第19章

"You're hungry and tired, dear, I expect."With one last outrending scream the whole world seemed to fling itself at the window, open because Aunt Anne thought the cab "had a smell." "Oosh--O O S H." "OOSH."...Maggie drew back as though she expected some one to leap in upon them.Then, with that marvellous and ironical gift of contrast that is London's secret, they were suddenly driven into the sleepiest quiet; they stumbled up a street that was like a cave for misty darkness and muffled echoes.

The cab's wheels made a riotous clatter.

A man posting a letter in a pillar-box was the only figure in the street.The stars shone overhead with wonderful brilliance, and a little bell jangled softly close at hand.All the houses were tall and secret, with high white steps and flat faces.A cat slipped across the street; another swiftly followed it.

St.Dreot's seemed near at hand again and Ellen the cook not so far away.Maggie felt a sudden forlornness and desolation.

"What a very quiet street!" she whispered, as though she were afraid lest the street should hear.

They stopped before one of the flat-faced houses; Aunt Anne rang the bell, and an old woman with a face like a lemon helped the cabman with the boxes.Maggie was standing in a hall that smelt of damp and geraniums.It was intensely dark, and a shrill scream from somewhere did not make things more pleasant.

"That's Edward the parrot," said Aunt Anne."Take care not to approach him too closely, dear, because he bites."Then they went upstairs, Maggie groping her way and stumbling at the sharp corners.The darkness grew; she knocked her knee on the corner of something, cried out, and a suddenly opened door threw a pale green light upon a big picture of men in armour attacking a fortified town beneath a thundery sky.This picture wavered and faltered, hung as it was upon a thin cord strained to breaking-point.Maggie reached the security of the room beyond the passage, her shoulders bent a little as though she expected to near at every instant the crashing collapse of the armoured men.Her eyes unused to the light, she stumbled into the room, fell into some one's arms, felt that her poor hat was crooked and her cheeks burning, and then was rebuked, as it seemed, by the piercing cry of Edward the parrot from the very bowels of the house.

She stammered something to the man who had held her and then let her go.She was confused, hot and angry."They'll think me an idiot who can't enter a room properly." She glared about her and felt as though she had been taken prisoner by some strange people who lived under the sea.She was aware, when her eyes were accustomed to the dim light, that the entrance of herself and her aunt had interrupted the conversation of three people.Near the fireplace sat a little woman wearing black mittens and a white lace cap; standing above her with his arm on the mantelpiece was a thin, battered-looking gentleman with large spectacles, high, gaunt features and a very thin head of hair; near the door was the man against whom Maggie had collided.She saw that he was young, thick-set and restless.She noticed even then his eyes, bright and laughing as though he were immensely amused.His mouth opened and closed again, his eyes were never still, and he made fierce dumb protests with his body, jerking it forward pulling it back, as a rider strives to restrain an unruly horse.Maggie was able to notice these things, because during the first moments her Aunt Anne entirely held the stage.She advanced to the fireplace with her halting movement, embraced the little lady by the fire with a soft and unimpassioned clasp.

"Well, Elizabeth, here we are, you see," turned to the thin gentleman saying, "Why you, Mr.Magnus! I thought that you were still in Wiltshire! "then from the middle of the room addressing the stout young man: "I'm very glad to see you, Mr.Warlock."Maggie fancied that the three persons were nervous of her aunt; the stout young man was amused perhaps at the general situation, but Mr.

Magnus by the fireplace showed great emotion, the colour mounting into his high bony cheeks and his nostrils twitching like a horse's.

Maggie had been always very observant, and she was detached enough now to notice that the drawing-room was filled with ugly and cumbrous things and yet seemed unfurnished.Although everything was old and had been there obviously for years, the place yet reminded one of a bare chamber into which, furniture had just been piled without order or arrangement.Opposite the door was a large and very bad painting of the two sisters as young girls, sitting, with arms encircled, in low dresses, on the seashore before a grey and angry sea, and Uncle Mathew as a small, shiny-faced boy in tight short blue trousers, carrying a bucket and spade, and a smug, pious expression.The room was lit with gas that sizzled and hissed in a protesting undertone; there was a big black cat near the fire, and this watched Maggie with green and fiery eyes.

She stood there by the door tired and hungry; she felt unacknowledged and forgotten.

"I know I shall hate it," was her thought; she was conscious of her arms and her legs; her ankle tickled in her shoe, and she longed to scratch it.She sneezed suddenly, and they all jumped as though the floor had opened beneath them.

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

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