The Return

by Walter De la Mare

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lawford sat on in the darkness, and now one sentence and now another oftheir talk would repeat itself in his memory, in much the same way asone listlessly turns over an antiquated diary, to read here and there aflattened and almost meaningless sentiment. Sometimes a footstep passedechoing along the path under the trees, then his thoughts would leavehim, and he would listen and listen till it had died quite out. It wasall so very far away. And they too--these talkers--so very far away; asremote and yet as clear as the characters in a play when they have madetheir final bow, and have left the curtained stage, and one is standinguncompanioned and nearly the last of the spectators, and the lights thathave summoned back reality again are being extinguished. It was only bypainful effort of mind that he kept recalling himself to himself--why hewas here; what it all meant; that this was indeed actuality.

  Yet, after all, this by now was his customary loneliness: there waslittle else he desired for the present than the hospitality of the dark.He glanced around him in the clear, black, stirless air. Here and there,it seemed, a humped or spindled form held against all comers its passiveplace. Here and there a tiny faintness of light played. Night afternight these chairs and tables kept their blank vigil. Why, he thought,pleased as an overtired child with the fancy, in a sense they werealways alone, shut up in a kind of senselessness--just like us all. Butwhat--what, he had suddenly risen from his chair to ask himself--whaton earth are they alone with? No precise answer had been forthcoming tothat question. But as in turning in the doorway, he looked out intothe night, flashing here and there in dark spaces of the sky abovethe withering apple leaves--the long dark wall and quiet untroddenroad--with the tumultuous beating of the stars--one thing at least hewas conscious of having learned in these last few days: he knew whatkind of a place he was alone IN.

  It seemed to weave a spell over him, to call up a nostalgia he had lostall remembrance of since childhood. And that queer homesickness, atany rate, was all Sabathier's doing, he thought, smiling in his rathercareworn fashion. Sabathier! It was this mystery, bereft now of allfear, and this beauty together, that made life the endless, changing andyet changeless, thing it was. And yet mystery and loveliness alike wereonly really appreciable with one's legs, as it were, dangling down overinto the grave.

  Just with one's lantern lit, on the edge of the whispering unknown, anda reiterated going back out of the solitude into the light and warmth,to the voices and glancing of eyes, to say good-bye:--that after all wasthis life on earth for those who watched as well as acted. What if one'searthly home were empty?--still the restless fretted traveller musttarry; 'for the horrible worst of it is, my friend,' he said, as if tosome silent companion listening behind him, 'the worst of it is, YOURway was just simply, solely suicide.' What was it Herbert had calledit? Yes, a cul-de-sac--black, lofty, immensely still and old andpicturesque, but none the less merely a contemptible cul-de-sac; noabiding place, scarcely even sufficing with its flagstones for a groanfrom the fugitive and deluded refugee. There was no peace for thewicked. The question of course then came in--Was there any peaceanywhere, for anybody?

  He smiled at a sudden odd remembrance of a quiet, sardonic old auntwhom he used to stay with as a child. 'Children should be seen and notheard,' she would say, peering at him over his favourite pudding.

  His eyes rested vacantly on the darkling street. He fell again intoreverie, gigantically brooded over by shapes only imagination dimlyconceived of: the remote alleys of his mind astir with a shadowy andceaseless traffic which it wasn't at least THIS life's business tohearken after, or regard. And as he stood there in a mysteriouslythronging peaceful solitude such as he had never known before, faintlyout of the silence broke the sound of approaching hoofs. His heartseemed to gather itself close; a momentary blindness veiled his eyes, sowildly had his blood surged up into cheek and brain. He remained, caughtup, with head slightly inclined, listening, as, with an interminabletardiness, measureless anguished hope died down into nothing in hismind.

  Cold and heavy, his heart began to beat again, as if to catch up thoselaggard moments. He turned with an infinite revulsion of feeling to lookout on the lamps of the old fly that had drawn up at his gate.

