The Damned
Chapter III
A telegram had told me to come to a town ten miles from the house, so Iwas saved the crawling train to the local station, and traveled down byan express. As soon as we left London the fog cleared off, and an autumnsun, though without heat in it, painted the landscape with golden brownsand yellows. My spirits rose as I lay back in the luxurious motor andsped between the woods and hedges. Oddly enough, my anxiety of overnighthad disappeared. It was due, no doubt, to that exaggeration of detailwhich reflection in loneliness brings. Frances and I had not beenseparated for over a year, and her letters from The Towers told solittle. It had seemed unnatural to be deprived of those intimateparticulars of mood and feeling I was accustomed to. We had suchconfidence in one another, and our affection was so deep. Though she wasbut five years younger than myself, I regarded her as a child. Myattitude was fatherly.
In return, she certainly mothered me with a solicitude that nevercloyed. I felt no desire to marry while she was still alive. She paintedin watercolors with a reasonable success, and kept house for me; Iwrote, reviewed books and lectured on aesthetics; we were a humdrumcouple of quasi-artists, well satisfied with life, and all I feared forher was that she might become a suffragette or be taken captive by oneof these wild theories that caught her imagination sometimes, and thatMabel, for one, had fostered. As for myself, no doubt she deemed me atrifle solid or stolid--I forget which word she preferred--but on thewhole there was just sufficient difference of opinion to makeintercourse suggestive without monotony, and certainly withoutquarrelling.
Drawing in deep draughts of the stinging autumn air, I felt happy andexhilarated. It was like going for a holiday, with comfort at the end ofthe journey instead of bargaining for centimes.
But my heart sank noticeably the moment the house came into view. Thelong drive, lined with hostile monkey trees and formal wellingtoniasthat were solemn and sedate, was mere extension of the miniatureapproach to a thousand semidetached suburban "residences"; and theappearance of The Towers, as we turned the corner with a rush, suggesteda commonplace climax to a story that had begun interestingly, almostthrillingly. A villa had escaped from the shadow of the Crystal Palace,thumped its way down by night, grown suddenly monstrous in a shower ofrich rain, and settled itself insolently to stay. Ivy climbed about theopulent red-brick walls, but climbed neatly and with disfiguring effect,sham as on a prison or--the simile made me smile--an orphan asylum.There was no hint of the comely roughness of untidy ivy on a ruin.Clipped, trained, and precise it was, as on a brand-new protestantchurch. I swear there was not a bird's nest nor a single earwig in itanywhere. About the porch it was particularly thick, smothering aseventeenth-century lamp with a contrast that was quite horrible.Extensive glass-houses spread away on the farther side of the house; thenumerous towers to which the building owed its name seemed made to holdschool bells; and the windowsills, thick with potted flowers, made methink of the desolate suburbs of Brighton or Bexhill. In a commandingposition upon the crest of a hill, it overlooked miles of undulating,wooded country southwards to the Downs, but behind it, to the north,thick banks of ilex, holly, and privet protected it from the cleaner andmore stimulating winds. Hence, though highly placed, it was shut in.Three years had passed since I last set eyes upon, it, but the unsightlymemory I had retained was justified by the reality. The place wasdeplorable.
It is my habit to express my opinions audibly sometimes, whenimpressions are strong enough to warrant it; but now I only sighed "Oh,dear," as I extricated my legs from many rugs and went into the house. Atall parlor-maid, with the bearing of a grenadier, received me, andstanding behind her was Mrs. Marsh, the housekeeper, whom I rememberedbecause her untidy back hair had suggested to me that it had been burnt.I went at once to my room, my hostess already dressing for dinner, butFrances came in to see me just as I was struggling with my black tiethat had got tangled like a bootlace. She fastened it for me in a neat,effective bow, and while I held my chin up for the operation, staringblankly at the ceiling, the impression came--I wondered, was it hertouch that caused it?--that something in her trembled. Shrinking perhapsis the truer word. Nothing in her face or manner betrayed it, nor in herpleasant, easy talk while she tidied my things and scolded my slovenlypacking, as her habit was, questioning me about the servants at theflat. The blouses, though right, were crumpled, and my scolding wasdeserved. There was no impatience even. Yet somehow or other thesuggestion of a shrinking reserve and holding back reached my mind. Shehad been lonely, of course, but it was more than that; she was glad thatI had come, yet for some reason unstated she could have wished that Ihad stayed away. We discussed the news that had accumulated during ourbrief separation, and in doing so the impression, at best exceedinglyslight, was forgotten. My chamber was large and beautifully furnished;the hall and dining room of our flat would have gone into it with a goodremainder; yet it was not a place I could settle down in for work. Itconveyed the idea of impermanence, making me feel transient as in ahotel bedroom. This, of course, was the fact. But some rooms convey asettled, lasting hospitality even in a hotel; this one did not; and as Iwas accustomed to work in the room I slept in, at least when visiting, aslight frown must have crept between my eyes.
