Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

“Our House...” he said and drew her very close to him. The two of them, as they stood there outlined against the window were so young and so pleasant that surely the Gods would have pity!

  III

  In the days that followed he watched it all with incredulity. So swiftly had he been tossed, it seemed, from fate to fate, and so easily, also, did he leave behind him the things that had weighed him down. No sign now of that Peter — evident enough in the Brockett days — morose, silent, sometimes oppressed by a sense of unreasoned catastrophe, stepping into his bookshop and out again as though all the world were his enemy.

  Peter knew now that he was loved. He had felt that precious quality on the day that his mother died, he had felt it sometimes when he had been in Stephen’s company, but against these isolated emotions what a world of hate and bitterness.

  Now he felt Clare’s affection on every side of him. They had already in so short a time a store of precious memories, intimacies, that they shared. They had been through wild, passionate wonders together and standing now, two human beings with casual words and laughing eyes, yet they knew that perfect holy secrets bound them together.

  He stood sometimes in the little house and wondered for an instant whether it was all true. Where were all those half cloudy dreams, those impulses, those dread inheritances that once he had known so well? Where that other Peter Westcott? Not here in this dear delicious little house, with Love and Home and great raging happiness in his heart.

  He wrote to Stephen, to Mr. Zanti, to Norah Monogue and told them. He received no answers — no word from the outer world had come to him. That other life seemed cut off, separated — closed. Perhaps it had left him for ever! Perhaps, as Clare said, walls and fires were better than wind and loneliness — comfort more than danger.... Meanwhile, in his study at the top of the house, “The Stone House” was still lying, waiting, at Chapter II —

  But it was Clare who was the eternal wonder. He could not think of her, create her, pile up the offerings before her altar, sufficiently. That he should have had the good fortune... It never ceased to amaze him.

  As the weeks and months passed his life centred more and more round Clare and the house that they shared together. He knew now many people in London; they were invited continually to dinners, parties, theatres, dances. Clare’s set in London had been very different from Peter’s literary world, and they were therefore acclaimed citizens of two very different circles. Peter, too, had his reviewing articles in many papers — the whole whirligig of Fleet Street. (How little a time, by the way, since that dreadful day when he had sat on that seat on the Embankment and talked to the lady with the Hat!)

  His days during this first year of married life were full, varied, exciting as they could be — and yet, through it all, his eye was always upon that little house, upon the moment when the door might be closed, the fire blazing and they two were alone, alone —

  He was, indeed, during this year, a charming Peter. He loved her with the hero worship of a boy, but also with a humour, a consciousness of success, a happy freedom that denied all mawkish sham sentiment. He studied only to please her. He found that, after all, she did not care very greatly for literature or music or pictures. Her enthusiasm for these things was the enthusiasm of a child who is bathed in an atmosphere of appreciation and would return it on to any object that she could find.

  He discovered that she loved compliments, that she cared about dress, that she loved to have crowds of friends about her, and that parties excited her as though these were the first that she had ever known. But he found, too, that in those half-hours when she was alone with him she showed her love for him with a passion and emphasis that was almost terrifying. Sometimes when she clung to him it was as though she was afraid that it was not going to last. He discovered in the very beginning that below all her happy easy life, an undercurrent of apprehension, sometimes only vaguely felt, sometimes springing into sight like the eyes of some beast in the dark, kept company with her.

  It was always the future — a perfectly vague, indefinite future that terrified her. Every moment of her life had been sheltered and happy and, by reason of that very shelter, her fears had grown upon her. He remembered one evening when they had been present at some party and she had been radiant, beautiful, in his eyes divine. Her little body had been strung to its utmost energy, she had whirled through the evening and at last as they returned in the cab, she had laid her head on his shoulder and suddenly flung her arms about him and kissed him — his eyes, his cheeks, his mouth — again and again. “Oh! I’m so safe with you, Peter dear,” she had cried to him.

