extracts from a letter written by philip mark to mr. paul alexis in moscow:—
“... because, beyond question, it was the oddest chance that i should come—straight out of the fog, into the very house that i wanted. that, mind you, was a week ago, and i’m still here. you’ve never seen a london fog. i defy you to imagine either the choking, stifling nastiness of it or the comfortable happy indifference of english people under it. i couldn’t have struck, if i’d tried for a year, anything more eloquent of the whole position—my position, i mean, and theirs and the probable result of our being up against one another....
“this will be a long letter because, here i am quite unaccountably excited, unaccountably, i say, because it’s all as quiet as the grave—after midnight, an old clock ticking out there on the stairs. landseer’s ‘dignity and impudence’ on the wall over my bed and that old faded wall-paper that you only see in the bedrooms of the upper middles in england, who have lived for centuries and centuries in the same old house. much too excited to sleep, simply i suppose because all kinds of things are beginning to reassert themselves on me—things that haven’t stirred since i was eighteen, things that anna and moscow had so effectually laid to rest. all those years as a boy i had just this wall-paper, just this ticking-clock, just these faded volumes of ‘ivanhoe,’ ‘kenilworth’, ‘the scarlet letter’ and lytton’s ‘night and morning’ that i see huddled together in the window. ah, paul, you’ve never known what all that means—the comfort, the safety, the muffled cosiness, the gradual decline of old familiar things from shabbiness to shabbiness, the candles, and pony-traps and apple-lofts and going to country dances in old, jolting cabs with the buttons hopping off your new white gloves as you go ... it’s all back on me to-night, it’s been crowding in upon me all the week—the trenchards are bathed, soaked, saturated with it all—they are it!... now, i’ll tell you about them, as i’ve seen them so far.
“trenchard, himself, is fat, jolly, self-centred, writes about the lake poets and lives all the morning with lamb, hazlitt and de quincey, all the afternoon with the world as seen by himself, and all the evening with himself as seen by the world. he’s selfish and happy, absent-minded and as far from all reality as any man could possibly be. he likes me, i think, because i understand his sense of humour, the surest key to the heart of a selfish man. about mrs. trenchard i’m not nearly so sure. i’ve been too long out of england to understand her all in a minute. you’d say right off that she’s stupider than any one you’d ever met, and then afterwards you’d be less and less certain.... tremendously full of family (she was a faunder), muddled, with no power over words at all so that she can never say what she means, outwardly of an extremely amiable simplicity, inwardly, i am sure, as obstinate as a limpet ... not a shadow of humour. heaven only knows what she’s thinking about really. she never lets you see. i don’t think she likes me.
“there are only two children at home, henry and katherine. henry’s at ‘the awkward age’. gauche, shy, sentimental, rude, frightfully excitable from the public school conviction that he must never show excitement about anything, full of theories, enthusiasms, judgments which he casts aside, one after the other, as fast as he can get rid of them—at the very crisis of his development—might be splendid or no good at all, according as things happen to him. he’s interested in me but isn’t sure of me.
“then there’s katherine. katherine is the clue to the house—know katherine and you know the family. but then katherine is not easy to know. she is more friendly than any of them—and she is farther away. very quiet with all the calm security of someone who knows that there are many important things to be done and that you will never be allowed, however insistent you may be, to interfere with those things. the family depends entirely upon her and she lives for the family. nor is she so limited as that might seem to make her. she keeps, i am sure, a great many things down lest they should interfere, but they are all there—those things. meanwhile she is cheerful, friendly, busy, very, very quiet—and distant—miles. does she like me? i don’t know. she listens to all that i have to say. she has imagination and humour. and sometimes when i think that i have impressed her by what i have said i look up and catch a glimpse of her smiling eyes, as though she thought me, in spite of all my wisdom, the most awful fool. the family do more than depend upon her—they adore her. there is no kind of doubt—they adore her. she alone in all the world awakes her father’s selfish heart, stirs her mother’s sluggish imagination, reassures her brother’s terrified soul. they love her for the things that she does for them. they are all—save perhaps henry—selfish in their affection. but then so are the rest of us, are we not? you, paul, and i, at any rate....
