I
The day crept, strangely and mysteriously, to its close. Peter, dulled by misery, sat opposite his grandfather in the dining-room without moving, conscious of the heavy twilight that the dark blinds flung about the room, feeling the silence that was only accentuated by the old man's uneasy “clack-clack” in his sleep and the clock's regular ticking. The unhappiness that had been gradually growing about him since his last term at Dawson's, was now all about him with the strength and horrible appearance of some unholy giant. It was indeed with some consciousness of Things that were flinging their shadows on the horizon and were not as yet fully visible to him that he sat there. That evening at Stephen's farm, realised only faintly at the time, hung before him now as a vivid induction or prologue to the later terrors. He was doomed—so he felt in that darkened and mysterious room—to a terrible time and horrors were creeping upon him from every side. “Clack-clack” went his grandfather beneath the rugs, as the cactus plant rattled in the window and the silence through the stairs and passages of the house crept in folds about the room.
Peter shivered; the coals fell from a dull gold into grey and crumbling ashes. He shut everything in the surrounding world from his mind and thought of his dead mother. There indeed there was strangeness enough, for it seemed now that that wonderful afternoon had filled also all the earlier years of his life. It seemed to him now that there had never been a time when he had not known her and talked with her, and yet with this was also a consciousness of all the joys that he had missed because he had not known her before. As he thought of it the hard irretrievable fact of those earlier empty years struck him physically with a sharp agonising pain—toothache, and no possible way of healing it. The irony of her proximity, of her desire for him as he, all unwittingly, had in reality desired her, hit him like a blow. The picture of her waiting, told that he did not wish to come, looking so sadly and lonely in that white room, whilst he, on the other side of that door, had not the courage to burst through those others and go to her, broke suddenly the hard dry passivity that had held him during so many weeks.
He was very young, he was very tired, he was very lonely. He sobbed with his hands pressed against his eyes.
Then his tears were quickly dried. There was this other thing to be considered—his father. He hated his father. He was terrified, as he sat there, at the fury with which he hated him. The sudden assurance of his hatred reminded him of the thing that his grandfather had said about the Westcotts ... was that true? and was this intensity of emotion that filled all the veins in his body a sign that he too was a Westcott? and were his father and grandfather mirrors of his own future years?... He did not know. That was another question....
He wondered what they were about in the room where his mother lay and it was curious that the house could remain silent during so many long hours. It seemed held by the command of some strong power, and his mind, overstrained and abnormal, waited for some outbreak of noise—many noises, clattering, banging, whistling through the house. But his grandfather slept on, no step was on the stairs, the room was very dark and evening fell beyond the long windows and over the sea.
His youth made of a day eternity—there was no end nor term to his love, to his hatred, to his loneliness, to his utter misery ... and also he was afraid. He would have given his world for Stephen, but Stephen was already off on his travels.
Very softly and stealthily the door opened and, holding a quivering candle, with her finger to her mouth, there appeared his aunt. He looked at her coldly as she came across the room towards him. He had never felt any affection for her because she had always seemed to him weak and useless—a frightened, miserable, vacillating, negative person—even when he had been a very small boy he had despised her. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, her grey and scanty hair had fallen about her collar, her old black blouse was unbuttoned at the top showing her bony neck and her thin crooked hands were trembling in the candle-light. Her eyes were large and frightened and her back was bent as though she was cowering from a blow. She had never taken very much notice of her nephew—of late she had been afraid of him; he was surprised now that she should come to speak to him.
“Peter,” she said in a whisper, looking back over her shoulder at the door.
“Yes,” he answered, staring at her.
“Oh, Peter!” she said again and began to cry—a whimpering noise and her hands shaking so that the candle rocked in its stick.
“Well,” he said more softly, “you'd better put that candle down.”
She put it on the table and then stood beside him, crying pitifully, jerking out little sentences—“I can't bear it.... I don't know what to do.... I can't bear it.”
He got up from his chair and made her sit down on it and then he stood by her and waited until she should recover a little. He felt suddenly strangely tender towards her; she was his mother's sister, she had known his mother all her life and perhaps in her weak silly way she had loved her.
“No, aunt, don't cry.... It will be all right. I too am very unhappy. I have missed so much. If I had only known earlier—”
The poor woman flung little distracted glances at the old man asleep on the other side of the fire-place—
“Oh, dear, I had to come and talk to some one.... I was so frightened upstairs. Your father's there with your mother. He sits looking at her ... and she was always so quiet and good and never did him any harm or indeed any one ... and now he sits looking at her—but she's happy now—he will be coming downstairs at any moment and I am afraid of what he'll do if he sees me talking to you like this. But I feel as though I must talk a little ... it's so quiet.”
“It's all right, aunt. There's no one to be frightened of. I am very unhappy too. I'd like to talk about her to you.”
“No, no—your poor mother—I mustn't say anything. They'll be down upon me if I say anything. They're very sharp. He's sitting up with her now.”
Peter drew another chair up close to her and took her thin hand in his. She allowed him to do what he would and seemed to have no active knowledge of her surroundings.
“We'll talk about her,” he said, “often. You shall tell me all about her early life. I want to know everything.”
“Oh, no. I'm going away. Directly after the funeral. Directly after the funeral I'm going away.”
Suddenly this frightened him. Was he to be left here entirely alone with his father and grandfather?
“You're going away?” he said.
“Oh, yes—your Uncle Jeremy will come for the funeral. I shall go away with him afterwards. I don't like your Aunt Agatha, but they always said I could come to them when your mother died. I don't like your Aunt Agatha but she means to be kind. Oh! I couldn't stay here after all that has happened. I was only staying for your mother's sake and I'm sure I've never gone to bed without wondering what would happen before the morning—Oh, yes, your Uncle Jeremy's coming and I shall go away with him after the funeral. I don't like your Aunt Agatha but I couldn't stay after all that has happened.”
All this was said in a hurried frightened whisper. The poor lady shook from head to foot and the little bracelets on her trembling wrists jangled together.
“Then I shall be all alone here,” Peter said suddenly, staring at the candle that was guttering in the breeze that came from behind the heavy blinds.
“Oh, dear,” said his aunt, “I'm sure Uncle Jeremy will be kind if you have to leave here, you know.”
“Why should I have to leave here?” asked Peter.
His aunt sunk her voice very low indeed—so low that it seemed to come from the heart of the cactus plant by the window.
“He hasn't got your mother now, you know. He'll want to have somebody....”
But she said nothing more—only gazed at the old man opposite her with staring eyes, and cried in a little desolate whimper and jangled her bracelets until at last Peter crept softly, miserably to bed.