  He loved those evenings when they were alone and she would sit on the floor with her head on his knee and her hand against his. Then suddenly she would lean back and pull his head down and kiss his eyes, and then very slowly let him go. And the fierceness, the passion of her love for him roused in him a strength of devotion that all the years of unhappiness had been storing. He was still only a boy — the first married year brought his twenty-seventh birthday — but his love for Clare had the depth and reserve that belongs to a man.

  Mrs. Launce, watching them both, was sometimes frightened. “God help them both if anything interferes,” she said once to her husband. “I’ve seen that boy look at Clare with a devotion that hurts. Peter’s no ordinary mortal — I wonder, now and again, whether Clare’s worth it all.”

  But this year seemed to silence all her fears. The happiness of that little house shone through Chelsea. “Oh, we’re dining with the Westcotts to-night — they’ll cheer us up — they’re always so happy”— “Oh! did you see Clare Westcott? I never saw any one so radiant.”

  And once Bobby said to Alice: “We made a mistake, old girl, about that marriage. It’s made another man of Peter. He’s joy personified.”

  “If only,” Alice had answered, “destiny or whatever it is will let them alone. I feel as though they were two precious pieces of china that a housemaid might sweep off the chimney piece at any moment. If only nobody will touch them—”

  Meanwhile Peter had forgotten, utterly forgotten, the rest of the world. Walls and fires — for a year they had held him. The Roundabout versus the World.... What of old Frosted Moses, of the Sea Road, of Stephen, of Mr. Zanti? What of those desperate days in Bucket Lane? All gone for nothing?

  Clare, perhaps, with this year behind her, hardly realised the forces against which she was arrayed. Beware of the Gods after silence....

  IV

  And, after all, it was Clare herself who flung down the glove.

  On a winter’s evening she was engaged to some woman’s party. Peter had planned an evening, snug and industrious, alone with a book. “The Stone House” awaited his attention — he had not worked at it for months. Also he knew that he owed Henry Galleon a visit. Why he had not been to see the old man lately he scarcely knew.

  Clare, standing in the little hall, waiting for a cab, suggested an alternative.

  “Peter dear, why don’t you go round to Brockett’s if you’ve nothing to do?”

  “Brockett’s!”

  “Yes. You’ve never been since we married, and I had a letter from Norah this morning — not at all cheerful — I’m afraid she’s been ill for months. They’d love to see you.”

  “Brockett’s!” He stood astounded. Well, why not? A strange emotion — uncomfortable, alien, stirred him. He kissed her and saw her go with a half-distracted gaze. What a world away Brockett’s seemed! Old Mrs. Lazarus, Norah (poor Norah!) Mrs. Brockett, young Robin Tressiter. They would be glad to see him — it was a natural thing enough that he should go — what was it that held him back? For the first time since his marriage, as he slowly and thoughtfully put on his greatcoat, he was distressed. He reproached himself — Norah, Stephen, Mr. Zanti!... he had not given them a thought.

  He felt, as he went out, as though he were going, with key and candle, to unlock some old rusty door that led into secret rooms. It was a wet, windy night. The branches of the little orchard rattl
ed and groaned, and doors and windows were creaking.

  As he passed into the shadows and silence of Bloomsbury the impression weighed with increasing heaviness upon him that the old Peter had come back and that his married life with Clare had been a dream. He was still at Brockett’s, still silent, shy, awkward, still poring over pages of “Reuben Hallard” and wondering whether any one would ever publish it — still spending so many hours in the old musty bookshop with Herr Gottfried’s wild mop of hair coming so madly above the little counter.

  The wind tugged at his umbrella, the rain lashed his face and at last, breathless, with the sharp corner of his upturned collar digging into his chin, he pulled the bell of the old grey remorseless door that he knew so well. There was no one in Bennett Square, only the two lamps dimly marked its desolation.

  The door was opened by Mrs. Brockett herself and she stood there, stern and black peering into his face.

  “What is it? What do you want?” she asked grimly.

  He brushed past her laughing and stood back under the gas in the hall looking at her.

  She gave a little cry. “No! It can’t be! Why, Mr. Westcott!”