“and, all this time, i have said nothing to you about the guardians of the house’s honour. already, they view me with intense suspicion. there are two of them, both very old. an aged, aged man, bitter and sharp and shining like a glass figure, and his sister, as aged as he. they are, both of them, deaf and the only things truly alive about them are their eyes. but with these they watch everything, and above all, they watch me. they distrust me, profoundly, their eyes never leave me. they allow me to make no advances to them. they cannot imagine why i have been admitted—they will, i am sure, take steps to turn me out very soon. it is as though i were a spy in a hostile country. and yet they all press me to stay—all of them. they seem to like to have me. what i have to tell them interests them and they are pleased, too, to be hospitable in a large and comfortable manner. trenchard was deeply attached to my father and speaks of him to me with an emotion surprising in so selfish a man. they like me to stay and yet, paul, with it all i tell you that i am strangely frightened. of what? of whom?... i have no idea. isn’t it simply that the change from russia and, perhaps, also anna is so abrupt that it is startling? anna and miss trenchard—there’s a contrast for you! and i’m at the mercy—you know, of anyone—you have always said it and it is so—most unhappily. tell anna from me that i am writing.
“because i couldn’t, of course, explain to her as i do to you the way that these old, dead, long-forgotten things are springing up again in me. she would never understand. but we were both agreed—she as strongly as i—that this was the right thing, the only thing.... you know that i would not hurt a fly if i could help it. no, tell her that i won’t write. i’ll keep to my word. not a line from either of us until time has made it safe, easy. and stepan will be good to her. he’s the best fellow in the world, although so often i hated him. for his sake, as well as for all the other reasons, i will not write.... meanwhile it is really true enough that i’m frightened for, perhaps, the first time in my life....”
suspicion was the key-note of young henry trenchard at this time. he was so unsure of himself that he must needs be unsure of everyone else. he was, of course, suspicious of philip mark. he was suspicious and he also admired him. on the day after mark had sat up writing his letter ‘half the night because he was excited’, on the afternoon of that day they were sitting in the green dim drawing-room waiting for tea. mark was opposite henry, and henry, back in the shadow, as he liked to sit, huddled up but with his long legs shooting out in front of him as though they belonged to another body, watched him attentively, critically, inquisitively. mark sat with a little pool of electric light about him and talked politely to mrs. trenchard, who, knitting a long red woollen affair that trailed like a serpent on to the green carpet, said now and then such things as:
“it must be very different from england” or “i must say i should find that very unpleasant,” breaking in also to say: “forgive me a moment. henry, that bell did ring, didn’t it?” or “just a little more on the fire, henry, please. that big lump, please.” then, turning patiently to mark and saying: “i beg your pardon, mr. mark—you said?”
henry, having at this time a passion for neatness and orderly arrangements, admired mark’s appearance. mark was short, thick-set and very dark. a closely-clipped black moustache and black hair cut short made him look like an officer, henry thought. his thick muscular legs proved him a rider, his mouth and ears were small, and over him from head to foot was the air of one who might have to be ‘off’ on a dangerous expedition at any moment and would moreover know exactly what to do, having been on many other dangerous expeditions before. only his eyes disproved the man of action. they were dreamy, introspective, wavering eyes—eyes that were much younger than the rest of him and eyes too that might be emotional, sentimental, impetuous, foolish and careless.
henry, being very young, did not notice his eyes. mark was thirty and looked it. his eyes were the eyes of a boy of twenty.... from henry his dark neat clothes, his compact and resourceful air compelled envy and admiration—yes, and alarm. for henry was, now, entirely and utterly concerned with himself, and every fresh incident, every new arrival was instantly set up before him so that he might see how he himself looked in the light of it. never before, within henry’s memory, had anyone not a relation, not even the friend of a relation, been admitted so intimately into the heart of the house, and it seemed to henry that now already a new standard was being set up and that, perhaps, the family by the light of this dashing figure, who knew russia like an open book and could be relied upon at the most dangerous crisis, might regard himself, henry, as something more crudely shabby and incompetent than ever. moreover he was not sure that mark himself did not laugh at him....
beyond all this there was the sense that mark had, in a way, invaded the place. it was true that the family had, after that first eventful evening, pressed him to stay, but it had pressed him as though it had, upon itself, felt pressure—as though its breath had been caught by the impact of some new force and, before it could recover from its surprise, behold the force was there, inside the room with the doors closed behind it.
