by Hugh Ealpole
It was certainly impossible for him, in the dim world of his mind, to realise what it was that she intended to do, but he knew, through some strange channel of knowledge, that his mother was concerned in this, and that something more than the immediate peril of himself was involved. He had also, lost in the dim mazes of his mind, a consciousness that there were treasures in the house, and that his mother was placed there to guard them, and even that he himself shared her duty.
It did not come to him that Mrs Carter was in pursuit of these treasures, but he did realise that her presence there amongst them brought peril to his mother. Moved then by some desperate urgency which had at its heart his sense that to be left alone in the black passage was worse than the actual lighted vision of his Terror, he crept with trembling knees across the passage and through the door
Inside the room he saw that she had placed the candle upon the piano, and was bending over a drawer, trying again to fit a key. He stood in the doorway, a tiny figure, very, very cold, all his soul in his silent appeal for some help. His Friend must come. He was somewhere there in the house. ‘Come! Help me!’ The candle suddenly flared into a finger of light that flung the room into vision. Mrs Carter, startled, raised herself, and at that same moment Henry gave a cry—a weak little trembling sound.
She turned and saw the boy; as their eyes met he felt the Terror rushing upon him. He flung a last desperate appeal for help, staring at her as though his eyes would never let her go, and she, finding him so unexpectedly, could only gape. In their silent gaze at one another, in the glassy stare of Mrs Carter and the trembling, flickering one of Henry, there was more than any ordinary challenge could have conveyed. Mrs Carter must have felt at the first immediate confrontation of the strange little figure that her feet were on the very edge of some most desperate precipice. The long room and the passages beyond must have quivered. At that very first moment, with some stir, some hinted approach, Henry called, with the desperate summoning of all his ghostly world, upon his gods. They came. . . .
In her eyes he saw suddenly something else than vague terror. He saw recognition. He felt himself a rushing, heartening comfort; he knew that his Friend had somehow come, that he was no longer alone.
But Mrs Carter’s eyes were staring beyond him, over him, into the black passage. Her eyes seemed to grow as though the terror in them was pushing them out beyond their lids; her breath came in sharp, tearing gasps. The keys with a clang dropped from her hand.
‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’ she whispered. He did not turn his head to grasp what it was that she saw in the passage. The Terror had been transferred from himself to her.
The colour in her cheeks went out, leaving her as though her face were suddenly shadowed by some overhanging shape.
Her eyes never moved or faltered from the dark into whose heart she gazed. Then, there was a strangled, gasping cry, and she sank down, first on to her knees, then in a white faint, her eyes still staring, lay huddled on the floor.
Henry felt his Friend’s hand on his shoulder.
Meanwhile, down in the kitchen, the fire had sunk into grey ashes, and Mrs Slater was lying back in her chair, her head back, snoring thickly; an empty glass had tumbled across the table, and a few drops from it had dribbled over on to the tablecloth.
The Fear of Death
I WILL acknowledge that I was disgusted when I heard that William Rollin was in the hotel. That seemed to me, at the moment, the very worst piece of bad luck. I had come to Sark to escape from everyone, to have a real holiday, and here in this same small hotel, on this same small island, was one of the human beings whom I deeply, with all my soul, disliked. One dislikes, I fancy, very few people with one’s soul. Only once or twice in a lifetime does one encounter a man who affects one so strongly on a very slight acquaintance.