  He watched incuriously a little old lady rather arduously alight, pause,and look up at his darkened windows, and after a momentary hesitation,and a word over her shoulder to the cabman, stoop and fumble at the ironlatch. He watched her with a kind of wondering aversion, still scarcelytinged with curiosity. She had succeeded in lifting the latch and inpushing her way through, and was even now steadily advancing towardshim along the tiled path. And a minute after he recognised with thestrangest reactions the quiet old figure that had shared a sunset withhim ages and ages ago--his mother's old schoolfellow, Miss Sinnet.

  He was already ransacking the still faintly-perfumed dining-room formatches, and had just succeeded in relighting the still-warm lamp, whenhe heard her quiet step in the porch, even felt her peering in, in thegloom, with all her years' trickling customariness behind her, a littledubious of knocking on a wide-open door.

  But the lamp lit Lawford went out again and welcomed his visitor. 'I amalone,' he was explaining gravely, 'my wife's away and the whole housetopsy-turvy. How very, very kind of you!'

  The old lady was breathing a little heavily after her ascent of thesteep steps, and seemed not to have noticed his outstretched hand. Nonethe less she followed him in, and when she was well advanced into thelighted room, she sighed deeply, raised her veil over the front of herbonnet, and leisurely took out her spectacles.

  'I suppose,' she was explaining in a little quiet voice, 'you ARE MrArthur Lawford, but as I did not catch sight of a light in any of thewindows I began to fear that the cabman might have set me down at thewrong house.'

  She raised her head, and first through, and then over her spectacles shedeliberately and steadfastly regarded him.

  'Yes,' she said to herself, and turned, not as it seemed entirely withsatisfaction, to look for a chair. He wheeled the most comfortable up tothe table.

  'I have been visiting my old friend Miss Tucker--Rev W. Tucker'sdaughter--she, I knew, could give me your address; and sure enough shedid. Your road, d'ye see, was on my way home. And I determined, in spiteof the hour, just to inquire. You must understand, Mr Lawford, therewas something that I rather particularly wanted to say to you. Butthere!--you're looking sadly, sadly ill; and,' she glanced round alittle inquisitively, 'I think my story had better wait for a moreconvenient occasion.'

  'Not at all, Miss Sinnet; please not,' Lawford assured her, 'really. Ihave been ill, but I'm now practically quite myself again. My wife anddaughter have gone away for a few days; and I follow to-morrow, so ifyou'll forgive such a very poor welcome, it may be my--my only chance.Do please let me hear.'

  The old lady leant back in her chair, placed her hands on its arms andsoftly panted, while out of the rather broad serenity of her face shesat blinking up at her companion as if after a long talk, instead ofat the beginning of one. 'No,' she repeated reflectively, 'I don't likeyour looks at all; yet here we are, enjoying beautiful autumn weather,Mr Lawford, why not make use of it?'

  'Oh yes,' said Lawford, 'I do. I have been making tremendous use of it.'

  Her eyelid flickered at his candid glance. 'And does your businesspermit of much walking?'

  'Well, I've been malingering these last few days idling at home; but Iam usually more or less my own man, Miss Sinnet. I walk a little.'

  'H'm, but not much in my direction, Mr Lawford?' she quizzed him.

  'All horrible indolence, Miss Sinnet. But I often--often think of you;and especially just lately.'

  'Well, now,' she wriggled round her head to get a better view of himrather stiffly seated on his chair, 'that's very peculiar; because I toohave been thinking lately a great deal of you. And yet--I fancy Ishall succeed in mystifying you presently--not precisely of you, but ofsomebody else!'

  'You do mystify me--"somebody else"!' he replied gallantly. 'And th
at isthe story, I suppose?'

  'That's the story,' repeated Miss Sinnet with some little triumph. 'Now,let me see; it was on Saturday last--yes, Saturday evening; a wonderfulsunset; Bewley Heath.'

  'Oh yes; my daughter's favourite walk.'

  'And your daughter's age now?'

  'She's nearly sixteen; Alice, you know.'

