Hugh Walpole

“ Miss Minns was knitting at a distance. This was obviously the right moment to begin, but the words would not come. It all seemed so absurd in this delicious garden with the silence and the peace, and, for want of a better word, the sanity of it all; all the things that Maradick had been thinking, Tony’s story and the fantastic scene in the market-place last night, that and the ideas that had sprung from it, were all so out of line now. People weren’t melodramatic like that, only one had at times a kind of mood that induced one to think things, absurd things. ”

“ Besides the green of the sea-weed and the gold of the sun there was the blue of the sky reflected, and all these lights and colours mingled and passed and then mingled again as in the curving circle of a pearl shell. Everything was metallic, with a hard outline like steel, under the blazing sun.
Tony turned the corner and came down the hill. He was in flannels and carried in one hand a large tea-basket. His body, long and white, was reflected in the green and blue of the pool. It spread in little ripples driven by a tiny wind in white shadows to the bank. ”

“ The people who moved about in the market were fishermen and country folk. Their movement seemed aimless but pleasant; suddenly some one would break into song, and for a moment his voice would rise, as a fish leaps from the sea, and then would sink back again. There was a great deal of laughter and a tendency to grow noisier and more ill-disciplined.
Maradick, as he pushed his way through the crowd, was reminded of that first night when Tony and he had come down; the dance and the rest! What ages ago that seemed now! He was another man. He pushed his way furiously through the people. ”

“ She looked down at him and laughed. “Why, how silly, Tony dear, I’ve loved you from the first moment that I saw you; why, of course, you must have known.”
Their hands touched, and at that moment Tony realised the wonderful silence and beauty of the world. The sea spread before them like a carpet, but it was held with the rocks and sand and sky in breathless tension by God for one immortal second. Nature waited for a moment to hear the story that it had heard so often before, then when the divine moment had passed the world went on its course once more. ”

“ Thy will be done, . . . as it is in Heaven. . . . lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil. . . .” It was the old clergyman, the old clergyman with the white beard.
Maradick sat motionless in his seat. He made no movement, but he was praying, praying furiously. He was praying to no God that had a name, but to the powers of all honour, of all charity, of all goodness.
Love was the ultimate test, the test of everything. He knew now, with a clearness that seemed to dismiss all the shadows that had lingered for days about him, that he had never loved Mrs. Lester. ”

“ Tony, Morelli, Punch, this old woman, they gave one the impression that they would gaily go on for ever.
“People live to a good old age here,” he said.
“Ah! it’s a wonderful town,” she said. “There’s nothing like it. . . . Many’s the things I’ve seen, the tower and I.”
“The tower!” said Maradick, looking up at its grey solemnity now flushing with the red light of the sun.
“I’ve been near it since I was a bit of a child,” she said, leaning towards him so that her beak of a nose nearly touched his cheek and her red hat towered over him. ”

“ Maradick repeated; he puffed at his cigar, and it gleamed for a moment as some great red star flung into the sky a rival to the myriads above and around it. “It’s funny how things like that stick in your brain—they are more important in a way than the bigger things.”
“Perhaps they are the bigger things,” said Tony.
“Perhaps,” said Maradick.
He fell into silence again. He did not really want to talk, and he wondered why this young fellow was so persistent. He was never a talking man at any time, and to-night at any rate he would prefer to be left alone. ”

“ The rest of the market-place was in shadow, purple in the corners and crevices, the faintest blue in the higher air, a haze of golden-grey in the central square. It was full of people standing, for the most part, discussing the events of the day; in the corner by the tower there was a Punch and Judy show, and Maradick could hear the shrill cries of Mr. Punch rising above the general chatter. Over everything there was a delicious scent of all the best things in the world—ripe orchards, flowering lanes, and the sharp pungent breath of the sea ”

“ Why, of course! There was Tony, and then Janet Morelli and Lady Gale, Mrs. Lester, Alice Du Cane; and how absurd they looked! There was himself and Mrs. Maradick! The scene faded. He pulled himself up with a jerk, to find that he was nodding, nearly asleep; the idea of the music had not been entirely a dream, however, for a band had gathered underneath the window. In the uncertain light they looked strangely fantastic, so that you saw a brass trumpet without a man behind it, and then again a man with his lips pressed blowing, but his trumpet fading into darkness. ”

“ In the misty and uncertain light figures seemed to rise out of the pale yellow sands and to vanish into the dusky blue of the sea. But at the same moment they realised that there was some one there and that he was waiting for them; they recognised the brown jacket, the cloth cap, the square, prosperous figure. The really curious thing was that Maradick had had his eyes fixed on the sand in front of him, but he had seen no one coming. The figure had suddenly materialised, as it were, out of the yellow evening dusk. It was beyond doubt Mr. Andreas Morelli. ”

