Fortitude (Walpole)/Book 1/Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII

PETER AND HIS MOTHER

I

HE had returned over the heavy fields, singing to a round-faced moon. In the morning, when he woke after a night of glorious fantastic dreams, and saw the sun beating very brightly across his carpet and birds singing beyond his window, he felt still that same exultation.

It seemed to him, as he sat on his bed, with the sun striking his face, that last night he had been brought into touch with a vigour that challenged all the mists and vapours by which he had felt himself surrounded. That was the way that now he would face them.

Looking back afterwards, he was to see that that evening with Stephen flung him on to all the events that so rapidly followed.

Moreover, above all the sensation of the evening there was also a triumphant recognition of the fact that Stephen had now been restored to him. He might never see him again, but they were friends once more, he could not be lonely now as he had been. . . .

And then, coming out of the town into the dark street and the starlight, he thought that he recognised a square form walking before him. He puzzled his brain to recall the connection and then, as he passed Zachary Tan's shop, the figure turned in and showed, for a moment, his face.

It was that strange man from London, Mr. Emilio Zanti. . . .

II

It seemed to Peter that now at Scaw House the sense of expectation that had been with them all during the last weeks was charged with suspense—at supper that night his aunt burst suddenly into tears and left the room. Shortly afterwards his father also, without a word, got up from the table and went upstairs. . . .

Peter was left alone with his grandfather. The old man, sunk beneath his pile of cushions, his brown skinny hand clenching and unclenching above the rugs, was muttering to himself. In Peter himself, as he stood there by the fire, looking down on the old man, there was tremendous pity. He had never felt so tenderly towards his grandfather before; it was, perhaps, because he had himself grown up all in a day. Last night had proved that one was grown up indeed, although one was but seventeen. But it proved to him still more that the time had come for him to deal with the situation all about him, to discover the thing that was occupying them all so deeply.

Peter bent down to the cushions.

"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?”

He could hear, faintly, beneath the rugs something about “hell” and “fire” and “poor old man.”

"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?“ but still only “Poor old man . . . poor old man . . . nobody loves him . . . nobody loves him . . . to hell with the lot of 'em . . . let 'em grizzle in hell fire . . . oh! such nasty pains for a poor old man.”

"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?”

The old brown hand suddenly stopped clenching and unclenching, and out from the cushions the old brown head with its few hairs and its parchment face poked like a withered jack-in-the-box.

“Hullo, boy, you here?”

“Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?”

The old man's fingers, sharp like pins, drew Peter close to him.

“Boy, I'm terribly frightened. I've been having such dreams. I thought I was dead—in a coffin. . .”

But Peter whispered in his ear:

“Grandfather—tell me—what's the matter with every one here?”

The old man's eyes were suddenly sharp, like needles.

"Ah, he wants to know that, does he? He's found out something at last, has he? I know what they were about. They've been at it in here, boy, too. Oh, yes! for weeks and weeks—killing your mother, that's what my son's been doing . . . frightening her to death. . . . He's cruel, my son. I had the Devil once, and now he's got hold of me and that's why I'm here. Mind you, boy,” and the old man's fingers clutched him very tightly—“If you don't get the better of the Devil you'll be just like me one of these days. So'll he be, my son, one day. Just like me—and then it'll be your turn, my boy. Oh, they Westcotts! . . . Oh! my pains! Oh! my pains! . . . Oh! I'm a poor old man!—poor old man!”

His head sunk beneath the cushions again and his muttering died away like a kettle when the lid has been put on to it.

Peter had been kneeling so as to catch his grandfather's words. Now he drew himself up and with frowning brows faced the room. Had he but known it he was at that moment, exactly like his father.

He went slowly up to his attic.

His little book-case had gained in the last two years—there were now three of Henry Galleon's novels there. Bobby had given him one, “Henry Lessingham,” shining bravely in its red and gold; he had bought another, “The Downs,” second hand, and it was rather tattered and well thumbed. Another, “The Roads,” was a shilling paper copy. He had read these three again and again until he knew them by heart, almost word by word. He took down “Henry Lessingham” now and opened it at a page that was turned down. It is Book III, chapter VI, and there is this passage:

But, concerning the Traveller who would enter the House of Courage there are many lands that must he passed on the road before he rest there. There is, first, the Land of Lacking All Things—that is hard to cross. There is, Secondly, the Land of Having All Things. There is the Traveller's Fortitude most hardly tested. There is, Thirdly, The Land of Losing All Those Things that One Hath Possessed. That is a hard country indeed for the memory of the pleasantness of those earlier joys redoubleth the agony of lacking them. But at the end there is a Land of ice and snow that few travellers have compassed, and that is the Land of Knowing What One Hath Missed. . . . The Bird was in the hand and one let it go . . . that is the hardest agony of all the journey . . . but if these lands be encountered and surpassed then doth the Traveller at length possess his soul and is master of it . . . this is the Meaning and Purpose of Life.