  'Ah, yes, Alice; to be sure. It is a beautiful walk, and if fine, Igenerally take mine there too. It's near; there's shade; it's verylittle frequented; and I can wander and muse undisturbed. And thatI think is pretty well all that an old woman like me is fit for, MrLawford. "Nearly sixteen!" Is it possible? Dear, dear me? But let me geton. On my way home from the Heath, you may be aware, before one reachesthe road again, there's a somewhat steep ascent. I haven't the strengthI had, and whether I'm fatigued or not, I have always made it a rule torest awhile on a most convenient little seat at the summit, admire theview--what I can see of it--and then make my way quietly, quietly home.On Saturday, however, and it most rarely occurs--once, I remember, whena very civil nursemaid was sitting with two charmingly behaved littlechildren in the sunshine, and I heard they were my old friend MajorLoder's son's children--on Saturday, as I was saying, my own particularlittle haunt was already occupied.' She glanced back at him from out ofher thoughts, as it were. 'By a gentleman. I say, gentleman; though Imust confess that his conduct--perhaps, too, a little something even inhis appearance, somewhat belied the term. Anyhow, gentleman let us callhim.'

  Lawford, all attention, nodded, and encouragingly smiled.

  'I'm not one of those tiresome, suspicious people, Mr Lawford, whodistrust strangers. I have never been molested, and I have enjoyed manyand many a most interesting, and sometimes instructive, talk with anindividual whom I've never seen in my life before, and this side of thegrave perhaps, am never likely to see again.' She lifted her head withpursed lips, and gravely yet still flickeringly regarded him once more.'Well, I made some trifling remark--the weather, the view, what-not,'she explained with a little jerk of her shoulder--'and to my extremeastonishment he turned and addressed me by name--Miss Sinnet.Unmistakably--Sinnet. Now, perhaps, and very rightly, you won'tconsidered THAT a very peculiar thing to do? But you will recollect, MrLawford, that I had been sitting there a considerable time. Surely, now,if you had recognised my face you would have addressed me at once?'

  'Was he, do you think, Miss Sinnet, a little uncertain, perhaps?'

  'Never mind, never mind; let me get on with my story first. The nextthing my gentleman does is more mysterious still. His whole manner wasa little peculiar, perhaps--a certain restlessness, what, in fact, onemight be almost tempted to call a certain furtiveness of behaviour.Never mind. What he does next is to ask me a riddle! Perhaps you won'tthink that was peculiar either?'

  'What was the riddle?' smiled Lawford.

  'Why, to be sure, to guess his name! Simply guided, so I surmised,by some very faint resemblance in his face to his MOTHER, who was,he assured me, an old schoolfellow of mine at BRIGHTON. I thoughtand thought. I confess the adventure was beginning to be a littleperplexing. But of course, very, very few of my old schoolfellows remaindistinctly in my memory now; and I fear that grows more treacherous thelonger I live. Their faces as girls are clear enough. But later in lifemost of them drifted out of sight--many, alas, are dead; and, well, atlast I narrowed my man down to one. And who now, do you suppose thatwas?'

  Lawford sustained an expression of abysmal mystification. 'Do tellme--who?'

  'Your own poor dear mother, Mr Lawford.'

  'HE said so?'

  'No, no,' said the old lady, with some vexation, closing her eyes. 'Isaid so. He asked me to guess. And I guessed Mary Lawford; now do yousee?'

  `Yes, yes. But WAS he like her, Miss Sinnet? That was really very, veryextraordinary. Did you see any likeness in his face?'

  Miss Sinnet very deliberately took her spectacles out of their caseagain. 'Now, see here, sir; this is being practical, isn't it? I'm justgoing to take a leisurely glance at yours. But you mustn't let me forgetthe time. You must look after the time for me.'

  'It's about a quarter to ten,' said Lawford, having glanced first at thestopped clock on the chimney-piece and then at his watch. He then satquite still and endeavoured to sit at ease, while the old lady liftedher bonneted head and ever so gravely and benignly surveyed him.

