Hugh Walpole

“ His agonized longing for Millie seized him so that he stood for a moment outside the shuttered windows of Selfridge's, frozen into immobility by the power of his desire.
At least he could be her friend—her friend who would run to the world's end for her if she wished it; to be her friend and to write as Campbell had said simply for his own fun—after all, he was getting something out of life in that; to go on and see this new world developing in her eyes, to help her to get the best out of it, to live for the young generation through her. ”

“ And when we get ever so old and dusty and rheumatic we can say: 'Anyway we knew what life was once.'"
"Yes, I know," said Henry. "And be one of those people who say to their children and other people's children if they haven't any of their own: 'Ah, my dear, there's nothing like being young. My school-days were the happiest.' Rot! as though most people's school-time wasn't damnable."
"Oh it's nothing to do with age," said Millie scornfully. "The enchanted people are any age, but they're always young. The only point about them is that they're the only people who really know what life is. ”

“ Now when the past is something to you at last, and the scorn of the past that you had in your youth is over, London admits you into her comradeship. "There is no place," he said to himself, "where one can live in such tranquillity. She is like a woman who was once your mistress, whom you meet again after many years and with whom at last, now that passion is gone, you can have kind, loving friendship. Against the grey-white stone and the dim smoke-stained sky the night colours come and go, life flashes and fades, sounds rise and fall, and kindliness of heart is there at the end." ”

“ Victoria nodded her head.
"Yes, you are older. You've grown into a woman in these months; we've all noticed it."
Millie got up. She stretched out her arms, laughing. "Oh! life's wonderful! How any one can be bored I can't think. The things that go on and the people and these wonderful times! Bunny hasn't killed any of that for me. He's increased it, I think. I see now what things other people have to stand. That woman, Victoria, that I spoke of just now, her life! Why, I'm only at the beginning—at the beginning of myself, at the beginning of the world, at the beginning of everything! ”

“ Down Peter Street they ran and down Shaftesbury Avenue, across the Circus and did not stop until they were inside Panton Street door. The storm had emptied the street but, maybe, there are those alive who can tell how once two figures flew through the London air, borne on the very wings of the wind. . . . In such a vision do the miracles of this world and the next have their birth!
Up the stairs, through the door, the key turned, the attic warm and safe about them, and at last Henry, breathless, his coat torn, his back to the door:
"Now nobody shall take you! . . . Nobody in all the world!" ”

“ He went over to Millie's desk and stood close to her. "I'm telling you all this, Miss Trenchard," he said, "because I like the look of you. I believe you're just what's needed in this house. You've got all the enchantment of youth and health and beauty if you'll forgive my saying so. The Enchanted Age doesn't last very long, but those who are in it can do so much for those who are outside, and generally they are so taken up with their own excitement that they've no time to think of those others. You'll never regret it all your life if you do something for this household before you leave it." ”

“ To-day autumn was in the air, mists curled up from the fields, clouds hung low against a pale watery blue, leaves were turning red once again, slowly falling through the mist with little gestures of dismay. What he wanted, he felt, thinking of Christina, of Duncombe, of Millie, of his work, of his mother, lying without motion in that sombre house, of his own muddle of generosities and selfishness and tempers and gratitudes, was not so much to find a purpose in it all (that was perhaps too ambitious) , but simply to separate one side of life from the other. ”

“ His mind wandered back to that day when Duncombe had first looked at the letters and then, when Henry was expecting curses, had blessed him instead. That indeed had been a crisis in his life—a crisis like the elopement of Katherine with Philip, the outbreak of the War, the meeting with Christina—one of the great steps of the ladder of life. He felt now, as we all must feel when some one we love has gone, the burden of all the kindness undone, the courtesy unexpressed, the tenderness untended. ”

“ To many a modern young man Mrs. Tenssen would have been merely a nasty, dangerous, black-mailing woman, and Christina her pretty but possibly not-so-innocent-as-she-appears daughter. But there the young modern would have missed all the heart of the situation and Henry, guided by his romantic spirit, went directly to it. He still believed in the evil, spell-brewing, hag-like witch, the dusky wood, the beautiful imprisoned Princess—nothing in the world seemed to him more natural—and for once, just for once, he was exactly right! ”

