The Return

by Walter De la Mare

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The door opened. Lawford rose, and into the further rays of thecandlelight entered a rather slim figure in a light summer gown.

  'Just home?' said Herbert.

  'We've been for a walk--'

  'My sister always forgets everything,' said Herbert, turning to Lawford;'even tea-time. This is Mr Lawford, Grisel. We've been arguing no end.And we want you to give a decision. It's just this: Supposing if by someimpossible trick you had come in now, not the charming familiar sisteryou are, but shorter, fatter, fair and round-faced, quite different,physically, you know--what would you do?'

  'What nonsense you talk, Herbert!'

  'Yes, but supposing: a complete transmogrification--by some unimaginableingression or enchantment, by nibbling a bunch of roses, or whatever youlike to call it?'

  'Only physically?'

  'Well, yes, actually; but potentially, why--that's another matter.'

  The dark eyes passed slowly from her brother's face and rested gravelyon their visitor's.

  'Is he making fun of me?'

  Lawford almost imperceptibly shook his head.

  'But what a question! And I've had no tea.' She drew her gloves slowlythrough her hand. 'The thing, of course, isn't possible, I know. Butshouldn't I go mad, don't you think?'

  Lawford gazed quietly back into the clear, grave, deliberate eyes.'Suppose, suppose, just for the sake of argument--NOT,' he suggested.

  She turned her head and reflected, glancing from one to the other of thepure, steady candle-flames.

  'And what was your answer?' she said, looking over her shoulder at herbrother.

  'My dear child, you know what my answers are like!'

  'And yours?'

  Lawford took a deep breath, gazing mutely, forlornly, into the lovelyuntroubled peace of her eyes, and without the least warning tears sweptup into his own. With an immense effort he turned, and choking backevery sound, beating hack every thought, groped his way towards thesquare black darkness of the open door.

  'I must think, I must think,' he managed to whisper, lifting his handand steadying himself. He caught over his shoulder the glimpse of acuriously distorted vision, a lifted candle, and a still face gazingafter him with infinitely grieved eyes, then found himself groping andstumbling down the steep, uneven staircase into the darkness of thequeer old wooden and hushed and lonely house. The night air cold on hisface calmed his mind. He turned and held out his hand.

  'You'll come again?' Herbert was saying, with a hint of anxiety, even ofapology in his voice.

  Lawford nodded, with eyes fixed blankly on the candle, and turning oncemore, made his way slowly down the narrow green-bordered path upon whichthe stars rained a scattered light so feeble it seemed but as a hazethat blurred the darkness. He pushed open the little white wicketand turned his face towards the soundless, leaf-crowned hill. He hadadvanced hardly a score of steps in the thick dust when almost as ifits very silence had struck upon his ear he remembered the black brokengrave with its sightless heads that lay beyond the leaves. And fear,vast and menacing, fear such as only children know, broke like a sea ofdarkness on his heart. He stopped dead--cold, helpless, trembling.And, in the silence he heard a faint cry behind him and light footstepspursuing him. He turned again. In the thick close gloom beneath theenormous elm-boughs the grey eyes shone clearly visible in the faceupturned to him. 'My brother,' she began breathlessly--'the littleFrench book. It was I who--who mislaid it.'

  The set, stricken face listened unmoved.

  'You are ill. Come back! I am afraid you are very ill.'

  'It's not that, not that,' Lawford muttered; 'don't leave me; I amalone. Don't question me,' he said strangely, looking down into herface, clutching her hand; 'only understand that I can't, I can't go on.'He swept a lean arm towards the unseen churchyard. 'I am afraid.'

  The cold hand clasped his closer. 'Hush, don't speak! Come back; comeback. I am with you, a friend, you see; come back.'

  Lawford clutched her hand as a blind man in sudden peril might clutchthe hand of a child. He saw nothing clearly; spoke almost withoutunderstanding his words.

  'Oh, but it's MUST,' he said; 'I MUST go on. You see--why, everythingdepends on struggling through: the future! But if you only knew--There!'Again his arm swept out, and the lean terrified face turned shudderingfrom the dark.

  'I do know; believe me, believe me! I can guess. See, I am coming withyou; we will go together. As if, as if I did not know what it is to beafraid. Oh, believe me; no one is near; we go on; and see! it gradually,gradually lightens. How thankful I am I came.'

  She had turned and they were steadily ascending as if pushing their way,battling on through some obstacle of the mind rather than of the sensesbeneath the star-powdered callous vault of night. And it seemed toLawford as if, as they pressed on together, some obscure detestablepresence as slowly, as doggedly had drawn worsted aside. He couldsee again the peaceful outspread branches of the trees, the lych-gatestanding in clear-cut silhouette against the liquid dusk of the sky.A strange calm stole over his mind. The very meaning and memory of hisfear faded out and vanished, as the passed-away clouds of a storm thatleave a purer, serener sky.

  They stopped and stood together on the brow of the little hill, andLawford, still trembling from head to foot, looked back across thehushed and lightless countryside. 'It's all gone now,' he saidwearily, 'and now there's nothing left. You see, I cannot even ask yourforgiveness--and a stranger!'

  'Please don't say that--unless--unless--a "pilgrim" too. I think,surely, you must own we did have the best of it that time. Yes--and Idon't care WHO may be listening--but we DID win through.'

  'What can I say? How shall I explain? How shall I make you understand?'

  The clear grey eyes showed not the faintest perturbation. 'But I do; Ido indeed, in part; I do understand, ever so faintly.'

