Maradick at Forty: A Transition

by Hugh Walpole

And these next two days were torture to him, the most horrible days that he had ever known. Partly they were horrible because of the general consciousness that something was going to happen. Lady Gale, in obedience to Tony, had arranged a picnic for Thursday, but “for ladies only. You see, Mr. Lester is leaving in the afternoon, and my husband and Rupert talk of going with him as far as Truro; my husband has some relations there. And really, I know you and Tony would rather go off on your own, Mr. Maradick. It would be too boring for you. We’re only going to sit in the sun, you know, and talk!”

It was understood that Mr. Maradick had, as a matter of fact, fixed up something. Yes, he had promised his day to Tony, it being one of the last that they would have together. They would probably go for a sail. He would like to have come. He enjoyed the last, &c., &c.

But this was quite enough to “do” the trick. What a picnic! Imagine! With everyone acutely conscious that there was something “going on” just over the hill, something that, for Lady Gale, at any rate, meant almost life and death. Thursday began to loom very large indeed. What would everyone be doing and thinking on Friday? Still more vital a question, where would everyone be on Friday?

But at any rate he could picture them: the ladies—Lady Gale, Alice Du Cane, Mrs. Lester, his wife, even poor Mrs. Lawrence—sitting there, on the edge of the hill, silent, alert, listening.

What a picnic!

But their alertness, or rather their terrible eagerness to avoid seeming alert, horrified him. They seemed to pursue him, all five of them, during those two dreadful days with questioning glances; only his wife, by her curious patient intentness, as though she were waiting for the crisis to come, frightened him most of all. The more he thought of her strange behaviour the less he understood her. It was all so utterly unlike her. And it was not as though she had altered at all in other ways. He had heard her talking to other people, he had watched her scolding the girls, and it was the same sharp, shrill voice, the same fierce assumption that the person she was with must necessarily be trying to “get” at her; no, she was the same Emmy Maradick as far as the rest of the world was concerned. But, with him, she was some one altogether new, some one he had never seen before; and always, through it all, that strange look of wonder and surprise. He often knew that her eyes were upon him when he was talking to some one else; when he talked to her himself her eyes avoided him.

And then Mrs. Lester, too, was so strange. During the whole of Tuesday she avoided him altogether. He had a few minutes with her at teatime, but there were other people there, and she seemed anxious to get away from him, to put the room between them. And seeing her like this, his passion grew. He felt that whatever happened, whatever the disaster, he must have her, once at least, in his arms again. The memories of their other meetings lashed him like whips. He pictured it again, the darkness, the movement of the trees, the touch of her cheek against his hand; and then he would feel that his wife was looking at him from somewhere across the room. He could feel her eyes, like little gimlets, twisting, turning into his back. And then other moods would come, and the blackest despair. He was this kind of man, this sort of scoundrel; he remembered once that there had been a man at Epsom who had run away with a married woman, a man who had been rather a friend of his. He remembered what he had said to him, the kind of way that he had looked at him, poor, rotten creature; and now what was he?

But he could not go; he could not move. He was under a spell. When he thought of Mrs. Lester his blood would begin to race again. He told himself that it was the sign of his freedom, the natural consequences of the new life that had come to him; and then suddenly he would see that moment when his wife, sitting forlornly on his bed, had spoken to him.

And then on Wednesday there was a moment when Mrs. Lester was herself again. It was only a moment, an instant after dinner. Their lips met; he spoke of Thursday and she smiled at him, then the others had come upon them. For an hour or two he was on fire, then he crept miserably, like a thief, to the room of the minstrels and sat wretchedly, hour after hour, looking at the stars.

The day would soon dawn! Thursday! The crisis, as it seemed to him, of the whole of his life. He saw the morn draw faint shadows across the earth, he saw all the black trees move like a falling wall against the stars, he felt the wind with the odour of earth and sea brush his cheek, as he waited for the day to come.