  He had never, in all the seven years that he had been with her, seen her so strongly moved.

  “But Mr. Westcott! To think of it! And the times we’ve talked of you! And you never coming near us all this while. You might have been dead for all we knew, and indeed if it hadn’t been for Miss Monogue the other day we’d have heard no news since the day that wild man with the beard came walking in,” she broke off suddenly— “and there you are, holding your umbrella with the point down and making a great pool on the carpet as though—” She took the umbrella from him but her hand rested for an instant on his arm and she said gruffly —

  “But all the same, Mr. Peter, I’m more glad to see you than I can say—” She took him into her little room and looked at him. “But you’ve not changed in the least,” she said, “not in the very least. And where, pray, Mr. Peter, have you been all this time and come nowhere near us?”

  He tried to explain; he was confused, he said something about marriage and stopped. The room was filled with that subtle odour that brought his other life back to him in a torrent. He was bathed in it, overwhelmed by it — roast-beef, mutton, blacking, oil-cloth, decayed flowers, geraniums, damp stone, bread being toasted — all these things were in it.

  He filled his nostrils with the delicious pathos and intimacy of it.

  She regarded him sternly. “Now, Mr. Peter, it’s of no use. Oh, yes, we’ve heard about your wedding. You wrote to Miss Monogue. But there were days before that, many of them, and never so much as a postcard. With some of, my boarders it would be natural enough, because what could you expect? We didn’t want them, they didn’t want us — only habit as you might say. But you, Mr. Peter — why just think of the way we were fond of you — Mrs. Lazarus and little Robin and Miss Monogue — as well as myself.”

  She stopped and pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “I dare say you’re a famous man,” she went on, “with your books and your marriage and the rest of it, but that doesn’t alter your old friends being your old friends and it never will. There, I’m getting cross when all I mean to say is that I’m more delighted to see you than words.”

  He was humble before her. He felt, indeed, that he had been the most unutterable brute. How could he have stayed away all this time with these dear people waiting for him? He simply hadn’t realised —

  “And Miss Monogue?” he asked at last, “I’m afraid she’s not been very well?”

  “She’s been very ill indeed — for months. At one time we were afraid that she would go. It’s her heart. Poor dear, and she’s been worrying so about her work — but she’s better now and she’ll be truly glad to see you, Mr. Peter — but you mustn’t stay more than a few minutes. She’s up on the sofa but it’s the excitement that’s bad for her.”

  But first Peter went to pay a visit to the Tressiter establishment. He knew, from old custom, that this would be the hour when the family would be getting itself, by slow and noisy degrees, to bed. So tremendous, indeed, was the tumult that he was able to open the door and stand, within the room, watching and un-noticed. Mrs. Tressiter was attempting to bathe a fat and very strident baby. Two small boys were standing on a bed and hitting one another with pillows; a little girl lay on her face on the floor and howled for no apparent reason; Robin, but little older than Peter’s last impression of him had painted, was standing, naked save for his shirt and looking down, gravely, at his screaming sister.

  Every now and again, Mrs. Tressiter, without ceasing from her work on the baby who slipped about in her hands like a stout eel, cried in a shrill voice: “Children, if you don’t be quiet,” or “Nicholas, in a moment I’ll give you such a beating,” — or “Agatha, for goodness’ sake!”...

  Then suddenly Robin, looking up, caught sight of Peter, he gave a shout and was across the room in an instant. There was never a moment’s doubt in his eyes. He flung himself upon Peter’s body, he wound his arms round Peter’s leg, he beat upon his chest with his bullet head, he cried: “Oh! Mr. Peter has come! Mr. Peter has come!”

  Mrs. Tressiter let the baby fall into the bath with a splash and there it lay howling. The other members of the family gathered round.

  But Peter thought that he had known no joy so acute for years as the welcome that the small boy gave him. He hoisted Robin on to his shoulder, and there Robin sat with his naked little legs dangling over, his hands in the big man’s neck.

