The Captives [129]
came close to her.
"Jane," she said, "I'm in trouble. It's only you who can help me. Here's a letter that I want posted--just in the ordinary way. Can you do that for me?"
Jane, suddenly smiling, nodded her head.
"And there's something else," Maggie went on. "To-morrow morning, before you come here, I want you to go to the Strand post-office-- you know the one opposite the station--and ask for a letter addressed to me. I've written on a piece of paper here that you're to be given any letters of mine. Give it to me somehow when no one's looking. Do you understand?"
Jane nodded her head. Maggie gave her the note and also half-a- crown, but Jane pushed back the money.
"I don't want no money," she said in a hoarse whisper. "You're the only one here decent to me."
At that moment the kitchen door opened and Martha appeared. When she saw Jane she came up to her and said: "Now then, idling again! What about the potatoes?"
She looked at Maggie with her usual surly suspicion.
"I came down for a candle," Maggie said, "for my room. Will you give me one, please?"
Jane had vanished.
Martin, meanwhile, after Maggie left him, had returned home in no happy state. There had leapt upon him again that mood of sullen impatient rebellion that he knew so well--a mood that really was like a possession, so that, struggle as he--might, he seemed always in the grip of some iron-fingered menacing figure.
It was possession in a sense that to many normal, happy people in this world is so utterly unknown that they can only scornfully name it weakness and so pass on their way. But those human beings who have suffered from it do in very truth feel as though they had been caught up into another world, a world of slavery, moral galley- driving with a master high above them, driving them with a lash that their chained limbs may not resist. Such men, if they try to explain that torment, can often point to the very day and even hour of their sudden slavery; at such a tick of the clock the clouds gather, the very houses and street are weighted with a cold malignity, thoughts, desires, impulses are all checked, perverted, driven and counter- driven by a mysterious force. Let no man who has not known such hours and the terror of such a dominion utter judgment upon his neighbour.
To Martin the threat of this conflict with his father over Maggie was the one crisis that he had wished to avoid. But his character, which was naturally easy and friendly and unsuspicious, had confused him. Those three weeks with Maggie had been so happy, so free from all morbidity and complication, that he had forgotten the world outside. For a moment when Maggie had told him that she had given her note to Caroline he had been afraid, but he had been lulled as the days passed and nothing interfered with their security. Now he was suddenly plunged into the middle of a confusion that was all the more complicated because he could not tell what his mother and his, sister were thinking. He knew that Amy had disliked him ever since his return, and that that dislike had been changed into something fiercer since his declared opposition to Thurston. His mother he simply did not understand at all. She spoke to him still with the same affection and tenderness, but behind the words he felt a hard purpose and a mysterious aloofness.
She was not like his mother at all; it was as though some spy had been introduced into the house in his mother's clothing.
But for them he did not care; it was his father of whom he must think. Here, too, there was a mystery from which he was deliberately kept. He knew, of course, that they were all expecting some crisis; as the days advanced he could feel that the excitement increased. He knew that his father had declared that he had visions and that there was to be a revelation very shortly; but of these visions and this revelation he heard only indirectly from others. His father said nothing to him of these things, and at the ordinary Chapel services on Sunday there was no allusion to them. He knew that the Inside Saints had
"Jane," she said, "I'm in trouble. It's only you who can help me. Here's a letter that I want posted--just in the ordinary way. Can you do that for me?"
Jane, suddenly smiling, nodded her head.
"And there's something else," Maggie went on. "To-morrow morning, before you come here, I want you to go to the Strand post-office-- you know the one opposite the station--and ask for a letter addressed to me. I've written on a piece of paper here that you're to be given any letters of mine. Give it to me somehow when no one's looking. Do you understand?"
Jane nodded her head. Maggie gave her the note and also half-a- crown, but Jane pushed back the money.
"I don't want no money," she said in a hoarse whisper. "You're the only one here decent to me."
At that moment the kitchen door opened and Martha appeared. When she saw Jane she came up to her and said: "Now then, idling again! What about the potatoes?"
She looked at Maggie with her usual surly suspicion.
"I came down for a candle," Maggie said, "for my room. Will you give me one, please?"
Jane had vanished.
Martin, meanwhile, after Maggie left him, had returned home in no happy state. There had leapt upon him again that mood of sullen impatient rebellion that he knew so well--a mood that really was like a possession, so that, struggle as he--might, he seemed always in the grip of some iron-fingered menacing figure.
It was possession in a sense that to many normal, happy people in this world is so utterly unknown that they can only scornfully name it weakness and so pass on their way. But those human beings who have suffered from it do in very truth feel as though they had been caught up into another world, a world of slavery, moral galley- driving with a master high above them, driving them with a lash that their chained limbs may not resist. Such men, if they try to explain that torment, can often point to the very day and even hour of their sudden slavery; at such a tick of the clock the clouds gather, the very houses and street are weighted with a cold malignity, thoughts, desires, impulses are all checked, perverted, driven and counter- driven by a mysterious force. Let no man who has not known such hours and the terror of such a dominion utter judgment upon his neighbour.
To Martin the threat of this conflict with his father over Maggie was the one crisis that he had wished to avoid. But his character, which was naturally easy and friendly and unsuspicious, had confused him. Those three weeks with Maggie had been so happy, so free from all morbidity and complication, that he had forgotten the world outside. For a moment when Maggie had told him that she had given her note to Caroline he had been afraid, but he had been lulled as the days passed and nothing interfered with their security. Now he was suddenly plunged into the middle of a confusion that was all the more complicated because he could not tell what his mother and his, sister were thinking. He knew that Amy had disliked him ever since his return, and that that dislike had been changed into something fiercer since his declared opposition to Thurston. His mother he simply did not understand at all. She spoke to him still with the same affection and tenderness, but behind the words he felt a hard purpose and a mysterious aloofness.
She was not like his mother at all; it was as though some spy had been introduced into the house in his mother's clothing.
But for them he did not care; it was his father of whom he must think. Here, too, there was a mystery from which he was deliberately kept. He knew, of course, that they were all expecting some crisis; as the days advanced he could feel that the excitement increased. He knew that his father had declared that he had visions and that there was to be a revelation very shortly; but of these visions and this revelation he heard only indirectly from others. His father said nothing to him of these things, and at the ordinary Chapel services on Sunday there was no allusion to them. He knew that the Inside Saints had