“ But as Light-Johnson had continued his own indignation had grown. His eyes, again and again, in spite of himself, sought Lady Bell-Hall's face. He simply could not bear to see the little lady tortured—for tortured she evidently was. Her little features were all puckered with distress. Her eyes had the wide staring expression of a child seeing a witch for the first time. Every word that Light-Johnson uttered seemed to stab her like a knife. To Henry this was awful.
"They are not facts. They are not facts!" he cried. "After every war there are years when people are confused. Of course there are. ”

“ The two women made a strange, contrast as they faced one another, Millicent with her youth, beauty and happiness, the other scowling, partly at the sudden sunlight, partly at the surprise of finding a stranger there.
"I beg your pardon," said Millie smiling. "Do you want any one?"
"Do I want any one?" said the other, in a voice half-snarl, half-irony; "that's good! In one's own house too!"
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Millie again blushing. "I didn't know. I've only been here an hour. I'm Miss Platt's new secretary." ”

“ And Millie, for instance, complete and vital though she was, with plenty of imagination, did not know that this world existed. Could he only find a clue to it how happy he would be! One moment would be enough. If for one single instant the heavens would open and he could see and could say then: "By this moment of vision I will live for ever! I know now that this other world exists and is external, and that one day I shall enter into it completely." He fancied—indeed he liked to fancy—that his adventure with Christina would, before it closed, offer him this vision. ”

“ Henry made that recognition now, and complicated though his own affairs were and very far from immediate happiness, he had no thought but for Millie.
She, as was her way, at once challenged him:
"Of course you didn't like him," she said.
"No, I didn't," he answered. "But you didn't expect me to, did you?"
"I wanted you to. . . . No, I don't know. You will like him when you know him better. You're always funny when any one from outside dares to try and break into the family. Remember how you behaved over Philip."
"Ah, Philip! I was younger then. Besides there isn't any family to break into now. ”

“ She must work, work, work.
Like quicksilver were her fingers, her eyes flashed fire, the rain beat upon the windows and the loneliness and desolation were held at bay.
The door opened and in came Major Mereward; he looked as usual, untidy, with his hair towselled, his moustache ragged and his trousers baggy—not a military major at all—but now a light shone in his eyes and his eyebrows gleamed with the reflection of it. He knew that Millie was his friend, and coming close to her and stammering, he said:
"Miss Trenchard. It's all right. It's all right. Victoria will marry me." ”

“ Millie repeated again. They were silent for a little, then Millie said: "You know, I've been thinking all the evening what Peter once said to us about our being enchanted—because we are young. There's something awfully true about it. When things are at their very worst—when I'm having the most awful row with Bunny or Victoria's more tiresome than you can imagine—although I say to myself, 'I'm perfectly miserable,' I'm not really because there's something behind it all that I'm enjoying hugely. I wouldn't miss a moment of it. I want every scrap. It is like an enchantment really. ”

“ Henry nodded.
"I feel it too. And I feel as though it must all have its climax in some wonderful adventure that's coming to me. An adventure that I shall remember all the rest of my life. It seems silly, after the War, talking of adventures, but the War was too awful for one to dare to talk about oneself in connection with it, although it was immensely personal all the time. But we're out of the War now and back in life again, and if I can keep that sense of magic I have now, nothing can hurt me. The whole of life will be an adventure."
"We must keep it," said Millie. ”

“ Millie's trouble and Peter's wife, his fight with Baxter, Duncombe's last talk with him and his death, the last time with Christina, to-day's Unknown Warrior—yes, and smaller things than these: sunsets and sunrises, people passing in the street, the wind in the Duncombe orchard, books new and old, his little room in Panton Street, the vista of Piccadilly Circus on a sunlit afternoon, all London and beyond it, England whom he loved so passionately, and beyond her the world to its furthest and darkest fastnesses. ”

“ I shouldn't think Cladgate was calculated to make any one very happy. However you never can tell. People like such odd things. All I've seen of it so far is a long, oily-grey sea like a stretch of linoleum, a pier with nobody on it, a bandstand with nobody in it, a desert of a promenade, and the inside of this hotel which is all lifts, palms, and messenger boys. But I've seen nothing yet, because I've been all day in Victoria's rooms arranging them for her. I really think I'm going to love her down here all by myself. ”

