish would be." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course she doesn't," said Grace consolingly. "She'll understand in +time. As I was saying, I was so angry that I caught the old man by the +arm and I said to him, 'If you think you're paid to lean up against a +wall and not do your duty you're mightily mistaken, and if you aren't +careful I'll report you—that's what I'll do,' and he said—what were +his exact words? I'll remember in a minute. I know he was very +insulting, and the taxi-cabman—why, Paul, where's mother's picture?" +</P> + +<P> +Grace's eyes were directed to a large space high above the mantelpiece. +Maggie remembered that there had been a big faded oil-painting of an +old lady in a shawl and spectacles, a hideous affair she had thought +it. That was now reposing in the attic. Why had she not known that it +was a picture of Paul's mother? She would never have touched it had she +known. Why had Paul said nothing? He had not even noticed that it was +gone. +</P> + +<P> +Paul stared, amazed and certainly—yes, beyond question—frightened. +</P> + +<P> +"Grace—upon my word—I've been so busy since my return—" +</P> + +<P> +"Is that also in the attic?" asked Grace. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it is," said Maggie. "I'm so sorry. I never knew it was your +mother. It wasn't a very good painting I thought, so I took it down. If +I had known, of course, I never would have touched it. Oh Grace, I AM +so sorry." +</P> + +<P> +"It's been there," said Grace, "for nearly twenty years. What I mean to +say is that it's always been there. Poor mother. Are there many things +in the attic, Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +At that moment there was a feeble scratching on the door. Paul, +evidently glad of anything that would relieve the situation, opened the +door. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, it's Mitch!" cried Grace, forgetting for the moment her mother. +"Fancy! It's Mitch! Mitch, dear! Was she glad to see her old friend +back again? Was she? Darling! Fancy seeing her old friend again? Was +she wanting her back?" +</P> + +<P> +Mitch stood shivering in the doorway, then, with her halting step, the +skin of her back wrinkled with anxiety, she crossed the room. For a +moment she hesitated, then with shamefaced terror, slunk to Maggie, +pressed up against her, and sat there huddled, staring at Grace with +yellow unfriendly eyes. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0304"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GRACE +</H3> + +<P> +Not in a day and not in a night did Maggie find a key to that strange +confusion of fears, superstitions, and self-satisfactions that was +known to the world as Grace Trenchard. Perhaps she never found it, and +through all the struggle and conflict in which she was now to be +involved she was fighting, desperately, in the dark. Fight she did, and +it was this same conflict, bitter and tragic enough at the time, that +transformed her into the woman that she became ... and through all that +conflict it may be truly said of her that she never knew a moment's +bitterness—anger, dismay, loneliness, even despair-bitterness never. +</P> + +<P> +It was not strange that Maggie did not understand Grace; Grace never +understood herself nor did she make the slightest attempt to do so. It +would be easy enough to cover the ground at once by saying that she had +no imagination, that she never went behind the thing that she saw, and +that she found the grasping of external things quite as much as she +could manage. But that is not enough. Very early indeed, when she had +been a stolid-faced little girl with a hot desire for the doll +possessed by her neighbour, she had had for nurse a woman who rejoiced +in supernatural events. With ghost stories of the most terrifying kind +she besieged Grace's young heart and mind. The child had never +imagination enough to visualise these stories in the true essence, but +she seized upon external detail-the blue lights, the white shimmering +garments, the moon and the church clock, the clanking chain and the +stain of blood upon the board. +</P> + +<P> +These things were not for her, and indeed did she allow her fancy to +dwell, for a moment, upon them she was besieged at once by so horrid a +panic that she lost all control and self-possession. She therefore very +quickly put those things from her and thenceforth lived in the world as +in a castle surrounded by a dark moat filled with horrible and slimy +creatures who would raise a head at her did she so much as glance their +way. +</P> + +<P> +She decided then never to look, and from a very early age those +quarters of life became to her "queer," indecent, and dangerous. All +the more she fastened her grip upon the things that she could see and +hold, and these things repaid her devotion by never deceiving her or +pretending to be what they were not. She believed intensely in forms +and repetitions; she liked everything to be where she expected it to +be, people to say the things that she expected them to say, clocks to +strike at the right time, and trains to be up to the minute. With all +this she could never be called an accurate or careful woman. She was +radically stupid, stupid in the real sense of the word, so that her +mind did not grasp a new thought or fact until it had been repeated to +her again and again, so that she had no power of expressing herself, +and a deep inaccuracy about everything and every one which she +endeavoured to cover by a stream of aimless lies that deceived no one. +She would of course have been very indignant had any one told her that +she was stupid. She hated what she called "clever people" and never had +them near her if she could help it. She was instantly suspicious of any +one who liked ideas or wanted anything changed. With all this she was +of an extreme obstinacy and a deep, deep jealousy. She clung to what +she had with the tenacity of a mollusc. What she had was in the main +Paul, and her affection for him was a very real human quality in her. +</P> + +<P> +He was exactly what she would have chosen had she been allowed at the +beginning a free choice. He was lazy and good-tempered so that he +yielded to her on every possible point, he was absolutely orthodox and +never shocked her by a thought or a word out of the ordinary, he really +loved her and believed in her and said, quite truly, that he would not +have known what to do without her. +</P> + +<P> +It seems strange then that it should have been in the main her urgency +that led to the acquisition of Maggie. During the last year she had +begun to be seriously uneasy. Things were not what they had been. Mrs. +Constantine and others in the parish were challenging her authority, +even the Choir boys were scarcely so subservient as they had been, and, +worst of all, Paul himself was strangely restive and unquiet. He talked +at times of getting married, wondered whether she, Grace, wouldn't like +some one to help her in the house, and even, on one terrifying +occasion, suggested leaving Skeaton altogether. A momentary vision of +what it would be to live without Paul, to give up her kingdom in +Skeaton, to have to start all over again to acquire dominion in some +new place, was enough for Grace. +</P> + +<P> +She must find Paul a wife, and she must find some one who would depend +upon her, look up to her, obey her, who would, incidentally, take some +of the tiresome and monotonous drudgery off her shoulders. The moment +she saw Maggie she was resolved; here was just the creature, a mouse of +a girl, no parents, no money, no appearance, nothing to make her proud +or above herself, some one to be moulded and trained in the way she +should go. To her great surprise she discovered that Paul was at once +attracted by Maggie: had she ever wondered at anything she would have +wondered at this, but she decided that it was because she herself had +made the suggestion. Dear Paul, he was always so eager to fall in with +any of her proposals. +</P> + +<P> +Her mind misgave her a little when she saw that he was really in love. +What could he see in that plain, gauche, uncharming creature? See +something he undoubtedly did. However, that would wear off very +quickly. The Skeaton atmosphere was against romance and Paul was too +lazy to be in love very long. Once or twice in the weeks before the +wedding Grace's suspicions were aroused. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie seemed to be an utter little heathen; also it appeared that she +had had some strange love affair that she had taken so seriously as +actually to be ill over it. That was odd and a little alarming, but the +child was very young, and once married-there she'd be, so to speak! +</P> + +<P> +It was not, in fact, until that evening of her arrival in Skeaton that +she was seriously alarmed. To say that that first ten minutes in Paul's +study alarmed her is to put it mildly indeed. As she looked at the +place where her mother's portrait had been, as she stared at the +trembling Mitch cowering against Maggie's dress, she experienced the +most terrifying, shattering upheaval since the day when as a little +girl of six she had been faced as she had fancied, with the dripping +ghost of her great-uncle William. Not at once, however, was the battle +to begin. Maggie gave way about everything. She gave way at first +because she was so confident of getting what she wanted later on. She +never conceived that she was not to have final power in her own house; +Paul had as yet denied her nothing. She moved the pictures and the pots +and the crochet work down from the attic and replaced them where they +had been-or, nearly replaced them. She found it already rather amusing +to puzzle Grace by changing their positions from day to day so that +Grace was bewildered and perplexed. +</P> + +<P> +Grace said nothing—only solidly and with panting noises (she suffered +from shortness of breath) plodded up and down the house, reassuring +herself that all her treasures were safe. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, in fact, enjoyed herself during the weeks immediately following +Grace's return. Paul seemed tranquil and happy; there were no signs of +fresh outbreaks of the strange passion that had so lately frightened +her. Maggie herself found her duties in connection with the Church and +the house easier than she had expected. Every one seemed very friendly. +Grace chattered on with her aimless histories of unimportant events and +patted Maggie's hand and smiled a great deal. Surely all was very well. +Perhaps this was the life for which Maggie was intended. +</P> + +<P> +And that other life began to be dim and faint-even Martin was a little +hidden and mysterious. Strangely she was glad of that; the only way +that this could be carried through was by keeping the other out of it. +Would the two worlds mingle? Would the faces and voices of those +spirits be seen and heard again? Would they leave Maggie now or plan to +steal her back? The whole future of her life depended on the answer to +that ... +</P> + +<P> +During those weeks she investigated Skeaton very thoroughly. She found +that her Skeaton, the Skeaton of Fashion and the Church, was a very +small affair consisting of two rows of villas, some detached houses +that trickled into the country, and a little clump of villas on a hill +over the sea beyond the town. There were not more than fifty souls all +told in this regiment of Fashion, and the leaders of the fifty were +Mrs. Constantine, Mrs. Maxse, Miss Purves, a Mrs. Tempest (a large +black tragic creature), and Miss Grace Trenchard—and they had for +their male supporters Colonel Maxse, Mr. William Tempest, a Mr. Purdie +(rich and idle), and the Reverend Paul. Maggie discovered that the +manners, habits, and even voices and gestures of this sacred Fifty were +all the same. The only question upon which they divided was one of +residence. The richer and finer division spent several weeks of the +winter abroad in places like Nice and Cannes, and the poorer contingent +took their holiday from Skeaton in the summer in Glebeshire or the Lake +District. The Constantines and the Maxses were very fine indeed because +they went both to Cannes in the winter and Scotland in the summer. It +was wonderful, considering how often Mrs. Constantine was away from +Skeaton, how solemn and awe-inspiring an impression she made and +retained in the Skeaton world. Maggie discovered that unless you had a +large house with independent grounds outside the town it was impossible +to remain in Skeaton during the summer months. Oh! the trippers! ...Oh! +the trippers! Yes, they were terrible-swallowed up the sands, +eggshells, niggers, pierrots, bathing-machines, vulgarity, moonlight +embracing, noise, sand, and dust. If you were any one at all you did +not stay in Skeaton during the summer months-unless, as I have said, +you were so grand that you could disregard it altogether. +</P> + +<P> +It happened that these weeks were wet and windy and Maggie was blown +about from one end of the town to the other. There could be no denying +that it was grim and ugly under these conditions. It might be that when +the spring came there would be flowers in the gardens and the trees +would break out into fresh green and the sands would gleam with +mother-of-pearl and the sea would glitter with sunshine. All that +perhaps would come. Meanwhile there was not a house that was not +hideous, the wind tore screaming down the long beaches carrying with it +a flurry of tempestuous rain, whilst the sea itself moved in sluggish +oily coils, dirt-grey to the grey horizon. Worst of all perhaps were +the deserted buildings at other times dedicated to gaiety, ghosts of +places they were with torn paper flapping against their sides and the +wind tearing at their tin-plated roofs. Then there was the desolate +little station, having, it seemed, no connection with any kind of +traffic-and behind all this the woods howled and creaked and whistled, +derisive, provocative, the only creatures alive in all that world. +</P> + +<P> +Between the Fashion and the Place the Church stood as a bridge. +</P> + +<P> +Centuries ago, when Skeaton had been the merest hamlet clustered behind +the beach, the Church had been there-not the present building, looking, +poor thing, as though it were in a perpetual state of scarlet fever, +but a shabby humble little chapel close to the sea sheltered by the +sandy hill. +</P> + +<P> +The present temple had been built about 1870 and was considered very +satisfactory. It was solid and free from draughts and took the central +heating very well. The graveyard also was new and shiny, with no bones +in it remoter than the memories of the present generation could +compass. The church clock was a very late addition—put up by +subscription five years ago-and its clamour was so up to date and smart +that it was a cross between the whistle of a steam-engine and a rich +and prosperous dinner-bell. +</P> + +<P> +All this was rightly felt to be very satisfactory. As Miss Purves said: +"So far as the dear Church goes, no one had any right to complain about +anything." +</P> + +<P> +When Maggie had first arrived in Skeaton her duties with regard to the +Church were made quite plain to her. She was expected to take one of +the classes in Sunday school, to attend Choir practice on Friday +evening, to be on the Committees for Old Women's Comforts, Our Brave +Lads' Guild, and the Girls' Friendly Society, to look after the flowers +for the Altar, and to attend Paul's Bible Class on Wednesdays. +</P> + +<P> +She had no objection to any of these things-they were, after all, part +of her "job." She found that they amused her, and her life must be +full, full, full. "No time to think—No time to think," some little +voice far, far within her cried. But on Grace's return difficulties at +once arose. Grace had, hitherto, done all these things. She had, as she +called it, "Played a large part in the life of our Church." She was +bored with them all, the Choir practices, the Committees, the Altar +flowers, and the rest; she was only too pleased that Maggie should do +the hard work—it was quite fair that she, Grace, should have a rest. +At the same time she did not at all want to surrender the power that +doing these things had given her. She did not wish Maggie to take her +place, but she wanted her to support the burden-very difficult this +especially if you are not good at "thinking things out." +</P> + +<P> +Grace never could "think things out." It seemed as though her thoughts +loved wilfully to tease and confuse her. Then when she was completely +tangled, and bewildered, her temper rose, slowly, stealthily, but with +a mighty force behind it; suddenly as a flood bursts the walls that +have been trying to resist it, it would sweep the chambers of her mind, +submerging, drowning the flock of panic-stricken little ideas. +</P> + +<P> +She then would "lose her temper" so much to her own surprise that she +at once decided that some one else must be responsible. A few days +after her return she decided that she "must not let these things go," +so she told Maggie that she would attend the Committee of Old Women's +Comforts and be responsible for the Choir practice. But on her return +to these functions she found that she was bored and tired and cross; +they were really intolerable, she had been doing them for years and +years and years. It was too bad that Maggie should suffer her to take +them on her shoulders. What did Maggie think she was a clergyman's wife +for? Did Maggie imagine that there were no responsibilities attached to +her position? +</P> + +<P> +Grace did not say these things, but she thought them. She did not of +course admit to herself that she wanted Maggie both to go and not to +go. She simply knew that there was a "grievance" and Maggie was +responsible for it. But at present she was silent ... +</P> + +<P> +The next factor in the rapidly developing situation was Mr. Toms. One +day early in April Maggie went for a little walk by herself along the +lane that led to Marsden Wood. Marsden Wood was the most sinister of +all the woods; there had once been a murder there, but even had there +not, the grim bleakness of the trees and bushes, the absence of all +clear paths through its tangles and thickets made it a sinister place. +She turned at the very edge of the wood and set her face back towards +Skeaton. +</P> + +<P> +The day had been wild and windy with recurrent showers of rain, but now +there was a break, the chilly April sun broke through the clouds and +scattered the hedges and fields with primrose light. +</P> + +<P> +Faintly and with a gentle rhythm the murmur of the sea came across the +land and the air was sweet with the sea-salt and the fresh scent of the +grass after rain. Maggie stood for a moment, breathing in the spring +air and watching the watery blue thread its timid way through banks of +grey cloud. A rich gleam of sunlight struck the path at her feet. +</P> + +<P> +She saw then, coming towards her, a man and a woman. The woman was +ordinary enough, a middle-aged, prim, stiffly dressed person with a +pale shy face, timid in her walk and depressed in mouth and eyes. The +man was a stout, short, thick-set fellow with a rosy smiling face. At +once Maggie noticed his smile. He was dressed very smartly in a black +coat and waist-coat and pepper-and-salt trousers. His bowler was cocked +a little to one side. She passed them and the little round man, looking +her full in the face, smiled so happily and with so radiant an +amiability that she was compelled to respond. The woman did not look at +her. +</P> + +<P> +Long after she had left them she thought of the little man's smile. +There was something that, in spite of herself, reminded her both of +Uncle Mathew and Martin. She felt a sudden and warm kinship, something +that she had not known since her arrival in Skeaton. Had she not +struggled with herself every kind of reminiscence of her London life +would have come crowding about her. This meeting was like the first +little warning tap upon the wall ... +</P> + +<P> +On her return she spoke of it. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Paul, "that must have been poor little Mr. Toms with his +sister." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. He's queer in his head, you know," said Paul. "Quite harmless, +but he has the strangest ideas." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie noticed then that Grace shivered and the whole of her face +worked with an odd emotion of horror and disgust. +</P> + +<P> +"He should have been shut up somewhere," she said. "It's disgraceful +letting him walk about everywhere just like any one else." +</P> + +<P> +"Shut up!" cried Maggie. "Oh, no! I don't think any one ought to be +shut up for anything." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Maggie!" said Paul in his fatherly protecting voice. "No +prisons? Think what would become of us all." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said Maggie impatiently, "I'm not practical of course, I don't +know what one should do, but I do know that no one should be shut up." +</P> + +<P> +"Chut-chut—" said Grace. +</P> + +<P> +Now this "Chut, chut," may seem a very little thing, but very little +things are sometimes of great importance. Marriages have been wrecked +on an irritating cough and happy homes ruined by a shuffle. Grace had +said "Chut, chut," for a great many years and to many people. It +expressed scorn and contempt and implied a vast store of superior +knowledge. Grace herself had no idea of the irritating nature of this +exclamation, she would have been entirely amazed did you explain to her +that it had more to do with her unpopularity in Skeaton than any other +thing. She had even said "Chut, chut," to Mrs. Constantine. +</P> + +<P> +But she said it to Maggie more than to any other person. When she had +been in the house a few days she said to her brother: +</P> + +<P> +"Paul, Maggie's much younger than I had supposed." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, do you think so?" said Paul. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I do. She knows nothing about anything. She's been nowhere. She's +seen nobody ... Poor child." +</P> + +<P> +It was the "poor child" position that she now, during these first +weeks, adopted. She was very, very kind to Maggie. As she explained to +Mrs. Maxse, she really was very fond of her—she was a GOOD girl. At +the same time ... Well! ... Mrs. Maxse would understand that Paul can +hardly have known what he was marrying. Ignorance! Carelessness! +Strange ideas! Some one from the centre of Africa would have known more +... and so on. Nevertheless, she was a GOOD girl ... Only she needed +guidance. Fancy, she had taken quite a fancy to poor Mr. Toms! Proposed +to call on his sister. Well, one couldn't help that. Miss Toms was a +regular communicant ... Nevertheless ... she didn't realise, that was +it. Of course, she had known all kinds of queer people in London. Paul +and Grace had rescued her. The strangest people. No, Maggie was an +orphan. She had an uncle, Grace believed, and two aunts who belonged to +a strange sect. Sex? No, sect. Very queer altogether. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Maxse went home greatly impressed. +</P> + +<P> +"The girl's undoubtedly queer," she told her husband. +</P> + +<P> +"The parson's got a queer sort of wife," Colonel Maxse told his friends +in the Skeaton Conservative Club. "He rescued her from some odd sort of +life in London. No. Don't know what it was exactly. Always was a bit +soft, Trenchard." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had no idea that Skeaton was discussing her. She judged other +people by herself. Meanwhile something occurred that gave her quite +enough to think about. +</P> + +<P> +She had understood from Grace that it was expected of her that she +should be at home on one afternoon in the week to receive callers. She +thought it a silly thing that she should sit in the ugly drawing-room +waiting for people whom she did not wish to see and who did not wish to +see her, but she was told that it was one of her duties, and so she +would do it. No one, however, had any idea of the terror with which she +anticipated these Friday afternoons. She had never been a very great +talker, she had nothing much to say unless to some one in whom she was +interested. She was frightened lest something should happen to the tea, +and she felt that they were all staring at her and asking themselves +why her hair was cut short and why her clothes didn't fit better. +However, there it was. It was her duty. +</P> + +<P> +One Friday afternoon she was sitting alone, waiting. The door opened +and the maid announced Mrs. Purdie. Maggie remembered that she had been +told that Mr. Alfred Purdie was the richest man in Skeaton, that he had +recently married, and was but now returned from his honeymoon. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Purdie entered and revealed herself as Caroline Smith. For a +moment, as Maggie looked upon that magnificent figure, the room turned +about her and her eyes were dim. She remembered, as though some one +were reminding her from a long way off, that Caroline had once told her +that she was considering the acceptance of a rich young man in Skeaton. +</P> + +<P> +She remembered that at the time she had thought the coincidence of +Caroline and Paul Trenchard strange. But far stronger than any such +memory was the renewed conviction that she had that fate did not intend +to leave her alone. She was not to keep the two worlds apart, she was +not to be allowed to forget. +</P> + +<P> +The sight of Caroline brought Martin before her so vividly that she +could have cried out. Instead she stood there, quietly waiting, and +showed no sign of any embarrassment. +</P> + +<P> +Caroline was dressed in peach-coloured silk and a little black hat. She +was not confused in the least. She seized Maggie's hand and shook it, +talking all the time. +</P> + +<P> +"Well now, I'm sure you're surprised to see me," she said, "and perhaps +you're not too glad either. Alfred wanted to come too, but I said to +him, 'No, Alfred, this will be just a little awkward at first, for +Maggie Trenchard's got a grievance, and with some reason, too, so you'd +better let me manage it alone the first meeting.' Wasn't I right? Of +course I was. And you can just say right out now, Maggie, exactly +what's in your mind. It's not my fault that we're both in the same +town. I'm sure you'd much rather never set eyes on me again, and I'm +sure I can quite understand if you feel like that. But there it is. I +told you long ago in London that Alfred was after me, and I was in two +minds about it-but of course I didn't dream you were going to marry a +parson. You could have knocked me down with less than a feather when I +saw it in the Skeaton News, 'That can't be my Margaret Cardinal,' I +said, and yet it seemed so strange the two names and all. Well, and +then I found it really WAS the same. I WAS astonished. You of all +people the wife of a parson! However, you know your own mind best, and +I'm sure Mr. Trenchard's a very lucky man. So you can just start off +and curse me, Maggie, as much as you like." +</P> + +<P> +The strange thing was that as Maggie listened to this she felt a desire +to embrace rather than curse. Of course Caroline had done her harm, she +had, perhaps ruined Martin's life as well as her own, but the mistake +had been originally Maggie's in trusting Caroline with more confidence +than her volatile nature would allow her to hold. And now, as she +looked at Caroline and saw that pretty pink and white face, the slim +beautiful body, the grace and gaiety, and childish amiability, her +whole soul responded. Here was a friend, even though an indiscreet one, +here was some one from home, the one human being in the whole of +Skeaton who knew the old places and the old people, the Chapel, and the +aunts—and Martin. She knew at once that it would have been far safer +had Caroline not been there, that the temptation to discuss Martin +would be irresistible, that she would yield to it, and that Caroline +was in no way whatever to be trusted-she realised all these things, and +yet she was glad. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to curse you, Caroline," said Maggie. "Sit down. Tea will +be here in a minute. I was very unhappy about what you did, but that's +all a long time ago now, and I was to blame too." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's just sweet of you," said Caroline, running over and giving +Maggie an impulsive kiss. "I said to Alfred, 'Maggie may be angry. I +don't know how she'll receive me, I'm sure. She had the sweetest nature +always, and it isn't like her to bear a grudge. But whatever way it is, +I'll have to take it, because the fact is I deserve it.' But there you +are, simply angelic and I'm ever so glad. The fact is I was ridicilous +in those days. I don't wonder you lost your patience with me, and it +was just like your honest self to be so frank with me. But marriage has +just taught me everything. What I say is, every one ought to be +married; no one knows anything until they're married. It's amazing what +a difference it makes, don't you think so? Why, before I was married I +used to chatter on in the most ridicilous way (Caroline always said +ridicilous) and now-but there I go, talking of myself, and it's you I +want to hear about. Now, Maggie, tell me—" But the sudden entrance of +Grace and Paul checked, for the moment, these confidences. Caroline did +not stay long this first time. She talked a little, drank some tea, ate +a biscuit, smiled at Paul and departed. She felt, perhaps, that Grace +did not approve of her. Grace had not seen her before, certainly she +would not approve of the peach-coloured dress and the smile at Paul. +And then the girl talked too much. She had interrupted Grace in the +middle of one of her stories. +</P> + +<P> +When Caroline had departed (after kissing Maggie affectionately) Grace +said: +</P> + +<P> +"And so you knew her before, Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +"I knew her in London," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"I like her," said Paul. "A bright young creature." +</P> + +<P> +"Hum!" said Grace. +</P> + +<P> +That was a wonderful spring evening, the first spring evening of the +year. The ugly garden swam in a mist faintly cherry-colour; through the +mist a pale evening sky, of so rich a blue that it was almost white, +was shadowing against a baby moon sharply gold. The bottles on the wall +were veiled by the evening mist; a thrush sang in the little bush at +the end of the lawn. +</P> + +<P> +Paul whispered to Maggie: "Come out into the garden." +</P> + +<P> +She went with him, frightened; she could feel his arm tremble against +her waist; his cold hard fingers caught hers. No current ran from her +body to his. They were apart, try as she may. When they had walked the +length of the lawn he caught her close to him, put his hand roughly up +to her neck and, bending her head towards his, kissed her. She heard +his words, strangled and fierce. +</P> + +<P> +"Love me, Maggie-love me-you must—" +</P> + +<P> +When he released her, looking back towards the dark house, she saw +Grace standing there with a lamp in her hand. +</P> + +<P> +Against her will she shared his feeling of guilt, as, like children +caught in a fault, they turned back towards the house. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0305"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BATTLE OF SKEATON +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +FIRST YEAR +</H4> + +<P> +Afterwards, when Maggie looked back she was baffled. She tried to +disentangle the events between that moment when Grace, holding the lamp +in her hand, blinked at them as they came across the lawn, and that +other most awful moment when, in Paul's study, Grace declared final and +irrevocable war. +</P> + +<P> +Between those two events ran the history of more than two years, and +there was nothing stranger than the way that the scene in the garden +and the scene in the study seemed to Maggie to be close together. What +were the steps, she used to ask herself afterwards, that led to those +last months of fury and tragedy and disaster? Was it my fault? Was it +hers? Was it Paul's? What happened? If I had not done this or that, if +Grace had not said—no, it was hopeless. She would break off in +despair. Isolated scenes appeared before her, always bound, on either +side, by that prologue and that finale, but the scenes would not form a +chain. She could not connect; she would remain until the end bewildered +as to Grace's motives. She never, until the day of her death, was to +understand Grace. +</P> + +<P> +"She was angry for such little things," she said afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +"She hated me to be myself." The two years in retrospect seemed to have +passed with incredible swiftness, the months that followed them were +heavy and slow with trouble. But from the very first, that is, from the +moment when Grace saw Paul kiss Maggie in the evening garden, battle +was declared. Maggie might not know it, but it was so-and Grace knew it +very well. +</P> + +<P> +It may be said, however, in Grace's defence that she gave Maggie every +chance. She marvelled at her own patience. For two years after that +moment, when she decided that Maggie was "queer," and that her beloved +Paul was in real danger of his losing his soul because of that +"queerness," she held her hand. She was not naturally a patient +woman-she was not introspective enough to be that—and she held no +brief for Maggie. Nevertheless for two whole years she held her hand... +</P> + +<P> +They were, all three, in that ugly house, figures moving in the dark. +Grace simply knew, as the months passed, that she disliked and feared +Maggie more and more; Paul knew that as the months passed—well, what +he knew will appear in the following pages. And Maggie? She only knew +that it needed all her endurance and stubborn will to force herself to +accept this life as her life. She must-she must. To give way meant to +run away, and to run away meant to long for what she could not have, +and loneliness and defeat. She would make this into a success; she +would care for Paul although she could not give him all that he needed. +She would and she could... Every morning as she lay awake in the big +double-bed with the brass knobs at the bed-foot winking at her in the +early light she vowed that she would justify her acceptance of the man +who lay sleeping so peacefully beside her. Poor child, her battle with +Grace was to teach her how far her will and endurance could carry her... +</P> + +<P> +Grace, on her side, was not a bad woman, she was simply a stupid one. +She disliked Maggie for what seemed to her most admirable reasons and, +as that dislike slowly, slowly turned into hatred, her +self-justification only hardened. +</P> + +<P> +Until that moment, when she saw a faded patch of wall-paper on the wall +instead of her mother's portrait, she had no doubts whatever about the +success of what she considered her choice. Maggie was a "dear," young, +ignorant, helpless, but the very wife for Paul. Then slowly, slowly, +the picture changed. Maggie was obstinate, Maggie was careless, Maggie +was selfish, idle, lazy, irreligious—at last, Maggie was "queer." +</P> + +<P> +Then, when in the dusk of that summer evening, she saw Paul kiss +Maggie, as the moths blundered about her lamp, her stolid unimaginative +heart was terrified. This girl, who was she? What had she been before +they found her? What was this strange passion in Paul isolating him +from her, his sister? This girl was dangerous to them all-a heathen. +They had made a terrible mistake. Paul had been from the first +bewitched by some strange spell, and she, his sister, had aided the +witch. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, to her credit be it remembered, for two years, she fought her +fears, superstitions, jealousies, angers. That can have been no easy +thing for a woman who had always had her own way. But Maggie helped +her. There were many days during that first year at any rate when Grace +thought that the girl was, after all, only the simple harmless child +that she had first found her. +</P> + +<P> +It was so transparently clear that Maggie bore no malice against any +one in the world, that when she angered Grace she did so always by +accident, never by plan-it was only unfortunate that the accidents +should occur so often. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie's days were from the very first of the utmost regularity. +Breakfast at 8.30, then an interview with the cook (Grace generally in +attendance here), then shopping (with Grace), luncheon at 1.30, +afternoon, paying calls or receiving them, dinner 7.45, and after +dinner, reading a book while Paul and Grace played bezique, or, if Paul +was busy upon a sermon or a letter (he wrote letters very slowly), +patience with Grace. This regular day was varied with meetings, choir +practices, dinner-parties, and an occasional Penny Reading. +</P> + +<P> +In this framework of the year it would have appeared that there was +very little that could breed disturbance. There were, however, little +irritations. Maggie would have given a great deal could she have been +allowed to interview the cook in the morning alone. +</P> + +<P> +It would seem impossible to an older person that Grace's presence could +so embarrass Maggie; it embarrassed her to the terrible extent of +driving every idea out of her head. +</P> + +<P> +When Maggie had stammered and hesitated and at last allowed, the cook +to make a suggestion, Grace would say. "You mustn't leave it all to +cook, dear. Now what about a nice shepherd's pie?" +</P> + +<P> +The cook, who hated Grace, would toss her head. +</P> + +<P> +"Impossible to-day, Mum ... Quite impossible." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, do you think so?" Maggie would say. +</P> + +<P> +This was the cook's opportunity. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, for you, Mum, I'll see if it can't be managed. Difficult as it +is." +</P> + +<P> +Grace's anger boiled over. +</P> + +<P> +"That woman must go," she insisted. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Cook after cook appeared and vanished. They all hated Grace. +</P> + +<P> +"You're not very good at keeping servants, are you, Maggie, dear?" said +Grace. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was the shopping. Grace's conversation was the real trouble +here. Grace's stories had seemed rather a joke in London, soon, in +Skeaton, they became a torture. From the vicarage to the High Street +was not far, but it was far enough for Grace's narrative powers to +stretch their legs and get a healthy appetite for the day's work. Grace +walked very slowly, because of her painful breathing. Her stout stolid +figure in its stiff clothes (the skirt rather short, thick legs in +black stockings and large flat boots), marched along. She had a +peculiar walk, planting each foot on the ground with deliberate +determination as though she were squashing a malignant beetle, she was +rather short-sighted, but did not wear glasses, because, as she said to +Maggie, "one need not look peculiar until one must." Her favourite +head-gear was a black straw hat with a rather faded black ribbon and a +huge pin stuck skewer-wise into it. This pin was like a dagger. +</P> + +<P> +She peered around her as she walked, and for ever enquired of Maggie, +"who that was on the other Bide of the road." Maggie, of course, did +not know, and there began then a long cross-questioning as to colour, +clothes, height, smile or frown. Nothing was too small to catch Grace's +interest but nothing caught it for long. Maggie, at the end of her walk +felt as though she were beset by a whirl of little buzzing flies. She +noticed that Paul had, from, long habit, learnt to continue his own +thoughts during Grace's stories, and she also tried to do this, but she +was not clever at it because Grace would suddenly stop and say, "Where +was I, Maggie?" and then when Maggie was confused regard her +suspiciously, narrowing her eyes into little thin points. The shopping +was difficult because Grace would stand at Maggie's elbow and say: +"Now, Maggie, this is your affair, isn't it? You decide what you want," +and then when Maggie had decided, Grace simply, to show her power, +would say: "Oh, I don't think we'd better have that ... No, I don't +think we'll have that. Will you show us something else, please?"-and so +they had to begin all over again. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, throughout their first summer Maggie was almost happy; +not QUITE happy, some silent but persistent rebellion at the very +centre of her heart prevented her complete happiness. What she really +felt was that half of her-the rebellious, questioning, passionate half +of her-was asleep, and that at all costs, whatever occurred, she must +keep it asleep. That was her real definite memory of her first +year-that, through it all, she was wilfully, deliberately drugged. +</P> + +<P> +Every one thought Paul very strange that summer. Mr. Flaunders, the +curate, told Miss Purves that he was very "odd." "He was always the +most tranquil man-a sunny nature, as you know, Miss Purves. Well now, I +assure you, he's never the same from one minute to another. His temper +is most uncertain, and one never can tell of what he's thinking. You +know he took the Collects in the wrong order last Sunday, and last +night he read the wrong lesson. Two days ago he was quite angry with me +because I suggested another tune for 'Lead Kindly Light'-unlike +himself, unlike himself." +</P> + +<P> +"To what do you attribute this, Mr. Flaunders?" said Miss Purves. "You +know our vicar so well." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I can't tell what it is," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing. +</P> + +<P> +"Can it be his marriage?" said Miss Purves. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure," said Mr. Flaunders, flushing, "that it can be nothing to do +with Mrs. Trenchard. That's a fine woman, Miss Purves, a fine woman." +</P> + +<P> +"She seems a little strange," said Miss Purves. "Why doesn't she let +her hair grow? It's hardly Christian as it is." +</P> + +<P> +"It's her health, I expect," said Mr. Flaunders. +</P> + +<P> +Paul was very gentle and good to Maggie all that summer, better to her +than any human being had ever been before. She became very fond of him, +and yet it was not, apparently, her affection that he wanted. He seemed +to be for ever on the verge of asking her some question and then +checking himself. He was suddenly silent; she caught him looking at her +in odd, furtive ways. +</P> + +<P> +He made love to her and then suddenly checked himself, going off, +leaving her alone. During these months she did everything she could for +him. She knew that she was not satisfying him, because she could give +him only affection and not love. But everything that he wanted her to +do she did. And they never, through all those summer months, had one +direct honest conversation. They were afraid. +</P> + +<P> +She began to see, very clearly, his faults. His whole nature was easy, +genial, and, above all, lazy. He liked to be liked, and she Was often +astonished at the pleasure with which he received compliments. He had a +conceit of himself, not as a man but as a clergyman, and she knew that +nothing pleased him so much as when people praised his "good-natured +humanity." +</P> + +<P> +She saw him "play-acting," as she called it, that is, bringing forward +a succession of little tricks, a jolly laugh, an enthusiastic opinion, +a pretence of humility, a man-of-the-world air, all things not very bad +in themselves, but put on many years ago, subconsciously as an actor +puts on powder and paint. She saw that he was especially sensitive to +lay opinion, liked to be thought a good fellow by the laymen in the +place. To be popular she was afraid that he sometimes sacrificed his +dignity, his sincerity and his pride. But he was really saved in this +by his laziness. He was in fact too lazy to act energetically in his +pursuit of popularity, and the temptation to sink into the dirty old +chair in his study, smoke a pipe and go to sleep, hindered again and +again his ambition. He had, as so many clergymen have, a great deal of +the child in him, a remoteness from actual life, and a tremendous +ignorance of the rough-and-tumble brutality and indecency of things. It +had not been difficult for Grace, because of his laziness, his +childishness, and his harmless conceited good-nature to obtain a very +real dominion over him, and until now that dominion had never seriously +been threatened. +</P> + +<P> +Now, however, new impulses were stirring in his soul. Maggie saw it, +Grace saw it, before the end of the summer the whole parish saw it. He +was uneasy, dissatisfied, suffering under strange moods whose motives +he concealed from all the world. In his sleep he cried Maggie's name +with a passion that was a new voice in him. When she awoke and heard it +she trembled, and then lay very still ... +</P> + +<P> +And what a summer that was! To Maggie who had never, even in London, +mingled with crowds it was an incredible invasion. The invasion was +incredible, in the first place, because of the suddenness with which it +fell upon Skeaton. One day Maggie noticed that announcements were +pasted on to the Skeaton walls of the coming of a pierrot troupe ... +"The Mig-Mags." There was a gay picture of fine beautiful pierrettes +and fine stout pierrots all smiling together in a semi-circle. Then on +another hoarding it was announced that the Theatre Royal, Skeaton, +would shortly start its summer season, and would begin with that famous +musical comedy, "The Girl from Bobo's." +</P> + +<P> +Then the Pier Theatre put forward its claim with a West End comedy. The +Royal Marine Band announced that it would play (weather permitting) in +the Pergola on the Leas every afternoon, 4.20-6. Other signs of new +life were the Skeaton Roller-Skating Rink, The Piccadilly Cinema, +Concerts in the Town Hall, and Popular Lectures in the Skeaton +Institute. There was also a word here and there about Wanton's Bathing +Machines, Button's Donkeys, and Milton and Rowe's Char-a-bancs. +</P> + +<P> +Then, on a sunny day in June the invasion began. The little railway by +the sea was only a loop-line that connected Skeaton with Lane-on-Sea, +Frambell, and Hooton. The main London line had its Skeaton station a +little way out of the town, and the station road to the beach passed +the vicarage. Maggie soon learnt to know the times when the excursion +trains would pour their victims on to the hot, dry road. Early in the +afternoon was one time, and she would see them eagerly, excitedly +hurrying to the sea, fathers and mothers and babies, lovers and noisy +young men and shrieking girls. Then in the evening she would see them +return, some cross, some too tired to speak, some happy and singing, +some arguing and disputing, babies crying-all hurrying, hurrying lest +the train should be missed. At first she would not penetrate to the +beach. She understood from Paul and Grace that one did not go to the +beach during the summer months; at any rate, not the popular beach. +There was Merton Sand two miles away. One might go there ... it was +always deserted. This mysterious "one" fascinated Maggie's imagination. +So many times a day Grace said "Oh, I don't think one ought to." Maggie +heard again and again about the trippers, "Oh, one must keep away from +there, you know." +</P> + +<P> +In fact the Skeaton aristocracy retired with shuddering gestures into +its own castle. Life became horribly dull. The Maxses, the +Constantines, and the remainder of the Upper Ten either went away or +hid themselves in their grounds. +</P> + +<P> +Once or twice there would be a tennis party, then silence ... +</P> + +<P> +This summer was a very hot one; the little garden was stifling and the +glass bottles cracked in the sun. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to get out. I want to get out," cried Maggie-so she went down +to the sea. She went surreptitiously; this was the first surreptitious +thing she had done. She gazed from the Promenade that began just beyond +the little station and ran the length of the town down upon the sands. +The beach was a small one compared with the great stretches of Merton +and Buquay, and the space was covered now so thickly with human beings +that the sand was scarcely visible. It was a bright afternoon, hot but +tempered with a little breeze. The crowd bathed, paddled, screamed, +made sand-castles, lay sleeping, flirting, eating out of paper bags, +reading, quarrelling. Here were two niggers with banjoes, then a stout +lady with a harmonium, then a gentleman drawing pictures on the sand; +here again a man with sweets on a tray, here, just below Maggie, a +funny old woman with a little hut where ginger-beer and such things +were sold. The noise was deafening; the wind stirred the sand curiously +so that it blew up and about in little wreaths and spirals. Everything +and everybody seemed to be covered with the grit of this fine small +sand; it was in Maggie's eyes, nose, and mouth as she watched. +</P> + +<P> +She hated the place—the station, the beach, the town, and the +woods—even more than she had done before. She hated the place—but she +loved the people. +</P> + +<P> +The place was sneering, self-satisfied, contemptuous, inhuman, like +some cynical, debased speculator making a sure profit out of the +innocent weaknesses of human nature. As she turned and looked she could +see the whole ugly town with the spire of St. John's-Paul's church, +raised self-righteously above it. +</P> + +<P> +The town was like a prison hemmed in by the dark woods and the oily +sea. She felt a sudden terrified consciousness of her own imprisonment. +It was perhaps from that moment that she began to be definitely unhappy +in her own life, that she realised with that sudden inspiration that is +given to us on occasion, how hostile Grace was becoming, how strange +and unreal was Paul, and how far away was every one else! +</P> + +<P> +Just below her on the sand a happy family played-some babies, two +little boys digging, the father smoking, his hat tilted over his eyes +against the sun, the mother finding biscuits in a bag for the youngest +infant. It was a very merry family and full of laughter. The youngest +baby looked up and saw Maggie standing all alone there, and crowed. +Then all the family looked up, the boys suspended their digging, father +tilted back his hat, the mother shyly smiled. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie smiled back, and then, overcome by so poignant a feeling of +loneliness, tempted, too, almost irresistibly to run down the steps, +join them on the sand, build castles, play with the babies, she hurried +away lest she should give way. +</P> + +<P> +"I must be pretending at being married," she thought to herself. "I +don't feel married at all. I'm not natural. If I were sitting on the +sand digging I'd be quite natural. No wonder Grace thinks me tiresome. +But how does one get older and grown up? What is one to do?" +</P> + +<P> +She did not trust herself to go down to the sands again that summer. +The autumn came, the woods turned to gold, the sea was flurried with +rain, and the Church began to fill the horizon. The autumn and the +winter were the times of the Church's High Festival. Paul, as though he +were aware that he had, during these last months, been hovering about +strange places and peering into dark windows, busied himself about the +affairs of his parish with an energy that surprised every one. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was aware of a number of young women of whom before she had been +unconscious. Miss Carmichael, Misses Mary and Jane Bethel, Miss Clarice +Hendon, Miss Polly Jones ... some of these pretty girls, all of them +terribly modern, strident, self-assured, scornful, it seemed to Maggie. +At first she was frightened of them as she had never been frightened of +any one before. They did look at her, of course, as though they thought +her strange, and then they soon discovered that she knew nothing at all +about life. +</P> + +<P> +Their two chief employments, woven in, as it were, to the web of their +church assistance, were Love and Mockery-flirtations, broken +engagements, refusals, acceptances, and, on the other hand, jokes about +everybody and everything. Maggie soon discovered that Grace was one of +their favourite Aunt Sallies; this made her very angry, and she showed +so plainly her indignation on the first occasion of their wit that they +never laughed at Grace in Maggie's presence again. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie felt, after this, very tender and sympathetic towards Grace, +until she discovered that her good sister-in-law was quite unaware that +any one laughed at her and would have refused to believe it had she +been told. At the same time there went strangely with this confidence +an odd perpetual suspicion. Grace was for ever on guard against +laughter, and nothing made her more indignant than to come into a room +and see that people suddenly ceased their conversation. Maggie, +however, did try this autumn to establish friendly relations with +Grace. It seemed to her that it was the little things that were against +the friendliness rather than the big ones. How she seriously blamed +herself for an irritation that was really childish. Who, for instance, +a grown woman and married, could do other than blame herself for being +irritated by Grace's habit of not finishing her sentences. Grace would +say: +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, did you remember to-oh well, it doesn't matter—" +</P> + +<P> +"Remember what, Grace?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, really it doesn't matter. It was only that—" +</P> + +<P> +"But Grace, do tell me, because otherwise you'll be blaming me for +something I ought to have done." +</P> + +<P> +"Blaming you! Why, Maggie, to hear you talk any one would think that I +was always scolding you. Of course if that's what you feel—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, I don't. But I'm so careless. I forget things so. I don't want +to forget something that I ought to do." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you are careless, Maggie. That's quite true. It's one of your +faults." +</P> + +<P> +(Strange how willing we are ourselves to admit a fault and irritated +when a friend agrees about it with us.) +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm not always careless," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Often you are, dear, aren't you? You must learn. I'm sure you'll +improve in time. I wonder whether-but no, I decided I wouldn't bother, +didn't I? Still perhaps, after all—No, I daresay it's wiser to leave +it alone." +</P> + +<P> +Another little thing that the autumn emphasised was Grace's inability +to discover when a complaint or a remonstrance was decently deceased. +One evening Paul, going out in a hurry, asked Maggie to give Grace the +message that Evensong would be at 6.30 instead of 7 that day. Maggie +forgot to give the message and Grace arrived at the Church during the +reading of the second lesson. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh Grace, I'm so sorry!" said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"It doesn't matter," said Grace; "but how you could forget, Maggie, is +so strange! Do try not to forget things. I know it worries Paul. For +myself I don't care, although I do value punctuality and memory—I do +indeed. What I mean is that it isn't for my own happiness that I mind—" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to forget," said Maggie. "One would think to hear you, +Grace, that you imagine I like forgetting." +</P> + +<P> +"Really, Maggie," said Grace, "I don't think that's quite the way to +speak to me." +</P> + +<P> +And again and again throughout the long winter this little episode +figured. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll remember to be punctual, won't you, Maggie? Not like the time +when you forgot to tell me." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll forgive me reminding you, Maggie, but I didn't want it to be +like the time you forgot to give me—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you'd better not trust to Maggie, Paul. Only the other day when +you gave her the message about Evensong—" +</P> + +<P> +Grace meant no harm by this. Her mind moved slowly and was entangled by +a vast quantity of useless lumber. She was really shocked by +carelessness and inaccuracy because she was radically careless and +inaccurate herself but didn't know it. +</P> + +<P> +"If there's one thing I value it's order." she would say, but in +struggling to remember superficial things she forgot all essentials. +Her brain moved just half as slowly as everything else. +</P> + +<P> +That winter was warm and muggy, with continuous showers of warm rain +that seamed to change into mud in the air as it fell. +</P> + +<P> +The Church was filled with the clammy mist of its central heating. +Maggie, as she sat through service after service, watched one headache +race after another. The air was full of headache; she asked once that a +window might be kept open. "That would mean Death in Skeaton. You don't +understand the Skeaton air," said Grace. +</P> + +<P> +"That's because I don't get enough of it," said Maggie. She found +herself looking back to the Chapel services with wistful regret. What +had there been there that was not here? Here everything was ordered, +arranged, in decent sequence, in regular symmetry and progression. And +yet no one seemed to Maggie to listen to what they were saying, and no +one thought of the meaning of the words that they used. +</P> + +<P> +And if they did, of what use would it be? The affair was all settled; +heaven was arrayed, parcelled out, its very streets and courts mapped +and described. It was the destination of every one in the building as +surely as though they were travelling to London by the morning express. +They were sated with knowledge of their destiny—no curiosity, no +wonder, no agitation, no fear. Even the words of the most beautiful +prayers had ceased to have any meaning because the matter had been +settled so long ago and there was nothing more to be said. How that +Chapel had throbbed with expectation, with amaze, with curiosity, with +struggle! Foolish much of it perhaps, stifling it had seemed then in +its superstition. Maggie had been afraid then, so afraid that she could +not sleep at nights. How she longed now for that fear to return to her! +</P> + +<P> +At this point she would discover that she was beckoning back to her the +figures of that other world. They must not come ... the two worlds must +not join or she was lost ... she turned her back from her memories and +her desires. +</P> + +<P> +During this winter there were the two affairs of Mr. Toms and Caroline. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie carried out her resolve of calling on Mr. Toms. She did it one +dark afternoon a few days before Christmas, moved, it must be +confessed, partly by a sense of exasperation with Grace. Grace had been +that day quite especially tiresome. She had a cold, and a new evening +dress had cost twice as much as it ought to have done. Mitch had broken +into eczema, and Mrs. Constantine had overruled her at a committee +meeting. With a flood of disconnected talk she had overwhelmed Maggie +until the girl felt as though her head had been thrust into a bag of +flour. Through it all there had been an undercurrent of complaint as +though Maggie were responsible. +</P> + +<P> +Early in the afternoon Grace declared that her head was splitting and +retired to her bedroom. Maggie, in a state of blinded and deafened +exasperation, remembered Mr. Toms and decided to call on him. She found +a neat little house standing in a neat little garden near the sea just +beyond the end of the Promenade, or The Leas, as the real Skeatonian +always called it. Miss Toms and Mr. Toms were sitting in a very small +room with a large fire, a pale grey wallpaper, and a number of +brightly-painted wooden toys arranged on a shelf running round the +room. The toys were of all kinds—a farm, cows and sheep, tigers and +lions, soldiers and cannon, a church and a butcher's shop, little green +tufted trees, and a Noah's ark. Mr. Toms was sitting, neat as a pin, +smiling in an armchair beside the fire, and Miss Toms near him was +reading aloud. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie saw at once that her visit embarrassed Miss Toms terribly. It +was an embarrassment that she understood perfectly, so like her own +feelings on so many occasions. This put her at once at her ease, and +she was the old, simple, direct Maggie, her face eager with kindness +and understanding. Mr. Toms smiled perpetually but shook hands like the +little gentleman he was. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, studying Miss Toms' face, saw that it was lined with +trouble—an ugly face, grave, severe, but brave and proud. Maggie +apologised for not coming before. +</P> + +<P> +"I would have come—" she began. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you needn't apologise," said Miss Toms brusquely. "They don't call +on us here, and we don't want them to." +</P> + +<P> +"They don't call," said Mr. Toms brightly, "because they know I'm queer +in the head, and they're afraid I shall do something odd. They told you +I was queer in the head, didn't they?" +</P> + +<P> +Strangely enough this statement of his "queerness," although it brought +a lump into Maggie's throat, did not disturb or confuse her. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "they did. I asked who you were after I had seen you +in the road that day." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not in the least dangerous," said Mr. Toms. "You needn't be +afraid. Certain things seem odd to me that don't seem odd to other +people—that's all." +</P> + +<P> +"The fact is, Mrs. Trenchard," said Miss Toms, speaking very fast and +flushing as she spoke, "that we are very happy by ourselves, my brother +and I. He is the greatest friend I have in the world, and I am his. We +are quite sufficient for one another. I don't want to seem rude, and +it's kind of you to have come, but it's better to leave us alone—it is +indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't know," bald Maggie, smiling. "You see, I'm a little +queer myself—at least I think that most of the people here are coming +to that conclusion. I'm sure I'm more queer than your brother. At any +rate I can't do you any harm, and we may as well give it a trial, +mayn't we?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Toms clapped his hands with so sudden a noise that Maggie jumped. +</P> + +<P> +"That's right," he said. "That's the way I like to hear people talk. +You shall judge for yourself, and WE'LL judge for ourselves." His voice +was very soft and pleasant. The only thing at all strange about him was +his smile, that came and went like the ripple of firelight on the wall. +"You'd like to know all about us, wouldn't you? Well, until ten years +ago I was selling corn in the City. Such a waste of time! But I took it +very seriously then and worked, worked, worked. I worked too hard, you +know, much too hard, and then I was ill—ill for a long time. When I +was better corn didn't seem to be of any importance, and people thought +that very odd of me. I was confused sometimes and called people by +their wrong names, and sometimes I said what was in my head instead of +saying what was in my stomach. Every one thought it very odd, and if my +dear sister hadn't come to the rescue they would have locked me +up—they would indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +"Shut me up and never let me walk about—all because I didn't care for +corn any more." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed his little chuckling laugh. "But we beat them, didn't we, +Dorothy? Yes, we did—and here we are! Now, you tell us your history." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Toms had been watching Maggie's face intently while her brother +spoke, and the clear steady candour of Maggie's eyes and her calm +acceptance of all that the little man said must have been reassuring. +</P> + +<P> +"Now. Jim," she said, "don't bother Mrs. Trenchard. You can't expect +her to tell us her history when she's calling for the first time." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not expect me to?" said Maggie. "I've got no history. I lived in +Glebeshire most of my life with my father, who was a clergyman. Then he +died and I lived with two aunts in London. Then I met Paul and he +married me, and here I am!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's not history," said Mr. Toms a little impatiently. "However, I +won't bother you now. You're only a child, I see. And I'm very glad to +see it. I don't like grown up people." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you like Skeaton?" asked Miss Toms, speaking more graciously +than she had done. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh I shall like it, I expect," said Maggie. "At least I shall like the +people. I don't think I shall ever like the place—the sand blows +about, and I don't like the woods." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, they're greasy, aren't they?" said Mr. Toms, "and full of little +flies. And the trees are dark and never cool—" +</P> + +<P> +They talked a little while longer, and then Maggie got up to say +good-bye. When she took Mr. Tom's hand and felt his warm confident +pressure, and saw his large trusting eyes looking into hers, she felt a +warmth of friendliness, also it seemed to her that she had known him +all her life. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Toms came with her to the door. They looked out into the dark. The +sea rustled close at hand, far on the horizon a red light was burning +as though it were a great fire. They could hear the wave break on the +beach and sigh in the darkness as it withdrew. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall come again," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you be too sure," said Miss Toms. "We shall quite understand if +you don't come, and we shan't think the worse of you. Public opinion +here is very strong. They don't want to be unkind to Jim, but they +think he ought to be shut up ...Shut up!" Maggie could feel that she +was quivering. "Shut up!" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie tossed her head. +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway, they haven't shut me up yet," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—good-night," said Miss Toms, after a little pause in which she +appeared to be struggling to say more. +</P> + +<P> +She told Grace and Paul at supper that night that she had been to see +the Toms. She saw Grace struggling not to show her disapproval and +thought it was nice of her. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you really think—?" said Grace. "Oh, perhaps, after all—" +</P> + +<P> +"Paul," said Maggie, "do you not want me to see the Toms?" +</P> + +<P> +Paul was distressed. +</P> + +<P> +"No, it isn't that ...Miss Toms is a very nice woman. Only—" +</P> + +<P> +"You think it's not natural of me to take an interest in some one who's +a little off his head like Mr. Toms." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dear, perhaps there is something—" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie laughed. "I'm a little off my head too. Oh! you needn't look so +shocked, Grace. You know you think it, and every one else here thinks +it too. Now, Grace, confess. You're beginning to be horrified that Paul +married me." +</P> + +<P> +"Please, Maggie—" said Paul, who hated scenes. Grace was always +flushed by a direct attack. Her eyes gazed in despair about her while +she plunged about in her mind. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, you mustn't say such things—no, you mustn't. Of course it's +true that you've got more to learn than I thought. You ARE careless, +dear, aren't you? You remember yesterday that you promised to look in +at Pettits and get a reel of cotton, and then of course Mr. Toms is a +good little man—every one says so—but at the same time he's QUEER, +you must admit that, Maggie; indeed it wasn't really very long ago that +he asked Mrs. Maxse in the High Street to take all her clothes off so +that he could see what she was really made of. Now, that ISN'T nice, +Maggie, it's odd—you can't deny it. And if you'd only told me that you +hadn't been to Pettits I could have gone later myself." +</P> + +<P> +"If it isn't one thing," said Maggie, "it's another. I may be a child +and careless, and not be educated, and have strange ideas, but if you +thought, Grace, that it was going to be just the same after Paul was +married as before you were mistaken. Three's a difficult number to +manage, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if you mean," said Grace, crimsoning, "that I'm better away, that +I should live somewhere else, please say so openly. I hate this +hinting. What I mean to say is I can leave to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Grace," said Paul hurriedly, "whoever thought such a thing? We +couldn't get on without you. All that Maggie meant was that it takes +time to settle down. So it does." +</P> + +<P> +"That isn't all I meant," said Maggie slowly. "I meant that I'm not +just a child as you both think. I've got a life of my own and ideas of +my own. I'll give way to you both in lots of things so long as it makes +you happy, but you're not—you're not going to shut me up as you'd like +to do to Mr. Toms." +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps both Grace and Paul had a sharp troubling impression of having +caught some strange creature against their will. Maggie had risen from +the table and stood for the moment by the door facing them, her short +hair, standing thick about her head, contrasting with her thick white +neck, her body balanced clumsily but with great strength, like that of +a boy who has not yet grown to his full maturity. She tossed her head +back in a way that she had and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +The Caroline affair was of another sort. Some days after Christmas, +Maggie went to have tea with Caroline. She did not enjoy it at all. She +felt at once that there was something wrong with the house. It was full +of paintings in big gold frames, looking-glasses, and marble statues, +and there was a large garden that had an artificial look of having been +painted by some clever artist in the course of a night. Maggie did not +pay a long visit. There were a number of men present; there was also a +gramophone, and after tea they turned up the carpet in the dining-room +and danced. +</P> + +<P> +Caroline, in spite of her noise and laughter, did not seem to Maggie to +be happy. She introduced her for a moment to the master of the house, a +stout red-faced man who looked as though he had lost something very +precious, but was too sleepy to search for it. He called Caroline +"Sweet," and she treated him with patronage and contempt. Maggie came +away distressed, and she was not surprised to hear, a day or two later, +from Grace that Mrs. Purdie was "fast" and had been rude to Mrs. +Constantine. +</P> + +<P> +One day early in the spring Grace announced that Maggie ought not to go +and see Mrs. Purdie any more. "There are all sorts of stories," said +Grace. "People say—Oh, well, never mind. They have dancing on Sunday." +</P> + +<P> +"But she's an old friend of mine," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You have others to think of beside yourself, Maggie," said Grace. "And +there is the Church." +</P> + +<P> +"She's an old friend of mine," repeated Maggie, her mouth set +obstinately. +</P> + +<P> +"I will ask Paul what he thinks," said Grace. +</P> + +<P> +"Please," said Maggie, her colour rising into her cheeks, "don't +interfere between Paul and me. I'll speak to him myself." +</P> + +<P> +She did. Paul maintained the attitude of indifference that he had +adopted during the last six months. +</P> + +<P> +"But would you rather I didn't go?" asked Maggie, aggravated. +</P> + +<P> +"You must use your judgment," said Paul. +</P> + +<P> +"But don't you see that I can't leave a friend just because people are +saying nasty things." +</P> + +<P> +"There's your position in the parish," said Paul. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Paul!" Maggie cried. "Don't be so aggravating! Just say what you +really think." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry I'm aggravating," said Paul patiently. +</P> + +<P> +It was this conversation that determined Maggie. She had been coming, +through all the winter months, to a resolution. She must be alone with +Paul, she must have things out with him. As the months had gone they +had been slipping further and further apart. It had been Paul who had +gradually withdrawn into himself. He had been kind and thoughtful but +reserved, shy, embarrassed. She understood his trouble, but at her +first attempt to force him to speak he escaped and placed Grace between +them. Well, this summer should see the end of that. They must know +where they stood, and for that they must be alone ... +</P> + +<P> +One day, early in June, Paul announced that he thought of exchanging +duties, for the month of August, with a Wiltshire clergyman. This was +Maggie's opportunity. Finding him alone in his study, she attacked. +</P> + +<P> +"Paul, did you mean Grace to come with us to Little Harben in August?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, dear. She has nowhere else to go." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she mustn't come. I've given way about everything since we were +married. I'm not going to give way about this. That month we are to be +alone." +</P> + +<P> +"Alone!" said Paul. "But we're always alone." +</P> + +<P> +"We're never alone," said Maggie, standing with her legs apart and her +hands behind her back. "I don't mean to complain about Grace. She's +been very good to me, I know, and I've got much to be grateful for. All +the same she's not coming to Little Harben. She's got you all the rest +of the year. She can give you up for a month." +</P> + +<P> +"But Maggie—" said Paul. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm quite determined about this. I may be a child and a fool, but +I know what I'm talking about this time. You're not happy. You never +talk to me as you used to. There are many things we ought to have out, +but Grace is always there in the daytime and at night you're too tired. +If we go on like this we'll be strangers in another six months." +</P> + +<P> +He turned round to stare at her, and she saw in his eyes an odd excited +light. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie," he said in a low voice. "If we go alone to Little Harben does +it mean that you think—you can begin to love me?" +</P> + +<P> +She turned her eyes away. "I don't know. I don't know about myself, I +only know that I want us to be happy and I want us to be close +together—as we were before we were married. It's all gone wrong +somehow; I'm sure it's my fault. It was just the same with my father +and my aunts. I couldn't say the things to them I wanted to, the things +I really felt, and so I lost them. I'm going to lose you in the same +way if I'm not careful." +</P> + +<P> +He still looked at her strangely. At last, with a sigh, he turned back +to his desk. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll speak to Grace," he said. That night the storm broke. +</P> + +<P> +During supper Grace was very quiet. Maggie, watching her, knew that +Paul had spoken to her. Afterwards in the study the atmosphere was +electric. Grace read The Church Times, Paul the Standard, Maggie +Longfellow's Golden Legend, which she thought foolish. +</P> + +<P> +Grace looked up. "So I understand, Maggie, that you don't want me to +come with you and Paul this summer?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, her heart, in spite of herself, thumping in her breast, faced a +Grace transfigured by emotion. That countenance, heavily, flabbily +good-natured, the eyes if stupid, also kind, was now marked and riven +with a flaming anger. +</P> + +<P> +But Maggie was no coward. With her old gesture of self-command she +stilled her heart. "I'm very sorry, Grace," she said. "But it's only +for a month. I want to be alone with Paul." +</P> + +<P> +Grace, her hands fumbling on the arms of her chair as though she were +blind, rose. +</P> + +<P> +"You've hated my being here, Maggie ... all this time I've seen it. +You've hated me. You don't know that you owe everything to me, that you +couldn't have managed the house, the shops, the servants—nothing, +nothing. This last year I've worked my fingers to the bone for you and +Paul. What do you think I get out of it? Nothing. It's because I love +Paul ... because I love Paul. But you've hated my doing things better +than you, you've wanted me to fail, you've been jealous, that's what +you've been. Very well, then, I'll go. You've made that plain enough at +any rate. I'll leave to-morrow. I won't wait another hour. And I'll +never forgive you for this—never. You've taken Paul away from me ... +all I've ever had. I'll never forgive you—never, never, never." +</P> + +<P> +"Grace, Grace," cried Paul. +</P> + +<P> +But she rushed from the room. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie looked at her husband. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Paul," she said, "you're frightened. Grace doesn't mean it. She +won't go to-morrow—or ever. There's nothing to be frightened of." +</P> + +<P> +His red cheeks were pale. His hands trembled. +</P> + +<P> +"I do so hate quarrels," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie went up to him and rather timidly put her hand on his arm. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll have a lovely time at Harben," she said. "Oh, I do want you to +be happy, Paul." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0306"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BATTLE OF SKEATON +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +SECOND YEAR +</H4> + +<P> +Strangely enough Maggie felt happier after this disturbance. Grace, in +the weeks that followed, was an interesting confusion of silent and +offended dignity and sudden capitulations because she had some news of +fussing interest that she must impart. Nevertheless she was deeply +hurt. She was as tenacious of her grievances as a limpet is of its +rock, and she had never been so severely wounded before. Maggie, on her +side, liked Grace better after the quarrel. She had never really +disliked her, she had only been irritated by her. +</P> + +<P> +She thought it very natural of her to be angry and jealous about Paul. +She was determined that this month at Little Harben should put +everything right. Looking back over these past years she blamed herself +severely. She had been proud, self-centred, unfeeling. She remembered +that day so long ago at St. Dreot's when Aunt Anne had appealed for her +affection and she had made no reply. There had been many days, too, in +London when she had been rebellious and hard. She thought of that night +when Aunt Anne had suffered so terribly and she had wanted only her own +escape. Yes—hard and unselfish that was what she had been, and she had +been punished by losing Martin. +</P> + +<P> +Already here, just as before in London, she was complaining and angry, +and unsympathetic. She did care for Paul—she could even love Grace if +she would let her. She would make everything right this summer and try +and be a better, kinder woman. +</P> + +<P> +Then, one morning, she found a letter on the breakfast table. She did +not recognise the handwriting; when she opened it and saw the signature +at the end for a moment she also did not recognise that. "William +Magnus." ... Then—why, of course! Mr. Magnus! She saw him standing +looking down at her with his mild eyes, staring through his large +spectacles. +</P> + +<P> +Her heart beat furiously. She waited until breakfast was over, then she +took it up to her bedroom. +</P> + +<P> +The letter was as follows: +</P> + +<P> +Dear Miss Maggie, +</P> + +<P> +I know you are not "Miss Maggie" now, but that is the only way that I +can think of you. I expect that you have quite forgotten me, and +perhaps you don't want to hear from me, but I must not lose sight of +you altogether. I haven't so many friends that I can lose one without a +word. I don't know quite what to begin by telling you. I ought to ask +you questions about yourself, I suppose, but I know that your aunts +hear from you from time to time and they give me news from your +letters. I hear that you are happily married and are quite settled down +to your new life. I'm very glad to hear that, although it isn't quite +the life that I would have prophesied for you. Do you like Skeaton? +I've never cared much for seaside resorts myself, but then I'm a queer +cranky old man, and I deserve all I get. I wish I could tell you +something cheerful about all your friends here, but I'm afraid I can't. +Your aunt is so brave and plucky that probably she said nothing to you +in her last letter about how ill she has been, but she's just had a +very bad bout, and at one time we were afraid that we were going to +lose her. You can imagine how anxious we all were. But she is better +again now, although very much shattered. The Chapel is closed. There's +a piece of news for you! It never recovered from poor Warlock's death; +he was the spirit that gave it life, and although he may have had his +dreams and imaginations that deceived him, there was some life in that +building that I have never found anywhere else and shall never find +again. You remember that Amy Warlock married that scamp Thurston. Well, +she has left him and has come back to live with her mother. She had a +rather bad experience, I'm afraid, poor woman, but she says nothing to +any one about it. She and the old lady have moved from this part of +London and have gone to live somewhere in Kensington. Some one saw +Martin Warlock in Paris the other day. I hear that he has been very +seriously ill and is greatly changed, looking years older. I can say, +now that you are happily married, that I am greatly relieved that you +were not engaged to him. You won't think this presumptuous of a man old +enough to be your father, will you? I am sure he had many good things +in him, but he was very weak and not fitted to look after you. But he +had a good heart, I'm sure, and his father's death was a great shock to +him. Thurston, I hear, is having revival meetings up and down the +country. Miss Avies, I believe, is with him. You remember Miss +Pyncheon? She and many other regular attendants at the Chapel have left +this neighbourhood. The Chapel is to be a cinematograph theatre, I +believe. There! I have given you all the gossip. I have not said more +about your aunts because I want you to come up one day to London, when +you have time, and see them. You will do that, won't you? I expect you +are very busy—I hope you are. I would like to have a line from you, +but please don't bother if you have too much to do. +</P> + +<P> +Always your friend, +</P> + +<P> +WILLIAM MAGNUS. +</P> + +<P> +When Maggie saw Martin's name the other writing on the page transformed +itself suddenly into a strange pattern of webs and squares. +Nevertheless she pursued her way through this, but without her own +agency, as though some outside person were reading to her and she was +not listening. +</P> + +<P> +She repeated the last words "Always your friend, William Magnus" aloud +solemnly twice. Her thoughts ran in leaps and runs, hurdle-race-wise +across the flat level of her brain. Martin. Old. Ill. Paris. Those +walls out there and the road-man with a spade—little boy walking with +him—chattering—it's going to be hot. The light across the lawn is +almost blue and the beds are dry. His room. The looking-glass. Always +tilts back when one tries to see one's hair. Meant to speak about it. +Martin. Ill. Paris. Paris. Trains. Boats. How quickly could one be +there? No time at all. Paris. Never been to Paris. Perhaps he isn't +there now ... +</P> + +<P> +At that definite picture she controlled her mind again. She pulled it +up as a driver drags back a restive horse. Her first real thought was: +"How hard that this letter should have come now when I was just going +to put everything right with Paul." Her next: "Poor Paul! But I don't +care for him a bit ... I don't care for any one but Martin. I never +did." Her next: "Why did I ever think I did?" And her next: "Why did I +ever do this?" She knew with a strange calm certainty that from this +moment she would never be rid of Martin's presence again. She had +maintained for more than a year a wonderful make-believe of +indifference. She had fancied that by, pushing furiously with both +hands one could drive things into the past. But Fate was cleverer than +that. What he wanted to keep he kept for you—the weaving of the +pattern in the carpet might be your handiwork, but the final design was +settled before ever the carpet was begun. Not that any of these fine +thoughts ever entered Maggie's head. All that she thought was "I love +Martin. I want to go to him. He's ill. I've got to do my duty about +Paul." She settled upon that last point. She bound her mind around it, +fast and secure like thick cord. She put Mr. Magnus' letter away in the +shell-covered box, the wedding-present from the aunts; in this box were +the programme of the play that she had been to with Martin, the ring +with the three pearls, Martin's few letters, and some petals of the +chrysanthemum, dry and faded, that she had worn on the great day of the +matinee. Something had warned her that it was foolish to keep Martin's +letters, but why should she not? She had never hidden her love for +Martin. Then, standing in the middle of the room, close beside the +large double-bed, with a football-group and "The Crucifixion" staring +down upon her, she had her worst hour. Nothing in all life could have +moved her as did that picture of Martin's loneliness and sickness. Wave +after wave of persuasion swept over her: "Go! Go now! Take the train to +Paris. You can find out from Mr. Magnus where he was living. He is +sick. He needs you. You swore to him that you would never desert him, +and you have deserted him. They don't want you here. Grace hates you, +and Paul is too lazy to care!" +</P> + +<P> +At the thought of Paul resolution came to her. She looked up at the +rather fat, amiable youth with the stout legs and the bare knees in the +football photograph, and prayed to it: "Paul, I'm very lonely and +tempted. Care for me even though I can't love you as you want. Don't +give me up because I can't let you have what some one else has got. +Let's be happy, Paul—please." +</P> + +<P> +She was shivering. She looked back with a terrified, reluctant glance +to the drawer where Mr. Magnus' letter was, then she went downstairs. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after they started for Little Harben. The last days in Skeaton had +scarcely been happy ones. Grace had erected an elaborate scaffolding of +offended dignity and bitter misery. She was not bitterly miserable, +indeed she enjoyed her game, but it was depressing to watch Paul give +way to her. He was determined to leave her in a happy mind. Any one +could have told him that the way to do that was to leave her alone +altogether. Instead he petted her, persuading her to eat her favourite +pudding, buying her a new work-box that she needed, dismissing a boy +from the choir (the only treble who was a treble) because he was +supposed to have made a long-nose at Grace during choir-practice. +</P> + +<P> +He adopted also a pleading line with her. "Now, Grace dear, don't you +think you could manage a little bit more?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think you ought to go out in all this rain, Grace dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Grace, you look tired to death. Shall I read to you a little?" +</P> + +<P> +He listened to her stories with a new elaborate attention. He laughed +heartily at the very faintest glimmer of a joke. Through it all Grace +maintained an unreleased solemnity, a mournful superiority, a grim +forbearance. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, watching, felt with a sinking heart that she was beginning to +despise Paul. +</P> + +<P> +His very movement as he hurried to place a cushion for Grace sent a +little shiver down her back. "Oh, don't do it, Paul!" she heard herself +cry internally, but she could say nothing. She had won her victory +about Harben. She could only now be silent. Still, she bore no grudge +at all against Grace. She even liked her. +</P> + +<P> +Grace made many sinister allusions to her fancied departure. "Ah, in +November ... Oh! of course I shall not be here then!" or, "That will be +in the autumn then, won't it? You'd better give it to some one who will +be here at the time." With every allusion she scored a victory. It was +evident that Paul was terrified by the thought that she should leave +him. He did not see what he would do without her. His world would +tumble to pieces. +</P> + +<P> +"But she hasn't the remotest intention of going," said Maggie. "She'll +never go." