Maggie did not look at her father. She sat there, near the dark window, her hands folded on her lap. She thought of nothing at all except the rats. She was not afraid of them but they worried her. They had been a trouble in the house for a long time past, poison had been laid for them and they had refused to take it. They had had, perhaps, some fear of the Reverend Charles, at any rate they scampered and scurried now behind the wainscoting as though conscious of their release. "Even the rats are glad," Maggie thought to herself. In the uncertain candle-light the fancy seized her that one rat, a very large one, had crept out from his hole, crawled on to the bed, and now sat on the sheet looking at her father. It would be a horrible thing did the rat walk across her father"s beard, and yet for her life she could not move. She waited, fascinated. She fancied that the beard stirred a little as though the rat had moved it. She fancied that the rat grew and grew in size, now there were many of them, all with their little sharp beady eyes watching the corpse. Now there were none; only the large limbs outlined beneath the spread, the waxen face, the ticking clock, the strange empty shape of his grey dressing-gown hanging upon a nail on the wall. Where was her father gone? She did not know, she did not care--only she trusted that she would never meet him again--never again. Her head nodded; her hands and feet were cold; the candle-light jumped, the rats scampered ... she slept.
When it was quite dark beyond the windows and the candles were low Maggie came downstairs, stiff, cold, and very hungry. She felt that it was wrong to have slept and very wrong to be hungry, but there it was; she did not pretend to herself that things were other than they were.
In the dining-room she found supper laid out upon the table, cold beef, potatoes in their jackets, cold beetroot, jelly, and cheese, and her uncle playing cards on the unoccupied end of the table in a melancholy manner by himself. She felt that it was wrong of him to play cards on such an occasion, but the cards were such dirty grey ones and he obtained obviously so little pleasure from his amus.e.m.e.nt that he could not be considered to be wildly abandoning himself to riot and extravagance.
She felt pleasure in his company; for the first time since her father"s death she was a little frightened and uneasy. She might even have gone to him and cried on his shoulder had he given her any encouragement, but he did not speak to her except to say that he had already eaten. He was still a little sulky with her.
When she had finished her meal she sat in her accustomed chair by the fire, her head propped on her hands, looking into the flame, and there, half-asleep, half-awake, memories, conversations, long-vanished scenes trooped before her eyes as though they were bidding her a long farewell. She did not, as she sat there, sentimentalise about any of them, she saw them as they were, some happy, some unhappy, some terrifying, some amusing, all of them dead and pa.s.sed, grey and thin, the life gone out of them. Her mind was fixed on the future. What was it going to be? Would she have money as her uncle had said? Would she see London and the world? Would she find friends, people who would be glad to be with her and have her with them? What would her aunts be like? and so from them, what about all the other members of the family of whom she had heard? She painted for herself a gay scene in which, at the door of some great house, a fine gathering of Cardinals waited with smiles and outstretched hands to welcome her. Then, laughing at herself as she always did when she had allowed her fancy free rein, she shook her head. No, it certainly would not be like that. Relations were not like that. That was not the way to face the world to encourage romantic dreams. Her uncle, watching her surrept.i.tiously, wondered of what she was thinking. Her determined treatment of him that afternoon continued to surprise him. She certainly ought to make her way in the world, but what a pity that she was so plain. Perhaps if she got some colour into her cheeks, dressed better, brushed her hair differently--no, her mouth would always be too large and her nose too small--and her figure was absurd. Uncle Mathew considered that he was a judge of women.
He rose at last and, rather shamefacedly, said that he should go to bed. Maggie wondered at the confusion that she detected in him. She looked at him and he dropped his eyes.
"Good night, Uncle Mathew."
He looked at her then and noticed by her white face and dark-lined eyes what a strain the day had been to her. He saw again the figure in the shabby black hat sobbing in the lane. He suddenly put his arms about her and held her close to him. She noticed that he smelled of whisky, but she felt his kindness, and putting her hand on his fat shoulder kissed once more his cheek.
When he had left her, her weariness came suddenly down upon her, overwhelming her as though the roof had fallen in. The lamp swelled before her tired eyes as though it had been an evil, unhealthy flower.
The table slid into the chairs and the cold beef leered at the jelly; the pictures jumped and the clock ran in a mad scurry backwards and forwards.
She dragged her dazed body up through the silent house to her bedroom, undressed, was instantly in bed and asleep.
She slept without dreams but woke suddenly as though she had been flung into the midst of one. She sat up in bed, knowing from the thumping of her heart that she was seized with panic but finding, in the first flash, no reason for her alarm. The room was pitch black with shadows of light here and there, but she had with her, in the confusion of her sleep, uncertainty as to the different parts of the room. What had awakened her? Of what was she frightened? Then suddenly, as one slits a black screen with a knife, a thin line of light cracked the darkness.
As though some one had whispered it in her ear she knew that the door was there and the dark well of uncertainty into which she had been plunged was suddenly changed into her own room where she could recognise the window, the chest of drawers, the looking-gla.s.s, the chairs. Some one was opening her door and her first thought that it was of course her father was checked instantly by the knowledge, conveyed again as though some one had whispered to her, that her father was dead.
The thin line of light was now a wedge, it wavered, drew back to a spider"s thread again, then broadened with a flush of colour into a streaming path. Some one stood in the doorway holding a candle. Maggie saw that it was Uncle Mathew in his shirt and trousers.