"Mabel has fitted a work-room for you just out of the library," said theclairvoyant Frances.
"No one will disturb you there, and you'll have fifteen thousand booksall catalogued within easy reach. There's a private staircase too. Youcan breakfast in your room and slip down in your dressing gown if youwant to." She laughed. My spirits took a turn upwards as absurdly asthey had gone down.
"And how are you?" I asked, giving her a belated kiss. "It's jolly to betogether again. I did feel rather lost without you, I'll admit."
"That's natural," she laughed. "I'm so glad."
She looked well and had country color in her cheeks. She informed methat she was eating and sleeping well, going out for little walks withMabel, painting bits of scenery again, and enjoying a complete changeand rest; and yet, for all her brave description, the word somehow didnot quite ring true. Those last words in particular did not ring true.There lay in her manner, just out of sight, I felt, this suggestion ofthe exact reverse--of unrest, shrinking, almost of anxiety. Certainsmall strings in her seemed over-tight. "Keyed-up" was the slangexpression that crossed my mind. I looked rather searchingly into herface as she was telling me this.
"Only--the evenings," she added, noticing my query, yet rather avoidingmy eyes, "the evenings are--well, rather heavy sometimes, and I find itdifficult to keep awake."
"The strong air after London makes you drowsy," I suggested, "and youlike to get early to bed."
Frances turned and looked at me for a moment steadily. "On the contrary,Bill, I dislike going to bed--here. And Mabel goes so early." She saidit lightly enough, fingering the disorder upon my dressing table in sucha stupid way that I saw her mind was working in another directionaltogether. She looked up suddenly with a kind of nervousness from thebrush and scissors.
"Billy," she said abruptly, lowering her voice, "isn't it odd, but Ihate sleeping alone here? I can't make it out quite; I've never feltsuch a thing before in my life. Do you--think it's all nonsense?"
And she laughed, with her lips but not with her eyes; there was a noteof defiance in her I failed to understand.
"Nothing a nature like yours feels strongly is nonsense, Frances," Ireplied soothingly.
But I, too, answered with my lips only, for another part of my mind wasworking elsewhere, and among uncomfortable things. A touch ofbewilderment passed over me. I was not certain how best to continue. IfI laughed she would tell me no more, yet if I took her too seriously thestrings would tighten further. Instinctively, then, this flashed rapidlyacross me: that something of what she felt, I had also felt, thoughinterpreting it differently. Vague it was, as the coming of rain orstorm that announce themselves hours in advance with their hint offaint, unsettling excitement in the air. I had been but a short hour inthe house--big, comfortable, luxurious house--but had e
xperienced thissense of being unsettled, unfixed, fluctuating--a kind of impermanencethat transient lodgers in hotels must feel, but that a guest in afriend's home ought not to feel, be the visit short or long. To Frances,an impressionable woman, the feeling had come in the terms of alarm. Shedisliked sleeping alone, while yet she longed to sleep. The precise ideain my mind evaded capture, merely brushing through me, three-quartersout of sight; I realized only that we both felt the same thing, and thatneither of us could get at it clearly.
Degrees of unrest we felt, but the actual thing did not disclose itself.It did not happen.
I felt strangely at sea for a moment. Frances would interpret hesitationas endorsement, and encouragement might be the last thing that couldhelp her.
"Sleeping in a strange house," I answered at length, "is often difficultat first, and one feels lonely. After fifteen months in our tiny flatone feels lost and uncared-for in a big house. It's an uncomfortablefeeling--I know it well. And this is a barrack, isn't it? The masses offurniture only make it worse. One feels in storage somewhereunderground--the furniture doesn't furnish. One must never yield tofancies, though--"
Frances looked away towards the windows; she seemed disappointed alittle.