“ After all our arrogance is necessary for us because we have failed, written so badly, travelled such a tiny way."
An urgent longing for humility, generosity, humour, kindliness of heart swept over him. He felt that at that moment he could love any one, however slow and conventional their brain were their heart honest, generous and large. He and Monteith and Grace Talbot were leading little hemmed-in lives, moving in little hemmed-in groups, talking in little hemmed-in phrases.
Like Henry a few months earlier a revelation seemed to come to him that Life was the gate to Art, not Art to Life. ”

“ No, no. Never, never, never. . . . And yet. . . . Oh, how she hated him! His smart clothes, his neat hair, his white hands, his soft voice! And Bunny liked him. "Not half a bad fellow that man Bennett. Knows a motor-car when he sees one."
Millie had it not in her nature to pretend, and she did not disguise for a moment on whose side she was.
"You don't like me?" Bennett said to her one day.
"No, indeed I don't," said Millie, looking him in the eyes.
"Why not?"
"Why? Because for one thing I'm very fond of Victoria. You're after her money. She'll be perfectly miserable if she marries you." ”

“ Wide, high windows welcomed the sun and a small room off the larger one could have the most charming privacy and cosiness. But the smaller room was at the moment blocked with a huge roller-top desk and a great white statue of a naked woman holding an apple and peering at it as though she were expecting it to turn into something strange like a baby or a wild fowl at the earliest possible moment. This statue curved in such a way that it seemed to hang above the roller-top desk in an inquiring attitude. It was the chilliest-looking statue Millie had ever seen. ”

“ But he also knew that nothing again would have in it quite the unselfish devotion that his passion for Christina had had. The first love is not the only love, but it is often the only love into which self does not enter.
His feet led him to Peter Street. The barrows were there with their apples and oranges and old clothes and boots and shoes and gimcrack china. The old woman with the teary eye was there, the policeman good-humouredly watching. It was all as it had been on that first afternoon now so long, long, long ago!
Henry looked at the yard, at the little blistered door, at the balcony. ”

“ As she stood there, the sun streaming in upon her from the little window and illuminating her gay colours and her youth and health and beauty she seemed to Peter Westcott a sudden flame and fire burning there, in that little attic to show to the world that youth never dies, that life is eternal, that hope and love and beauty are stronger than governments and wars and the changing of forms and boundaries. ”

“ It isn't natural! Such a few good ones in the world. It isn't right." He stood as though he were lost, fingering the visiting-cards on the table. He suddenly raised dull imperceptive eyes to Henry! "They can say what they like about new times coming and all being equal. . . . There'll be masters all the same and not another like Sir Charles. Good he was, good all through." He faded away.
Henry went upstairs. He was so lost that he stood in the library looking about him and wondering who that was at the long table. It was Herbert Spencer with his packets of letters and his bright red tape. ”

“ You can do just what you like, have what you like. . . ."
"Oh, you darling!" Millie flung her arms around her. "I'm sorry I was cross. Of course I'll stay. I'll go and beg Clarice's pardon—anything you like. I'll beg Mrs. Martin's if you want me to. Anything you like! I'll even kiss Mr. Block if you like. . . . Do you mind? Bunny Baxter's here. Can he stay to lunch?"
"Oh, I'm so glad!" Victoria was tearfully wiping her eyes. "I thought you might have gone already. We'll never have a word again, never. Of course he can stay, for as long as he likes. Dear me, dear me, what a morning!" ”

“ They would never be happy together. He and Peter would never be able to deal with a case like Clare's, there was something too naïve, too childish in them. How she despised both of them, as though they had been curates on their visiting-day in the slums.
Oh, Henry understood that well enough. But didn't all women despise all men unless they were in love with them or wanted to be in love with them or had helped to produce them?
And then again, when you thought of it, didn't all men despise all women with the same exceptions? Clare's scorn of him tingled in his ears and made his eyes smart. ”

“ He seemed to be deserted of all men. Christina was far, far away. Millie and Peter did not exist. His work was nothing. He was out of tune with the universe. He felt behind him the house, the lands, the country falling into ruin. His affection for Duncombe, his master, was affronted by the vision of brother Tom, flushed and eager, selling his family for thirty pieces of silver. He and his generation could assist only at the breaking of the old world, not at the making of the new. ”