"What is it?" she said.
He swayed as he stood there, his candle making fantastic leaps and shallows of light. He was smiling at her in a silly way and she saw that he was drunk. She had had a horror of drunkenness ever since, as a little girl, she had watched an inebriated carter kicking his wife. She always, after that, saw the woman"s bent head and stooping shoulders.
Now she knew, sitting up in bed, that she was frightened not only of Uncle Mathew, but of the house, of the whole world.
She was alone. She realised her loneliness in a great flash of bewilderment and cold terror as though the ground had suddenly broken away from her and she was on the edge of a vast pit. There was no one in the house to help her. Her father was dead. The cook and the maid were sunk in heavy slumber at the other end of the house. There was no one to help her. She was alone, and it seemed to her that in the shock of that discovery she realised that she would always be alone now, for the rest of her life.
"What is it, Uncle Mathew?" she said again. Her voice was steady, although her heart hammered. Some other part of her brain was wondering where it was that he had got the drink. He must have had a bottle of whisky in his room; she remembered his shyness when he said good-night to her.
He stood in the middle of the floor, swaying on his feet and smiling at her. The flame of the light rose and fell in jerks and spasms.
"I thought," he said, "I"d come--to see m"little Maggie, m"little niece, jus" to talk a lill bit and cheer her up--up." He drew nearer the bed. "She"ll be lonely, I said--lonely--very--aren"t you--lonely Maggie?"
"It"s very late," she said, "and you"re dropping grease ail over the floor with that candle. You go back to bed, uncle. I"m all right. You go back to bed."
"Go back? No, no, no. Oh no, not back to bed. It"ll soon be mornin".
That"ll be jolly-jolly. We"ll talk--together till mornin"."
He put the candle on a chair, nearly falling as he did so, then came towards her. He stood over her, his shirt, open at the neck, protuberating over his stomach, his short thick legs swaying. His red, unshaven face with the trembling lips was hateful to her.
Suddenly he sat on the edge of her bed and put his hands out towards her. He caught her hair.
"My little Maggie--my little Maggie," he said.
The fright, the terror, the panic that seized her was like the sudden rising of some black figure who grew before her, bent towards her and with cold hard fingers squeezed her throat. For an instant she was helpless, quivering, weak in every bone of her body.
Then some one said to her:
"But you can manage this."
"I can manage this," she answered almost aloud.
"You"re alone now. You mustn"t let things be too much for you."
She jumped out of bed, on the farther side away from her uncle. She put on her dressing-gown. She stood and pointed at the door.
"Now, uncle, you go back to your room at once. It"s disgraceful coming in the middle of the night and disturbing every one. Go back to bed."
The new tone in her voice startled him. He looked at her in a bewildered fashion. He got up from the bed.
"Why, Maggie--I only--only--"
He stared from her to the candle and from the candle back to her again.
"Now go," she repeated. "Quick now."
He hung his head. "Now you"re angry--angry with your poor ole uncle--poor ole uncle." He looked at her, his eyes puzzled as though he had never seen her before.
"You"re very hard," he said, shaking his head. He stumbled towards the door--"Very hard," he repeated, and went out, his head still hanging.
She heard him knock his foot against the stairs. Soon there was silence.
She blew out the candle and went back to bed. She lay there, her heart, at first, throbbing, her eyes straining the darkness. Then she grew more tranquil. She felt in her heart a strange triumph as though already she had begun life and had begun it with success. She thought, before she sank deep into sleep, that anything would yield to one did one only deal sensibly with it ... After all, it was a fine thing to be alone.
CHAPTER II
AUNT ANNE
In the morning, however, she discovered no fine things anywhere. The hours that had elapsed since her father"s death had wrought in him a "sea-change." He had gained n.o.bility, almost beauty. She wondered with a desolate self-criticism whether during all those years she had been to blame and not he. Perhaps he had wished for sympathy and intimacy and she had repulsed him. His little possessions here and there about the house reproached her.
Uncle Mathew had a bad headache and would not come down to breakfast.
She felt indignant with him but also indulgent. He had shown himself hopelessly lacking in good taste, and good feeling, but then she had never supposed that he had these things. At the same time the last support seemed to have been removed from her; it might well be that her Aunt Anne would not care for her and would not wish to have her in her house. What should she do then? Whither should she go? She flung up her head and looked bravely into the face of Ellen, the cook, who came to remove the breakfast, but she had to bite her lip to keep back the tears that WOULD come and fill her eyes so that the world was misty and obscure.
There was, she fancied, something strange about Ellen. In HER eyes some obscure triumph or excitement, some scorn and derision, Maggie fancied, of herself. Had the woman been drinking? ...
Then there arrived Mr. Bra.s.sy, her father"s solicitor, from Cator Hill.
He had been often in the house, a short fat man with a purple face, clothes of a horsy cut, and large, red, swollen fingers. He took now possession of the house with much self-importance. "Well, Miss Maggie"
(he blew his words at her as a child blows soap-bubbles). "Here we are, then. Very sad indeed--very. I"ve been through the house--got the will all right. Your aunt, you say, will be with us?"
"My aunt from London. Miss Anne Cardinal. I expect her in half an hour.
She should have arrived at Clinton by the half-past nine train."