"After our thickly-populated Chelsea," I went on quickly, "it seemsisolated here."
But she did not turn back, and clearly I was saying the wrong thing. Awave of pity rushed suddenly over me. Was she really frightened,perhaps? She was imaginative, I knew, but never moody; common sense wasstrong in her, though she had her times of hypersensitiveness. I caughtthe echo of some unreasoning, big alarm in her. She stood there, gazingacross my balcony towards the sea of wooded country that spread dim andvague in the obscurity of the dusk. The deepening shadows entered theroom, I fancied, from the grounds below. Following her abstracted gaze amoment, I experienced a curious sharp desire to leave, to escape. Outyonder was wind and space and freedom. This enormous building wasoppressive, silent, still.
Great catacombs occurred to me, things beneath the ground, imprisonmentand capture. I believe I even shuddered a little.
I touched her shoulder. She turned round slowly, and we looked with acertain deliberation into each other's eyes.
"Fanny," I asked, more gravely than I intended, "you are not frightened,are you? Nothing has happened, has it?"
She replied with emphasis, "Of course not! How could it--I mean, whyshould I?" She stammered, as though the wrong sentence flustered her asecond. "It's simply--that I have this ter--this dislike of sleepingalone."
Naturally, my first thought was how easy it would be to cut our visitshort. But I did not say this. Had it been a true solution, Franceswould have said it for me long ago.
"Wouldn't Mabel double-up with you?" I said instead, "or give you anadjoining room, so that you could leave the door between you open?There's space enough, heaven knows."
And then, as the gong sounded in the hall below for dinner, she said, aswith an effort, this thing:
"Mabel did ask me--on the third night--after I had told her. But Ideclined."
"You'd rather be alone than with her?" I asked, with a certain relief.
Her reply was so gravely given, a child would have known there was morebehind it: "Not that; but that she did not really want it."
I had a moment's intuition and acted on it impulsively. "She feels ittoo, perhaps, but wishes to face it by herself--and get over it?"
My sister bowed her head, and the gesture made me realize of a suddenhow grave and solemn our talk had grown, as though some portentous thingwere under discussion. It had come of itself--indefinite as a gradualchange of temperature. Yet neither of us knew its nature, for apparentlyneither of us could state it plainly. Nothing happened, even in ourwords.
"That was my impression," she said, "--that if she yields to it sheencourages it. And a habit forms so easily. Just think," she added witha faint smile that was the first sign of lightness she had yet betrayed,"what a nuisance it would be--everywhere--if everybody was afraid ofbeing alone--like that."
I snatched readily at the chance. We laughed a little, though it was aquiet kind of laughter that seemed wrong. I took her arm and led hertowards the door.
"Disastrous, in fact," I agreed.
She raised her voice to its normal pitch again, as I had done. "No doubtit will pass," she said, "now that you have come. Of course, it'schiefly my imagination." Her tone was lighter, though nothing couldconvince me that the matter itself was light--just then. "And in anycase," tightening her grip on my arm as we passed into the brightenormous corridor and caught sight of Mrs. Franklyn waiting in thecheerless hall below, "I'm very glad you're here, Bill, and Mabel, Iknow, is too."
"If it doesn't pass," I just had time to whisper with a feeble attemptat jollity, "I'll come at night and snore outside your door. After thatyou'll be so glad to get rid of me that you won't mind being alone."
"That's a bargain," said Frances.
I shook my hostess by the hand, made a banal remark about the longinterval since last we met, and walked behind them into the great diningroom, dimly lit by candles, wondering in my heart how long my sister andI should stay, and why in the world we had ever left our cozy littleflat to enter this desolation of riches and false luxury at all. Theunsightly picture of the late Samuel Franklyn, Esq., stared down upon mefrom the farther end of the room above the mighty mantelpiece.
He looked, I thought, like some pompous Heavenly Butler who denied toall the world, and to us in particular, the right of entry withoutpresentation cards signed by his hand as proof that we belonged to hisown exclusive set. The majority, to his deep grief, and in spite of allhis prayers on their behalf, must burn and "perish everlastingly."