  'H'm,' she said at last. 'There's no mistaking YOU. It's Mary's chin,and Mary's brow--with just a little something, perhaps, of her dreamyeye. But you haven't all her looks, Mr Lawford, by any manner of means.She was a very beautiful girl, and so vivacious, so fanciful--it was, Isuppose the foreign strain showing itself. Even marriage did not quitesucceed in spoiling her.'

  'The foreign strain?' Lawford glanced with a kind of fleeting fixity atthe quiet old figure. 'The foreign strain?'

  Your mother's maiden name, my dear Mr Lawford, surely memory does notdeceive me in that, was van der Gucht. THAT, I believe, is a foreignname.'

  'Ah, yes,' said Lawford, his rising thoughts sinking quietly to restagain. 'Van der Gucht, of course. I--how stupid of me!'

  'As a matter of fact, your mother was very proud of her Dutch blood. Butthere,' she flung out little fin-like sleeves, 'if you don't let me keepto my story I shall go back as uneasy as I came. And you didn't,' sheadded even more fretfully, 'you didn't tell me the time.'

  Lawford stared at his watch again for some few moments without replying.'It's a few minutes to ten,' he said at last.

  'Dear me! And I'm keeping the cabman! I mast hurry on. Well, now, I putit to you; you shall be my father confessor--though I detest the idea inreal life--was I wrong? Was I justified in professing to the poor fellowthat I detected a likeness when there was extremely little likenessthere?'

  'What! None at all!' cried Lawford; 'not the faintest trace?'

  'My dear good Mr Lawford,' she expostulated, patting her lap, 'there'svery little more than a trace of my dear beautiful Mary in YOU, herown son. How could there be--how could you expect it in him, a completestranger? No, it was nothing but my own foolish kindliness. It mighthave been Mary's son for all that I could recollect. I haven't foryears, please remember, had the pleasure of receiving a visit fromYOU. I am firmly of opinionthat I was justified. My motive was entirelybenevolent. And then--to my positive amazement--well, I won't say hardthings of the absent; but he suddenly turns round on me with a "Thankyou, Miss Bennett." Bennett, hark ye! Perhaps you won't agree that I hadany justification in being vexed and--and affronted at THAT.'

  'I think, Miss Sinnet,' said Lawford solemnly, 'that you were perfectlyjustified. Oh, perfectly. I wonder even you had the patience to givethe real Arthur Lawford a chance to ask your forgiveness for--or thestranger.'

  'Well, candidly,' said Miss Sinnett severely. 'I was very muchscandalised; and I shouldn't be here now telling you my story if ithadn't been for your mother.'

  'My mother!'

  The old lady rather grimly enjoyed his confusion. 'Yes, Mr Lawford,your mother. I don't know why--something in his manner, something inhis face--so dejected, so unhappy, so--if it is not uncharitablnesse tosay it--so wild: it has haunted me: I haven't been able to put thematter out of my mind. I have lain awake in my bed thinking of him. Whydid he speak to me, I keep asking myself. Why did he play me so veryaimless a trick? How had he learned my name? Why was he sitting there sosolitary and so dejected? And worse even than that, what has become ofhim? A little more patience, a little more charity, perhaps--what mightI not have done for him? The whole thing has harassed and distressed memore than I can say. Would you believe it, I have actually twice, and onone occasion, three times in a day made my way to the seat--hoping tosee him there. And I am not so young as I was. And then, as I say, tocrown all, I had a most remarkable dream about your mother. But that'smy own affair. Elderly people like me are used--well, perhaps I won'tsay used--we're not surprised or disturbed by visits from those who havegone before. We live, in a sense, among the tombs; though I would nothave you fancy it's in any way a morb
id or unhappy life to lead. Wedon't talk about it--certainly not to young people. Let them enjoy theirEden while they can; though there's plenty of apples, I fear, on theTree yet, Mr Lawford.'

