‘But tell me candidly, Oliver: can you stand any more of this? Honestly? I may go on? You’re doing me an immense kindness by listening. I seem, by talking of these things, to escape from them somehow. It is as if I actually, as well as figuratively, got them off my mind.
‘Well, a few months ago came a supreme opportunity for escape – escape, I mean, from my vacuum, from my own selfish self. Yes, selfish! for in the course of all this introspection I came finally to see through myself to that extent. I am really simply a parasite. I rely entirely on others: not at all on myself. I sit waiting humbly and timidly, like a Victorian maiden at a ball. I make no movement, no effort, but forlornly expect others to do all the work of human intercourse and friendship. I wait for people to come to me, pity me, offer me their friendship, give me what I so much need without myself giving anything at all. Indeed, in my self-abasement I believe (I still incurably believe) that I have nothing to give that is worth anybody’s acceptance. And if by chance, with so little encouragement, people do come, I cling to them desperately and jealously, resolved to have them all to myself. If they allowed me, I would, I suppose, smother them, suck the life out of them. Fortunately for them, they take fright, run instinctively, even though they do not exactly know why.
‘Well, as I was saying, my great opportunity came some months ago, and though as usual I made a fool of myself and did my best to ruin my chances it was, in the end, the irony of fate, and not myself this time, that wrecked the thing. It was just after the afternoon service and I was getting to the end of the voluntary when I heard steps on the stair of the organ-loft. I took it for granted it was a choir-boy. One or other of them often come up after the service to bring back a music-book or ask some question about the next choir-practice. So I did not look to see who it was till, when I had finished the piece and was pushing in the stops, I suddenly caught sight of a lady-a young woman somewhere in her twenties – standing at the top of the stairs looking at me, half amused, half embarrassed. I tried to apologize for ignoring her as I had done, and in half a minute, of course, I was twice as embarrassed as she was. That seemed to reassure her and she began to explain how it was that she had dared to beard me in my den. She was staying with her aunt, some miles away, and had walked in on purpose to come to the service because she was very keen on music, especially on old English music – Byrd, Taverner, and the rest, and, as you know, we do a lot of that here. She had hoped, she said, that there might have been some of it that afternoon, but both the anthem and my voluntaries had been Bach. “And so,” I said-she was such a charming girl that I was already beginning to feel quite self-possessed – “and so you would like to hear some now?” She blushed and smiled. I simply can’t describe, Oliver, the … the extraordinary … however, let it pass … she smiled, and replied that if I didn’t mind, if it really wasn’t asking too much, and so on. “Oh, I’m always ready,” I told her, “to play these old people,” and I began to get out the music-books.
‘I played her all sorts of things, and after each I paused on purpose to have the pleasure of watching her face as she began to be afraid that I was going to stop, and to see her hoping, yet afraid to ask, that I would go on. Those intervals began to create out of the shyness of us both a delightful sort of half-humorous intimacy. I must have played to her for at least an hour. When at last I stopped there was one of those unexpected moments of awkwardness, which she cut short by holding out her hand and bidding me good-bye. It was quite a shock to find that everything was actually over and she was going. As usual in such an emergency, I was helpless. I wished her goodbye and, with a sudden sinking of the heart, heard her trotting down the loft-stair and then across the transept. But fate was on my side for once; for when I had closed up the organ and got to the foot of the stair I saw her hurrying back towards me. “I’m afraid we’re locked in,” she said. I had quite forgotten that by the time I had finished playing the doors would be locked. Not that it mattered, because I have a private key which fits the small door in the north transept. I took it from my pocket and held it up, smiling. I felt suddenly immensely relieved. Owing to that providential accident she had not, after all, escaped me, and as we made our way to the door I was nerving myself to take an incredibly bold step. The certainty that if I did not, I should in a minute have lost her again overcame my shyness and, as I fumbled with the lock, I blurted out almost surlily: “Won’t you come and have some tea with me?” And, to cover my nervousness, I went on to explain that this was my house, only a few yards away. She looked up at me, blushing; but not, I felt, from embarrassment but from pleasure. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “I shall be very glad to.” She had a fresh, ingenuous way of speaking that made the most commonplace phrase charming.
