第95章

THE INSIDE SAINTS

Maggie, when she was nearly home, halted suddenly.She stopped as when on the threshold of a room that should be empty one sees waiting a stranger.If at the end of all this she should lose Martin!...

There was the stranger who had come to her now and would not again depart.She recognised the sharp pain, the almost unconscious pulling back on the sudden edge of a dim pit, as something that would always be with her now--always.One knows that in the second stage of a great intimacy one's essential loneliness is only redoubled by close companionship.One asks for so much more, and then more and more, but that final embrace is elusive and no physical contact can surrender it.But she was young and did not know that yet.All she knew was that she would have to face these immediate troubles alone, that she would not see him for perhaps a week, that she would not know what his people at home were doing, and that she must not let any of these thoughts come up into her brain.She must keep them all back: if she did not, she would tumble into some foolish precipitate action.

When she reached home she was obstinate and determined.At once she found that something was the matter.During luncheon the two aunts sat like statues (Aunt Elizabeth a dumpy and squat one).Aunt Anne's aloofness was coloured now with a very human anger.Maggie realised with surprise that she had never seen her angry before.She had been indignant, disapproving, superior, forbidding, but never angry.The eyes were hard now, not with religious reserve but simply with bad temper.The mist of anger dimmed the room, it was in the potatoes and the cold dry mutton, especially was it in the hard pallid knobs of cheese.And Aunt Elizabeth, although she was frightened by her sister's anger on this occasion, shared in it.She pursed her lips at Maggie and moved her fat, podgy hand as though she would like to smack Maggie's cheeks.

Maggie was frightened--really frightened.The line of bold independence was all very well, but now risks were attached to it.

If she swiftly tossed her head and told her aunts that she would walk out of the house they might say "Walk!" and that would precipitate Martin's crisis.She knew from the way he had looked at her that morning that his thoughts were with his father, and it showed that she had travelled through the first stage of her intimacy with him, that she could not trust him to put her before his own family troubles.At all costs she must keep him safe through these next difficult weeks, and the best way to keep him safe was herself to remain quietly at home.

Of all this she thought as she swallowed the hostile knobs of cheese and drank the tepid, gritty coffee.

She followed her aunts upstairs, and was not at all surprised when Aunt Elizabeth, with an agitated murmur, vanished into higher regions.She followed Aunt Anne into the drawing-room.

Aunt Anne sat in the stiff-backed tapestry chair by the fire.Maggie stood in front of her.She was disarmed at that all-important moment by her desperate sensation of defenceless loneliness.It was as though half of herself--the man-half of herself--had left her.She tried to summon her pluck but there was no pluck there.She could only want Martin, over and over again inside herself.Had any one been, ever so hopelessly ALONE before?

"Maggie, I am angry," said Aunt Anne.She said it as though she meant it.Amazing how human this strange aloof creature had become.

As though some coloured saint bright with painted wood and tinsel before whom one stood in reverence slipped down suddenly and with fingers of flesh and blood struck one's face.Her cheeks were flushed, her beautiful hands were no longer thin but were hard and active.

"What have I done, aunt?" asked Maggie.

"You have not treated us fairly.My sister and I have done everything for you.You have not made it especially easy for us in any way, but we have tried to give you what you wanted.You have repaid is with ingratitude."She paused, but Maggie said nothing.She went on:

"Lately--these last three weeks--we have given you complete liberty.

I advised that strongly against my sister's opinion because Ithought you weren't happy.You didn't make friends amongst our friends, and I thought you should have the chance of finding some who were younger and gayer than we were.Then I thought we could trust you.You have many faults, but I believed that you were honest.""I am honest!" Maggie broke in.Her aunt went on:

"You have used the liberty we gave you during these weeks to make yourself the talk of our friends.You have been meeting Mr.Martin Warlock secretly every day.You have been alone with him in the Park and at the theatre.I know that you are young and very ignorant.You could not have known that Martin Warlock is a man with whom no girl who respects herself would be seen alone--""That is untrue!" Maggie flamed out.

"--and," went on Aunt Anne, "we would have forgiven that.It is your deceit to ourselves that we cannot forget.Day after day you were meeting him and pretending that you went to your other friends.I am disappointed in you, bitterly disappointed.I saw from the first that you did not mean to care for us, now, as well, you have disgraced us--"Maggie began: "Yes, I have been seeing Martin.I didn't think it wrong--I don't now.I didn't tell you because I was afraid that you would stop me--""Then that shows that you knew it was wrong.""No, Aunt Anne--only that you would think it was wrong.I can only go by myself, by what I feel is wrong I mean.I've always had to, all my life.It would have been no good doing anything else at home, because father--"She pulled herself up.She was not going to defend herself or ask for pity.She said, speaking finally:

"Yes, I have been out with Martin every day.I went to the theatre with him, too, and also had tea with him."Maggie could see Aunt Anne's anger rising higher and higher like water in a tube.Her voice was hard when she spoke again--she pronounced judgment: