maradick tells the family, has breakfast with his
wife, and says good-bye to some friends
but he did not sleep.
perhaps it was because his fatigue lay upon him like a heavy burden, so that to close his eyes was as though he allowed a great weight to fall upon him and crush him. his fatigue hung above him like a dark ominous cloud; it seemed indeed so ominous that he was afraid of it. at the moment when sleep seemed to come to him he would pull himself back with a jerk, he was afraid of his dreams.
towards about four o’clock in the morning he fell into confused slumber. shapes, people—tony, morelli, mrs. lester, his wife, epsom, london—it was all vague, misty, and, in some incoherent way, terrifying. he wanted to wake, he tried to force himself to wake, but his eyes refused to open, they seemed to be glued together. the main impression that he got was of saying farewell to some one, or rather to a great many people. it was as though he were going away to a distant land, somewhere from which he felt that he would never return. but when he approached these figures to say good-bye they would disappear or melt into some one else.
about half-past six he awoke and lay tranquilly watching the light fill the windows and creep slowly, mysteriously, across the floor. his dreams had left him, but in spite of his weariness when he had gone to bed and the poor sleep that he had had he was not tired. he had a sensation of relief, of having completed something and, which was of more importance, of having got rid of it. a definite period in his life seemed to be ended, marked off. he had something of the feeling that christian had when his pack left him. all the emotions, the struggles, the confusions of the last weeks were over, finished. he didn’t regret them; he welcomed them because of the things that they had taught him, but he did not want them back again. it was almost like coming through an illness.
he knew that it was going to be a difficult day. there were all sorts of explanations, all kinds of “settling up.” but he regarded it all very peacefully. it did not really matter; the questions had all been answered, the difficulties all resolved.
at half-past seven he got up quietly, had his bath and dressed. when he came back into the bedroom he found that his wife was still asleep. he watched her, with her head resting on her hand and her hair lying in a dark cloud on the pillow. as he stood above her a great feeling of tenderness swept over him. that was quite new; he had never thought of her tenderly before. emmy maradick wasn’t the sort of person that you did think of tenderly. probably no one had ever thought of her in that way before.
but now—things had all changed so in these last weeks. there were two emmy maradicks. that was his great discovery, just of course as there were two james maradicks.
he hadn’t any illusion about it. he didn’t in the least expect that the old emmy maradick would suddenly disappear and never come out again. that, of course, was absurd, things didn’t happen so quickly. but now that he knew that the other one, the recent mysterious one that he had seen the shadow of ever so faintly, was there, everything would be different. and it would grow, it would grow, just as this new soul of his own was going to grow.
whilst he looked at her she awoke, looked at him for a moment without realisation, and then gave a little cry: “oh! is it late?”
“no, dear, just eight. i’ll be back for breakfast at quarter to nine.”
in her eyes was again that wondering pathetic little question. as an answer he bent down and kissed her tenderly. he had not kissed her like that for hundreds of years. as he bent down to her her hands suddenly closed furiously about him. for a moment she held him, then she let him go. as he left the room his heart was beating tumultuously.
and so he went downstairs to face the music, as he told himself.
he knocked on the gales’ sitting-room door and some one said “come in.” he drew a deep breath of relief when he saw that lady gale was in there alone.
“ah! that’s good!”
she was sitting by the window with her head towards him. she seemed to him—it was partly the grey silk dress that she wore and partly her wonderful crown of white hair—unsubstantial, as though she might fade away out of the window at any moment.
he had even a feeling that he ought to clutch at her, hold her, to prevent her from disappearing. then he saw the dark lines under her eyes and her lack of colour; she was looking terribly tired.
“ah, i am ashamed; i ought to have told you last night.”
she gave him her hand and smiled.
“no, it’s all right; it’s probably better as it is. i won’t deny that i was anxious, of course, that was natural. but i was hoping that you would come in now, before my husband comes in. i nearly sent a note up to you to ask you to come down.”
her charming kindness to him moved him strangely. oh! she was a wonderful person.