“it’s hardly decent for him to stay on like this,” thought henry, “and yet after all we asked him. and ... he is jolly!”
jolly was something that only henry’s father and uncle tim of the trenchard family could be said to be, and its quality was therefore both enlivening and alarming.
“mother won’t like it, if he’s too jolly,” thought henry, “i’m not sure if she likes it now.”
henry had, upon this afternoon, an extra cause for anxiety; a friend of his, a friend of whom he was especially proud, was coming to tea. this friend’s name was seymour and he was a cheerful young man who had written several novels and was considered ‘promising’—
the trenchards had a very slight knowledge of that world known as ‘the arts’ and they had (with the exception of henry) a very healthy distrust of artists as a race.
but young seymour was another affair. he was a gentleman, with many relations who knew trenchards and faunders; his novels were proper in sentiment and based always upon certain agreeable moral axioms, as for instance “it is better to be good than to be bad” and “courage is the great thing” and “let us not despise others. they may have more to say for themselves than we know.”
it was wonderful, mrs. trenchard thought, that anyone so young should have discovered these things. moreover he was cheerful, would talk at any length about anything, and was full of self-assurance. he was fat, and would soon be fatter; he was nice to everyone on principle because “one doesn’t know how much a careless word may harm others.” above all, he was ‘jolly’. he proclaimed life splendid, wished he could live to a thousand, thought that to be a novelist was the luckiest thing in the world. some people said that what he really meant was “to be seymour was the luckiest thing in the world” ... but everyone has their enemies.
henry was nervous about this afternoon because he felt—and he could not have given his reasons—that mark and seymour would not get on. he knew that if mark disliked seymour he, henry, would dislike mark. mark would be criticising the trenchard taste—a dangerous thing to do. and, perhaps, after all—he was not sure—he looked across the dark intervening shadow into the light where mark was sitting—the fellow did look conceited, supercilious. no one in the world had the right to be so definitely at his ease.
there came in then rocket and a maid with the tea, katherine, and finally aunt aggie with harvey seymour.
“i found mr. seymour in the hall,” she said, looking discontentedly about her and shivering a little. “standing in the hall.”
seymour was greeted and soon his cheerful laugh filled the room. he was introduced to mark. he was busy over tea. “sugar? milk?”
“nice sharp twang in the air, there is. jolly weather. i walked all the way from knightsbridge. delightful. cake? bread and butter? hello, henry! you ought to have walked with me—never enjoyed anything so much in my life.”
mrs. trenchard’s broad, impassive face was lighted with approval as a lantern is lit. she liked afternoon-tea and her drawing-room and young cheerful seymour and the books behind the book-case and the ticking of the clock. a cosy winter’s afternoon in london! what could be pleasanter? she sighed a comfortable, contented sigh....
mark was seized, as he sat there, with a drowsy torpor. the fire seemed to draw from the room all scents that, like memories, waited there for some compelling friendly warmth. the room was close with more than the trenchard protection against the winter’s day—it was packed with a conscious pressure of all the things that the trenchards had ever done in that room, and mrs. trenchard sat motionless, placid, receiving these old things, encouraging them and distributing them. mark was aware that if he encouraged his drowsiness he would very shortly acquiesce in and submit to—he knew not what—and the necessity for battling against this acquiescence irritated him so that it was almost as though everyone in the room were subtly taking him captive and he would be lost before he was aware. katherine, alone, quiet, full of repose, saying very little, did not disturb him. it was exactly as though all the other persons present were wishing him to break into argument and contradiction because then they could spring upon him.
his attention was, of course, directed to seymour’s opinions, and he knew, before he heard them, that he would disagree violently with them all.
they came, like the distant firing of guns, across the muffled drowziness of the room.
