Fortitude (Walpole)/Book 3/Chapter 15

CHAPTER XV

MR. WESTCOTT SENIOR CALLS CHECKMATE

I

PETER felt as he closed the hall door behind him that The Roundabout was both cold and dark. The little hall drew dusk into its corners very swiftly and now, as he switched on the electric light, he was conscious almost of protest on the part of the place, as though it wished that it might have been left to its empty dusk.

A maid passed him.

“Has your mistress gone upstairs?” he asked her.

“I don't think she has come in, sir.”

“Not come in?”

“No, sir, she went out about three o'clock. I don't think she's come back, sir.”

She's running it pretty close, he thought as he looked at his watch—then he went slowly up to dress.

He had been more irritated by the superiorities of young Percival Galleon than he had cared to confess. Peter had, at the bottom of his soul, a most real and even touching humility. He had no kind of opinion of his abilities, of his work in comparison with the other workers that counted. Moreover he would not, were his ultimate critical sense aroused, fail to admit to himself some certain standard of achievement. Nothing that young Galleon could say mattered from the critical standpoint—nevertheless he seemed to represent, in this case, a universal opinion; even in his rejection of Peter one could see, behind him, a world of readers withdrawing their approval.

“Peter Westcott's no good. . . . Peter Westcott's no good.. . . Peter Westcott's no good. . . .”

In any case that was quite enough to account for the oppression that he was feeling—feeling with increasing force as the minutes passed. He undressed and dressed again slowly, wondering vaguely, loosely, in the back of his mind, why it was that Clare had not come in. Perhaps she had come in and the maid had not heard her. He took the ruby out of his pocket, opened the little case, looked at the jewel shining there under the electric light, thought of Clare with a sudden rush of passionate affection. “Dear thing, won't she look lovely in it? Her neck's so white and she's never worn much jewellery—she'll be pleased. She'll know why I'm giving it to her now—a kind of seal on what we agreed to the other night. A new life . . . new altogether. . . .”

He was conscious as he took his shirt off that his windows were open and a strange scent of burning leaves was with him in the room. It was quite strong, pungent—very pleasant, that sense of burning. Burning leaves in the orchard. . . . But it was rather cold. Then he came back to his looking-glass and, standing there, naked save for his dress trousers, he saw that he was looking in much better health than he had looked for weeks. The colour had returned to his face, his eyes were brighter and more alert—the lines had gone. He was strong and vigorous as he stood there, his body shining under the glow. He opened and shut his hands feeling the strength, force, in his fingers. Thick-set, sturdy, with his shoulders back again now, straight, not bent as they had been.

“Oh, I'm all right—I'm all right you know. I'll write some stuff one day . . .” and even behind that his thought was—“that young Galleon, by jove, I could jolly well break him if I wanted to—just snap him up.”

And then the odour of the burnt leaves filled his nostrils again; when he had dressed he turned out the light, opened the windows more widely, and stood for a moment there smelling the smoke, feeling the air on his forehead, seeing the dark fluttering shadows of the trees, the silver moon, the dim red haze of the London sky. . . .

II

He went down to his study. Clare must be in now. Bobby would be here in a few minutes. He took up the Times but his mind wandered. “Mr. Penning Bruce was at his best last night in the new musical Comedy produced at the Apollo Theatre—the humour of his performance as Lieutenant Pottle, a humour never exaggerated nor strained. . .”

But he couldn't attend. He looked up at the little clock and saw that it was nearly dinner-time. Bobby ought to be here.

He stood up and listened. The house was profoundly silent. It was often silent—but to-night it was as though everything in the house—the furniture, the pictures—were listening—as though The Roundabout itself listened.

He went into the hall—stood for a moment under the stairs—and then called “Clare—Clare.” He waited and then again “Clare, Clare—I say, it's late. Come along—”

There was no answer.

Then, crossing the hall, he opened the door of the little drawing-room and looked in. It was black and empty—here, too, he could smell the burning leaves.

He switched on the light and instantly, perched against the Velasquez Infanta, saw the letter, white and still before the pink and grey of the picture. At the sight of the letter the room that had been empty and cold was suddenly burning hot and filled with a thousand voices. “Take it—take it—why don't you take it? It's been waiting there for you a long time and we've all been wondering when you were coming in for it. It's waiting there for you. Take it—take it—take it!”

