The Captives Part 7

"And Maggie?" said the little lady by the fireplace.

Maggie moved forward with the awkward gestures and the angry look in her eyes that were always hers when she was ill at ease.

"Maggie," said Aunt Anne, "has been very good."

"And she's tired, I'm sure," continued the little lady, who must of course be Aunt Elizabeth. "The journey was easy, dear. And you had no change. They gave you footwarmers, I hope. It's been lovely weather.

I'm so glad to see you, dear. I've had no photograph of you since you were a baby."

Aunt Elizabeth had a way, Maggie thought, of collecting a number of little disconnected statements as though she were working out a sum and hoped--but was not very certain--that she would achieve a successful answer. "Add two and five and three and four ..." The statements that she made were apparently worlds apart in interest and importance, but she hoped with good fortune to flash upon the boards a fine result. She was nervous, Maggie saw, and her thin shoulders were a little bent as though she expected some one from behind to strike her suddenly in the small of the back.

"She's afraid of something," thought Maggie.

Aunt Elizabeth had obviously not the strong character of her sister Anne.

"Thank you," said Maggie, looking, for no reason at all, at Mr. Magnus, "I slept in the train, so I'm not tired." She stopped then, because there was nothing more to say. She felt that she ought to kiss her aunt; she thought she saw in her aunt's small rather watery eyes an appeal that she should do so. The distance, however, seemed infinite, and Maggie had a strange feeling that her bending down would break some spell, that the picture in the pa.s.sage would fall with a ghostly clatter, that Edward the parrot would scream and shriek, that the gas would burst into a bubbling horror, that the big black cat would leap upon her and tear her with its claws.

"Well, I'm not afraid," she thought. And, as though she were defying the universe, she bent down and kissed her aunt. She fancied that this act of hers produced a little sigh of relief. Every one seemed to settle down. They all sat, and conversation was general.

Mr. Magnus had a rather melancholy, deprecating voice, but with some touch of irony too, as though he were used to being called a fool by his fellow-beings, but after all knew better than they did. He did not sound at all conceited; only amused with a little gentle melancholy at his own position.

"I'm glad to see you so well, Miss Cardinal," he said with an air of rather old-fas.h.i.+oned courtesy. "I had been afraid that it might have exhausted you. I only came to welcome you. I must return at once. I have an article to finish before midnight."

Aunt Anne smiled gently: "No, I'm not tired, thank you. And what has happened while I have been away?"

"I have been away too, as you know," said Mr. Magnus, "but I understand that your sister has been very busy--quite a number--"

Aunt Elizabeth said in her trembling voice: "No. No--Anne--I a.s.sure you. Nothing at all. As you know, the Bible Committee wanted to discuss the new scheme. Last Tuesday. Mr. Warlock, Mr. Simms, young Holliday, Miss Martin, Mary Hearst. And Sophie Dunn. AND Mr. Turner. Nothing at all. It was a wet day. Last Tuesday afternoon."

"Your mother is quite well, I hope, Mr. Warlock?" said Aunt Anne, turning to the young man. "Yes--she's all right," he answered. "Just the same. Amy wants you to go and see her. I was to give you the message, if you could manage to-morrow sometime; or she'd come here if it's more convenient. There's something important, she says, but I don't suppose it's important in the least. You know what she is."

He spoke, laughing. His eyes wandered all round the room and suddenly settled on Maggie with a startled stare, as though she were the last person whom he had expected to find there.

"Yes. To-morrow afternoon, perhaps--about three, if that would suit her. How is Amy?"

"Oh, she's all right. As eager to run the world as ever--and she never will run it so long as she shows her cards as obviously as she does. I tell her so. But it's no good. She doesn't listen to me, you know."

Aunt Anne, with the incomparable way that she had, brushed all this very gently aside. She simply said: "I'm glad that she's well." Then she turned to the other gentleman:

"Your writing's quite satisfactory, I hope, Mr. Magnus."

She spoke as though it had been a cold or a toothache.

He smiled his melancholy ironical smile. "I go on, you know, Miss Cardinal. After all, it's my bread and b.u.t.ter."

Maggie, looking at him, knew that this was exactly the way that he did not regard it, and felt a sudden sympathy towards him with his thin hair, his large spectacles and his shabby clothes. But her look at him was the last thing of which she was properly conscious. The wall beyond the fireplace, that had seemed before to her dim and dark, now suddenly appeared to lurch forward, to bulge before her eyes; the floor with its old, rather shabby carpet rose on a slant as though it was rocked by an unsteady sea; worst of all, the large black cat swelled like a balloon, its whiskers distended like wire. She knew that her eyes were burning, that her forehead was cold, and that she felt sick. She was hungry, and at the same time was conscious that she could eat nothing. Her only wish was to creep away and hide herself from every one.

However, through all her confusion she was aware of her determination not to betray to them that she was ill. "If only the cat wouldn't grow so fast, I believe I could manage," was her desperate thought. There was a roaring in her ears; she caught suddenly from an infinite distance the voice of the stout young man--"She's ill! She's fainting!"

