Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

the example of Prescott he had hammered into himself the possibility of eternal freedom from their recurrence. And now he must admit that mere austerity unless supported by a spiritual encouragement to endure was liable at any moment to break up pitiably into suicide. The word itself began to strike him with all the force of its squalid associations. The fresh dust of the Hampshire lanes became a gray miasma. Loneliness looped itself slowly round his progress so that he hurried on with backward glances. The hazel-hedges were somber and monotonous and defiled here and there by the rejected rags of a tramp. The names of familiar villages upon the signposts lost their intimations of sane humanity, and turned to horrible abstractions of the dead life of the misshapen boot or empty matchbox at their foot. The comfortable assurance of a prosperous and unvexed country rolling away to right and left forsook him, and only the pallid road writhed along through the twilight. “My nerves are in a rotten state,” he told himself, and he was very glad to see Basingstead Manor twinkling in the night below, while himself was still walking shadowless in a sickly dusk.

In the drawing-room of Cobble Place all was calm, as indeed, Michael thought, why on earth should it not be? Mrs. Carthew’s serene old age drove out the last memory of the coroner’s court, and here was Mrs. Ross coming out of a circle of lamplight to greet him, and here in Cobble Place was her small son sleeping.

“You look tired and pale, Michael,” said Mrs. Ross. “Why didn’t you wire which train you were coming by? I would have met you with the chaise.”

“Poor fellow, of course he’s tired!” said Mrs. Carthew. “A most disturbing experience. Come along. Dinner will do him good.”

The notion of suicide began to grow more remote from reality in this room, which had always been to Michael soft and fragrant like a great rose in whose heart, for very despair of being able ever to express in words the perfection of it, one swoons to be buried. The evening went the calm course of countless evenings at Cobble Place. Michael played at backgammon with Mrs. Carthew: Joan Carthew worked at the accounts of a parochial charity: May Carthew knitted: Mrs. Ross, reading in the lamplight, met from time to time Michael’s glances with a concern that never displayed itself beyond the pitch of an unexacting sympathy. He was glad, as the others rustled to greet the ten strokes of the clock, to hear Mrs. Ross say she would stay up for a while and keep him company.

“Unless you want to work?” she added.

Michael shook his head.

When the others had gone to bed, he turned to her:

“Do you know, Mrs. Ross, I believe I could have prevented Prescott’s death. He began to talk about Stella, and I felt embarrassed and came away.”

“Oh, my dear Michael, I think you’re probably accusing yourself most unfairly. How could you have supposed the terrible sequel to your dinner?”

“That’s just it. I believe I did know.”

“You thought he was going to kill himself?”

“No, I didn’t think anything so definite as that, but I had an intuition to ask him to come away with me, and I was afraid he’d think it rather cheek and, oh, Mrs. Ross, what on earth good am I? I believe I’ve got the gift of understanding people, and yet I’m afraid to use it. Shall I ever learn?”

Michael looked at Mrs. Ross in despair. He was exasperated by his own futility. He went on to rail at himself.

“The only gift I have got! And then my detestable self-consciousness wrecks the first decent chance I’ve had to turn it to account.”

They talked for some time. At first Mrs. Ross consoled him, insisting that imagination affected by what had happened later was playing him false. Then she seemed to be trying to state an opinion which she found it difficult to state. She spoke to Michael of qualities which in the future with one quality added would show his way in the world clear and straight before him. He was puzzled to guess at what career she was hinting.

“My dear Michael, I would not tell you for anything,” she affirmed.

“Why not?”

“Why not? Why, because with all the ingenuous proclamations of your willingness to do anything that you’re positive you can do better than anything else, I’m quite, quite sure you’re still the rather perverse Michael of old, and as I sit here talking to you I remember the time when I told you as a little boy that you would have been a Roundhead in the time of the Great Rebellion. How angry you were with me! So what I think you’re going to do⁠—I almost said when you’re grown up⁠—but I mean when you leave Oxford, I shall have to tell you after you have made up your own mind. I shall have to give myself merely the pleasure of saying, ‘I knew it.’ ”

“I suppose really I know what you think I shall do,” said Michael slowly. “But you’re wrong⁠—at least, I think you’re wrong. I lack the mainspring of the parson’s life. Talk to me about Kenneth instead of myself. How’s he getting on?”

“Oh, he’s splendid at five years old, but I want to give him something more than I ever managed to give you.”

“Naturally,” said Michael, smiling. “He’s your son.”

“Michael, would you be surprised if I told you that I thought of.⁠ ⁠…” Mrs. Ross broke off abruptly. “No, I won’t tell you yet.”

“You’re full of unrevealed mysteries,” said Michael.

“Yes, it’s bedtime for me. Good night.”

Two mornings later Michael had a letter from his mother in London. He wondered why he should be vaguely surprised by her hurried return. Surely Prescott’s death could not have been a reason to bring her home.

173 Cheyne Walk,
S.W.

My dearest Michael,

I’m so dreadfully upset about poor Dick Prescott. I have so few old friends, so very few, that I can’t afford to lose him. His devotion to your father was perfectly