“i assure you, mrs. trenchard.... i assure you ... assure you. you wouldn’t believe.... well, of course, i’ve heard people say so but i can’t help disagreeing with them. one may know very little about writing oneself—i don’t pretend i’ve got far—and yet have very distinct ideas as to how the thing should be done. there’s good work and bad, you know—there’s no getting over it....
“but, my dear henry ... dear old chap ... i assure you. but it’s a question of form. you take my word a man’s nothing without a sense of form ... form ... form.... yes, of course, the french are the people. now the russians.... tolstoi, dostoevsky ... dostoevsky, mrs. trenchard. well, people spell him different ways. you should read ‘war and peace’. never read ‘war and peace’? ah, you should and ‘crime and punishment’. but compare ‘crime and punishment’ with ‘la maison tellier’ ... maupassant—the russians aren’t in it. but what can you expect from a country like that? i assure you....”
quite irresistibly, as though everyone in the room had said: “there now. you’ve simply got to come in now”, mark was drawn forward. he heard through the sleepy, clogged and scented air his own voice.
“but there are all sorts of novels, aren’t there, just as there are all sorts of people? i don’t see why everything should be after the same pattern.”
he was violently conscious then of seymour’s chin that turned, slowly, irresistibly as the prow of a ship is turned, towards him—a very remarkable chin for its size and strength, jutting up and out, surprising, too, after the chubby amiability of the rest of his face. at the same moment it seemed to mark that all the other chins in the room turned towards him with stern emphasis.
a sharp little dialogue followed then: seymour was eager, cheerful and good-humoured—patronising, too, perhaps, if one is sensitive to such things.
“quite so. of course—of course. but you will admit, won’t you, that style matters, that the way a thing’s done, the way things are arranged, you know, count?”
“i don’t know anything about writing novels—i only know about reading them. the literary, polished novel is one sort of thing, i suppose. but there is also the novel with plenty of real people and real things in it. if a novel’s too literary a plain man like myself doesn’t find it real at all. i prefer something careless and casual like life itself, with plenty of people whom you get to know....” seymour bent towards him, his chubby face like a very full bud ready to burst with the eagerness of his amiable superiority.
“but you can’t say that your russians are real people—come now. take dostoevsky—take him for a minute. look at them. look at ‘les frères karamazoff’. all as mad as hatters—all of ’em—and no method at all—just chucked on anyhow. after all, literature is something.”
“yes, that’s just what i complain of,” said mark, feeling as though he were inside a ring of eager onlookers who were all cheering his opponent. “you fellows all think literature’s the only thing. it’s entirely unimportant beside real life. if your book is like real life, why then it’s interesting. if it’s like literature it’s no good at all except to a critic or two.”
“and i suppose,” cried seymour, scornfully, his chin rising higher and higher, “that you’d say dostoevsky’s like real life?”
“it is,” said mark, quietly, “if you know russia.”
“well, i’ve never been there,” seymour admitted. “but i’ve got a friend who has. he says that russian fiction’s nothing like the real thing at all. that russia’s just like anywhere else.”
“nonsense”—and mark’s voice was shaking—“your friend ... rot—” he recovered himself. “that’s utterly untrue,” he said.
“i assure you—” seymour began.
then mark forgot himself, his surroundings, his audience.