She was aware that she struggled to face him with fierce protesting eyes. The next thing she knew was that she lay for the second time that afternoon in his arms. She felt that he laid her, clumsily but gently, upon the sofa; some one sprinkled cold water on her forehead. Deep down in her soul she hated and despised herself for this weakness before strangers. She closed her eyes tightly, desiring to conceal not so much the others as herself from her scornful gaze. She heard some one say something about a cup of tea, and she wanted it suddenly with a desperate, fiery desire, but she would not speak, no, not if they were to torture her with thirst for days and days--to that extent at least she could preserve her independence.

She heard her Aunt Elizabeth say something like: "Poor thing--strain--last week--father--too much."

She gathered all her energies together to say "It hasn't been too much.

I'm all right," but they brought her a cup of tea, and before that she succ.u.mbed. She drank it with eager greed, then lay back, her eyes closed, and slowly the bars of hot iron withdrew from her forehead. She slept.

She woke to a room wrapped in a green trembling twilight. She was alone save for the black cat. The fire crackled, the gas was turned low, and the London murmur beyond the window was like the hum of an organ. There was no one in the room; she felt, as she lay there, an increasing irritation at her weakness. She was afraid too for her future. Did she faint like this at the earliest opportunity people would allow her no chance of earning her living. Where was that fine independent life upon which, outside Borhedden Farm, she had resolved? And these people, her aunts, the young man, the thin spectacled man, what would they think of her? They would name it affectation, perhaps, and imagine that she had acted in such a way that she might gain their interest and sympathy.

Such a thought sent the colour flaming to her cheeks; she sat up on the sofa. She would go to them at once and show them that she was perfectly strong and well.

The door opened and Aunt Elizabeth came in, very gently as though she were going to steal something. She was, Maggie saw now, so little as to be almost deformed, with a soft pale face, lined and wrinkled, and blue watery eyes. She wore a black silk wrapper over her shoulders, and soft black slippers. Alice in Wonderland was one of the few books that Maggie had read in her childhood; Aunt Elizabeth reminded her strongly of the White Queen in the second part of that masterpiece.

"Oh, you're not asleep, dear," said Aunt Elizabeth.

"No, I'm not," said Maggie. "I'm perfectly all right. I can't think what made me behave like that. I've never done such a thing before. I'm ashamed!"

"It was very natural," said Aunt Elizabeth. "You should have had some tea at once. It was my fault. It's late now. Nine o'clock. My sister suggests bed. Supper in bed. Very nice, I always think, after a long journey. It will be fine to-morrow, I expect. We've had beautiful weather until this morning, when it rained for an hour. Chicken and some pudding. There's a little Australian wine that my sister keeps in the house for accidents. I liked it myself when I had it once for severe neuralgia."

She suddenly, with a half-nervous, half-desperate gesture, put out her hand and took Maggie's. Her hand was soft like blanc-mange; it had apparently no bones in it.

Maggie was touched and grateful. She liked this little shy, frightened woman. She would do anything to please her.

"Don't think," she said eagerly, "that I've ever fainted like that before. I a.s.sure you that I've never done anything so silly. You mustn't think that I'm not strong. I'm strong as a horse--father always said so. I've come to help you and Aunt Anne in any way I can. You mustn't think that I'm going to be in the way. I only want to be useful."

Aunt Elizabeth started and looked at the door. "I thought I heard something," she said. They both listened.

"Perhaps it was the parrot," said Maggie.

Aunt Elizabeth smiled bravely.

"There are often noises in an old house like this," she said. The black cat came towards them, slowly, with immense dignified indifference. He swung his tail as though to show them that he cared for no one. He walked to the door and waited; then followed them out of the room.

Maggie found that her bedroom was a room at the top of the house, very white and clean, with a smell of soot and tallow candle that was new and attractive. There was a large text in bright purple over the bed--"The Lord cometh; prepare ye the way of the Lord." From the window one saw roofs, towers, chimneys, a sweeping arc of sky-lights now spun and sparkled into pathways and out again, driven by the rumble behind them that never ceased, although m.u.f.fled by the closed window.

They talked together for a little while, standing near the window, the candle wavering in Aunt Elizabeth's unsteady hand.

"We thought you'd like this top room. It's quieter than the rest of the house. Sometimes when the sweep hasn't been the soot tumbles down the chimney. You mustn't mind that. Thomas will push open the door and walk in at times. It's his way."

"Thomas?" said Maggie bewildered.

"Our cat. He has been with us for many years now. Those who know say that he might have taken prizes once. I can't tell I'm sure. If you pull that bell when you want anything Martha will come. She will call you at half-past seven; prayers are in the dining-room at a quarter past eight. Sometimes the wind blows through the wall-paper, but it is only the wind."

Maggie drew back the curtains that hid the glitter of the lights.

"Were those great friends of yours, those gentlemen this evening?"

"The one who wears spectacles, Mr. Magnus--yes, he is a very old friend. He is devoted to my sister. He writes stories."

"What, in the papers?"

"No, in books. Two every year."