Martyn

Martyn came all the way from Canada to London just to see me and with him he lugged that great love he had offered to me out in Canada and which I could not return. He warned of his coming in a letter, carefully timed to be just too late for me to stop him even by wire. For I would have pleaded, “Dear Martyn, please don’t come.”

I had been spending the long summer holiday with friends in Scotland. I got his letter there. I had been on the point of returning to London, but, on receipt of that letter, I dallied. It made me unhappy. I wanted time to think.

Martyn got to London first. He was on the platform at Euston waiting for me, had been in London for three days rampaging round, nearly driving my landlady distracted by his frequent—“Have you heard anything of her yet?”

But Martyn on the platform at Euston Station was like a bit of British Columbia, big, strong, handsome. I had to stiff myself not to seem too glad, not to throw my arms round him, deceiving him into thinking other than I meant. He gave me all sorts of messages from everybody at home. Then he searched my face keenly.

“How tired you look!”

“I am, Martyn; please take me straight home.”

In the cab we were silent. On my doorstep he said, “What time tomorrow?”

“I am meeting Mrs. Radcliffe at the Abbey door at five to eleven—join us there.”

He frowned. “Must she be along? Must anyone but you and me?”

“Mrs. Radcliffe and I always sit together in church. She is fine—you will like her.”

Mrs. Radcliffe and Martyn impressed each other at once. Martyn was Canadian-born but his parents had raised him ultra-English. After service Mrs. Radcliffe, with a coy smile and one or two “dear me’s”, left us, taking her way home by a route entirely different to the one that was her habit.

“Good-bye, children!” I don’t know how many “dear me’s” her eyes twinkled as she said it.

“Bring your friend in to tea with me this afternoon, Klee Wyck.” In one of her piercing, tactless whispers she spilled into my ear, “Poor Eddie!”

Martyn and I were alone, Mrs. Radcliffe’s back fading down Great Victoria Street.

Martyn asked, “Who is Eddie?”

“The friend of Mrs. Radcliffe’s son, Fred.”

Martyn frowned. We walked along quiet and stupid.

After lunch Martyn called for me and we went to Kensington Gardens and got things over, sitting uncomfortably on a bench near the lake side. Everywhere was black with children and their nurses. The children sailed boats on the lake and shrieked. The roar and rumble of London backgrounded all sounds. I was glad of London’s noise that day and of her crowds.

Martyn had three months’ leave. I undertook to show him London. Mrs. Denny and Eddie, Mrs. Radcliffe and Fred, as well as my solitary pokings round the great city, had made me an efficient guide. Every day at four o’clock I found Martyn ambling among the tombs of the “Great Ones” down below our workrooms at the Architectural Museum, his eyes always directed to the doors leading off the upper balcony of the great hall, closed doors behind which we studied. From his office old Mr. Ford gave us a kind smile as we passed, politely amused smiles but never objectionable nor coy like the ones English ladies and the students lipped at you when they saw you with a man.

I showed Martyn every sight I thought would interest him. We went to the theatres. Martyn liked Shakespearian plays best, but it did not matter much what the play was, whenever I took my eyes off the stage I met Martyn’s staring at me.

“What’s the good of buying tickets!” I said crossly—“you can see my face for nothing any day.” He asked me on an average of five times every week to marry him, at my every “No” he got more woebegone and I got crosser. He went to Mrs. Radcliffe for comfort and advice. She was provoked with me about Martyn, she kept his time, while I was at school, divided between intercession services and sentimentality. I wished she would tell him how horrid, how perverse I really was, but she advised patience and perseverance, said, “Klee Wyck will come round in time.”

We used to go to tea at the Radcliffes’ every Sunday afternoon, stay on and go with her to the Abbey for evening service. One night Mrs. Radcliffe and I were putting on our hats in her bedroom. She returned unexpectedly to the sitting room for her scarf and surprised Martyn on his knees before the fire warming my cloak. He was patting the fur collar as if the thing were a live kitten. Mrs. Radcliffe was delighted.

“Dear me! So romantic, Klee Wyck! Don’t be a fool, child!”

“He’s a silly goat!” I snapped.

Ever after that night, when Mrs. Radcliffe spoke to me of Martyn, she called him the Knight of the Cloak.

Martyn and I had one perfect day during his stay in London—the day we went to Epping Forest. For a long, long day Martyn promised me that he would not ask that day. You could depend on Martyn to keep his promises.

