A. E. (Alfred Edgar) Coppard - The Collected Tales of A. E. Coppard

Turner sighed. A waiter brought him another glass of spirit.

“I can’t help thinking, Bollington, that it was all very fiery and touchy. Of course, I don’t know, but really it was a bit steep, very squeamish of you. What did your wife say?”

“I never communicated with her, I never heard from her, I just dropped out. My filthy face, you know, she did not want to see it again.”

“Oh come, Bollington! And what did Mrs. Macarthy say?”

“Mrs. Macarthy! I never saw or heard of her again. I told you that.”

“Ah, yes, you told me. So you slung off to America.”

“I was intensely miserable there for a long while. Of course I loved Phoebe enormously, I felt the separation. I—Oh, it is impossible to describe. But what was worst of all was the meanness of my behaviour, there was nothing heroic about it. I soon saw clearly that it was a shabby trick, disgusting, I had bolted and left her to the mercy of—well, of whatever there was. It made such an awful barrier—you’ve no idea of my compunction—I couldn’t make overtures—“Let us forgive and forget.” I was a mean rascal, I was filthy. That was the barrier—myself; I was too bad. I thought I should recover and enjoy life again. I began to think of Phoebe as a cat, a little cat. I went everywhere and did everything. But America is a big country, I couldn’t get into contact, I was lonely, very lonely, and although two years went by I longed for Phoebe. Everything I did I wanted to do with Phoebe by my side. And then my cousin, my only relative in the world—he lived in England—he died. I scarcely ever saw him, but still he was my kin. And he died. You’ve no comprehension, Turner, of the truly awful sensation such a bereavement brings. Not a soul in the world now would have the remotest interest in my welfare. Oh, I tell you, Turner, it was tragic, tragic, when my cousin died. It made my isolation complete. I was alone, a man who had made a dreadful mess of life. What with sorrow and remorse. I felt that I should soon die, not of disease, but disgust.”

“You were a great ninny,” ejaculated his friend. “Why the devil didn’t you hurry back, claim your wife, bygones be bygones? Why, bless my conscience, what a ninny, what a great ninny!”

“Yes, Turner, it is as you say. But though conscience is a good servant, it is a very bad master, it overruled me, it shamed me, and I hung on to America for still another year. I tell you my situation was unbearable, I was tied to my misery, I was a tethered dog, a duck without water—even dirty water. And I hadn’t any faith in myself or in my case; I knew I was wrong, had always been wrong, Phoebe had taught me that. I hadn’t any faith, I wish I had had. Faith can move mountains, so they say, though I’ve never heard of it actually being done.”

“No, not in historical times,” declared Turner.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, well, time is nothing, it’s nothing, it comes and off it goes. Has it ever occurred to you, Bollington, that in five thousand years or so there will be nobody in the world speaking the English language, our very existence even will be speculated upon, as if we were the anthropophagi? Oh, good lord, yes.”

And another whisky.

“You know, Bollington, you were a perfect fool. You behaved like one of those half-baked civil-service hounds who lunch in a dairy on a cup of tea and a cream horn. You wanted some beef, some ginger. You came back, you must have come back because there you are now.”

“Yes, Turner, I came back after nearly four years. Everything was different, ah, how strange! I could not find Phoebe, it is weird how people can disappear. I made inquiries, but it was like looking for a lost umbrella, fruitless after so long.”

“Well, but what about Mrs. Macarthy?”

Mr. Bollington said, slowly and with the utmost precision: “I did not see Mrs. Macarthy again.”

“Oh, of course, you did not see her again, not ever.”

“Not ever. I feared Phoebe had gone abroad too, but at last I found her in London. . . .”

“No,” roared Turner, “why the devil couldn’t you say so and done with it? I’ve been sweating with sympathy for you. Oh, I say, Bollington!”

“My dear Turner, listen. Do you know she was delighted to see me, she even kissed me, straight off, and we went out to dine and had the very deuce of a spread and we were having the very deuce of a good time. She was lovelier than ever, and I could see all her old affection for me was returning, she was so—well, I can’t tell you, Turner, but she had no animosity whatever, no grievance, she would certainly have taken me back that very night. Oh dear, dear . . . and then! I was anxious to throw myself at her feet, but you couldn’t do that in a public café, I could only touch her hands, beautiful, as they lay on the white linen cloth. I kept asking: ‘Do you forgive me?’ and she would reply: ‘I have nothing to forgive, dear, nothing.’ How wonderful that sounded to my truly penitent soul!—I wanted to die.

