"I don"t know about that," Thurston said in a friendly conversational tone. "I shouldn"t wonder if we"ve got more in common than you"d fancy.
Now I"ll tell you right out, I like you. I"ve always liked you, and what"s more I always shall. Whatever you do--"
"I don"t care," broke in Martin angrily, "whether you like me or not."
"No, I know you don"t," Thurston continued quietly. "And I know what you think of me, too. This is your idea of me, I reckon--that I"m a pushing, uneducated common bounder that"s just using this religious business to shove himself along with; that"s kidding all these poor old ladies that "e believes in their bunk.u.m, and is altogether about as low-down a fellow as you"re likely to meet with. That"s about the colour of it, isn"t it?"
Martin said nothing. That was exactly "the colour of it."
"Yes, well," Thurston continued, a faint flush on his pale cheeks. "Of course I know that all right. And I"ll tell you the idea that I might "ave of you--only might "ave, mind you. Why, that you"re a stuck-up ignorant sort of feller, that"s been rolling up and down all over Europe, gets a bit of money, comes over and bullies his father, thinks "e knows better than every one about things "e knows nothing about whatever--"
"Look here, Thurston," Martin interrupted, stepping forward. "I tell you I don"t care a two-penny curse what a man like--"
"I only said might, mind you," said Thurston, smiling. "It"s only a short-sighted fool would think that of you really. And I"m not a fool.
No, really, I"m not. I"ve got quite another idea of you. My idea is that you"re one of us whether you want to be or not, and that you always will be one of us. That"s why I like you and will be a friend to you too."
"I tell you I don"t want your d.a.m.ned friendship," Martin cried. "I don"t want to have anything to do with you or your opinion or your plans or anything else."
"That"s all right," said Thurston. "I quite understand. It"s natural enough to feel as you do. But I"m afraid you"ll "ave to "ave something to do with me. I"m not quite what you think me, and you"re not quite what you think yourself. There"s two of each of us, that"s the truth of it. I may be a sham and a charlatan, one part of me, I don"t know I"m sure. I certainly don"t believe all your governor does. I don"t believe all I say and I don"t say all I think. But then "oo does? You don"t yourself. I"ll even tell you straight out that when I just came into the business I laughed at the lot of "em, your father and all. "A silly lot o" softs they are," I said to myself, "to believe all that nonsense." But now--I don"t know. When you"ve been at this game a bit you scarcely know what you do believe, that"s the truth of it. There may be something in it after all. Sometimes ... well, it "ud surprise you if you"d seen all the things I have. Oh, I don"t mean ghosts and spirits and all that kind of nonsense. No, but the kind of thing that "appens to people you"d never expect. You"re getting caught into it yourself; I"ve watched you all along. But that isn"t the point. The point is that I"m not so bad as you think, nor so simple neither. And life isn"t so simple, nor religion, nor love, nor anything as you think it. You"re young yet, you know. Very young."
Martin turned back to the door.
"All very interesting, Thurston," he said. "You can think what you like, of course. All the same, the less we see of one another--"
"Well," said Thurston slowly, smiling. "That"ll be a bit difficult--to avoid one another, I mean. You see, I"m going to marry your sister."
Martin laughed. Inside him something was saying: "Now, look out. This is all a trap. He doesn"t mean what he says. He"s trying to catch you."
"Going to marry Amy? Oh no, you"re not."
Thurston did not appear to be interested in anything that Martin had to say. He continued as though he were pursuing his own thoughts. "Yes ...
so it"ll be difficult. I didn"t think you"d like it when you heard. I said to Amy, "E won"t like it," I said. She said you"d been too long away from the family to judge. And so you have, you know. Oh! Amy and I"ll be right enough. She"s a fine woman, your sister."
Martin burst out:
"Well, then, that settles it. It simply settles it. That finishes it."
"Finishes what?" asked Thurston, smiling in a friendly way.
"Never you mind. It"s nothing to do with you. Has my father consented?"
"Yes ... said all "e wanted was for Amy to be "appy. And so she will be. I"ll look after her. You"ll come round to it in time."
"Father agrees ... My G.o.d! But it"s impossible! Don"t you see? Don"t you see? I ..."
The sudden sense of his impotence called back his words. He felt nothing but rage and indignation against the whole set of them, against the house they were in, the very table with the papers blowing upon it and the candle shining ... Well, it made his own affair more simple--that was certain. He must be off--right away from them all.
Stay in the house with that fellow for a brother-in-law? Stay when ...
"It"s all right," said Thurston, moistening his pale dry lips with his tongue. "You"ll see it in time. It"s the best thing that could "appen.
And we"ve got more in common than you"d ever suppose. We "ave, really.
You"re a religious man, really--can"t escape your destiny, you know.
There"s religious and non-religious and it doesn"t matter what your creed is, whether you"re a Christian or a "Ottentot, there it is. And if you"re religious, you"re religious. I may be the greatest humbug on the market, but I"m religious. It"s like "aving a "are lip--you"ll be bothered with it all your life."
