Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  Then he said “Listen,” and he read the letter straight through. He repeated some of the phrases— “What you did on April 12.” “That shows that you don’t care.... You are cruel and hard, Peter.... I am going to Jerry in Paris....”

  “Jerry — that’s Cardillac, you know, Bobby. He’s in Paris and she’s going over to him because she can’t stand me any more. She says I don’t care about her. Isn’t that funny, when I love her so much?”

  Bobby went to him, put his arm round his neck —

  “Peter — dear — Peter — wait,” and then “Oh my God! we must stop her—”

  He drew himself away from Bobby’s arm and, very unsteadily, went across the room and then stood against the farther wall, his head bent, motionless.

  “Stop her? Oh! no, Bobby. Stop her when she wants to go! I—” His voice wasn’t Peter’s voice, it was a thin monotonous voice like some one speaking at a great distance.

  Then it seemed that intelligence was flashed upon him. He lurched forward and with a great voice — as though he had been struck by some sudden agonising, immortal pain —

  “Bobby — Bobby — My wife — Clare—”

  And at that instant Mrs. Rossiter was shown into the room.

  III

  The maid who opened the door had apparently some suspicion that “things were odd,” because she waited for a moment before she closed the door again, staring with wide eyes into the room, catching, perhaps, some hint from her master’s white face that something terrible had occurred.

  It was obvious enough that Mrs. Rossiter had herself, during the last week, been in no easy mind. From the first glances at Peter and Bobby she seemed to understand everything, for, instantly, at that glimpse of their faces she became, for the first time in her life, perhaps, a personality, a figure, something defined and outlined.

  Her face was suddenly grey. She hesitated back against the door and, with her face on Peter, said in a whisper, to Bobby:

  “What — what has happened?”

  Bobby was not inclined to spare her. As an onlooker during these last months he felt that she, perhaps, was more guiltily responsible for the catastrophe than any other human being.

  “Clare,” he said, trying to fix her eyes. “She’s gone off to Cardillac — to Paris.”

  Then he was himself held by the tragedy of those two faces. They faced each other across the room. Peter, with eyes and a mouth that were not his, eyes not sane, the eyes of no human being, mouth smiling, drawn tight like a razor’s edge, with his hands spread out against the wall, watched Mrs. Rossiter.

  Mrs. Rossiter, at Bobby’s words, had huddled up, suddenly broken, only her eyes, in her great foolish expressionless face, stung to an agony to which the rest of her body could not move.

  Her little soul — a tiny scrap of a thing in that vague prison of dull flesh — was suddenly wounded, desperately hurt by the only weapon that could ever have found it.

  “Clare!” that soul whispered, “not gone! It’s not possible — it can’t be — it can’t be!”

  Peter, without moving, spoke to her.

  “It’s you that have sent her away. It’s all your doing — all your doing—”

  She scarcely seemed to realise him, although her eyes never left his face — she came up to Bobby, her hands out:

  “Bobby — please, please — tell me. This is absurd — there’s a mistake. Clare, Clare would never do a thing like that — never leave me like that — why—” and her voice rose— “I’ve loved her — I’ve loved her as no mother ever loved her girl — she’s been everything to me. She knows it — why she often says that I’m the only one who loves her. She’d never go—”

  Then Peter came forward from the wall, muttering, waving his hands at her— “It’s you! You! You! You’ve driven her to this — you and your cursed interference. You took her from me — you told her to deceive me in everything. You taught her to lie and trick. She loved me before you came into it. Now be proud, if you like — now be proud. God damn you, for making your daughter into a whore — That’s what you’ve done, you with your flat face, your filthy flat face — you’ve made your daughter a whore, I tell you — and it’s nothing but you — you — you — !”

  He lifted his hand as though he would strike her across the face. She said nothing but started back with her hands up as though to protect herself. He did not strike her. His hand fell. But she, as though she had felt a blow had her hand held to her face.

  He stood over her for a moment laughing, his head flung back. Then still laughing he went away from them out into the hall.

  Then, through the open door they heard him. He passed through the upper rooms crying out as he went— “Clare! Clare! Where are you? Come down! They’re here for dinner! You’re wanted! It’s time, Clare! — where are you? Clare! Clare!”