“dear lady,” he said, “that’s like you. not to be furious with me, i mean. but of course that’s what i’m here for now, to face things. i expect it and i deserve it; i was left for that.”
“left?” she said, looking at him. he saw that her hand moved ever so quickly across her lap and then back again.
“yes. of course tony’s gone. he was married yesterday afternoon at two o’clock at the little church out on the hill. the girl’s name is janet morelli. she is nineteen. they are now in paris; but he gave me this letter for you.”
he handed her the letter that tony had given to him on the way up to the station.
she did not say anything to him, but took the letter quickly and tore it open. she read it twice and then handed it to him and waited for him to read it. it ran:—
dearest and most wonderful of mothers,
by the time that you get this i shall be in paris and janet will be my wife. janet morelli is her name, and you will simply love her when you see her. do you remember telling me once that whatever happened i was to marry the right person? well, suddenly i saw her one night like juliet looking out of a window, and there was never any question again; isn’t it wonderful? but, of course, you know if i had told you the governor would have had to know, and then there would simply have been the dickens of a rumpus and i’d have got kicked out or something, and no one would have been a bit the better and it would have been most awfully difficult for you. and so i kept it dark and told maradick to. of course the governor will be sick at first, but as you didn’t know anything about it he can’t say anything to you, and that’s all that matters. because, of course, maradick can look after himself, and doesn’t, as a matter of fact, ever mind in the least what anyone says to him. we’ll go to paris directly afterwards, and then come back and live in chelsea, i expect. i’m going to write like anything; but in any case, you know, it won’t matter, because i’ve got that four hundred a year and we can manage easily on that. the governor will soon get over it, and i know that he’ll simply love janet really. nobody could help it.
and oh! mother dear, i’m so happy. i didn’t know one could be so happy; and that’s what you wanted, didn’t you? and i love you all the more because of it, you and janet. send me just a line to the h?tel lincoln, rue de montagne, paris, to say that you forgive me. janet sends her love. please send her yours.
ever your loving son,
tony.
ps.—maradick has been simply ripping. he’s the most splendid man that ever lived. i simply don’t know what we’d have done without him.
there was silence for a minute or two. then she said softly, “dear old tony. tell me about the girl.”
“she’s splendid. there’s no question at all about her being the right thing. i’ve seen a lot of her, and there’s really no question at all. she’s seen nothing of the world and has lived down here all her life. she’s simply devoted to tony.”
“and her people?”
“there is only her father. he’s a queer man. she’s well away from him. i don’t think he cares a bit about her, really. they’re a good old family, i believe. italians originally, of course. the father has a good deal of the foreigner in him, but the girl’s absolutely english.”
there was another pause, and then she looked up and took his hand.
“i can’t thank you enough. you’ve done absolutely the right thing. there was nothing else but to carry it through with a boy of tony’s temperament. i’m glad, gladder than i can tell you. but of course my husband will take it rather unpleasantly at first. he had ideas about tony’s marrying, and he would have done anything he could to have prevented its happening like this. but now that it has happened, now that there’s nothing to be done but to accept it, i think it will soon be all right. but perhaps you had better tell him now at once, and get it over. he will be here in a minute.”
at that instant they came in—sir richard, rupert, alice du cane, and mrs. lester.
it was obvious at once that sir richard was angry. rupert was amused and a little bored. alice was excited, and mrs. lester tired and white under the eyes.
“what’s this?” said sir richard, coming forward. “they tell me that tony hasn’t been in all night. that he’s gone or something.”
then he caught sight of maradick.
“ha! maradick—morning! do you happen to know where the boy is?”
maradick thought that he could discern through the old man’s anger a very real anxiety, but it was a difficult moment.
lady gale spoke. “mr. maradick has just been telling me——” she began.
“perhaps alice and i——” said mrs. lester, and moved back to the door. then maradick took hold of things.