Peter read on through those pages where Lessingham, having found these words in some old book, takes courage after his many misadventures and starts again life—an old man, seventy years of age, but full of hope . . . and then there is his wonderful death in the Plague City, closing it all like a Triumph.

The night had come down upon the house. Over the moor some twinkling light broke the black darkness and his candle blew in the wind. Everything was very still and as he clutched his book in his hand he knew that he was frightened. His grandfather's words had filled him with terror. He felt not only that his father was cruel and had been torturing his mother for many years because he loved to hurt, but he felt also that it was something in the blood, and that it would come upon him also, in later years, and that he might not be able to beat it down. He could understand definite things when they were tangible before his eyes but here was something that one could not catch hold of, something . . .

After all, he was very young—But he remembered, with bated breath, times at school when he had suddenly wanted to twist arms, to break things, to hurt, when suddenly a fierce hot pleasure had come upon him, when a boy had had his leg broken at football.

Dropping the book, shuddering, he fell upon his knees and prayed to what God he knew not. . . . “Then doth the Traveller at length possess his soul and is master of it . . . this is the meaning and purpose of life.”

At last he rose from his knees, physically tired, as though it had been some physical struggle. But he was quiet again . . . the terror had left him, but he knew now with what beasts he had got to wrestle. . . .

At supper that night he watched his father. Curiously, after his struggle of the afternoon, all terror had left him and he felt as though he was of his father's age and strength.

In the middle of the meal he spoke:

“How is mother to-night, father?”

He had never asked about his mother before, but his voice was quite even and steady. His aunt dropped her knife clattering on to her plate.

His father answered him:

“Why do you wish to know?”

"It is natural, isn't it? I am afraid that she is not so well.”

“She is as well as can be expected.”

They said no more, but once his father suddenly looked at him, as though he had noticed some new note in his voice.

III

On the next afternoon his father went into Truro. A doctor came occasionally to the house—a little man like a beaver—but Peter felt that he was under his father's hand and he despised him.

It was a clear Autumn afternoon with a scent of burning leaves in the air and heavy massive white clouds were piled in ramparts beyond the brown hills. It was so still a day that the sea seemed to be murmuring just beyond the garden-wall. The house was very silent: Mrs. Trussit was in the housekeeper's room, his grandfather was sleeping in the dining-room. The voices of some children laughing in the road came to him so clearly that it seemed to Peter impossible that his father . . . and, at that, he knew instantly that his chance had come. He must see his mother now—there might not be another opportunity for many weeks.

He left his room and stood at the head of the stairs listening. There was no sound.

He stole down very softly and then waited again at the end of the long passage. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall drove him down the passage. He listened again outside his mother's door—there was no sound from within and very slowly he turned the handle.

As the door opened his senses were invaded by that air of medicine and flowers that he had remembered as a very small boy—he seemed to be surrounded by it and great white vases on the mantelpiece filled his eyes, and the white curtains at the window blew in the breeze of the opening door.

His aunt was sittings with her eternal sewing, by the fire and she rose as he entered. She gave a little startled cry, like a twittering bird, as she saw that it was he and she came towards him with her hand out. He did not look at the bed at all, but bent his eyes gravely upon his aunt. “Please, aunt—you must leave us—I want to speak to my mother.”

"No—Peter—how could you? I daren't—I mustn't—your father—your mother is asleep,” and then, from behind them, there came a very soft voice—

“No—let us be alone—please, Jessie.”

Peter did not, even then, turn round to the bed, but fixed his eyes on his aunt.

“The doctor—” she gasped, and then, with frightened eyes, she picked up her sewing and crept out.

Then he turned round and faced the bed, and was suddenly smitten with great shyness at the sight of that white, tired face, and the black hair about the pillow.