‘Our tea together was a great success: we got along extraordinarily well. My usual self-consciousness seemed to thaw in her company and all the time we chattered I kept watching her, fascinated as one is fascinated by some graceful little animal. It was not till after she had gone that I realized that I knew neither her name nor address. But at the moment I was feeling so happy that this didn’t seem to matter. I walked about my room, unable to sit still. I was trembling, my face was flushed, my teeth chattering. I felt myself tingling, strung up, but not, as in my morbid moods, to a state of painful hypersensitivity: this time it was simply from excess of well-being, from the thrilling experience of just letting myself
‘Next morning I awoke feeling a little ashamed of all this excitement over what would be, for most people, such an ordinary experience. But that didn’t last long. Soon I had dropped back into yesterday’s state of exalted happiness. The fact that she had escaped from me, that I had no means of tracing her, did not trouble me even now. I felt confident that we would meet again, and it was not till a day or two later, when my reason began to reassert itself, that I began to realize that, in cold reality, my delightful experience was over, that there was very little chance of my seeing her again. But instinct, it turned out, was surer than reason. That evening I received a letter from her. Her aunt, she wrote, would be so pleased if I would walk over after the afternoon service next day and stay, perhaps, to dinner, if I didn’t consider five miles too much of an undertaking. If I came on foot, she added, she and her cousins would walk half-way to meet me. I read her note over and over again, pondering it, analysing it for all the world as though it were a difficult and obscure document of immense significance. Had her aunt really suggested it, or had she begged her aunt to be allowed to invite me? Or did she write that her aunt would be pleased because the warmth of her own feelings made her shy of expressing them? But if she felt towards me anything of what I felt towards her, why didn’t she come to meet me alone instead of bringing those cousins? And what were the cousins? Men or women? Boys or girls? I felt suddenly an intense hatred for them, whatever they were. And the aunt? And, no doubt, an uncle. How could I meet her in the presence of this great crowd? I was afraid of them – afraid and acutely jealous. All my old fears and obsessions were swarming round me again, and now more relentlessly than ever. But I was resolved to control myself this time, and with a sick heart and a horrible sense of disillusionment I wrote saying that I would certainly go and that I would walk. As soon as I had written the note I hurried out and posted it, because I knew that, if I delayed, my cowardice would get the better of me. And for the rest of that day and all next morning I kept the thought of my engagement resolutely out of my mind. That, I knew, was the only way of preserving my courage. To allow my mind to get to work on it would, I knew by bitter experience, be fatal. I told Mrs. Parker that I should be out for supper and in a cold, hard, almost angry mood, which destroyed all my delight at the prospect of seeing her again, I set out, directly the afternoon service was over, to walk the five miles.
‘That, Oliver, was the most abject of all my many failures. Though I compelled myself to keep my thoughts from looking ahead, though I fixed my attention on outward things – the hedges, trees, and birds – I could feel an agony of nervousness g
rowing up in me like a disease. Then suddenly, as I was getting near to the point where she and her cousins would probably meet me, I knew I could go no farther. I hated them: I even hated her, or if not hated, I felt at least a great indefinable grievance against her. Really, I told myself, I didn’t want to see her at all. There was no struggle, no conflict. My resolution just collapsed on itself like a house of cards and I turned round and went back the way I had come, without looking behind me. Think of it, Oliver; What a contemptible worm! What an everlastingly damned fool! At that moment I touched the lowest point of my self-contempt.