“ Her thoughts lingered around the girl. What was she like, she wondered? Coarse, with a face of beetroot red and flaxen hair; no, Tony had taste, he would know what to choose. She was probably pretty. Wild and uncouth, perhaps; that would be likely to catch him. And now she, Alice Du Cane, must stand quietly by and play the part of platonic friend. What fun life must be for the gods who had time to watch.
Meanwhile Tony had found Maradick in a deserted corner of the garden and had poured the afternoon’s history into his ears. ”

“ Lady Gale sighed. “If you really want to go, dear,” she said, “of course you must. Do just what you like. Only, I shall miss you badly. You’re a great help to me, you know. Of course there’s Milly, but she’s been funny lately. She always gets excited down here.” Lady Gale put her arm round the girl. “Stay for a little, dear. I want you. We all want you.”
Alice drew herself up for a moment as though she would repel the caress; then she tried to say something, but the words would not come. With a little cry she buried her face in the other’s dress. ”

“ He would go and bathe and then search out Punch.
It was a quarter past five as he passed down the stairs; the house was in the most perfect stillness, and only the ticking of innumerable clocks broke the silence. Suddenly a bird called from the garden; a little breath of wind, bringing with it the scent of pinks and roses, trembled through the hall.
When he reached the cove the sea was like glass. He had never bathed early in the morning before, and a few weeks ago he would have laughed at the idea. A man of his age bathing at half-past five in the morning! The water would be terribly cold. ”

“ He passed quietly down the stairs and out into the garden. He walked down to the south end. It was most wonderful—the moon, the stars, the whirling light at sea, and, quite plainly, the noise of the fair.
He leant over the wall and looked down. He was suddenly conscious that some one else was there; a big man, in evening dress, smoking a cigar. Something about him, the enormous arms or the close-cropped hair, was familiar.
“Good evening,” said Tony.
It was Maradick. He looked up, and Tony at once wished that he hadn’t said anything. ”

“ Tony laughed. “There’s magic in it,” he said. “I hadn’t set foot in the place for quarter of an hour before I knew that it was quite different from all the other places I’d ever been in. I wasn’t joking just now at dinner. I meant it quite seriously. I feel as if I were just in for some enormous adventure—as if something important were most certainly going to happen.”
“Something important’s always happening, especially at your time of life; which reminds me, Tony dear, that I want to talk to you seriously.” ”

“ Every morning breakfast the same time, same rush to the station, same train, same morning paper, same office, same office-boy, same people; back in the evening, same people again, same little dinner, same little nap—oh, it’s like anyone else. One gets into the way of thinking that that’s life, bounded by the Epsom golf course and the office in town. All the rest one has put aside, and after a time one thinks that it isn’t there. And then a man comes down here and, I don’t know what it is, the place or having nothing to do upsets you and things are all different. ”

“ And then he knew, in the next instant, that though he might go back to Epsom and his office and all the drudgery of it, he would never be the same man again, he could never be the same man again. He knew now that the only thing in the world worth having was love—this town had shown him that—and that, for it, all the other things must go. This boy had found it and he must help him to keep it. He, Maradick, had found it; there were friends of his here—Tony, Mrs. Lester—and he couldn’t go back to the loneliness of his old life with the memory of these weeks. ”

“ She would want the end to come then, when she was deaf and blind and cold; she would not spoil the young colour and intensity of her life by thinking about it. But with the sudden entrance of Tony the question came forward again. They would not live for ever; life seemed very long to her, but the time must come when they would die. And then? Who was this God? Would He see to it that she and Tony were together afterwards? If so, she would worship Him; she would bring Him flowers, and light candles as Miss Minns did. ”

“ The gay tune danced along, and the sun rose high above their heads; a mist rose from the sea like a veil and, shot with colour, blue and green, enveloped the woods.
Then there were stealthy movements about the two figures. Birds, thrushes, chaffinches, sparrows, hopped across the grass. A pigeon cooed softly above his head; two rabbits peeped out from the undergrowth. They grew bolder, and a sparrow, its head on one side, hopped on to Janet’s dress.
More rabbits came, and the pigeon, with a soft whirr of its wings, swept down to Morelli’s feet. ”

“ Maradick hastened to assure her. “As far as the main thing goes—the girl herself, I mean—it’s the best thing that could possibly happen to Tony. The girl is delightful; better than that, she is splendid. I won’t tell you more, simply that it is all right.”
“And Tony loves her?” Alice’s voice trembled in spite of itself.
“Yes, heart and soul,” said Maradick fervently; “and I think when you see her that you will agree about her. Only you must see the difficulties as well as I do; what we are doing is the only thing to do. I think that to take Tony away now would lead to dreadful disaster. ”

