The Return

by Walter De la Mare

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  There was no one in the room, and no light, when they entered. For amoment Grisel stood by the open window, looking out. Then she turnedimpulsively. 'My brother, of course, will ask you too,' she said; 'wehad made up our minds to do so if you came again; but I want you topromise me now that you won't dream of going back to-night. That surelywould be tempting--well, not Providence. I couldn't rest if I thoughtyou might be alone; like that again.' Her voice died away into thecalling of the waters. A light moved across the dingy old rows of booksand as his sister turned to go out Herbert appeared in the doorway,carrying a green-shaded lamp, with an old leather quarto under his arm.

  'Ah, here you are,' he said. 'I guessed you had probably met.' He drewup, burdened, before his visitor. But his clear black glance, instead ofwandering off at his first greeting, had intensified. And it was almostwith an air of absorption that he turned away. He dumped his book on toa chair and it turned over with scattered leaves on to the floor. Heput the lamp down and stooped after it, so that his next words came upmuffled, and as if the remark had been forced out of him. 'You don'tfeel worse, I hope?' He got up and faced his visitor for the answer. Andfor the moment Lawford stood considering his symptoms.

  'No,' he said almost gaily; 'I feel enormously better.' But Herbert'slong, oval, questioning eyes beneath the sleek black hair were stillfixed on his face. 'I am afraid, my dear fellow,' he said, withsomething more than his usual curiously indifferent courtesy, 'thestruggle has frightfully pulled you to pieces.'

  'The question is,' answered Lawford, with a kind of tired yet whimsicalmelancholy in his voice, 'though I am not sure that the answer very muchmatters--what's going to put me together again? It's the old story ofHumpty Dumpty, Herbert. Besides, one thing you said has stuck out in aquite curious way in my memory. I wonder if you will remember?'

  'What was that?' said Herbert with unfeigned curiosity.

  'Why, you said even though Sabathier had failed, though I was stillmy own old stodgy self, that you thought the face--the face, you know,might work in. Somehow, sometimes I think it has. It does really ratherhaunt me. In that case--well, what then?' Lawford had himself listenedto this involved explanation much as one watches the accomplishment ofa difficult trick, marvelling more at its completion at all than at thedifficulty involved in the doing of it.

  '"Work in,"' repeated Herbert, like a rather blase child confronted witha new mechanical toy; 'did I really say that? well, honestly, it wasn'tbad; it's what one would expect on that hypothesis. You see, we areonly different, as it were, in our differences. Once the foot's over thethreshold, it's nine points of the law! But I don't remember saying it.'He shamefacedly and naively confessed it: 'I say such an awful lot ofthings. And I'm always changing my mind. It's a standing joke against mewith my sister. She says the recording angel will have two sides to myaccount: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and Tuesdays, Thursdays, andSaturdays--diametrically opposite convictions, and both kinds wrong. OnSundays I am all things to all men. As for Sabathier, by the way, Ido want particularly to have another go at him. I've been thinking himover, and I'm afraid in some ways he won't quite wash. And that remindsme, did you read the poor chap?'

  'I just grubbed through a page or two; but most of my French was left atschool. What I did do, though, was to show the book to an old friendof ours--my wife's and mine--just to skim--a Mr Bethany. He's an oldclergyman--our vicar, in fact.'

  Herbert had sat down, and with eyes slightly narrowed was listening withpeculiar attention. He smiled a little magnanimously. 'His verdict, Ishould think, must have been a perfect joy.'

  'He said,' said Lawford, in his rather low, monotonous voice, 'he saidit was precious poor stuff, that it reminded him of patchouli; and thatSabathier--the print I mean--looked like a foxy old roue. They were, Ithink, his exact words. We were alone together, last night.'

  'You don't mean that he simply didn't see the faintest resemblance?'

  Lawford nodded. 'But then,' he added simply, 'whenever he comes to seeme now he leaves his spectacles at home.'

  And at that, as if at some preconcerted signal, they both went off intoa simple shout of laughter, unanimous and sustained.

  But this first wild bout of laughter over, the first real bursting ofthe dam, perhaps, for years, Lawford found himself at a lower ebb thanever.