“no, please don’t go. there’s nothing that anyone needn’t know, nothing. i have just been telling lady gale, sir richard, that your son was married yesterday at two o’clock at the little church outside the town, to a miss janet morelli. they are now in paris.”
there was silence. no one spoke or moved. the situation hung entirely between sir richard and maradick. lady gale’s eyes were all for her husband; the way that he took it would make a difference to the rest of their married lives.
sir richard breathed heavily. his face went suddenly very white. then in a low voice he said—
“married? yesterday?” he seemed to be collecting his thoughts, trying to keep down the ungovernable passion that in a moment would overwhelm him. for a moment he swallowed it. holding himself very straight he looked maradick in the face.
“and why has my dutiful son left the burden of this message to you?”
“because i have, from the beginning, been concerned in the affair. i have known about it from the first. i was witness of their marriage yesterday, and i saw them off at the station.”
sir richard began to breathe heavily. the colour came back in a flood to his cheeks. his eyes were red. he stepped forward with his fist uplifted, but rupert put a hand on his arm and his fist fell to his side. he could not speak coherently.
“you—you—you”; and then “you dared? what the devil have you to do with my boy? with us? with our affairs? what the devil is it to do with you? you—you—damn you, sir—my boy—married to anybody, and because a——”
rupert again put his hand on his father’s arm and his words lingered in mid-air.
then he turned to his wife.
“you—did you know about this—did you know that this was going on?”
then maradick saw how wise she had been in her decision to keep the whole affair away from her. it was a turning-point.
if she had been privy to it, maradick saw, sir richard would never forgive her. it would have remained always as a hopeless, impassable barrier between them. it would have hit at the man’s tenderest, softest place, his conceit. he might forgive her anything but that.
and so it was a tremendous clearing of the air when she raised her eyes to her husband’s and said, without hesitation, “no, richard. of course not. i knew nothing until just now when mr. maradick told me.”
sir richard turned back from her to maradick.
“and so, sir, you see fit, do you, sir, to interfere in matters in which you have no concern. you come between son and father, do you? you——”
but again he stopped. maradick said nothing. there was nothing at all to say. it was obvious that the actual affair, tony’s elopement, had not, as yet, penetrated to sir richard’s brain. the only thing that he could grasp at present was that some one—anyone—had dared to step in and meddle with the gales. some one had had the dastardly impertinence to think that he was on a level with the gales, some one had dared to put his plebeian and rude fingers into a gale pie. such a thing had never happened before.
words couldn’t deal with it.
he looked as though in another moment he would have a fit. he was trembling, quivering in every limb. then, in a voice that could scarcely be heard, he said, “my god, i’ll have the law of you for this.”
he turned round and, without looking at anyone, left the room.
there was silence.
rupert said “my word!” and whistled. no one else said anything.
and, in this interval of silence, maradick almost, to his own rather curious surprise, entirely outside the whole affair, was amused rather than bothered by the way they all took it, although “they,” as a matter of strict accuracy, almost immediately resolved itself down to mrs. lester. lady gale had shown him, long ago, her point of view; sir richard and rupert could have only, with their limited conventions, one possible opinion; alice du cane would probably be glad for tony’s sake and so be indirectly grateful; but mrs. lester! why, it would be, he saw in a flash, the most splendid bolstering up of the way that she was already beginning to look on last night’s affair. he could see her, in a day or two, making his interference with the “gale pie” on all fours with his own brutal attack on her immaculate virtues. it would be all of a piece in a short time, with the perverted imagination that she would set to play on their own “little” situation. it would be a kind of rose-coloured veil that she might fling over the whole proceeding. “the man who can behave in that kind of way to the gales is just the kind of man who would, so horribly and brutally, insult a defenceless woman.”
he saw in her eyes already the beginning of the picture. in a few days the painting would be complete. but this was all as a side issue. his business, as far as these people were concerned, was over.
without looking at anyone, he too left the room.
