Maradick at Forty: A Transition

by Hugh Walpole

That seemed to touch something in him, so that he suddenly leaned against the wall and, with his head in his arm, began to cry. There was no reason really why he should cry; in fact, he didn’t want to cry—it was like a woman to cry. He repeated it stupidly to himself, “like a woman, like a woman. . . .”

Then he began slowly to fling himself together, as it were; to pick up the bits and to feel that he, Maradick, still existed as a personal identity. He pulled his clothes about him and looked at the dark house. It was absolutely silent; there were no lights anywhere. What had happened? Was Morelli looking at him now from some dark corner, watching him from behind some black window?

And then, as his head grew cooler under the influence of the night air, another thought came to him. What was the little parlour-maid doing? What would happen to her, shut up all night in that house alone with that . . .? Ought he to go back? He could see her cowering, down in the basement somewhere, having heard probably the noise of the crashing lamp, terrified, waiting for Morelli to find her. Yes, he ought to go back. Then he knew that nothing, nothing in the world—no duty and no claim, no person, no power—could drive him back into that house again. He looked back on it afterwards as one of the most shameful things in his life, that he had not gone back to see what had happened to the girl; but he could not go, nothing would make him. It was not anything physical that he might have to face. If it had been ordinary normal odds—a “scrap,” as he would call it—then he would have faced it without hesitation. But there was something about that struggle upstairs that made him sick; it was something unreal, unclean, indecent. It had been abnormal, and all that there had been in it had not been the actual struggle, the blows and wounds, but something about it that must be undefined, unnamed: the “air,” the “atmosphere” of the thing, the sudden throwing down of the decent curtain that veils this world from others.

But he couldn’t analyse it like that now. He only felt horribly sick at the thought of it, and his one urgent idea was to get away, far, far away, from the house and all that it contained.

The night was very dark; no one would see him. He must get back to the hotel and slip up to his room and try and make himself decent. He turned slowly up the hill.

Then, as his thoughts became clearer, he was conscious of a kind of exultation at its being over. So much more than the actual struggle seemed to be over; it swept away all the hazy moral fog that he had been in during the last weeks. In casting off Morelli, in flinging him from him physically as well as morally, he seemed to have flung away all that belonged to him—the wildness, the hot blood, the unrest that had come to him! He wondered whether after all Morelli had not had a great deal to do with it. There were more things in it all than he could ever hope to understand.

And then, on top of it all, came an overwhelming sensation of weariness. He went tottering up the hill with his eyes almost closed. Tired! He had never felt so tired in his life before. He was already indifferent to everything that had happened. If only he might just lie down for a minute and close his eyes; if only he hadn’t got this horrible hill to climb! It would be easier to lie down there in the hedge somewhere and go to sleep. He considered the advisability of doing so. He really did not care what happened to him. And then the thought came to him that Morelli was coming up the hill after him; Morelli was waiting probably until he did fall asleep, and then he would be upon him. Those fingers would steal about his body again, there would be that biting pain. He struggled along. No, he must not stop.

At last he was in the hotel garden. He could hear voices and laughter from behind closed doors, but there seemed to be no one in the hall. He stumbled up the stairs to his room and met no one on the way. His bath seemed to him the most wonderful thing that he had ever had. It was steaming hot, and he lay absolutely motionless with his eyes closed letting his brain very slowly settle itself. It was like a coloured puzzle that had been shaken to pieces and scattered; now, of their own initiative, all the little squares and corners seemed to come together again. He was able to think sanely and soberly once more, and, above all, that terrible sensation of having about him something unreal was leaving him. He began to smile now at the things that he had imagined about Morelli. The man had been angry at his helping Janet to run away—that was natural enough; he was, of course, hot-tempered—that was the foreign blood in him. Thank God, the world wasn’t an odd place really. One fancied things, of course, when one was run down or excited, but those silly ideas didn’t last long if a man was sensible.

He found that the damage wasn’t very serious. There were bruises, of course, and nasty scratches, but it didn’t amount to very much. As he climbed out of the bath, and stretched his limbs and felt the muscles of his arms, he was conscious of an enormous relief. It was all over; he was right again once more. And then suddenly in a flash he remembered Mrs. Lester.

Well, that was over, of course. But to-night was Thursday. He had promised to see her. He must have one last talk, just to tell her that there must be nothing more of the kind. As he slowly dressed, delighting in the cool of clean linen, he tried to imagine what he would say; but he was tired, so dreadfully tired! He couldn’t think; he really couldn’t see her to-night. Besides, it was most absolutely over, all of it. He had gone through it all in the church that afternoon. He belonged to his wife now, altogether; he was going to show her what he could be now that he understood everything so much better; and she was going to try too, she had promised him in that funny way the other night.