II
The elder man felt that the boy was trembling from head to foot.
“What's the matter, Westcott? Anything I can do for you?”
Peter seemed to take him in slowly, and then, with a great effort, to pull himself together.
“What, you—Maradick? Where was I? I'm afraid I've been making a fool of myself....” A church clock struck somewhere in the distance. “Hullo, I say, what's that? That's eleven. I must get back, I ought to be at home—”
“I'll come with you—”
Maradick hailed a hansom and helped Peter into it.
For a moment there was silence—then Maradick said—
“I hope everything's all right, Westcott? Your wife?”
Peter spoke as though he were in a dream. “I've been waiting there all the afternoon—she's been suffering—My God!... It got on my nerves.... She's so young—they oughtn't to hurt her like that.” He covered his face with his hands.
“I know. I felt like that when my first child came. It's terrible, awful. And then it's over—all the pain—and it's magnificent, glorious—and then—later—it's so commonplace that you cannot believe that it was ever either awful or magnificent. Fix your mind on the glorious part of it, Westcott. Think of this time to-morrow when your wife will be so proud, so happy—you'll both be so proud, so happy, that you'll never know anything in life like it.”
“Yes, yes, I know—of course it's sure to be all right—but I suppose this waiting's got on my nerves. There was a fellow in the Park just broken his wife's head in—and then everything was so quiet. I could almost hear her crying, right away in her room.”
He stopped a moment and then went on. “It's what I've always wanted—always to have a boy. And, by Jove, he'll be wonderful! I tell you he shall be—We'll be such pals!” He broke off suddenly—“You haven't a boy?”
“No, mine are both girls. Getting on now—they'll soon be coming out. I should like to have had a boy—” Maradick sighed.
“Are they an awful lot to you?”
“No—I don't suppose they are. I should have understood a boy better,—but they're good girls. I'm proud of them in a way—but I'm out so much, you see.”
Peter faced the contrast. Here this middle-aged man, with his two girls—and here too he, Peter, with his agonising, flaming trial—to slip, so soon, into dull commonplace?
“But didn't you—if you can look so far—didn't you, when the first child came, funk it? Your responsibility I mean. All the things one's—one's ancestors—it's frightening enough for oneself but to hand it on—”
“It's nothing to do with oneself—one's used, that's all. The child will be on its own legs, thrusting you away before you know where you are. It will want to claim its responsibilities—ancestors and all—”
Peter said nothing—Maradick went on:
“You know we were talking one night and were interrupted—you're in danger of letting the things you imagine beat the things you know. Stick to the thing you can grasp, touch—I know the dangers of the others—I told you that once in Cornwall, I—the most unlikely person in the world—was caught up by it. I've never laughed at morbidity, or nerves, or insanity since. There's such a jolly thin wall between the sanest, most level-headed beef-eating Squire in the country and the maddest poet in Bedlam. I know—I've been both in the same day. It's better to be both, I believe, if you can keep one under the other, but you must keep it under—”
Maradick talked on. He saw that the boy's nerves were jumping, that he was holding himself in with the greatest difficulty.
Peter said: “You don't know, Maradick. I've had to fight all my life—my father, grandfather, all of them have given in at last—and now this child ... perhaps I shall see it growing, see him gradually learning to hate me, see myself hating him ... at last, my God, see him go under—drink, deviltry—I've fought it—I'm always fighting it—but to-night—”
“Good heavens, man—you're not going to tell me that your father, your grandfather—the rest of them—are stronger than you. What about your soul, your own blessed soul that can't be touched by any living thing or dead thing either if you stick to it? Why, every man's got power enough in himself to ride heaven and earth and all eternity if he only believed he'd got it! Ride your scruples, man—ride 'em, drive 'em—send 'em scuttling. Believe in yourself and stick to it—Courage!...”
Maradick pulled himself in. They were driving now, down the King's Road. The people were pouring in a thick, buzzing crowd, out of the Chelsea Palace. Middle-aged stockbrokers in hansom cabs—talking like the third act of a problem play!—but Maradick had done his work. As they drove round the corner, past the mad lady's painted house, he saw that Peter was calmer. He had regained his self-control. The little house where Peter lived was very still—the trees in the orchard were stiff and dark beneath the stars.
Peter spoke in a whisper—“Good-night, Maradick, you've done me a lot of good—I shan't forget it.”
“Good luck to you,” Maradick whispered back. Peter stole into the house.
The little drawing-room looked very cosy; the fire was burning, the lamp lighted, the thick curtains drawn. Maria Theresa smiled, with all her finery, from the wall.
Peter sat down in front of the fire. Maradick was right. One must have one's hand on the bridle—the Rider on the Lion again. It's better that the beast under you should be a Lion rather than a Donkey, but let it once fling you off its back and you're done for. And Maradick had said these things! Maradick whom once Peter had considered the dullest of his acquaintances. Well, one never knew about people—most of the Stay-at-homes were Explorers and vice versa, if one only understood them.
How still the house was! What was happening upstairs? He could not go and see—he could not move. He was held by the stillness. The doctor would come and tell him....
He thought of the toyshop—that blue ball—it would be the first thing that he would buy for the boy—and then soldiers—soldiers that wouldn't hurt him, that he couldn't lick the paint from—
Now the little silver clock ticked! He was so terribly tired—he had never been tired like this before....
The stillness pressed upon the house. Every sound—the distant rattling of some cab, the faint murmur of trams—was stifled, extinguished. The orchard seemed to press in upon the house, darker and darker grew the forest about it—The stars were shut out, the moon... the world was dead.
Then into this sealed and hidden silence, a voice crying from an upper room, suddenly fell—a woman in the abandonment of utter pain, pain beyond all control, was screaming. Somewhere, above that dark forest that pressed in upon the house, a bird of prey hovered. It hung for a moment; it descended—its talons were fixed upon her flesh... then again it ascended. Shriek after shriek, bursting the silence, chasing the shadows, flooding the secrecy with horrible light, beat like blows upon the walls of the house—rose, fell, rose again. Peter was standing, his back against the wall, his hands spread out, his face grey.
“My God, my God... Oh! my God!”
The sweat poured from his forehead. Once more there was silence but now it was ominous, awful....
The little silver clock ticked—Peter's body stood stretched against the wall—he faced the door.
Hours, hours passed. He did not move. The screaming had, many years ago, ceased. The doctor—a cheerful man with blue eyes and a little bristling moustache—came in.
“A fine boy, Mr. Westcott—I congratulate you. You might see your wife for a moment if you cared—stood it remarkably well—”
Slowly the forest, dark and terrible, moved away from the house. Very faintly again could be heard the distant rattling of some cab, the murmur of trams.