it had been difficult, but after he had had lady gale’s assurance the rest didn’t matter. of course the old man was bound to take it like that, but he would probably soon see it differently. and at any rate, as far as he, maradick, was concerned, that—sir richard’s attitude to him personally—didn’t matter in the very least.
but all that affair seemed, indeed, now of secondary importance. the first and only vital matter now was his relations with his wife. everything must turn to that. her clasp of his hand had touched him infinitely, profoundly. for the first time in their married lives she wanted him. sir richard, mrs. lester, even tony, seemed small, insignificant in comparison with that.
but he must tell her everything—he saw that. all about mrs. lester, everything—otherwise they would never start clear.
she was just finishing her dressing when he came into her room. she turned quickly from her dressing-table towards him.
“i’m just ready,” she said.
“wait a minute,” he answered her. “before we go in to the girls there’s something, several things, that i want to say.”
his great clumsy body moved across the floor, and he sat down hastily in a chair by the dressing-table.
she watched him anxiously with her sharp little eyes. “yes,” she said, “only hurry up. i’m hungry.”
“well, there are two things really,” he answered slowly. “things you’ve got to know.”
she noticed one point, that he didn’t apologise in advance as he would have done three weeks ago. there were no apologies now, only a stolid determination to get through with it.
“first, it’s about young tony gale. i’ve just been telling his family. he married a girl yesterday and ran off to paris with her. you can bet the family are pleased.”
mrs. maradick was excited. “not really! really eloped? that gale boy! how splendid! a real elopement! of course one could see that something was up. his being out so much, and so on; i knew. but just fancy! really doing it! won’t old sir richard——!”
her eyes were sparkling. the romance of it had obviously touched her, it was very nearly as though one had eloped oneself, knowing the boy and everything!
then he added, “i had to tell them. you see, i’ve known about it all the time, been in it, so to speak. helped them to arrange it and so on, and sir richard had a word or two to say to me just now about it.”
“so that’s what you’ve been doing all this time. that’s your secret!” she was just as pleased as she could be. “that’s what’s changed you. of course! one might have guessed!”
but behind her excitement and pleasure he detected also, he thought, a note of disappointment that puzzled him. what had she thought that he had been doing?
“i have just been telling them—the gales. sir richard was considerably annoyed.”
“of course—hateful old man—of course he’d mind; hurt his pride.” mrs. maradick had clasped her hands round her knees and was swinging a little foot. “but you stood up to them. i wish i’d seen you.”
but he hurried on. that was, after all, quite unimportant compared with the main thing that he had to say to her. he wondered how she would take it. the new idea that he had of her, the new way that he saw her, was beginning to be so precious to him, that he couldn’t bear to think that he might, after all, suddenly lose it. he could see her, after his telling her, return to the old, sharp, biting satire. there would be the old wrangles, the old furious quarrels; for a moment at the thought of it he hesitated. perhaps, after all, it were better not to tell her. the episode was ended. there would never be a recrudescence of it, and there was no reason why she should know. but something hurried him on; he must tell her, it was the decent thing to do.
“but there’s another thing that i must tell you, that i ought to tell you. i don’t know even that i’m ashamed of it. i believe that i would go through it all again if i could learn as much. but it’s all over, absolutely over. i’ve fancied for the last fortnight that i was in love with mrs. lester. i’ve kissed her and she’s kissed me. you needn’t be afraid. that’s all that happened, and i’ll never kiss her again. but there it is!”
he flung it at her for her to take it or leave it. he hadn’t the remotest idea what she would say or do. judging by his past knowledge of her, he expected her to storm. but it was a test of the new mrs. maradick as to whether, indeed, it had been all his imagination about there being any new mrs. maradick at all.
there was silence. he didn’t look at her; and then, suddenly, to his utter amazement she broke into peals of laughter. he couldn’t believe his ears. laughing! well, women were simply incomprehensible! he stared at her.