“Well, mother,” he said, stupidly.

But she smiled back at him, and although her voice was very small and faint, she spoke cheerfully and as though this were an ordinary event.

“Well, you've come to see me at last, Peter,” she said.

“I mustn't stay long,” he answered, gruffly, as he moved awkwardly towards the bed.

“Bring your chair close up to the bed—so—like that. You have never come to sit in here before, Peter, do you know that?”

“Yes, mother.” He turned his eyes away and looked on to the floor.

“You have come in before because you have been told to. To-day you were not told—why did you come?”

“I don't know. . . . Father's in Truro.”

“Yes, I know.” He thought he caught, for an instant, a strange note in her voice, “but he will not be back yet.”

There was a pause—a vast golden cloud hung, like some mountain boulder beyond the window and some of its golden light seemed to steal over the white room.

“Is it bad for you talking to me?” at last he said, gruffly, “ought I to go away?”

Suddenly she clutched his strong brown hand with her thin wasted fingers with so convulsive a grasp that his heart began to beat furiously.

“No—don't go—not until it is time for your father to come back. Isn't it strange that after all these years this is the first time that we should have a talk. Oh! so many times I've wanted you to come—and when you did come—when you were very little—you were always so frightened that you would not let me touch you—”

“They frightened me . . . .”

“Yes—I know—but now, at last, we've got a little time together—and we must talk—quickly. I want you to tell me everything—everything—everything. . . . First, let me look at you. . .”

She took his head between her pale, slender hands and looked at him. “Oh, you are like him!—your father—wonderfully like.” She lay back on the pillows with a little sigh. “You are very strong.”

“Yes, I am going to be strong for you now. I am going to look after you. They shan't keep us apart any more.”

“Oh, Peter, dear,” she shook her head almost gaily at him. “It's too late.”

“Too late?”

“Yes, I'm dying—at last it's come, after all these years when I've wanted it so much. But now I'm not sorry—now that we've had this talk—at last. Oh! Peter dear, I've wanted you so dreadfully and I was never strong enough to say that you must come . . . and they said that you were noisy and it would be bad for me. But I believe if you had come earlier I might have lived.”

“But you mustn't die—you mustn't die—I'll see that they have another doctor from Truro. This silly old fool here doesn't know what he's about—I'll go myself.”

“Oh! how strong your hands are, Peter! How splendidly strong! No, no one can do anything now. But oh! I am happy at last . . .” She stroked his cheek with her hand—the golden light from the great cloud filled the room and touched the white vases with its colour.

“But quick, quick—tell me. There are so many things and there is so little time. I want to know everything—your school? Here when you were little?—all of it—”

But he was gripping the bed with his hands, his chest was heaving. Suddenly he broke down and burring his head in the bed-clothes began to sob as though his heart would break. “Oh! now . . . after all this time . . . you've wanted me . . . and I never came . . . and now to find you like this!”

She stroked his hair very softly and waited until the sobs ceased. He sat up and fiercely brushed his eyes.

“I won't be a fool—any more. It shan't be too late. I'll make you live. We'll never leave one another again.”

“Dear boy, it can't be like that. Think how splendid it is that we have had this time now. Think what it might have been if I had gone and we had never known one another. But tell me, Peter, what are you going to do with your life afterwards—what are you going to be?”

“I want to write books”—he stared at the golden cloud—“to be a novelist. I daresay I can't—I don't know—but I'd rather do that than anything. . . . Father wants me to be a solicitor. I'm with Aitchinson now—I shall never be a good one.”

Then he turned almost fiercely away from the window.

“But never mind about me, mother. It's you I want to hear about. I'm going to take this on now. It's my responsibility. I want to know about you.”

“There's nothing to know, dear. I've been ill for a great many years now. It's more nerves than anything, I suppose. I think I've never had the courage to stand up against it—a stronger woman would have got the better of it, I expect. But I wasn't always like this,” she added laughing a little far away ghost of a laugh—“Go and look in that drawer—there, in that cupboard—amongst my handkerchiefs—there where those old fans are—you'll find some old programmes there—Those old yellow papers. . .”

He brought them to her, three old yellow programmes of a “Concert Given at the Town Hall, Truro.” “There, do you see? Miss Minnie Trenowth, In the Gloaming—There, I sang in those days. Oh! Truro was fun when I was a girl! There was always something going on! You see I wasn't always on my back!”