  She leant forward and whispered it with a big, simple smile:--'We don'teven discuss it much among ourselves. But as one gets nearer and nearerto the wicket-gate there's other company around one than you'll findin--in the directory. And that is why I have just come on here tonight.Very probably my errand may seem to have no meaning for you. You lookill, but you don't appear to be in any great trouble or adversity, as Ifeared in my--well, there--as I feared you might be. I must say, though,it seems a terribly empty house. And no lights, too!'

  She slowly, with a little trembling nodding of her bonnet, turnedher head and glanced quietly, fixedly, and unflinchingly, out of thehalf-open door. 'But that's not my affair.' And again she looked at himfor a little while.

  Then she stooped forward and touched him kindly and trustingly on theknee. 'Trouble or no trouble,' she said, 'it's never too late to reminda man of his mother. And I'm sure, Mr Lawford, I'm very glad to hear youare struggling up out of your illness again. We must keep a brave heart,forty or seventy, whichever we may be: "While the evil days come not northe years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them,"though they have not come to me even yet; and I trust from the bottom ofmy heart, not to YOU.'

  She looked at him without a trace of emotion or constraint in herlarge, quiet face, and their eyes met for a moment in that brief, fixed,baffling fashion that seems to prove that mankind is after all but adumb masked creature saddled with the vain illusion of speech.

  'And now that I've eased my conscience,' said the old lady, pullingdown her veil, 'I must beg pardon for intruding at such an hour of theevening. And may I have your arm down those dreadful steps? Really, MrLawford, judging from the houses they erect for us, the builders musthave a very peculiar notion of mankind. Is the fly still there? Iexpressly told the man to wait, and what I am going to do if--!'

  'He's there,' Lawford reassured her, craning his neck in their slowprogress to catch a peep into the quiet road. And like a flock of birdsscared by a chance comer at their feeding in some deserted field, awhirring cloud of memories swept softly up in his mind--memories whoseimport he made no effort to discover. None the less, the leisurelydescent became in their company something of a real experience even insuch a brimming week.

  'I hope, some day, you will really tell me your dream?' he said, pushingthe old lady's silk skirts in after her as she slowly climbed into thecarriage.

  'Ah, my dear Lawford, when you are my age,' she called back to him,groping her way into the rather musty gloom, 'you'll dream such dreamsfor yourself. Life's not what's just the fashion. And there are queererthings to be seen and heard just quietly in one's solitude than thisbusy life gives us time to discover. But as for my mystifying Bewleyacquaintance--I confess I cannot make head or tail of him.'

  'Was he,' said Lawford rather vaguely, looking up into the dim whiteface that with its plumes filled nearly the whole carriage window, 'washis face very unpleasing?'

  She raised a gloved hand. 'It has haunted me, haunted me, Mr Lawford;its--its conflict! Poor fellow; I hope, I do hope, he faced his troubleout. But I shall never see him again.'

  He squeezed the trembling, kindly old hand. 'I bet, Miss Sinnet,' hesaid earnestly, 'even your having thought kindly of the poor beggareased his mind--whoever he may have been. I assure you, assure you ofthat.'

  'Ay, but I did more than THINK,' replied the old lady with a chucklethat might have seemed even a little derisive if it had not been soprofoundly magnanimous.

  He watched the old black fly roll slowly off, and still smiling at MissSinnet's inscrutable finesse went back into the house. 'And now, myfriend,' he said, addressing peacefully the thronging darkness, 'thetime's nearly up for me to go too.'

  He had made up his mind. Or, rather, it seemed as if in the unregardedsilences of this last long talk his mind had made up itself. Only amongimpossibilities had he the shadow of a choice. In this old hauntedhouse, amid this shallow turmoil no practicable clue could show itselfof a way out. He would go away for a while.

  He left the door ajar behind him for the moments still left, andstood for a while thinking. Then, lamp in hand, he descended into thebreakfast-room for pen, ink, and paper. He sat for some time in thatunderground calm, nibbling his pen like a harassed and self-consciousschoolboy. At last he began:

  'MY DEAR SHEILA,--I must tell you, to begin with, that the CHANGE hasnow all passed away. I am--as near as man can be--completely myselfagain. And next: that I overheard all that was said to-night in thedining-room.

