Already here, just as before in London, she was complaining and angry, and unsympathetic. She did care for Paul--she could even love Grace if she would let her. She would make everything right this summer and try and be a better, kinder woman.
Then, one morning, she found a letter on the breakfast table. She did not recognise the handwriting; when she opened it and saw the signature at the end for a moment she also did not recognise that. "William Magnus." ... Then--why, of course! Mr. Magnus! She saw him standing looking down at her with his mild eyes, staring through his large spectacles.
Her heart beat furiously. She waited until breakfast was over, then she took it up to her bedroom.
The letter was as follows:
Dear Miss Maggie,
I know you are not "Miss Maggie" now, but that is the only way that I can think of you. I expect that you have quite forgotten me, and perhaps you don"t want to hear from me, but I must not lose sight of you altogether. I haven"t so many friends that I can lose one without a word. I don"t know quite what to begin by telling you. I ought to ask you questions about yourself, I suppose, but I know that your aunts hear from you from time to time and they give me news from your letters. I hear that you are happily married and are quite settled down to your new life. I"m very glad to hear that, although it isn"t quite the life that I would have prophesied for you. Do you like Skeaton?
I"ve never cared much for seaside resorts myself, but then I"m a queer cranky old man, and I deserve all I get. I wish I could tell you something cheerful about all your friends here, but I"m afraid I can"t.
Your aunt is so brave and plucky that probably she said nothing to you in her last letter about how ill she has been, but she"s just had a very bad bout, and at one time we were afraid that we were going to lose her. You can imagine how anxious we all were. But she is better again now, although very much shattered. The Chapel is closed. There"s a piece of news for you! It never recovered from poor Warlock"s death; he was the spirit that gave it life, and although he may have had his dreams and imaginations that deceived him, there was some life in that building that I have never found anywhere else and shall never find again. You remember that Amy Warlock married that scamp Thurston. Well, she has left him and has come back to live with her mother. She had a rather bad experience, I"m afraid, poor woman, but she says nothing to any one about it. She and the old lady have moved from this part of London and have gone to live somewhere in Kensington. Some one saw Martin Warlock in Paris the other day. I hear that he has been very seriously ill and is greatly changed, looking years older. I can say, now that you are happily married, that I am greatly relieved that you were not engaged to him. You won"t think this presumptuous of a man old enough to be your father, will you? I am sure he had many good things in him, but he was very weak and not fitted to look after you. But he had a good heart, I"m sure, and his father"s death was a great shock to him. Thurston, I hear, is having revival meetings up and down the country. Miss Avies, I believe, is with him. You remember Miss Pyncheon? She and many other regular attendants at the Chapel have left this neighbourhood. The Chapel is to be a cinematograph theatre, I believe. There! I have given you all the gossip. I have not said more about your aunts because I want you to come up one day to London, when you have time, and see them. You will do that, won"t you? I expect you are very busy--I hope you are. I would like to have a line from you, but please don"t bother if you have too much to do.
Always your friend,
WILLIAM MAGNUS.
When Maggie saw Martin"s name the other writing on the page transformed itself suddenly into a strange pattern of webs and squares.
Nevertheless she pursued her way through this, but without her own agency, as though some outside person were reading to her and she was not listening.
She repeated the last words "Always your friend, William Magnus" aloud solemnly twice. Her thoughts ran in leaps and runs, hurdle-race-wise across the flat level of her brain. Martin. Old. Ill. Paris. Those walls out there and the road-man with a spade--little boy walking with him--chattering--it"s going to be hot. The light across the lawn is almost blue and the beds are dry. His room. The looking-gla.s.s. Always tilts back when one tries to see one"s hair. Meant to speak about it.
Martin. Ill. Paris. Paris. Trains. Boats. How quickly could one be there? No time at all. Paris. Never been to Paris. Perhaps he isn"t there now ...
