Maggie, as she sat through service after service, watched one headache race after another.The air was full of headache; she asked once that a window might be kept open."That would mean Death in Skeaton.You don't understand the Skeaton air," said Grace.
"That's because I don't get enough of it," said Maggie.She found herself looking back to the Chapel services with wistful regret.
What had there been there that was not here? Here everything was ordered, arranged, in decent sequence, in regular symmetry and progression.And yet no one seemed to Maggie to listen to what they were saying, and no one thought of the meaning of the words that they used.
And if they did, of what use would it be? The affair was all settled; heaven was arrayed, parcelled out, its very streets and courts mapped and described.It was the destination of every one in the building as surely as though they were travelling to London by the morning express.They were sated with knowledge of their destiny--no curiosity, no wonder, no agitation, no fear.Even the words of the most beautiful prayers had ceased to have any meaning because the matter had been settled so long ago and there was nothing more to be said.How that Chapel had throbbed with expectation, with amaze, with curiosity, with struggle! Foolish much of it perhaps, stifling it had seemed then in its superstition.
Maggie had been afraid then, so afraid that she could not sleep at nights.How she longed now for that fear to return to her!
At this point she would discover that she was beckoning back to her the figures of that other world.They must not come...the two worlds must not join or she was lost...she turned her back from her memories and her desires.
During this winter there were the two affairs of Mr.Toms and Caroline.
Maggie carried out her resolve of calling on Mr.Toms.She did it one dark afternoon a few days before Christmas, moved, it must be confessed, partly by a sense of exasperation with Grace.Grace had been that day quite especially tiresome.She had a cold, and a new evening dress had cost twice as much as it ought to have done.Mitch had broken into eczema, and Mrs.Constantine had overruled her at a committee meeting.With a flood of disconnected talk she had overwhelmed Maggie until the girl felt as though her head had been thrust into a bag of flour.Through it all there had been an undercurrent of complaint as though Maggie were responsible.
Early in the afternoon Grace declared that her head was splitting and retired to her bedroom.Maggie, in a state of blinded and deafened exasperation, remembered Mr.Toms and decided to call on him.She found a neat little house standing in a neat little garden near the sea just beyond the end of the Promenade, or The Leas, as the real Skeatonian always called it.Miss Toms and Mr.Toms were sitting in a very small room with a large fire, a pale grey wallpaper, and a number of brightly-painted wooden toys arranged on a shelf running round the room.The toys were of all kinds--a farm, cows and sheep, tigers and lions, soldiers and cannon, a church and a butcher's shop, little green tufted trees, and a Noah's ark.Mr.
Toms was sitting, neat as a pin, smiling in an armchair beside the fire, and Miss Toms near him was reading aloud.
Maggie saw at once that her visit embarrassed Miss Toms terribly.It was an embarrassment that she understood perfectly, so like her own feelings on so many occasions.This put her at once at her ease, and she was the old, simple, direct Maggie, her face eager with kindness and understanding.Mr.Toms smiled perpetually but shook hands like the little gentleman he was.
Maggie, studying Miss Toms' face, saw that it was lined with trouble--an ugly face, grave, severe, but brave and proud.Maggie apologised for not coming before.
"I would have come--" she began.
"Oh, you needn't apologise," said Miss Toms brusquely."They don't call on us here, and we don't want them to.""They don't call," said Mr.Toms brightly, "because they know I'm queer in the head, and they're afraid I shall do something odd.They told you I was queer in the head, didn't they?"Strangely enough this statement of his "queerness," although it brought a lump into Maggie's throat, did not disturb or confuse her.
"Yes," she said, "they did.I asked who you were after I had seen you in the road that day.""I'm not in the least dangerous," said Mr.Toms."You needn't be afraid.Certain things seem odd to me that don't seem odd to other people--that's all.""The fact is, Mrs.Trenchard," said Miss Toms, speaking very fast and flushing as she spoke, "that we are very happy by ourselves, my brother and I.He is the greatest friend I have in the world, and Iam his.We are quite sufficient for one another.I don't want to seem rude, and it's kind of you to have come, but it's better to leave us alone--it is indeed.""Well, I don't know," bald Maggie, smiling."You see, I'm a little queer myself--at least I think that most of the people here are coming to that conclusion.I'm sure I'm more queer than your brother.At any rate I can't do you any harm, and we may as well give it a trial, mayn't we?"Mr.Toms clapped his hands with so sudden a noise that Maggie jumped.
"That's right," he said."That's the way I like to hear people talk.