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't know. It would be strange without her, Maggie, I must +confess. You see, all our lives we've been together—all our lives." +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless he felt perhaps some relief, in spite of himself, when +they were safely in a train for Little Harben. It was rather a relief, +just for a day or two, not to see Grace's reproachful face. Yes, it +was. He was quite gay, almost like the boy he used to be. Little Harben +was one of the smallest villages in Wiltshire and its Rectory one of +the most dilapidated. The Rectory was sunk into the very bottom of a +green well. Green hills rose on every side above it, green woods +pressed in all around it, a wild, deserted green garden crept up to the +windows and clambered about the old walls. There was hardly any +furniture in the house, and many many windows all without curtains. +Long looking-glasses reflected the green garden at every possible angle +so that all the lights and shadows in the house were green. There was a +cat with green eyes, and the old servant was so aged and infirm that +she was, spiritually if not physically, covered with green moss. +</P> + +<P> +From their bedroom they could see the long green slope of the hill. +Everywhere there was a noise of birds nestling amongst the leaves, of +invisible streams running through the grass, of branches mysteriously +cracking, and, always, in the distance some one seemed to be chopping +with an axe. If you pushed a window open multitudes of little insects +fell in showers about you. All the roses were eaten with green flies. +</P> + +<P> +"What a place!" said Maggie; nevertheless it was rather agreeable after +the sand of Skeaton. +</P> + +<P> +During the first three days they preserved their attitude of friendly +distance. On the fourth evening Maggie desperately flung down her +challenge. They were sitting, after supper, in the wild deserted +garden. It was a wonderful evening, faintly blue and dim crocus with +flickering silver stars. The last birds twittered in the woods; the +green arc of the hill against the evening sky had a great majesty of +repose and rest. "Now, Paul!" said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, dear?" but he slowly changed colour and looked away from +her, out into the wood. +</P> + +<P> +"We've got to face it some time," she said. "The sooner, then, the +better—" +</P> + +<P> +"Face what?" he asked, dropping his voice as though he were afraid that +some one would overhear. +</P> + +<P> +"You and me." Maggie gathered her resources together. "Before we were +married we were great friends. You were the greatest friend I ever had +except Uncle Mathew. And now I don't know what we are." +</P> + +<P> +"Whose fault is that?" he asked huskily. "You know what the matter is. +You don't love me. You never have ... Have you?" He suddenly ended, +turning towards her. +</P> + +<P> +She saw his new eagerness and she was frightened, but she looked at a +little bunch of stars that twinkled at her above the dark elms and took +courage. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm very bad at explaining my feelings," she said. "And you're not +very good either, Paul. I know I am very fond of you, and I feel as +though it ought to be so simple if I were wiser or kinder. I've been +thinking for weeks about this, and I want to say that I'm ready to do +anything that will make you happy." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll love me?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm very fond of you, and I always will be." +</P> + +<P> +"No, but love." +</P> + +<P> +"A word like that isn't important. Affection—" +</P> + +<P> +"No. It's love I want." +</P> + +<P> +She turned away from him, pressing her hands together, staring into the +wood that was sinking into avenues of dark. She couldn't answer him. He +came over to her. He knelt on the dry grass, took her head between his +hands, and kissed her again and again and again. +</P> + +<P> +She heard him murmur: "Maggie ... Maggie ... Maggie. You must love +me. You must. I've waited so long. I didn't know what love was. God in +His Mercy forgive me for the thoughts I've had this year. You've +tormented me. Tantalised me. You're a witch. A witch. You're so +strange, so odd, so unlike any one. You've enchanted me. Love me. +Maggie ... Love me ... Love me." +</P> + +<P> +She caught his words all broken and scattered. She felt his heart +beating against her body, and his hands were hot to the touch of her +cold cheek. She felt that he was desperate and ashamed and pitiful. She +felt, above all else, that she must respond—and she could not. She +strove to give him what he needed. She caught his hands, and then, +because she knew that she was acting falsely and the whole of her +nature was in rebellion, she drew back. He felt her withdraw. His hands +dropped. +</P> + +<P> +She burst into tears, suddenly hiding her face in her hands as she used +to do when she was a little girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Paul," she wept. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm wicked. I +can't—" +</P> + +<P> +He got up and stood with his back to her, looking towards the night sky +that flashed now with stars. +</P> + +<P> +She controlled herself, feeling desperately that their whole future +together hung on the approaching minutes. She went up to him, standing +at first timidly behind him, then putting her hand through his arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Paul. It isn't so hopeless. If I can't give you that I can give you +everything else. I told you from the first that I couldn't help loving +Martin. All that kind of love I gave to him, but we can be friends. I +want a friend so badly. If we're both lonely we can come together +closer and closer, and perhaps, later on—" +</P> + +<P> +But she could not go on. She knew that she would never forget Martin, +that she would never love Paul. These two things were so clear to her +that she could not pretend. As the darkness gathered the wood into its +arms and the last twitter of the birds sank into silence, she felt that +she too was being caught into some silent blackness. The sky was pale +green, the stars so bright that the rest of the world seemed to lie in +dim shadow. She could scarcely see Paul now; when he spoke his voice +came, disembodied, out of the dusk. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll never forget him, then?" at last he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"You're strange. You don't belong to us. I should have seen that at the +beginning. I knew nothing about women and thought that all that I +wanted—oh God, why should I be so tempted? I've been a good man ..." +Then he came close to her and put his hand on her shoulder and even +drew her to him. "I won't bother you any more, Maggie. I'll conquer +this. We'll be friends as you want. It isn't fair to you—" +</P> + +<P> +She felt the control that he was keeping on himself and she admired +him. Nevertheless she knew, young though she was, that if she let him +go now she was losing him for ever. The strangest pang of loneliness +and isolation seized her. If Paul left her and Martin wasn't there, she +was lonely indeed. She saw quite clearly how his laziness would come to +his aid. He would summon first his virtue and his religion, and twenty +years of abstinence would soon reassert their sway; then he would slip +back into the old, lazy, self-complacent being that he had been before. +Staring into the dark wood she saw it all. She could completely capture +him by responding to his passion. Without that she was too queer, too +untidy, too undisciplined, to hold him at all. But she could not lie, +she could not pretend. +</P> + +<P> +She kissed him. +</P> + +<P> +"Paul, let's be friends, then. Splendid friends. Oh! we will be happy!" +</P> + +<P> +But as he kissed her she knew that she had lost him. +</P> + +<P> +Paul was very kind to her during their stay at Little Harben, but they +recovered none of that old friendship that had been theirs before they +married. Too many things were now between them. By the end of that +month Maggie longed to return to Skeaton. It was not only that she felt +crushed and choked by the strangling green that hemmed in the old +house—the weeds and the trees, and the plants seemed to draw in the +night closer and closer about the windows and doors—but also solitude +with Paul was revealing to her, in a ruthless, cruel manner, his +weaknesses. They were none of them, perhaps, very terrible, but she did +not wish to see them. She would like to shut her eyes to them all. If +she lost that friendly kindness that she felt for him then indeed she +had lost everything. She felt as though he were wilfully trying to tug +it away from her. +</P> + +<P> +Why was it that she had never shrunk from the faults of Martin and +Uncle Mathew—faults so plain and obvious—and now shrunk from Paul's? +Paul's were such little ones—a desire for praise and appreciation, a +readiness to be cheated into believing that all was well when he knew +that things were very wrong, an eagerness to be liked even by quite +worthless people, sloth and laziness, living lies that were of no +importance save as sign-posts to the cowardice of his soul. Yes, +cowardice! That was the worst of all. Was it his religion that had made +him cowardly? Why was Maggie so terribly certain that if the necessity +for physical defence of her or some helpless creature arose Paul would +evade it and talk about "turning the other cheek"? He was so large a +man and so soft—a terrific egoist finally, in the centre of his soul, +an egoist barricaded by superstitions and fears and lies, but not a +ruthless egoist, because that demanded energy. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, with all this, he had so many good points. He was a child, a +baby, like so many clergymen. Even her father could have been defended +by that plea ... +</P> + +<P> +He was not radically bad, he was radically good, but he had never known +discipline or real sorrow or hardship. Wrapped in cotton wool all his +life, spoilt, indulged, treated by the world as men treat women. His +effeminacy was the result of his training because he had always been +sheltered. Now his contact with Maggie was presenting him for the first +time with Reality. Would he face and grapple with it, or would he slip +away, evade it, and creep back into his padded castle? +</P> + +<P> +The return to Skeaton and the winter that followed it did not answer +that question. Maggie, Grace, and Paul were figures, guarded and +defended, outwardly friendly. Grace behaved during those months very +well, but Maggie knew that this was a fresh sign of hostility. The +"Chut-Chut," "My dear child," and the rest that had been so irritating +had been after all signs of intimacy. They were now withdrawn. Maggie +made herself during that winter and the spring that followed as busy as +possible. She ruthlessly forbade all thoughts of Martin, of the aunts, +of London; she scarcely saw Caroline, and the church was her fortress. +She seemed to be flung from service to service, to be singing in the +choir (she had no voice), asking children their catechism, listening to +Paul's high, rather strained, voice reading the lessons, talking +politely to Mrs. Maxse or one of the numerous girls, knitting and +sewing (always so badly), and above all struggling to remember the +things that she was for ever forgetting. Throughout this period she was +pervaded by the damp, oily smell of the heated church, always too hot, +always too close, always too breathless. +</P> + +<P> +She had many headaches; she liked them because they held back her +temptation to think of forbidden things. +</P> + +<P> +Gradually, although she did not know it, the impression gained ground +that she was "queer." She had not been to the Toms' often, but she was +spoken of as their friend. She had seen Caroline, who was now +considered by the church a most scandalous figure, scarcely at all, but +it was known that she was an old friend. Above all, it was understood +that the rector and his wife were not happy. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, she's odd—looks more like a boy than a woman. She never says +anything, seems to have no ideas. I don't believe she's religious +really either." +</P> + +<P> +She knew nothing of this. She did not notice that she was not asked +often to other houses. People were kind (the Skeaton people were +neither malicious nor cruel) but left her more and more alone. She said +to herself again and again: "I must make this a success—I must"—but +the words were becoming mechanical. It was like tramping a treadmill: +she got no further, only became more and more exhausted. That spring +and summer people noticed her white face and strange eyes. "Oh, she's a +queer girl," they said. +</P> + +<P> +The summer was very hot with a little wind that blew the sand +everywhere. Strange how that sand succeeded in penetrating into the +very depth of the town. The sand lay upon the pavement of the High +Street so that your feet gritted as you walked. The woods and houses +lay for nearly two months beneath a blazing sun. There was scarcely any +rain. The little garden behind the Rectory was parched and brown; the +laurel bushes were grey with dust. They saw very few people that +summer; many of their friends had escaped. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, thinking of the green depths of Harben a year ago, longed for +its coolness; nevertheless she was happy to think that she would never +have to see Harben again. +</P> + +<P> +As she had foretold, laziness settled upon Paul. What he loved best was +to sink into his old armchair in the dusty study and read old volumes +of Temple Bar and the Cornhill. He had them piled at his side; he read +article after article about such subjects as "The Silkworm Industry" +and "Street Signs of the Eighteenth Century." He was very proud of his +sermons, but now he seldom gave a new one. He always intended to. +"Don't let any one disturb me to-night, Maggie," he would say at supper +on Fridays. "I've got my sermon." But on entering the study he +remembered that there was an article in Temple Bar that he must finish. +He also read the Church Times right through, including the +advertisements. Grace gradually resumed her old functions. +</P> + +<P> +She maintained, however, an elaborate pretence of leaving everything to +Maggie. Especially was she delighted when Maggie forgot something. When +that happened she said nothing; her mouth curled a little. She treated +Maggie less and less to her garrulous confidences. They would sit for +hours in the drawing-room together without exchanging a word. Maggie +and Paul had now different bedrooms. Early in the autumn Maggie had a +little note from Mr. Magnus. It said: +</P> + +<P> +"You have not written to any of us for months. Won't you come just for +a night to see your aunts? At least let us know that you are happy." +</P> + +<P> +She cried that night in bed, squeezing her head into the pillow so that +no one should hear her. She seemed to have lost all her pluck. She must +do something, but what? She did not know how to deal with people. If +they were kind and friendly there were so many things that she could +do, but this silent creeping away from her paralysed her. She +remembered how she had said to Katherine: "No one can make me unhappy +if I do not wish it to be." Now she did not dare to think how unhappy +she was. She knew that they all thought her strange and odd, and she +felt that strangeness creeping upon her. She MUST be odd if many people +thought her so. She became terribly self-conscious, wondering whether +her words and movements were strange. +</P> + +<P> +She was often so tired that she could not drag one foot after another. +</P> + +<P> +A few weeks before Christmas something happened. A terrible thing, +perhaps—but she was delivered by it ... +</P> + +<P> +She was sitting one afternoon a few weeks before Christmas in the +drawing-room alone with Grace. It was her "At Home" day, a Friday +afternoon. Grace was knitting a grey stocking, a long one that curled +on her lap. She knitted badly, clumsily, twisting her fingers into odd +shapes and muddling her needles. Now and then she would look up as +though she meant to talk, and then remembering that it was Maggie who +was opposite to her she would purse her lips and look down again. The +fire hummed and sputtered, the clock ticked, and Grace breathed in +heavy despairing pants over the difficulties of her work. The door +opened and the little maid, her eyes nervously wandering towards Grace, +murmured, "Mr. Cardinal, mum." +</P> + +<P> +The next thing of which Maggie was conscious was Uncle Mathew standing +clumsily just inside the door shifting his bowler hat between his two +hands. +</P> + +<P> +The relief of seeing him was so great that she jumped up and ran +towards him crying, "Oh, Uncle Mathew! I'm so glad! At last!" +</P> + +<P> +He dropped his bowler in giving her his hand. She noticed at once that +he was looking very unhappy and had terribly run to seed. +</P> + +<P> +He was badly shaved, his blue suit was shabby and soiled. He was +fatter, and his whole body was flabby and uncared for. Maggie saw at +once that he had been drinking, not very much, but enough to make him a +little uncertain on his feet and unsteady in his gaze. Maggie, when she +saw him, felt nothing but a rush of pity and desire to protect him. +Very strangely she felt the similarity between him and herself. Nobody +wanted either of them—they must just love one another because there +was no one else to love them. +</P> + +<P> +She was aware then that Grace had risen and was standing looking at +them both. +</P> + +<P> +She turned round to her saying, "Grace, this is my uncle. You've heard +me speak of him, haven't you? He was very kind to me when I was a +little girl ... Uncle, this is my sister-in-law, Miss Trenchard." +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Mathew smiled and, rather unsteadily, came forward; he caught her +hand in both his damp, hot ones. "Very pleased to meet you, Miss +Trenchard. I know you've been very good to my little Maggie; at least +when I say 'my little Maggie' she's not mine any longer. She belongs to +your brother now, doesn't she? Of course she does. I hope you're well." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie realised then the terrified distress in Grace's eyes. The grey +stocking had fallen to the ground, and Grace stared at Uncle Mathew in +a kind of fascinated horror. She realised of course at once that he was +what she would call "tipsy." He was not "tipsy," but nevertheless +"tipsy" enough for Grace. Maggie saw her take in every detail of his +appearance—his unshaven cheeks, the wisps of hair over the bald top of +his head, the spots on his waistcoat, the mud on his boots, and again +as she watched Grace make this summary, love and protection for that +unhappy man filled her heart. For unhappy he was! She saw at once that +he had had a long slide downhill since his last visit to her. He was +frightened—frightened immediately now of Grace and the room and the +physical world—but frightened also behind these things at some spectre +all his own. Grace sat down and tried to recover herself. She began to +talk in her society voice. Maggie knew that she was praying, over and +over again, with a monotony possible only to the very stupid, that +there would be no callers that afternoon. +</P> + +<P> +"And so you know Glebeshire, Mr. Cardinal! Fancy! I've never been +there—never been there in my life. Fancy that! Although so many of my +relations live there. I once nearly went down, one wet Christmas, and I +was going to stay with my aunt, but something happened to prevent me. I +think I caught a cold at the time. I can't quite remember. But fancy +you knowing Glebeshire so well!" +</P> + +<P> +All this came out in a voice that might have issued from a gramophone, +so little did it represent Grace's real feelings or emotions. Maggie +knew so well that inside her head these exclamations were rising and +falling: "What a horrible man! What a dreadful man! Maggie's uncle! +We're lost if any one calls! Oh! I do hope no one calls!" +</P> + +<P> +It was obvious meanwhile that Mathew was urgently wishing for a moment +alone with Maggie. He looked at her with pleading eyes, and once he +winked towards Grace. He talked on, however, running some of his words +into one another and paying very little attention to anything that +Grace might say: "No, I haven't seen my little niece, Miss Trenchard, +for a long time—didn't like to interfere, in a way. Thought she'd ask +for me when she wanted me. We've always been the greatest friends. I'm +a bachelor, you see—never married. Not that I'd like you to fancy that +I've no interest in the other sex, far from it, but I'm a wanderer by +nature. A wife in every port, perhaps. Well, who knows? But one's +lonely at times, one is indeed. A pretty tidy little place you've got +here. Yes, you have—with a garden too." +</P> + +<P> +Paul came in, and Maggie saw him start as Mathew's stout figure +surprised him. She felt then a rush of hostility against Paul. It was +as though, at every point, she must run in fiercely to defend her uncle. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Grace's worst fears were realised. The little maid announced +Miss Purves and Mrs. Maxse. A terrible half-hour followed. Miss Purves, +as soon as she understood that this strange man was Mrs. Trenchard's +uncle, was all eager excitement, and Uncle Mathew, bewildered by so +many strangers, confused by a little unsteadiness in his legs that +would have been nothing had he not been in a small room crowded with +furniture, finally clasped Mrs. Maxse by the shoulder in his endeavour +to save himself from tumbling over the little table that held the cakes +and bread-and-butter. His hot, heavy hand pressed into Mrs. Maxse's +flesh, and Mrs. Maxse, terrified indeed, screamed. +</P> + +<P> +He began to apologise, and in his agitation jerked Miss Purves' cup of +tea from the table on to the floor. +</P> + +<P> +After that he realised that it would be better for him to go. He began +elaborate apologies. Paul saw him to the door. He gripped Paul by the +hand. "I'm delighted to have met you," he said in full hearing of the +trembling ladies. "You've given me such a good time. Give my little +Maggie a good time too. She's not looking over well. Send her up to +London to stay with me for a bit." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie saw him to the gate. In the middle of the little drive he +stopped, turning towards her, leaning his hands heavily upon her. +"Maggie dear," he said, "I'm in a bad way, a very bad way. You won't +desert me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I won't," she answered. "I may want your help in a week or +two." +</P> + +<P> +He looked dismally about him, at the thick, dull laurel bushes and the +heavy, grey sky. "I don't like this place, Maggie," he said, "and all +those women. It's religion again, and it's worse than that Chapel. You +don't seem to be able to get away from religion. You're not happy, my +dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I am," she answered firmly. +</P> + +<P> +"No, you're not. And I'm not. But it will be all right in the end, I've +no doubt. You'll never desert me, Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll never desert you," Maggie answered. +</P> + +<P> +He bent down and kissed her, his breath whisky-laden. She kissed him +eagerly, tenderly. For a moment she felt that she would go with him, +just as she was, and leave them all. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle," she said, "you understand how it is, don't you? We'd have +asked you to stay if we'd known." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's all right." He looked at her mysteriously. "That new +sister-in-law of yours was shocked with me. They wouldn't have me in +the house. I saw that. And I only had one glass at the station. I'm not +much of a man in society now. That's the trouble ... But next time I'll +come down and just send you a line and you'll come to see me in my own +little place—won't you? I'm in the devil of a mess, Maggie, that's the +truth, and I don't know how to get out of it. I've been a bit of a +fool, I have." +</P> + +<P> +She saw the look of terror in his eye again. +</P> + +<P> +"Would some money—" she suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm afraid it's past five pounds now, my dear." He sighed heavily. +"Well, I must be getting along. You'll catch your death of cold +standing out here. We ought to have been together all this time, you +know. It would have been better for both of us." +</P> + +<P> +He kissed her again and left her. She slowly returned into the house. +Curiously, he had made her happier by his visit. Her pluck returned. +She needed it. Grace was now stirred by the most active of all her +passions—fear. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless Grace and Paul behaved very well. Maggie understood the +shock that visit must have given them. She watched Grace imagining the +excited stories that would flow from the lips of Miss Purves and Mrs. +Maxse. She was determined, however, that Grace and Paul should not +suffer in silence—and Uncle Mathew must be vindicated. +</P> + +<P> +At supper that night she plunged: +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Mathew's been very ill," she began, "for a long time now. He +wasn't himself this afternoon, I'm afraid. He was very upset at some +news that he'd just had. And then meeting so many strangers at once—" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie saw that Grace avoided her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think we'll discuss it, Maggie, if you don't mind. Mr. +Cardinal was strange in his behaviour, certainly. It was a pity that +Miss Purves came. But it's better not to discuss it." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't agree," said Maggie. "If you think that I'm ashamed of Uncle +Mathew you're quite wrong. He's very unhappy and lonely—" She felt her +voice tremble. "He hasn't got any one to look after him—" +</P> + +<P> +Grace's hand was trembling as she nervously crumbled her bread. Still +without looking at Maggie she said: +</P> + +<P> +"By the way, you did the church flowers this morning didn't you, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie turned white and, as always on these occasions, her heart +thumped, leaping, as it seemed, into the very palms of her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"But it was to-morrow—" she began. +</P> + +<P> +"You remember that I told you three days ago that it was to be this +morning instead of the usual Thursday because of the Morgans' wedding." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Grace, I'm so sorry! I had remembered, I had indeed, and then Lucy +suddenly having that chill—." +</P> + +<P> +Paul struck in. "Really, Maggie, that's too bad. No flowers to-morrow? +Those others were quite dead yesterday. I noticed at evensong ... +Really, really. And the Morgans' wedding!" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie sat there, trembling. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm very sorry," she said, almost whispering. Why did fate play +against her? Why, when she might have fought the Uncle Mathew battle +victoriously, had Grace suddenly been given this weapon with which to +strike? +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go and do them now," she said. "I can take those flowers out of +the drawing-room." +</P> + +<P> +"It's done," Grace slowly savouring her triumph. "I did them myself +this afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you should have told me that!" Maggie burst out. "It's not fair +making me miserable just for your own fun. You don't know how you hurt, +Grace. You're cruel, you're cruel!" +</P> + +<P> +She had a horrible fear lest she should burst into tears. To save that +terrible disaster she jumped up and ran out of the room, hearing behind +her Paul's admonitory "Maggie, Maggie!" +</P> + +<P> +It is to be expected that Mrs. Maxse and Miss Purves made the most of +their story. The Rector's wife and a drunken uncle! No, it was too good +to be true ... but it was true, nevertheless. Christmas passed and the +horrible damp January days arrived. Skeaton was a dripping covering of +emptiness—hollow, shallow, deserted. Every tree, Maggie thought, +dripped twice as much as any other tree in Europe. It remained for +Caroline Purdie to complete the situation. One morning at breakfast the +story burst upon Maggie's ears. Grace was too deeply moved and excited +to remember her hostility. She poured out the tale. +</P> + +<P> +It appeared that for many many months Caroline had not been the wife +she should have been. No; there had been a young man, a Mr. Bennett +from London. The whole town had had its suspicions, had raised its +pointing finger, had peeped and peered and whimpered. The only person +who had noticed nothing was Mr. Purdie himself. He must, of course, +have seen that his house was filled with noisy young men and noisier +young women; he must have realised that his bills were high, that +champagne was drunk and cards were played, and that his wife's attire +was fantastically gorgeous. At any rate, if he noticed these things he +said nothing. He was a dull, silent, slow-thinking man, people said. +Then one day he went up to London or rather, in the manner of the best +modern problem play, he pretended to go, returned abruptly, and +discovered Caroline in the arms of Mr. Bennett. +</P> + +<P> +He flung Mr. Bennett out of the bedroom window, breaking his leg and +his nose, and that was why every one knew the story. What he said to +Caroline was uncertain. He did not, however, pack her off, as Miss +Purves said he should have done, but rather kept her in the big ugly +house, just as he had done before, only now without the young men, the +young women, the champagne and the flowers. +</P> + +<P> +"I must go and see her," said Maggie when she heard this story. +</P> + +<P> +Grace turned the strange pale yellow that was her colour when she was +disturbed. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie," she said, "I warn you that if you go to see this abandoned +woman you will be insulting Paul and myself before the whole town." +</P> + +<P> +"She is my friend," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"She is a wicked woman," said Grace, breathing very heavily, "and +you're a wicked woman if you go to see her. You have already made Paul +miserable." +</P> + +<P> +"That is untrue," Maggie said fiercely. "It is I that have been +miserable. Not that it hasn't been my own fault. I should never have +married Paul." +</P> + +<P> +"No, you should not," said Grace, breathing as though she had been +running very hard. "And for that I was partly to blame. But fancy what +you've done since you've been with us! Just fancy! It's terrible ... +never a greater mistake ... never, never." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie tossed her head. "Well, if it was a mistake," she said, "the end +of pretending has come at last. I've been trying for nearly two years +now to go your way and Paul's. I can't do it. I can't alter myself. +I've tried, and I can't. It's no use. Grace, we'd never get on. I see +it's been hopeless from the first. But you shan't make Paul hate me. +You've been trying your hardest, but you shan't succeed. I know that +I'm stupid and careless, but it's no use my pretending to be good and +quiet and obedient. I'm not good. I'm not quiet. I'm not obedient. I'm +going to be myself now. I'm going to have the friends I want and do the +things I want." +</P> + +<P> +Grace moved back as though she thought that Maggie were going to strike +her. +</P> + +<P> +"You're wicked," she said. "What about those letters in your drawer? +You've never loved Paul." +</P> + +<P> +"So you've been opening my drawers?" said Maggie. "You're worse than I, +Grace. I never opened any one's drawers nor read letters I shouldn't. +But it doesn't matter. There's nothing I want to hide. Paul knows all +about it. I'm not ashamed." +</P> + +<P> +"No, you're not," Grace's eyes were large with terror. "You're ashamed +at nothing. You've made every one in the place laugh at us. You've +ruined Paul's life here—yes, you have. But you don't care. Do you +think I mind for myself? But I love Paul, and I've looked after him all +his life, and he was happy until you came—yes, he was. You've made us +all laughed at. You're bad all through, Maggie, and the laws of the +Church aren't anything to you at all." +</P> + +<P> +There was a pause. Maggie, a little calmer, realised Grace, who had +sunk into a chair. She saw that stout middle-aged woman with the flat +expressionless face and the dull eyes. She saw the flabby hands +nervously trembling, and she longed suddenly to be kind and +affectionate. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Grace," she cried. "I know I've been everything I shouldn't, only +don't you see I can't give up my friends? And I told Paul before we +married that I'd loved some one else and wasn't religious. But perhaps +it isn't too late. Let's be friends. I'll try harder than ever before—" +</P> + +<P> +Then she saw, in the way that Grace shrank back, her eyes staring with +the glazed fascination that a bird has for a snake, that there was more +than dislike and jealousy here, there was the wild unreasoning fear +that a child has for the dark. +</P> + +<P> +"Am I like that?" was her own instinctive shuddering thought. Then, +almost running, she rushed up to her bedroom. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0307"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DEATH OF AUNT ANNE +</H3> + +<P> +Maggie, after that flight, faced her empty room with a sense of horror. +Was there, truly, then, something awful about her? The child (for she +was indeed nothing more) looked into her glass, standing on tip-toe +that she might peer sufficiently and saw her face, pale, with its large +dark eyes rimmed by the close-clipped hair. Was she then awful? First +her father, then her aunts, then the Warlocks, now Grace and Paul—not +only dislike but fright, terror, alarm! +</P> + +<P> +Her loneliness crushed her in that half-hour as it had never crushed +her since that day at Borhedden. She broke down altogether, kneeling by +the bed and her head in her pillow sobbing: "Oh, Martin, I want you! +Martin, I want you so!" +</P> + +<P> +When she was calmer she thought of going down to Paul and making +another appeal to him, but she knew that such an appeal could only end +in his asking her to change herself, begging her to be more polite to +Grace, more careful and less forgetful, and of course to give up such +people as the Toms and Caroline, and then there would come, after it +all, the question as to whether she intended to behave better to +himself, whether she would be more loving, more ... Oh no! she could +not, she could not, she could not! +</P> + +<P> +She saw the impossibility of it so plainly that it was a relief to her +and she washed her face and brushed her hair and plucked up courage to +regard herself normally once more. "I'm not different," she said to the +looking-glass. "There's no reason for Grace to make faces." She saw +that the breach between herself and Grace had become irreparable, and +that whatever else happened in the future at least it was certain that +they would never be friends again. +</P> + +<P> +She went downstairs prepared to do battle ... +</P> + +<P> +Next morning she paid her visit to Caroline. It was a strange affair. +The girl was sitting alone in her over-gorgeous house, her hands on her +lap, looking out of the window, an unusual position for her to be in. +</P> + +<P> +Caroline was at first very stiff and haughty, expecting that Maggie had +come to scold her. "I just looked in to sec how you were," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You might have come before," answered Caroline. "It's years since +you've been near me." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't like all those people you had in your house," said Maggie. "I +like it better now there's no one in it." +</P> + +<P> +That was not, perhaps, very tactful of her. Caroline flushed. +</P> + +<P> +"I could have them all here now if I wanted to ask them," she answered +angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm very glad you'd rather be without them," said Maggie. "They +weren't worthy of you, Caroline." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! What's the use going on talking like this!" Caroline broke out. +"Of course you've heard all about everything. Every one has. I can't +put my nose outside the door without them all peering at me. I hate +them all—all of them—and the place too, and every one in it." +</P> + +<P> +"I expect you do—" said Maggie sympathetically. +</P> + +<P> +"Nasty cats! As though they'd never done anything wrong all their days. +It was mostly Alfred's fault too. What does he expect when he leaves me +all alone here week after week eating one's heart out. One must do +something with one's time. Just like all men! At first there's nothing +too good for you, then when they get used to it they can't be bothered +about anything. I wonder what a man thinks married life is? Then to +listen to Alfred, you'd think we were still living in the days of the +Good Queen Victoria—you would indeed. Wouldn't let me go up to London +alone! There's a nice thing for you. And all because he did let me go +once and I meant to stay with mother and mother was away. So I had to +sleep at a hotel. Why shouldn't I sleep at a hotel! I'm not a baby. And +now he keeps me here like a prisoner. Just as though I were in jail." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he unkind to you?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"No, he isn't. It's his horrible kindness I can't stand. He won't +divorce me, he won't let me go away, he just keeps me here and is so +kind and patient that I could kill him. I shall one day. I know I +shall." She stood for a moment, pouting and looking out of the window. +Then suddenly she turned and, flinging her arms around Maggie, burst +into tears. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Maggie! I'm so miserable ... I'm so miserable, Maggie! Why did I +ever come here? Why did I ever marry? I was so happy at home with +mother." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie comforted her, persuading her that all would soon be well, that +people very quickly forgot their little pieces of scandal, and that so +long as she did not run away or do anything really desperate all would +come right. Maggie discovered that Caroline had escaped from her crisis +with an increased respect and even affection for her husband. She was +afraid of him, and was the sort of woman who must be afraid of her +husband before her married life can settle into any kind of security. +</P> + +<P> +"And I thought you'd altogether abandoned me!" she ended. +</P> + +<P> +"I wasn't coming while all those people were about," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You darling!" cried Caroline, kissing her. "Just the same as you used +to be. I was angry I can tell you when month after month went by and +you never came near me. I used to tell people when they asked me that +you were odd. 'She's not a bit like other people,' I would say; 'not a +bit and it's no use expecting her to be. She's always been queer. I +used to know her in London.' They do think you odd here, darling. They +do indeed. No one understands you. So odd for a clergyman's wife. Well, +so you are, aren't you? I always tell them you had no bringing up." +</P> + +<P> +Caroline in fact very quickly recovered her flow. As soon as she found +that Maggie was not shocked she reasserted her old superiority. Before +the visit was over she had rather despised Maggie for not being +shocked. At Maggie's departure, however, she was very loving. +</P> + +<P> +"You will come soon again, darling, won't you? It's no use asking you +to dinner because, of course, your husband won't come. But look in any +afternoon—or we might go for a drive in the motor. Good-bye—good-bye." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, on her return, found Grace looking at the mid-day post in the +hall. She always did this in a very short-sighted way, taking up the +letters one by one, holding each very close to her eyes, and sniffing +at it as though she were trying to read through the envelope. This +always irritated Maggie, although her own letters were not very many. +To-night, when she heard the hall door open, she turned and dropped the +letters, giving that especial creaking little gasp that she always did +when she was startled. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's you, Maggie, is it? Where've you been?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've been to see Mrs. Purdie," Maggie said defiantly. +</P> + +<P> +Grace paused as though she were going to speak, then turned on her +heel. But just as she reached the sitting-room door she said, breathing +heavily: +</P> + +<P> +"There's a telegram for you there." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie saw it lying on the table. She picked it up and hesitated. A +wild beating of the heart told her that it must be from Martin. She +didn't know what told her this except that now for so long she had been +expecting to see a telegram lying in just this way on the table, +waiting for her. She took it up with a hand that trembled. She tore it +open and read: +</P> + +<P> +"Come at once. Your aunt dying. Wishes to see you. Magnus." +</P> + +<P> +No need to ask which aunt. When one aunt was mentioned it was Aunt +Anne—of course. Oh, poor Aunt Anne! Maggie longed for her, longed to +be with her, longed to be kind to her, longed to comfort her. And Mr. +Magnus and Martha and Aunt Elizabeth and the cat—she must go at once, +she must catch a train after luncheon. +</P> + +<P> +She went impetuously into her husband's study. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Paul!" she cried. "Aunt Anne's dying, and I must go to her at +once." +</P> + +<P> +Paul was sitting in his old armchair before the fire; he was wearing +faded brown slippers that flapped at his heels; his white hair was +tangled; his legs were crossed, the fat broad thighs pressing out +against the shiny black cloth of his trousers. He was chuckling over an +instalment of Anthony Trollope's "Brown Jones and Robinson" in a very +ancient Cornhill. +</P> + +<P> +He looked up, "Maggie, you know it's my +sermon-morning—interruptions—" He had dropped the Cornhill, but not +fast enough to hide it from her. +</P> + +<P> +She looked around at the dirty untidiness of the study. "It's all my +fault, this," she thought. "I should have kept him clean and neat and +keen on his work. I haven't. I've failed." +</P> + +<P> +Then her next thought was: "Grace wouldn't let me—" +</P> + +<P> +The study, in fact, was more untidy than ever, the pictures were back +in their places whence Maggie had once removed them. +</P> + +<P> +Husband and wife looked at one another. If she felt: "I've not managed +my duty," he felt perhaps: "What a child she is after all!" But between +them there was the gulf of their past experience. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, yawning. "Is she an old lady?