The Return

by Walter De la Mare

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A quiet knocking aroused him in the long, tranquil bedroom; andHerbert's head was poked into the room. 'There's a bath behind that doorover there,' he whispered, `or if you like I'm off for a bathe in theWidder. It's a luscious day. Shall I wait? All right,' and the head waswithdrawn. 'Don't put much on,' came the voice at the panel; 'we'll behome again in twenty minutes.'

  The green and brightness of the morning must have been prepared forovernight by spiders and the dew. Everywhere the gleaming nets werehung, and everywhere there rose a tiny splendour from the waterdrops, soclear and pure and changeable it seemed with their fire and colourthey shook a tiny crystal music in the air. Herbert led the way along aclayey downward path beneath hazels tossing softly together their twigsof nuts, until they came out into a rounded hollow that, mounded withthyme, sloped gently down to the green banks of the Widder. The waterpoured like clearest glass beneath a rain of misty sunbeams.

  'My sister always says that this is the very dell Boccaccio had in hismind's eye when he wrote the "Decameron." There really is somethingalmost classic in those pines. And I'd sometimes swear with my eyes justout of the water I've seen Dryads half in hiding peeping between thosebeeches. Good Lord, Lawford, what a world we wretched moderns have made,and missed!'

  The water was violently cold. It seemed to Lawford, as it swept up overhis body, and as he plunged his night-distorted eyes beneath its blazingsurface, that it was charged with some strange, powerful enchantment towash away in its icy clearness even the memory of the dull and tarnisheddays behind him. If one could but tie up anyhow that stained bundle ofinconsequent memories called life, and fling it into a cupboard remotereven than Bluebeard's, and lock the door, and drop the quickly-rustingkey into these living waters!

  He dressed himself with window thrown open to the blackbirds andthrushes, and the occasional shrill solitary whistling of a robin. But,like the sour-sweet fragrance of the brier, its wandering desolate burstof music had power to wake memory, and carried him instantly back tothat first aimless descent into the evening gloom of Widderstone fromwhich it was in vain to hope ever to climb again. Surely never a moreghoulish face looked out on its man before than that which confrontedhim as with borrowed razor he stood shaving those sunken chaps, thatangular chin.

  And even now, beneath the lantern of broad daylight, just as within thatother face had lurked the undeniable ghost and presence of himself, sobeneath the sunken features seemed to float, tenuous as smoke, scarcelyless elusive than a dream, between eye and object, the sinister darknessof the face that in those two bouts with fear he had by some strangemiracle managed to repel.

  'Work in,' the chance phrase came back. It had worked in in soberearnest; and so far as the living of the next few weeks went, surely itmight prove an ally without which he simply could not conceive himselfas struggling on at all.

  But as dexterous minds as even restless Sabathier's had him just now insafe and kindly keeping. All the quiet October morning Herbert kept himtalking and stooping over his extraordinary collection of books.

  'The point is,' he explained to Lawford, standing amid a positivearchipelago of precious 'finds,' with his foot hoisted onto a chair anda patched-up, sea-stained folio on his knee, 'I honestly detest the meregive and take of what we are fools enough to call life. I don't denyLife's there,' he swept his hand towards the open window--'in thatfrantic Tophet we call London; but there's no focus, no point ofvantage. Even a scribbler only gets it piecemeal and through a dulledmedium. We learn to read before we know how to see; we swallow ourtastes, convictions, and emotions whole; so that nine-tenths of theworld's nectar is merely honeydew.' He smiled pleasantly into thefixed vacancy of his visitor's face. 'That's why I've just gone on,' hecontinued amiably, 'collecting this particular kind of stuff--what youmight call riff-raff. There's not a book here, Lawford, that hasn'tat least a glimmer of the real thing in it--just Life, seen througha living eye, and felt. As for literature, and style, and all thatgallimaufry, don't fear for them if your author has the ghost of a hintof genius in his making.'

  'But surely,' said Lawford, trying for the twentieth time to pretendto himself that these endless books carried the faintest savour of thedelight to him which they must, he rather forlornly supposed, showerupon Herbert, 'surely genius is a very rare thing!'

  'Rare! the world simply swarms with it. But before you can bottle it upin a book it's got to be articulate. Just for a single instant imagineyourself Falstaff, and if there weren't hundreds of Falstaffs in everygeneration, to be examples of his ungodly life, he'd be as dead as adoornail to-morrow--imagine yourself Falstaff, and being so,sitting down to write "Henry IV," or "The Merry Wives." It's simplypreposterous. You wouldn't be such a fool as to waste the time. A mereElizabethan scribbler comes along with a gift of expression and anobservant eye, lifts the bloated old tippler clean out of life, andswims down the ages as the greatest genius the world has ever seen.Whereas, surely, though you mustn't let me bore you with all thispiffle, it's Falstaff is the genius, and W. S. merely a talentedreporter.