  'I'm sorry for listening; but it's no good going over all that now. HereI am, and, as you said, for Alice's sake we must make the best of it. Iam going away for a while, to get, if I can, a chance to quiet down. Isuppose every one comes sooner or later to a time in life when thereis nothing else to be done but just shut one's eyes and blunder on. Andthat's all I can do now--blunder on....'

  He paused, and suddenly, at the echo of the words in his mind, arevulsion of feeling--shame and hatred of himself surged up, and hetore his letter into tiny pieces. Once more he began, 'my dear Sheila,'dropped his pen, sat on for a long time, cold and inert, harbouringalmost unendurably a pitiful, hopeless longing.... He would write toGrisel another day.

  He leant back in his chair, his fingers pressed against his eyelids. Andclearer than those which myriad-hued reality can ever present, picturesof the imagination swam up before his eyes. It seemed, indeed, that evennow some ghost, some revenant of himself was sitting there, in the oldgreen churchyard, roofed only with a thousand thousand stars. The breathof darkness stirred softly on his cheek. Some little scampering shapeslipped by. A bird on high cried weirdly, solemnly, over the globe. Heshuddered faintly, and looked out again into the small lamplit room.

  Here, too, was quite as inexplicable a coming and going. A fly waswalking on the table beneath his eyes, with the uneasy gait of one thathas outlived his hour and most of his companions. Mice were scamperingand shrieking in the empty kitchen. And all about him, in the viewlessair, the phantoms of another life passed by, unmindful of his motionlessbody. He fell into a lethargy of the senses, and only gradually becameaware after a while of the strange long-drawn sigh of rain at thewindow. He rose and opened it. The night air flowed in, chilled with itswaters and faintly fragrant of the dust. It soothed away all thought fora while. He turned back to his chair. He would wait until the rain hadlulled before starting....

  A little before midnight the door was softly, and with extreme care,pushed open, and Mr Bethany's old face, with an intense and sharpenedscrutiny, looked in on the lamplit room. And as if still intent onthe least sound within the empty walls around him, he came near, andstooping across the table, stared through his spectacles at the sidelongface of his friend, so still, with hands so lightly laid on the arms ofhis chair that the old man had need to watch closely to detect in hisheavy slumber the slow measured rise and fall of his breast.

  He turned wearily away muttering a little, between an immeasurablerelief and a now almost intolerable medley of vexations. What WASthis monstrous web of Craik's? What HAD the creature been nodding andducketing about?--those whisperings, that tattling? And what in the end,when you were old and sour and out-strategied, what was the end to beof this urgent dream called Life? He sat quietly down and drew his handsover his face, pushed his lean knotted fingers up under his spectacles,then sat blinking--and softly slowly deciphered the solitary 'My dearSheila' on Lawford's note-paper. 'H'm,' he muttered, and looked up againat the dark still eyelids that in the strange torpor of sleep might yetbe dimly conveying to the dreaming brain behind them some hint of hispresence. 'I wish to goodness, you wonderful old creature,' he muttered,wagging his head, 'I wish to goodness you'd wake up.'

  For some time he sat on, listening to the still soft downpour on thefading leaves. 'They don't come to me,' he said softly again; with atiny smile o
n his old face. 'It's that old medieval Craik: with aface like a last year's rookery!' And again he sat, with head a littlesidelong, listening now to the infinitesimal sounds of life without,now to the thoughts within, and ever and again he gazed steadfastly onLawford.

  At last it seemed in the haunted quietness other thoughts came to him.A cloud, as it were of youth, drew over the wrinkled skin, composed thebirdlike keenness; his head nodded. Once, like Lawford in the darknessat Widderstone, he glanced up sharply across the lamplight athis phantasmagorical shadowy companion, heard the steady surge ofmultitudinous rain-drops, like the roar of Time's winged chariothurrying near; then he too, with spectacles awry, bobbed on in hischair, a weary old sentinel on the outskirts of his friend's denudedbattlefield.