“why, my dear!” she said at last, “of course i’ve seen it all the time. of course i have, or nearly all the time. you don’t suppose that i go about with my eyes shut, do you? because i don’t, i can tell you. of course i hated it at the time. i was jealous, jealous as anything. first time i’ve been jealous of you since we were married; i hated that mrs. lester anyhow. cat! but it was an eye-opener, i can tell you. but there’ve been lots of things happening since we’ve been here, and that’s only one of them. and i’m jolly glad. i like women to like you. i’ve liked the people down here making up to you, and then you’ve been different too.”
then she crossed over to his chair and suddenly put her arm around his neck. her voice lowered. “i’ve fallen in love with you while we’ve been down here, for the first time since we’ve been married. i don’t know why, quite. it started with your being so beastly and keeping it up. you always used to give way before whenever i said anything to you, but you’ve kept your end up like anything since you’ve been here. and then it was the people liking you better than they liked me. and then it was mrs. lester, my being jealous of her. and it was even more than those things—something in the air. i don’t know, but i’m seeing things differently. i’ve been a poor sort of wife most of the time, i expect; i didn’t see it before, but i’m going to be different. i could kiss your mrs. lester, although i do hate her.”
then when he kissed her she thought how big he was. she hadn’t sat with her arms round him and his great muscles round her since the honeymoon, and even then she had been thinking about her trousseau.
and breakfast was quite an extraordinary meal. the girls were amazed. they had never seen their father in this kind of mood before. they had always rather cautiously disliked him, as far as they’d had any feeling for him at all, but their attitude had in the main been negative. but now, here he was joking, telling funny stories, and mother laughing. cutting the tops off their eggs too, and paying them quite a lot of attention.
he found the meal delightful, too, although he realised that there was still a good deal of the old mrs. maradick left. her voice was as shrill as ever; she was just as cross with annie for spreading her butter with an eye to self-indulgence rather than economy. she was still as crude and vulgar in her opinion of things and people.
but he didn’t see it any longer in the same way. the knowledge that there was really the other mrs. maradick there all the time waiting for him to develop, encourage her, made the things that had grated on him at one time so harshly now a matter of very small moment. he was even tender about them. it was a good thing that they’d both got their faults, a very fortunate thing.
“now, annie, there you go, slopping your tea into your saucer like that, and now it’ll drop all over your dress. why can’t you be more careful?”
“yes, but mother, it was so full.”
“i say,” this from maradick, “what do you think of our all having this afternoon down on the beach or somewhere? tea and things; just ourselves. after all, it’s our last day, and it’s quite fine and warm. no more rain.”
everyone thought it splendid. annie, under this glorious new state of things, even found time and courage to show her father her last french exercise with only three mistakes. the scene was domestic for the next half-hour.
then he left them. he wanted to go and make his farewell to the place; this would be the last opportunity that he would have.
he didn’t expect to see the gales again. after all, there was nothing more for him to say. they had tony’s address. it only remained for sir richard to get over it as quickly as he could. lady gale would probably manage that. he would like to have spoken to her once more, but really it was as well that he shouldn’t. he would write to her.
he discovered before he left the house that another part of the affair was over altogether. as he reached the bottom of the stairs mrs. lester crossed the hall, and, for a moment, they faced each other. she looked through him, past him, as though she had never seen him before. her eyes were hard as steel and as cold. they passed each other silently.
he was not surprised; he had thought that that was the way that she would probably take it. probably with the morning had come fierce resentment at his attitude and fiery shame at her own. how she could! that would be her immediate thought, and then, very soon after that, it would be that she hadn’t at all. he had led her on. and then in a week’s time it would probably be virtuous resistance against the persuasions of an odious sensualist. of course she would never forgive him.
he passed out into the air.
as he went down the hill to the town it struck him that the strange emotional atmosphere that had been about them during these weeks seemed to have gone with the going of tony. it might be only coincidence, of course, but undoubtedly the boy’s presence had had something to do with it all. and then his imagination carried him still further. it was fantastic, of course, but his struggle with morelli seemed to have put an end to the sort of influence that the man had been having. because he had had an influence undoubtedly. and now to-day morelli didn’t seem to go for anything at all.
