The House by the River Part 11

And after all, it was only for a little time. Mrs. Byrne was still in a bad way, but she was "out of the wood," Mrs. Bantam said. And when she was quite well, Stephen of course would somehow manage to put things right, in spite of his extraordinary conduct at the inquest. He did not see Stephen for ten days after the inquest. He had felt sometimes that he would like to see him, would like to tell him how awkward he had made things by the way he had given his evidence. But it seemed hardly fair to worry him. He must be worried enough, as it was, poor man. And John felt that he would never be able to approach the topic without seeming to be questioning Stephen's loyalty. And he did not want to do that. He was quite sure that Stephen had never meant to put things as he had. It was nervousness; and the muddle-headedness that comes from too much thinking, too much planning, and the musty, intimidating atmosphere of the Coroner's Court, and the stupid badgering of the smug Coroner.

Probably Stephen had hardly known what he was saying. He himself had felt like that. And Stephen had had far more reason for nervousness in that place. When Margery was better, he would go round and see Stephen, and Stephen would "do the right thing." That was his own phrase.

Meanwhile, people must be avoided, and Mrs. Bantam was a great comfort.

Mrs. Bantam had shown herself a loyal and devoted soul. She, at least, had perfect faith in him. There had never been a sack in _this_ house, _that_ she knew. And that was all about it. Since her spirited appearance in the Coroner's Court, her inter-prandial addresses were confined to two themes--the inept.i.tude of the law and the high character of her employer. She was wearisome, but she was very soothing to the injured pride of a shy man who conceived himself as the detested byword of West London.

There was one other spark of comfort. The Tarrants were away in the country and had missed all this. But Mrs. Vincent was a friend of Mrs.

Tarrant and would no doubt write to her. John wondered whether he ought to write to Muriel Tarrant. He did not think so. They were not really on writing terms.

And in the big room over the river, where the blinds were always down, but the sun thrust through in brilliant slices at the corners, Margery Byrne lay very still--sleeping and thinking, sleeping and thinking, of Stephen and Michael Hilary and Joan, but chiefly of Stephen. In the morning and in the evening he came up and sat with her for an hour, and he was very tender and solicitous. She saw that he was pale and weary looking, with anxious eyes, and she was touched and secretly surprised that her illness should have made him look like this. Indeed, it pleased her. But she told him that he must worry about her no more; she told him he must eat enough, and not sit up working too late. Then she would say that she wanted to sleep, lest he should become fidgety or bored with sitting in the darkened room. She would kiss him very fondly, and follow him with her eyes while he walked softly to the door. Then she would lie in a happy dream listening to the birds in the ivy, and the soft river-sounds, the distant cries of the bargemen, and the melancholy whistle of tugs, and the ripple of their wash about the moored boats; she would lie and listen and make huge plans for the future--infinite, impossible, contradictory plans. And the centre of all of them was Stephen.

And Stephen would go down into the warm study and sit down in the sunny window and write. Ever since that Sunday morning when the detective came with the sack he had been writing. It was extraordinary that he was able to write. He knew that it was extraordinary. Sometimes he sat in the evening and tried to understand it. In that fearful time before the detective came, and most of all in those terrible days when Emily Gaunt was drifting irrecoverably up and down in the river, no conceivable power could have wrung from him a single line. He could no more have written poetry than he could have written a scientific treatise. But now, amazingly, he could command the spirit, the idea, the concentration--everything; he could become absorbed, could lose himself in his work. The idea he was working on had been with him for a long time; he had made notes for the poem many weeks back, long before Emily had come to the house; he had written a few lines of it just before she left it. But one wanted more than ideas to do good work of that kind; one must have--what was it?--"peace of mind," presumably. There must be no tempers, or terrors, or worries in the mind. And, one would have thought, no remorse, no p.r.i.c.king of conscience. But perhaps that did not matter. For otherwise how could he now have "peace of mind"? Stephen felt that his conscience was working; he was sorry for what he had done--truly sorry. He was sorry for poor old John. But it did not trouble him when he sat down in the sunshine to write. He could forget it then. But that day when the baby came, when he had seen the sack go past and chased it in the boat, and the next day when Emily was still at large, drifting bulkily for the first police-boat to see--on those days he could not have forgotten. He had been afraid--afraid for Margery, and afraid for himself. And now, somehow, he was not afraid. Why was that?

