by James Hilton
When she looked up she saw that Philip was watching them. His face was very white. “C—can I do anything?” he asked plaintively.
“We’ve finished now,” said Stella.
IV
The ambulance came and Ward accompanied the frightened girl to the local hospital. The cut had been a bad one, puncturing the artery, and she had lost a great deal of blood and was very weak.
Meanwhile, Stella and Philip waited at the Hall. The wind was still high, raving through the trees, and blowing in great angry whuffs down the wide hall chimney. The evening had turned to tragedy, and as the moments crawled by it seemed to Stella as if the whole world were filled with tragedy also. The mediocre oil-paintings of the Monsell ancestors gazed at her in stony-eyed ferocity, and when the clocks whirred and clanged the hour of nine it seemed impossible that the night could be still so young.
Then there came a telephone call. It was Ward, speaking from the hospital. “Yes…not serious…they’re keeping her for a few days—then she’ll need a rest…I left my machine at your place, didn’t I?…Yes, I’ll come on then…Why, walk, of course; it’s only a mile over the fields…”
Philip was in his study, and she went to him, meaning to tell him that Ward was coming back. She found him cosily settled in an armchair by a huge fire. A table by his side contained a decanter and syphon, from which he was helping himself as she entered.
“You look very pale, Philip,” she said.
He answered: “Do I? It upset me—seeing all that blood…Did Ward think she was badly hurt?”
“He just ‘phoned me to say it wasn’t serious at all, and that she’d soon be all right again.”
“Good…Good…Oh, excellent…I hate to think of people suffering…Now perhaps I can read a little. But I’m afraid seeing all that—has disturbed my mind…Do you mind handing me that book on my desk—the one with the red cover—The Evolution of Society, it’s called…”
She gave it him, smiled slightly and went out.
In the hall she put on her sou’wester hat and mackintosh, chose a stout walking-stick out of the stand, and walked quickly through the kitchens out of the house.
V
Over the black and noisy night the moon shone faintly, piercing every now and then the scurrying clouds. She walked round the side of the house, down the drive, and into the high road; and then turned sharply to the right along the field-path over the stile. The wind had dried the mud into a soft clay-like surface, into which her feet sank as into thick carpet; everywhere was the rich wintry smell of upturned soil, mingled now and then with a sudden sharp tang of the sea. The field-path was one of Chassingford’s favourite evening walks, but that night it was almost deserted. Only once, a few yards from the high road, did she see strangers—an amorous couple whose locked embrace was made more passionate by the gale that swirled around them.
Half-way across the ploughed fields she met him, and knew that it was he by the swelling bulk of his motor-coat, too stiff for even the wind to blow into folds.
“I thought I’d meet you,” she said, when she was quite ten yards away from him.
She stopped and let him approach her. He did so, and, when he was near to her, stopped also and smiled.
“The girl’s not in any danger,” he began. “By the way, thank you for helping me. If you ever think of doing any work in life, try nursing. You’d do rather well.”
They walked on some way in silence. The wind was still boisterous, galloping across the country in savage gusts and bending the trees till they creaked and jostled against one another.
“Don’t you love to be out on a night like this?” she said, standing still with her face to the keen onrush.
“Yes. There’s such a delightful possibility of being brained by a falling tree, isn’t there?”
She ignored his reply. “All this reminds me of my old home-country—the wind along the Danube in winter-time…Don’t you ever feel homesick for the place you were born in?”
“Never. I was born in a Lancashire mining town—one that has the highest death-rate of any county borough in England. If you saw it you’d understand why I’m never homesick…By the way, what made you come out to meet me? Did you think I didn’t know the way?”
She replied slowly: “I was quite certain you knew the way.”
“Then—”
She said sharply and rather rudely: “I came out because I wanted to. That’s enough reason, isn’t it?”
VI
He would not be charmed by her. And the incidents of the evening, bizarre almost to the point of tragedy, had made her desperate. She was desperate all the while she walked back with him through the darkness and the rushing wind. Some strange uneasiness seized her soul and swept her miles away from the usual Chassingford atmosphere of calm and seclusion. Strange memories of childhood assailed her—of the Danube sweeping through the plains, and the croon of the winds through the tall reeds—all as if it had been but yesterday, and her life in England a vague and pointless interruption. She remembered the first time she had met Ward—on the river-bank near Cambridge—and her remark afterwards that he was like a Hungarian. The likeness impressed her again; he was like a Hungarian, though not noticeably in appearance, habits, personality or character. In what, then? In some mysterious something that formed a link between him and her; something she could not understand; but something that was stirring her restlessly through and through. One thing she knew for certain; she hated him fiercely and intensely, and her desire to attract was merely her desire to subdue.
When they reached the Hall they went into the drawing-room, where after a short while Philip and Mrs. Monsell joined them. Philip was still rather pale and made eager enquiries after the condition of the injured girl. Ward reassured him, patting him affectionately on the shoulder.
Then Stella went to the piano and sang a sad little Hungarian song about a girl who killed herself because her lover was unfaithful. Beautifully, conscious that passion was in her voice, she sang the words:
“Ha tudtad, hogy nem szerettel,
Halodba mest keritettel?”
