Maradick at Forty: A Transition

by Hugh Walpole

Only you must, so to speak, have your chance, and that she seemed to be missing. It was all very well to watch romance from your high window and speculate on its possibilities as it passed down the street, but you ought to be down in the midst of it if you were going to do anything. It all seemed ridiculously simple and easy, and she waited for her knight to come with a quiet and assured certainty.

At first she had attacked Miss Minns on the question, but had got little response. Miss Minns was of the opinion that knights were absurd, and that it did not do to expect anything in this world, and that in any case young girls oughtn’t to think about such things, and that it came of reading romances and stuff, with a final concession that it was “Love that made the world go round,” and that “It was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

All this was to little purpose, but it was of trivial importance, because Janet was quite settled in her mind about the whole affair. She had no ideal knight; he was quite vague, hidden in a cloud of glory, and she did not want to see his face; but that he would come she was sure.

But, afterwards, she gave her knight kingdoms and palaces and a beautiful life in which she had some vague share, as of a worshipper before a misty shrine. And he, indeed, was long in coming. She met no one from one year’s end to another, and wistful gazing from her window was of no use at all. She wished that she had other girls for company. She saw them pass, sometimes, through the town, arm in arm; fisher-girls, perhaps, or even ladies from the hotel, and she longed, with an aching longing, to join them and tell them all that she was thinking.

Her father never seemed to consider that she might be lonely. He never thought very much about her at all, and he was not on sufficiently good terms with the people of the place to ask them to his home; he would not have known what to do with them if he had had them there, and would have probably played practical jokes, to their extreme discomfiture.

And then Tony came. She did not see him with any surprise. She had known that it was only a matter of waiting, and she had no doubt at all that he was the knight in question. Her ignorance of the world prevented her from realising that there were a great many other young men dressed in the same way and with the same charming manners. From the first moment that she saw him she took it for granted that they would marry and would go away to some beautiful country, where they would live in the sunshine for ever. And with it all she was, in a way, practical. She knew that it would have to be a secret, that Miss Minns and her father must know nothing about it, and that there would have to be plots and, perhaps, an escape. That was all part of the game, and if there were no difficulties there would be no fun. She had no scruples about the morality of escaping from Miss Minns and her father. They neither of them loved her, or if they did, they had not succeeded in making her love them, and she did not think they would miss her very much.

She was also very thankful to Providence for having sent her so charming a knight. She loved every bit of him, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, his curly hair, his eyes, his smile, his mouth, his hands. Oh! he would fit into her background very handsomely. And charming though he was, it never entered her head for a moment that he was not in love with her. Of course he was! She had seen it in his eyes from the very first minute.

And so all the scruples, the maidenly modesty and the bashful surprise that surround the love affairs of most of her sex were entirely absent. It seemed to her like the singing of a lark in the sky or the murmur of waves across the sand; something inevitable and perfectly, easily natural. There might be difficulties and troubles, because there were people like Miss Minns in the world, but they would pass away in time, and it would be as though they had never existed.

The only thing that puzzled her a little was Maradick. She did not understand what he was doing there. Was he always coming whenever Tony came? He was old like her father, but she thought he looked pleasant. Certainly not a person to be afraid of, and perhaps even some one to whom one could tell things. She liked his size and his smile and his quiet way of talking. But still it was a nuisance his being there at all. There were quite enough complications already with Miss Minns and father without another elderly person. And why was Tony with him at all? He was an old man, one of those dull, elderly people who might be nice and kind but couldn’t possibly be any use as a friend. She tried to get Miss Minns to solve the problem, but that lady murmured something about “Birds of a feather,” and that it was always proper to pay calls in twos, which was no use at all.

So Janet gave up Maradick for the present with a sigh and a shake of the head. But she was most blissfully happy. That country that had remained so long without an inhabiter was solitary no longer, her dreams and pictures moved before her now with life and splendour. She went about her day with a light in her eyes, humming a little song, tender and sympathetic with Miss Minns because she, poor thing, could not know how glorious a thing it was, this love!