Distressing things, appalling things, might still happen, but he was not disturbed by them. The day after the inquest he had been a little disturbed; he had not been able to settle down to work that day; he had wandered vaguely up and down the house, had sat in the garden a little, had rowed in the boat a little--restless; and he had slept badly. But the next day he had worked successfully many hours. In a little diary he kept a record of work--so many hours, such and such a poem, so many hundreds of words. All these weeks he had automatically made the entries as usual, and from Sunday, 1st June, the figures moved steadily upward.

After the 5th there was a distinct bound--seven hours on the 6th. June 1st was the day the policeman came--the day he had told the policeman about John--almost by accident, he felt. Yes; he had not meant anything then. And the 4th was the day of the inquest--the day he had made all those other suggestions about John--quite intentionally--and cleverly, too. That was the secret of it, of course, that was the real foundation of his peace of mind--the way he had managed to entangle John in the affair. He had John hopelessly entangled now.

It was strange how it had worked out. In the beginning he had honestly intended "to do the right thing." Or he believed he had. From the time, at any rate, that John had become seriously involved, he had really meant to "own up" as soon as Margery was well enough. Probably it would have meant suicide, he remembered--a long time ago it seemed--thinking of that; but he was going to do _something_. And then the inspiration and the chance had come hand in hand that Sunday morning to show him a better way. It _was_ a better way. He knew quite certainly now that he would never own up--not even if Margery was to die. He would never say a word to clear John's character. He had a fairly clear idea now of what would happen. There would (he hoped) be no further proceedings; the evidence was too thin. All that John would suffer would be this local gossip and petty suspicion; and he would have to live that down. John would not mind--a good fellow, John. But if he did mind, if he ever showed signs of expecting to be cleared, if he ever suggested a confession or any rubbish of that sort, the answer would be simple: "Really, my dear John, the evidence is so strong against you that I don't really think I should be _believed_ now if I said _I_ did it. And you must remember, John, you've anyhow sworn all sorts of things on your oath that you'd have to explain away--the Civil Service wouldn't like that--perjury, you know. Of course, if you _want_ me, John--but I really think it would be better from _your_ point of view--I only want to do the best for _you_, John--"

He could hear himself solemnly developing the argument; and he could see John bowing to his judgment, acquiescing.

If he didn't acquiesce; if he made trouble, or if the police made trouble--but Stephen preferred not to think of that. Yet if it did happen he would be ready. If it was oath against oath, with the scales weighted already against John, he knew who would be believed.

And, after all, John Egerton, good fellow as he was, would leave but a tiny gap in the world. What were his claims on life? What had he to give to mankind? A single man, parents dead, an obscure Civil Servant, at five hundred a year--a mere machine, incapable of creation, easily replaced, perhaps not even missed. What was he worth to the world beside the great Stephen Byrne? Supposing they both died now, how would their obituary notices compare? John's--but John would not have one; his death would be announced on the front page of the newspapers. But about himself there would be half-columns. He knew what they would say: "Tragic death of a young poet still in his prime ... Keats ...

unquestionable stamp of genius ... a loss that cannot be measured ...

best work still unwritten ... engaged, we understand ... new poem ...

would have set the seal ..." and so on.

And it would all be true. Wasn't it _right_, then, that if the choice had ever to be made, he, Stephen Byrne, should be chosen, should be allowed to live and enrich the world? It was curious that never before had he so clearly appreciated his own value to humanity. Somehow, he had never thought of himself in that way. This business had brought it home to him.

Anyhow, he must get on with this poem. It was going to be a big thing.

The more he wrote, the more it excited him; and the more contented he became with the work he was doing, the more satisfied he was with his material circ.u.mstances, the more sure that all would be well for him with the Emily affair.

This is the way of many writers. Their muses and their moods react upon each other in a kind of unending circle. When they are unhappy they cannot write; but when they are busy with writing, and they know that it is good, they grow happier and happier. Then when they have finished and the first intoxication of achievement has worked itself out, depression comes again. And then, while they are yet too exhausted for a new effort, all their work seems futile and worthless, and all life a meaningless blank. And until the next creative impulse restores their confidence and vigour they are, comparatively, miserable.