Surely, even in an unknown language, she could convey some rough sense of their meaning?
When she had finished Philip hastened to congratulate her; he had never heard her sing so well, so he said. Ward meanwhile sat smoking stolidly in his chair; at last he remarked calmly, almost casually: “Yes, quite a pretty little tune.”
She left the piano-stool, with the uneasiness of her soul quivering almost into flame. Quite a pretty little tune! Was that all?
Then Ward got up, shook himself in front of the fire like a great animal, and lounged over to the piano. “I say, Philip,” he began, putting his pipe on the music-rest, “do you remember that song we used to sing on Rag-nights at College?—Something about Booze—it goes to the tune of ‘John Peel’…?”
And he began to thump out, with one finger and many inaccuracies, the tune of “John Peel” in the key of C natural.
What a man! She stared at him from the shadows of the settee, hating him fiercely. And Philip was laughing like a schoolboy—she could never make him laugh like that…Something about Booze!…
She shrugged her shoulders and looked at Mrs. Monsell. That lady was smiling.
VII
An hour later he had gone. They were not to see him again before his departure for the South Pole. His last words to her had been a casual and ordinary “Good-bye,” accompanied by an equally casual and ordinary handshake. Philip walked down the drive with him, and the two stopped talking for some while. Their laughter echoed weirdly above the roaring of the wind, and Stella, undressing in her bedroom, shivered as she heard it.
The next morning as she came down to breakfast Philip met her in the hall. “By the way, Stella,” he remarked, methodically opening his morning’s letters with a paper-knife: “Did you go to meet Ward last night on his way back from the hospital?”
“Yes,” she answered, with suddenly awakened interest.
&nb
sp; “Why?” He spoke the word very quietly, still manipulating the paper-knife.
She gave him the answer that she had given Ward the night before, only less sharply.
“Because I wanted to…That’s enough reason, isn’t it?”
The paper-knife stopped suddenly, and he looked round with a look that she had never seen on his face before. Then, very slowly, he walked across the room to her and took her by the arm. “Of course it is, Stella,” he said, smiling. “Let’s come and have some breakfast…”
* * *
CHAPTER IX
I
She began to feel that she did not understand Philip. Almost as soon as Ward had set sail from Gravesend in the little thousand-ton boat that was, if he were lucky, to take him to Antarctica, Philip began to be different. She did not assume any significant connection between the two happenings, though she guessed that Philip was missing the company of his friend. She was, on the whole, baffled by the new Philip, though he charmed her by his almost childlike strangeness.
One day he said to her: “Stella, do you remember that I promised to marry you as soon as I was successful?”
“Yes, of course I do. And since then you haven’t mentioned it.”
He smiled his nervous smile. “I’m going to mention it now. May I marry you, Stella, before I’m successful?”
“Philip!” She took hold of his sleeve and gave his arm a quick caress. “Of course you may. You can marry me whenever you like—I shan’t object. But why this despondency about your prospects?”
He answered slowly: “Not despondency, Stella. Only that I’ve been thinking things out carefully. And I’ve come to the conclusion that perhaps I shall succeed better with you than on my own. It is so hard for me to succeed in anything.”
“And is success the only reason why you want to marry me?”
He looked down at her rather sadly and said: “Good God, no. I love you…You’ll never understand how much…I want you…Will you marry me as soon as it can be arranged?”
And then he suddenly knelt down at her feet and burst into tears. It was a weird mingling of the comic and the tragic; of old-fashioned Victorian gallantry and a touch of half-clumsy pathos that was all his own. She was stirred, as a mother by a shy child who has come to her for protection. For Philip, surely, was only a child, driven by the buffetings of a hard world into her own calm embrace.
She stooped down and kissed his forehead, and for the first time he offered her his lips to kiss, again as a child might have done. “I’ll marry you to-morrow if you want,” she said, choking back a sob. “You poor old Philip—I’m so glad you want me.”
He said, with a calm smile “Then I have s-succeeded in s-something at l-last.”
II
They were married a month later and went to live in a comfortable flat in Kensington. Philip had a private income of some two thousand a year, so that his efforts for success had no financial urge. Very soon after the marriage, Mrs. Monsell decided she would like to live in town, and as Philip preferred the country an easy exchange was effected, Mrs. Monsell taking the Kensington flat and Philip and Stella returning to Chassingford.
Stella was wonderfully and ecstatically happy. She could never have believed that marriage was so beautiful, and that her strange, childish Philip would make so wonderful a husband. And he, on his side, seemed equally happy. The two of them went about together everywhere, entertained modestly, and were certainly popular amongst those who knew them intimately. Philip, however, was still regarded as a political opponent by many Chassingford people, and his somewhat austere manner with strangers prevented him from achieving any boisterous popularity. For this he was no doubt profoundly thankful, though he was becoming increasingly aware of the value of such popularity in political life.