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, she's not," said Maggie, breathing very quickly. "I love her very +much. I've been thinking, Paul, I've not been good about my relations +all this time. I ought to have seen them more. I must go up to London +at once." +</P> + +<P> +"If your aunt's bad and wants you, I suppose you must," he answered. He +got up and came over to her. He kissed her suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be wanting some money," he said. "Don't be long away. I'll miss +you." +</P> + +<P> +She caught the 2.30 train. It seemed very strange to her to be sitting +in it alone after the many months when she had been always either with +Grace or Paul. An odd sense of adventure surrounded her, and she felt +as though she were now at last approaching the climax to which the slow +events of the last two years had been leading. When she had been a +little girl one of the few interesting books in the house had been The +Mysteries of Udulpho. She could see the romance now, with its four +dumpy volumes, the F's so confusingly like S's, the faded print, and +the yellowing page. +</P> + +<P> +She could remember little enough of it, but there had been one scene +near the beginning of the story when the heroine, Emily, looking for +something in the dusk, had noticed some lines pencilled on the +wainscot; these mysterious pencilled lines had been the beginning of +all her troubles, and Maggie, as a small girl, had approached sometimes +in the evening dusk the walls of her attic to see whether there too +verses had been scribbled. Now, obscure in the corner of her carriage, +she felt as though the telegram had been a pencilled message presaging +some great event that would shortly change her life. +</P> + +<P> +It was a dark and gloomy day, misty with a gale of wind that blew the +smoke into curls and eddies against the sky. There seemed to be a roar +about the vast London station that threatened her personally, but she +beat down her fears, found a taxi, and gave the driver the +well-remembered address. +</P> + +<P> +As they drove along she felt how much older, how much older she was +then than when she was last in London. Then she had been ignorant of +all life and the world, now she felt that she was an old, old woman +with an infinite knowledge of marriage and men and women and the way +they lived. She looked upon her aunts and indeed all that world that +had surrounded the Chapel as something infinitely childish, and for +that reason rather sweet and touching. She could be kind and friendly +even to Amy Warlock she thought. She wished that she had some excuse so +that she might stay in London a week or two. She felt that she could +stretch her limbs and breathe again now that she was out of Grace's +sight. +</P> + +<P> +And she would find out Uncle Mathew's address and pay him a surprise +visit ... She laughed in the cab and felt gay and light-hearted until +she remembered the cause of her visit. Poor, poor Aunt Anne! Oh, she +did hope that she would be well enough to recognise her and to show +pleasure at seeing her. The cab had stopped in the well-remembered +street before the same old secret-looking house. Nothing seemed to have +changed, and the sight of it all brought Martin back to her with so +fierce a pang that for a moment breath seemed to leave her body. It was +just near here, only a few steps away, that he had suddenly appeared, +as though from the very paving-stones, when she had been with Uncle +Mathew, and then had gone to supper with him. It was from this door +that he had run on that last desperate day. She looked up at the +windows; the blinds were not down; her aunt was yet alive; she paid the +taxi and rang the bell. +</P> + +<P> +The door was opened by Martha, who seemed infinitely older and more +wrinkled than on the last occasion, her old face was yellow like drawn +parchment and her thin grey hairs were pasted back over her old skull; +she was wearing black mittens. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Maggie!" and there was a real welcome in her voice. Maggie was +drawn into the dark little hall that smelt of cracknel biscuits and +lamp oil, there was the green baize door, and then suddenly the shrill +cry of the parrot, and then, out of the dark, the fiery eyes of Thomas +the cat. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Miss Maggie!" said Martha. "Or I suppose I should say 'Mrs.' now. +It's a long, long time ..." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it is," said Maggie. "How is my aunt?" +</P> + +<P> +"If she lives through the night they'll be surprised," Martha answered, +wheezing and sighing. "Yes, the doctor says—' If Miss Cardinal sees +morning,' he says—" Then as Maggie hesitated at the bottom of the +staircase. "If you'd go straight to the drawing-room, Miss, Mum, Mr. +Magnus is waiting tea for you there." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie went up, past the Armed Men into the old room. She could have +kissed all the things for their old remembered intimacy and +friendliness, the pictures, the books, the old faded carpet, the +fire-screen, the chairs and wall-papers. There, too, was Mr. Magnus, +looking just as he used to look, with his spectacles and his projecting +ears, his timid smile and apologetic voice. He did seem for a moment +afraid of her, then her boyish air, her unfeigned pleasure and +happiness at being back there again, and a certain childish awkwardness +with which she shook hands and sat herself behind the little tea-table +reassured him: +</P> + +<P> +"You're not changed at all," he told her. "Isn't that dreadful?" she +said; "when all the way in the cab I've been telling myself how utterly +different I am." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you feel older?" he asked her. +</P> + +<P> +"Older! Why, centuries!" +</P> + +<P> +"You don't look a day," he said, smiling at her. +</P> + +<P> +"That's my short hair," she answered, smiling back at him, "and not +being able to wear my clothes like a grown woman. It's a fact that I +can't get used to long skirts, and in Skeaton it's bad form to cross +your knees. I try and remember—" she sighed. "The truth is I forget +everything just as I used to." +</P> + +<P> +"How is Aunt?" she asked him. He looked very grave, and behind his +smiles and welcome to her she saw that he was a tired and even +exhausted man. +</P> + +<P> +"They don't think she can live through the night," he answered her, +"but, thank God, she's out of all pain and will never suffer any more. +She's tranquil in her mind too, and the one thing she wanted to put her +quiet was to see you. She's been worrying about you for months. Why +didn't you come up to see us all this time, Maggie? That wasn't kind of +you." +</P> + +<P> +"No, it wasn't," said Maggie. "But I didn't dare." +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't dare?" he asked, astonished. +</P> + +<P> +"No, there were things all this would have reminded me of too badly. It +wasn't safe to be reminded of them." +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't you been happy, then, there?" he asked her almost in a whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't know," she didn't look up at him. "I made a mistake in +doing it. It was my fault, not theirs. No, I haven't been happy if you +want to know. And I shan't be. There's no chance. It's all wrong; they +all hate me. I seem to them odd, mad, like a witch they used to burn in +the old days. And I can't alter myself. And I don't want to." +</P> + +<P> +It was amazing what good it did her to bring all this out. She had said +none of it to any one before. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Mr. Magnus. "I hadn't known. I thought it +was all going so well. But don't tell your aunt this. When she asks +you, say you're very, very happy and it's all going perfectly. She must +die at peace. Will you, my dear, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +His almost trembling anxiety touched her. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, dear Mr. Magnus, of course I will. And I am happy now that I'm +back with all of you. All I want is for people to be fond of me, you +know, but there's something in me—" She jumped up and stood in front +of him. "Mr. Magnus! You're wise, you write books, you know all about +things, tell me—tell me the absolute truth. Am I odd, am I queer, am I +like a witch that ought to be burnt at the stake?" +</P> + +<P> +He was deeply touched. He put his hands on her shoulders, then suddenly +drew her to him and kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't find you odd, my dear, but then, God forgive me, I'm odd +myself. We're all rather odd in this house, I'm afraid. But don't you +worry, Maggie. You're worth a wagon-load of ordinary people." +</P> + +<P> +She drew slowly away. She sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish Paul and Grace only thought so," she said. +</P> + +<P> +They had a quiet little tea together; Maggie was longing to ask Mr. +Magnus questions about himself, but she didn't dare to do so. He +wrapped himself in a reserved friendly melancholy which she could not +penetrate. He looked so much older, so much more faded, as though the +heat and fire had gradually stolen away from him and left him only the +grey ghost of what he had been. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you writing any books, Mr. Magnus?" she asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"Any books?" he answered smiling. "Surely one would be enough, my dear. +I have one half-finished as a matter of fact, but it's not +satisfactory. If it weren't for the bread and butter I don't think I'd +ever tackle it again. Or rather the bread, I should say. It's precious +little butter it brings in." +</P> + +<P> +"What's it called?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"'The Toad in the Hole,'" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"What a funny name! What does it mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know." He shook his head. "It meant something when I began it, +but the meaning doesn't seem important now." +</P> + +<P> +In a little while he left her, saying: "Now if I were you I'd take a +little nap, and later on I'll wake you and we'll go and see your aunt." +</P> + +<P> +She slept, lying back in the blue armchair in front of the fire, with +only the leaping flames as light to the room. Strange and dim but +unspeakably sweet were her dreams. It seemed that she had escaped for +ever from Paul and Grace and Skeaton, and that in some strange way +Martin was back with her again, the same old Martin, with his laugh and +the light in his eyes and his rough red face. He had come into the +room—he was standing by the door looking at her; she ran to him, her +hands stretched out, cries of joy on her lips, but oven as she reached +him there was a cry through the house: "Your Aunt Anne is dead! Your +Aunt Anne is dead!" and all the bells began to toll, and she was in the +Chapel again and great crowds surged past her. Aunt Anne's bier borne +on high above them all. She cried aloud, and woke to find Mr. Magnus +standing at her side; one glance at him told her that he was in +terrible distress. +</P> + +<P> +"You must come at once," he said. "Your aunt may have only a few +minutes to live." +</P> + +<P> +She followed him, still only half-awake, rubbing her eyes with her +knuckles, and feeling as though she were continuing that episode when +Martha had led her at the dead of night into her aunt's bedroom. +</P> + +<P> +The chill of the passages however woke her fully, and then her one +longing and desire was that Aunt Anne should be conscious enough to +recognise her and be aware of her love for her. +</P> + +<P> +The close room, with its smell of medicines and eau-de-Cologne and its +strange breathless hush, frightened her just as it had done once +before. She saw again the religious picture, the bleeding Christ and +the crucifix, the high white bed, the dim windows and the little table +with the bottles and the glasses. It was all as it had been before. Her +terror grew. She felt as though no power could drag her to that bed. +Something lurked there, something horrible and unclean, that would +spring upon her and hold her down with its claws ... +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie!" said the clear faint voice that she knew so well. Her terror +left her. She did not notice Aunt Elizabeth, who was seated close to +the bed, nor Mr. Magnus, nor the nurse, nor the doctor. She went +forward unafraid. +</P> + +<P> +"Doctor, would you mind ..." the voice went on. "Three minutes alone +with my niece ..." The doctor, a stout red-faced man, said something, +the figures, all shadowy in the dim light, withdrew. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie was aware of nothing except that there was something of the +utmost urgency that she must say. She came close to the bed, found a +chair there, sat down and bent forward. There her aunt was lying, the +black hair in a dark shadow across the pillow, the face white and +sharp, and the eyes burning with a fierce far-seeing light. +</P> + +<P> +They had the intense gaze of a blind man to whom sight has suddenly +been given: he cries "I see! I see!" stretching out his arms towards +the sun, the trees, the rich green fields. She turned her head and put +both her hands about Maggie's; she smiled. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie said, "Oh, Aunt Anne, do you feel bad?" +</P> + +<P> +"No dear. I'm in no pain at all. Now that you've come I'm quite happy. +It was my one anxiety." Her voice was very faint, so that Maggie had to +lean forward to catch the words. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll have thought me unkind all this time," said Maggie, "not to +have come, but it hasn't been unkindness. Many times I've wanted, but +there seemed to be so much to do that it wasn't RIGHT to come away." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you happy, dear?" Aunt Anne said in her ghostly whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"Very, very happy," said Maggie, remembering what Mr. Magnus had said +to her. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Anne sighed. "Ah, that's good. It was my one worry that you +mightn't be happy. I was all wrong about you, Maggie, trying to push +you my way instead of letting you go your own. I should have waited for +God to show His direction. But I was impatient—and if you were +unhappy—" She broke off and for a moment Maggie thought that she would +speak no more. She lay there, with her eyes closed, like a waxen image. +</P> + +<P> +She went on again: "I've always loved you, Maggie, from the very first, +but I was so impatient for you to come to God. I thought He would +reveal Himself and you not be ready. He did reveal Himself, but not as +I had thought. He came that night and took Mr. Warlock with Him—that +was true, Maggie, that night. All true—All true. God will show you His +way. It will be revealed to you. Heaven and its glories. God and His +dear Son ..." +</P> + +<P> +She stopped again and lay with her eyes closed. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie timidly, at last, said: +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Anne, I want you to forgive me for all my wickedness. I didn't +mean to be wicked, but I just couldn't say my feelings out loud. I was +shy of them somehow. I still am, perhaps. Maybe I always will be. But I +just want to say that I know now how good you were to me all that time +and I'm grateful from my heart." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll get better won't you, Aunt Anne, and then I'll come often? I'm +shy to say my feelings, but I love you. Aunt Anne, for what you've been +to me." +</P> + +<P> +She stopped. There was a deathly stillness in the chamber. The lamp had +sunk low and the fire was a gold cavern. Dusk stole on stealthy feet +from wall to wall. Aunt Anne did not, it seemed, breathe. Her hands had +dropped from Maggie's and her arms lay straight upon the sheet. Her +eyes were closed. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Maggie ... Maggie ... My Lord and my God ... My Master ..." +</P> + +<P> +Then very faintly: "The Lord is my Shepherd ... My Shepherd ... He +shall lead me forth ... beside the pastures ... my rod and my staff ... +The Lord ..." +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little sigh and her head rolled to one side. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie, with a startled fear, was suddenly conscious that she was alone +in the room. She went to the door and called for the doctor. As they +gathered about the bed the caverns of the fire fell with the sharp +sound of a closing door. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning Maggie wrote to Paul telling him that her aunt was dead, +that the funeral would be in two days' time, and that she would stay in +London until that was over. She had not very much time just then to +think of the house and the dead woman in it, because on the +breakfast-table there was this letter for her. +</P> + +<P> +23 CROMWELL RD., KENSINGTON, March 12, 1912. +</P> + +<P> +DEAR MRS. TRENCHARD, +</P> + +<P> +I hear that you have come to London to visit your aunt. I have been +hoping for some time past to have an opportunity of seeing you. I am +sure that you will have no wish at all to see me; at the same time I do +beg you to give me half an hour at the above address. Five o'clock +to-morrow would be a good time. Please ask for Miss Warlock. +</P> + +<P> +Believe me, Yours faithfully, AMY WARLOCK. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie stared at the signature, then, with a thickly beating heart, +decided that of course she would go. She was not afraid but—Martin's +sister! What would come of it? The house was strangely silent; Aunt +Elizabeth sniffed into her handkerchief a good deal; Mr. Magnus, his +face strained with a look of intense fatigue, went out about some +business. The blinds of the house wore down and all the rooms were +bathed in a green twilight. +</P> + +<P> +About quarter past four Maggie went down into the Strand and found a +cab. She gave the address and off they went. Sitting in the corner of +the cab she seemed to be an entirely passive spectator of events that +were being played before her. She knew, remotely, that Aunt Anne's +death had deeply affected her, that coming back to the old house had +deeply affected her, and that this interview with Amy Warlock might +simply fasten on her the fate that she had for many months now seen in +front of her. She could not escape; and she did not want to escape. +</P> + +<P> +They found the house, a very grimy looking one, in the interminable +Cromwell Road. Maggie rang a jangling bell, and the door was ultimately +opened by a woman with sleeves turned up at the elbows and a dirty +apron. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Miss Warlock at home?" The woman sniffed. +</P> + +<P> +"I expect so," she said. "Most times she is. What name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Trenchard," Maggie said. +</P> + +<P> +She was admitted into a hall that smelt of food and seemed in the +half-light to be full of umbrellas. The woman went upstairs, but soon +returned to say that Miss Warlock would see the lady. Maggie found that +in the sitting-room the gas was dimly burning. There was the usual +lodging-house furniture, and on a faded red sofa near the fire old Mrs. +Warlock was lying. Maggie could not see her very clearly in the +half-light, but there was something about her immobility and the +stiffness of her head (decorated as of old with its frilly white cap) +that reminded one of a figure made out of wax. Maggie turned to find +Amy Warlock standing close to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Thurston—" Maggie began, hesitating. +</P> + +<P> +"You may not know," said Amy Warlock, "that I have retained my maiden +name. Sit down, won't you? It is good of you to have come." +</P> + +<P> +The voice was a little more genial than it had been in the old days. +Nevertheless this was still the old Amy Warlock, stiff, masculine, +impenetrable. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope your aunt is better," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"My aunt is dead," answered Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me, I'm sorry to hear that. She was a good woman and did many +kind actions in her time." +</P> + +<P> +There was something very unpleasant about that room, with the yellow +light, the hissing gas, and the immobile figure on the sofa. Maggie +looked in the direction of old Mrs. Warlock. +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't mind mother," said Amy Warlock. "For some time now she's +been completely paralysed. She can't speak or move. But she likes to be +downstairs, to see the world a bit. It's sad after the way that she +used to enjoy life. Father's death was a great shock to her." +</P> + +<P> +It was sad. Maggie remembered how fond she had been of her food. Like a +waxen image! Like a waxen image! The whole room was ghoulish and +unnatural. +</P> + +<P> +"I've asked you to come and see me, Mrs. Trenchard," continued Miss +Warlock, "not because we can have any wish to meet, I am sure. We have +never liked one another. But I have something on my conscience, and I +may not have another opportunity of speaking to you. I don't suppose +you have heard that very shortly I intend to enter a nunnery at +Roehampton." +</P> + +<P> +"And your mother?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother will go into a Home," answered Miss Warlock. +</P> + +<P> +There was a strange little sound from the sofa like a rat nibbling +behind the wainscot. +</P> + +<P> +"I must tell you," said Miss Warlock, speaking apparently with some +difficulty, "that I have done you a wrong. Shortly after my father's +death my brother wrote to you from Paris." +</P> + +<P> +"Wrote to me?" repeated Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—wrote to you through me. I destroyed the letters. He wrote then +five times in rather swift succession. I destroyed all the letters." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"I destroyed the letters," continued Amy Warlock, "because I did not +wish you and my brother to come together. I did not wish you to, simply +out of hatred for you both. I thought that my brother killed my +father—whom—whom—I loved. I knew that the one human being whom +Martin had ever loved beside his father was yourself. He did love you, +Mrs. Trenchard, more truly than I had believed it in his power to love +any one. I think you could have made him happy—therefore I did not +wish you to meet again." +</P> + +<P> +There was a pause. Maggie said at last: +</P> + +<P> +"Were there no other letters?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Miss Warlock. "One this summer. For more than a year there +was nothing; then this summer, a little one. I destroyed that too." +</P> + +<P> +"What did it say?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"It said that the woman to whom he had been married was dead. He said +that if you didn't answer this letter he would understand that you +would not want to hear from him any more. He had been very ill." +</P> + +<P> +"Where did he write that?" +</P> + +<P> +"In Paris." +</P> + +<P> +"And where is he now?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. I have heard from him no more." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie got up and stood, her head raised as though listening for +something. +</P> + +<P> +"You've been very cruel, Miss Warlock," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I have," said Miss Warlock. "But you cannot judge until you +know with what reason I hated my brother. It is a very old story. +However, now I hate no one. I will not apologise for what I have done. +I do not want your forgiveness. I had to absolve my conscience." +</P> + +<P> +"And you have no idea where he is now?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have no idea. He may be dead for all I know." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie shivered. "If you have any more information you will give it me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will give it you." +</P> + +<P> +"This is my address." Maggie gave her a card. +</P> + +<P> +They said good-day, looking for one moment, face to face, eye to eye. +</P> + +<P> +Then Maggie turned and went. Her eyes were dim so that she stumbled on +the stairs. In the street she walked, caring nothing of her direction, +seeing only Martin. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0308"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DEATH OF UNCLE MATHEW +</H3> + +<P> +Grace, during the days that Maggie was in London, regained something of +her old tranquillity. It was wonderful to her to be able to potter +about the house once more mistress of all that she surveyed and +protected from every watching eye. She had had, from her very earliest +years, a horror of being what she called "overlooked." +</P> + +<P> +She had a habit of stopping, when she had climbed halfway upstairs, of +suddenly jerking her head round to see whether any one were looking at +her. You would have sworn, had you seen her, that she was deeply +engaged upon some nefarious and underhand plot; yet it was not so-she +was simply going to dust some of her hideous china treasures in her +bedroom. +</P> + +<P> +Always after breakfast there was this pleasant ritual. She would plod +all round the house, duster in hand, picking things up, giving them a +little flick and putting them back again, patting treasures that she +especially loved, sighing heavily with satisfaction at the pleasant +sight of all her possessions tranquilly in their right places. As she +looked around the ugly sitting-room and saw the red glazed pots with +the ferns, the faded football-groups, the worsted mats and the china +shepherdesses, a rich warm feeling rose in her heart and filled her +whole body. It was like a fine meal to a hungry man: every morning at +half-past nine she was hungry in this fashion, and every morning by +eleven o'clock she was satisfied. Her thick body thus promenaded the +house; she was like a stolid policeman in female attire, going his +rounds to see that all was well. From room to room she went, pausing to +pant for breath on the stairs, stumbling always because of her short +sight at the three dark little steps just outside Paul's bedroom, +always sitting down on her bed "to take a breath" and to get a full +gaze at the crucifix of bright yellow wood, that hung just under her +mother's picture. Tramp, tramp, tramp round the house she went. +</P> + +<P> +It was incredible how deeply Maggie had interfered with this ritual. +She had certainly not intended to do so. After that first effort to +change certain things in the house she had retired from the battle, had +completely capitulated. Nevertheless she had interfered with all +Grace's movements and, as the terror of her grew, it seemed to pervade +every nook and corner of the house, so that Grace felt that she could +go nowhere without that invasion. Oh, how she resented it, and how +afraid she was! After Paul and Maggie returned from that summer holiday +she saw that Paul too felt Maggie's strangeness. To Grace, from the +beginning of that autumn, every movement and gesture of Maggie's was +strange. The oddity of her appearance, her ignorance of everything that +seemed to Grace to be life, her strange, half-mocking, half-wondering +attitude to the Church and its affairs ("like a heathen in Central +Africa"), her dislike of the Maxses and the Pynsents and her liking for +the Toms and Caroline Purdie, her odd silences and still odder +speeches, all these things increased the atmosphere that separated her +from the rest of the world. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the day when Grace, dusting in Maggie's bedroom, discovered +the bundle of letters. She read them, read them with shame at her own +dishonesty and anger at Maggie for making her dishonest. To her virgin +ignorance the passion in them spoke of illicit love and the grossest +immorality. Her heart burnt with a strange mingling of envy, jealousy, +loneliness, shame, and eagerness to know more ... +</P> + +<P> +Then came Uncle Mathew's visit; then Caroline Purdie's disgrace. The +count was fully charged. Maggie, that strange girl found in the heart +of London's darkness, alone, without friends or parents, was a witch, a +devilish, potion-dealing witch, who might, at any time, fly through the +night-sky on a broom-stick as surely as any mediaeval old hag. These +visions might be exaggerated for many human beings, not so for Grace. +Having no imagination she was soaked in superstition. She clung to a +few simple pictures, and was exposed to every terror that those +pictures could supply. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie now haunted her day and night. Everywhere she could feel +Maggie's eyes piercing her. A thousand times an hour she looked up to +see whether Maggie were not there in the room watching her. She hated +her now with terror that was partly fear for her own safety, partly +love and jealousy for Paul, partly outraged modesty and tradition, +partly sheer panic. +</P> + +<P> +She had, as yet, said very little to Paul. She waited the right moment. +Maggie's absence showed her how deep and devastating this fear had +been. She saw that it embraced the whole life of Paul and herself in +Skeaton. She had grown fond of Skeaton; she was a woman who would +inevitably care for anything when she had become thoroughly accustomed +to its ways and was assured that it would do her no harm. +</P> + +<P> +She liked the shops and the woods, the sand and the sea. Above all, she +adored the Church. During a large part of every day she was there, +pottering about, talking to the caretaker, poking her nose into the +hymn-books to see whether the choir-boys had drawn pictures in them, +rubbing the brasses, making tidy the vestry. The house too she loved, +and the garden and the bottles on the wall. She might have known that +she was not popular in the place, she cannot have failed to realise +that she had no woman friend and that she was seldom invited to dinner. +This did not matter to her. Her affections—and they were very real and +genuine—were all for her brother. Had she Paul she wanted no one else. +That was enough. +</P> + +<P> +And now it might be that they would have to leave the place. Already +the talk about Maggie was intolerable. Grace heard it on every side. +After Mathew Cardinal's visit the talk rose to a shriek. Grace knew +that those sudden silences on her entrance into the room meant lively +and excited discussion. "How terrible for the poor rector!" "Such an +odd girl—taken out of the slums." "Yes, quite drunk. He knocked Mrs. +Maxse down." "Oh I assure you that she went to see Caroline Purdie the +very day after. She did indeed ..." +</P> + +<P> +Yes. Grace knew all about it. Unless things changed Paul would have to +go. His life was ruined by this girl. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless for a whole happy week the world seemed to sink back into +its old accustomed apathy. The very house seemed to take on its old +atmosphere. Paul came out of his study and went about paying calls. +That hour, from six to seven, when he was at home to his parishioners +seemed once again to be crowded with anxious old women and men out of +work and girls in trouble. He took Grace with him on his rounds. Every +one was very friendly. Grace was able to reassume some of her old +importance. +</P> + +<P> +Her old flow of conversation—checked recently by the sense of Maggie's +strangeness—returned to her. In the morning she would stand by her +brother's study-table, duster in hand, and pour out her heart. +</P> + +<P> +"You know, Paul, it's all very well, you may say what you like, but if +Mrs. Maxse thinks she's going to have the whole of that second pew +she's mistaken. It's only for a week or two that she's got the +Broadbents staying with her, and I know what she's after. Just fancy! +What she wants is to put the Broadbents in that second seat the two +Sundays they're here and then stick to it after they're gone. Just +fancy what Miss Beats and Miss Hopwood will feel about it! What I mean +is that they've had that seat for nearly eight years and now to be +turned out! But I assure you, Paul, from what Linda Maxse said to me +yesterday I believe she intends that, I do indeed. She thinks Miss +Beats and Miss Hopwood will get used to sitting somewhere else after +two Sundays. 'I'm sure they won't mind—poor old things,' she said only +yesterday. 'Poor old things.' Just fancy! Why, Mary Beats is very +little older than I. You'll have to put your foot down about it, you +will, indeed, Paul. Yes, you will. Give Linda Maxse an inch and she +takes a mile, I always said—and this is just the kind of thing ..." +</P> + +<P> +So happily Grace ran on and Paul looked up from his desk at her, +digging his fingers into his white hair, smiling at her in just the old +confidential way that he used to have before Maggie came. +</P> + +<P> +She revived, too, her old habit of talking to herself. This had always +been an immense relief to her—it had helped her to feel reassurance. +Lately she had felt that Maggie was overhearing her and was laughing at +her; this had checked her and made her suspicious. Now as she began to +mount the stairs she would murmur to herself: "It might be better to +tell Jenny to go to Bartletts. After all, it's quicker that way, and +she'll be able to tell the boy to bring the things back. She needn't +wait. All the same she's stupid, she'll make a muddle of it as likely +as not. And Womball's boy is livelier than Bartletts'. That's something +after all. But if she goes out at two-thirty she'll never be back by +four—unless she went by Smith's lane of course—she might do that ... +Oh, dear, these stairs are a trial ... yes, she might do that, and +then she'd only be an hour altogether. I'll suggest that ..." +</P> + +<P> +Her murmur was a cheerful monotonous sound accompanying her as she +went. She would stop and rub the side of her nose with her thumb, +considering. In the house, when there was no fear of callers, she wore +large loose slippers that tap-tapped as she went. In the evenings she +sat in Paul's study all amongst the Cornhills, The Temple Bars, and The +Bible Concordances. They were very cosy and happy, and she talked +incessantly. For some reason she did not dare to ask him whether he +were not happier now that Maggie was away. She did not dare. There was +not the complete confidence that there had been. Paul was strange a +little, bewitched by Maggie's strangeness ... There was something there +that Grace did not understand. So she said nothing, but she tried to +convey to him, in the peculiar warmth of her good-night kiss, what she +felt. +</P> + +<P> +Then Maggie returned. She came back in her black clothes and with her +pale face. Her aunt had died. She was more alone even than before. She +was very quiet, and agreed to everything that Grace said. Nevertheless, +although she agreed, she was more antagonistic than she had been. She +had now something that intensely preoccupied her. Grace could see that +she was always thinking about something that had nothing to do with +Skeaton or Paul or the house. She was more absent-minded than ever, +forgot everything, liked best to sit in her bedroom all alone. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, she's mad!" said Grace. "She's really mad! Just fancy if she +should go right off her head!" Grace was now so desperately frightened +that she lay awake at night, sweating, listening to every sound. "If +she should come and murder me one night," she thought. Another thought +she had was: "It's just as though she sees some one all the time who +isn't there." +</P> + +<P> +Then came 13th March, that dreadful day that would be never forgotten +by Grace so long as she lived. During the whole of the past week +Skeaton had been delivered up to a tempest of wind and rain. The High +Street, emptied of human beings, had glittered and swayed under the +sweeping storm. The Skeaton sea, possessing suddenly a life of its own, +had stormed upon the Skeaton promenade, and worried and lashed and +soaked that hideous structure to within an inch of its unnatural life. +Behind the town the woods had swayed and creaked, funeral black against +the grey thick sky. Across the folds the rain fell in slanting sheets +with the sibilant hiss of relentless power and resolve. +</P> + +<P> +After luncheon, on this day the 13th, Maggie disappeared into the upper +part of the house and Grace settled down on the drawing-room sofa to a +nice little nap. She fell asleep to the comforting patter of rain upon +the windows and the howling of the storm down the chimney. She dreamt, +as she often did, about food. +</P> + +<P> +She was awakened, with a sudden start, by a sense of apprehension. This +happened to her now so often that there was nothing strange in it, but +she jumped up, with beating heart, from the sofa, crying out: "What's +happened? What's the matter?" +</P> + +<P> +She realised that the room had grown darker since she fell asleep, and +although it was early still there was a sort of grey twilight that +stood out against a deeper dusk in the garden beyond. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she said again, and then saw that Jenny, the maid, was +standing in the doorway. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Jenny?" she asked, trying to recover some of her dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a man, mum," said the little girl. (Grace had got her cheap from +an orphanage.) "A gentleman, mum. He's asking for Mrs. Trenchard. 'E +give me 'is card. Oh, mum, 'e is wet too!" +</P> + +<P> +She had scarcely finished, and Grace had only taken the card, when +Mathew Cardinal came forward out of the hall. He was a dim and +mysterious figure in that half-light, but Grace could see that he was +more battered and shabby than on his last visit. His coat collar was +turned up. She could only very vaguely see his face, but it seemed to +her strangely white when before it had been so grossly red. +</P> + +<P> +She was struck by his immobility. Partly perhaps because she had been +roused from sleep and was yet neither clear nor resolved, he seemed to +her some nightmare figure. This was the man who was responsible for all +the trouble and scandal, this was the man who threatened to drive Paul +and herself from her home, this was the blackguard who had not known +how to behave in decent society. But behind that was the terror of the +mystery that enveloped Maggie—the girl's uncle, the man who had shared +in her strange earlier life, and made her what she now was. As he stood +there, motionless, silent, the water dripping from his clothes, Grace +was as frightened as though he had already offered her personal +violence or held a pistol to her head. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want?" she asked hoarsely, stepping back to the sofa. +Jenny had left the room. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to see my niece," he answered, still without moving. She +recognised then, strangely, in his voice a terror akin to her own. He +also was afraid of something. Of what? It was not that his voice shook +or that his tongue faltered. But he was terrified ... She could feel +his heart thumping behind the words. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry," she said. "You can't see her. She's upstairs resting." +</P> + +<P> +She did not know whence the resolution had come that he was not, in any +case, to see Maggie; she did not know what catastrophe she anticipated +from their meeting. She was simply resolved, as though acting under the +blind orders of some other power, that Maggie should not see him and +that he should leave the house at once. +</P> + +<P> +"I must see her," he said, and the desperate urgency in his voice would +have touched any one less terrified than Grace. "I must." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry," she answered. The fear in his voice seemed now to give her +superiority over him. "It's impossible." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no," he said. "If she's here it can't be impossible. She'd want to +see me. We have things ... I must ... You don't understand, Miss +Trenchard." +</P> + +<P> +"I only know," said Grace, "that after what occurred on your last visit +here, Mr. Cardinal, Maggie said that she would never see you again." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a lie!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +She made no answer. Then at last he said pitifully: +</P> + +<P> +"She didn't really say that, did she?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. I'm sorry. But you can understand after what occurred—" +</P> + +<P> +He came suddenly forward, the water trickling from him on to the carpet. +</P> + +<P> +"You swear that's true?" +</P> + +<P> +She could see now his face and realised that he was, indeed, +desperate—breathless as though he had been running from some one. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, that's true," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie said that." +</P> + +<P> +"Those were Maggie's words." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, well, I'm done ..." He turned away from her as though her +announcement had settled something about which he had been in doubt. +"It isn't like Maggie ... But still she hasn't written. She saw I was +hard up last time. All I deserve ... All I deserve." He turned round to +Grace again. "I can't quite believe it, Miss Trenchard. It doesn't +sound like Maggie, but perhaps you've influenced her ... That's likely. +If she should change her mind I'm at the 'Sea Dog.' Not much of a +place. Quiet though. Yes, well. You might tell her not to bother. I'm +finished, you see, Miss Trenchard. Yes, down. You'll be glad to hear +it, I've no doubt. Well, I mustn't stay talking. I wish Maggie were +happier though. She isn't happy, is she?" +</P> + +<P> +The question was so abrupt that Grace was startled. +</P> + +<P> +"I should hope so—Mr. Cardinal," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, she isn't. I know. Always this religion she gets into. If it +isn't one sort it's another. But she's a good girl. Don't you forget +that. Well, I must be going. Good day. Good day." +</P> + +<P> +He was actually gone, leaving a little pool of water on the carpet +behind him. Grace sat down on the sofa again. What a horrible man! What +a horrible man! But she had been wrong to say that about Maggie. Yes, +she had. But he had taken her by surprise. Oh dear! How her heart was +beating! And how strange he had looked. She could scarcely breathe. She +sat there lost in stupefied wonder. At last tea came in, and with it +Paul and Maggie. Grace felt ashamed and frightened. Why was Maggie +always making her do things of which she was ashamed? It was as though +the girl had power over her ... absurd, of course. Nevertheless, as she +poured out the tea she was haunted by that man's eyes. Yes, he had +undoubtedly been very unhappy. Yes, in great trouble. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie sat quietly there. Paul was preoccupied with a letter that must, +he had decided, be written to The Church Times. It was a letter about +Churchwardens and their growing independence. He finished his tea +hurriedly, but before he left the room, looking at Maggie rather +wistfully, suddenly he bent down and kissed her. She glanced up at him, +smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"Is there anything I can do for you, Grace?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Then, as it were without her own desire, Grace was compelled to speak. +"There's something I ought to tell you—" she began awkwardly. Then she +stopped. Maggie was troubled. She knew that when Grace was +uncomfortable every one else was uncomfortable. +</P> + +<P> +"What have I done now?" she said rather sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"It's nothing that you've done," answered Grace also sharply. "I'm sure +I don't know, Maggie, why you should always think that I'm scolding +you. No, I don't indeed. It's nothing that you've done. Your uncle came +to see you this afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Mathew?" Maggie jumped up from her chair. "Came here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"And wanted to see me? Oh, Grace, why didn't you tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have told you ... There's nothing to make a fuss about, Maggie. +Really, you needn't look like that—as though I were always doing +something wrong. I only did it for your sake." +</P> + +<P> +"For my sake? But why? I wanted to see him. I was trying to see him in +London. Oh, Grace, what did he say?" +</P> + +<P> +"What did he say? Well, fancy! As though I could remember. He said he'd +come to see you, and when I said he couldn't, he went away again." +</P> + +<P> +"Said he couldn't? But why couldn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Really, Maggie, your tone is extraordinary. Fancy what Paul would say +if he heard you. He wouldn't like it, I'm sure. I said that after the +way he'd behaved last time he came here you didn't want to see him +again." +</P> + +<P> +"You said that? Oh, Grace! How did you dare!" "Now, Maggie, don't you +look like that. I've done nothing, I'm sure." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you say that I'd said that I didn't want to see him again?" +</P> + +<P> +Grace shrank back behind the tea-things. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I did ... Maggie, you frighten me." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope I do ... You're wicked, you're wicked. Yes, you are. Where is +he now?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's at the 'Sea Dog.' That dirty public house on the sea-front—near +Tunstalls—Where are you going?