He crushed the papers in his hand.

“But, mother! If you were like that then—what's made you like this now?”

“It's nerves, dear—I've been stupid about it.”

“And father, how has he treated you these years?”

“Your father has always been very kind.”

“Mother, tell me the truth! I must know. Has he been kind to you?”

“Yes, dear—always.”

But her voice was very faint and that look that Peter had noticed before was again in her eyes.

“Mother—you must tell me. That's not true.”

“Yes, Peter. He's done his best. I have been annoying, sometimes—foolish.”

“Mother, I know. I know because I know father and I know myself. I'm like him—I've just found it out. I've got those same things in me, and they'll do for me if I don't get the better of them. Grandfather told me—he was the same. All the Westcotts—”

He bent over the bed and took her hand and kissed it.

“Mother, dear—I know—father has been frightening you all this time—terrifying you. And you were all alone. If only I had been there—if only there had been some one—”

Her voice was very faint. “Yes . . . he has frightened me all these years. At first I used to think that he didn't mean it. I was a bright, merry sort of a girl then—careless and knowing nothing about the world. And then I began to see—that he liked it—that it gave him pleasure to have something there that he could hurt. And then I began to be frightened. It was very lonely here for a girl who had had a gay time, and he usen't to like my going into Truro—and at last he even stopped my seeing people in Treliss. And then I began to be really frightened—and used to wake in the night and see him standing by the door watching me. Then I thought that when you were born that would draw us together, but it didn't, and I was always ill after that. He would do things—Oh!” her hand pressed her mouth. “Peter, dear, you mustn't think about it, only when I am dead I don't want you to think that I was quite a fool—if they tell you so. I don't want you to think it was all his fault either because it wasn't—I was silly and didn't understand sometimes . . . but it's killed me, that dreadful waiting for him to do something, I never knew what it would be, and sometimes it was nothing . . . but I knew that he liked to hurt . . . and it was the expectation.”

In that white room, now flaming with the fires of the setting sun, Peter caught his mother to his breast and held her there and her white hands clutched his knees.

Then his eyes softened and he turned to her and arranged her head on the pillow and drew the sheets closely about her.

“I must go now. It has been bad for you this talking, but it had to be. I'm never, never going to leave you again—you shall not be alone any more—”

"Oh, Peter! I'm so happy! I have never been so happy . . . but it all comes of being a coward. If I had only been brave—never be afraid of anybody or anything. Promise me, Peter—”

“Except of myself,” he answered, kissing her.

“Kiss me again.”

“And again . . .”

“To-morrow . . .“ he looked back at her, smiling. He saw her, for an instant, as he left the room, with her cheek against the pillow and her black hair like a cloud about her; the twilight was already in the room.

An hour later, as he stood in the dining-room, the door opened and his father came in.

“You have been with your mother?”

“Yes.”

“You have done her much harm. She is dying.”

“I know everything,” Peter answered, looking him in the face.

IV

He would never, until his own end had come, forget that evening. The golden sunset gave place to a cold and windy night, and the dark clouds rolled up along the grey sky, hiding and then revealing the thin and pallid moon.

Peter stayed there in the dining-room, waiting. His grandfather slept in his chair. Once his aunt came crying into the room and wandered aimlessly about.

"Aunt, how is she?”

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! Whatever shall I do? She is going. . . she is going . . . I can do nothing! ”

Her thin body in the dusk flitted like a ghost about the room and then she was gone. The doctor's pony cart came rattling up to the door. The fussy little man got out and stamped in the hall, and then disappeared upstairs. There was a long pause during which there was no sound.

Then the door was opened and his aunt was there.

“You must come at once . . . she wants you.”

The doctor, his father, and Mrs. Trussit were there in the room, but he was only conscious of the great white bed with the candles about it and the white vases, like eyes, watching him.

As he entered the room there was a faint cry, “Peter.” He had crossed to her, and her arms were about his shoulders and her mouth was pressed against his; she fell back, with a little sigh, dead.

V

In the darkened dining-room, later, his father stood in the doorway with a candle in his hand, and above it his white face and short black hair shone as though carved from marble.

Peter came from the window towards him. His father said: “You killed her by going to her.”

Peter answered: “All these years you have been killing her!”