But what more Thurston may have said Martin did not hear: he had left the room, banging the door behind him. On what was his indignation based? Injured pride. And was he really indignant? Was not something within him elated, because by this he had been offered his freedom?
Thurston marry his sister? ... He could go his own way now. Even his father could not expect him to remain.
And he wanted Maggie--urgently, pa.s.sionately. Standing for a moment there in the dark pa.s.sage he wanted her. He was lonely, disregarded, despised.
They did not care for him here, no one cared for him anywhere--only Maggie who was clear-eyed and truthful and sure beyond any human being whom he had ever known. Then, with a very youthful sense of challenging this world that had so grossly insulted him by admitting Thurston into the heart of it, he joined the tea-party. There in the pink, close, sugar-smelling, soft atmosphere sat his mother, Amy, Mrs. Alweed and little Miss Pyncheon. His mother, with her lace cap and white hair and soft plump hands, was pouring tea through a strainer as though it were a rite. On her plate were three little frilly papers that had held sugary cakes, on her lips were fragments of sugar. Amy, in an ugly grey dress, sat severely straight upon a hard chair and was apparently listening to Miss Pyncheon, but her eyes, suspicious and restless, moved like the eyes of a newly captured animal. Mrs. Alweed, stout in pink with a large hat full of roses, smiled and smiled, waiting only for a moment when she could amble off once again into s.p.a.ce safe on the old broad back of her family experiences, the only conversational steed to whose care she ever entrusted herself. She had a son Hector, a husband, Mr. Alweed, and a sister-in-law, Miss Alweed; she had the greatest confidence in the absorbed attention of the slightest of her acquaintances. "Hector, he"s my boy, you know--although why I call him a boy I can"t think--because he"s twenty-two and a half--he"s at Cambridge, Christs College--well, this morning I had a letter ..." she would begin. She began now upon Martin. His mind wandered. He looked about the little room and thought of Thurston. Why was he not more angry about it all? He had pretended to be indignant, he had hated Thurston as he stood there ... But had he? Half of him hated him. Then with a jerk Thurston"s words came back to him: "There"s two of each of us, that"s the truth of it." "Two of each of us ..." Sitting there, listening to Mrs. Alweed"s voice that flowed like a river behind him, he saw the two figures, saw them quite clearly and distinctly, flesh and blood, even clothes and voices and smile. And he knew that all his life these two figures had been growing, waiting for the moment when he would recognise them. One figure was the Martin whom he knew--brown, healthy, strong and sane; a figure wearing his clothes, his own clothes, the tweeds and the cloths, the brogues and the heavy boots, the soft untidy hats; the figure was hard, definite, resolute, quarrelling, arguing, loving, joking, swearing all in the sensible way.
It was a figure that all the world had understood, that had been drunk often enough, lent other men money, been hard-up and extravagant and thoughtless. "A good chap." "A sensible fellow." "A pal." "No flies on Warlock." That was the kind of figure. And the life had been physical, had never asked questions, had never known morbidity, had lived on what it saw and could touch and could break ... And the other figure! That was, physically, less plainly seen. No, there it was, standing a little away from the other, standing away, contemptuously, despising it, deriding it. Fat, soft, white hanging cheeks, wearing anything to cover its body, but shining in some way through the clothes, so that it was body that you saw. A soft body, hands soft and the colour of the flesh pale and unhealthy. But it was the eyes that spoke: the mouth trembled and was weak, the chin was fat and feeble, but the eyes lived, lived--were eager, fighting, beseeching, longing, captive eyes!
And this figure, Martin knew, was a prey to every morbid desire, rushed to sensual excess and then crept back miserably to search for some spiritual flagellation. Above all, it was restless, as some one presses round a dark room searching for the lock of the door, restless and lonely, cowardly and selfish, but searching and sensitive and even faithful, faithful to something or to some one ... pursued also by something or some one. A figure to whom this world offered only opportunities for sin and failure and defeat, but a figure to whom this world was the merest shadow hiding, as a shade hides a lamp, the life within. Wretched enough with its bad health, its growing corpulence, its weak mouth, its furtive desires, but despising, nevertheless, the strong, healthy figure beside it. Thurston was right. Men are not born to be free, but to fight, to the very death, for the imprisonment and destruction of all that is easiest and most physically active and most pleasant to the sight and touch ...
"And so Hector really hopes that he"ll be able to get down to us for Christmas, although he"s been asked to go on this reading party. Of course, it"s simply a question as to whether he works better at home or with his friends. If he were a weak character, I think Mr. Alweed would insist in his coming home, but Hector really cares for his work more than anything. He"s never been very good at games; his short sight prevents him, poor boy, and as he very justly remarked, when he was home last holidays, "I don"t see, mother, how I am going to do my duty as a solicitor (that"s what he hopes to be) if I don"t work now. Many men regard Cambridge as a time for play. Not so I.""
