THE REVIVAL
Maggie cried for a little while, then, slowly recovering, realised that she was alone in the room.She raised her head and listened;then she dried her eyes and stood up, wondering what she should do next.
During the last week she had spent all her energy on one thing alone--to keep back from her the picture of Uncle Mathew's death.
That at all costs she must not see.There it was, just behind her, hovering with all its detail, at her elbow.All day and most of the night she was conscious of it there, but she would not turn and look.Uncle Mathew was dead--that was all that she must know.Aunt Anne was dead too.Martin had written to her, and then, because she had not answered, had abandoned her.Paul and Grace were to be driven out of Skeaton because of her.Grace hated her; Paul would never love her unless she in return would love him--and that she would never do because she loved Martin.She was alone then.
She had made every one unhappy--Aunt Anne, Uncle Mathew, Paul, Grace; the best thing that she could do now was to go away and hide herself somewhere.
That, at least, she saw very clearly and she clung to it.If she went away Paul and Grace need not leave Skeaton; soon they would forget her and be happy once more as they had been before she came.
But where should she go? All her life she had depended upon her own self-reliance, but now that had left her.She felt as though she could not move unless there was some one somewhere who cared for her.But there was no one.Katherine Mark.No, she certainly could never go there again.Behind all this was the constant preoccupation that she must not look, for an instant, at Uncle Mathew's death.If she did everything would break...She must not.She must not.She must not.
She went up to her bedroom, took from their box Martin's letters and the ring with the three pearls, and the tattered programme.She sat on her bed and turned them over and over.She was bewildered and scarcely knew where she was.She repeated again and again: "I must go away at once...I must go away at once."Then as though moved by some compelling force that she did not recognise she fell on her knees beside the bed, crying: "Martin, Martin, I want you.I don't know where you are but I must find you.
Martin, tell me where you are.I'll go to you anywhere.Martin, where are you? Where are you?"It may not have been a vocal cry; perhaps she made no sound, but she waited, there on her knees, hearing very clearly the bells ringing for evening service and seeing the evening sun steal across her carpet and touch gently, the pictures on the wall.Gradually as she knelt there, calm and reassurance came back to her.She felt as though he, somewhere lost in the world, had heard her.She laid her cheek upon the quilt of the bed and, for the first time since Uncle Mathew's death, her thoughts worked in connected order, her courage returned to her, and she saw the room and the sun and the trees beyond the window as real objects, without the mist of terror and despair that had hitherto surrounded her.
She rose from her knees as though she were withdrawing from a horrible nightmare.She could remember nothing of the events of the last week save her talk with Paul that afternoon.She could recall nothing of the inquest, nor whether she had been to Church, nor any scene with Grace.
"So long as I'm alive and Martin's alive it's all right," she thought.She knew that he was alive.She would find him.She put away the things into the box again; she had not yet thought what she would do, but, in some way, she had received during those few minutes in her room a reassurance that she was not alone.
She went out into the spring dusk.She chose the road towards Barnham Wood because it was lonely there and the hedges were thin;you could feel the breath of the sea as it blew across the sparse fields.The hush of an English Sunday evening enfolded the road, the wood, the fields.The sun was very low and the saffron light penetrated the dark lines of the hedges and hung like a curtain of misty gold before the approaches to the wood.The red-brown fields rolled to the horizon and lay, like a carpet, at the foot of the town huddled against the pale sky.
She was near the wood, and could see the little dark twisted cone-strewn paths that led into the purple depths, when a woman came out of it towards her.She saw that it was Miss Toms.It seemed quite natural to see her there because it was on this same road that she had first met the lady and her brother.Miss Toms also did not seem at all surprised.She shook Maggie warmly by the hand.
"You said that I wouldn't come often to see you," said Maggie.
"And it's been true.Things have been more difficult for me than Iknew at the time."
"That's all right," said Miss Toms.
"But I ought to tell you," said Maggie, "that although I haven't been to see you, I've felt as though you and your brother were my friends, more than any one in this place.And that's been a great help to me."They started to walk down the road together.
"You've been in trouble," said Miss Toms."Of course I've heard about it.I would have liked to come and see you but I didn't know how your sister-in-law would like it."She put her arm through Maggie's.
"My dear," she said, "don't be discouraged.Because Skeaton is dead it doesn't mean that all the world is.And remember this.The world's view of any one is never the right one.I know that the world thinks my brother's mad, but I know that he's a lot saner than most people.The world thinks your uncle was a rascal, but if you can remember one good thing he did you know he wasn't, and I'm sure you can remember many good things.""It isn't that," said Maggie."It is that I seem to have done everything wrong and made every one I had to do with unhappy.""Nonsense," said Miss Toms."I'm sure if they've been unhappy it's their own fault.Isn't the evening air lovely? At times like these Iwonder that Skeaton can dare to exist.You'll come and see us one day, won't you?""I think--I don't know," said Maggie; "I may be going away."Miss Toms gave her a penetrating look.