  'And now I will come back with you.'

  They paused in the darkness face to face, the silence of the sky,arched in its vastness above the little hill, the only witness of theirtriumph.

  She turned unquestioningly. And laughing softly almost as childrendo, the stalking shadows of a twilight wood behind them--they trod insilence back to the house. They said good-bye at the gate, and Lawfordstarted once more for home. He walked slowly, conscious of an almostintolerable weariness, as if his strength had suddenly been wrested awayfrom him. And at some distance beyond the top of the hill he sat down onthe bank beside a nettled ditch, and with his book pressed down uponthe wayside grass struck a match, and holding it low in the scented,windless air turned slowly the cockled leaf.

  Few of them were alike except for the dinginess of the print and thesinister smudge of the portraits. All were sewn roughly together intoa mould-stained, marbled cover. He lit a second match, and as he did soglanced as if inquiringly over his shoulder. And a score or so of pagesbefore the end he came at last upon the name he was seeking, and turnedthe page.

  It was a likeness even more striking in its crudeness of ink and lineand paper than the most finished of portraits could have been. Itrepelled, and yet it fascinated him. He had not for a moment doubtedHerbert's calm conviction. And yet as he stooped in the grass, closelyscrutinising the blurred obscure features, he felt the faintest surprisenot so much at the significant resemblance but at his own composure, hisown steady, unflinching confrontation with this sinister and intangibleadversary. The match burned down to his fingers. It hissed faintly inthe grass.

  He stuffed the book into his pocket, and stared into the pale dial ofhis watch. It was a few minutes after eleven. Midnight, then, wouldjust see him in. He rose stiffly and yawned in sheer exhaustion. Then,hesitating, he turned his head and looked back towards the hollow. Buta vague foreboding held him back. A sour and vacuous incredulity sweptover him. What was the use of all this struggling and vexation. Whatgain in living on? Once dead his sluggish spirit at least would findits rest. Dust to dust it would indeed be for him. What else, in soberearnest, had he been all his daily stolid lif
e but half dead, scarceconscious, without a living thought, or desire, in head or heart?

  And while he was still gloomily debating within himself he had turnedtowards home, and soon was walking in a kind of reverie, even hisextreme tiredness in part forgotten, and only a far-away doggedrecollection in his mind that in spite of shame, in spite of all hismiserable weakness, the words had been uttered once for all, and in allsincerity, 'We DID win through.'

  Yet a desolate and odd air of strangeness seemed to drape his unlightedhouse as he stood looking up in a kind of furtive communion with itswindows. It affected him with that discomforting air of extreme andmeaningless novelty that things very familiar sometimes take uponthemselves. In this leaden tiredness no impression could be trustworthy.His lids shut of themselves as he softly mounted the steps. It seemed aneedlessly wide door that soundlessly admitted him. But however hard hepressed the key his bedroom door remained stubbornly shut until hefound that it was already unlocked and he had only to turn the handle.A night-light burned in a little basin on the washstand. The room washung, as it were, with the stillness of night. And half lying on thebed in her dressing-gown, her head leaning on the rail at the foot, wasAlice, just as sleep had overtaken her.

  Lawford returned to the door and listened. It seemed he heard a voicetalking downstairs, and yet not talking, for it ran on and on in anincessant slightly argumentative monotony that had neither break norinterruption. He closed the door, and stooping laid his hand softly onAlice's narrow, still childish hand that lay half-folded on her knee.Her eyes opened instantly and gazed widely into his face. A slow vacantsmile of sleep came and went and her fingers tightened gently over hisas again her lids drooped down over the drowsy blue eyes.

  'At last, at last, dear,' she said; 'I have been waiting such a time.But we mustn't talk much. Mother is waiting up, reading.'

  Faintly through the close-shut door came the sound of that distantexpressionless voice monotonously rising and falling.

  'Why didn't you tell me, dear?' Alice still sleepily whispered. 'WouldI have asked a single question? How could I? Oh, if you had only trustedme!'

  'But the change--the change, Alice! You must have seen that. You spoketo me, you did think I was only a stranger; and even when you knew, itwas only fear on your face, dearest, and aversion; and you turned toyour mother first. Don't think, Alice, that I am...God only knows--I'mnot complaining. But truth is best whatever it is. I do feel that. Youmustn't be afraid of hurting me, my dear.'

  Her very hands seemed to quicken in his as now, with sleep quite gone,the fret of memory returned, and she must reassure both herself and him.'But you see, dear, mother had told me that you--besides, I did knowyou at once, really; quite inside, you know, deep down. I know I wasperplexed; I didn't understand; but that was all. Why, even when youcame up in the dark, and we talked--if you only knew how miserable I hadbeen--though I knew even then there was something different, still Iwas not a bit afraid. Was I? And shouldn't I have been afraid, horriblyafraid, if YOU had not been YOU?' She repressed a little shudder, andclasped his hand more closely. 'Don't let us say anything more about it,she implored him; 'we are just together again, you and I; that is allthat matters.' But her words were like brave soldiers who have foughttheir way through an ambuscade but have left all confidence behind them.

  Lawford listened; and that was enough just now--that she still, in spiteof doubt, believed in him, and thought and cared for him. He was tootired to have refused the least kindness. He made no answer, but leanthis head on the cool, slender fingers in gratitude and peace. And, justas he was, he almost instantly fell asleep. He woke in the darkness tofind himself alone. He groped his way heavily to the door and turnedthe handle. But now it was really locked. Energy failed him. 'Isuppose--Sheila...' he muttered.