"Love me, Maggie-love me-you must--"
When he released her, looking back towards the dark house, she saw Grace standing there with a lamp in her hand.
Against her will she shared his feeling of guilt, as, like children caught in a fault, they turned back towards the house.
CHAPTER V
THE BATTLE OF SKEATON
FIRST YEAR
Afterwards, when Maggie looked back she was baffled. She tried to disentangle the events between that moment when Grace, holding the lamp in her hand, blinked at them as they came across the lawn, and that other most awful moment when, in Paul"s study, Grace declared final and irrevocable war.
Between those two events ran the history of more than two years, and there was nothing stranger than the way that the scene in the garden and the scene in the study seemed to Maggie to be close together. What were the steps, she used to ask herself afterwards, that led to those last months of fury and tragedy and disaster? Was it my fault? Was it hers? Was it Paul"s? What happened? If I had not done this or that, if Grace had not said--no, it was hopeless. She would break off in despair. Isolated scenes appeared before her, always bound, on either side, by that prologue and that finale, but the scenes would not form a chain. She could not connect; she would remain until the end bewildered as to Grace"s motives. She never, until the day of her death, was to understand Grace.
"She was angry for such little things," she said afterwards.
"She hated me to be myself." The two years in retrospect seemed to have pa.s.sed with incredible swiftness, the months that followed them were heavy and slow with trouble. But from the very first, that is, from the moment when Grace saw Paul kiss Maggie in the evening garden, battle was declared. Maggie might not know it, but it was so-and Grace knew it very well.
It may be said, however, in Grace"s defence that she gave Maggie every chance. She marvelled at her own patience. For two years after that moment, when she decided that Maggie was "queer," and that her beloved Paul was in real danger of his losing his soul because of that "queerness," she held her hand. She was not naturally a patient woman-she was not introspective enough to be that--and she held no brief for Maggie. Nevertheless for two whole years she held her hand...
They were, all three, in that ugly house, figures moving in the dark.
Grace simply knew, as the months pa.s.sed, that she disliked and feared Maggie more and more; Paul knew that as the months pa.s.sed--well, what he knew will appear in the following pages. And Maggie? She only knew that it needed all her endurance and stubborn will to force herself to accept this life as her life. She must-she must. To give way meant to run away, and to run away meant to long for what she could not have, and loneliness and defeat. She would make this into a success; she would care for Paul although she could not give him all that he needed.
She would and she could... Every morning as she lay awake in the big double-bed with the bra.s.s k.n.o.bs at the bed-foot winking at her in the early light she vowed that she would justify her acceptance of the man who lay sleeping so peacefully beside her. Poor child, her battle with Grace was to teach her how far her will and endurance could carry her...
Grace, on her side, was not a bad woman, she was simply a stupid one.
She disliked Maggie for what seemed to her most admirable reasons and, as that dislike slowly, slowly turned into hatred, her self-justification only hardened.
Until that moment, when she saw a faded patch of wall-paper on the wall instead of her mother"s portrait, she had no doubts whatever about the success of what she considered her choice. Maggie was a "dear," young, ignorant, helpless, but the very wife for Paul. Then slowly, slowly, the picture changed. Maggie was obstinate, Maggie was careless, Maggie was selfish, idle, lazy, irreligious--at last, Maggie was "queer."
Then, when in the dusk of that summer evening, she saw Paul kiss Maggie, as the moths blundered about her lamp, her stolid unimaginative heart was terrified. This girl, who was she? What had she been before they found her? What was this strange pa.s.sion in Paul isolating him from her, his sister? This girl was dangerous to them all-a heathen.
They had made a terrible mistake. Paul had been from the first bewitched by some strange spell, and she, his sister, had aided the witch.
And yet, to her credit be it remembered, for two years, she fought her fears, superst.i.tions, jealousies, angers. That can have been no easy thing for a woman who had always had her own way. But Maggie helped her. There were many days during that first year at any rate when Grace thought that the girl was, after all, only the simple harmless child that she had first found her.
It was so transparently clear that Maggie bore no malice against any one in the world, that when she angered Grace she did so always by accident, never by plan-it was only unfortunate that the accidents should occur so often.
Maggie"s days were from the very first of the utmost regularity.
Breakfast at 8.30, then an interview with the cook (Grace generally in attendance here), then shopping (with Grace), luncheon at 1.30, afternoon, paying calls or receiving them, dinner 7.45, and after dinner, reading a book while Paul and Grace played bezique, or, if Paul was busy upon a sermon or a letter (he wrote letters very slowly), patience with Grace. This regular day was varied with meetings, choir practices, dinner-parties, and an occasional Penny Reading.
In this framework of the year it would have appeared that there was very little that could breed disturbance. There were, however, little irritations. Maggie would have given a great deal could she have been allowed to interview the cook in the morning alone.
It would seem impossible to an older person that Grace"s presence could so embarra.s.s Maggie; it embarra.s.sed her to the terrible extent of driving every idea out of her head.
When Maggie had stammered and hesitated and at last allowed, the cook to make a suggestion, Grace would say. "You mustn"t leave it all to cook, dear. Now what about a nice shepherd"s pie?"
The cook, who hated Grace, would toss her head.
"Impossible to-day, Mum ... Quite impossible."
"Oh, do you think so?" Maggie would say.
This was the cook"s opportunity.
"Well, for you, Mum, I"ll see if it can"t be managed. Difficult as it is."
