The Captives Part 18

"Not all alone, miss?"

"All alone," said Maggie. "Why not? I can look after myself."

"Well, there's your uncle waiting in the drawing-room--just come," said the old woman, climbing down from the chair with that silent imperturbable discontent that always frightened Maggie.

"Uncle Mathew! Here! in this house!" Maggie, even in the moment of her first astonishment, was amazed at her own delight. That she should ever feel THAT about Uncle Mathew! Truly it showed how unhappy she had been, and she ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and pushed back the drawing-room door.

"Uncle Mathew!" she cried.

Then at the sight of him she stood where she was. The man who faced her, with all his old confusion of nervousness and uneasy geniality, was, indeed, Uncle Mathew, but Uncle Mathew glorified, shabbily glorified and at the same time a little abashed as though she had caught him in the act of laying a mine that would blow up the whole house. He was wearing finer clothes than she had ever seen him in before--a frock coat, quite new but fitting him badly, so that it was b.u.t.toned too tightly across his stomach and loose across the back. He had a white flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and a rather soiled white handkerchief protruded from his breast-pocket. One leg of his dark grey trousers had been creased in two places, and there were little spots of blood on his high white collar because he had cut himself shaving. His complexion was of the same old suppressed purple, but his little eyes were bright and s.h.i.+ning and active; they danced towards Maggie. His scanty locks had been carefully brushed over his bald head, and his hands, although they were still puffed and swollen, were whiter than Maggie had ever seen them.

But it was in the end his att.i.tude of confused defiance that made her pause. What had he been doing, or what did he intend to do? He was prosperous, she could see, and knowing him as she did, she was afraid of his prosperity. She had never in her life realised so clearly as she did now that he was a wicked old man--and still she was glad to see him. He was an odd enough creature in that room, and that, she was aware, pleased her.

"Well, my dear," he said very genially, as though they met again after an hour's parting, "how are you? I'm very glad to see you--looking so well too. And quite smart. Your aunts dressed you up. I thought I must look at you. I'm staying just round the corner, and my first thought was 'I wonder how she's getting on in all that tom-foolery. You bet she's keeping her head.' And so you are. One can see at a glance."

She went up to him, kissed him, and smelt whisky and some scent that had geraniums in it. He put his arm round her, with his old unsteady gesture, and held her to him for a moment, then patted her back with his large, soft hand.

"Your aunt's a long time. I've been waiting half an hour."

"They've been to some meeting." She stood looking at him with her fine steady gaze that had always made him afraid of her, and did so, to his own surprise, again now. He had thought that his clothes would have saved him from that; his fingers felt at his b.u.t.ton-hole. Looking at him she said:

"Uncle, I want to get away--out of this--at once. No, they aren't horrid to me. Every one's been very kind. But I'm afraid of it all--of never getting out of it--and I want to be independent ..." She stopped with a little breathless gasp because she heard the hall-door close.

"Ah, they're here! Don't tell them anything. We'll talk afterwards ..."

His eyes glittered with satisfaction. "I knew you would, my dear. I knew you wouldn't be able to stand it ... I'll get you out of it ...

Trust me!"

The door opened and Aunt Anne came in. She had been prepared by Martha for her visitor, and she came forward to him now with the dignity and kindly patronage of some lady abbess receiving the miscreant and boorish yokel of a neighbouring village. And yet how fine she was! As Maggie watched her, she thought of what she would give to have some of that self-command and dignity and decision. Was it her religion that gave her that? Or only her own self-satisfaction? No; there was something behind Aunt Anne, something stronger than she, something that Mr. Warlock also knew ... and it was this something that Uncle Mathew met with his own hostility as he looked up now at his sister and greeted her:

"Why, Mathew! You never told us. I would have hurried back, and now Elizabeth, I'm afraid, has gone on to see some friends. She will be so disappointed. But at least you've had Maggie to entertain you."

A quick glance was exchanged between uncle and niece.

"Yes," he said, "we've had a talk, Anne, thank you. And it doesn't matter about Elizabeth, because I'm staying close here in Henrietta Street, and I'll be in again if I may. I just looked in to ask whether Maggie might come and have dinner with me at my little place to-night.