  'Lear, Macbeth, Mercutio--they live on their own, as it were. Thenewspapers are full of them, if we were only the Shakespeares to see it.Have you ever been in a Police Court? Have you ever WATCHED tradesmenbehind their counters? My soul, the secrets walking in the streets! Youjostle them at every corner. There's a Polonius in every first-classrailway carriage, and as many Juliets as there are boarding-schools.What the devil are you, my dear chap, but genius itself, with all theworld brand new upon your shoulders? And who'd have thought it of youten days ago?

  'It's simply and solely because we're all, poor wretches, dumb--dumb asbutts of Malmsez; dumb as drummerless drums. Here am I, ass that I am,trickling out this--this whey that no more expresses me than Tupperdoes Sappho. But that's what I want to mean. How inexhaustibly richeverything is, if you only stick to life. Here it is packed away behindthese rotting covers, just the real thing, no respectable stodge; nomere parasitic stuff; not more than a dozen poets; scores of outcastsand vagabonds--and the real thing in vagabonds is pretty rare in print,I can tell you. We're all, every one of us, sodden with facts, druggedwith the second-hand, and barnacled with respectability until--until thetouch comes. Goodness knows where from; but there's no mistaking it; ohno!'

  'But what,' said Lawford uneasily, 'what on earth do you mean by thetouch?'

  'I mean when you cease to be a puppet only and sit up in the gallerytoo. When you squeeze through to the other side. When you suffer a kindof conversion of the mind; become aware of your senses. When you get aliving inkling. When you become articulate to yourself. When you SEE.'

  'I am awfully stupid,' Lawford murmured, 'but even now I don't reallyfollow you a bit. But when, as you say, you do become articulate toyourself, what happens then?'

  'Why, then,' said Herbert with a shrug almost of despair, 'thenbegins the weary tramp back. One by one drop off the truisms, and theGrundyisms, and the pedantries, and all the stillborn claptrap of themarketplace sloughs off. Then one can seriously begin to think aboutsaving one's soul.'

  'Saving one's soul,' groaned Lawford; 'why, I am not even sure of my ownbody yet.' He walked slowly over to the window and with every thought inhis head as quiet as doves on a sunny wall, stared out into the gardenof green things growing, leaves fading and falling water. 'I tell youwhat,' he said, turning irresolutely, 'I wonder if you could possiblyfind time to write me out a translation of Sabathier. My French is muchtoo hazy to let me really get at the chap. He's gone now; but I reallyshould like to know what kind of stuff exactly he has left behind.'

  'Oh, Sabathier!' said Herbert, laughing. 'What do you think of that,Grisel?' he asked, turning to his sister, who at that moment had lookedin at the door. 'Here's Mr Lawford asking me to make a translation ofSabathier. Lunch, Lawford.'

  Lawford sighed. And not until he had slowly descended half the narrowuneven stairs that led down to the dining-room did he fully realise theguile of a sister that could induce a hopeless bookwo
rm to waste a wholemorning over the stupidest of companions, simply to keep his tired-outmind from rankling, and give his Sabathier a chance to go to roost.

  'I think, do you know,' he managed to blurt out at last 'I think I oughtto be getting home again. The house is empty--and--'

  'You shall go this evening,' said Herbert, 'if you really must insiston it. But honestly, Lawford, we both think that after what the last fewdays must have been, it is merely common sense to take a rest. How canyou possibly rest with a dozen empty rooms echoing every thought youthink? There's nothing more to worry about; you agree to that. Sendyour people a note saying that you are here, safe and sound. Give them achance of lighting a fire, and driving in the fatted calf. Stay on withus just the week out.'

  Lawford turned from one to the other of the two friendly faces. But whatwas dimly in his mind refused to express itself. 'I think, you know,I--' he began falteringly.

  'But it's just this thinking that's the deuce--this preposterous habitof having continually to make up one's mind. Off with his head, Grisel!My sister's going to take you for a picnic; we go every other fineafternoon; and you can argue it out with her.'

  Once alone again with Grisel, however, Lawford found talkingunnecessary. Silences seemed to fall between them as quietly andrestfully as evening flows into night. They walked on slowly through thefading woods, and when they had reached the top of the hill that slopeddown to the dark and foamless Widder they sat down in the honey-scentedsunshine on a knoll of heather and bracken, and Grisel lighted thelittle spirit-kettle she had brought with her, and busied herself verymethodically over making tea.

