The Pest 19

The Pest 19

“We _will_ stop long enough. I’m so glad to have an excuse for not going

back too soon. The country’s stupid in the winter and Brighton’s jolly,

although Philip did try to grumble about coming.”

 

“‘Try’ is the word,” rejoined West, biting the end of his cigar; “try!

When you get married, Maddison, you’ll remember that little word ‘try.’”

 

“Don’t be naughty, Philip,” said Mrs. West, pouting. “You know you

always have your own way, except about grumbling. Life’s too short for

grumbling, isn’t it, Mr. Maddison?”

 

“Much. Your husband as a business man ought to know better than to waste

his time.”

 

“What a prosaic view to take!” Mrs. West answered. “He ought to leave

business behind him in the office and just waste his time when he’s at

home. But all men are prosaic, I think.”

 

“And all women are—?” asked West.

 

“Just what you like to make them,” his wife replied. “That’s the worst

of it—what _we_ are depends on what _you_ are.”

 

“What do you say to such views, Alice?” West said, appealing to Miss

Lane, who was looking out of the window at the miles of dreary suburbs

flying by.

 

“Nothing!” she answered. “You know I never theorize about things. What’s

the use of it?”

 

“Practical, steady, unemotional Alice!” laughed Mrs. West; but Maddison

knew better, for he caught a glimpse of a look of contemptuous scorn

before Miss Lane turned away again to the window.

 

“Where are you going to put up?” Maddison asked.

 

“At the Metropole, it’s amusing,” answered Mrs. West. “You must come in

and dine with us.”

 

“Maddison hates big hotels,” said West.

 

“Big anything,” interjected Maddison, “except when Nature provides them.

Most of men’s big things are vulgar failures. London, for example, you

needn’t go farther.”

 

“Is a bad example,” rejoined West. “That example won’t prove your point:

just the opposite. On the whole, London is a success; it’s the most

comfortable, most luxurious and most beautiful city in the world.”

 

“And the most comfortless, most squalid, and most ugly,” said Maddison.

“That’s where London is such a dismal failure; she’s just like a horse

with an uncertain temper: one moment an angel, the next a devil.”

 

“Or you can put it another way and draw another conclusion; London has

just that charm which belongs to a woman—you’re never quite certain of

her—at least if she’s worth bothering about. It may be a scratch, it

may be a kiss.”

 

“I don’t like your talking that way, Phil,” said Mrs. West; “you know

you don’t mean it.”

 

“It’d be too stupid if we only said what we meant; most of us mean such

commonplaces.”

 

Mrs. West picked up a magazine, and neither of the men feeling inclined

to talk, the conversation dropped.

 

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?”

 

“I’m myself, which comes to the same as sayin’ I’m middlin’; w’en I

ain’t got a cold in the ’ead I’m sure to have a blister on my ’eel, but

I managesterfergitit by not thinkin’ abart myself. Ain’t you ’ungry,

sir? I do ’ope so. I’ve got two sich nice chops, pertaties, cabidgeanda

cheese.”

 

“Hungry! I should say I am! The walk across the cliffs is better than

any pick-me-up in the world. So on with the chops and out with the

cheese.”

 

The north end of the cottage was occupied by one large room, lit by a

long lattice window and a skylight above; a passage ran from the front

door right through to the back, and on the south there were two floors,

the lower half kitchen, half sitting room, the upper a bedroom reached

by a narrow stair from the passage. A snug nest Maddison had thought it,

but despite the bright fires in studio and kitchen and Mrs. Witchout’s

warm welcome, there was a sense of desolateness about the place that

hurt him. He carried his portmanteau up to the bedroom, unstrapped it,

then sat down on the edge of the bed and looked out of the open window,

through which the breeze came cool and crisp. There lay the sea, spread

out like a great, gray drugget, and in the distance the gathering fog.

It _was_ dreary.

 

“Chopson the table!” Mrs. Witchout called up the stairs.

“Wat’llyoudrink? Beer?”

 

“Beer will do A1!”

 

Again Maddison tried to shake himself free of his oppression, and ran

down the stairs.

 

“You’re a brick, Mrs. Witchout: chops and cheese and beer! Here goes!”

 

Mrs. Witchout tucked her hands under her apron and looked on approvingly

as he set to vigorously.

 

“Brick!” she said meditatively. “Now I wonders could you explain

w’ytheycall pussons ‘bricks’? It’s meant a complimentapparently, but I

don’t see ’ow: bricks bein’ ’ardandangular, which I ’ope I ain’t either.

Perhaps it alludes to being full baked. Wot do you think, sir?”