“oh—go to blazes!” he cried. “what do you know about it? you say yourself you’ve never been there. i’ve lived in moscow for years!”
there was then a tremendous silence, mrs. trenchard, aunt aggie, henry, all looked at seymour as though they said, “please, please, don’t mind. it shall never happen again.”
katherine looked at mark. during that moment’s silence the winter afternoon with its frost and clear skies, its fresh colour and happy intimacies, seemed to beat about the house. in mark, the irritation that he had felt ever since seymour’s sentence, seemed now to explode within him, like the bursting of some thunder cloud. he was for a moment deluged, almost drowned by his impotent desire to make some scene, in short, to fight, anything that would break the hot stuffy closeness of the air and let in the sharp crispness of the outer world.
but the episode was at an end. katherine closed it with:
“tell mr. seymour some of those things that you were telling us last night—about moscow and russian life.”
mrs. trenchard’s eyes, having concluded their work of consoling seymour, fastened themselves upon mark,—watching like eyes behind closed windows; strangely in addition to their conviction that some outrage had been committed there was also a suspicion of fear—but they were the mild, glazed eyes of a stupid although kindly woman....
mark that evening, going up to dress for dinner, thought to himself, “i really can’t stay here any longer. it isn’t decent, besides, they don’t like me.” he found, half in the dusk, half in the moonlight of the landing-window katherine, looking for an instant before she went to her room, at the dark abbey-towers, the sky with the stars frosted over, it seemed, by the coldness of the night, at the moon, faintly orange and crisp against the night blue.
he stopped. “i’m sorry,” he said abruptly, looking into her eyes, very soft and mild but always with that lingering humour behind their mildness. “i’m afraid i was rude to that fellow this afternoon.”
“yes,” she said, turning to him but with her eyes still on the black towers. “you were—but it would have no effect on mr. seymour.”
he felt, as he stood there, that he wished to explain that he was not naturally so unpolished a barbarian.
“russia,” he began, hesitating and looking at her almost appealingly, “is a sore point with me. you can’t tell—unless you’ve lived there how it grows upon you, holds you, and, at last, begs you to stand up for it whenever it may be attacked. and he didn’t know—really he didn’t—”
“you’re taking it much too seriously,” she said, laughing at him, he felt. “no one thought that he did know. but mother likes him and he’s henry’s friend. and we all stick together as a family.”
“i’m afraid your mother thought me abominable,” he said, looking up at her and looking away again.
“mother’s old-fashioned,” katherine answered. “so am i—so are we all. we’re an old-fashioned family. we’ve never had anyone like you to stay with us before.”
“it’s abominable that i should stay on like this. i’ll go to-morrow.”
“no, don’t do that. father loves having you. we all like you—only we’re a little afraid of your ways”—she moved down the passage. “we’re very good for you, i expect, and i’m sure you’re very good for us.” she suddenly turned back towards him, and dropping her voice, quite solemnly said to him, “the great thing about us is that we’re fond of one another. that makes it all the harder for anyone from outside....”
“i’ll tell you one thing,” he said, carrying on her note of confidence, “i like people to like me. i’m very foolish about it. it’s the chief thing i want.”
“i like people to like me, too,” katherine answered, raising her voice and moving now definitely away from him. “why shouldn’t one?” she ended. “don’t you be afraid, mr. mark. it’s all right.”
he dressed hurriedly and came down to the drawing-room, with some thought in the back of his mind that he would, throughout the evening, be the most charming person possible. he found, however, at once a check....
under a full blaze of light grandfather trenchard and great aunt sarah were sitting, waiting for the others. the old man, his silver buckles and white hair gleaming, sat, perched high in his chair, one hand raised before the fire, behind it the firelight shining as behind a faint screen.
aunt sarah, very stiff, upright and slim, was the priestess before the trenchard temple. they, both of them, gazed into the fire. they did not turn their heads as mark entered; they had watched his entry in the mirror.
he shouted good-evening, but they did not hear him. he sat down, began a sentence.
“really a sharp touch in the air—” then abandoned it, seizing ‘blackwood’ as a weapon of defence. behind his paper, he knew that their eyes were upon him. he felt them peering into ‘blackwood’s’ cover; they pierced the pages, they struck him in the face.
there was complete silence in the room. the place was thick with burning eyes. they were reflected, he felt, in the mirror, again and again.
“how they hate me!” he thought.