  'You see,' he said presently, and while still his companion's face wassmiling around the remembrance of his laughter like ripples after thesplash of a stone, 'Bethany has been absolutely my sheet-anchor rightthrough. And I was--it was--you can't possibly realise what a ghastlychange it really was. I don't think any one ever will.'

  Herbert opened his hand and looked reflectively into its palm beforeallowing himself to reply. 'I wonder, you know; I have been wondering agood deal; simply taking the other point of view for a moment; WAS it?I don't mean "ghastly" exactly (like, say, smallpox, G.P.I,elephantiasis), but was it quite so complete, so radical, as in thefirst sheer gust of astonishment you fancied?'

  Lawford thought on a little further. 'You know how one sees oneself ina passion--why, how a child looks--the whole face darkened and drawn andpossessed? That was the change. That's how it seems to come back to me.And something, somebody, dodging behind the eyes. Yes; more that thaneven any excessive change of feature, except, of course, that I alsoseemed--Shall I ever forget that first cold, stifling stare into thelooking-glass! I certainly was much darker, even my hair. But I've toldyou all this before,' he added wearily, 'and the scores and scores oftimes I've thought it. I used to sit up there in the big spare bedroommy wife put me up in, simply gloating. My flesh seemed nothing morethan an hallucination: there I was, haunting my body, an old grinningtenement, and all that I thought I wanted, and couldn't do without, allI valued and prided myself on--stacked up in the drizzling street below.Why, Herbert, our bodies are only glass or cloud. They melt, don't they,like wax in the sun once we're out. But those first few days don't makevery pleasant thinking. Friday night was the first, when I sat therelike a twitching waxwork, soberly debating between Bedlam here andBedlam hereafter. I even sometimes wonder whether its very repetitionhas not dulled the memory or distorted it. My wife,' he addedingenuously, 'seems to think there are signs of a slight improvement--agoing back, I mean. But I'm not sure whether she meant it.'

  Herbert surveyed his visitor critically. 'You say "dark," he said; 'butsurely, Lawford, your hair now is nearly grey; well-flecked at least.'

  Although the remark carried nothing comparatively of a shock with it,yet it seemed to Lawford as if an electric current had passed over hisscalp, coldly stirring every hair upon his head. But somehow or other itwas easier to sit quietly on, to express no surprise, to let them do orsay what they liked. 'Well' he retorted with an odd, crooked smile, 'youmust remember I am a good deal older than I was last Saturday. I grewgrey in the grave, Herbert.'

  'But it's like this, you know,' said Herbert, rising excitedly, and atthe next moment, on reflection, composedly reseating himself. 'How manyof your people actually saw it? How many owned to its being as bad, ascomplete, as you made out? I don't want for a moment to cut right acrosswhat you said last night--our talk--but there are two million sidesto every question, and as often as not the less conspicuous havesounder--well--roots. That's all.'

  'I think really, do you know, I would rather not go over the detestablething again. Not many; my wife, though, and a man I know called Danton,who--who's prejudiced. After all, I have myself to think about too. Andright through, right through--there wasn't the least doubt of that--theyall in their hearts knew it was me. They knew I was behind. I could feelthat absolutely always; it's not just eyes and ears we use, there's usourselves to consider, though God alone knows what that means. Butthe password was there, as you might say; and they all knew I knew it,all--except'--he looked up as if in bewilderment--'except just one, apoor old lady, a very old friend of my mother's, whom I--I Sabathiered!'

  'Whom--you--Sabathiered!' repeated Herbert carefully, with i
nfiniterelish, looking sidelong at his visitor. 'And it is just preciselythat....'

  But at that moment his sister appeared in the doorway to say that supperwas ready. And it was not until Herbert was actually engaged in carvinga cold chicken that he followed up his advantage. 'Mr. Lawford, Grisel,'he said, 'has just enriched our jaded language with a new verb--toSabathier. And if I may venture to define it in the presence ofthe distinguished neologist himself, it means, "To deal withhistrionically"; or, rather, that's what it will mean a couple ofhundred years hence. For the moment it means, "To act under theinfluence of subliminalization; To perplex, or bemuse, or estrangewith OTHERNESS." Do tell us, Lawford, more about the little old lady.'He passed with her plate a little meaningful glance at his sister, andrepeated, 'Do!'

  'But I've been plaguing your sister enough already. You'll wish...'Lawford began, and turned his tired-out eyes towards those othersawaiting them so frankly they seemed in their perfect friendlinessa rest from all his troubles. 'You see,' he went on, 'what I kept onthinking and thinking of was to get a quite unbiased and unprejudicedview. She had known me for years, though we had not actually met morethan once or twice since my mother's death. And there she was sittingwith me at the other end of just such another little seat as'--heturned--to Herbert 'as ours, at Widderstone. It was on Bewley Common: Ican see it all now; it was sunset. And I simply turned and asked her ina kind of a whining affected manner if she remembered me; and when aftera long time she came round to owning that to all intents and purposesshe did not--I professed to have made a mistake in recognising her. Ithink,' he added, glancing up from one to the other of his two strangefriends, 'I think it was the meanest trick I can remember.'

  'H'm,' said Herbert solemnly: 'I wish I had as sensitive a conscience.But as your old friend didn't recognise you, who's the worse? As for hernot doing so, just think of the difference a few years makes to a man,and any severe shock. Life wears so infernally badly. Who, for thatmatter, does not change, even in character and yet who professes to seeit? Mind, I don't say in essence! But then how many of the human ghostsone meets does one know in essence? One doesn't want to. It wouldbe positively cataclysmic. And that's what brings me around to feel,Lawford, if I may venture to say so, that you may have brooded a littletoo keenly on--on your own case. Tell any one you feel ill; he willcommiserate with you to positive nausea. Tell any priest your soul isin danger; will he wait for proof? It's misereres and penances worldwithout end. Tell any woman you love her; will she, can she, should she,gainsay you? There you are. The cat's out of the bag, you see. My sisterand I sat up half the night talking the thing over. I said I'd take theplunge. I said I'd risk appearing the crassest, contradictoriest wretchthat ever drew breath. I don't deny that what I hinted at the othernight must seem in part directly contrary to what I'm going to say now.'

  He wheeled his black eyes as if for inspiration, and helped himself tosalad. 'It's this,' he said. 'Isn't it possible, isn't it even probablethat being ill, and overstrung, moping a little over things more or lessout of the common ruck, and sitting there in a kind of trance--isn't itpossible that you may have very largely IMAGINED the change? Hypnotisedyourself into believing it much worse--more profound, radical,acute--and simply absolutely hypnotizing others into thinking so, too.Christendom is just beginning to rediscover that there is such a thingas faith, that it is just possible that, say, megrims or melancholia maybe removed at least as easily as mountains. The converse, of course,is obvious on the face of it. A man fails because he thinks himself afailure. It's the men that run away that lose the battle. Suppose then,Lawford'--he leaned forward, keen and suave--'suppose you have been and"Sabathiered" yourself!'

  Lawford had grown accustomed during the last few days to finding himselfgazing out like a child into reality, as if from the windows of a dream.He had in a sense followed this long, loosely stitched, preliminaryargument; he had at least in part realised that he sat there betweentwo clear friendly minds acting in the friendliest and most obviouscollusion. But he was incapable of fixing his attention very closelyon any single fragment of Herbert's apology, or of rousing himself intobeing much more than a dispassionate and not very interested spectatorof the little melodrama that Fate, it appeared, had at the last momentdecided rather capriciously to twist into a farce. He turned with asmile to the face so keenly fixed and enthusiastic with the question ithad so laboriously led up to: 'But surely, I don't quite see...'

  Herbert lifted his glass as if to his visitor's acumen and set it downagain without tasting it. 'Why, my dear fellow,' he said triumphantly,'even a dream must have a peg. Yours was this unforgettable old suicide.Candidly now, how much of Sabathier was actually yours? In spite of allthat that fantastical fellow, Herbert, said last night, dead men DON'Ttell tales. The last place in the world to look for a ghost is wherehis traitorous bones lie crumbling. Good heavens, think what irrefutablemasses of evidence there would be at our finger-tips if every tombstonehid its ghost! No; the fellow just arrested you with his creepyepitaph: an epitaph, mind you, that is in a literary sense distinctlyfertilizing. It catches one's fancy in its own crude way, as pagesand pages of infinitely more complicated stuff take possession of,germinate, and sprout in one's imagination in another way. We are allpsychical parasites. Why, given his epitaph, given the surroundings, Iwager any sensitive consciousness could have guessed at his face; andguessing, as it were, would have feigned it. What do you think, Grisel?'