First we pretended that Epping Forest was our Canadian woods, but it was no good, there was not one bit of similarity. We gave up and sipped England’s sweetness happily. Here were trees venerable, huge and grand but tamed. All England’s things were tame, self-satisfied, smug and meek—even the deer that came right up to us in the forest, smelled our clothes. There was no turmoil of undergrowth swirling round the boles of the trees. The forest was almost like a garden—no brambles, no thorns, nothing to stumble over, no rotten stumps, no fallen branches, all mellow to look at, melodious to hear, every kind of bird, all singing, no awed hush, no vast echoes, just beautiful, smiling woods, not solemn, solemn, solemn like our forests. This exquisite, enchanting gentleness was perfect for one day, but not for always—we were Canadians.

We hired a pony and cart and drove through the straight made roads of the forest, easy, too easy. Soon we returned the pony and went on foot into the forest’s lesser ways. Here greenery swished against us, we rubbed shoulders with old tree boles. It was good to get our feet on the grass-grown paths and against the cool earth. When we came into the wider ways again, we took hands and ran. Martyn gathered some sprigs of holly for me in the forest.

The woman who hired us the pony said, “Keepers would jail ye shure, ef they sawed you with that there ’olly.”

It had never occurred to us we could not gather a twig. At home we might take anything we wanted from the woods.

Epping Forest was honey sweet—rich as cream. That was a perfect day, but too many days like that would have cloyed. We ate our picnic lunch among the trees, enjoying it thoroughly, but all the while there was a gnaw in us for wild, untrimmed places. This entranced, the other satisfied; this was bounded, the other free.

Martyn and I made a great many mistakes in England not realizing that we were doing wrong according to English standards.

One evening we took a bus ride and at the terminus got off to walk in the cool. Tiring, we stepped inside a wide open gateway and sat down on a bench to rest. The place appeared to be a park, no house was in sight. Very soon a man came and walked round our bench several times, staring at us. He went away and brought another man. They both stood staring at us. Simultaneously they shouted, “How dare you!”

Seeing they meant us, Martyn asked, “How dare we what?”

“Trespass.”

“We are only resting a few moments, the gate was open.”

“Do you think select tennis clubs are for the resting of vagabonds?”

They drove us out and locked the gate. I had difficulty keeping Martyn cool.

“Hateful snob-country! Emily, come home,” he begged.

After Art School one late autumn day we went to walk in Kensington Gardens. It was one of Martyn’s asking days; they always depressed us.

“Come,” I said, “it must be near closing time.”

Martyn looked at his watch—“Half an hour yet.” We sauntered to the great gates; to our horror we found them shut, locked. Nobody could possibly scale that mile-high iron fence. There we stood between the dusking empty gardens and the light and roar of Piccadilly.

I said, “There is a keeper’s lodge close to the Albert Memorial, Martyn. He has a tiny gate. I’ve noticed it.”

We tapped at the door of the lodge and explained that, being strangers, we did not know about winter hours—this it seemed was the first day of the winter change; the time had been hurried on by half an hour. The man said vile things, was grossly insulting. Martyn boiled at the things the man said, the language he used before me. It was all I could do to hold him back.

“Don’t,” I whispered, “let us get out first.”

The man led to the little gate, stood before it with outstretched palm. We must tip before he would open.

“Lend me sixpence,” whispered Martyn. “I have only big coin in my pocket. I will not give the brute more than sixpence!”

In my flurry I took half a sovereign from my purse, thinking it was sixpence. The lodge keeper became polite and servile at once when he saw gold. I never dared tell Martyn about my mistake.

We were always doing things that were right for Canada but found they were wrong in England.

“Martyn, I hate, hate, hate London!”

“Come home, Emily; marry me; you don’t belong here.”

“I can’t marry you, Martyn. It would be wicked and cruel, because I don’t love that way. Besides—my work.”

“Hang work; I can support you. Love will grow.”

“It is not support; it is not money or love; it’s the work itself. And, Martyn, while you are here, I am not doing my best. Go away, Martyn; please go away!”

“Always that detestable work!”

Dear Martyn, because he loved me he went away.

“Martyn’s gone back to Canada.”

Mrs. Radcliffe’s eyes bulged.

“When are you marrying him, Klee Wyck?”

“Never.”

Mrs. Radcliffe jumped to her feet. “Little silly! What more do you want? Is it a prince you wait for?”

“I wait for no one; I came to London to study.”