‘I didn’t return home: I couldn’t. I was broken, flayed alive, and I longed for the refuge of my own room; but the thought of facing Mrs. Parker, her surprise at my unexpected return, her determination to prepare supper for me, however much I assured her I didn’t want any-all these things were complications which, in the state I was in, I couldn’t have borne. So I turned into a lane just before I reached the outskirts of the town and, climbing over a railing, lay down in some grass in the corner of a field. I don’t know how long I lay there, but when I opened my eyes and found it was quite dark, I walked home and went to bed, utterly exhausted.
‘Next morning I awoke grimly determined to put an end, once for all, to this insane self-torment. All my feelings, all my emotions, had burnt themselves out and with them my nervousness. I was self-possessed and quite cold. I determined that I would ask the Precentor to take my place at the morning service and would walk over to see her immediately after breakfast. In the mood I was in, I could face anything. It was, I knew, a highly abnormal mood, for I no longer felt any desire to see her. My feelings for her were, for the time, burnt out with my other emotions. But so much the better. I should be less likely to make a fool of myself: and, afterwards, what an infinite consolation it would be to have repaired the whole miserable disaster – not, after all, to have sacrificed her to my abject cowardice! But when I got down to breakfast there was a letter for me. How well, already, I knew the writing. It had been written, of course, on the previous evening. She was so sorry, she wrote, that I had been prevented from coming, and the more so as she was leaving next day by the morning train and would miss seeing me again. Next day meant, of course, that very morning. The train she referred to must be the ten o’clock – she would hardly have started as early as the eight-fifteen – and I decided at once that I would go to the station and see her at the train. Though there was still a whole hour before I need start, I hurried over my breakfast and, utterly unable to sit still and wait, went out and wandered about the town. When at last the time drew near and I began to make for the station, the stern, dispassionate mood which had possessed me ever since I woke began to dissolve and I felt a great happiness at the thought that I was on the point of seeing her again. It was as if someone dead whom I had loved had come to life again. I felt quite sure of myself now. At last I had really freed myself from the long disease which had always hampered my life: at last I was boldly and deliberately following my desire. For she, I knew beyond question, was nothing more or less than my salvation: she was the only person in the world who could help me to transform myself, to put off the old man and put on the new. I was no longer sitting passively waiting for help. I was forgetting myself, going out of myself, to give myself up to her. I had triumphed over my lifelong weakness and it was through her alone that I had been able to do so. That walk to the station was, in the most real sense, the summit of my life.
‘I reached the station half an hour before train-time. The train was already in – the ten train, you know, starts from here – and I paced up and down the platform in a fever of anticipation. By degrees people began to take their places. Time passed, and when, after a quarter of an hour, she had not yet come, I began to be horribly afraid that we would have no time to talk – that I would not have the chance of saying all I was determined to say to her. I bought some illustrated papers for her and then continued my pacing. By now I was unbearably excited. My legs trembled: I had to make a conscious effort to walk properly. Then, five minutes before the train started, the awful certainty came upon me that she would not come. And even if she did, now, there would be no time even for a word. Three minutes; two minutes; it was useless to hope any longer. I went over to the bookstall, so that, if she came, I should be out of her way. The whistle sounded and I stood watching the train glide out of the station.
‘Yes, that was the end of it. Obviously, you see, Oliver, I am doomed to failure even when I succeed in conquering my weaknesses. Write? No, I didn’t write. Yes, I suppose I might have done so, but I had no heart for anything. I simply resigned myself, after that. The final frustration of my supreme attempt broke me: my energy, my small store of courage, was exhausted. And yet I am sure, Oliver – absolutely certain – that if only she had been there, if only she had not gone by the early train, I should have carried the thing through. There would have been no shirking, that time. I had, you see, determined to tell her there and then that I was in love with her, to ask her to marry me. Yes, of course, it would have been absurdly sudden, but I really believe she liked me. We did get on so extraordinarily well – so well that I feel almost certain there was something on her side, too. It would have been unaccountable otherwise. Now? Oh, no: it’s too late now, in any case. All this, you see, happened eight months ago. Well, you’re the only soul I’ve told about it, and pouring it out like this has been – Heaven knows why – a wonderful consolation to me. And as for you, Oliver, you’ve been a perfect Job for patience. You won’t stay for the service and come back here for tea? Well, anyhow, don’t for Heaven’s sake let my garrulousness put you off coming to lunch if ever you’re in this part of the world again.’
Aunt Hetty
Having murdered his aunt hetty, Roland Mason (as he flattered himself) had disposed of her pretty completely. Being a surgeon by profession, he had not found it difficult or objectionable to dissect an old lady and, though the disposal of the resulting sections had been less easy, a little ingenuity – and ingenuity had always been his strong point – had scattered her beyond the possibility of reassembly. With a rather touching sense of poetic justice he had buried her heart in the garden – her heart had always been in the garden – and certain other fragments of her he had fed to the two dogs, Toto and Zulu, for had she not always, despite his earnest entreaties, insisted on feeding the dogs during meals, leaving horrible grease-marks on his precious Amritzar rug!
And what a relief it was, when the whole thing was satisfactorily completed, to rest in the security that her visits were at last definitely at an end! For years she had tormented not only him, but also his brother in Sussex, his two sisters – Ann and her husband lived at Southend: Emily and hers near Berkhamstead – and the entire circle of his male and female cousins. She had had no home of her own: it had been, she found, so much easier to stay in rotation with her nephews and nieces. And month by month, by dint of doing almost nothing but sitting in a chair knitting and occasionally dropping a word or two, she had steadily and relentlessly undermined the well-being of each family she visited. Ann, Roland Mason’s sister, and her husband, after years of happy married life, were at the point of divorce: Flora, his sister Emily’s daughter, a charming girl of seventeen, had run away with a bus-conductor rather than stay another day in a home grown hateful to her: Lucy, his brother’s cheerful and vigorous wife, had succumbed to an obscure nervous disorder which kept her for a whole month at a timein a nursing-home. The very parrots bit the hands that fed them and the perches that supported them: the dogs and cats threw off the domestication of centuries and relapsed into the discreditable barbarity of the jungle. And at the end of every month Aunt Hetty rolled up her knitting, packed her trunk, and moved on to the next niece or nephew, spreading consternation before her, leaving desolation behind. They could not very well, she believed, refuse her, for, as she had announced years ago, she had willed her fortune equally between them, and (even when divided among nine) it was worth having. Her mis
take had been to rely too much on the economic appeal, to ignore the possibility that the purchasing power of her money must have, eventually, its limit.
It was with her nephew Roland that the limit had first been reached. He had determined that, when next she offered herself, he would refuse, and had announced as much to the rest of the family. To his surprise the family had not supported him. On the contrary, they had turned upon him in fury. Aunt Hetty, they pointed out, would merely stay the longer with the rest of them: he was a shirker, a renegade, a family traitor; and as for following his example, he discovered, by their curious reticence on the subject, that, in point of fact, they lacked the courage to do so. It was not Aunt Hetty’s money: its influence had been exhausted long ago. By this time they would have considered her absence cheaply purchased by their share of her fortune. It was simply the terrible moral ascendancy she had gained over them. They dared not refuse her, and Roland, by their united disapproval, had been compelled to give in.
But something, he was determined, must be done; and sitting, three weeks later, broken and exhausted in his garden after Aunt Hetty had gone early to bed on the first day of her visit, he had as it were inhaled out of the quiet and coolness of the perfect June evening the happy idea of murder. The more he considered the idea, the more it attracted him. It was not mere selfishness: he would be benefiting not only himself but the whole of his family. Morally, too, it was amply justified – one of those special cases, those exceptions that prove the rule. Unhappily the law does not countenance the exception, and even individual opinion, he realized, might in such an instance prove obdurate. Humanity, cowed by tradition and long convention, is inclined to set a taboo on certain types of action, be they never so justified; and so, people being what they are, he must, he told himself, keep the thing strictly secret.
Sir Pompey And Madame Juno Page 10