  'I think, dear, you are talking absolute nonsense; what do they callit--"darkening counsel"? It's "the hair of the dog," Mr Lawford.'

  'Well, then, you see,' said Herbert over a hasty mouthful, and turningagain to his victim--'then you see, when you were just in the pink ofcondition to credit any idle tale you heard, then I came in. What, withthe least impetus, can one NOT see by moonlight? The howl of a dog turnsthe midnight into a Brocken; the branch of a tree stoops out at you likea Beelzebub crusted with gadflies. I'd, mind you, sipped of the deadlyold Huguenot too. I'd listened to your innocent prattle about the childkicking his toes out on death's cupboard door; what more likely thing inthe world, then, than that with that moon, in that packed air, I shouldhave swallowed the bait whole, and seen Sabathier in every crevice ofyour skin? I don't say there wasn't any resemblance; it was for themoment extraordinary; it was even when you were here the other nightdistinctly arresting. But now (poor old Grisel, I'm nearly done) all Iwant to say is this: that if we had the "foxy old roue" here now, andGrisel played Paris between the three of us, she'd hand over the applenot to you but to me.'

  'I don't quite see where poor Paris comes in,' suggested Grisel meekly.

  'No, nor do I,' said Herbert. 'All that I mean, sagacious child, is,that Mr Lawford no more resembles the poor wretch now than I resemblethe Apollo Belvedere. If you had only heard my sister scolding me,railing at me for putting such ideas into your jangled head! Theydon't affect ME one iota. I have, I suppose, what is usually calledimagination; which merely means that I can sup with the devil, spoonfor spoon, and could sleep in Bluebeard's linen-closet without turninga hair. You, if I am not very much mistaken, are not much troubled withthat very unprofitable quality, and so, I suppose, when a crooked andbizarre fancy does edge into your mind it roots there.'

  And that said, not without some little confusion, and covert glance ofinquiry at his sister, Herbert made all the haste he could to catch upthe course that his companions had already finished.

  If only, Lawford thought, this insufferable weariness would lift awhilehe could enjoy the quiet, absurd, heedless talk, and this very friendlytopsy-turvy effort to ease his mind and soothe his nerves. He might eventake an interest again in his 'case.'

  'You see,' he said, turning to Grisel, 'I don't think it really verymuch matters how it all came about. I never could believe it would last.It may perhaps--some of it at least may be fancy. But then, what isn't?What is trustworthy? And now your brother tells me my hair's turninggrey. I suppose I have been living too slowly, too sluggishly, and theythought it was high time to
stir me up.'

  He saw with extraordinary vividness the low panelled room; the stilllistening face; the white muslin shoulders and dark hair; and theeyes that seemed to recall some far-off desolate longing for home andchildhood. It was all a dream. That was the end of the matter. Even now,perhaps, his tired old stupid body was lying hunched up, drenched withdew upon the little old seat under the mist-wreathed branches. Soon itwould bestir itself and wake up and go off home--home to Sheila, to theold deadly round that once had seemed so natural and inevitable, to theold dull Lawford--eyes and brain and heart.

  They returned up the dark shallow staircase to Herbert's book-room, andhe talked on to very quiet and passive listeners in his own fantasticendless fashion. And ever and again Lawford would find himselfintercepting fleeting and anxious glances at his face, glances almostof remorse and pity; and thought he detected beneath this irresponsiblecontradictory babble an unceasing effort to clear the sky, to lure awaytoo pressing memories, to put his doubts and fears completely to rest.