  They heard him, knocking furniture over as he went. Then there was silence. Mrs. Rossiter seemed, at that, to come to herself. She stood up, feeling her cheek.

  “It’s sent him off his head, Bobby. Go after him. He’ll hurt himself.” Then as though to herself, she went on— “I must find Clare — she’ll be in Paris, I suppose. I must go and find her, Bobby. She’ll want me badly.”

  She went quietly from the room, still with her hand to her cheek. She listened for a moment in the hall.

  She turned round to Bobby:

  “It doesn’t say — the letter — where Clare’s gone?”

  “No — only Paris.”

  He helped her on with her cloak and opened the front door for her. She slipped away down the street.

  Bobby turned back and saw that Peter was coming down the stairs. But now the fury had all died from his face, only that look, as of some animal wounded to death, a look that was so deep and terrible as almost to give his white face no expression at all, was with him.

  It had been with him at Stephen’s death, it was with him far more intensely now. He looked at Bobby.

  “She’s gone,” in a tired, dull voice as of some one nearly asleep, “gone to Cardillac. I loved Cards — and all the time he loved Clare. I loved Clare and all the time she loved Cards. It’s damned funny isn’t it, Bobby, old man?”

  He stood facing him in the hall, no part of him moving except his mouth. “She says I treated her like a brute. I don’t think I did. She says there was something I did one night — I don’t know. I’ve never done anything — I’ve never been with another woman — something about a cab — Perhaps it was poor Rose Bennett. Poor Rose Bennett — damned unhappy — so am I — so am I. I’m a lonely fellow — I always have been!”

  He went past Bobby, back into the little drawing-room. Bobby followed him.

  He turned round.

  “You can go now, Bobby. I shan’t want you any more.”

  “No, I’m going to stay.”

  “I don’t want you — I don’t want any one.”

  “I’m going to stay.”

  “I’d rather you went, please.”

  “I’m going to stay.”

  Peter paid no more attention. He went and sat down on a chair by the window. Bobby sat down on a chair near him.

  Once Peter said: “They took my baby. They took my work. They’ve taken my wife. They’re too much for me. I’m beaten.”

  Then there was absolute silence in the house. The servants, who had heard the tumbling of the furniture, crept, frightened to bed.

  Thus The Roundabout, dark, utterly without sound, stayed through the night. Once, from the chair by the window in the little drawing-room a voice said, “I’m going back to Scaw House — to my father. I’m going back — to all of them.”

  During many hours the little silver clock ticked cheerfully, seeing perhaps with its little bright eyes, the two dark figures and wondering what they did there.

  BOOK IV — SCAW HOUSE

  CHAPTER I

  THE SEA

  I

  Peter Westcott was dead.

  They put his body into the 11.50 from Paddington.<
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  II

  It was a day of high, swinging winds, of dappled skies, of shining gleaming water. Bunches now and again of heavy black clouds clustered on the horizon, the cows and horses in the fields were sharply defined, standing out rigidly against a distant background. The sun came and was gone, laughed and was instantly hidden, turned the world from light to shadow and from shadow back to light again.

  Peter’s body was alone in the compartment. It was propped up against red velvet that yielded with a hard, clenched resistance, something uncomfortable, had the body minded. The eyes of the body were the high blank windows of a deserted house. Behind them were rooms and passages, but lately so gaily crowded, so eager, with their lights and fires, for hustling life — now suddenly empty — swept of all its recent company, waiting for new, for very different inhabitants.

  The white hands motionless upon the knees, the eyes facing the light but blind, the body still against the velvet, throughout the long, long day....

  III

  There were occasions when some one came and asked for his ticket. Some one came once and asked him whether “He would take lunch.” Once a woman, flushed and excited, laden with parcels, tumbled into his carriage and then, after a glance at the white face, tumbled out again.

  Then, from very, very far away, came the first whispered breath of returning consciousness. The afternoon sun now had banished the black clouds — the wind had fallen — the sky was a quiet blue and birds rose and fell, rivers shone and had passed, roads were white like ribbons, broad and brown like crinkled paper, then ribbons again as the train flung Devonshire, scornfully, behind its back. Peter was conscious that his body was once more to be tenanted. But by whom?