  “Oh! Mr. Westcott, I’m sure...” said Mrs. Tressiter, smiling from ear to ear and wiping her wet hands on her apron — Robin bent his head and bit Peter’s ear.

  “Get on, horse,” he cried and for a quarter of an hour there was wild riot in the Tressiter family. Then they were all put to bed, as good as gold,— “you might have heard a pin drop,” said Mrs. Tressiter, “when Agatha said her prayers” — and at last the lights were put out.

  Peter bent down over Robin’s bed and the boy flung his arms round his neck.

  “I dreamed of you — I knew you’d come,” he whispered.

  “What shall I send you as a present to-morrow?” asked Peter.

  “Soldiers — soldiers on horses. Those with cannons and shiny things on their backs....” Robin was very explicit— “You’ll be here to-morrow?” he asked.

  “No — not to-morrow,” Peter answered.

  “Soon?”

  “Yes, soon.”

  “I love you, more than Agatha, more than Dick, more than any one ‘cept Daddy and Mummy.”

  “You’ll be a good boy until I come back?”

  “Promise ... but come back soon.”

  Peter gave him a long kiss and left him. Supposing, one day, he had a boy like that? A little boy in a shirt like that? Wouldn’t it be simply too wonderful? A boy to give soldiers to....

  He went across to Miss Monogue’s door. A faint voice answered his knock and, entering the room, the scent of medicine and flowers that he always connected with his mother, met him. Norah Monogue, very white, with dark shadows beneath her eyes, was lying on the sofa by the fire.

  Mrs. Brockett had prepared her for Peter’s coming and she smiled up at him with her old smile and gave him her hand. How thin and white it was with its long slender fingers! He sat down by her sofa and he knew by the way that she looked at him that she was reproaching him —

  “Naughty Peter,” she said, “all these months and you have been nowhere near us.”

  “I, too, have a bone — you never sent me a word about my wedding.”

  She turned her head away. “I was frightfully ill just then. They didn’t think I’d pull through. I did write afterwards to Clare, I told her how ill I’d been—”

  “She never told me.”

  Peter bent over the sofa. “But I am ashamed, Norah, more ashamed than I can say. After I got well and went to live with the Galleons a new life seemed to begin for me and I was so e
ager and excited about it all. And then—” he hesitated for a moment— “there was Clare.”

  “Yes, I know there was Clare and I am so delighted about it — I know that you will both be so happy.... But, when one is lying here week after week and is worried and tired things take such a different outline. I thought that you and Clare — that you ... had given me up altogether and—”

  Suddenly hiding her face in her hands she began to cry. It was inexpressibly desolate there in the dim bare little room, and the sharp sense of his neglect and the remembrance of the good friend that she had been to him for so many years overwhelmed Peter.

  He knelt down and put his arms round her. “Norah — don’t, please, I can’t bear it. It’s all right. I’ve been a beast, a selfish cad. But it shan’t happen again. I’ll come often — I’m ashamed.”

  She cried for a little and then she smiled at him. “I’m a fool to cry like that but you see I’m weak and ill — and seeing you again after all this time and your being so successful and happy upset me I suppose. Forgive it, Peter, and come again one day when I’m better and stronger — and bring Clare too.”

  She held tightly to his hand and her grasp was hot and feverish. He reassured her, told her that he would come soon again, that he would bring Clare and so left her.

  He took a cab and drove back to Chelsea in a storm of agitation. Suddenly, out of nothing as it were, all these people, this old life had been thrust up in front of him — had demanded, made claims. About him once again was the old atmosphere: figures were filling his brain, the world was a wild tossing place ... one of those Roundabouts with the hissing lights, the screaming music, the horses going up and down. Plain enough now that the old life was not done with. Every moment of his past life seemed to spring before him claiming recognition. He was drunk with the desire for work. He flung the cabman something, dashed into the little house, was in his room. The lamp was lighted, the door was shut, there was silence, and in his brain figures, scenes, sentences were racing— “The Stone House,” neglected for so long, had begun once more, to climb.