and then it might be, too, that they had all at last got used to the place; it was no longer a fresh thing, but something that they had taken into their brains, their blood. anyhow, that theory of lester’s about places and people in conjunction having such influence, such power, was interesting. but, evolve what theories he might, of one thing he was certain. there had been a struggle, a tremendous straggle. they had all been concerned in it a little, but it had been his immediate affair.
he turned down the high road towards the town. the day was a “china” day; everything was of the faintest, palest colours, delicate with the delicacy of thin silk, of gossamer lace washed by the rain, as it were, until it was all a symphony of grey and white and a very tender blue. it was a day of hard outlines. the white bulging clouds that lay against the sky were clouds of porcelain; the dark black row of trees that bordered the road stood out from the background as though they had been carved in iron; the ridge of back-lying hills ran like the edge of a sheet of grey paper against the blue; the sea itself seemed to fling marble waves upon a marble shore.
he thought, as he paused before he passed into the town, that he had never seen the sea as it was to-day. although it was so still and seemed to make no sound at all, every kind of light, like colours caught struggling in a net, seemed to be in it. mother of pearl was the nearest approach to the beauty of it, but that was very far away. there was gold and pink and grey, and the faintest creamy yellow, and the most delicate greens, and sometimes even a dark edge of black; but it never could be said that this or that colour were there, because it changed as soon as one looked at it and melted into something else; and far away beyond the curving beach the black rocks plunged into the blue, and seemed to plant their feet there and then to raise them a little as the sea retreated.
he passed through the market-place and saluted the tower for the last time. there were very few people about and he could make his adieux in privacy. he would never forget it, its grey and white stone, its immovable strength and superiority to all the rest of its surroundings. he fancied that it smiled farewell to him as he stood there. it seemed to say: “you can forget me if you like; but don’t forget what i’ve taught you—that there’s a spirit and a courage and a meaning in us all if you’ll look for it. good-bye; try and be more sensible and see a little farther than most of your silly fellow-creatures.” oh yes! there was contempt in it too, as it stood there with its white shoulders raised so proudly against the sky.
he tenderly passed his hand over some of the rough grey stones in a lingering farewell. probably he’d been worth something to the tower in an obscure sort of way. he believed enough in its real existence to think it not fantastic that it should recognise his appreciation of it and be glad.
his next farewell was to punch.
he climbed the little man’s dark stairs with some misgiving. he ought to have been in there more just lately, especially after the poor man losing his dog. he owed a great deal to punch; some people might have found his continual philosophising tiresome, but to maradick its sincerity and the very wide and unusual experience behind it gave the words a value and authority.
he found punch sitting on his bed trying to teach the new dog some of the things that it had to learn. he jumped up when he saw maradick, and his face was all smiles.
“why, i’m that glad to see you,” he said, “i’d been hopin’ you’d come in before you were off altogether. yes, this is the new dog. it ain’t much of a beast, only a mongrel, but i didn’t want too fine a dog after toby; it looks like comparison, in a way, and i’m thinkin’ it might ’urt ’im, wherever ’e is, if ’e knew that there was this new one takin’ ’is place altogether.”
the new one certainly wasn’t very much of a beast, but it seemed to have an enormous affection for its master and a quite pathetic eagerness to learn.
“but come and sit down, sir. never mind them shirts, i’ll chuck ’em on the floor. no, my boy, we’ve had enough teachin’ for the moment. ’e’s got an astonishin’ appetite for learnin’, that dog, but only a limited intelligence.”
maradick could see that punch didn’t want to say any more about toby, so he asked no questions, but he could see that he felt the loss terribly.
“well, garrick,” he said, “i’ve come to say good-bye. we all go back to-morrow, and, on the whole, i don’t know that i’m sorry. things have happened here a bit too fast for my liking, and i’m glad to get out of it with my life, so to speak.”
punch, looked at him a moment, and then he said: “what’s happened about young gale, sir? there are all sorts of stories afloat this morning.”
maradick told him everything.