At the sight of it too, the floor of the room seemed instantly to pitch, slanting downwards, like the deck of a sinking ship. He caught on to the back of a chair in order that he might not slip with it. His hands shook and there was a great pain at his heart, as though some one were pulling it tight, then squeezing it in their fingers and letting it go again.

Then, as suddenly, all his agitation fled. The room was cold and empty again, and his hands were steady. He took the letter and read it.

It was written in great agitation and almost illegible, and at the bottom of the paper there was a dirty smudge that might have been a tear stain or a finger mark.

It ran:

I must go. I have been so unhappy for so long and we don't get on together, Peter, now. You don't understand me and I must be happy. I had always been happy until I married you—perhaps it's partly my fault but I only hinder your work and there is some one else who loves me. He has always said so.

I would not have gone perhaps if it had not been for what you did on April 12. I know because some one saw you getting into a cab at midnight with that horrible woman. That shows that you don't care about me, Peter. But perhaps I would have gone anyhow. Once, the night I told you about baby coming, I told you there'd be a time when you'd have to hold me. It came—and you didn't see it. You didn't care—you can't have loved me or you would have seen. . . . But anything is better than staying here like this. I am very unhappy now but you will not care. You are cruel and hard, Peter. You have never understood what a woman wants.

I am going to Jerry in Paris. You can divorce me. I don't care about anything now. I won't come back—I won't, I won't—Clare.

He read this all through, very carefully with a serious brow. He finished it and then knew that he had not read a word of it. He went, slowly, to the window and opened it because the room was of a stifling heat. Then he took the letter again and read it. As he finished it again he was conscious that the door-bell was ringing. He wondered why it was ringing.

He was standing in the middle of the room and speaking to himself: “The humour of his performance as Lieutenant Pottle, a humour never exaggerated nor strained . . .”

“The humour of his Lieutenant Pottle as a performer—never strained . . . never exaggerated . . . never strained . . .”

Bobby came in and found him there. Peter's face was so white that his collar and shirt seemed to be a continuation of his body—a sudden gruesome nakedness. Both his hands were shaking and his eyes were puzzled as though he were asking himself some question that he could not solve.

Bobby started forward—

“God, Peter, what—”

“She's gone away, Bobby,” Peter said, in a voice that shook a little but was otherwise grave and almost a whisper, so low was it. “She's gone away—to Cardillac.” Then he added to himself—“Cardillac is my best friend.”

Then he said “Listen,” and he read the letter straight through. He repeated some of the phrases—“What you did on April 12.” “That shows that you don't care. . . . You are cruel and hard, Peter. . . . I am going to Jerry in Paris. . . .”

“Jerry—that's Cardillac, you know, Bobby. He's in Paris and she's going over to him because she can't stand me any more. She says I don't care about her. Isn't that funny, when I love her so much?”

Bobby went to him, put his arm round his neck—

“Peter—dear—Peter—wait,” and then “Oh my God! we must stop her—”

He drew himself away from Bobby's arm and, very unsteadily, went across the room and then stood against the farther wall, his head bent, motionless.

“Stop her? Oh! no, Bobby. Stop her when she wants to go! I—” His voice wasn't Peter's voice, it was a thin monotonous voice like some one speaking at a great distance.

Then it seemed that intelligence was flashed upon him. He lurched forward and with a great voice—as though he had been struck by some sudden agonising, immortal pain—

“Bobby—Bobby—My wife—Clare—”

And at that instant Mrs. Rossiter was shown into the room.

III

The maid who opened the door had apparently some suspicion that “things were odd,” because she waited for a moment before she closed the door again, staring with wide eyes into the room, catching, perhaps, some hint from her master's white face that something terrible had occurred.

It was obvious enough that Mrs. Rossiter had herself, during the last week, been in no easy mind. From the first glances at Peter and Bobby she seemed to understand everything, for, instantly, at that glimpse of their faces she became, for the first time in her life, perhaps, a personality, a figure, something defined and outlined.

Her face was suddenly grey. She hesitated back against the door and, with her face on Peter, said in a whisper, to Bobby:

“What—what has happened?”

Bobby was not inclined to spare her. As an onlooker during these last months he felt that she, perhaps, was more guiltily responsible for the catastrophe than any other human being.

“Clare,” he said, trying to fix her eyes. “She's gone off to Cardillac—to Paris.”

Then he was himself held by the tragedy of those two faces. They faced each other across the room. Peter, with eyes and a mouth that were not his, eyes not sane, the eyes of no human being, mouth smiling, drawn tight like a razor's edge, with his hands spread out against the wall, watched Mrs. Rossiter.