  Here was some one coming to him now, some one who, as the evening light fell about the land, dark with his cloak to his face, came softly upon the house and knocked at the door. Peter could hear his knock — it echoed through the empty passages, the deserted rooms, it was a knock that demanded, imperatively, admittance. The door swung back, the black passages gaped upon the evening light and were closed again. The house was once more silent — but no longer untenanted.

  IV

  Peter was now conscious of the world. That was Exeter that they had left behind them and soon there would be Plymouth and then the crossing of the bridge and then — Cornwall!

  Cornwall! His lips were dry — he touched them with his tongue, and knew, suddenly, that he was thirsty, more thirsty than he had ever been. He would never be hungry again, but he would always be thirsty. An attendant passed. What should he drink? The attendant suggested a whisky and soda. Yes ... a large whisky....

  It was very long indeed since he had been in Cornwall — he had not been there since his boyhood. What had he been doing all the time in between? He did not know — he had no idea. This new tenant of the house was not aware of those intervening years, was only conscious that he was returning after long exile, to his home — Scaw House, yes, that was the name ... the house with the trees and the grey stone walls — yes, he would be glad to be at home again with his father. His father would welcome him after so long an absence.

  The whisky and soda was brought to him and as he drank it they crossed the border and were in Cornwall.

  V

  They were at Trewth, that little station where you must change for Treliss. It stood open to all the winds of heaven, two lines of paling, a little strip of platform, standing desolately, at wistful attention in the heart of gently breathing fields, mild skies, dark trees bending together as though whispering secrets ... all mysterious, and from the earth there rose that breath — sea-wind, gorse, soil, saffron, grey stone — that breath that is only Cornwall.

  Peter — somewhere in some strange dim recesses of his soul — felt it about his body. The wind, bringing all these scents, touched his cheek and his hair and he was conscious that that dark traveller who now tenanted his house closed the doors and windows upon that breath. It might waken consciousness, and consciousness memory, and memory pain ... ah! pain! — down with the shutters, bolt the doors — no vision of the outer world must enter here.

  The little station received gratefully the evening light that had descended upon it. A few men and women, dim bundles of figures against the pale blue, waited for the train, a crescent moon was stealing above the hedges, from the chimneys of two little cottages grey smoke trembled in the air.

  Suddenly there came to Peter, waiting there, the determination to drive. He could not stand there, surrounded by this happy silence any longer. All those shadows that were creeping about the dark spaces beyond his house were only waiting for their moment when they might leap. This silence, this peace, would give them that moment. He must drive — he must drive.

  In the road outside the station a decrepit cab with a thin rake of a man for driver was waiting for a possible customer. The cab was faded, the wheels encrusted with ancient mud, the horse old and wheezy, but the cabman, standing now thinner than ever against the sky, was, in spite of a tattered top hat, filled with that cheerful optimism that belongs to the Cornishman who sees an opportunity of “doing” a foreigner.

  “I want to drive to Treliss,” said Peter.

  They bargained. The battered optimist obtained the price that he demanded and cocked his eye, derisively, at the rising moon.

  Peter surveyed the cab.

  “I’ll sit with you on the box,” he said.

  The thin driver made way for him. It was a high jolting cab of the old-fashioned kind, a cab you might have sworn was Cornish had you seen it anywhere, a cab that smelt of beer and ancient leather and salt water, a cab that had once driven the fashion of Treliss to elegant dances and now must rattle the roads with very little to see, for all your trouble, at the end of it.

  The sleeping fields, like grey cloths, stretched on every side of them and the white road cut into the heart of the distance. It was a quarter to eight and a blue dusk. The driver tilted the top hat over one ear and they were off.

  “I know this road as yer might say back’ards. Ask any one down along Treliss way. Zachy Jackson they’ll say — which is my name, sir, if yer requirin’ a good ‘orse any time o’ day. Zachy Jackson! which there ain’t no man, — tarkin’ of ‘orses, fit to touch ’im, they’ll tell yer and not far wrong either.”