At that definite picture she controlled her mind again. She pulled it up as a driver drags back a restive horse. Her first real thought was: "How hard that this letter should have come now when I was just going to put everything right with Paul." Her next: "Poor Paul! But I don"t care for him a bit ... I don"t care for any one but Martin. I never did." Her next: "Why did I ever think I did?" And her next: "Why did I ever do this?" She knew with a strange calm certainty that from this moment she would never be rid of Martin"s presence again. She had maintained for more than a year a wonderful make-believe of indifference. She had fancied that by, pushing furiously with both hands one could drive things into the past. But Fate was cleverer than that. What he wanted to keep he kept for you--the weaving of the pattern in the carpet might be your handiwork, but the final design was settled before ever the carpet was begun. Not that any of these fine thoughts ever entered Maggie"s head. All that she thought was "I love Martin. I want to go to him. He"s ill. I"ve got to do my duty about Paul." She settled upon that last point. She bound her mind around it, fast and secure like thick cord. She put Mr. Magnus" letter away in the sh.e.l.l-covered box, the wedding-present from the aunts; in this box were the programme of the play that she had been to with Martin, the ring with the three pearls, Martin"s few letters, and some petals of the chrysanthemum, dry and faded, that she had worn on the great day of the matinee. Something had warned her that it was foolish to keep Martin"s letters, but why should she not? She had never hidden her love for Martin. Then, standing in the middle of the room, close beside the large double-bed, with a football-group and "The Crucifixion" staring down upon her, she had her worst hour. Nothing in all life could have moved her as did that picture of Martin"s loneliness and sickness. Wave after wave of persuasion swept over her: "Go! Go now! Take the train to Paris. You can find out from Mr. Magnus where he was living. He is sick. He needs you. You swore to him that you would never desert him, and you have deserted him. They don"t want you here. Grace hates you, and Paul is too lazy to care!"
At the thought of Paul resolution came to her. She looked up at the rather fat, amiable youth with the stout legs and the bare knees in the football photograph, and prayed to it: "Paul, I"m very lonely and tempted. Care for me even though I can"t love you as you want. Don"t give me up because I can"t let you have what some one else has got.
Let"s be happy, Paul--please."
She was shivering. She looked back with a terrified, reluctant glance to the drawer where Mr. Magnus" letter was, then she went downstairs.
Soon after they started for Little Harben. The last days in Skeaton had scarcely been happy ones. Grace had erected an elaborate scaffolding of offended dignity and bitter misery. She was not bitterly miserable, indeed she enjoyed her game, but it was depressing to watch Paul give way to her. He was determined to leave her in a happy mind. Any one could have told him that the way to do that was to leave her alone altogether. Instead he petted her, persuading her to eat her favourite pudding, buying her a new work-box that she needed, dismissing a boy from the choir (the only treble who was a treble) because he was supposed to have made a long-nose at Grace during choir-practice.
He adopted also a pleading line with her. "Now, Grace dear, don"t you think you could manage a little bit more?"
"Do you think you ought to go out in all this rain, Grace dear?"
"Grace, you look tired to death. Shall I read to you a little?"
He listened to her stories with a new elaborate attention. He laughed heartily at the very faintest glimmer of a joke. Through it all Grace maintained an unreleased solemnity, a mournful superiority, a grim forbearance.
Maggie, watching, felt with a sinking heart that she was beginning to despise Paul.
His very movement as he hurried to place a cushion for Grace sent a little shiver down her back. "Oh, don"t do it, Paul!" she heard herself cry internally, but she could say nothing. She had won her victory about Harben. She could only now be silent. Still, she bore no grudge at all against Grace. She even liked her.
Grace made many sinister allusions to her fancied departure. "Ah, in November ... Oh! of course I shall not be here then!" or, "That will be in the autumn then, won"t it? You"d better give it to some one who will be here at the time." With every allusion she scored a victory. It was evident that Paul was terrified by the thought that she should leave him. He did not see what he would do without her. His world would tumble to pieces.
"But she hasn"t the remotest intention of going," said Maggie. "She"ll never go."
"Well, I don"t know. It would be strange without her, Maggie, I must confess. You see, all our lives we"ve been together--all our lives."