Mrs. Rossiter, at Bobby's words, had huddled up, suddenly broken, only her eyes, in her great foolish expressionless face, stung to an agony to which the rest of her body could not move.

Her little soul—a tiny scrap of a thing in that vague prison of dull flesh—was suddenly wounded, desperately hurt by the only weapon that could ever have found it.

“Clare!” that soul whispered, “not gone! It's not possible—it can't be—it can't be!”

Peter, without moving, spoke to her.

“It's you that have sent her away. It's all your doing—all your doing—”

She scarcely seemed to realise him, although her eyes never left his face—she came up to Bobby, her hands out:

“Bobby—please, please—tell me. This is absurd—there's a mistake. Clare, Clare would never do a thing like that—never leave me like that—why—” and her voice rose—“I've loved her—I've loved her as no mother ever loved her girl—she's been everything to me. She knows it—why she often says that I'm the only one who loves her. She'd never go—”

Then Peter came forward from the wall, muttering, waving his hands at her—“It's you! You! You! You've driven her to this—you and your cursed interference. You took her from me—you told her to deceive me in everything. You taught her to lie and trick. She loved me before you came into it. Now be proud, if you like—now be proud. God damn you, for making your daughter into a whore—That's what you've done, you with your flat face, your filthy flat face—you've made your daughter a whore, I tell you—and it's nothing but you—you—you—!”

He lifted his hand as though he would strike her across the face. She said nothing but started back with her hands up as though to protect herself. He did not strike her. His hand fell. But she, as though she had felt a blow had her hand held to her face.

He stood over her for a moment laughing, his head flung back. Then still laughing he went away from them out into the hall.

Then, through the open door they heard him. He passed through the upper rooms crying out as he went—“Clare! Clare! Where are you? Come down! They're here for dinner! You're wanted! It's time, Clare!—where are you Clare! Clare!”

They heard him, knocking furniture over as he went. Then there was silence. Mrs. Rossiter seemed, at that, to come to herself. She stood up, feeling her cheek.

“It's sent him off his head, Bobby. Go after him. He'll hurt himself.” Then as though to herself, she went on—“I must And Clare—she'll be in Paris, I suppose. I must go and find her, Bobby. She'll want me badly.”

She went quietly from the room, still with her hand to her cheek. She listened for a moment in the hall.

She turned round to Bobby:

“It doesn't say—the letter—where Clare's gone?”

“No—only Paris.”

He helped her on with her cloak and opened the front door for her. She slipped away down the street.

Bobby turned back and saw that Peter was coming down the stairs. But now the fury had all died from his face^ only that look, as of some animal wounded to death, a look that was so deep and terrible as almost to give his white face no expression at all, was with him.

It had been with him at Stephen's death, it was with him far more intensely now. He looked at Bobby.

“She's gone,” in a tired, dull voice as of some one nearly asleep, “gone to Cardillac. I loved Cards—and all the time he loved Clare. I loved Clare and all the time she loved Cards. It's damned funny isn't it, Bobby, old man?”

He stood facing him in the hall, no part of him moving except his mouth. “She says I treated her like a brute. I don't think I did. She says there was something I did one night—I don't know. I've never done anything—I've never been with another woman—something about a cab—Perhaps it was poor Rose Bennett. Poor Rose Bennett—damned unhappy—so am I—so am I. I'm a lonely fellow—I always have been!”

He went past Bobby, back into the little drawing-room. Bobby followed him.

He turned round.

“You can go now Bobby. I shan't want you any more.”

“No, I'm going to stay,”

“I don't want you—I don't want any one.”

“I'm going to stay.”

“I'd rather you went, please.”

“I'm going to stay.”

Peter paid no more attention. He went and sat down on a chair by the window. Bobby sat down on a chair near him.

Once Peter said: “They took my baby. They took my work. They've taken my wife. They're too much for me. I'm beaten.”

Then there was absolute silence in the house. The servants, who had heard the tumbling of the furniture, crept, frightened to bed.

Thus The Roundabout, dark, utterly without sound, stayed through the night. Once, from the chair by the window in the little drawing-room a voice said, “I'm going back to Scaw House—to my father, I'm going back—to all of them.”

During many hours the little silver clock ticked cheerfully, seeing perhaps with its little bright eyes, the two dark figures and wondering what they did there.