  But now with every stumbling step of that bony horse Peter was being shaken into a more active consciousness, consciousness not of the past, very slightly of the present, but rather of an eager, excited anticipation of events shortly to befall him, of the acute sense — the first that had, as yet, come to him — that, very shortly, he was to plunge himself into an absolute abandonment of all the restraints and discipline that had hitherto held him. He did not know, he could not analyse to himself — for what purpose those restraints had been formerly enforced upon his life. Only now — at this moment, his body was being flooded with a warm, riotous satisfaction at the thought of the indulgences that were to be his.

  Still this fortress of his house was bare and desolated, but now in some of the rooms there were lights, fire, whispers, half-hidden faces, eyes behind curtains.

  The wind struck him in the face. “Enough of this — you’re done for — you’re beaten — you’re broken... you’re going back to your hovel. You’re creeping home — don’t make a fine thing of it—” the wind said.

  The top of the hill rolled up to them and suddenly with the gust that came from every quarter there was borne some sound. It was very delicate, very mysterious — the sound, one might fancy, that the earth would make if all spring flowers were to pierce the soil at one common instant — so fugitive a whisper.

  “That’s the sea,” said Mr. Jackson, waving his whip in the air, “down to Dunotter Cove. There’s a wind to-night. It’ll blow rough presently.”

  Now from their hilltop in the light of a baby moon puddles of water shone like silk, hedges were bending lines of listeners, far on the horizon a black wood, there in one of those precipitous valleys cottages cower
ing, overhead the blue night sky suddenly chequered with solemn pompous slowly moving clouds. But here on the hilltop at any rate, a bustle of wind — such a noise amongst the hedges and the pools instantly ruffled and then quiet again; and so precipitous a darkness when a cloud swallowed the moon. In the daylight that landscape, to any who loved not Cornwall, would seem ugly indeed, with a grey cottage stuck here and there naked upon the moor, with a bare deserted engine house upon the horizon, with trees, deep in the little valley, but scant and staggering upon the hill — ugly by day but now packed with a mystery that contains everything that human language has no name for, there is nothing to do, on beholding it, but to kneel down and worship God. Mr. Jackson had seen it often before and he went twice to chapel every Sunday, so he just whipped up his horse and they stumbled down the road.

  “Dirty weather coming,” he said.

  Peter was disturbed. That whispering noise that had crept across the country frightened him. If it went on much longer it would make him remember — he must not remember.

  They turned down into a deep, mysterious lane and the whisper was hidden. Now there was about them only the urgent crowding of the hedges, the wild-flowers flinging their scent on to the night air, and above and below and on every side of the old cab there streamed into the air the sweet smell of crushed grass, as though many fields had been pressed between giant’s fingers and so had been left.

  Peter sat there and about him, like flames licking woodwork, evil thoughts devoured his body. He was going now at last to do all those things that, these many years, he had prevented himself from doing. That at any rate he knew.... He would drink and drink and drink, until he would never remember anything again ... never again.... Meanwhile as the cab slowly began to climb the hill again Mr. Jackson was telling a story.

  He rolled his r’s as though life were indeed a valuable and happy thing, and now and again, waving his thin whip in the air, he would seem to appeal to the moon.

  “’Twas down to Dunotter Cove and I, a lad, my father bein’ a fisherman, and one night, I mind it as though it were yesterday, there was a mighty wreck. Storm and wind and rain there was that night and there we were, out in it, suddenly, all the village of us. I but a slip of a boy, you must know, which it was thirty year back now and the rain sizzling on the cobbles and the wind blawin’ the chimneys crooked. Well — she were a mighty wreck blawn right up against the Dunotter rocks, you understand, and sendin’ up rockets and we seein’ her clear enough, black out to sea which she seemed enormous in the night time and all. My father and the rest of ’em went out in the boat — we waited and we waited and they didn’t come back.... They never come back — none of them only a crazed luny, Bill Tregothny— ’e was washed up against the rocks down to Bosillian and ’e were just livin’ ... And when it come daylight,” — Mr. Jackson cleared his throat and paused— “when it come daylight there wasn’t no wreck — nothing — nor no bodies neither — nothing — only Bill Tregothny the fool....”