Stephen Byrne was peculiarly sensitive to these reactions. He had that creative itch which besets especially the young writer with his wings still strange and wonderful upon him. At the end of a day in which he had written nothing new, he went to bed with a sense of frustration, of failure and emptiness. There was something missing. For weeks on end he wrote something every day, some new created thing, if it was only a single verse, apart from the routine work of criticism and review-writing and odd journalism with which he helped to keep his family alive. But ideas do not come continually to any man; and when they come, the weary mind is not always ready to shape them. There were long periods of barrenness or stagnancy when Stephen could write nothing. Sometimes the ideas came copiously enough, but hovered like maddening ghosts just out of his grasp, clearly seen, but unattainable.

Sometimes they came not at all. In either case, like a good artist, Stephen made no attempt to force the unwilling growth, but let himself lie fallow for a little. But all these fallow times he was restless and half-content. He had the sense, somehow, of failure. He became moody and irritable, and silent at meals. But when the creative fit was upon him, when he had made some little poem, or was still hot and busy at a long one, the world was benevolent and good, life was a happy adventure, and Stephen talked like a small boy at dinner-time.

So this poem he was working at was an important thing. The "idea" was comparatively old. It had come to him in a fallow time, and had been stored somewhere away. When the policeman's visit restored his tranquillity, the fallow time was over. The idea was ready to hand, and he had only to take it out and sow it and water it. And as it grew and blossomed under his hand, it commanded him. It made him superior to circ.u.mstance; it decorated his fortunes and made them hopeful and benign. Nothing could be harmful or disturbing while he was doing such good work every day. It made him sure that he was right--sure that his decisions were wise. It made him see that no good purpose would be served by telling the world the truth about Emily Gaunt and about John Egerton. So he went on writing.

But there was another curious thing about this poem. It was a kind of epic, an immensely daring, ambitious affair. The war came into it, but it was not about the war. Rather it was a great song of the chivalry and courage of the men and women of our time wherever these have appeared.

There were battles in it, and the sea was in it, and something of the obscure gallantry of hidden or humble men; and something also of the imperishable heroisms that did not belong to the war--Scott's last voyage and Shackleton's voyage, and the amazing braveries of the air.

And day by day, as he sat there in the sun, glorifying, page by page, the high qualities of these men, their courage and their truth and straightness, he was conscious distantly of the strange contradiction between what he was doing and what he was. He stopped sometimes and thought, "This is sincere work that I am doing; I mean it; it excites me; the critics, whatever they say, will say that it is sincere and n.o.ble writing. Parents in the days to come may make their children read it as an exhortation to manliness and truth. They may even say that I was a n.o.ble character myself.... And all the time I am doing a mean and dirty thing--a cowardly thing. And I don't care. My life is a lie, and this poem is a lie, but I don't care; it is good work."

All that June the weather was very lovely. In the busy streets the air grew heavy and stifling, full of dust and the vile fumes of motor buses.

They were like prisons. But by the river there was always a sense of freshness and freedom; and when the great tide swept up in the evenings a gentle breeze came in light breaths from the west and fingered and fondled the urgent water, making it into a patchwork of rippled places and smooth places, where there swam for a little in a fugitive glow of amber and rose the small clouds over the Richmond Hills. Then it was cool and strengthening to sit in a small boat and drink the breeze, and Stephen always, when the tide was up, would row out into the ripples to see the big sun go down behind Hammerton Church. And while the boat rocked gently on the wash of tugs, he would sit motionless, trying to store the sunset in his mind. He would look at the lights in the water, the unimaginable pattern and colouring of the clouds, fretted like the sand when the sea goes out, consciously realizing, consciously memorizing, thinking, "I must remember how that looked!" For he was not naturally observant, and often, he knew, made up for his lack of observation by his power of imagining. But the critics said he was observant, and observant he was determined to be.

Or he would row across to the eastern end of the Island and tie his boat to the single willow tree that stood there. From this point, looking eastward, you saw the whole of the splendid reach, curving magnificently away to Hammersmith Bridge. You saw the huddled, irregular houses beside it glowing golden in the last sunlight, with here and there a window that blazed at you like a furnace; you saw the fine old trees on the southern bank and the tall chimneys and the distant church that had something of the grace of Magdalen Tower, and you saw the wide and exuberant stream with an impression of bigness and dignity which could never be commanded from the bank; and you saw it rich with colour and delicate lights--with steel-blue and gold--with copper and with rose.