"But I hope that if Hector comes home this Christmas he"ll attend the Chapel services. The influence your father might have on such a boy as Hector, Mr. Warlock, a boy, sensitive and thoughtful ... I was saying, Miss Pyncheon, that Hector--"
Miss Pyncheon was the soul of good-nature--but she was much more than that. She was by far the most sensible, genial, and worldly of the Inside Saints; it was, in fact, astonishing that she should be an Inside Saint at all.
Of them all she impressed Martin the most, because there was nothing of the crank about her. She went to theatres, to the seaside in the summer, took in The Queen, and was a subscriber to Boots" Circulating Library. She dressed quietly and in excellent taste--in grey or black and white. She had jolly brown eyes and a dimple in the middle of her chin. She was ready to discuss any question with any one, was marvellously broad-minded and tolerant, and although she was both poor and generous, always succeeded in making her little flat in Soho Square pretty and attractive.
Her chief fault, perhaps, was that she cared for no one especially--she had neither lovers nor parents nor sisters nor brothers, and to all her friends she behaved with the same kind geniality, welcoming one as another. She was thus aloof from them all and relied upon no one. The centre of her life was, of course, her religion, but of this she never spoke, although strangely enough no one doubted the intensity of her belief and the reality of her devotion.
She was a determined follower of Mr. Warlock; what he said she believed, but here, too, there seemed to be no personal attachment. She did not allow criticism of him in her own presence, but, on the other hand, she never spoke as though it would distress her very greatly to lose him. He was a sign, a symbol ... If one symbol went another could be found.
To Martin she was the one out-standing proof of the reality of the Chapel. All the others--his sister, Miss Avies, Thurston, Crashaw, the Miss Cardinals, yes, and his father too, were, in one way or another, eccentric, abnormal, but Miss Pyncheon was the sane every-day world, the worldly world, the world of drinks and dinners, and banks and tobacconists, and yet she believed as profoundly as any of them. What did she believe? She was an Inside Saint, therefore she must have accepted this whole story of the Second Coming and the rest of it. Of course women would believe anything ... Nevertheless ...
He scarcely listened to their chatter. He was forcing himself not to look at his sister, and yet Thurston"s news seemed so extraordinary to him that his eye kept stealing round to her to see whether she were still the same. Could she have accepted him, that bounder and cad and charlatan? He felt a sudden cold chill of isolation as though in this world none of the ordinary laws were followed. "By G.o.d, I am a stranger here," he thought. It was not until after dinner that night that he was alone with his father. He had resolved on many fine things in the interval. He was going to "have it out with him," "to put his foot down," "to tell him that such a thing as Thurston"s marriage to his sister was perfectly impossible." And then, for the thousandth time since his return to England he felt strangely weak and irresolute. He did wish to be "firm" with his father, but it would have been so much easier to be firm had he not been so fond of him. "Soft, sentimental weakness," he called it to himself, but he knew that it was something deeper than that, something that he would never be able to deny.
He went into his father"s study that night with a strange dismal foreboding as though he were being drawn along upon some path that he did not want to follow. What was his father mixed up with all this business for? Why were such men as Thurston in existence? Why couldn"t life be simple and straightforward with people like his father and himself and that girl Maggie alone somewhere with nothing to interfere?
Life was never just as you wanted it, always a little askew, a little twisted, cynically c.o.c.king its eye at you before it vanished round the corner? He didn"t seem to be able to manage it. Anyway, he wasn"t going to have that fellow Thurston marrying his sister.
He found his father lying back in his arm-chair fast asleep, looking like a dead man, his long thin face pale with fatigue, his eyelids a dull grey, his mouth tightly closed as though in a grim determination to pursue some battle. And at the sight of him thus worn out and beaten Martin"s affection flooded his heart. He stood opposite his father looking at him and loving him more deeply than he had ever done before.
"I will take him away from all this," was his thought, "these Thurstons and all--out of all this ... We"ll go off abroad somewhere. And I"ll make him fat and happy."
Then his father suddenly woke up, with a start and a cry: "Where am I?"
... Then he suddenly saw Martin. "Martin," he said, smiling.
Martin smiled back and then began at once: "Father, this isn"t true about Thurston, is it?"
He saw, as he had often done before, that his father had to call himself up from some world of vision before he could realise even his surroundings. Martin he recognised intuitively with the recognition of the spirit, but he seemed to take in the details of the room slowly, one by one, as though blinded by the light.
"Ah--I"ve been dreaming," he said, still smiling at Martin helplessly and almost timidly. "I"m so tired these days--suddenly--I usen"t to be ..." He put his hand to his forehead, then laid it on Martin"s knee, and the strength and warmth of that seemed suddenly to fill him with vigour.
"You"re never tired, are you?" he asked as a child might ask an elder.
"Very seldom," answered Martin, "I say, father, what is all this about Thurston?"