The Pest

by W. Teignmouth Shore

West was glad of Maddison’s company and pleased that he was to be a neighbor. The portrait-painting would occupy some of that time which Agatha found weighing so heavy on her hands, and would relieve him from being always called upon to lighten her burden and to listen to her complaints. He had been accustomed for years past to have his own way with those around him, and the women with whom he had chiefly mixed had been those who must please to live. Now and again he had felt the need for a settled home and had vaguely contemplated matrimony. But the idea had not crystallized until last spring he had met Agatha, who seemed to offer him all that he wanted in a wife—good looks, good temper, good nature. The love-making had been quick and strong; the engagement brief. Now, a few months after their marriage, he was beginning to understand the nature of his acquisition wholly he thought, forgetting that a man has never yet entirely understood a woman any more than any woman has entirely understood a man. We set out to judge others by their motives, which we hope to trace from their actions, but half of what we do in life is purposeless, merely impulsive, and the other half unintentional. It was West’s dangerous pride to feel convinced that he owned the gift of seeing into the hearts and souls of men and women. He had come to the conclusion that good looks were all his wife’s endowment, and that the good nature would not stand against the test of self-sacrifice in any degree however small, and that the good temper was not proof against disappointment and contradiction. Once or twice lately she had asked him for extravagances which he told her he considered unnecessary, which when she pressed him he said he could not afford, his means not being limitless. He did not add that at the moment it would have been more correct to say that his income was by no means so large as the world believed it to be, one or two speculations having turned out considerable losses. He was not embarrassed as yet, but the next few months would be full of anxiety, with another brilliant success or a startling failure at the end of them. He had never before felt any desire to share his business worries with anyone, had never, in fact, had anyone with whom he was tempted to do so, but now to a certain degree it irritated him to know that if he had desired to confide in Agatha it would lead to no good result; the mere fact that she was not his helpmeet made him wish for such an one.

Maddison parted with the Wests at Brighton Station, and having confided his luggage and paraphernalia to the carrier who had driven in to meet him, set forth on foot for Rottingdean. The air was crisper, fresher here than it had been in London, and as he strode along the broad pathway on the edge of the cliff, drinking in the salt breeze, he felt that he would have been perfectly content had only Marian been by his side.

Then his thoughts turned to the Wests. The man was strong and could take care of himself, but he was sorry for Agatha. There was to him something pathetic in her foolish, pretty helplessness, the pathos that there is in a dumb beast’s futile efforts to understand a world that is beyond his ken. He knew now that he could paint her portrait, not in the jeering spirit he had intended, but so that he would show in the pretty face the struggling of a soul unborn. Would it ever see the light of life? Perhaps better not, he thought; souls suffer more keenly than mere clay.

He paused when he had left the houses some way behind, and looked out over the white-flecked sea, boundless, apparently, save for the distant bank of mist that crept treacherously along; away to the right the dun cloud of smoke over the town; behind him the rolling downs; to the left, Rottingdean, nestling down in its cradle; and before him the white-flecked sea. No living being in sight, yet thousands so near. He felt lonely, and there swept over him a passionate longing for Marian, to have her standing with her hand in his, looking out with him over the white-flecked sea; they two together, what would it matter then if there were no other living soul in the world? It took all his will to master his impulse to retrace his steps, and to go straight back to town. Could he endure the staying down here? Could he wait even the few days he had promised to remain before going up to see her? Where was she at this moment? What was she doing? Was she, perhaps, thinking of him?

He remembered so well the building of the cottage—how clearly its white walls stood out against the green background of the downs, and how pleasantly the months had slipped away when he stayed there the last summer; he almost dreaded now to go on and to cross its threshold; it would be so dreary and so empty.

With a half laugh, he shook himself free from these oppressive thoughts, and hurried along down the chalky road into the village, where many homely acquaintances greeted him warmly, expressing surprise at his visiting them at such a time of the year.

Mrs. Witchout, who “did” for him, stood on the doorstep ready to greet him. She was an abnormally tall, abnormally thin, abnormally pinched-faced and red-nosed woman, which beacon was a libel upon her teetotal principles and practice.

“The fire’s burnin’ nicerly, and your luggidge’s all piled upinaheap,” said Mrs. Witchout, in her piping voice, which came startlingly as would the note of a penny whistle from a lengthy organ pipe. “I didn’t like to sort it out not knowin’-whatswhat.”

Mrs. Witchout’s most remarkable gift was a breathless way of running two or three words into one, which was not only astonishing but often perplexing.

“That’s all right, Mrs. Witchout. How are you?”