You knew that it was a thick and muddy stream, that most of the houses were squalid houses, and many of the buildings were ugly buildings. But they were all beautiful in the late sun, and Stephen loved them.

And while he sat there, the poem hovered always in the background of his mind. Everything he saw he saw as material which might somehow take its place in the poem. Sometimes half-consciously he was shaping ahead the scheme of what he had next to do, the general form and sequence of it; and sometimes there was a line that would not come right, a word or a phrase that would not surrender itself, and this problem would be always busy in his head, the alternatives chasing each other in a tumbling perpetual circle. Sometimes he would go into the house again in a vague depression, simply because this difficulty had not yet resolved itself.

But there were certain evenings of such peace and quiet dignity that he was stricken with a brief and unwilling remorse. Then the poem was at last thrust out of his mind; then he thought of Margery and the wrong he had done her, and of John and the wrong he was doing him, and shame took hold of him. At these moments he had an impulse to abandon his plans, to forget his poem and his ambitions and his love of life, and give himself up suddenly to the police. This was usually when the sun was yet warm and wonderful. But when the sun had gone, and he had come back into the dark and silent garden, this mood departed quickly. Fear came back to him then, the love of warmth and light and comfort and life, and with that the love of praise and the desire of success. And then he would think pa.s.sionately again of his poem; he would s.n.a.t.c.h, as it were in self-defence, at the pride and excitement of his purpose, and comfort his soul with new a.s.surances of his own exceeding worth.

And when he had recaptured that consoling invigorating mood, the great contradiction would smite him with a fresh and glorious force, the contradiction of his personal vileness and the beauty and n.o.bility of the work which he was doing. Then as he sat down in the bright island of light at his table, he would think again, with a kind of conceited malice, of the blind and stupid world which judged a man by his work--which would s...o...b..r over a murderer and a liar and a betrayer of friends simply because he could write good verse about good men.

And sometimes he even formed this thought into an arrogant phrase, "They think they know me, the d.a.m.ned fools--but they don't!"

Then he would go on with the n.o.ble poem. And Margery Byrne lay silent alone in the cool bedroom, thinking of Stephen.

X

So the weeks went by. And John and Stephen saw little of each other.

Indeed, they saw little of any one. Then, towards the end of June, Margery Byrne got up for the first time, and little Joan came home from her grandmother's. In a week Margery was completely and delightedly "up," full of plans and longing to take up life exactly where she had left it. Stephen found her curiously eager for company, and especially the company of old friends; it seemed to her so long since she had seen them. Very soon she asked why John Egerton was so neglecting them. "Get him to come round, Stephen," she said. "Ring him up now." Stephen had lately told her the story of the inquest, of the local feeling and faction; and Margery had at once determined that she would think nothing of it. She would do as the Whittakers did; not that she was prepared in any case to believe evil of John. Yet at the back of her mind there was just a hint of curiosity about it.

So Stephen reluctantly rang him up--reluctantly because he had wanted to work that evening, and because he feared this meeting. But he did not dare to seem unwilling.

And John Egerton came. He had known for some days that he would soon have to do it, and he, too, had been afraid. But this evening he was almost glad of the invitation. The long weeks of semi-isolation had tried him very severely. The sense of being an outcast from his fellows, suspected, despised, had grown unreasonably and was a perpetual irritant to the nerves. He had an aching to go again into a friend's house, to sit and talk again with other men. And even the house of the Byrnes and the company of the Byrnes might be a soothing relief from his present loneliness.

And now that Margery was up and well, the time was surely near when something would be done about this business. Unpleasant things had happened. The family of the Gaunts had been to see him. They had come again this evening--in the middle of supper--sly, grasping, malicious people, a decayed husband of about fifty with a drooping, ragged moustache, with watery eyes and the aspect of a wet rat, and an upright, aggressive, spiteful little wife, with an antique bonnet fixed very firmly on the extreme summit of her yellowish hair. She had thin lips, a harsh voice, and an unpleasant manner. There was also a meek son of about twenty, and Emily's fiance, who looked conscientiously sad and respectable and wore a bowler hat. But the woman did all the talking.

The men only interposed when they felt that she was going too far to be effective.