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to him of course." Maggie turned and looked at Grace. Grace +was fascinated as a rabbit is by a snake. The two women stared at one +another. +</P> + +<P> +"How strange you are, Grace," Maggie said. "You seem to like to be +cruel!" Then she went out. When the door was closed Grace found "that +she was all in a perspiration." Her hand trembled so that when she +tried to pour herself another cup of tea—just to fortify herself—she +poured it into the saucer. And the tea was cold—no use now. +</P> + +<P> +When she rose at last to go in and seek consolation from Paul her knees +were trembling so that she staggered across the floor. This couldn't go +on. No, it could not. To be frightened in one's own house! Absurd ... +Really the girl had looked terrible ... Murder ... That's what it had +looked like. Something must be done. +</P> + +<P> +Murmuring aloud to herself again and again "Something must be done" as +she crossed the hall, she walked slowly, her hand to her heart, +ponderously, as though she were walking in the dark. Then, as soon as +she had opened the study door she began, before she could see her +brother: "Oh, Paul, I'm so frightened. It's Maggie. She's very angry. +Fancy what she said." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie meanwhile had gone straight up to her bedroom and found her +black hat and her waterproof. Her one thought now was lest he should +have caught the five o'clock train and gone back to London. Oh! how +hurt he would be with her, how terribly hurt! The thought of the pain +and loneliness that he would feel distressed her so bitterly that she +could scarcely put on her hat, she was so eager to run and find him. +She felt, at the thought of his fruitless journey through the rain, the +tenderest affection for him, maternal and loving, so that she wanted to +have him with her at once and to see him in warm clothes beside the +fire, drinking whisky if he liked, and she would give him all the money +she possessed. +</P> + +<P> +She had still touched very little of her own three hundred pounds. He +should have as much of that as he liked. The death of Aunt Anne had +shown her how few people in the world there were for her to love. After +all, the aunts and Uncle Mathew had needed her as no one else had done. +She made little plans; she would, perhaps, go back with him to London +for a little time. There was, after all, no reason why she should +remain in this horrible place for ever. And Paul now seemed not to care +whether she went or stayed. +</P> + +<P> +She ran out into the wind and the rain. She was surprised by the force +and fury of it. It would take time and strength to battle down the High +Street. Poor Uncle Mathew! To walk all the way in the rain and then to +be told that she would not see him! She could imagine him turning away +down the drive, bitterly disappointed ... +</P> + +<P> +Probably he had come to borrow money, and she had promised that she +would not fail him. When she reached the High Street she was soaked. +She felt the water dripping down her neck and in her boots. At the +corner of the High Street by the bookseller's she was forced to pause, +so fiercely did the wind beat up from the Otterson Road, that runs +openly to the sea. Maggie had not even in Glebeshire known so furious a +day and hour when the winds tossed and raged but never broke into real +storm. It was the more surprising. She had to pause for a moment to +remember where Turnstall's the butcher was, then, suddenly recalling +it, she turned off the High Street and found her way to the mean +streets that ran behind the Promenade. Still she met no one. It might +have been a town abandoned by all human life and given over to the wind +and rain and the approaching absorption of the sea. It was now dark and +the lamp at the end of the street blew gustily and with an uncertain +flare. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie found Turnstall's, its shop lit and Mr. Turnstall himself, stout +and red-faced, behind his bloody counter. She went in and asked him +where "The Sea Dog" might be. He explained to her that it was close at +hand, on the right, looking over the Promenade. She found it at last +because it had an old-fashioned creaking wooden sign with a blue sailor +painted on it. Timidly she stepped into the dark uneven passage. To the +right of her she could see a deserted room with wooden trestles and a +table. The bar must be near because she could hear voices and the +clinking of glasses, but, in spite of those sounds the house seemed +very dead. Through the walls and rooms she could hear the pounding beat +of the sea. She walked to the end of the passage and there found an old +wrinkled man in riding breeches and a brightly-coloured check shirt. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you tell me where a gentleman, Mr. Cardinal, is staying?" she +asked. +</P> + +<P> +He was obviously very deaf; she had to shout. She repeated her +question, adding. "He came from London to-day." +</P> + +<P> +A stout middle-aged woman appeared. "What is it?" she asked. "The old +man's stone deaf. He can't hear at all." +</P> + +<P> +"I was wondering," said Maggie, "whether you could tell me where I +could find a Mr. Cardinal. He came down from London to-day and is +staying here." +</P> + +<P> +"Cardinal ... Cardinal?" The woman thought, scratching her head. "Was +it Caldwell you meant?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie. "Cardinal." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go and see." The woman disappeared, whilst the old man brushed +past Maggie as though she were a piece of furniture; he departed on +some secret purpose of his own. +</P> + +<P> +"What a horrible place!" thought Maggie. "Uncle must be in a bad way if +he comes here. I never should sleep for the noise of the sea." +</P> + +<P> +The woman returned. "Yes. 'E's here. No. 5. Come this afternoon. Up the +stairs and second door on the right." +</P> + +<P> +The stairs to which she pointed offered a gulf of darkness. The woman +was gone. The noises from the bar had ceased. The only sound in the +place was the thundering of the sea, roaring, as it seemed, at the very +foot of the house. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie climbed the stairs. Half-way up she was compelled to pause. The +darkness blinded her; she had lost the reflection from the lamp below +and, above her, there was no light at all. She advanced slowly, step by +step, feeling her way with a hand on the rickety bannisters. At the top +of the stair there was a gleam of light and, turning to the right, she +knocked on the second door. There was no answer and she knocked again. +Listening, the noise of the sea was now so violent that she fancied +that she might not have heard the answer so she turned the handle of +the door and pushed it open. She was met then by a gale of wind, a rush +of the sea that seemed as imminent as though she were on the shore +itself and a dim grey light that revealed nothing in the room to her +but only shapes and shadows. +</P> + +<P> +She knew at once that the windows must be wide open; she could hear +some papers rustling and something on the wall tapped monotonously. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Mathew!" she whispered, and then she called more loudly. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Mathew! Uncle Mathew!" +</P> + +<P> +There was no answer and suddenly a strange, quite unreasoning terror +caught her by the throat. It was all that she could do not to cry out +and run down to the gas-lit passage. She held herself there by sheer +force; the smell of the sea was now very strong; there was a tang of +rotten seaweed in it. +</P> + +<P> +As she remained there she could see more clearly, but it seemed that +the room was full of some dim obscuring mist. She moved forward into +the room, knocked her knee against a table, and then as the panic +gained upon her called more loudly, "Uncle... Uncle. Are you in? Where +are you? It's I, Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh well... of course he isn't here," she said to herself. "He's +downstairs." And yet, strangely, something seemed to persuade her that +he was there; it was as though he were maliciously hiding from her to +tease her. +</P> + +<P> +Feeling her way cautiously, her hands before her face, she moved +forward to close the windows, thinking that she must shut out that +abominable sound of the sea and the stale stink of the seaweed. She was +suddenly caught by a sweep of rain that wetted her hair and face and +neck. She started back and touched a piece of damp cloth. She turned, +and there, very close to her but above her and staring over her head, +was Uncle Mathew's face. It was so close to her that she could have +touched it by putting up her hand. It was white-grey and she would not +have seen it at all had she not been very near to it. +</P> + +<P> +She realised nothing, but she felt that her knees were trembling and +that she would fall if she did not steady herself. She put out her hand +and clutched damp heavy thick cloth, cloth that enwrapped as it seemed +some weighty substance like stone or brick. +</P> + +<P> +She passed her hand upwards and suddenly the damp cloth gave way +beneath her fingers, sinking inwards against something soft and flabby. +She sprang away. She stood for one shuddering moment, then she screamed +again and again, shrieking and running, as it were for her life, out of +the room, down the passage. She could not find the staircase. Oh! she +could not find the staircase! She stood there, leaning against the damp +wall, crying: "Oh help! Help! Quickly!" +</P> + +<P> +There were steps and voices, then the woman whom she had seen before +appeared at the turn of the stair holding a lamp. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she asked, raising the light high. Maggie did not answer, +only leaning there and staring down. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better come, Bill," the woman said. "There's something wrong up +'ere." +</P> + +<P> +The woman came up the stairs followed by two men; they moved cautiously +as though, they expected to find something terrible round the next +corner. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" said the woman again when she came up to Maggie. But +Maggie made no answer. They pushed past her and went into the room. +Maggie followed them. She saw the room obscured by mist; she heard some +whispering and fumbling, then a match was struck; there was a bead-like +flare followed suddenly by the flaming of a candle. In the quick light +the room was bright. Maggie saw her uncle hanging from some projection +in the rough ceiling. A chair was overturned at his feet. His body was +like a bag of old clothes, his big boots turning inwards towards one +another. His face was a dull grey and seemed cut off from the rest of +his body by the thick blue muffler that encircled his neck. He was +grinning at her; the tip of his tongue protruded at her between his +teeth. She noticed his hands that hung heavily like dead fish. +</P> + +<P> +After that she knew no more save that the sea seemed to rush in a great +flood, with a sudden vindictive roar, into the room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0309"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SOUL OF PAUL +</H3> + +<P> +Nothing so horrible had ever happened to Paul before, nothing ... +</P> + +<P> +He felt as though he had committed a murder; it was as though he +expected arrest and started at every knock on the door. Nothing so +horrible ... +</P> + +<P> +It was, of course, in all the Skeaton papers. At the inquest it +appeared that Mathew Cardinal had imitated the signature of a +prosperous City friend; had he not chosen his own way out he would have +discovered the arduous delights of hard labour. But he had chosen +suicide and not "while of unsound mind." Yes, the uncle of the Rector's +wife ... Yes, The Rector's Wife's Uncle ... Yes, The Rector's Wife's +Uncle! +</P> + +<P> +Sho discovered him, bumped right into him in the dark. What a queer +story—like a novel. Oh, but she had always been queer—Trenchard had +picked her up somewhere in a London slum; well, perhaps not a slum +exactly but something very like it. Why did he marry her? Perhaps he +had to. Who knows? These clergymen are sly dogs. Always the worst if +the truth were known ... +</P> + +<P> +So it went on. For nine whole days (and nights) it was the only topic +in Skeaton. Paul caught the fringe of it. He had never known very much +about his fellow-beings. He had always taken the things that they said +to him as the true things, when they smiled he had thought that they +meant their smiles. And why not? ... since he always meant his. He had +always been too lazy to dislike people, and his digestion had been too +good and his ambition too slender to urge him towards spite and malice. +He had believed that he was on excellent terms with all the world. +</P> + +<P> +Now that was changed. He was watched, he knew, with curious, +inquisitive, critical glances. Through no fault of his own he was +soiled and smirched. That hearty confident laugh of his must be +checked. He was afraid. Yes, he was afraid. He sat in his study and +trembled at the thought of meeting his congregation. He had done +nothing and yet his reputation was no longer clean. But he was afraid, +also, of something else. He saw, desperately against his will, the +central picture. He saw the body hanging in the dark room, Maggie +tumbling against it, the cries, the lights, the crowd ... He saw it +all, hour after hour. He was not an imaginative man, but it seemed to +him that he had actually been present at this scene. He had to attend +the inquest. That had been horrible. With all eyes upon him he stood up +and answered their detestable questions. He had trembled before those +eyes. Suddenly the self-confidence of all his life had left him. He had +stammered in his replies, his hands had trembled and he had been forced +to press them close to his sides. He had given his answers as though he +were a guilty man. +</P> + +<P> +He came then slowly, in the silence of his study, to the consideration +of Grace and Maggie. This would kill Grace. She had altered, in a few +days, amazingly; she would meet nobody, but shut herself into her +bedroom. She would not see the servants. She looked at Paul as though +she, like the rest of the world, blamed him. Paul loved Grace. He had +not known before how much. They had been together all their lives and +he had taken her protection and care of him too much for granted. How +good she had been to him and for how many years! When they were happy +it seemed natural that she should look after him, but now, in the +middle of this scandal he saw that it should have been he who looked +after her. He had not looked after her. Of course, now they would have +to leave Skeaton and he knew what that departure would mean to Grace. +She was suspicious of new places and new people. Strange to think now +that almost the only person of whom she had not been suspicious was +Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie! His mind slowly wheeled round to her. He rose from his chair +and began clumsily to parade the room. He walked up and down the study +as though with closed eyes, his large body bumping against corners of +tables and chairs. Maggie! He looked back, as of late he had often +done, to those days in his cousin's house in London. What had happened +to the Maggie whom he had known there? +</P> + +<P> +He saw her again, so quiet, so ready to listen and learn, so modest, +and yet with a humour and sense of appreciation that had promised well +for the future. A child—an ignorant, charming, uneducated child, that +is what she had seemed. He admitted now that his heart, always too soft +and too gentle perhaps, had been touched beyond wisdom. She had seemed +to need just the protection and advice that he had been fitted to give +her. Then, as though in the darkness of the night, the change had been +made; from the moment of entering into Skeaton there had been a new +Maggie. He could not tell himself, because he was not a man clever at +psychology, in what the change consisted. Had he been pressed he would +have said perhaps that he had known the old Maggie intimately, that +nothing that she could say or do astonished him, but that this new +Maggie was altogether a stranger. Time had not altered that; with the +passing months he had known her less and less. Why, at their first +meeting long ago in Katherine's house he had known her better than he +knew her now. He traced the steps of their history in Skeaton; she had +eluded him always, never allowing him to hold her for more than a +moment, vanishing and appearing again, fantastic, in some strange +lighted distance, hurting him and disappointing him ... He stopped in +his walk, bewildered. He saw, with a sudden flash, that she had never +appeared so fascinating to him as when she had been strangest. He saw +it now at the moment when she seemed more darkly strange, more sinister +and dangerous than ever before. +</P> + +<P> +He realised, too, at the same sharp moment the conflict in which he was +engaged. On the one side was all his life, his sloth and ease and +comfort, his religion, his good name, his easy intercourse with his +fellow-men, Grace, intellectual laziness, acceptance of things as they +most easily are, Skeaton, regular meals, good drainage, moral, physical +and spiritual, a good funeral and a favourable obituary in The Skeaton +Times. On the other hand unrest, ill-health, separation from Grace, an +elusive and never-to-be-satisfied pursuit, scandal and possible loss of +religion, unhappiness ... At least it was to his credit that he +realised the conflict; it is even further to his credit that he grasped +and admitted the hopelessness of it. He knew which way he would go; +even now he was tired with the thought of the struggle; he sank into +his shabby chair with a sigh of weariness; his hand stretched out +instinctively for an easy volume. But oh, Maggie! how strange and +fascinating at that moment she appeared to him, with her odd silences, +her flashes of startled surprise, her sense of being half the day in +another world, her kindness to him and then her sudden terror of him, +her ignorance and then the conviction that she gave suddenly to him +that she knew more than he would ever know, above all, the way that +some dark spirit deep down in him supported her wild rebellions, her +irreverences, her irreligion, her scorn of tradition. Oh! she was a +witch! Grace's word for her was right, but not Grace's sense of it. The +more Grace was shocked the more tempting to him the witch became. It +had seemed to him, that day in Katherine's drawing-room, so slight a +thing when she had said that she did not love him, he had no doubt but +that he could change that. How could a child, so raw and ignorant, +resist such a man? And yet she had resisted. That resistance had been +at the root of the trouble. Whichever way things went now, he was a +defeated man. +</P> + +<P> +The door opened and Grace came in. Looking at her he realised that she +would never understand the struggle through which he had been +timorously wading, and saw that she was further away from him than she +had ever been before. He blamed her too. She had had no right to refuse +that man to Maggie. Had she allowed Maggie to see him none of this +might have occurred. The man was a forger and would, had he lived, have +gone to prison, but there would not then have been the same open +scandal. No, he blamed Grace. It might be that their old absolutely +confident intimacy would never be renewed. He felt cold and lonely. He +bent forward, putting some coal on the fire, breaking it up into a +cheerful blaze. Then he looked up at her, and his heart was touched. +She looked to-day an old woman. Her hair was untidy and her face was +dull grey in colour. Her eyes moved restlessly round the room, +wandering from picture to picture, from the mantelpiece to the chairs, +from the chairs to the book-shelves, as though she sought in the sight +of these well-remembered things some defence and security. +</P> + +<P> +"Is your head better?" he asked her, not meeting her eyes, because the +dull pain in them disturbed him. +</P> + +<P> +"Not much," she said. "It's very bad, my head. I've taken aspirin. I +didn't eat anything yesterday. Nothing at all except some bread and +milk, and very little of that ... I couldn't finish it. I felt I'd be +sick. I said to Emily, 'Emily, if I eat any more of that I'll be sick,' +and Emily advised me not to touch it. What I mean is that if I'd eaten +any more I'd have been really sick—at least that's what I felt like." +</P> + +<P> +Her restless eyes came suddenly to a jerking pause as though some one +had caught and gripped them. She was suddenly dramatic. "Oh. Paul, what +are we going to do?" she cried. +</P> + +<P> +Paul was irritated by that. He hated to be asked direct questions as to +policy. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean what are we going to do?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, about this—about everything. We shall have to leave Skeaton, you +know. Fancy what people are saying!" +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly, as though the thought of the scandal was too much for her, +her knees gave way and she flopped into a chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, let them say!" he answered vigorously. "Grace, you're making too +much of all this. You'll be ill if you aren't careful. Pull yourself +together." "Of course we've got to go," she answered. "If you think +that we can go on living here after all that's happened—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, why not?" he interrupted. "We haven't done anything. It's only—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know what you're going to say." (It was one of Grace's most +irritating habits that she finished other people's sentences for them +in a way that they had not intended) "that if they look at it properly +they'll see that it wasn't our fault. But will they look at it +properly? Of course they won't. You know what cats they are. They're +only waiting for a chance. What I mean is that this is just the chance +they've been waiting for." +</P> + +<P> +"How can you go on and every time you preach they'll be looking up at +you and saying 'There's a brother of a murderer'? Why, fancy what you'd +feel!" +</P> + +<P> +Paul jumped in his chair. "What do you mean, Grace? The brother of a +murderer?" +</P> + +<P> +"What else am I?" Grace began to warm her podgy hands. "It came out at +the inquest that I wouldn't see the man, didn't it? Maggie thinks me a +murderer. I see it in her eyes every time. What I mean to say, Paul, +is, What are you going to do about Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +Grace's voice changed at that question. It was as though that other +trouble of the scandal were nothing to her compared with this matter of +Maggie's presence. Paul turned and looked at her. She dropped her voice +to a whisper and went on: +</P> + +<P> +"I won't stay with Maggie any more. No, no, no! You must choose, Paul, +between Maggie and me. What I mean is that it simply isn't safe in the +same house with her. You may not have noticed it yourself, but I've +seen it coming on a long time. I have indeed. She isn't right in her +head, and she hates me. She's always hated me. She'd like to do me an +injury. She follows me round the house. She's always watching me, and +now that she thinks that I killed her uncle it's worse. I'm not safe, +Paul, and that's the truth. She hides in my room behind the curtains +waiting for me. It's my safety you've got to consider. It's me or her. +I know she's your wife, but what I mean is that there'll be something +awful happening if you aren't careful." +</P> + +<P> +Grace, as she spoke, was a woman in the very heart of a desperate +panic. Her whole body trembled; her face was transfixed as though she +saw Maggie standing in front of her there with a knife. No one looking +at her could deny that she was in mortal terror—no affectation here. +And Paul loved her. He came over to her and put his arm round her; she +caught hold of his hand, clutched it desperately. When he felt the +trembling of her body beneath his hand his love for her and protective +care of her overwhelmed him. +</P> + +<P> +"Grace, dear, it's all right," he said. "You're exaggerating all this. +Maggie wouldn't hurt a fly—indeed, she wouldn't. She has her faults, +perhaps, but cruelty isn't one of them. You must remember that she's +had a bad time lately losing her aunt and then finding her uncle in +that horrible way. After all, she's only a child. I know that you two +haven't got on well together, and I daresay that it has been very +largely my fault; but you mustn't be frightened like that. No harm +shall come to you so long as I am alive—no harm whatever." +</P> + +<P> +But she stared in front of her, like a woman in a dream, repeating— +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, Paul. Either she goes or I go. She's your wife. She must stay. +Then I must go. I can't stand it; I can't indeed. I'm not sleeping; I'm +not indeed. It isn't fair to ask it. What I mean is that it isn't fair +to me." +</P> + +<P> +Although he had known Grace for years he still believed her threats and +promises. "My sister's an obstinate woman," he would say, although had +he looked truly into his experience he must have seen that she changed +her mind more frequently by far than she changed her clothes. He +thought that now she meant what she said; indeed, on his own side he +really did not see how in the future Maggie and Grace could continue to +live in the same house. But, as Grace had said, he was married to +Maggie and therefore it was Grace that must go. Then when he confronted +the fact of Grace's departure he could not endure it. No, he could not. +Had Maggie been everything to him that she might have been, bad she +been his true wife, had she loved him, had she—oh! a thousand things +she might have been!—then perhaps life would be possible without +Grace. But now! ... at the thought of being alone for ever with Maggie +a strange passion, mingled of fascination and fear, affection and +sensuality, cowardice and excitement, pervaded him. What would their +life together be? Then he turned to Grace as the very rock of his +safety. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Grace, you mustn't go—you mustn't think of going. Whatever should +I do without you?" +</P> + +<P> +A dull flush of gratification coloured her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"Either she goes or I," she repeated. "It can't go on. You must see +that it can't. Fancy what people must be thinking!" +</P> + +<P> +As always, he postponed the issue. "We'll settle something. Don't you +worry, dear. You go and lie down. That's what you want—a thorough good +rest." +</P> + +<P> +She plodded off. For himself he decided that fresh air was what he +needed. He went for a stroll. As soon as he was in the Charleston Road +that led to the High Street he was pleased with the day. Early spring; +mild, faint haze, trees dimly purple, a bird clucking, the whisper of +the sea stirring the warm puddles and rivulets across the damp dim +road. Warm, yes, warm and promising. Lent ... tiresome. Long services, +gloomy sermons. Rebuking people, scolding them—made them angry, did +them no good. Then Easter. That was better. Jolly hymns. "Christ is +risen! Christ is risen!" Jolly flowers—primroses, crocuses—(no, they +were earlier). They'll have forgotten about Maggie's uncle by then. +Live it down—that's the thing. Give them a good genial sermon this +Sunday. Show them he wasn't caring ... If only the women would get on +together. Women—women. How difficult they were! Yes, Sunday would be +difficult—facing them all. He knew what they'd be thinking. He wanted +to be jolly again. Jolly. That was the thing. Joking with Grace, jolly +even with Maggie. Jolly with his congregation. Jolly with God. Why +wasn't he left alone? Had been until Maggie came. Maggie like a stone +flung into a frosty pool! Broke everything up, simply because she was +unlike other people. He'd married her because he thought he could make +her into what he pleased. Well, it had been the other way. Oh, she was +queer, queer, queer. +</P> + +<P> +He stopped, his large boots in a warm puddle. He felt the warm sun hot +through the damp mist. He wanted to take her into his arms, to hug her, +above all to feel her response. To feel her response, that was what, +for years now, he had been wanting, and never once had she responded. +Never once. She let him do as he pleased, but she was passive. She +didn't love him. Grace loved him, but how dull Grace was! Dull—it was +all dull! Grace was dull, Skeaton was dull, the church was dull—God +was dull! God? Where was God? He looked around. There was no God. To +what had he been praying all these years? He had not been praying. His +congregation had not been praying. They were all dead and God was dead +too. +</P> + +<P> +He looked up and saw that his boots were in a puddle. He walked on. For +a moment, the mists of sloth and self-indulgence that had for years +obscured his vision had shifted and cleared, but even as he moved they +settled down and resolved themselves once more. The muscles of Paul's +soul were stiff with disuse. Training is a lengthy affair and a +tiresome business to the stout and middle-aged. +</P> + +<P> +The hedges gave way to houses; he was in the High Street. He saw then, +plastered at intervals on the hoardings, strange phenomena. It was the +colour that first attracted him—a bright indecent pink with huge black +lettering. Because it was the offseason in Skeaton other announcements +were few. All the more prominent then the following: +</P> + +<P> + THE KINGSCOTE BEETHEEN WILL HOLD A RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL IN THE TOWN<BR> +OF SKEATON-ON-SEA FROM APRIL 10 TO 16.——-SERVICES 10 A.M., 3 P.M. +SPECIAL SONG SERVICE, 7.30 P.M. DAILY All are Cordially Invited. +ADDRESSES BY REV. JOHN THURSTON. REV. WILLIAM CRASHAW. SISTER AVIES. +</P> + +<P> +Paul stared at this placard with horror and disgust in his soul. For +the moment Maggie and Grace and all the scandal connected with them was +forgotten. This was terrible. By temperament, tradition, training, he +loathed and feared every phase of religion known to him as +"Methodistic." Under this term he included everything that was noisy, +demonstrative, ill-bred and melodramatic. Once when an undergraduate at +Cambridge he had gone to some meeting of the kind. There had been +impromptu prayers, ghastly pictures of hell-fire, appeals to the +undergraduates to save themselves at once lest it be too late, +confessions and appeals for mercy. The memory of that evening still +filled him with physical nausea. It was to him as though he had seen +some gross indecent act in public or witnessed some horrible cruelty. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had told him very little about the Chapel and its doings, and he +had shrunk from asking her any questions, but everything that was odd +and unusual in her behaviour he attributed to her months under that +influence. As he stared at the flaunting pink sheet he felt as though +it were a direct personal assault on himself and his church. +</P> + +<P> +And yet he knew that he could do nothing. Once before there had been +something of the kind in Skeaton and he had tried with others to stop +it. He had failed utterly; the civic authorities in Skeaton seemed +almost to approve of these horrors. He looked at the thing once more +and then turned back towards home. Something must be done... Something +must be done ... but, as on so many earlier occasions in his life, he +could face no clear course of action. +</P> + +<P> +That Saturday evening he tried to change his sermon. He had determined +to deliver a very fine address on "Brotherly Love" and then, most +fortunately, he had discovered a five-years' old sermon that would, +with a little adaptation, exactly fit the situation. +</P> + +<P> +To-night he was sick of his adaptation. The sermon had not been a good +one at the first, and now it was a tattered thing of shreds and +patches. He tried to add to it some sentences about the approaching +"Revival." No sentences would come. What a horrible fortnight it had +been! He looked back upon his district visiting, his meetings, his +choir-practices with disgust. Something had come in between himself and +his people. Perhaps the relationship had never been very real? Founded +on jollity. An eagerness to accept anybody's mood for one's own if only +that meant jollity. What had he thought, standing in the puddle that +afternoon? That they were all dead, he and his congregation and God, +all dead together? He sank into his chair, picked up the Church Times, +and fell asleep. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning as he walked into the choir this extraordinary impression +that his congregation was dead persisted. As he recited the +"Confession" he looked about him. There was Mr. Maxse, and there Miss +Purves. Every one was in his and her appointed place; old Colonel +Rideout with the purple gills not kneeling because of his gout; young +Edward Walter, heir to the sugar factory, not kneeling because he was +lazy; sporting Mr. Harper, whose golf handicap was +3, not kneeling +because to do so would spoil the crease of his trousers; old Mrs. Dean +with her bonnet and bugles, the worst gossip in Skeaton, her eyes +raised to heaven; the Quiller girls with their hard red colour and +their hard bright eyes; Mr. Fortinum, senior, with his County Council +stomach and his J.P. neck; the dear old Miss Fursleis who believed in +God and lived accordingly; young Captain Trent, who believed in his +moustache and lived accordingly ... Oh yes, there they all were—and +there, too, were Grace and Maggie kneeling side by side. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie! His eyes rested upon her. Her face suddenly struck him as being +of extraordinary beauty. He had never thought her beautiful before; +very plain, of course. Every one knew that she was plain. But to-day +her face and profile had the simplicity, the purity, the courage of a +Madonna in one of the old pictures—or, rather, of one of those St. +John the Baptist boys gazing up into the face of the Christ—child as +it lay in its mother's arms. He finished the "Confession" +hurriedly—Maggie's face faded from his view; he saw now only a garden +of hats and heads, the bright varnished colour of the church around and +about them all. +</P> + +<P> +He gave out the psalms; there was a rustle of leaves, and soon shrill, +untrained voices of the choir-boys were screaming the chant like a +number of baby steam-whistles in competition. +</P> + +<P> +When he climbed into the pulpit he tried again to discover Maggie's +face as he had already seen it. He could not; it had been, perhaps, a +trick of light and, in any case, she was hidden now behind the stout +stolidity of Grace. He looked around at the other faces beneath him and +saw them settle themselves into their customary expressions of torpor, +vacuity and expectation. Very little expectation! They knew well +enough, by this time, the kind of thing to expect from him, the turn of +phrase, the rise and fall of the voice, the pause dramatic, the whisper +expostulatory, the thrust imperative, the smile seductive. +</P> + +<P> +He had often been told, as a curate, that he was a wonderful preacher. +His round jolly face, his beaming smile, a certain dramatic gift, had +helped him. "He is so human," he had heard people say. For many years +he had lived on that phrase. For the first time in his life, this +morning he distrusted his gift. He was out of touch with them +all—because they were dead, killed by forms and repetitions and +monotony. "We're all dead, you know, and I'm dead too. Let's close the +doors and seal this church up. Our day is over." He said of course +nothing of the kind. His sermon was stupid, halting and ineffective. +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally," as Colonel Rideout said over his port at lunch, "when a +feller's wife's uncle has just hung himself in public, so to speak, it +does take the wind out of you. He usen't to preach badly once. Got +stale. They all do." +</P> + +<P> +As Paul dismissed the congregation with the Blessing he felt that +everything was over. He was more completely miserable than he had ever +been. He had in fact never before been really miserable except when he +had the toothache. And now, also, the custom of years made it +impossible for him to be miserable for long. He had had no real talk +with Maggie since the inquest. Maggie came into his study that +afternoon. Their conversation was very quiet and undemonstrative; it +happened to be one of the most important conversations in both their +lives, and, often afterwards, Paul looked back to it, trying to retrace +in it the sentences and movements with which it had been built up. He +could never recover anything very much. He could see Maggie sitting in +a way that she had on the edge of her chair, looking at him and looking +also far beyond him. He knew afterwards that this was the last moment +in his life that he had any contact with her. Like a witch, like a +ghost, she had come into his life; like a witch, like a ghost, she went +out of it, leaving him, for the remainder of his days, a haunted man. +</P> + +<P> +As he looked at her he realised that she had aged in this last +fortnight. Yes, that horrible affair had taken it out of her. She +seemed to have recovered self-control at some strange and unnatural +cost—as though she had taken some potion or drug. +</P> + +<P> +She began by asking Grace's question: +</P> + +<P> +"Paul, what are we going to do?" +</P> + +<P> +But she did not irritate him as Grace had done. His one idea was to +help her; unfortunately he had himself thought out nothing clearly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Maggie," he answered, smiling, "I thought you might help me +about that. I want your advice. I thought—well, as a matter of fact I +hadn't settled anything—but I thought that I might get a locum for a +month or two and we might go abroad for a trip perhaps. To Paris, or +Venice, or somewhere." +</P> + +<P> +"And then come back?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"For a time—yes—certainly," he answered. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think I can ever come back to Skeaton," she said in a whisper, +as though speaking to herself. He could see that she was controlling +herself and steadying her voice with the greatest difficulty. "Of +course I must come, Paul, if you want me to. It's been all my fault +from the very beginning——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no," he broke in, "it hasn't." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it has. I've just spoilt your life and Grace's. You were both +very happy until I came. I had no right to marry you when I didn't love +you. I didn't know then all I know now. But that's no excuse. I should +have known. I was younger than most girls are, though." +</P> + +<P> +Paul said: +</P> + +<P> +"But Maggie, you're not to blame yourself at all. I think if we were +somewhere else than Skeaton it would be easier. And now after what has +happened—" +</P> + +<P> +Maggie broke in: "You couldn't leave Skeaton, Paul. You know you +couldn't. It would just break your heart. All the work of your life has +been here—everything you've ever done. And Grace too." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, you're wrong," said Paul vigorously. "A change is probably +what I need. I've been too long in the same place. Time goes so fast +that one doesn't realise. And for Grace, too, I expect a change will be +better." +</P> + +<P> +"And do you think," said Maggie, "that Grace will ever live with me now +in the same house when she knows that I've driven you from Skeaton? +Grace is quite right. She's just to feel as she does about me." +</P> + +<P> +"Then Grace must go," said Paul firmly, looking at Maggie and feeling +that the one thing that he needed was that she should be in his arms +and he kissing her. "Maggie, if we go away, you and I, right away from +all of this, perhaps then you can—you will—" he stopped. +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. "Never, Paul. Never. Do you know what I've seen +this last week? That I've left all those who really wanted me. My +aunts, very much they needed me, and I was selfish and wouldn't give +them what they wanted, and tried to escape from them. You and Grace +don't need me. Nobody wants anything here in Skeaton. You're all full. +It isn't my fault, Paul, but everything seems to me dead here. They +don't mean anything they say in Church, and the Church doesn't mean +anything either. The Chapel was wrong in London too, but it was more +right than the Church here is. I don't know what religion is or where +it is: I don't know anything now except that one ought to be with the +people who want one and not with the people who don't. Aunt wanted me +and I failed her. Uncle wanted me and I—I—I—" +</P> + +<P> +She broke down, crying, her head in her arms. He went over to her and +put his arms around her. At his touch she shrank a little, and when he +felt that he went away from her and stood, silently, not knowing what +to do. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, don't—don't, Maggie. I can't bear to hear you cry." +</P> + +<P> +"I've done all wrong—I've done all wrong," she answered him. "I've +been wrong always." +</P> + +<P> +His helplessness was intolerable. He knew that she would not allow him +to touch her. He went out closing the door softly behind him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0310"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE REVIVAL +</H3> + +<P> +Maggie cried for a little while, then, slowly recovering, realised that +she was alone in the room. She raised her head and listened; then she +dried her eyes and stood up, wondering what she should do next. +</P> + +<P> +During the last week she had spent all her energy on one thing +alone—to keep back from her the picture of Uncle Mathew's death. That +at all costs she must not see. There it was, just behind her, hovering +with all its detail, at her elbow. All day and most of the night she +was conscious of it there, but she would not turn and look. Uncle +Mathew was dead—that was all that she must know. Aunt Anne was dead +too. Martin had written to her, and then, because she had not answered, +had abandoned her. Paul and Grace were to be driven out of Skeaton +because of her. Grace hated her; Paul would never love her unless she +in return would love him—and that she would never do because she loved +Martin. She was alone then. +</P> + +<P> +She had made every one unhappy—Aunt Anne, Uncle Mathew, Paul, Grace; +the best thing that she could do now was to go away and hide herself +somewhere. +</P> + +<P> +That, at least, she saw very clearly and she clung to it. If she went +away Paul and Grace need not leave Skeaton; soon they would forget her +and be happy once more as they had been before she came. But where +should she go? All her life she had depended upon her own +self-reliance, but now that had left her. She felt as though she could +not move unless there was some one somewhere who cared for her. But +there was no one. Katherine Mark. No, she certainly could never go +there again. Behind all this was the constant preoccupation that she +must not look, for an instant, at Uncle Mathew's death. If she did +everything would break ... She must not. She must not. She must not. +</P> + +<P> +She went up to her bedroom, took from their box Martin's letters and +the ring with the three pearls, and the tattered programme. She sat on +her bed and turned them over and over. She was bewildered and scarcely +knew where she was. She repeated again and again: "I must go away at +once ... I must go away at once." +</P> + +<P> +Then as though moved by some compelling force that she did not +recognise she fell on her knees beside the bed, crying: "Martin, +Martin, I want you. I don't know where you are but I must find you. +Martin, tell me where you are. I'll go to you anywhere. Martin, where +are you? Where are you?" +</P> + +<P> +It may not have been a vocal cry; perhaps she made no sound, but she +waited, there on her knees, hearing very clearly the bells ringing for +evening service and seeing the evening sun steal across her carpet and +touch gently, the pictures on the wall. Gradually as she knelt there, +calm and reassurance came back to her. She felt as though he, somewhere +lost in the world, had heard her. She laid her cheek upon the quilt of +the bed and, for the first time since Uncle Mathew's death, her +thoughts worked in connected order, her courage returned to her, and +she saw the room and the sun and the trees beyond the window as real +objects, without the mist of terror and despair that had hitherto +surrounded her. +</P> + +<P> +She rose from her knees as though she were withdrawing from a horrible +nightmare. She could remember nothing of the events of the last week +save her talk with Paul that afternoon. She could recall nothing of the +inquest, nor whether she had been to Church, nor any scene with Grace. +</P> + +<P> +"So long as I'm alive and Martin's alive it's all right," she thought. +She knew that he was alive. She would find him. She put away the things +into the box again; she had not yet thought what she would do, but, in +some way, she had received during those few minutes in her room a +reassurance that she was not alone. +</P> + +<P> +She went out into the spring dusk. She chose the road towards Barnham +Wood because it was lonely there and the hedges were thin; you could +feel the breath of the sea as it blew across the sparse fields. The +hush of an English Sunday evening enfolded the road, the wood, the +fields. The sun was very low and the saffron light penetrated the dark +lines of the hedges and hung like a curtain of misty gold before the +approaches to the wood. The red-brown fields rolled to the horizon and +lay, like a carpet, at the foot of the town huddled against the pale +sky. +</P> + +<P> +She was near the wood, and could see the little dark twisted +cone-strewn paths that led into the purple depths, when a woman came +out of it towards her. She saw that it was Miss Toms. It seemed quite +natural to see her there because it was on this same road that she had +first met the lady and her brother. Miss Toms also did not seem at all +surprised. She shook Maggie warmly by the hand. +</P> + +<P> +"You said that I wouldn't come often to see you," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"And it's been true. Things have been more difficult for me than I knew +at the time." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right," said Miss Toms. +</P> + +<P> +"But I ought to tell you," said Maggie, "that although I haven't been +to see you, I've felt as though you and your brother were my friends, +more than any one in this place. And that's been a great help to me." +</P> + +<P> +They started to walk down the road together. +</P> + +<P> +"You've been in trouble," said Miss Toms. "Of course I've heard about +it. I would have liked to come and see you but I didn't know how your +sister-in-law would like it." +</P> + +<P> +She put her arm through Maggie's. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," she said, "don't be discouraged. Because Skeaton is dead it +doesn't mean that all the world is. And remember this. The world's view +of any one is never the right one. I know that the world thinks my +brother's mad, but I know that he's a lot saner than most people. The +world thinks your uncle was a rascal, but if you can remember one good +thing he did you know he wasn't, and I'm sure you can remember many +good things." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't that," said Maggie. "It is that I seem to have done +everything wrong and made every one I had to do with unhappy." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense," said Miss Toms. "I'm sure if they've been unhappy it's +their own fault. Isn't the evening air lovely? At times like these I +wonder that Skeaton can dare to exist. You'll come and see us one day, +won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think—I don't know," said Maggie; "I may be going away." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Toms gave her a penetrating look. +</P> + +<P> +"I daresay you're right. Skeaton's not the place for you. I saw that +the first time we met. Well, whatever you do, don't lose your pluck. +You're yourself, you know, and you're as good as anybody else. Don't +you forget that. Because a lot of people say a thing it doesn't mean +it's true, and because a set of idiots think a thing shocking it +doesn't mean that it's shocking. Think how wrong people have always +been about everything!" +</P> + +<P> +They turned down a side lane and arrived in the High Street. The street +was very empty. In the fading light a large pink poster attracted +Maggie's attention. She went close to it and read the announcement of +the Revival services. +</P> + +<P> +When she read the names of Thurston and Mr. Crashaw and Miss Avies it +seemed to her incredible, and then at the same time as something that +she had always expected. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she cried, "it's coming here!" She was strangely startled as +though the sign of Thurston's name was strange forewarning. +</P> + +<P> +"What's coming?" asked Miss Toms. +</P> + +<P> +She read the notice. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what you think," said Miss Toms, "but that kind of +thing's humbug if you ask me." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" Maggie cried. "It's so strange. I knew those people in London. I +used to go to their services. And now they're coming here!" +</P> + +<P> +She could not explain to Miss Toms the mysterious assurance that she +had of the way that her former world was drawing near to her again. She +could see now that never for a moment since her arrival in Skeaton had +it let her alone, slowly invading her, bit by bit driving in upon her, +forcing her to retire ... +</P> + +<P> +It was quite dark now. Because it was Sunday evening the shops were +closed. Only behind some of the curtained windows dim lights burned. +Very clearly the sea could be heard breaking upon the shore. The last +note of the bell from the Methodist Chapel echoed across the roofs and +stones. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night," said Miss Toms. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +She turned back towards home hearing, as she went, Thurston's voice, +seeing beyond all the thick shadow of Martin's body, keeping pace with +her, as it seemed, step by step with her as she went. +</P> + +<P> +She turned into the Rectory drive. She heard with a startled shiver the +long gate swing screaming behind her, she could smell very faintly the +leaves of the damp cold laurel bushes that pressed close in upon her. +It was as though some one were walking with her and whispering in her +ear: "They're coming! They're coming! They've got you! They've got you!" +</P> + +<P> +She opened the hall door; the hall was all dark; some one was there. +Maggie gave a little cry. A match was struck and revealed the white +face of Grace. The two women stared at one another. +</P> + +<P> +Grace had returned from Church; she was wearing her ugly black hat with +the red velvet. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right," said Maggie, "I've been for a walk." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh—I didn't know," gasped Grace, still staring. "I thought—yes, of +course. Fancy, you've been for a walk!" +</P> + +<P> +Still staring as though she could keep Maggie at bay only by the power +of her vision she backed on to Paul's study door, turned the handle, +and disappeared. The hall was in darkness again. Maggie stumbled her +way towards the staircase, then, seeing Grace's terrified eyes, filled +with a horror that she, Maggie Cardinal, should cause any one to look +at her like that, she ran clumsily upstairs, shutting herself into her +bedroom. +</P> + +<P> +During the next fortnight the dominant element in the situation was +Grace's terror. Skeaton was already beginning to forget the story of +the suicide. Maggie was marked for ever now as "queer and strange," but +Paul was not blamed; he was rather, pitied and even liked the more. But +Grace could not forget. Maggie intended perhaps to murder her in +revenge for her uncle's death; well, then, she must be murdered ... She +would not leave her brother. She could not consider the future. She +knew that she could not live in the same house with Maggie for long, +but she would not go and Maggie would not go ... What was to happen? +</P> + +<P> +Poor Grace, the tortures that she suffered during those weeks will not +be understood by persons with self-confidence and a hearty contempt for +superstition. +</P> + +<P> +She paid the penalty now for the ghosts of her childhood—and no one +could help her. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie saw that Paul was, with every day, increasingly unhappy. He had +never been trained to conceal his feelings, and although he tried now +he succeeded very badly. He would come into her room in the early +morning hours and lie down beside her. He would put his arms around her +and kiss her, and, desperately, as though he were doing it for a wager, +make love to her. She felt, desperate also on her side, that she could +comfort and make him happy, if only he would want something less from +her than passion. But always after an hour or a little more, he crept +away again to his own room, disappointed, angered, frustrated. These +hours were the stranger because, during the day, he showed her nothing +of this mood, but was kindly and friendly and distant. +</P> + +<P> +She would have done anything for him; she tried sometimes to be +affectionate to him, but always, at once, he turned upon her with a +hungry, impassioned look ... +</P> + +<P> +She knew, without any kind of doubt, that the only way that she could +make him happy again was to leave him. His was not a nature to brood, +for the rest of his days, on something that he had lost. +</P> + +<P> +Only once did he make any allusion to the coming Revival services. He +burst out one day, at luncheon: "The most scandalous thing!" he said. +"We had them here once, years ago, and the harm they did no one would +believe. I've been to Tamar about it; he can do nothing, unless they +disturb the public peace, of course. He had the impertinence to tell me +that they behaved very well last time they were here!" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't like that man," said Grace. "I don't believe he makes his +money properly. Look at the clothes Mrs. Tamar wears! What I mean is, I +don't like his wife at all." +</P> + +<P> +"It's very hard," said Paul, his voice trembling with indignation, +"that when men and women have been working for years to bring Christ +into the hearts of mankind that mountebanks and hypocrites should be +allowed to undo the work in the space of a night. I know this man +Thurston. They've had letters in the Church Times about him." "Fancy!" +said Grace, "and still he dares show his face." +</P> + +<P> +"But do they really do so much harm?" asked Maggie. "I should have +thought if they only came once for a week in ten years they couldn't +make any real effect on anybody—" +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, dear," said Paul gently, "you don't understand." +</P> + +<P> +As the day of the Revival approached, Maggie knew that she would go to +one of the services. She was now in a strange state of excitement. The +shock of her uncle's death had undoubtedly shaken her whole balance, +moral, physical, and mental. The fortnight that had followed it, when +she had clung like a man falling from a height and held by a rocky +ledge to the one determination not to look either behind or in front of +her, had been a strain beyond her strength. +</P> + +<P> +She did not know; she did not feel any weakness; she felt rather a +curious atmosphere of light and expectation as though that cry to +Martin in her bedroom had truly been answered. And she felt more than +this. Old Magnus had once said to her: "I don't know what religion is +except that it is a fight—and some people join in because they want +to, some are forced to join in whether they want to or no, some just +leave it alone, and some (most) don't know there's one going on at all. +But if you don't join in you seem to me to have wasted your time." +</P> + +<P> +She had not understood in the least what he meant; she did not +understand now; but, thinking of his words, it did seem to her that she +was sharing in some conflict. The vast armies hidden from her by mist, +the contested ground also hidden, but the clash of arms clearly to be +heard. Her own part of a struggle seemed to be round her love for +Martin; it was as though, if she could get some realisation of that, +she would have won her way to a vantage-point whence she could +visualise the next place. She did not think this out. She only felt in +her heart a little less lonely, a little less wicked and selfish, a +little less deserted, as though she were drawing nearer to some hidden +fire and could feel the first warm shadow of the flames. +</P> + +<P> +She made one more appeal to Grace on the very morning of the first day +of the Revival. +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast Maggie came into the drawing-room and found Grace +sitting there sewing. +</P> + +<P> +She stood, timidly, in her old attitude, her hands clasped in front of +her, like a child saying her lesson. +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon, Grace." +</P> + +<P> +Grace looked up. She had of course been conscious of Maggie ever since +her entrance into the room. Her hands had trembled and her heart leapt +furiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Maggie—" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you," said Maggie, "but we haven't really +said anything to one another for the last fortnight. I don't suppose +that you want me to say anything now, but things get worse and worse if +no one says anything, don't they?" Now that she had begun she went on +quickly: "I wanted to say, Grace, how sorry I am for the trouble and +unhappiness that you and Paul have had during the last fortnight +through me. I've been nothing but a trouble to you since I first came +here, but it wasn't that that I wanted to say. I couldn't bear that you +should think that I was just selfishly full of my own affairs and +didn't understand how you and Paul must feel about—about my uncle. Not +that I mean," she went on rather fiercely, raising her head, "that he +was to blame. No one ever understood him. He could have done great +things if—if—some one had looked after him a little. But he hadn't +any one. That was my fault. I didn't want you and Paul to think I don't +blame myself. I do all the time. I can't promise to be better in the +future because I've promised so often and I never am. But I am sorry." +</P> + +<P> +Grace said nothing for a moment. Her hands trembled more than ever. +Then, without looking up, she murmured as though to her sewing: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no. Maggie ... no one blames you, I'm sure." +</P> + +<P> +There was another pause, then Grace said: +</P> + +<P> +"I think I'm not well. No, I can't be well because I'm not sleeping, +although I've taken aspirin more, I'm sure, than I ought to. What I +mean is that they say it's bad for your heart. Of course things have +been very unfortunate, from the beginning one might say, but I'm sure +it's not been any one's fault exactly. What I mean is that these things +never are ... No, they aren't really. I expect we all want a change." +</P> + +<P> +"What are you frightened of me for, Grace," asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Grace started as though Maggie had indeed dropped a bomb at her feet. +She looked up at Maggie, wildly, her eyes staring about the room as +though she were looking for some exit of escape. +</P> + +<P> +"Frightened?" she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you are," said Maggie. "That's what worries me most. No one's +ever been frightened of me before—at least I don't think any one has." +Maggie laughed. "Why, Grace, it seems so funny any one being frightened +of me. I couldn't hurt any one if I wanted to, and I'm sure I never +want to unless it's Mrs. Maxse. Be angry with me as much as you like, +Grace, but don't be frightened of me. Why, that's ridiculous!" +</P> + +<P> +It was the worst word to have chosen. Grace flushed a dull unwholesome +purple. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry you think me ridiculous, Maggie," she said. "Perhaps I am. +I'm sure I don't know. Yes, perhaps I am. What I mean is that what's +ridiculous to one is not ridiculous to another. You're a strange girl, +Maggie, and you and I will never get on. No, never. But all I ask is +that you should make Paul happy. That is enough for me. I care for +nothing else. He isn't very happy just now. What I mean is that any one +can see he isn't eating his meals properly." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Grace," cried Maggie. "I didn't mean that you were ridiculous. I +meant that any one being frightened of me was ridiculous. Anyway, I'm +very sorry that I've made you and Paul unhappy. That's all." +</P> + +<P> +She turned and went. +</P> + +<P> +It was the most lovely of April days, soft, primrose-coloured, the +sea-breeze gently tempered by mist-veiled sun. Maggie sat at her +bedroom window overlooking the drive and the blue-grey field that ran +to the woods. She knew that there would be no difficulty about her +escape to the Revival meeting. Paul had arranged that there should be +an evening service at the Church at the same hour, an act of rather +Un-Christian defiance. Maggie sat there, looking down in a condition of +strange bewildering excitement on to the laurel bushes. It was +wonderful to think that in another half-hour she would see Miss Avies +once more, hear those wild hymns again, catch the stridency of +Thurston's voice; all these things spoke of Martin. She felt as though +he were stealing towards her out of the dusk, it was as though, without +any reason, she expected to find him at the service ... although she +knew that he could not be there. +</P> + +<P> +She heard the Church bell begin to ring, then the hall-door opened and +Paul came out. He had on his soft black hat, he was carrying his Bible +and prayer-book under his arm. He stood, for a moment, beside the +hall-door as though he were listening or expecting something. She had a +strange impulse to run down to him; so strong was it that she got up +and moved to the door. Then slowly she came back to the window and +stood looking down upon him. Suddenly, as though he felt her gaze, he +glanced up, saw her, and waved to her. She waved back to him. He turned +and walked quickly away, she heard the gate swing, screaming behind him. +</P> + +<P> +She waited for a little, then put on her hat and coat and went out. She +knew the Flower Street Hall, a place occasionally used by touring +Companies, Wandering Lecturers, Charitable Concerts, and other casual +festivals. It was at the far end of the town towards the end of the +Promenade. +</P> + +<P> +The town, dim in the first dusk, hummed with loiterers, girls released +from the shops walking with their young men, middle-aged couples +sauntering out to take a last whiff of the sea before going in to the +evening meal, one or two visitors from the Hotel strolling across to +the beach to watch the first evening stars and the rising moon. Pianos +were playing, children shouting over the last game of the day; all +hushed into a coloured mild tranquillity. In the fields beyond the +houses the quiet was absolute. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie found the building. The facade was blazing with electric light. +A huge poster, of the now familiar pink, declared: +</P> + +<P> + GRAND RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL. All are invited. IS ALL WELL WITH YOU,<BR> +BROTHER? +</P> + +<P> +There was a crowd about the doors, and continually, with giggles and +shamefaced laughter, couples broke away and climbed the steps into the +Hall. Maggie, feeling that all eyes were upon her, entered the +building. In the vestibule two grave-faced women in black bonnets +handed papers with prayers and hymns to every newcomer. Maggie took +hers, a door was opened in front of her, and she went in. The +auditorium was a large one, semicircular in shape, with tiers of seats +rising circus-fashion to a ceiling decorated with silver stars and pink +naked cherubs. The stage had upon it a table, some chairs, and a +reading-desk draped in crimson cloth. Below the stage was a small +orchestra, consisting of two fiddles, a cornet, drum, and a piano. +There was also what seemed to Maggie a small choir, some women dressed +in white and some men in black coats and white bow ties. Across the +stage were suspended broad white bands of cloth with "Come to Jesus!" +"Come now!" "He is waiting for you!" in big black letters. +</P> + +<P> +The hall seemed very full, and was violently illuminated with electric +light. Maggie took this in as she stood very timidly just inside the +door. A steward came forward and showed her a corner-seat. She saw, +then, with a dramatic flash of recognition, Thurston and Mr. Crashaw +sitting behind the table; then, with a still stranger emotion, Miss +Avies as one of the white-robed choir. The sight of those three +familiar faces seemed to close, finally and definitely, the impression +that she had had during all those last weeks. They had "got" her again, +and yet not they, but the power behind them. It seemed only five +minutes ago that she had sat in the London Chapel and heard old Crashaw +scream "Punishment! Punishment! Punishment!" She turned half in her +seat as though she expected to see Aunt Anne and Aunt Elizabeth sitting +one on either side of her. She looked at Thurston; he had coarsened +very much since she had seen him last. He was fatter, his cheeks +stained with an unnaturally high colour, his eyes brighter and sharper +and yet sensual too. He was smarter than he had been, his white bow tie +stiff and shapely, his cuffs clean and shining, his hair very carefully +brushed back from his high and bony forehead. His sharp eyes darted all +over the building, and Maggie felt as though at any moment she would be +discovered. Crashaw looked more like a decrepit monkey than ever, +huddled up in his chair, his back bow-shaped. He breathed into his +hands as though he wanted to warm them, and looked at nobody. Miss +Avies Maggie could not see clearly. +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes wandered over the audience. She saw many townspeople whom she +knew, and she realised, for the first time, that tomorrow everywhere it +would be said that the Rector's wife had been at the Revival meeting. +</P> + +<P> +And how different an audience from the old London one. Every one had +come on this occasion to see a show, and it was certainly a show that +they were going to see. Maggie had entered during a pause, and all the +faces that were there wore that look of expectation that demands the +rising of the curtain. Soon, Maggie felt, they would stamp and whistle +did the play not begin. +</P> + +<P> +Thurston rose and announced: +</P> + +<P> +"My brothers, we will sing hymn No. 14 on the paper." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie looked and discovered that it was the hymn that had once moved +her so dramatically in London with the words +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + By all Thy sores and bloody pain<BR> + Come down and heal our sins again.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and with the last refrain: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb<BR> + We beseech Thee.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Already, in spite of herself, in spite of her consciousness of the +melodrama and meretricious glitter of the scene, her heart was beating. +She was more deeply moved, even now, than she had ever been by all the +services of the Skeaton Church. +</P> + +<P> +And Thurston had learnt his job by this time. Softly one of the violins +played the tune. Then Thurston said: +</P> + +<P> +"The first verse of this hymn will be sung by the choir alone. The +congregation is asked to stand and then to join in the second verse. +The fourth verse will be sung by the soloist." +</P> + +<P> +The audience rose. There was a hush of expectation throughout the +building. The choir, to the accompaniment of the fiddlers alone, sang +the first verse. They had been well selected and trained. Thurston +obviously spared no expense. For the second verse, the whole orchestra +combined, the drum booming through the refrain. At first the +congregation was timid, but the tune was simple and attractive. The +third verse was sung by every one, and Maggie found herself, almost +against her will, joining in. At the fourth verse there was again the +hush of expectation, then a soprano, thin and clear, accompanied again +by one violin, broke the silence. +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt that this was very moving. Men and women sat down at +the hymn's close quite visibly affected. +</P> + +<P> +Thurston got up then and read a lesson from the Bible. He read from the +Revelations: +</P> + +<P> +"After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the +first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; +which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be +hereafter." +</P> + +<P> +"And immediately I was in the Spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in +heaven, and one sat on the throne." +</P> + +<P> +"And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: +and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an +emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and +upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white +raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold." +</P> + +<P> +Thurston had worked hard during these last years, he had immensely +improved his accent, and his h's were all in their right places. He +read very dramatically, dropping his voice to a whisper, then pausing +and staring in front of him as though he saw God only a few yards away. +The people of Skeaton had had few opportunities of any first-class +dramatic entertainment. When Thurston finished there passed through the +building a wave of excitement, a stir, a faint murmur. An old woman +next to Maggie wiped her eyes. "Lovely!" Maggie heard her whisper. +"Lovely!" +</P> + +<P> +They sang, then, another hymn, accompanied by the orchestra. This was a +dramatic hymn with a fiery martial tune: +</P> + +<P> +The Lord of War He cometh down With Sword and Shield and Armour Bright, +His armies all behind him Frown, Who can withstand His Light? +</P> + +<P> +Chorus. Trumpets Blare, The drum-taps Roll, Prepare to meet Thy God, Oh +Soul! Prepare! Prepare! Prepare to meet Thy God, oh Soul! +</P> + +<P> +Never before had the men and women of Skeaton heard such hymns. The +Revival of ten years ago, lacking the vibrant spirit of Mr. John +Thurston, had been a very different affair. This was something quite +new in all Skeaton experience. Red-hot expectation flamed now in every +eye. Maggie could feel that the old woman next to her was trembling all +over. +</P> + +<P> +Thurston announced: +</P> + +<P> +"Brother Crashaw will now deliver an address." +</P> + +<P> +Brother Crashaw, his head still lowered, very slowly got up from his +seat. He moved as though it were only with the utmost difficulty and +power of self-will that his reluctant body could be compelled into +action. He crept rather than walked from his chair to the reading-desk, +then very very painfully climbed on to the high platform. Maggie, +watching him, remembered that earlier time when he had climbed into +just such another desk. She remembered also that day at her aunts' +house when he had flirted with Caroline and shown himself quite another +Brother Crashaw. He had aged greatly since then. He seemed now to be +scarcely a man at all. Then suddenly, with a jerk, as though a string +had been pulled from behind, he raised his face and looked at them all. +Yes, that was alive. Monkey's mask you might call it, but the eyes +behind the yellow lids flamed and blazed. No exaggeration those words. +A veritable fire burned there, a fire, it might be, of mere physical +irritation and savage exasperation at the too-rapid crumbling of the +wilfully disobedient body, a glory, perhaps, of obstinate pride and +conceit, a fire of superstition and crass ignorance, but a fire to be +doubted of no man who looked upon it. +</P> + +<P> +When he spoke his voice was harsher, angrier, more insulting than it +had been before. He spoke, too, in a hurry, tumbling his words one upon +another as though he were afraid that he had little mortal time left to +him and must make the most of what he had got. +</P> + +<P> +From the first he was angry, rating the men of Skeaton as they had +never been rated before. And they liked it. They even revelled in it; +it did them no harm and at the same time tickled their skins. Sometimes +a preacher at the Methodist Chapel had rated them, but how mild and +halting a scolding compared with the fury of this little man. As he +continued they settled into their seats with the conviction that this +was the best free show that they had ever enjoyed in all their lives. +They had been afraid at first that it would not keep up its interest. +They had agreed with one another that they would go in "just for a +quarter of an hour to see what it was like." Now they were willing that +it should continue all night. +</P> + +<P> +"What came ye out for to see?" he screamed at them. "Came out to see? +Ye didn't come out at all. None of you. That's what I've come to tell +you. For years you've been leading your lazy, idle, self-indulgent +lives, eating and drinking, sleeping, fornicating, lying with your +neighbours' wives, buying and selling, living like hogs and swine. And +is it for want of your being told? Not a bit of it. You are warned +again and again and again. Every day gives you signs and wonders had +you got eyes to see them and you will not see. Well, be it on your own +heads. Why should I care for your miserable, shrivelled-up, parched +little souls? Why should I care when I watch you all, with your hanging +stomachs and your double chins, marching straight into such a hell as +you've never conceived of. I know what's coming to you. I know what's +in store for those well-filled stomachs of yours. I can see you +writhing and screaming and wailing, 'Why didn't somebody tell us? Why +didn't somebody tell us?' Somebody has told you. Somebody's telling you +now. And will you listen? Not a bit of it. You'll have heard the music +to-night, the drums and the trumpets, you'll have joined in the +singing, and to-night you'll go back and tell your friends: 'Yes, we +had a fine evening. You ought to go. It's worth while and costs you +nothing.' And to-morrow you will have forgotten everything. But I tell +you that every man, woman, and child in this building stands in as +desperate peril as though his house was on fire over his head and there +was no way out." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped for a moment to get breath, leaning forward over the desk +and panting. Over the building there was a great silence. Maggie was +stirred beyond any earlier experience. She did not know whether he were +charlatan or no. She did not care. She had lived for more than two +years in Skeaton, where everything and every one was dead. Now here was +life. The evidence of it reassured her, whispering to her that Martin +still lived, that he could be found, even that he was coming to her. +Her nervous excitement increased. The emotion of the people around her, +the bands, the singing, all seemed to cry to her, "He is coming! He is +coming! He is coming!" ... but it was Martin now and not God. +</P> + +<P> +Old Crashaw, having recovered his breath, went on: he continued for +some time to abuse them all, screaming and beating the wooden desk with +his fists—then suddenly he changed, his voice softened, his eyes were +milder, there was something wistful and pathetic in his old ugly yellow +face. +</P> + +<P> +"I know that you came in here to-night, all of you, just as you might +into a picture-house or a theatre. Entrance free. Well, then, why not? +Had we charged half-a-crown there wouldn't have been one of you. +Half-a-crown and the most important thing in life. I say the most +important—I say the only important thing in life. A man's soul, its +history and growth. What do you know of the soul, you ask me? How do +you know there is one? Well, I can only tell you my news. If a man +comes into your town and tells you that there is an army marching down +upon it to destroy it he may be true or he may not. If he is true then, +when you don't listen to him you are doomed. If you do listen the +preparation to meet that army will at any rate do you no harm even +though the army doesn't exist." +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you that the Soul exists, that God exists, and that one day God +and the Soul will meet. You say that hasn't been proved, and until it +is proved you will spend your time over other things that you know to +be true. Try it at least, give it a chance. Why not? You give other +things a chance, marriage, doctors, trades, amusements. Why not the +Soul? Don't listen to any one else's definition of religion. Don't +believe in it. Make your own. Find out for yourself. My children, I am +an old man, I am shortly to die. If I have scolded forgive me. Let me +leave with you my blessing, and my earnest prayer that you will not +pass by God on the other side. The day will come when you cannot pass +Him by. Meet Him first of your own accord and then when that other day +comes He will know you as a friend ..." +</P> + +<P> +The old man's voice faltered, failed, stopped. He himself seemed to be +deeply affected. Was it acting? Maggie could not tell. At any rate he +was old and ill and very shortly to die ... +</P> + +<P> +The woman next her was crying rubbing the knuckles of her shabby old +gloves in her eyes, the bugles on her bonnet shaking like live things. +</P> + +<P> +She snuffled through her nose to Maggie "Beautiful—beautiful—I +'aven't 'eard such preaching since I don't know when." +</P> + +<P> +Thurston again rose. +</P> + +<P> +"A solo will now be sung," he said. "After the singing of the solo +there will be a prayer offered, then a procession, headed by the choir, +will be formed to march, with lanterns, through the town, as a witness +to the glory of God. It is hoped that those of the congregation who +have received comfort and help during this service will join in the +procession. There will be a collection for the expenses of the Mission +at the door." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie watching him wondered. Of what was he thinking? Was there any +truth in him? Had he, perhaps, behind the sham display and +advertisement that he had been building felt something stirring? Was he +conscious, against his own will, of his falsehood? Had he, while +building only his own success, made a discovery? She looked at him. The +dramatic mask hid him from her. She could not, tell what he was. +</P> + +<P> +The soprano, who had sung a verse of the hymn earlier in the evening, +now undertook "Hear my Prayer." Very beautifully she sang it. +</P> + +<P> +"Hear my prayer, Oh, God, incline Thine ear, Thyself from my distresses +do not hide ..." +</P> + +<P> +The voice rose, soaring through the building to meet the silver stars +and the naked cherubs on the ceiling. "The enemy shouteth ... The enemy +shouteth ..." +</P> + +<P> +Skeaton sat enraptured. Women let the tears stream down their faces, +men blew their noses. +</P> + +<P> +Once again the voice arose. +</P> + +<P> +"Hear my prayer, Oh, God, incline Thine ear ..." +</P> + +<P> +It was Maggie's voice, Maggie's cry. From the very heart of the +charlatanism she cried out, appealing to a God who might exist or no, +she could not tell, but who seemed now to be leading her by the hand. +She saw Aunt Anne at St. Dreot's whispering "The Lord is my Shepherd. +He shall lead me ..." +</P> + +<P> +In a dream she shared in the rest of the ceremony. In a dream she +passed with the others out of the building. The sea air blew about her; +down the promenade she could see the people, she could see the silver +stars in the sky, the faint orange light of the lanterns, the dim +stretch of the sand, and then the grey sea. She heard the splash and +withdrawal of the tide, the murmur of many voices, the singing of the +distant hymn, the blare of the trumpet. +</P> + +<P> +Strange and mysterious, the wind blowing through it all like a promise +of beauty and splendour to come ... +</P> + +<P> +She turned in the starlit dark, separated herself from the crowd, and +hurried home. +</P> + +<P> +In the hall on the table under the lamp she saw a letter. She saw that +it was addressed to her and that the writing was Amy Warlock's. Before +she picked it up she stood there listening. The house was very still. +Grace and Paul had probably begun supper. She picked up the letter and +went up to her bedroom. +</P> + +<P> +As though she were scanning something that she had already seen, she +read: +</P> + +<P> +I made you a promise and I will now fulfil it. +</P> + +<P> +My brother, Martin, arrived in London three days ago. He is staying at +No. 13A Lynton Street, King's Cross. +</P> + +<P> +I have seen him but he has told me that he does not wish to see me +again. He is very ill; his heart is bad and his lungs are affected. He +has also spent all his money. I mentioned your name but he did not seem +to be at all interested. I think it fair to tell you this lest you +should have a fruitless journey. I have now kept my promise to you, +unwisely perhaps. AMY WARLOCK. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie sat down on the bed and considered. There was a train at 10.30 +reaching London about midnight. She could just catch it if she were +quick. She found a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote: +</P> + +<P> +DEAR PAUL—I have to go to London suddenly on very urgent business. I +will write to you from there. Good-bye. MAGGIE. +</P> + +<P> +She propped this up against the looking-glass. She put a few things, +including the box with Martin's letters and the ring into a little bag, +put on her hat and coat and went downstairs. She waited for a moment in +the hall but there was no sound anywhere. She went out down the dark +drive. +</P> + +<P> +As she passed along the lonely road she heard the gate, screaming +faintly, behind her. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0401"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +PART IV +</H2> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +THE JOURNEY HOME AGAIN +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DARK ROOM +</H3> + +<P> +It was after midnight when Maggie was turned out on to the long grim +platform of the London station. On that other London arrival of hers +the terminus had been a boiling cauldron of roar and rattle. Now +everything was dead and asleep. No trains moved; they slept, ancient +monsters, chained down with dirt and fog. Two or three porters crept +slothfully as though hypnotised. The face of the great clock, golden in +the dusk, dominated, like a heathen god, the scene. Maggie asked a +porter the way to the Station Hotel. He showed her; she climbed stairs, +pushed back swing doors, trod oil-clothed passages, and arrived at a +tired young woman who told her that she could have a room. +</P> + +<P> +Arrived there, herself somnambulistic, she flung off her clothes, crept +into bed, and was instantly asleep. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning she kept to her room; she went down the long dusty stairs +before one o'clock because she was hungry, and she discovered the +restaurant and had a meal there; but all the time she was expecting +Martin to appear. Every step seemed to be his, every voice to have an +echo of his tones. Then in the dusky afternoon she decided that she +would be cowardly no longer. She started off on her search for No. 13A +Lynton Street, King's Cross. +</P> + +<P> +She searched through a strange blue opaque light which always +afterwards she recollected as accompanying her with mystery, as though +it followed her about deliberately veiling her from the rest of the +world. She felt different from them all; she found an omnibus that was +going to King's Cross, but when she was inside it and looked at the +people around her she felt of them all that they had no reality beside +the intensity of her own search. She, hot like a fiery coal, existed in +a land of filmy ghosts. She repeated to herself over and over, "No. 13A +Lynton Street, King's Cross." +</P> + +<P> +She got out opposite the huge station and looked about her. She saw a +policeman and went across to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you tell me where Lynton Street is, please?" she asked him. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled. "Yes, miss. Down on your right, then first to your right +again." +</P> + +<P> +She thanked him and wanted for a silly moment to remain with him. She +wanted to stand there where she was, on the island, she couldn't go +back, she was afraid to go forward. Then the moment left her and she +moved on. When she saw Lynton Street written up her heart gave a +strange little whirr and then tightened within herself, but she marched +on and found 13A. A dirty house, pots with ferns in the two grimy +windows, and the walls streaky with white stains against the grey. The +door was ajar and, pushing it a little, she saw a servant-girl on her +knees scrubbing the floor. At the noise of her step the girl looked up. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Mr. Warlock here?" Maggie asked, but the words were choked in her +throat. +</P> + +<P> +"Wot d'ye sye?" the girl asked. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie repeated her question. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—'e's upstairs. Always is. Fust floor, second door on yer left." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie went up. She found the door. She knocked. There was no answer. +She pushed the door, peered through and looked in. She saw a room with +a dirty grimy window, a broken faded red sofa, a deal table. No one +there. +</P> + +<P> +She entered and stood listening. A door beyond her opened and a man +came in. She knew at once that it was Martin. Her thoughts followed one +another in strange flurried inconsequence. Yes, it was Martin. He was +fatter than he had been—fat and ill. Very ill. His face was pale, his +hair, thinner than before, unbrushed. He was wearing an old dirty blue +suit with a coat that buttoned over the waistcoat like a seaman's +jacket. Yes, he was ill and fat and unkempt, but it was Martin. At that +reiterated assurance in the depths of her soul she seemed to sink into +a marvellous certain tranquillity—so certain that she shed, as it were +with a gesture, all the unhappiness and doubt and desolation with which +the last years had burdened her. +</P> + +<P> +She had "touched" Martin again, and with that "touch" she was safe. It +did not matter how he treated her nor whether he wanted her. She was +sane and happy and whole again as she had not been since he left her. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile he looked at her across the dark room, frowning. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is it?" he asked. "What do you want?" +</P> + +<P> +The sound of his voice moved her passionately. For how long she had +ached and yearned for it! He spoke more huskily, with a thicker tone +than he had done, but it was the same voice, rough a little and slow. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you know me, Martin?" she said, laughing for sheer happiness. +She saw before she spoke that he had recognised her. He said nothing, +staring at her across the table; and she, held by some safe instinct, +did not move from where she was. +</P> + +<P> +At last he said: +</P> + +<P> +"Well ... What do you want?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin, don't you recognise me? I'm Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +He nodded. "Yes, I know. You mustn't come here, though. We've nothing +to say to one another nowadays—no, nothing." He didn't look at her; +his eyes were turned towards the grimy window. +</P> + +<P> +She had an astonishing sense of her possession of him. She laughed and +came close to the table. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going away, Martin ... not until we've had a talk. Nothing can +make me. So there!" +</P> + +<P> +He was looking at her again. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, you've cut your hair!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." she said. +</P> + +<P> +Then he turned roughly right round upon her as though he meant to end +the matter once and for all. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here! ... I do mean what I say—" He was cut off then by a fit of +coughing. He leant back against the wall and fought with it, his hand +against his chest. She made no movement and said no word while the +attack lasted. +</P> + +<P> +He gasped, recovering his breath, then, speaking in a voice lower than +before: "I mean what I say. I don't want you. I don't want any one. +There's nothing for us to say to one another. It's only waste of time." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she answered. "That's your side of the question. There's also +mine. Once before you had your own way and I was very miserable about +it. Now it's my turn. I'm going to stay here until we've talked." +</P> + +<P> +He turned, his face working angrily, upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't stay here. It's impossible. What do you do it for when I +tell you I don't want you? First my sister ... then you ... come here +spying. Well, now you're seen what it's like, haven't you? Very jolly, +isn't it? Very handsome? You'd better go away again, then. You've seen +all you've wanted to." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going away," repeated Maggie, "I didn't come to spy. You know +that. Of course you can turn me out, but you'll have to use force." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, I won't," he answered. "There are other ways." +</P> + +<P> +He disappeared into the other room. A moment later he returned; he was +wearing a soft black hat and a shabby grey overcoat. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll get tired of waiting, I expect," he said, and, without looking +at her but just touching her arm as he brushed past her, he left the +room. She heard him descend the stairs. Then the street-door closed. +</P> + +<P> +She sat down upon the shabby red sofa and looked about her. What a +horrible room! Its darkness was tainted with a creeping coldness that +seemed to steal in wavering gusts from wall to wall. The carpet was +faded to a nondescript colour and was gashed into torn strips near the +fireplace. No pictures were on the walls from which the wall-paper was +peeling. He had done nothing whatever to make it more habitable. +</P> + +<P> +He must have been staying there for several weeks, and yet there were +no signs of any personal belongings. Nothing of himself to be seen! +Nothing! It was as though in the bitterness of his spirit he had said +that he would not touch such a spot save, of necessity, with his body. +It should remain, so far as he might go, for ever tenantless. +</P> + +<P> +She felt that. She seemed to be now marvellously perceptive. Until an +hour ago she had been lost, ostracised; now she was at home again, +clear in purpose, afraid of no one and of nothing. Strangely, although +his sickness both of body and soul touched her to the very depths of +her being, her predominant sensation was of happiness. She had found +him again! Oh, she had found him again! Nothing, in this world or the +next, counted in comparison with that. If she were close to him she +would make him well, she would make him rich, she would make him happy. +Where he had been, what he had done, mattered nothing. Where she had +been, what she had done, nothing. Nothing in their two lives counted +but their meeting again, and she who had been always so shy and so +diffident felt no doubt at all about his returning to her. There would +be a fight. As she looked around the gradually darkening room she +realised that. It might be a long fight and a difficult one, but that +she would win she had no doubt. It had been preordained that she should +win. No one on this earth or above it could beat her. +</P> + +<P> +Gradually she became more practical. Slowly she formed her plans. +First, what had Martin done? Perhaps he had told the woman of the house +that she, Maggie, was to be turned out, did she not, of herself, go +away. No, Martin would not do that. Maggie knew quite confidently that +he would never allow any one to insult her. Perhaps Martin would not +come back at all. Perhaps his hat and his coat were his only +possessions. That was a terrible thought! Had he gone, leaving no +trace, how would she ever find him again? She remembered then that he +had gone straight downstairs and out of the house. He had not spoken to +the landlady. That did not look like a permanent departure. But she +would make certain. +</P> + +<P> +She pushed open the other door and peeped into the further room. She +saw a dirty unmade bed, a tin washhand stand, and an open carpet-bag +filled with soiled linen. No, he would come back. +</P> + +<P> +She sat there thinking out her plans. She was suddenly clear, +determined, resourceful, all the things that she had never been in her +life before. First she must see the landlady; next she must go to the +shops—but suppose he should return while she was there, pack his bag +and leave for ever? She must risk that. She thought that he would not +return at once because he would want, as he said, "to tire her out." +"To tire her out!" She laughed at that. She looked about the room and +decided how she would improve it. She nodded to herself. Yes, and the +bedroom too. All this time she was so happy that she could scarcely +prevent herself from singing aloud. +</P> + +<P> +She went out, down the dark stairs, and found the maid, under a +swinging candle-flame, still scrubbing. How strange that in that short +space of time, when the whole of life had altered for her, that girl +had been on her knees scrubbing! +</P> + +<P> +"Could you tell me, please," she asked, "whether I could see somebody +who is in charge of this house—the landlady or—" +</P> + +<P> +"Is there anything I can do?" said a voice behind her. +</P> + +<P> +She turned to find a short stout woman in voluminous black—black +bonnet, black cape, black gloves—watching her with sharp bright eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you the landlady?" Maggie asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I ham," said the woman. "Mrs. Brandon—ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +The servant-girl had suspended operations, kneeling up and watching +with open mouth developments. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm very glad to meet you," said Maggie. "How do you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do, ma'am?" said Mrs. Brandon. +</P> + +<P> +"The point is just this," said Maggie, speaking rather fast as though +she were confused, which she was not. "Mr. Warlock is a very old friend +of mine and I'm afraid he's very ill indeed. He's very ill and there's +nobody to look after him. What I was wondering was whether there was a +bedroom in your house that I could have—so that I could look after +him, you see, and get him anything he wants." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Brandon overlooked Maggie from head to foot—very slowly she did +it, her eyes passing over the rather shabby black hat, the short hair, +the plain black dress, the shoes worn and soiled. She also looked at +Maggie's wedding-ring. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mrs.—" she began. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Trenchard is my name," said Maggie, blushing in spite of herself +at the long scrutiny. +</P> + +<P> +"I 'ope you're not reproaching anybody with neglect of the gentleman." +She had an action, as she talked, of flinging a very seedy-looking +black boa back across her neck vindictively. "Wot I mean to say is that +gentleman lodgers must take their chance and e's two weeks overdue with +'is rent as it is ... but of course I'm not saying I couldn't oblige. +'E's a nice gentleman too, although not talkative so to speak, but if +it would give 'im 'appiness to 'ave a lady friend close at 'and as you +might say, why I wouldn't like to be one to stand in 'is way. 'Live and +let live,' 'as always been my motter, and a very good one too." +</P> + +<P> +She said all this very slowly, with a good many significant pauses. +Maggie, however, felt nothing but happiness at the prospect of getting +her way. She had gone far beyond all personal sensations of shame or +fear or hesitation. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you show me the room, please?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +They pushed past the servant-girl, whose eyes followed them up the +stairs with hungry curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +They climbed to the top of the house. Mrs. Brandon displayed a dark +sulky little room with damp of the tomb clinging to its wall. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten bob a week," she said. She sunk her voice to a confidential +whisper. "The best of this 'ouse is that you can do what you like. No +one minds and no one sees. 'Them as lives in glass 'ouses.' That's what +I say." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll take it," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be wanting a key, my dear," said Mrs. Brandon, suddenly very +friendly. "To let yerself in an' out at nights. I'll fetch yer one." +</P> + +<P> +She did. Maggie thanked her. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," she said, "whether you have such a thing as a small basket +you could lend me. I'm going out to buy one or two necessaries." +</P> + +<P> +"Certingly," said Mrs. Brandon, all smiles. "Certingly, and anythink +else you'll be needing. All you've got to do is ter ask." +</P> + +<P> +This settled, Maggie departed on her shopping expedition. She was still +driven by a curious clarity and decision as to what she wanted to do. +She felt as though she could conquer the world to-day and then parcel +it out equitably and with success amongst the greedy kings of the +earth. What were kings to her now that she had found Martin? Less than +the dust ... +</P> + +<P> +Lynton Street offered her nothing but dirty and grime-stained windows, +but she found her way into King Edward Street, and here there were many +shops. She had not very much money actually upon her, and the remainder +of her precious three hundred was locked up in a bank in Skeaton, but +it was a bank that had, she knew, branches in London. She looked in her +purse and found that she had three pounds, twelve shillings and +sixpence. Martin must have his meals upon something other than paper, +so the probability was that there was crockery of a kind in his +room—or perhaps Mrs. Brandon supplied it. Nevertheless Maggie's first +purchases were a blue teapot, two blue plates, and two blue cups and +saucers. +</P> + +<P> +As to food she must get something that could be cooked easily on his +fire. She bought three of the freshest possible eggs, half a dozen +sausages, a loaf of bread, half a pound of butter, two pots of jam, one +pot of marmalade, some apples, a pound of tea, a pound of sugar. +</P> + +<P> +"This will do as a start," she said to herself. +</P> + +<P> +She was just about to turn into Lynton Street when she stopped at a +flower shop. In the window, smiling at her most fragrantly under the +gas-light was a white hyacinth in a blue pot. It seemed to speak to her +with, the same significance as once the ring with the three pearls; as +though it said: "You've got to use me. I'm a link in the chain." +</P> + +<P> +She went in and asked its price; not very much, considering the +splendour of the blue pot. She bought it. She was glad that 13A was not +far, because now the basket and the flower weighed heavily upon her. +</P> + +<P> +She climbed the stairs to Martin's room with beating heart. Suppose he +had returned and was there and would not let her in? Or suppose, worse +than that, that he had returned, packed his bag and gone away again? +Her heart was beating so terribly when at last she had arrived outside +the door that she had to put down the hyacinth and the basket and stand +for a minute there, panting. +</P> + +<P> +She pushed back the door; the room was lit by the reflection from a +lamp in a window on the opposite side of the road; this flickered with +a pale uncertain glow across the floor. He was not here. She opened the +bedroom door. He had not packed his bag. She sighed with relief. She +found a bell and pressed it. To her great surprise the scrubbing maid +almost instantly presented herself; curiosity had undoubtedly hastened +her steps. +</P> + +<P> +"What's your name?" asked Maggie, smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"Emily," said the girl. +</P> + +<P> +"The first thing I want is a box of matches," said Maggie. "You'll +light the gas for me, won't you. The truth is, I'm not quite tall +enough to reach it." +</P> + +<P> +Emily lit the gas. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you so much," said Maggie. "I must have a fire. That's the next +thing. This cold room must have been a bad thing for Mr. Warlock with +his cough." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, 'e 'as got a corf," said Emily, watching Maggie with all her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, do you think I could have a fire?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Emily considered. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll ask the missus," she said; "I shouldn't wonder." +</P> + +<P> +She returned soon with coal, wood and newspaper. She also informed +Maggie that Mrs. Brandon would like to have a "little in advance if +convenient, that being the custom." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie delivered up ten and sixpence and was left with exactly two +shillings in her pocket. But how beautiful the room appeared! Emily, +whose ugly bony countenance now wore a look of excited breathlessness +as though she were playing a new kind of game, discovered a piece of +dark sad cloth somewhere in the lower region and this was pinned up +over the window. The fire was soon blazing away as though the fireplace +rejoiced to have a chance of being warm once more. A shabby but clean +table-cloth was discovered and placed upon the table, and in the middle +of this the hyacinth was triumphantly stationed. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I tell you what would be nice," said Maggie, also by this time +breathless, "and that's a lamp. This gas isn't very pleasant, is it, +and it DOES make such a noise." +</P> + +<P> +"It DOES make a noise," said Emily, looking at the gas as though she +were seeing it for the first time. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, do you think there's a lamp somewhere?" +</P> + +<P> +Emily licked her finger. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll ask the missus," she said and disappeared. Soon she returned with +a lamp, its glories hidden beneath a bright pink paper shade. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie removed the paper shade, placed the lamp on the table, then the +blue plates, the blue cups and saucers, the blue teapot. +</P> + +<P> +A shrill voice was heard calling for Emily. Maggie had then her kingdom +to herself. +</P> + +<P> +She stood there, waiting and listening. The approaching interview must +have seemed to her the climax of her whole life. She stood, clasping +and unclasping her hands, going to the table, moving the plates, then +moving them back again. Perhaps he would not return at all that night, +perhaps not until midnight or later. He might be drunk, he might be +violent. She did not care. It was enough for her that he should be +there. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh I do wish he'd come," she whispered aloud. +</P> + +<P> +She had looked at her watch and seen that it was just eight o'clock +when she heard a step on the stair. She had already borrowed from Emily +a frying-pan. Quickly she put the sausages into it, placed them on the +fire and then stood over them. +</P> + +<P> +The door opened. She knew who it was because she heard him start +suddenly with a little exclamation of surprise. She turned and looked +at him. Her first thought was that he seemed desperately weary, weary +with a fatigue not only physical. His whole bearing was that of a man +beaten, defeated, raging, it might be, with the consciousness of his +defeat but beyond all hope of avenging it. Her pity for him made her +tremble but, with that, she realised that the worst thing that she +could do was to show pity. What had he expected? To find her gone? To +find her still sitting defiantly where he had left her? To see her +crying, perhaps on her knees before him, beseeching him? Anything but +not this. +</P> + +<P> +She could see that he was astonished and was resolved not to let her +know it. +</P> + +<P> +He moved past her without a word, and went into the other room. She +said nothing, but bent over the sausages. They were sizzling and flung +out a splendid smell. +</P> + +<P> +He came back without his hat and coat. He stood by the bedroom door and +slowly looked round the room, taking everything in. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you'd have gone," he said; "I warned you." +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him, laughing: +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't," she said. "Whatever happens afterwards, Martin, we may as +well have one meal together. I'm very hungry. I know you'll forgive my +using your room like this, but I didn't want to go to a shop. So I just +brought the things in here." +</P> + +<P> +His eyes lighted on the hyacinth. +</P> + +<P> +"I know what your game is," he said huskily. "But it isn't any good. +You may as well chuck it." +</P> + +<P> +"All right," she said. "After we've had a meal." +</P> + +<P> +Straightening herself up from the heat of the fire she had a terrible +temptation then to go to him. It overwhelmed her in a flood; her knees +and hands trembled. She wanted just to touch his arm, to put her hand +on his shoulder. But she knew that she must not. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down for a bit," she said very quietly, "and let's have our meal. +There's nothing terrible in that, Martin. I've not put poison in your +food or anything and the sausages do smell nice." +</P> + +<P> +To her surprise he sat down, suddenly collapsing as though he were too +tired to stand any longer. He said nothing more. She finished the +sausages, put them on the table, then took a saucepan (also Emily's +gift), filled it with water and put in the eggs. +</P> + +<P> +"Come on," she said gently, "or the sausages will get cold." +</P> + +<P> +He went then to the table, cut off some bread and began to eat +ravenously. Her heart felt a dim distant triumph when she saw that he +was so hungry, but it was too early to feel triumph yet. +</P> + +<P> +She came to the table and began to eat, although she felt no hunger. +</P> + +<P> +"You're married, aren't you?" he asked suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's your husband?" +</P> + +<P> +"A place called Skeaton." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you'd better get back there to-night—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm staying in London for a day or two." +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"Here. I've got a bedroom upstairs." +</P> + +<P> +"You can do what you damn well please," he said. "It doesn't matter to +me. I'm going away from here to-morrow morning." Then, after another +pause, he said: +</P> + +<P> +"What sort of a man's your husband?" +</P> + +<P> +"A clergyman," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +"A clergyman ... good Lord!" He laughed grimly. "Still religious, I +see." +</P> + +<P> +All this time she was thinking how ill he was. Every breath that he +drew seemed to hurt him. His eyes were dull and expressionless. He +moved his hands, sometimes, with a groping movement as though he could +not see. He drank his tea thirstily, eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +At last he had finished. He bent forward, leaning on his hands, looking +her steadily in the face for the first time. +</P> + +<P> +"It was clever of you to do this," he said; "damn clever. I was hungry, +I don't mind confessing ... but that's the last of it. Do you hear? I +can look after myself. I know. You're feeling sorry for me. Think I'm +in a dirty room with no one to look after me. Think I'm ill. I bet Amy +told you I was ill. 'Oh, poor fellow,' you thought, 'I must go and look +after him.' Well, I'm not a poor fellow and I don't want looking after. +I can manage for myself very nicely. And I don't want any women hanging +round. I'm sick of women, and that's flat." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not pretending it's not all my own fault. It is. ALL my own fault, +but I don't want any one coming round and saying so. AND I don't want +any pity. You've had a nice romantic idea in your head, saving the +sinner and all the rest of it. Well, you can get back to your parson. +He's the sort for that kind of stuff." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed I haven't," said Maggie. "I don't care whether you're a sinner +or not. You're being too serious about it all, Martin. We were old +friends. When I heard you were in London I came to see you. That's all. +I may as well stay here as anywhere else. Aunt Anne's dead +and—and—Uncle Mathew too. There's nowhere else for me to go. I don't +pity you. Why should I? You think too much about yourself, Martin. It +wasn't to be clever that I got these things. I was hungry, and I didn't +want to eat in an A.B.C. shop." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't know," he said, turning away from the table. +</P> + +<P> +He stood up, fumbling in his pocket. He produced a pipe and some +tobacco out of a paper packet. As he filled it she saw that his hand +was trembling. +</P> + +<P> +He turned finally upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever your plan was it's failed," he said. "I'm going to bed +straight away now. And to-morrow morning early I'm off. Thank you for +the meal and—good-night and good-bye." +</P> + +<P> +He gave her one straight look. She looked up at him, calmly. He dropped +his eyes; then, clumsily he walked off, opened his bedroom door, closed +it behind him, and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +She sat there, staring in front of her, thinking. What was she to do +now? At least she might clear up. She had nowhere to wash the things. +She would put them ready for the morning. She tidied the table, put the +plates and cups together, then, overcome by a sudden exhaustion, she +sat down on the sofa. +</P> + +<P> +She realised then the fight that the day had been. Yes, a fight! ... +and she was still only at the beginning of it. If he really went away +in the morning what could she do? She could not follow him all round +London. But she would not despair yet. No, she was far from despair. +But she was tired, tired to death. +</P> + +<P> +She sat on there in a kind of dream. There were no sounds in the house. +The fire began to drop very low. There were no more coals. The room +began to be very chilly. She laid her head back on the sofa; she was +half asleep. She was dreaming—Paul was there and Grace—the Skeaton +sands—the Revival procession with the lanterns—the swish of the sea... +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she was wide awake. The lamp had burnt down to a low rim of +light. Martin was coughing in the other room. Coughing! She had never +heard such a cough, something inhuman and strange. She stood up, her +hands clutched. She waited. Then, as it continued, growing fiercer and +fiercer, so that in spite of the closed door it seemed to be in the +very room with her, she could bear it no longer. +</P> + +<P> +She opened the door and went in. The room was lit by a candle placed on +a chair beside the bed. Martin was sitting up, his hands clenched, his +face convulsed. The cough went on—choking, convulsing, as though some +terrible enemy had hands at his windpipe. He grasped the bedclothes, +his eyes, frightened and dilated, staring in front of him. +</P> + +<P> +She went to him. He did not look at her, but whispered in a voice that +seemed to come from miles away: +</P> + +<P> +"Bottle ... over there ... glass." +</P> + +<P> +She saw on the wash-hand stand a bottle with a medicine glass behind +it. She read the directions, poured out the drops, took it over and +gave it to him. He swallowed it down. She put out her arm to steady him +and felt his whole body tremble beneath her hand. Gradually he was +quieter. Utterly exhausted he slipped back, his head on the pillow. +</P> + +<P> +She drew her chair close to the bed. He was too exhausted to speak and +did not look at her at all. After a while she put her hand on his +forehead and stroked it. He did not draw away from her. Slowly his head +turned towards her. He lay there in the crook of her arm, she bending +forward over him. +</P> + +<P> +Her heart beat. She tried not to be conscious of his closeness to her, +but her hand trembled as it touched his cheek. +</P> + +<P> +Still he did not move away. After, as it seemed to her, a long time he +was asleep. She listened to his breathing, and only then, when she knew +that he could not hear, she whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin, I love you so! Dear Martin, I love you so much!" +</P> + +<P> +She blew out the candle and, her arm beneath his head, sat there, +watching. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0402"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +HOBGOBLINS +</H3> + +<P> +The dawn had made the dark room grey when Maggie, stiff and sore from +the strained position in which she had been sitting, went up to her +room. She had intended not to go to bed, but weariness overcame her; +she lay down on her bed, dressed as she was, and fell into a deep, +exhausted slumber. +</P> + +<P> +When she woke it was broad daylight. She was panic-stricken. How could +she have slept? And now he might have gone. She washed her face and +hands in the horrible little tin basin, brushed her hair, and then, +with beating heart, went downstairs. His sitting-room was just as she +had left it, the unwashed plates piled together, the red cloth over the +window, the dead ashes of the fire in the grate. Very gently she opened +his bedroom door. He was still in bed. She went over to him. He was +asleep, muttering, his hands clenched on the counterpane. His cheeks +were flushed. To her inexperienced eyes he looked very ill. +</P> + +<P> +She touched him on the shoulder and with a start he sprang awake, his +eyes wide open with terror, and he crying: +</P> + +<P> +"What is it? No ... no ... don't. Don't." +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right, Martin. It's I, Maggie," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He stared at her; then dropping back on to the pillow, he muttered +wearily as though he were worn out after a long struggle: +</P> + +<P> +"I'm bad ... It's my chest. There's a doctor. They'll tell you ... He's +been here before." +</P> + +<P> +She went into the other room and rang the bell. After a time Mrs. +Brandon herself appeared. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid Mr. Warlock is very ill," said Maggie, trying to keep her +voice from trembling. "He's asked me to fetch the doctor who's been +here to see him before. Can you tell me who he is and where he lives?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Brandon's bright and inquisitive eyes moved round the room, taking +in the blue china, the hyacinth and the lamp. "Certingly," she said. +"That must be Dr. Abrams. 'E lives in Cowley Street, No. 4—Dr. Emanuel +Abrams. A good doctor when 'e's sober, and the morning's the best time +to be sure of 'im. Certingly 'e's been in to see your friend several +times. They've been merry together more than once." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Cowley Street?" asked Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"First to the right when you get out of the 'ouse, and then second to +the left again. No. 4's the number. It's most likely 'e'll be asleep. +Yes, Dr. Abrams, that's the name. 'E's attended a lot in this 'ouse. +Wot a pretty flower! Cheers the room up I must say. Will you be wanting +another fire?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Maggie. "Could Emily see to that while I'm away?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certingly," said Mrs. Brandon, looking at Maggie with a curious +confidential smile—a hateful smile, but there was no time to think +about it. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie went out. She found Cowley Street without any difficulty. Dr. +Abrams was up and having his breakfast. His close, musty room smelt of +whisky and kippers. He himself was a little, fat round Jew, very red in +the face, very small in the eye, very black in the hair, and very dirty +in the hands. +</P> + +<P> +He was startled by Maggie's appearance—very different she was from his +usual patients. +</P> + +<P> +"Looked just a baby," he informed Mrs. Brandon afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Warlock?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie defiantly. "I'm a friend of Mr. Warlock's." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes—quite so." He wiped his mouth, disappeared into another room, +returned with a shabby black bag and a still shabbier top hat, and +declared himself ready to start. +</P> + +<P> +"It's pneumonia," he told her as they went along. "Had it three weeks +ago. Of course if he was out in yesterday's fog that finished him." +</P> + +<P> +"He was out," said Maggie, "for a long time." +</P> + +<P> +"Quite so," said Dr. Abrams. "That's killed him, I shouldn't wonder." +He snuffled in his speech and he snuffled in his walk. +</P> + +<P> +Before they had gone very far he put his hand on Maggie's arm; she +hated his touch, but his last words had so deeply terrified her that +nothing else affected her. If Martin were killed by going out yesterday +then she had killed him. He had gone out to escape her. But she drove +that thought from her as she had driven so many others. +</P> + +<P> +"The pneumonia's bad enough," said the little man, becoming more +confidential as his grip tightened on her arm, "but it's heart's the +trouble. Might finish him any day. Tells me his father was the same. +What a nice warm arm you've got, my dear—it's a pleasant day, too." +</P> + +<P> +They entered the house and Dr. Abrams stayed chatting with Emily in the +passage for a considerable time. Any one of the opposite sex seemed to +hare an irresistible attraction for him. +</P> + +<P> +When they went upstairs the doctor was so held by his burning curiosity +that it was difficult to lead him into Martin's bedroom. Everything +interested him; he bent down and felt the tablecloth with his dirty +thumb, then the soil round the hyacinth, then the blue china. Between +every investigation he stared at Maggie as though he were now seeing +her for the first time. At last, however, he was bending over Martin, +and his examination was clever and deft; he had been, like his patient, +used to better days. Martin was very ill. +</P> + +<P> +"The boy's bad," he said, turning sharply round upon Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +From the speaking of that word, for six days and six nights he was +Maggie's loyal friend and fellow-combatant. They fought, side by side, +in the great struggle for Martin's life. They won; but when Maggie +tried to look back afterwards on the history of that wrestling, she saw +nothing connectedly, only the candle-light springing and falling, the +little doctor's sharp eyes, the torn paper of the wall, the ragged +carpet, and always that strange mask that was Martin's face and yet the +face of a stranger, something tortured and fantastic, passing from +Chinese immobility to frenzied pain, from pain to sweating exhaustion, +from exhaustion back to immobility. +</P> + +<P> +On the eighth day she rose, as a swimmer rises from green depths, and +saw the sunshine and the landscape again. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll do if you're careful," said Dr. Abrams, and suddenly became once +more the curious, dirty, sensual little creature that he had been at +first. Her only contact with the outer world had been her visits to the +neighbouring streets for necessaries and one journey to the bank (the +nearest branch was in Oxford Street) to settle about her money. But +now, with the doctor's words, the rest of the world came back to her. +She remembered Paul. She was horrified to realise that during these +days she had entirely forgotten him. He, of course could not write to +her because he did not know her address. When she saw that Martin was +quietly sleeping she sat down and wrote the following letter: +</P> + +<P> + 13A LYNTON STREET, KING'S CROSS, April 28th, 1912.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +MY DEAR PAUL,—I have been very wrong indeed not to write to you before +this. It's only of a piece with all my other bad behaviour to you, and +it's very late now to saw that I am ashamed. I will tell you the truth, +which is that on the day I left you I had received a letter telling me +that the friend of whom I have often told you was in England, very ill, +and with no one to care for him. I had to go. I don't know whether it +was right or wrong—wrong I suppose—but I always knew that if he ever +wanted me I SHOULD go. I've always been truthful to you about that. +When I came here I found that he was in horrible lodgings, very ill +indeed, and with no one to look after him. I HAD to stay, and now for a +week he has been between life and death. He had pneumonia some weeks +ago and went out too soon. His heart also is bad. I believe now he can +get well if great care is taken. +</P> + +<P> +Dear Paul, I don't know what to say to you. I have a bedroom in this +house and every one is very kind to me, but you will think me very +wicked. I can't help it. I can't come back to you and Grace. Perhaps +later when he is quite well I shall be able to, but I don't think so. +You don't need me; I have never been satisfactory to you, only a worry. +Grace will never be able to live with me again, and I can't stay in +Skeaton any more after Uncle Mathew's death. It has all been a wretched +mistake, Paul, our marriage, hasn't it? It was my fault entirely. I +shouldn't have married you when I knew that I would always love Martin. +I thought then that I should be able to make you happy. If now I felt +that I could I would come back at once, but you know as well as I do +that, after this, we shall never be happy together again. I blame +myself so much but I can't act differently. Perhaps when Martin is well +he will not want me at all, but even then I don't think I could come +back. Isn't it better that at least I should stay away for a time? You +can say that I am staying with friends in London. You will be happier +without me, oh, much happier—and Grace will be happier too. Perhaps +you will think it better to forget me altogether and then your life +will be as it was before you met me. +</P> + +<P> +I won't ask you to forgive me for all the trouble I have been to you. I +don't think you can. But I can't do differently now. Your affectionate +MAGGIE. +</P> + +<P> + She felt when she had finished it that it was miserably inadequate,<BR> +but at least it was truthful. As she wrote it her old feelings of +tenderness and affection for Paul came back in a great flood. She saw +him during the many, many times when he had been so good to her. She +was miserable as she finished it, but she knew that there was nothing +else to do. And he would know it too. +</P> + +<P> +A day later a long letter came from Paul. It was very characteristic. +It began by saying that of course Maggie must return at once. +Throughout, the voice was that of a grieved and angry elder talking to +a wicked and disobedient child. She saw that, far beyond everything +else, it was his pride that was wounded, wounded as it had never been +before. He could see nothing but that. Did she realise, he asked her, +what she was doing? Sinning against all the laws of God and man. If she +persisted in her wickedness she would be cut off from all decent +people. No one could say that he had not shown her every indulgence, +every kindness, every affection. Even now he was ready to forgive her, +but she must come back at once, at once. Her extreme youth excused +much, and both he and Grace realised it. +</P> + +<P> +Through it all the strain—did she not see what she was doing? How +could she behave so wickedly when she had been given so many blessings, +when she had been shown the happiness of a Christian home? ... +</P> + +<P> +It was not a letter to soften Maggie's resolve. She wrote a short reply +saying that she could not come. She thought then that he would run up +to London to fetch her. But he did not. He wrote once more, and then, +for a time, there was silence. +</P> + +<P> +She had little interval in which to think about Paul; Martin soon +compelled her attention. He was well enough now to be up. He would lie +all day, without moving except to take his meals, on the old red sofa, +stretched out there, his arms behind his head, looking at Maggie with a +strange taunting malicious stare as though he were defying her to stand +up to him. She did stand up to him, although it needed all her +strength, moral and physical. He was attacking her soul and she was +saving his ... +</P> + +<P> +He said no more about his going away. He accepted it as a fact that she +was there and that she would stay there. He had changed his position +and was fighting her on another ground. +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had once, years before, read in a magazine, a story about a +traveller and a deserted house. This traveller, lost, as are all +travellers in stories, in a forest, benighted and hungry, saw the +lights of a house. +</P> + +<P> +He goes forward and finds a magnificent mansion, blazing with light in +every window, but apparently deserted. He enters and finds room after +room prepared for guests. A fine meal is laid ready and he enjoys it. +He discovers the softest of beds and soon is fast asleep; but when he +is safely snoring back creep all the guests out of the forest, hideous +and evil, warped and deformed, maimed and rotten with disease. They had +left the house, that he might be lured in it, knowing that he would +never come whilst they were there. And so they creep into all the +rooms, flinging their horrible shadows upon the gleaming walls, and +gradually they steal about the bed ... +</P> + +<P> +Maggie forgot the end of the story. The traveller escaped, or perhaps +he did not. Perhaps he was strangled. But that moment of his awakening, +when his startled eyes first stared upon those horrible faces, those +deformed bodies, those evil smiles! What could one do, one naked and +defenceless against so many? +</P> + +<P> +Maggie thought of this story during Martin's convalescence. She seemed +to see the evil guests, crowding back, one after the other into his +soul, and as they came back they peeped out at her, smiling from the +lighted windows. She saw that his plan was to thrust before her the +very worst of himself. He said: "Well, I've tried to get rid of her and +she won't go. That's her own affair, but if she stays, at least she +shall see me as I am. No false sentimental picture. I'll cure her." +</P> + +<P> +It was the oldest trick in the world, but to Maggie it was new enough. +At first she was terrified. In spite of her early experience with her +father, when she had learnt what wickedness could be, she was a child +in all knowledge of the world. Above all she knew very little about her +own sex and its relation with men. But she determined that she must +take the whole of Martin; in the very first days of her love she had +resolved that, and now that resolution was to be put to the test. Her +terrified fear was lest the things that he told her about himself +should affect her love for him. She had told him years before: "It +isn't the things you've done that I mind or care about: it's you, not +actions that matter." But his actions were himself, and what was she to +do if all these things that he said were true? +</P> + +<P> +Then she discovered that she had indeed spoken the truth. Her love for +him did not change; it rather grew, helped and strengthened by a +maternal pity and care that deepened and deepened. He seemed to her a +man really possessed, in literal fact, by devils. The story of the +lighted house was the symbol, only he, in the bitterness and defiance +of his heart, had invited the guests, not been surprised by them. +</P> + +<P> +He pretended to glory in his narration, boasting and swearing what he +would do when he would return to the old scenes, how happy and +triumphant he had been in the midst of his filth—but young and +ignorant though she was she saw beneath this the misery, the shame, the +bitterness, the ignominy. He was down in the dust, in a despair furious +and more self-accusing than anything of which she had ever conceived. +</P> + +<P> +Again and again, too, although this was never deliberately stated, she +saw that he spoke like a man caught in a trap. He did not blame any one +but himself for the catastrophe of his life, but he often spoke, in +spite of himself, like a man who from the very beginning had been under +some occult influence. He never alluded now to his early days but she +remembered how he had once told her that that "Religion" had "got" him +from the very beginning, and had weighted all the scales against him. +It was as though he had said: "I was told from the very beginning that +I was to be made a fighting-ground of. I didn't want to be that. I +wasn't the man for that. I was chosen wrongly." +</P> + +<P> +He only once made any allusion to his father's death, but Maggie very +soon discovered that that was never away from his mind. "I loved my +father and I killed him," he said one day, "so I thought it wise not to +love any one again." +</P> + +<P> +Gradually a picture was created in Maggie's mind, a picture originating +in that dirty, dark room where they were. She saw many foreign +countries and many foreign towns, and in all of them men and women were +evil. The towns were always in the hour between daylight and dark, the +streets twisted and obscure, the inhabitants furtive and sinister. +</P> + +<P> +The things that those inhabitants did were made quite plain to her. She +saw the dancing saloons, the women naked and laughing, the men drunken +and besotted, the gambling, the quarrelling, drugging, suicide—all +under a half-dead sky, stinking and offensive. +</P> + +<P> +One day, at last, she laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Martin," she cried, "don't let's be so serious about it. You can't +want to go back to that life—it's so dull. At first I was frightened, +but now!—why it's all the same thing over and over again." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm only telling you," he said; "I don't say that I do want to go back +again. I don't want anything except for you to go away. I just want to +go to hell my own fashion." +</P> + +<P> +"You talk so much about going to hell," she said. "Why, for ten days +now you've spoken of nothing else. There are other places, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"You clear out and get back to your parson," he said. "You must see +from what I've told you it isn't any good your staying. I've no money. +My health's gone all to billyoh! I don't want to get better. Why should +I? Perhaps I did love you a little bit—once—in a queer way, but +that's all gone now. I don't love any one on this earth. I just want to +get rid of this almighty confusion going on in my head. I can't rest +for it. I'd finish myself off if I had pluck enough. I just haven't." +</P> + +<P> +"Martin," she said, "why did you write all those letters to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"What letters?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Those that Amy stopped—the ones from abroad." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't know," he looked away from her. "I was a bit lonely, I +suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me another thing," she said. "These weeks I've been here have I +bored you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've been too ill to tell ... How do I know? Well, no, you haven't. +You're such a queer kid. You're different from any other human—utterly +different. No, you haven't bored me—but don't think from that I like +having you here. I don't—you remind me of the old life. I don't want +to think of it more than I must. You'll admit I've been trying to scare +you stiff in all I've told you, and I haven't scared you. It's true, +most of it, but it isn't so damned sensational as I've tried to make it +... But, all the same, what's the use of your staying? I don't love +you, and I'm never likely to. I've told you long ago you're not the +sort of woman to attract me physically. You never did. You're more like +a boy. Why should you ruin your own life when there's nothing to gain +by it? You will ruin it, you know, staying on here with me. Every one +thinks we're living together. Have you heard from your parson?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"What does he say?" +</P> + +<P> +"He says I've got to go back at once." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there you are." +</P> + +<P> +"But don't you see, Martin, I shouldn't go back to him even if I left +you. I've quite decided that. He'll never be happy with me unless I +love him, which I can't do, and there's his sister who hates me. And +he's just rooted in Skeaton. I can't live there after Uncle Mathew!" +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me about that." +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, shrinking back. "I'll never tell any one. Not even you." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, look here," he went on, after a pause. "You must see how hopeless +it is, Maggie. You've got nothing to get out of it. As soon as I'm well +enough I shall go off and leave you. You can't follow me, hunting me +everywhere. You must see that." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but what you don't, Martin, see," she answered him, "is that I've +got some right to think of my own happiness. It's quite true what you +say, that if you get well and decide you don't want to see me I won't +follow you. Of course I won't. Perhaps one day you will want me all the +same. But I'm happy only with you, and so long as I don't bore you I'm +going to stay. I've always been wrong with every one else, stupid and +doing everything I shouldn't. But with you it isn't so. I'm not stupid, +and however you behave I'm happy. I can't help it. It's just so." +</P> + +<P> +"But how can you be happy?" he said, "I'm not the sort for any one to +be happy with. When I've been drinking I'm impossible. I'm sulky and +lazy, and I don't want to be any better either. You may think you're +happy these first few weeks, but you won't be later on." +</P> + +<P> +"Let's try," said Maggie, laughing. "Here's a bargain, Martin. You say +I don't bore you. I'll stay with you until you're quite well. Then if +you don't want me I'll go and not bother you until you ask for me. Is +that a bargain?" +</P> + +<P> +"You'd much better not," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't think I'm staying," she answered, "because I think you so +splendid that I can't leave you. I don't think you splendid at all. And +it's not because I think myself splendid either. I'm being quite +selfish about it. I'm staying simply because I'm happier so." +</P> + +<P> +"You'd much better not," he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that a bargain?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, if you like," he answered, looking at her with puzzled eyes. It +was the first long conversation that they had had. After it, he was no +nicer than before. He never kissed her, he never touched her, he seldom +talked to her; when she talked, he seemed to be little interested. For +hours he lay there, looking in front of him, saying nothing. When the +little doctor came they wrangled and fought together but seemed to like +one another. +</P> + +<P> +Through it all Maggie could see that he was riddled with deep shame and +self-contempt and haunted, always, by the thought of his father. She +longed to speak to him about his father's death, but as yet she did not +dare. If once she could persuade him that that had not been his fault, +she could, she thought, really help him. That was the secret canker at +his heart and she could not touch it. +</P> + +<P> +Strangely, as the days passed, the years that had been added to him +since their last meeting seemed to fall away. He became to her more and +more the boy that he had been when she had known him before. In a +thousand ways he showed it, his extraordinary youth and inexperience in +spite of all that he had been and done. She felt older now than he and +she loved him the more for that. Most of all she longed to get him away +from this place where he was. Then one day little Abrams said to her: +</P> + +<P> +"He'll never get well here." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I think," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you carry him off somewhere? The country's the place for +him—somewhere in the South." +</P> + +<P> +Her heart leapt. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Glebeshire!" she cried. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's not a bad place," he said. "That would pick him up." +</P> + +<P> +At once she thought, night and day, of St. Dreot's. A very hunger +possessed her to get back there. And why not? For one thing, it would +be so much cheaper. Her money would not last for ever, and Mrs. Brandon +robbed her whenever possible. She determined that she would manage it. +At last, greatly fearing it, she mentioned it to him, and to her +surprise he did not scorn it. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care," he said, looking at her with that curious puzzled +expression that she often saw now in his eyes, "I'm sick of this room. +That's a bargain, Maggie, you can put me where you like until I'm well. +Then I'm off." +</P> + +<P> +She had a strange superstition that Borhedden was fated to see her +triumph. She had wandered round the world and now was returning again +to her own home. She remembered a Mrs. Bolitho who had had the farm in +her day. She wrote to her, and two days later received a letter saying +that there was room for them at Borhedden if they wished. +</P> + +<P> +She was now all feverish impatience. Dr. Abrams said that Martin could +be moved if they were very careful. All plans were made. Mrs. Brandon +and the ugly little doctor both seemed quite sorry that they were +going, and Emily even sniffed and wiped her eye with the corner of her +apron. The world seemed now to be turning a different face to Maggie. +Human beings liked her and were no longer suspicious to her as they had +been before. +</P> + +<P> +She felt herself how greatly she had changed. It was as though, until +she had found Martin again, everything had been tied up in her, +constrained. She had been some one lost and desolate. Nevertheless, how +difficult these days were! Through all this time she spoke to him no +affectionate word nor touched him with an affectionate gesture. She was +simply a good-humoured companion, laughing at him, assuming, through it +all, an off-hand indifference that meant for her so difficult a +pretence that she thought he must discover it. He did not; he was in +many ways more simple than she. She laid to sleep his suspicions. She +could feel his relief that she was not romantic, that she wanted +nothing whatever from him. He was ill—therefore was often churlish. He +tried to hurt her again and again with cruel words and then waited to +see whether she were hurt. She never showed him. He treated her with +contempt, often not answering her questions, laughing at her little +stupidities, complaining of her forgetfulness and, sometimes, her +untidiness—telling her again and again to "go back to her parson." +</P> + +<P> +She gave no sign. She fought her way. But it hurt; she could not have +believed that anything could hurt so much. She was being always drawn +to him, longing to put her arm around him, to dare to kiss him, risking +any repulse. He seemed so young, so helpless, so unhappy. Every part of +him called to her, his hair, his eyes, his voice, his body. But she +held herself in, she never gave way, she was resolute in her plan. +</P> + +<P> +On their last evening in Lynton Street, for five minutes, he was +suddenly kind to her, almost the old Martin speaking with the old +voice. She held her breath, scarcely daring to let herself know how +happy she was. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you think about God, Maggie?" he asked, turning on the sofa +and looking at her. +</P> + +<P> +"Think about God?" she said, repeating his words. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes ...Is there one?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. I haven't any intelligence about those things." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there immortality?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not. Your parson thinks there is, doesn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course he does." +</P> + +<P> +"Did he have lots of services and did you hare to go to them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor Maggie—always having to go to them. Well, it's queer. Funny if +there isn't anything after all when there's been such a fight about it +so long. Did they make you very religious at Skeaton or wherever the +place was?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Maggie. "They thought me a terrible heathen. Grace was +terrified of me, I seemed so wicked to her. She thought I was +bewitching Paul's soul—" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you were." +</P> + +<P> +"No. So little did I that he hasn't even come up to London to fetch me." +</P> + +<P> +"Which did you like best—Skeaton or the Chapel?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. I was wrong in both of them. They were just opposite." +Maggie waited a little. Then she said: "Martin there must be something. +I can feel it as though it were behind a wall somewhere—I can hear it +and I can't see anything. Aunt Anne and—and—your father, and Paul, +and Mr. Magnus were all trying ... It feels like a fight, but I don't +know who's fighting who." +</P> + +<P> +Her allusion to his father had been unfortunate. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all damned rot if you ask me," he said, turned his face to the +wall and wouldn't say another word. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning they started. Mrs. Brandon's bill was as large as she +could make it and still not very large. Dr. Abrams, to Maggie's immense +surprise, would not take a penny. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not wantin' money just now," he said. "I'm robbing a rich old man +who lives near here. I'm a sort of highway man, you know, rob the rich +and spend it how I like. Now don't you press me to make up a bill or I +shall change my mind and give you one and it will be so large that you +won't be able to go down to Glebeshire. How would you like that? Oh, +don't think I'm doing it from fine motives. You're both a couple of +babies, that's what you are, and it would be a shame to rob you. How +you're ever going to get through the world don't know. The Babes in the +Wood weren't in it. He thinks he's wicked, doesn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he does," said Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Wicked! Why, he doesn't know what wickedness is. A couple of children. +Look after his heart or he'll be popping off one fine morning." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie turned pale. "Oh no," she said, her voice trembling. +</P> + +<P> +"He's going to get well." +</P> + +<P> +Abrams sniffed. "If he doesn't drink and leads a healthy life he may. +But leopards don't change their spots. He's worrying over something. +What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"His father's death," said Maggie. "He loved his father more than any +one and he's got it into his head that he gave him a shock and killed +him." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you get it out of his head," said Abrams. "He won't be better +until you do." +</P> + +<P> +Next morning they were at Paddington, Martin very feeble but +indifferent to everything. They had a third-class compartment to +themselves until they got to Exeter, and all that while Martin never +spoke a word. During this time Maggie did a lot of quiet thinking. She +was worried, of course, about many things but especially finances. She +knew very little about money. She gathered from Martin that he had not +only spent ail that his and had left him, but had gone considerably +beyond it, that he was badly in debt and saw no way of paying. This did +not seem to worry him but it worried Maggie. Debts seemed to her awful +things, and she could not imagine how any one lived under the burden of +them. Supposing Martin were ill for a long time, how would they two +live? Her little stock of money would not last very long. She must get +work, but she knew more about the world after her years at Skeaton. She +knew how ignorant she was, how uneducated and how unsophisticated. She +did not doubt her ability to fight her way, but there might be weary +months first, and meanwhile what of Martin? +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him, asleep now in a corner of the carriage, his soft hat +pulled down over his eyes, his head sunk, his hands heavy and idle on +his lap. A fear caught at her heart as she watched him; he looked, +indeed, terribly ill, exhausted with struggle, and now, with all the +bitterness and despair drowned in sleep, very gentle and helpless. She +bent over and folded the rug more closely round his knees. Had he woken +then and seen her gaze! Her hand'' routed for an instant on his, then +she withdrew back into her own corner. +</P> + +<P> +That coming back into Glebeshire could not but be wonderful to her. She +had been away for so long and it was her home. +</P> + +<P> +The tranquillity and peace of the spring evening clothed her like a +garment, the brown valleys, the soft green of the fields, the mild blue +of the sky touched her until she could with difficulty keep back her +tears. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, make it right!" she whispered; "make it right! Give him to me +again—I do love him so!" +</P> + +<P> +It was dusk when they arrived at Clinton St. Mary's. +</P> + +<P> +The little station stood open to all the winds of heaven blowing in +from the wide expanses of St. Mary's Moor. Maggie remembered, as though +it were yesterday, her arrival at that station with Aunt Anne. Yes, she +had grown since then. +</P> + +<P> +A trap was waiting for them. Martin was still very silent, but he liked +the air with the tang of the sea in it, and he asked sometimes about +the names of places. As they drew nearer and nearer to all the +old—remembered scenes, Maggie's heart beat faster and faster—this +lane, that field, that cottage. And then, at last, there was the +Vicarage perched on the top of the hill, with its chimneys like cats' +ears! +</P> + +<P> +She thought of Uncle Mathew. The sight of the tranquil evening the +happiness and comfort of the fields enabled her to think of him, for +the first time, quietly. She could face deliberately his death. It was +as though he had been waiting for her here and had come forward to +reassure her. +</P> + +<P> +They drove through the quiet little village, out on to the high road, +then down a side lane, the hedges brushing against the sides of the +jingle, then through the gates, into the yard, with Borhedden Farm, +bright with its lighted windows, waiting for them. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Bolitho was standing in the porch and greeted them warmly. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be just starved," she said. "It's wisht work driving in an open +jingle all the way from Clinton. Supper's just about ready." +</P> + +<P> +They were shown up to the big roomy bedroom, smelling of candles and +clover and lavender. Martin stood there looking about, then— +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Martin, isn't it nice!" Maggie cried. "I do hope you'll be happy +here!" +</P> + +<P> +The emotion of returning home, of seeing the old places, sniffing the +old scents, reviving the old memories was too much for her. She flung +her arms round his neck and kissed him on the lips. For a moment, for a +wonderful moment it seemed that he was going to respond. She felt him +move towards her. His hands tightened about hers. Then, but very +gently, he drew away from her and walked to the window. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0403"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE +</H3> + +<P> +Maggie, before she left London, had written both to Paul and Mr. Magnus +giving them her new address. She had intended to see Magnus, but +Martin's illness had absorbed her so deeply that she could not proceed +outside it. She told him quite frankly that she was going down to +Glebeshire with Martin and that she would remain with him there until +he was well. She did not try to defend herself; she did not argue the +case at all; she simply stated the facts. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Magnus wrote to her at once. He was deeply concerned, he did not +chide her for what she had done, but he begged her to realise her +position. She felt through every line of his letter that he disapproved +of and distrusted Martin. His love for Maggie (and she felt that he had +indeed love for her) made him look on Martin as the instigator in this +affair. He saw Maggie, ignorant of the world, led away by a seducer +from her married life, persuaded to embark upon what his own experience +had taught him to be a dangerous, lonely, and often disastrous voyage. +He had never heard of any good of Martin; he had been always in his +view, idle, dissolute, and selfish. What could he think but that Martin +had, most wickedly, persuaded her to abandon her safety? +</P> + +<P> +She answered his letter, telling him in the greatest detail the truth. +She told him that Martin had done all he could to refuse, that, had he +not been so ill, he would have left her, that he had threatened her, +again and again, with what he would do if she did not the him. +</P> + +<P> +She showed him that it had been her own determination and absolute +resolve that had created the situation—and she told him that she was +happy for the first time in her life. +</P> + +<P> +But his letter did force her to realise the difficulties of her +position. In writing to Mrs. Bolitho she had spoken of herself as +Martin's wife, and now when she was called "Mrs. Warlock" she tacitly +accepted that, hating the deceit, but wishing for anything that might +keep the situation tranquil and undisturbed. She asked Mrs. Bolitho to +let her have a small room near the big one, telling her that Martin was +so ill that he must be undisturbed at night. Then Mr. Magnus's letter +arrived addressed to "Miss Cardinal," and she thought that Mrs. Bolitho +looked at her oddly when she gave it to her. Martin's illness, too, +seemed to disturb the household. He cried out in his dreams, his shouts +waking the whole establishment. Bolitho, once, thinking that murder was +being committed, went to his room, found him sitting up in bed, +sweating with terror. He caught hold of Bolitho, flung his arms around +him, would not let him go, urging him "not to help them, to protect +him. They would catch him ... they would catch him. They would catch +him." +</P> + +<P> +The stout and phlegmatic farmer was himself frightened, sitting there +on the bed, in his night-shirt, and "seeing ghosts" in the flickering +light of the candle. Martin's conduct during the day was not +reassuring. He had lost all his ferocity and bitterness; he was very +quiet, speaking to no one, lying on a sofa that over-looked the moor, +watching. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Bolitho's really soft heart was touched by his pallor and +weakness, but she could not deny that there was something queer here. +Maggie almost wished that his old mood of truculence would return. She +was terrified, too, of these night scenes, because they were so bad for +his heart. The local doctor, a clever young fellow called Stephens, +told her that he was recovering from the pneumonia, but that his heart +was "dickey." +</P> + +<P> +"Mustn't let anything excite him, Mrs. Warlock," he said. +</P> + +<P> +There came then gradually over the old house and the village the belief +that Martin was "fey." Mrs. Bolitho was in most ways a sensible, +level-headed, practical woman, but like many of the inhabitants of +Glebeshire, she was deeply superstitious. It was not so very many years +since old Jane Curtis had been ducked in the St. Dreot's pond for a +witch, and even now, did a cow fall sick or the lambs die, the +involuntary thought in the Glebeshire "pagan mind" was to look for the +"evil eye." But Mrs. Bolitho herself had had a very recent example in +her own family of "possession." There had been her old grandfather, +living in the farm with them, as hale and hearty a human of sixty-five +years as you'd be likely to find in a day's march through Glebeshire. +"He lost touch with them," as Mrs. Bolitho put it. In a night his +colour failed him, his cheerful conversation left him, he could "do +nought but sit and stare out o' window." A month later he died. +</P> + +<P> +Martin had not been long at Borhedden before she came to her +conclusions about him, told them to her James, and found that his slow +but sure brains had come to the same decision. In the sense of the +tragedy overhanging the poor young man she forgot to consider the +possible impropriety of his relations with Maggie. He was removed at +once from human laws and human judgment. He became "a creature of God" +and was surrounded with something of the care and reverence with which +the principal "softie" in the village was regarded. +</P> + +<P> +It was not that Martin's behaviour was in any way odd. After a few days +in the utter peace and quiet of the moor and farm he screamed no more +at night. He was gentle and polite to every one, ate his meals, took +little walks out on to the moor and into the village, but liked best to +sit in front of the parlour window and look out on to the heath and +grass, watching the shadows and the sunlight and the driving sheets of +rain. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Bolitho had a tender heart and Maggie shared in her superstitious +pity. Looking back to her youth she had always thought Maggie a "wisht +little thing." "Poor worm," what chance had she ever had with that +great scandalous chap of a father? She saw her still in her shabby +clothes trying to keep that dilapidated house together. No, what chance +had she ever had? She was still a "wisht little thing." +</P> + +<P> +Nor did it need very shrewd eyes to see how desperately devoted Maggie +was to Martin. The sight of that touched the hearts of every human +being in the farm. Not that Maggie was foolish; she did not hang about +Martin all the time, she never, so far as Mrs. Bolitho could see, +kissed him or fondled him, or was with him when he did not want her. +She was not sentimental to him, not sighing nor groaning, nor pestering +him to answer romantic questions. On the contrary, she was always +cheerful, practical, and full of common sense, although she was +sometimes forgetful, and was not so neat and tidy as Mrs. Bolitho would +have wished. She always spoke as though Martin's recovery were quite +certain, and Dr. Stephens told Mrs. Bolitho that he did not dare to +speak the truth to her. "The chances against his recovery," Stephens +said, "are about one in a hundred. He's been racketing about too long. +Too much drink. But he's got something on his mind. That's really +what's the matter with him." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Bolitho was as naturally inquisitive as are most of her sex, and +this knowledge that Martin was a doomed creature with a guilty +conscience vastly excited her curiosity. What had the man done? What +had been his relations with Maggie? Above all, did he really care for +Maggie, or no? That was finally the question that was most eagerly +discussed in the depths of the Bolitho bedchamber. James Bolitho +maintained that he didn't care "that" for her; you could see plain +enough, he asserted, when a man cared for a maid—there were signs, +sure and certain, just as there were with cows and horses. +</P> + +<P> +"You may know about cows and horses," said Mrs. Bolitho; "you're wrong +about humans." The way that she put it was that Martin cared for Maggie +but "couldn't get it out." "He doesn't want her to know it," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Why shouldn't he?" asked James. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you're asking," said Mrs. Bolitho. +</P> + +<P> +"Nice kind of courtin' that be," said James; "good thing you was a bit +different, missus. Lovin' a lass and not speaking—shouldn't like!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Bolitho's heart grew very tender towards Maggie. Married or not, +the child was in a "fiery passion of love." Nor was it a selfish +passion, neither—wanted very little for herself, but only for him to +get well. There was true romance here. Maggie, however, gave away no +secrets. She had many talks with Mr. Bolitho: about the village, about +the new parson, about Mrs. Bolitho's son, Jacob, now in London +engineering, and the apple of her eye,—about many things but never +about herself, the past history nor her feeling for Martin. +</P> + +<P> +The girl never "let on" that she was suffering, and yet "suffering she +must be." You could see that she was just holding herself "tight" like +a wire. The strange intensity of her determination was beautiful but +also dangerous. "If anything was to happen—" said Mrs. Bolitho. She +saw Martin, too, many times, looking at Maggie in the strangest way, as +though he were travelling towards some decision. He certainly was a +good young man in his behaviour, doing now exactly what he was told, +never angry, never complaining, and that, Mrs. Bolitho thought, was +strange, because you could see in his eye that he had a will and a +temper of his own, did he like to exercise them. After all, he himself +was the merest boy, scarcely older than Jacob. She could, herself, see +that he must have been a fine enough lad when he had his health—the +breadth of his shoulders, the thick sturdiness of his shape, the +strength of his thighs and arms. Her husband had seen the boy stripped, +and had told her that he must have been a "lovely man." Drink and evil +women—ay, they'd brought him down as they'd brought many another—and +she thought of her Jacob in London with a catch at her heart. She +stopped in her cooking and prayed there and then, upon her kitchen +floor, that he might be kept safe from all harm. +</P> + +<P> +Nearly every one in the village, of course, remembered Maggie, and they +could not see that she was "any changed." "Cut 'er 'air short—London +fashion" they supposed. They had liked her as a child and they liked +her now. She was more cheerful and friendly, they thought, then she +used to be. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless all the village awaited, with deep interest, for what they +felt would be a very moving climax. The young man was "fey." God had +set His mark upon him, and nothing that any human being could do would +save him. In old days they would have tried to come near him and touch +him to snatch some virtue from the contact. They did not do that, but +they felt when they had spoken to him that they had received some merit +or advantage. The new parson came to call upon Martin and Maggie, but +he got very little from his visit. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor fellow," he said to his wife on his return. "His days are +numbered, I fear." +</P> + +<P> +To every one it was as though Martin and Maggie were enclosed in some +world of their own. No one could come near them, no one could tell of +what they were really thinking, of their hopes or fears, past or future. +</P> + +<P> +"Only," as Mrs. Bolitho said to her husband, "one thing's certain, she +do love 'im with all her heart and soul—poor lamb." +</P> + +<P> +When Martin and Maggie had been at the farm about a fort-night, there +came to St. Dreot's a travelling circus. This was a very small affair, +but it came every year, and provided considerable excitement for the +village population. There were also gipsies who came on the moor, and +telling the fortunes of any who had a spare sixpence with which to +cross their palms. The foreign and exotic colour that the circus and +the gipsies brought into the village was exactly suited to the St. +Dreot blood. Many centuries ago strange galleys had forced their way +into bays and creeks of the southern coast, and soon dark strangers had +penetrated across the moors and fields and had mingled with the natives +of the plain. Scarcely an inhabitant of St. Dreot but had some dark +colour in his blood, a gift from those Phoenician adventurers; scarcely +an inhabitant but was conscious from time to time of other strains, +more tumultuous passions, than the Saxon race could show. +</P> + +<P> +This coming of the circus had in it, whether they knew it or no, +something of the welcoming of their own people back to them again. They +liked to see the elephant and the camel tread solemnly the uneven +stones of the village street, they liked to hear the roar of the wild +beasts at night when they were safe and warm in their own comfortable +beds, they liked to have solemn consultations with the gipsy girls as +to their mysterious destinies. The animals, indeed, were not many nor, +poor things, were they, after many years' chains and discipline, very +fierce—nevertheless they roared because they knew it was their duty so +to do, and when the lion's turn came a notice was hung up outside his +cage saying: "This is the Lion that last year, at Clinton, bit Miss +Harper." There were also performing dogs, a bear, and two seals. +</P> + +<P> +The circus was quite close to the farm. +</P> + +<P> +"I do hope," said Mrs. Bolitho to Martin, "that the roaring of the +animals won't disturb you." +</P> + +<P> +It did not disturb him. He seemed to like it, and went out and stood +there watching all the labours of the gipsies and the tent men, and +even went into "The Green Boar" and drank a glass of beer with Mr. +Marquis, the proprietor of the circus. +</P> + +<P> +On the third day after their arrival there was a proper Glebeshire +mist. It was a day, also, of freezing, biting cold, such a day as +sometimes comes in of a Glebeshire May—cold that seems, in its damp +penetration, more piercing than any frost. +</P> + +<P> +The mist came rolling up over the moor in wreaths and spirals of +shadowy grey, sometimes shot with a queer dull light as though the sun +was fighting behind it to beat a way through, sometimes so dense and +thick that standing at the door of the farm you could not see your hand +in front of your face. It was cold with the chill of the sea foam, +mysterious in its ever-changing intricacies of shape and form, lifting +for a sudden instant and showing green grass and the pale spring +flowers in the border by the windows, then charging down again with +fold on fold of vapour thicker and thicker, swaying and throbbing with +a purpose and meaning of its own. Early in the afternoon Mrs. Bolitho +took a peep at her lodgers. She did not intend to spy—she was an +honest woman—but she shared most vividly the curiosity of all the +village about "these two queer ignorant children," as she called them. +Standing in the bow-window of her own little parlour she could see the +bow-window and part of the room on the opposite side of the house-door. +Maggie and Martin stood there looking out into the mist. The woman +could see Maggie's face, dim though the light was, and a certain +haunting desire in it tugged at Mrs. Bolitho's tender heart. "Poor +worm," she thought to herself, "she's longing for him to say something +to her and he won't." They were talking. Then there was a pause and +Martin turned away. Maggie's eyes passionately besought him. What did +she want him to do—to say? Mrs. Bolitho could see that the girl's +hands were clenched, as though she had reached, at last, the very +limits of her endurance. He did not see. His back was half turned to +her. He did not speak, but stood there drumming with his hands on the +glass. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I could shake him," thought Mrs. Bolitho's impatience. For a time +Maggie waited, never stirring, her eyes fixed, her body taut. +</P> + +<P> +Then she seemed suddenly to break, as though the moment of endurance +was past. She turned sharply round, looking directly out of her window +into Mrs. Bolitho's room—but she didn't see Mrs. Bolitho. +</P> + +<P> +That good woman saw her smile, a strange little smile of defiance, +pathos, loneliness, cheeriness defeated. She vanished from her window +although he stood there. A moment later, in a coat and hat, she came +out of the front door, stood for a moment on the outskirts of the mist +looking about her, then vanished on to the moor. +</P> + +<P> +"She oughtn't to be out in this," thought the farmer's wife. "It's +dangerous." +</P> + +<P> +She waited a little, then came and knocked on the door of the other +sitting-room. She met Martin in the doorway. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mrs. Bolitho," he said, "I thought I'd go to the circus for half +an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, sir," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He too disappeared. She sat in her kitchen all the afternoon busily +mending the undergarments of her beloved James. But her thought were +not with her husband. She could not get the picture of those two young +things standing at the window facing the mist-drunk moor out of her +head. The sense that had come to the farm with Martin's entry into it +of something eerie and foreboding increased now with every tick of the +heavy kitchen clock. She seemed to listen now for sounds and portents. +The death-tick on the wall—was that foolish? Some men said so, but she +knew better. Had she not heard it on the very night of her +grandfather's death? She sat there and recounted to herself every +ghost-story that, in the course of a long life, had come her way. The +headless horseman, the coach with the dead travellers, the three +pirates and their swaying gibbets, the ghost of St. Dreot's churchyard, +the Wailing Woman of Clinton, and many, many others, all passed before +her, making pale her cheek and sending her heart in violent beats up +and down the scale. +</P> + +<P> +The kitchen grew darker and darker. She let the underclothes lie upon +her lap. Soon she must light the lamp, but meanwhile, before the oven +she let her fancies overwhelm her, luxuriating in her terror. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the kitchen-door was flung open. She started up with a cry. +Martin stood there and in a voice, so new to her that she seemed never +to have heard it before, he shouted, "Where's Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +She stood up in great agitation. He came towards her and she saw that +his face was violent with agitation, with a kind of rage. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Maggie?" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +She saw that he was shaking all over and it was as though he did not +know who she was. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie?" she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"My wife! My wife!" he cried, and he shouted it again as though he were +proclaiming some fact to the whole world. +</P> + +<P> +"She went out," said Mrs. Bolitho, "about three hours back I should +think." +</P> + +<P> +"Went out!" he stormed at her. "And in this?" +</P> + +<P> +Then, before she could say another word, he was gone. It was in very +truth like an apparition. +</P> + +<P> +She sat there for some time staring in front of her, still shaken by +the violence of his interruption. She went then to the kitchen-door and +listened—not a sound in the house. She went farther, out through the +passage to the hall-door. She opened it and looked out. A sea of +driving mist, billowing and driving as though by some internal breeze, +met her. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor things," she said to herself. "They shouldn't be out in this." +She shut the door and went back into the house. She called, "Jim! Jim! +Where are you?" At last he came, stumping up from some mysterious +labour in the lower part of the house. +</P> + +<P> +"What is't?" he said, startled by her white face and troubled eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"The two of them," she said, "have gone out on to the moor in this +mist. It isn't safe." +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever for?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"How should I know? She went out first and now he's after her. 'Tisn't +safe, Jim. You'd best follow them." +</P> + +<P> +He didn't argue with her, being an obedient husband disciplined by many +years of matrimony. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'll go," he said slowly. "Best take William, though." +</P> + +<P> +He went off in search of his man. +</P> + +<P> +But Bolitho need not trouble. Half an hour later Maggie returned, stood +in the sitting-room looking about her, took off her jacket and hat, +then, pursuing her own thoughts, slowly put them on. She was then about +to leave the room when the door burst open and Martin tumbled in. He +stood at the doorway staring at her, his mouth open. "Why!" he +stammered. "I thought ... I thought ... you were out—" She looked at +him crossly. +</P> + +<P> +"You shouldn't have gone out—an afternoon like this. If I'd been +here—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you weren't. You shouldn't have gone out either for the matter +of that. And I was at the circus—a damned poor one too. Your things +are soaking," he added, suddenly looking up at her. "You talk about me. +You'd better go and change." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going out again," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Out again?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes ... There's a train at Clinton at seven. I'm catching that." +</P> + +<P> +"A train?" He stared at her, completely bewildered. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. That's what I went out to get my head clear about. Martin, you've +beaten me. After all these years you have. After all my fine speeches, +too." +</P> + +<P> +He began to drum on the window. He tried to speak casually. +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't beaten you, Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you have. I said you wouldn't be able to send me away. Well, +you've managed to and in the only way you could—by your silence. You +haven't opened your mouth for a fortnight. You're better now, too, and +Mrs. Bolitho will look after you. I was determined to hang on to you, +but I find I can't. I'm going back to London to get some work." +</P> + +<P> +His hand dropped from the window. Then, with his head turned from her +and his voice so low that she could scarcely hear the— +</P> + +<P> +"No, Maggie, don't go." +</P> + +<P> +She smiled across at him. "There's no need to be polite, Martin. We're +both of us beyond that by this time. I'll come back if you really want +me. You know that I always will, but at last, after all these years, +I've found a scrap of self-respect. Here am I always bundling +about—first the aunts, then you, then Paul, then you again, and nobody +wanting me. I don't suppose," she said laughing, "that there can be +anybody less wanted in the world. So I'm just going to look after +myself now. It's quite time I did." +</P> + +<P> +"But I want you," he said, his voice still very low. She looked up, her +eyes lit as though with some sudden recognition. +</P> + +<P> +"If you really mean that," she said, "say it again. If you don't mean +it, don't humbug me. I won't be humbugged any more." +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't humbugged you—ever," he answered. "You're the only person +I've always been absolutely straight with. I've always, from the very +beginning, told you to have nothing to do with me. It's more true than +ever now. I've been trying ever since you came back to me in London to +get you to leave me. But it's too late. I can't fight it any more ... I +loved you all the time I was abroad. I oughtn't to have written to you, +but I did. I came back to London with the one hope of seeing you, but +determined not to." +</P> + +<P> +"I loved you more than ever when you came into my lodging there, but I +was sick and hadn't any money, besides all my other failings ... It's +the only decent thing I've ever really tried to do, to keep you away +from me, and now I've failed in that. When I came in and found you were +gone this afternoon I thought I'd go crazy." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going to struggle any more. If you go away I'll follow you +wherever you go. I may as well try to give up keeping you out of it. +It's like keeping myself out of it." +</P> + +<P> +Slowly she took her hat and coat off again. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," she said, "I'd better stay, I suppose." +</P> + +<P> +He suddenly sat down, his face white. She came across to him. +</P> + +<P> +She put her hand on his forehead. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better go to bed, Martin, dear. I'll bring your tea in." +</P> + +<P> +He caught her hand. She knelt down, put her arms round him, and so they +stayed, cheek to cheek, for a long time. +</P> + +<P> +When he had gone to his room she sat in the arm-chair by the fire, her +hands idly folded on her lap. She let happiness pour in upon her as +water floods in upon a dried and sultry river-bed. She was passive, her +tranquillity was rich and full, too full for any outward expression. +</P> + +<P> +She was so happy that her heart was weighted down and seemed scarcely +to beat. It was not, perhaps, the exultant happiness that she had +expected this moment to bring her. +</P> + +<P> +When, in after days, she looked back to that quiet half-hour by the +fire she saw that it was then that she had passed from girlhood into +womanhood. The first chapter of her life was, at that moment's laying +of her hand on Martin's forehead, closed. The love for him that filled +her so utterly was in great part maternal. It was to be her destiny to +know the deep tranquil emotions of life rather than the passionate and +transient. She was perhaps the more blessed in that. +</P> + +<P> +Even now, at the very instant of her triumph, she deceived herself in +nothing. There were many difficulties ahead for her. She had still to +deal with Paul: Martin was not a perfect character, nor would he +suddenly become one. Above all that strange sense of being a captive in +a world that did not understand her, some one curious and odd and +alien—that would not desert her. That also was true of Martin. It was +true—strangely true—of so many of the people she had known—of the +aunts, Uncle Mathew, Mr. Magnus, of Paul and of Grace, of Mr. Toms, and +even perhaps of Thurston and Amy Warlock—all captives in a strange +country, trying to find the escape, each in his or her own fashion, +back to the land of their birth. +</P> + +<P> +But the land was there. Just as the lion, whose roar very faintly she +could hear through the thick walls, remembered in his cage the jungles +and mountains of his happiness, so was she aware of hers. The land was +there, the fight to get hack to it was real. +</P> + +<P> +She smiled to herself, looking back on the years. Many people would +have said that she had had no very happy time since that sudden moment +of her father's death, but it did not seem to her, in retrospect, +unhappy. There had been unhappy times, tragic times, but life was +always bringing forward some magnificent moment, some sudden flash of +splendour that made up for all the rest. How could you be bitter about +people when you were all in the same box, all as ignorant, as blind, as +eager to do well, as fallible, as brave, as mistaken? +</P> + +<P> +The thoughts slipped dimly through her mind. She was too happy to trace +them truly. She had never been one for conscious philosophy. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless she did not doubt but that life was worth while, that +there was something immortal in her, and that the battle was good to +fight—but what it really came to was that she loved Martin, and that +at last some one needed her, that she need never be lonely any more. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Bolitho stepped in with the tea. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll take it in to him," Maggie said, standing up and stretching out +her arms for the tray. +</P> + +<P> +The woman looked at her and gave a little "Ah!" of satisfaction, as +though, at length, she saw in Maggie's eyes that for—which she had +been searching. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I do believe," she said, "that walk's done 'ee good." +</P> + +<P> +"I do believe," Maggie said, laughing, "it has." +</P> + +<P> +Carrying the tray carefully she went through into Martin's room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Captives, by Hugh Walpole + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAPTIVES *** + +***** This file should be named 3601-h.htm or 3601-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/3601/ + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</BODY> + +</HTML> + + |