Nevertheless he felt perhaps some relief, in spite of himself, when they were safely in a train for Little Harben. It was rather a relief, just for a day or two, not to see Grace"s reproachful face. Yes, it was. He was quite gay, almost like the boy he used to be. Little Harben was one of the smallest villages in Wiltshire and its Rectory one of the most dilapidated. The Rectory was sunk into the very bottom of a green well. Green hills rose on every side above it, green woods pressed in all around it, a wild, deserted green garden crept up to the windows and clambered about the old walls. There was hardly any furniture in the house, and many many windows all without curtains.
Long looking-gla.s.ses reflected the green garden at every possible angle so that all the lights and shadows in the house were green. There was a cat with green eyes, and the old servant was so aged and infirm that she was, spiritually if not physically, covered with green moss.
From their bedroom they could see the long green slope of the hill.
Everywhere there was a noise of birds nestling amongst the leaves, of invisible streams running through the gra.s.s, of branches mysteriously cracking, and, always, in the distance some one seemed to be chopping with an axe. If you pushed a window open mult.i.tudes of little insects fell in showers about you. All the roses were eaten with green flies.
"What a place!" said Maggie; nevertheless it was rather agreeable after the sand of Skeaton.
During the first three days they preserved their att.i.tude of friendly distance. On the fourth evening Maggie desperately flung down her challenge. They were sitting, after supper, in the wild deserted garden. It was a wonderful evening, faintly blue and dim crocus with flickering silver stars. The last birds twittered in the woods; the green arc of the hill against the evening sky had a great majesty of repose and rest. "Now, Paul!" said Maggie.
"What is it, dear?" but he slowly changed colour and looked away from her, out into the wood.
"We"ve got to face it some time," she said. "The sooner, then, the better--"
"Face what?" he asked, dropping his voice as though he were afraid that some one would overhear.
"You and me." Maggie gathered her resources together. "Before we were married we were great friends. You were the greatest friend I ever had except Uncle Mathew. And now I don"t know what we are."
"Whose fault is that?" he asked huskily. "You know what the matter is.
You don"t love me. You never have ... Have you?" He suddenly ended, turning towards her.
She saw his new eagerness and she was frightened, but she looked at a little bunch of stars that twinkled at her above the dark elms and took courage.
"I"m very bad at explaining my feelings," she said. "And you"re not very good either, Paul. I know I am very fond of you, and I feel as though it ought to be so simple if I were wiser or kinder. I"ve been thinking for weeks about this, and I want to say that I"m ready to do anything that will make you happy."
"You"ll love me?" he asked.
"I"m very fond of you, and I always will be."
"No, but love."
"A word like that isn"t important. Affection--"
"No. It"s love I want."
She turned away from him, pressing her hands together, staring into the wood that was sinking into avenues of dark. She couldn"t answer him. He came over to her. He knelt on the dry gra.s.s, took her head between his hands, and kissed her again and again and again.
She heard him murmur: "Maggie ... Maggie ... Maggie. You must love me. You must. I"ve waited so long. I didn"t know what love was. G.o.d in His Mercy forgive me for the thoughts I"ve had this year. You"ve tormented me. Tantalised me. You"re a witch. A witch. You"re so strange, so odd, so unlike any one. You"ve enchanted me. Love me.
Maggie ... Love me ... Love me."
She caught his words all broken and scattered. She felt his heart beating against her body, and his hands were hot to the touch of her cold cheek. She felt that he was desperate and ashamed and pitiful. She felt, above all else, that she must respond--and she could not. She strove to give him what he needed. She caught his hands, and then, because she knew that she was acting falsely and the whole of her nature was in rebellion, she drew back. He felt her withdraw. His hands dropped.
She burst into tears, suddenly hiding her face in her hands as she used to do when she was a little girl.
"Oh, Paul," she wept. "I"m so sorry. I"m so sorry. I"m wicked. I can"t--"
He got up and stood with his back to her, looking towards the night sky that flashed now with stars.