  That done, she clasped her hands round her knees, and sat now gossiping,now silent, in the pale autumnal beauty. There was a bird wistfullytwittering in the branches overhead, and ever and again a withered leafwould slip circling down from the motionless beech boughs arched intheir stillness above their heads beneath the thin blue sky.

  'Men, you know,' she began again suddenly, starting out of reverie,'really are absurdly blind; and just a little bit absurdly kindlystupid. How many times have I been at the point of laughing out at mybrother's delicious naive subtleties. But you do, you will, understand,Mr Lawford, that he was, that we are both "doing our best"--to makeamends?'

  'I understand--I do indeed--a tenth part of all your kindness.'

  'Yes, but that's just it--that horrible word "kindness"! If ever therewere two utterly self-absorbed people, without a trace, with an absolutehorror of kindness, it is just my brother and I. It's most of it falseand most of it useless. We all surely must take what comes in thistopsy-turvy world. I believe in saying out:--that the more one thinksabout life the worse it becomes. There are only two kinds of happinessin this world--a wooden post's and Prometheus's. And who ever heardof any one having the impudence to be kind to Prometheus? As for amiserable "medium" like me, not quite a post and leagues and leaguesfrom even envying a Prometheus, she's better for the powder without thejam. But that's all nothing. What I can't help thinking--and it's not abit giving my brother away, because we both think it--that it was partlyour thoughtlessness that added at least something to--to the rest. Itwas perfectly absurd. He saw you were ill; he saw--he must have seeneven in that first Sunday talk--that your nerves were all askew. Andwho doesn't know what "nerves" means nowadays? And yet he deliberatelychattered. He loves it--just at large, you know, like me. I told himbefore I came out that I intended, if I could, to say all this. And nowit's said you'll please forgive me for going back to it.'

  'Please don't talk about forgiveness. But when you say he chattered, youmean about Sabathier, of course. And that, you know, I don't care a figfor now. We can settle all that between ourselves--him and me, I mean.And now tell me candidly again--Is there any "prey" in my face now?'

  She looked up fleetingly into his eyes, leant back her head and laughed.'"Prey," there never was a glimpse.'

  'And "change"?' Their eyes met again in an infinitely brief, infinitelybewildering argument.

  'Really, really, scarcely perceptible,' she assured him, 'except, ofcourse, how horribly, horribly ill you look. And that only seems toprove to me you must be hiding something else. No illusion on earthcould--could have done that to your face.'

  'You think, I know,' he persisted, 'that I must be persuaded andcosseted and humoured. Yes, you do; it's my poor old sanity that'sreally in both your minds. Perhaps I am--not absolutely sound. Anyhow.I've been watching it in your looks at each other all the time. And Ican never, never say, never tell you what you have done for me. But yousee, after all, we did win through; I keep on telling myself that. Sothat now it's purely from the most selfish and practical motives that Iwant you to be perfectly frank with me. I have to go back, you know; andsome of them, one or two of my friends I mean, are not all on my side.Think of me as I was when you came into the room, three centuries ago,and you turned and looked, frowning at me in the candle-light; rememberthat and look at me now. What is the difference? Does it shock you? Doesit make the whole world seem a trick, a sham? Does it simply sour yourlife to think such a thing possible? Oh, the hours I've spent gloatingon Widderstone's miserable mask of skin and bone, as I was saying toyour brother only last night, and never knew until they shuffled me thatthe old self too was nothing better than a stifling suffocating mask.'

  'But don't you see,' she argued softly, turning her face away a little,'you were a stranger then (though I certainly didn't mean to frown). Andthen a little while after we were, well, just human beings, shoulderto shoulder, and if friendship does not mean that, I don't know what itdoes mean. And now, you are--well, just you: the you, you know, of threecenturies ago! And if you mean to ask me whether at any precise momentI have been conscious that this you I am now speaking to was not theyou of last night, or of that dark climb up the hill, why, it is simplyfrantic to think it could ever be necessary to say over and over again,No. But if you mean, Have you changed else? All I could answer is, Don'twe all change as we grow to know one another? What were just features,what just dingily represented one, as it were, is forgotten, or rathergets remembered. Of course, the first glimpse is the landscape underlightning as it were. But afterwards isn't it surely like the alphabetto a child; what was first a queer angular scrawl becomes A, and isalways ever after A, undistinguished, half-forgotten, yet standing atlast for goodness knows what real wonderful things--or for just the drybones of soulless words? Is that it?' She stole a sidelong glance intohis brooding face, leaning her head on her hand.