It's a most respectable place--I'll come and fetch her, of course, and bring her back afterwards."

Of course Aunt Anne could not refuse, but oh! how Maggie saw that she wanted to! The battle that followed was silent. Uncle Mathew's eyes narrowed themselves to fiery malicious points; he dropped them and moved his feet restlessly on the soft carpet.

"Quite respectable!" he repeated.

Aunt Anne smiled gently. "Why, of course, Mathew. I know you'll look after Maggie. It will be a change for her. She's been having rather a dull time here, I'm afraid."

Then there was silence. Maggie wanted to speak, but the words would not come, and she had the curious sensation that even if she did find them no one would hear them.

Then Uncle Mathew suddenly said good-bye, stumbled over his boots by the door, shot out, "Seven o'clock, Maggie"--and was gone.

"Well, that will be nice for you, Maggie," said Anne, looking at her.

"Yes," said Maggie. "You don't mind, do you?"

"No dear, of course not."

"What do you want me to do?" Maggie broke out desperately. "I know I'm not satisfying you and yet you won't say anything. Do tell me--and I'll try--anything--almost anything ..."

Then the sudden memory of her own posted letter silenced her. Was that readiness to do "anything"? Had that not been rebellion? And had she not asked Uncle Mathew to help her to escape? The consciousness of her dishonesty coloured her cheek with crimson. Then Aunt Anne, very tenderly, put her hand on her shoulder.

"Will you really do anything--for me, Maggie--for me?" Her voice was gentle and her eyes had tears in them. "If you will--there are things very close to my heart--"

Maggie turned away, trembling. She hung her head, then with a sudden movement walked to the door.

"You must tell me," she said, "what you want. I'll try--I don't understand."

Then as though she was aware that she was fighting the whole room which had already almost entrapped her and that the fight was too much for her, she went.

When she came to her own room and thought about her invitation she wished, with a sudden change of mood, that she had a pretty frock or two. She would have loved to have been grand to-night, and now the best that she could do was to add her coral necklace and a little gold brooch that years ago her father had given her, to the black dress that she was already wearing. She realised, with a strange little pang of loneliness, that she had not had one evening's fun since her arrival in London--no, not one--and she would not have captured to-night had Aunt Anne been able to prevent it.

Then as her mind returned back to her uncle she felt with a throb of excited antic.i.p.ation that perhaps after all this evening was to prove the turning-point of her life. Her little escape into the streets, her posting of the letter, had been followed so immediately by Uncle Mathew's visit, and now this invitation!

"No one can keep me if I want to go," and the old cuckoo-clock outside seemed to tick in reply:

"Can no one keep her if she wants to go?"

She finished her preparations; as she fastened the coral necklace round her neck the face of Martin Warlock was suddenly before her. He had been perhaps at her elbow all day.

"I like him and I think he likes me," she said to the mirror. "I've got one friend," and her thought still further was that even if he didn't like her he couldn't prevent her liking him.

She went down to the drawing-room and found Uncle Mathew, alone, waiting for her.

"Here I am, Maggie," he said. "And let's get out of this as quick as we can."

"I must go and say good-night to the aunts," she said.

She went upstairs to Aunt Anne's bedroom. Entering it was always to her like pa.s.sing into a shadowed church after the hot suns.h.i.+ne--the long, thin room with high slender windows, the long hard bed, of the most perfect whiteness and neatness, the heavy black-framed picture of "The Ascension" over the bed, and the utter stillness broken by no sound of clock or bell--even the fire seemed frozen into a gla.s.sy purity in the grate.

Her aunt was sitting, as so often Maggie found her, in a stiff-backed chair, her hands folded on her lap, staring in front of her. Her eyes were like the open eyes of a dead woman; it was as though, with a great effort of almost desperate concentration, she were driving her vision against some obstinate world of opposition, and the whole of life had meanwhile stayed to watch the issue.

A thin pale light from some street lamp lay, a faintly golden shadow, across the white ceiling.

Maggie stood by the door.

"I've come to say good-night, aunt."

"Ah, Maggie dear, is that you?" The pale oval face turned towards her.

"You won't be very late, will you?"

"Hadn't I better have a key, not to bother Martha?"

"Oh, Martha won't have gone to bed."