“ She herself was rapidly recovering her temper. It was such a lovely day that it was impossible to be cross for long, and then her husband had often been cross and disagreeable before, it wasn’t as though it were anything new. What a dreadful woman that Mrs. Maradick was! Why had Lady Gale invited her? Poor Mr. Maradick! She rather liked him, his size and strength and stolidity, but how dreadful to be tied to such a woman for life! Even worse, she reflected, than to be tied for life to a man such as her own special treasure! Oh! our marriage system. ”

“ The older she grew, the whiter her hair, the stiffer her stupid bones, the more eagerly, enthusiastically, she longed that every young thing—not only Tony, although he, of course, mattered most—should make the most of its time. They didn’t know, dear people, how quickly the years and the stiffness and the thinning of the blood would come upon them. She wanted them all, all the world under thirty, to romp and live and laugh and even be wicked if they liked! ”

“ To Tony it seemed the moment of his life. This was what he had been born to do, to dance madly round the town. It seemed to signify comradeship, good fellowship, the true equality. It was the old Greek spirit come to life again; that spirit of which he had spoken to Alice—something that Homer had known and something that Whitman had preached. And so up the hill! madly capering, gesticulating, shouting. Some one is down, but no one stops. He is left to pick himself up and come limping after. ”

“ For a little while they were silent, then Tony suddenly said:
“I say, am I awfully young?”
She looked up. “Young?”
“Yes. The mater has been talking to me to-night. She says that it is time that I grew up, that I haven’t grown a bit since I was eighteen, and that it must be very annoying for everybody. Have you felt it, too?”
“Well, of course I know what she means. It’s absurd, but I always feel years older than you, although by age I’m younger. But oh! it’s difficult to explain; one always wants to rag with you. I’m always at my silliest when you’re there, and I hate being at my silliest.” ”

“ Miss Minns, with her head on her breast, slept.
“That’s better,” said Janet, settling herself back in her chair. “Now about the walking!”
“Ah! you’re fond of it too,” he said. “I can see that. And it’s the only thing, you know. It’s the only thing that doesn’t change and grow monotonous. You get close right down to earth. They talk about their nature and culture and the rest, but they haven’t known what life is until they’ve felt the back of a high brown hill and the breast of a hard white road. ”

“ Dear Mr. Maradick,
I’ve been wanting to write to you for some days, but so many things crowd about one in London, and even now I’ve only got a moment. But I thought that you would like to know that both my husband and myself have been to see Tony in Chelsea and that we think Janet perfectly charming. My husband was conquered by her at once; one simply cannot help loving her. She is no fool either. She is managing that house splendidly, and has got a good deal more common-sense than Tony has. ”

“ Behind them ran the road, a white, twisting serpent, down to the town.
The town itself shone like a jewel in a golden ring of corn; its towers and walls gleamed and flashed and sparkled. The world lay breathless, with the hard glazed appearance that it wears when the sun is very hot. The colour was so intense that the eye rested with relief on a black clump of firs clustered against the horizon. Nothing moved save the carriage; the horses crawled over the brow of the hill.
“Well, that’s awfully funny,” said Mrs. Maradick, leaning over and smiling at Rupert. ”

“ Tony’s eyes were set on the adventure—the great adventure of life. Maradick, and others like him, might be amusing on the way; were of course, “good sorts,” but they could be left, they must be left if one were to get on, and there were others, plenty of others.
And so, in that bumping cab, Maradick suddenly realised his age. To be “at forty” as the years go was nothing, years did not count, but to be “at forty” in the way that he now saw it was the great dividing line in life. ”

“ It’s well you know it’s a lonesome thing to be passing small towns with the lights shining sideways when the night is down, or going in strange places with a dog noising before you and a dog noising behind, or drawn to the cities where you’d hear a voice kissing and talking deep love in every shadow of the ditch, and you passing on with an empty stomach failing from your heart.”
Maradick listened to the beautiful words and his eyes glowed. The dusk was falling in the room, and half-lights of gold and purple hovered over the fireplace and the gallery. ”

“ But she had looked on it, in spite of herself, as a kind of chest into which Tony’s youth and vitality were inevitably going; a splendid chest with beautiful carving and studded with golden nails, but nevertheless a chest. Alice was so perfectly right for anybody that she was perfectly wrong for Tony; Lady Gale before the world must approve and even further the affair, but Lady Gale the mother of Tony had had her doubts, and perhaps this new something, whatever it might be, was romantic, exciting, young and adventurous. Mr. Maradick knew. ”

“ The sky is grey, with an orange light hovering on its outer edges, the last signal of the setting sun. A very faint mist is creeping gradually over the sea, so faint that the silver circle of the rising moon shines quite clearly through the shadows; but it changes the pale yellow of the ghostly sand into a dark grey land without form and void, seeming for a moment to be one with sea and sky, and then rising again, out of obscurity, into definite substance. ”