Grace"s anger boiled over.
"That woman must go," she insisted.
"Very well," said Maggie.
Cook after cook appeared and vanished. They all hated Grace.
"You"re not very good at keeping servants, are you, Maggie, dear?" said Grace.
Then there was the shopping. Grace"s conversation was the real trouble here. Grace"s stories had seemed rather a joke in London, soon, in Skeaton, they became a torture. From the vicarage to the High Street was not far, but it was far enough for Grace"s narrative powers to stretch their legs and get a healthy appet.i.te for the day"s work. Grace walked very slowly, because of her painful breathing. Her stout stolid figure in its stiff clothes (the skirt rather short, thick legs in black stockings and large flat boots), marched along. She had a peculiar walk, planting each foot on the ground with deliberate determination as though she were squashing a malignant beetle, she was rather short-sighted, but did not wear gla.s.ses, because, as she said to Maggie, "one need not look peculiar until one must." Her favourite head-gear was a black straw hat with a rather faded black ribbon and a huge pin stuck skewer-wise into it. This pin was like a dagger.
She peered around her as she walked, and for ever enquired of Maggie, "who that was on the other Bide of the road." Maggie, of course, did not know, and there began then a long cross-questioning as to colour, clothes, height, smile or frown. Nothing was too small to catch Grace"s interest but nothing caught it for long. Maggie, at the end of her walk felt as though she were beset by a whirl of little buzzing flies. She noticed that Paul had, from, long habit, learnt to continue his own thoughts during Grace"s stories, and she also tried to do this, but she was not clever at it because Grace would suddenly stop and say, "Where was I, Maggie?" and then when Maggie was confused regard her suspiciously, narrowing her eyes into little thin points. The shopping was difficult because Grace would stand at Maggie"s elbow and say: "Now, Maggie, this is your affair, isn"t it? You decide what you want,"
and then when Maggie had decided, Grace simply, to show her power, would say: "Oh, I don"t think we"d better have that ... No, I don"t think we"ll have that. Will you show us something else, please?"-and so they had to begin all over again.
Nevertheless, throughout their first summer Maggie was almost happy; not QUITE happy, some silent but persistent rebellion at the very centre of her heart prevented her complete happiness. What she really felt was that half of her-the rebellious, questioning, pa.s.sionate half of her-was asleep, and that at all costs, whatever occurred, she must keep it asleep. That was her real definite memory of her first year-that, through it all, she was wilfully, deliberately drugged.
Every one thought Paul very strange that summer. Mr. Flaunders, the curate, told Miss Purves that he was very "odd." "He was always the most tranquil man-a sunny nature, as you know, Miss Purves. Well now, I a.s.sure you, he"s never the same from one minute to another. His temper is most uncertain, and one never can tell of what he"s thinking. You know he took the Collects in the wrong order last Sunday, and last night he read the wrong lesson. Two days ago he was quite angry with me because I suggested another tune for "Lead Kindly Light"-unlike himself, unlike himself."
"To what do you attribute this, Mr. Flaunders?" said Miss Purves. "You know our vicar so well."
"I"m sure I can"t tell what it is," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing.
"Can it be his marriage?" said Miss Purves.
"I"m sure," said Mr. Flaunders, flushing, "that it can be nothing to do with Mrs. Trenchard. That"s a fine woman, Miss Purves, a fine woman."
"She seems a little strange," said Miss Purves. "Why doesn"t she let her hair grow? It"s hardly Christian as it is."
"It"s her health, I expect," said Mr. Flaunders.
Paul was very gentle and good to Maggie all that summer, better to her than any human being had ever been before. She became very fond of him, and yet it was not, apparently, her affection that he wanted. He seemed to be for ever on the verge of asking her some question and then checking himself. He was suddenly silent; she caught him looking at her in odd, furtive ways.
He made love to her and then suddenly checked himself, going off, leaving her alone. During these months she did everything she could for him. She knew that she was not satisfying him, because she could give him only affection and not love. But everything that he wanted her to do she did. And they never, through all those summer months, had one direct honest conversation. They were afraid.
She began to see, very clearly, his faults. His whole nature was easy, genial, and, above all, lazy. He liked to be liked, and she Was often astonished at the pleasure with which he received compliments. He had a conceit of himself, not as a man but as a clergyman, and she knew that nothing pleased him so much as when people praised his "good-natured humanity."
She saw him "play-acting," as she called it, that is, bringing forward a succession of little tricks, a jolly laugh, an enthusiastic opinion, a pretence of humility, a man-of-the-world air, all things not very bad in themselves, but put on many years ago, subconsciously as an actor puts on powder and paint. She saw that he was especially sensitive to lay opinion, liked to be thought a good fellow by the laymen in the place. To be popular she was afraid that he sometimes sacrificed his dignity, his sincerity and his pride. But he was really saved in this by his laziness. He was in fact too lazy to act energetically in his pursuit of popularity, and the temptation to sink into the dirty old chair in his study, smoke a pipe and go to sleep, hindered again and again his ambition. He had, as so many clergymen have, a great deal of the child in him, a remoteness from actual life, and a tremendous ignorance of the rough-and-tumble brutality and indecency of things. It had not been difficult for Grace, because of his laziness, his childishness, and his harmless conceited good-nature to obtain a very real dominion over him, and until now that dominion had never seriously been threatened.