Now, indeed, he set himself deliberately to the task of making his career. It was almost pathetic, Stella thought, that he should be so grimly serious about it, especially when there was no real need why he should trouble about a career at all. Mrs. Monsell put the matter in her usual mordant way. “Why on earth he should want to be an M.P., I can’t imagine,” she remarked. “It’s about as sensible as a deaf man wanting to be a music-teacher. Why doesn’t he potter about Chassingford and write books that nobody reads, instead of flinging himself into the struggle for existence? Anyone would think he had to earn his own living.”
To Stella Philip explained himself differently. “I’m not going to be a waster. If I thought my private income was going to make me that I’d give it up. I want to be something more than an amiable country squire.”
“But why politics, Philip?”
“Because—” His face lit up suddenly with a gleam that she had never seen before, something that transformed his white calm into the still calm whiteness of fire. “Because—” He paused again, and then resumed, in a rush of words in which, as usual, he began to stammer slightly: “Stella, deep down in me I’ve got enormous ambitions. I won’t give them up, whatever happens. Doesn’t matter how often I fail or how many times it’s hinted to me that I’m a predestined failure—those ambitions are still there. I want to get into Parliament. I feel I could do good—even great work there—if I had the chance. Nobody’s going to give me the chance. I’ve got to fight for it myself, and I know as well as you do that there’s not a sillier spectacle on earth than me on a public platform. Yet gradually I’m improving. I’m getting less and less silly, until some day—you wait!—I’ll do it!—I’ll do it I’ve set my mind on it and nothing shall stop me. Other men seem to succeed without trying to, but I shall catch them up in the end, because I am trying a hundred and a thousand times harder than they!”
He clenched his fists at his side and stared in front of him. “Of all my ambitions so far, Stella, only one has come to fulfilment. That’s you. And I didn’t win you—you simply gave yourself to me. If I’d had to fight for you, probably I’d have been fighting still. Do you think I could have held out against some bold handsome warrior with a successful past, and a heart—less liable to stop suddenly than mine?”
She answered him by a ripple of laughter. “Why,” she ejaculated, without pausing to think, “that sounds like Ward!”
Not by a flicker did his face betray any emotion whatever. “Does it?” he said quietly, and resumed the book from which the conversation had disturbed him.
III
Philip’s quest for success was certainly a difficult one in the sphere he had deliberately chosen. He kept making a fool of himself. He couldn’t help it. As prospective candidate for the constituency, he was asked to “kick off” at the annual match between Chassingford Rovers and Felton United; here, as Kemp assured him, was a unique opportunity for making himself popular amongst the younger male voters. Unfortunately the day was wet and the ground greasy, and when, supremely nervous, he ran out to kick the ball, he missed it. Not only that, but he slipped on the soft turf and fell ludicrously into a patch of mud, smashing his pince-nez and covering himself with slime. The spectacle of a nervous, morning-coated gentleman streaked and spattered with mud moved the crowd to natural laughter; it was many minutes before even the players were composed enough to start the game.
Philip, of course, ought to have taken part in the laughter against himself, thereby making the bad not so bad. Unfortunately again, he had hurt himself in the fall, and he was by nature incapable of concealing physical pain. Instead of laughing he groaned, and, with the assistance of a few cynical onlookers, hobbled back to the stand in a most lugubrious manner. Kemp could hardly cover up his contempt. Even Stella was disappointed, though she washed his mud-streaked face in the pavilion and behaved to him very much as an indulgent mother towards a child who has met with a deserved mishap.
For some time after the incident it seemed as though Philip’s electoral chances were absolutely spoiled. Kempt almost said so outright; Stella thought so secretly; there was even some talk of the local Association asking him to resign. The opposition, of course, made as much capital as it coul
d out of the affair; “Monsell in the Mud” was the not very gentlemanly placard of its current local paper. For a long time Philip’s meetings were interrupted by derisive references to mud and football.
Only he himself never gave up. He did not seem to care whether he were listened to or laughed at. A certain quality in his dignity made him impervious to derision. Perhaps if he had had a sense of humour, he would have laughed at himself. Perhaps he was’ so desperately in earnest that he saw nothing but the shining goal in front of him. He went on addressing meetings, facing scornful and insulting interruptions, arguing seriously with people who had no intention of arguing seriously, treating every man he met as a gentleman on his own level, but not as a friend—he was incapable of that.
Another football club invited him to “kick-off” for them. The invitation was probably made derisively. Philip appeared to see nothing in it but a plain and courteous request, which lie as courteously accepted. He was determined there should be no mistakes this time. He practised with a football in the Hall garden in order to make himself ready for the ordeal. No doubt the gardeners would see him and spread the tale in the village—he did not seem to care. “I know nothing about games, and I don’t see why I should be ashamed of having to learn how to kick a football,” he told Stella. “There’s many a footballer would have to learn how to make a speech.”
The hour came. Deafening ironical cheers followed his kick; the ball went spinning across the field and hit the chest of one of the footballers who had been too intent on watching Philip to notice where the ball was going. This time the laugh was with Philip, and it seemed as though Providence had specially intervened on his behalf.
Unfortunately he walked on to the field, interrupting the hardly begun game, and apologised to the footballer who had been hit, hoping courteously that he had not been hurt. Roars of stupefied, incredulous laughter! Was it possible that any man on earth could be such a fool?