“well, that’s all for the best. i’m damned glad of it. that girl’s well away, and they’ll make the prettiest married couple for many a mile. they’ll be happy enough. and now, you see for yourself that i wasn’t so far out about morelli after all.”
maradick thought for a moment and then he said: “but look here, garrick, if morelli’s what you say, if, after all, there’s something supernatural about him, he must have known that those two were going to run away; well, if he knew and minded so much, why didn’t he stop them?”
“i’m not saying that he did know,” said punch slowly, “and i’m not saying that he wanted to stop them. morelli’s not a man, nor anything real at all. ’e’s just a kind of vessel through which emotions pass, if you understand me. the reason, in a way, that ’e expresses nature is because nothing stays with him. ’e’s cruel, ’e’s loving, ’e’s sad, ’e’s happy, just like nature, because the wind blows, or the rivers run, or the rains fall. ’e’s got influence over everything human because ’e isn’t ’uman ’imself. ’e isn’t a person at all, ’e’s just an influence, a current of atmosphere in a man’s form.
“there are things, believe me, sir, all about this world that take shape one day like this and another day like that, but they have no soul, no personal identity, that is, because they have no beginning or end, no destiny or conclusion, any more than the winds or the sea. and you look out for yourself when that’s near you—it’s mighty dangerous.”
maradick said nothing. punch went on—
“you can’t see these things in cities, or in places where you’re for ever doing things. you’ve got to have your mind like an empty room and your eyes must be blind and your ears must be closed, and then, slowly, you’ll begin to hear and see.”
maradick shook his head. “no, i don’t understand,” he said. “and when i get back to my regular work again i shall begin to think it’s all bunkum. but i do know that i’ve been near something that i’ve never touched before. there’s something in the place that’s changed us all for a moment. we’ll all go back and be all the same again; but things can’t ever be quite the same again for me, thank god.”
punch knocked out his pipe against the heel of his boot.
“man,” he said suddenly, “if you’d just come with me and walk the lanes and the hills i’d show you things. you’d begin to understand.” he gripped maradick’s arm. “come with me,” he said, “leave all your stupid life; let me show you the real things. it’s not worth dying with your eyes shut.”
for a moment something in maradick responded. for a wild instant he thought that he would say yes. then he shook his head.
“no, david, my friend,” he answered. “that’s not my life. there’s my wife, and there are others. that’s my line. but it will all be different now. i shan’t forget.”
punch smiled. “well, perhaps you’re right. you’ve got your duty. but just remember that it isn’t only children we men and women are begetting. we’re creating all the time. every time that you laugh at a thought, every time that you’re glad, every time that you’re seeing beauty and saying so, every time that you think it’s better to be decent than not, better to be merry than sad, you’re creating. you’re increasing the happy population of the world. young gale was that, and now you’ve found it too. that’s religion; it’s obvious enough. plenty of other folks have said the same, but precious few have done it.”
then, as they said good-bye, he said—
“and remember that i’m there if you want me. i’ll always come. i’m always ready. all winter i’m in london. you’ll find me in the corner by the national gallery, almost opposite the garrick theatre, with my show, most nights; i’m your friend always.”
and maradick knew as he went down the dark stairs that that would not be the last that he would see of him.
he climbed, for the last time, up the hill that ran above the sea. its hard white line ran below him to the town, and above him across the moor through the little green wood that fringed the hill. for a moment his figure, black and tiny, was outlined against the sky. there was a wind up here and it swept around his feet.
far below him the sea lay like a blue stone, hard and sharply chiselled. behind him the white road curved like a ribbon above him, and around him was the delicate bending hollow of the sky.
for a moment he stood there, a tiny doll of a man.
the wind whistled past him laughing. three white clouds sailed majestically above his head. the hard black body of the wood watched him tolerantly.
he passed again down the white road.
