第7章

They came at last out of the wood and stood at the edge of it, with the pine trees behind them, looking down over Polchester.On this winter's afternoon Polchester with the thin covering of snow upon its roofs sparkled like a city under glass.The Cathedral was dim in the mist of the early dusk and the sun, setting behind the hill, with its last rays caught the windows so that they blazed through the haze like smoking fires.Whilst Maggie and her uncle stood there the bells began to ring for Evensong, and the sound like a faint echo seemed to come from behind them out of the wood.In the spring all the Polchester orchards would be white and pink with blossom, in the summer the river that encircled the city wall would run like a blue scarf between its green sloping hills--now there was frost and snow and mist with the fires smouldering at its heart.She gazed at it now as she had never gazed at it before.She was going into it now.Her life was beginning at last.When the sun had left the windows and the walls were grey she turned back into the wood and led the way silently towards home.

The house that night was very strange with her father dead in it.

She sat, because she thought it her duty, in his bedroom.He lay on his bed, with his beard carefully combed and brushed now, spread out upon the sheet.His closed eyes and mouth gave him a grave and reverend appearance which he had never worn in his life.He lay there, under the flickering candle-light, like some saint who at length, after a life of severe discipline, had entered into the joy of his Lord.Beneath the bed was the big black box.

Maggie did not look at her father.She sat there, near the dark window, her hands folded on her lap.She thought of nothing at all except the rats.She was not afraid of them but they worried her.

They had been a trouble in the house for a long time past, poison had been laid for them and they had refused to take it.They had had, perhaps, some fear of the Reverend Charles, at any rate they scampered and scurried now behind the wainscoting as though conscious of their release."Even the rats are glad," Maggie thought to herself.In the uncertain candle-light the fancy seized her that one rat, a very large one, had crept out from his hole, crawled on to the bed, and now sat on the sheet looking at her father.It would be a horrible thing did the rat walk across her father's beard, and yet for her life she could not move.She waited, fascinated.She fancied that the beard stirred a little as though the rat had moved it.She fancied that the rat grew and grew in size, now there were many of them, all with their little sharp beady eyes watching the corpse.Now there were none; only the large limbs outlined beneath the spread, the waxen face, the ticking clock, the strange empty shape of his grey dressing-gown hanging upon a nail on the wall.

Where was her father gone? She did not know, she did not care--only she trusted that she would never meet him again--never again.Her head nodded; her hands and feet were cold; the candle-light jumped, the rats scampered...she slept.

When it was quite dark beyond the windows and the candles were low Maggie came downstairs, stiff, cold, and very hungry.She felt that it was wrong to have slept and very wrong to be hungry, but there it was; she did not pretend to herself that things were other than they were.In the dining-room she found supper laid out upon the table, cold beef, potatoes in their jackets, cold beetroot, jelly, and cheese, and her uncle playing cards on the unoccupied end of the table in a melancholy manner by himself.She felt that it was wrong of him to play cards on such an occasion, but the cards were such dirty grey ones and he obtained obviously so little pleasure from his amusement that he could not be considered to be wildly abandoning himself to riot and extravagance.

She felt pleasure in his company; for the first time since her father's death she was a little frightened and uneasy.She might even have gone to him and cried on his shoulder had he given her any encouragement, but he did not speak to her except to say that he had already eaten.He was still a little sulky with her.

When she had finished her meal she sat in her accustomed chair by the fire, her head propped on her hands, looking into the flame, and there, half-asleep, half-awake, memories, conversations, long-vanished scenes trooped before her eyes as though they were bidding her a long farewell.She did not, as she sat there, sentimentalise about any of them, she saw them as they were, some happy, some unhappy, some terrifying, some amusing, all of them dead and passed, grey and thin, the life gone out of them.Her mind was fixed on the future.What was it going to be? Would she have money as her uncle had said? Would she see London and the world? Would she find friends, people who would be glad to be with her and have her with them? What would her aunts be like? and so from them, what about all the other members of the family of whom she had heard? She painted for herself a gay scene in which, at the door of some great house, a fine gathering of Cardinals waited with smiles and outstretched hands to welcome her.Then, laughing at herself as she always did when she had allowed her fancy free rein, she shook her head.No, it certainly would not be like that.Relations were not like that.That was not the way to face the world to encourage romantic dreams.Her uncle, watching her surreptitiously, wondered of what she was thinking.Her determined treatment of him that afternoon continued to surprise him.She certainly ought to make her way in the world, but what a pity that she was so plain.Perhaps if she got some colour into her cheeks, dressed better, brushed her hair differently--no, her mouth would always be too large and her nose too small--and her figure was absurd.Uncle Mathew considered that he was a judge of women.

He rose at last and, rather shamefacedly, said that he should go to bed.Maggie wondered at the confusion that she detected in him.She looked at him and he dropped his eyes.