I had met Rollin once or twice, in London, and a good many years ago. He was a man of very considerable reputation, and all of that reputation bad. The human race, I have found, is almost universally fond of gossip and at the same time charitable. When one or two are gathered together they will tear anyone you please to shreds, but in all kindness of heart, simply because they want to pass a pleasant hour and be thought, by their fellows, amusing, interesting and broad-minded. Once and again, however, someone appears whom society agrees to consider dangerous and beyond the pale. This dislike (which is also fear) does not come, especially in these days, from any horror at act or even crime. I have known men and women whose lives were publicly notorious, but there has been about them some quality of kindness or stupidity that has, on the whole, exonerated them. Rollin’s moral reputation was bad, but no moral reputation worries anyone any more, unless it is emphasised by the newspapers. No, it was the man himself, an atmosphere that accompanied him, that people could not endure. He had, of course, his own cronies, and the man was so intelligent that he was often excellent company, but he was an animal whose brilliance was dangerous. He was, for no very clear reason, an enemy to society, always involved in squabbles, disputes . . . and yet there was also something pathetic about him. He was of the jungle, but always alone there—and he knew it.
There was no reason, except his intelligence, for his position of importance (for he had undoubtedly a kind of importance). He was ugly, a bounder, a sycophant, a snob, a bully. His financial affairs were always on the edge of desperation. He had for many years been in and out of the hands of moneylenders; he had debts everywhere, and it was one of his specially charming characteristics that he never either attempted to repay, nor did he forgive anyone who was fool enough to lend him money.
Nevertheless, his intelligence was remarkable. Had his character and personality not betrayed him, he could have done anything. He was many-sided, cared about games and played them well, was an excellent linguist, read voluminously, had an interest in everything except, oddly, horses. He used to say that he had never been to a race-meeting in his life. I say ‘oddly’ because to look at him you would think that he had spent his life in and around stables.
His supreme passion was for pictures. Had he had money he would have been one of the finest collectors of our time; having less than none he yet managed to pick up, for almost nothing, some lovely things. He possessed a beautiful little Canaletto, a lovely Renoir still-life, a Matisse that he had bought for nothing at all in his younger days in Paris, and an Italian Primitive which in its freshness of colour and sincerity of feeling was one of the most enchanting things I have ever seen. His knowledge of and taste for pictures was extremely catholic, his judgment superb, and when he talked of them a different soul seemed to peep out from his mean little eyes. . . .
His one genius, however, did not cover the unpleasantness of the rest of him, and it may be imagined with what disgust I saw him, when on the day after arrival I went into breakfast, seated at a table near me with a woman who was, I knew, his second wife. There was no avoiding him. I stood at his table for a moment and he introduced me to his wife. He always met one like an animal on the defensive, as though he expected an attack. An uglier man I have seldom encountered. He was short, thickset, and wore, generally, clothes of a light colour, rather ‘horsy’. He was almost bald, had small, suspicious eyes and a cruel and greedy mouth, but it was his complexion which was his real trouble. He drank a good deal, I imagine, but he had not exactly the colour of a drunkard. He was like a piece of undercooked beef, white and red and streaky. His hand was flabby to the touch, and he always withdrew it quickly as though he were afraid that you would hold it firmly and lead him off to gaol. I know that I seem here to be describing a real Surrey-side villain. But Rollin was not a villain. He was simply a bad, nasty man, one bad man in a million kindly, weak and well-intentioned ones. Bad men are extremely rare. I have known, in fact, only two others beside Rollin.
The really curious thing was that before two days were passed I felt so strongly the pathos of the man that I almost liked him. I have always been greatly touched by men victims to the two powers of Fear and Jealousy. I have known them so
well in my own nature and the misery and loneliness that these possessive demons inflict on their victims; indeed, with regard to the second of them there is no profession so harried and riven by it as that of Letters. . . .
I very soon discovered that these two held Rollin in thrall. His jealousy was of a peculiar kind. Once he was assured that my attitude to him was friendly, words poured from him, all in that sharp, ugly assertive voice of his. Assertive he was, but never with convincing authority except in the matter of pictures. There he allowed no personal fears or jealousies to influence him, and had his worst enemy (and, by Jupiter, he had a few!) painted a good picture, he would have said that it was a good picture.