They wanted money. The men might be half-ashamed of wanting it, but they wanted it, and they clearly expected to get it. They a.s.sumed as common ground that John had made away with Emily and had only been preserved from arrest by the strange eccentricities of the law. They did not want trouble made, but there it was: Emily had been a good daughter to them and had contributed money to the household; and it was only fair that something should be done to heal the injury to their affections and their accounts. If not, of course, there would _have_ to be trouble.

John Egerton, disgusted and humiliated, had n.o.bly kept his temper, but firmly refused to give them a penny. They had gone away, muttering threats. John had no idea what they would do, but they filled him with loathing and fear. He could not endure this much longer for any man's sake. Stephen must release him.

But the evening at the Byrnes' house did nothing to clear things up.

Rather it aggravated the tangle. Mrs. Byrne was lying on the sofa, looking more fragile yet more delicious than he had ever seen her. She greeted him very kindly and they talked for a little, while Stephen sat rather glumly in the window-seat staring out at the river.

She spoke happily of Stephen Michael Hilary Byrne, of his charm and his intelligence, and how already he really had something of Stephen about him; and as she said that she smiled at Stephen. And she leaned back with a little sigh of content and looked round at her drawing-room, rich with warm and comfortable colour, at the striped material of delicate purple, at the j.a.panese prints she had bought with Stephen at a sale, at the curious but excellent wall-paper of dappled grey, and the pleasant rows of books on the white shelves, at the flowers in the Chinese bowl which Stephen had bought for her in some old shop, and the ma.s.s of roses on the shiny Sheraton table; then she looked out through the window at the red light of a tug sliding mysteriously down through the steely dark and back again at Stephen. And John knew that she was counting up her happiness; and he thought with an intense pity and rage how precarious that happiness was. He realized then that he could not allow Stephen to "do the right thing"; he would not press for it. After all, it was a small thing for himself to suffer, this petty local suspicion, even the visitations of the Gaunts, compared with the suffering which this dear and delicate lady would have to bear if the truth were told. Surely it was an easy sacrifice for a man to make.

So John sat glowing with sentiment and resolution, and Margery pondered the happiness of life, and Stephen brooded darkly in the window, and they were all silent. Then Margery suggested that the two men should sing together as they used to do; and they sang. They sang odd things from an Old English song book, picked out at random as they turned over the leaves. And it seemed as if every song in that book must have for those two some hidden and sinister meaning. It was bad enough, in any case, to stand there together behind Margery at the piano, and try to sing as they had sung in the old days, when nothing had happened. But these songs had some terrible innuendoes: "Blow, blow, thou winter wind," they sang first, and "Sigh no more, ladies." And when they came to "a friend's ingrat.i.tude" and "fellowship forgot" and "Men were deceivers ever," the two men became foolishly self-conscious. They looked studiously in front of them, and each in his heart hoped that the other had not noticed, hoped that his own expression was perfectly normal and composed. It was exceedingly foolish. There were other songs like this, and after a few more Stephen said shortly that that was enough.

Then they tried to talk again; but the men could think of no topic which did not somehow lead them near to Emily Gaunt and such dangerous ground. Even when Margery began to speak of the motor-boat, the men seemed to be stricken silly and dumb. Margery wondered what ailed them, till she remembered about John's "wood-collecting" evidence, and blushed suddenly at her folly.

Stephen went down with John to the front door feeling certain that he would there and then "have it out." But John said nothing, only a quick "Good night." He did not look at Stephen. They felt then like strangers to each other. And Stephen, marvelling at John's silence and strangely moved by his coldness, became suddenly anxious to get at his thoughts.

He said, "John--I--I--I hope you're not ... hadn't I better ... I--I mean ... are you being worried much ... by this?..."

His vagueness was partly due to a new and genuine nervousness and partly to calculation--a half-conscious determination not to commit himself.

But John perfectly understood.

"No, Stephen, we'll forget all that ... you're not to do anything....

It's a bit trying, but I can stand it. I don't want to upset things any more now.... Margery and you ... a fresh start, you know.... Good night." And he was gone.

Stephen went slowly upstairs, astonished and ashamed, with a confused sense of humiliation and relief. And while he felt penitent and mean in the face of this magnanimity of John's, he could not avoid a certain conceited contentment with the wisdom and success of his planning.