“ ‘But you don’t ask me where I’ve been!’ she cried gaily, ‘or what I’ve been doing, you careless old Peter. I’ve been to France, and Sweden too!’

“I was delighted to hear that, it was so very plucky.

“ ‘When did you go?’ I asked.

“ ‘When I left you,’ she said.

“ ‘You mean when I went away?’

“ ‘Did you go away? Oh, of course, you must have. Poor Peter, what a sad time he has had!’

“I was a little bewildered, but I was delighted; in fact, Turner, I was hopelessly infatuated again, I wanted to wring out all the dregs of my detestable villainy and be absolved. All I could begin with was: ‘Were you not very glad to be rid of me?’

“ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘my great fear at first was that you would find me again and make it up. I didn’t want that, then; at least I thought I didn’t.’

“ ‘That’s exactly what I felt,’ I exclaimed, ‘but how could I find you?’

“ ‘Well,’ Phoebe said, ‘you might have found out and followed me. But I promise never to run away again, Peter dear, never.’

“Turner, my reeling intelligence swerved like a shot bird.

“ ‘Do you mean, Phoebe, that you ran away from me?’

“ ‘Yes, didn’t I?’ she answered.

“ ‘But I ran away from you,’ I said. ‘I walked out of the hotel on that dreadful afternoon we quarrelled so and I never went back. I went to America. I was in America nearly four years.’

“ ‘Do you mean you ran away from me?’ she cried.

“ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘didn’t I?’

“ ‘But that is exactly what I did—I mean, I ran away from you. I walked out of the hotel directly you had gone—I never went back, and I’ve been abroad thinking how tremendously I had served you out and wondering what you thought of it all and where you were.’

“I could only say: ‘Good God, Phoebe, I’ve had the most awful four years of remorse and sorrow—all vain, mistaken, useless, thrown away.’ And she said: ‘And I’ve had four years—living in a fool’s paradise after all. How dared you run away? It’s disgusting!’

“And, Turner, in a moment she was at me again in her old dreadful way, and the last words I had from her were: ‘Now I never want to see your face again, never, this is the end!’

“And that’s how things are now, Turner. It’s rather sad, isn’t it?”

“Sad! Why, you chump, when was it you saw her?”

“Oh, a long time ago, it must be nearly three years now.”

“Three years! But you’ll see her again!”

“Tfoo! No, no, no, Turner. God bless me, no, no, no!” said the little old man.

The Black Dog (1923)

At the close of an April day, chilly and wet, the traveller came to a country town. In the Cotswolds, though the towns are small and sweet and the inns snug, the general habit of the land is bleak and bare. He had newly come upon upland roads so void of human affairs, so lonely, that they might have been made for some forgotten uses by departed men, and left to the unwitting passage of such strangers as himself. Even the unending walls, built of old rough laminated rock, that detailed the far-spreading fields, had grown very old again in their courses; there were dabs of darkness, buttons of moss, and fossils on every stone. He had passed a few neighbourhoods, sometimes at the crook of a stream, or at the cross of debouching roads, where old habitations, their gangrenated thatch riddled with bird holes, had been not so much erected as just spattered about the places. Beyond these signs an odd lark or blackbird, the ruckle of partridges, or the nifty gallop of a hare had been the only mitigation of the living loneliness that was almost as profound by day as by night. But the traveller had a care for such times and places. There are men who love to gaze with the mind at things that can never be seen, feel at least the throb of a beauty that will never be known, and hear over immense bleak reaches the echo of that which is no celestial music, but only their own hearts’ vain cries; and though his garments clung to him like clay it was with deliberate questing step that the traveller trod the single street of the town, and at last entered the inn, shuffling his shoes in the doorway for a moment and striking the raindrops from his hat. Then he turned into a small smoking-room. Leather-lined benches, much worn, were fixed to the wall under the window and in other odd corners and nooks behind mahogany tables. One wall was furnished with all the congenial gear of a bar, but without any intervening counter. Opposite, a bright fire was burning, and a neatly dressed young woman sat before it in a Windsor chair, staring at the flames. There was no other inmate of the room, and as he entered, the girl rose up and greeted him. He found that he could be accommodated for the night, and in a few moments his hat and scarf were removed and placed inside the fender, his wet overcoat was taken to the kitchen, the landlord, an old fellow, was lending him a roomy pair of slippers, and a maid was setting supper in an adjoining room.