  'Yes, yes,' came the rather dissatisfied reply. 'I do agree; perfectly.But then, you see--I told you I was going to talk of nothing butmyself--what did at first happen to me was something much worse, and, Isuppose, something quite different from that.'

  'And yet, didn't you tell us, that of all your friends not one reallydenied in their hearts your--what they would call, I suppose--yourIDENTITY; except that poor little offended old lady. And even she, if myintuition is worth a penny piece, even she when you go soon and talk toher will own that she did know you, and that it was not because youwere a stranger that she was offended, but because you so ungenerouslypretended to be one. That was a little mad, now, if you like!'

  'Oh yes,' said Lawford, 'I am going to ask her forgiveness. I don't knowwhat I didn't vow to take her for a peace-offering if the chance shouldever come--and the courage--to make my peace with her. But now that thechance has come, and I think the courage, it is the desire that's gone.I don't seem to care either way. I feel as if I had got past making mypeace with any one.'

  But this time no answer helped him out.

  'After all,' he went plodding on, 'there is more than just the mere dayto day to consider. And one doesn't realise that one's face actuallyIS one's fortune without a shock. And that THAT gone, one is, asyour brother said, just like a bee come back to the wrong hive. Itundermines,' he smiled rather bitterly, 'one's views rather. And itcertainly shifts one's friends. If it hadn't been just for my old'--hestopped dead, and again pushed slowly on--'if it hadn't been for ouro
ld friend, Mr Bethany, I doubt if we should now have had a soul on ourside. I once read somewhere that wolves always chase the old and weakand maimed out of the pack. And after all, what do we do? Where dowe keep the homeless and the insane? And yet, you know,' he addedruminatingly, 'it is not as if mine was ever a particularly lovely orlovable face! While as for the poor wretch behind it, well, I reallycannot see what meaning, or life even, he had before--'

  'Before?'

  Lawford met bravely the clear whimsical eyes. 'Before, I wasSabathiered.'

  Grisel laughed outright.

  'You think,' he retorted almost bitterly, 'you think I am talking like achild.'

  'Yes,' she sighed cheerfully, 'I was quite envying you.'

  'Well, there I am,' said Lawford inconsequently. 'And now; well, now,I suppose, the whole thing's to begin again. I can't help beginning towonder what the meaning of it all is; why one's duty should always seemso very stupid a thing. And then, too, what can there be on earththat even a buried Sabathier could desire?' He glanced up in a reallyanimated perplexity at the still, dark face turned in the evening lighttowards the darkening valley. And perplexity deepened into a disquietedfrown--like that of a child who is roused suddenly from a daydream bythe half-forgotten question of a stranger. He turned his eyes almostfurtively away as if afraid of disturbing her; and for awhile they satin silence... At last he turned again almost shyly. 'I hope some day youwill let me bring my daughter to see you.'

  'Yes, yes,' said Grisel eagerly; 'we should both LOVE it, of course.Isn't it curious?--I simply KNEW you had a daughter. Sheer intuition!'

  'I say "some day,"' said Lawford; 'I know, though, that that some daywill never come.'

  'Wait; just wait,' replied the quiet confident voice, 'that will cometoo. One thing at a time, Mr Lawford. You've won your old self backagain; you'll win your old love of life back again in a little while;never fear. Oh, don't I know that awful Land's End after illness; andthat longing, too, that gnawing longing, too, for Ultima Thule. So,it's a bargain between us that you bring your daughter soon.' She busiedherself over the tea things. 'And, of course,' she added, as if it werean afterthought, looking across at him in the pale green sunlight as sheknelt, 'you simply won't think of going back to-night.... Solitude, Ireally do think, solitude just now would be absolute madness. You'llwrite to-day and go, perhaps, to-morrow!'

  Lawford looked across in his mind at his square ungainly house,full-fronting the afternoon sun. He tried to repress a shudder. 'Ithink, do you know, I ought to go to-day.'

  'Well, why not? Why not? Just to reassure yourself that all's well. Andcome back here to sleep. If you'd really promise that I'd drive you in.I'd love it. There's the jolliest little governess-cart we sometimeshire for our picnics. Way I? You've no idea how much easier in our mindsmy brother and I would be if you would. And then to-morrow, or at anyrate the next day, you shall be surrendered, whole and in your rightmind. There, that's a bargain too. Now we must hurry.'