  Herbert even went so far as to plead guilty, when Grisel gave him thecue, of having a little heightened and overcoloured his story ofthe restless phantasmal old creature that haunted their queer woodenhauntable old house. And when they rose, laughing and yawning to takeup their candles, it was, after all, after a rather animated discussion,with many a hair-raising ghost story brought in for proof betweenbrother and sister, as to exactly how many times that snuff-colouredspectre had made his appearance; and, with less unanimity still, asto the precise manner in which he was in the habit of making hisprecipitant exit.

  'You do at any rate acknowledge, Grisel, that the old creature doesappear, and that you saw him yourself step out into space when you weresitting down there under the willow shelling peas. I've seen him twicefor certain, once rather hazily; Sallie saw him so plainly she asked hisbusiness: that's five. I resign.'

  'Acknowledge!' said Grisel; 'of course I do. I'd acknowledge anything inthe world to save argument. Why, I don't know what I should do withouthim. If only, now Mr Lawford would give him a fair chance to showhimself reading quietly here about ten minutes to one, or shelling peaseven, if he prefers it. If only he'd stay long enough for THAT. Wouldn'tit be the very thing for them both!'

  'Of course,' said Herbert cordially, 'the very thing.'

  Lawford looked up at neither of them. He shook his head.

  But he needed little persuasion to stay at least one night. The prospectof that long solitary walk, of that tired stupid stooping figuredragging itself along the interminable country roads seemed a sheerimpossibility. 'It is not--it isn't, I swear it--the other that beeps meback,' he had solemnly assured the friend that half smiled her relief athis acceptance, 'but--if you only knew how empty it's all got now; allreason gone even to go on at all.'

  'But doesn't it follow? Of course it's empty. And now life is goingto begin again. I assure you it is, I do indeed. Only, only havecourage--just the will to win on.'

  He said good-night; shut-to the latched door of his long low room,ceilinged with rafters close under the steep roof, its brown walls hungwith quiet, dark, pondering and beautiful faces looking gravely acrossat him. And with his candle in his hand he sat down on the bedside. Allspeculation was gone. The noisy clock of his brain had run down again.He turned towards the old oval looking-glass on the dressing-tablewithout the faintest stirring of interest, suspense, or anxiety. Whatdid it matter what a man looked like--a now familiar but enfeebled anddeprecating voice seemed to say. He knew that a change had come. EvenSheila had noticed it. And since then what had he not gone through? Whatnow was here seemed of little moment, so far at least as this world wasconcerned.

  At last with an effort he rose, crossed the uneven floor, and looked inunmovedly on what was his own poor face come back to him: changed indeedalmost beyond belief from the sleek self-satisfied genial yet languidArthur Lawford of the past years, and still haunted with some fainttrace of the set and icy sharpness, and challenge, and affront of thedark Adventurer, but that--how immeasurably dimmed and blunted andfaded. He had expected to find it so. Would it (the thought vanishedacross his mind) would it have been as unmistakably there had hecome hot-foot, fearing, expecting to find the other? But--was hedisappointed!

  He hardly knew how long he stood there, leaning on his hands, surveyingalmost listlessly in the candle-light that lined, bedraggled, grey,hopeless countenance, those dark-socketed, smouldering eyes, whosepupils even now were so dilated that a casual glance would have failedto detect the least hint of any iris. 'It must have been somethingpretty bad you were, you know, or something pretty bad you did,' theyseemed to be trying to say to him, 'to drag us down to this.'

  He knelt down by force of habit to say his prayers; but no words came.Well, between earthly friends a betrayal such as this would have causeda livelong estrangement and hostility. The God the old Lawford used topray to would forgive him, he thought wearily, if just for the presenthe was a little too sore at heart to play the hypocrite. But if,while kneeling, he said nothing, he saw a good many things in suchtranquillity and clearness as the mere eyes of the body can share butrarely with their sisters of the imagination. And now it was Alicewho looked mournfully out of the dark at him; and now the little oldcharwoman, Mrs Gull, with her bag hooked over her arm, climbed painfullyup the area steps; and now it was the lean vexed face of a friend,nursing some restless and anxious grievance against him--Mr Bethany;and then and ever again it was the face of one who seemed pure dream andfantasy and yet... He listened intently and fancied even now he couldhear the voices of brother and sister talking quietly and circumspectlytogether in the room beneath.