But with regard to every other occupation possible to mankind, jealousy raged in him. It did not matter in the least— politics, the arts, the services, religion, society, whosoever it might be, anyone of prominence was damned, accused of dreadful offences against society and the state, dismissed to perdition. ‘Mind you, Westcott,’ he said with that faint touch of Midland accent that he so greatly disliked in himself, ‘I’m not jealous. Last thing I am is jealous. Nobody could call me that. Only it makes me sick to see men like Webster getting away with it. Why, do you know. . . .’
By the second day I was both sorry for him and tired of him, so I tried to break away.
‘Look here, Rollin,’ I said. ‘People aren’t as bad as you say. We all have our little weaknesses, you know. We all live in glass houses. Why throw stones?’
Then I saw fear in his eyes, the fear that after this conversation never again, I think, left him.
‘What do you mean, Westcott? I hate this hinting. . . .’
‘I don’t mean anything except that we are all in the same boat, and abusing one another seems a futile business. I came up to London about 1900. I’m getting on for sixty. I’ve been writing and publishing novels for more than thirty years. During that time I’ve been abused times without number, and very often with reason, but in all that time I’ve experienced only one piece of real dirty meanness.’
‘Oh, well. . . .’ He looked at me with patronage. He would have liked to say something rude: I could hear him back in London: ‘Oh yes, we went to Sark for our holiday. Peter Westcott, the novelist, was there, all geniality and speaking well of his fellows. Finds it pays. . . .’
But he was afraid. He broke abruptly into another topic:
‘Well, that’s as may be. But, look here! Have you ever thought about death?’
‘Death?’ I asked lazily. We were lying on Dixcart beach, stretched out full-length watching the blue-green breakers, shining in the sunlight, break into foam on the pebbles. ‘Of course I have. Everyone has.’
‘Doesn’t it seem awful to you that one’s got to die? The inevitability of it—’
‘No, I can’t say that it does. If I’m depressed it seems a dreary business like everything else. But in general, no. In the war death became so ordinary, part of the day’s work. . . .’
‘Oh yes, I know.’ His hand touched my arm. ‘But if one only knew the way it was going to be. God, to die in one’s bed like Armstrong the other day! What luck! Not to realise that it’s coming! It’s that moment of realisation that’s so awful to me, Westcott. The moment when you say to yourself: “My God! I’m going to die! It’s coming! It’s nearly here!” ’
His hand shook on my arm.
‘Life’s merciful,’ I answered. ‘Most sick people pass into some kind of coma long before they die. And, anyway, haven’t you often had nightmares when you have that moment of realisation? You must have died in your dreams a thousand times over. Actual death is no worse than that.’
‘I should think I have,’ he said, shuddering. ‘There’s a dream I have—’
Just then his wife joined us.
She was a small, compact, pretty woman with unusually light blue eyes. I had seen little of her as yet, but she struck me as one of the quietest women I had ever encountered. It was not only that she said very little, but her whole personality struck me as a waiting, listening, determining one. I had heard in London that Rollin behaved to her abominably, that she had once run away from him, but had returned and had told a friend that she had come back because she had to. She couldn’t help herself. But now, as she came towards us, neat, square-shouldered, walking with quiet resolution as though she knew precisely what she intended to do and that nothing would stop her, I couldn’t exactly see her committing any act ‘because she couldn’t help herself’. She was as controlled, as superior to fears, superstitions, gusts of temper and violence as he was inferior.
He did not want her just then, and showed it. I disliked his manner to her so much that soon I got up and left him. I might be sorry for him, but indeed and indeed he was a nasty specimen!
The little hotel where we were was a very primitive and simple place. You had to fuss for a day if you wanted a hot bath, the sanitation was more than primitive, and there was no electric light. All the same, I liked it. The proprietor, the servants, were kind and obliging. Everyone was friendly. But Rollin, of course, had soon a thousand complaints. The food, he said, was scanty and monotonous, the lack of water a disgrace, the beds hard, and so on. He complained to everyone, and everyone disliked him as much as they liked his wife. This, I should imagine, was a common experience wherever they went, and it did not make him love his wife any the better.
Sark is the ideal island for anyone who wants absolute seclusion: indeed, in these harried and public days I should think there is no island in the world quite so secluded. The South Seas are, I understand, as crowded as Piccadilly! It is not an easy island to escape from. If you wish to pay a visit to Jersey you must go for a night at least, and even the trip to Guernsey must be taken in so small a boat that the mildest of rough seas can be alarming. Moreover, the island itself likes to make you feel that it is difficult. There are few beaches and the paths to them are precipitous and unruly. The island is so small that you are always finding yourself unexpectedly at the end of it. It has no middle, so to speak—only ends!
This difficulty and apartness can be either enchanting or exasperating. The place has undoubtedly a magic; in the spring and summer it is covered with flowers, threaded with leafy lanes, and the rocky coast is superb. The air, on the warm days, seems scented with honey, and on the wild ones, is splendidly vigorous. There is still the mantle of old history hanging over it, and the old Norman dialect is stronger and more vigorous among the people than English. No motor-vehicles are allowed there. There are more dogs and cats, happily domesticated, than in any place that I know. All these things give it uniqueness, and when you have been there for a day or two, you will, if you have any imagination, begin to fancy things. I am not here speaking of the supernatural, although I believe that dead pirates are as ordinary as blackberries, and smugglers, a hundred years in their graves, common company along the lanes of an evening. But that is the kind of imagination stirred by a hundred places. Where Sark is unique is that, being shut in, imprisoned if you like, you very quickly begin to have odd fancies about your fellow-captives.
I should, in any event, have been greatly interested in Rollin and his wife. Bad men, as I have already said, are rare birds, and are food for the novelist when he encounters one. Rollin, for instance—I could speculate about him endlessly. Were his cruelties, greedinesses, fears, private nastinesses the result simply of the lack of a gland or the pressure of bone on the brain? Could a little simple operation transform him into an angel? If so, why did he not have one? Was any of it his own fault? Could he help himself or did he, indeed, want to help himself? I decided very soon that he did not. He thought himself, I very soon saw, an excellent fellow: amusing, good company, vastly more brilliant than most men, broad-minded and enterprising. He had, of course, been unjustly treated, he carried a thousand grudges about with him, and his criticism of everyone was continual. But one thing he could not deny—his fear. Many men had the advantage of him there. He could not understand their serenity, and hated them for it.<
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Very quickly, however, Mrs Rollin became to me more interesting than her husband. I would not say that she liked me. She appeared to have learnt, through stress of circumstances, to guard herself against any conceivable emotion. Her restraint was almost terrifying—the restraint and watchfulness of someone on a tight-rope to whom one false step meant death. Not that she was afraid of death. She was afraid, I am convinced, of nothing, having been through all the worst experiences that life has to offer. This restraint of hers soon became to me obsessing, but the odd fact was that she was the one thing in the world of which Rollin appeared to have no fear at all. He was proud of her in a kind of contemptuous fashion—proud of her looks, her composure (out of which no taunts of his ever seemed to drive her), her savoir-faire. But while he was proud of her she exasperated him. She had beaten him in their relationship. She despised him from the bottom of her heart.
Why, feeling about him as she did, she had not long ago left him was one thing that puzzled me. One day, when we were alone, we had a queer little conversation.
‘You don’t like my husband very much, do you, Mr Westcott?’ she asked me. We were sitting on a spur of Little Sark just above the Coupée, and the sea heaved below us, a moving floor of green and purple silk.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t.’
‘He’s not really very likeable,’ she went on calmly. ‘I know him very well, and the only decent emotion anyone could ever have for him is a kind of pity. He’s a very lonely man.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I suppose he is.’
‘And I’ve lost even that emotion about him now. I’ve had some bad times with him, you know.’ She looked at me very quietly out of her pale blue eyes. ‘It isn’t decent to talk about one’s husband to a stranger—not that you are altogether a stranger. I don’t talk about him, you know. . . .’
