C.F. told me this story and I shall re-tell it, as nearly as I can, in his own words. He would certainly have wished to be anonymous, and I shall respect his wish.
‘Last summer,’ he said, ‘after an absence of many years, I revisited Venice. I used to stay there for long stretches at a time before the war, and had many friends in the Anglo-American colony. My reasons for going to Venice were partly curiosity, to see if the old spell still held, and partly in order to write—I’ve always been able to write in Venice. The apartment I used to take had been let, and I had found a new one, though of course I hadn’t seen it. Nor had I notified my friends of my arrival; I’ll tell you why Arthur, presently.
‘But I didn’t expect to be altogether alone, nor did I want to be. I had one stand-by. My gondolier, Antonio, who had served me all the times I was in Venice, was at the station to meet me. Italians are very good at welcoming one. He greeted me rapturously; he could hardly stand still: excitement wriggled from the top of his greying head to the soles of his feet. It was as if a fund of affection had been accumulating in him during the war years and now he was pouring it all out.
‘Alone of my Venetian friends I had kept in touch with him during the War. Somehow or other, by way of Portugal, or the Vatican, or the Red Cross, we had managed to communicate, and the very difficulty entailed by those manœuvres seemed to have made our friendship more precious. Though I had never succeeded in hating him as an enemy, the reaction was just as strong as if I had, and I think the same was true of him. He was much more articulate about his feelings than I was. All the way from the station to my flat, which was somewhere behind the Zattere—I’ll try to tell you where later, it’s so hard to describe where anything is in Venice—I kept screwing my head round on the cushion and looking up at him, while he leaned over his oar, his words tripping over each other he talked so fast.
‘I got more feeling from that conversation that hostilities had come to an end than I did from V.E. day or V.J. day, or indeed from anything before or since. The cold war with Russia had not yet got under way, and talking to Antonio I felt that human solidarity was once more a fact.
‘So enveloping was his personality and so infectious his goodwill that I was hardly aware of the strangeness of my new abode, he was like a strong dose of familiarity that transformed the unknown into the known. I only noticed that it was up a great many steps.
‘There was only one subject I didn’t discuss with him, and that was my friends in Venice. Partly because I thought that he wouldn’t know about them (though he was by nature a know-all), partly, and illogically, because I thought he might tell me something I didn’t want to hear, but chiefly because—well, you know how I have felt about people since the war. The whole thing was such a ghastly disappointment to me that even my closest friends were somehow involved in it—even you, Arthur. I saw even the people I liked best as somehow at each other’s throats. My personal relationships were a tender area, as the doctors say. I had dreaded my meeting with Antonio, in case it turned sour on me, like food on an acid stomach. I had jumped that hurdle, but I thought the others could be taken later. It’s one thing talking to a servant who more or less has to agree with you (at least, Italian servants feel they must), and another to broach highly controversial topics with people whose minds and feelings have to be approached as warily as if they were a Foreign Power. And I was in no mood for circumspection. If I couldn’t see eye to eye with someone, I didn’t want to see him; I couldn’t bear to be disagreed with, and I wasn’t over eager to be agreed with, either. So I didn’t ask Antonio for news of my friends, and he didn’t for the moment volunteer any.
‘I might have noticed that he and Giuseppina, the maid of all work who “went” with my new flat, were not hitting it off; but if I did notice, it didn’t register. In the confusion of arriving I forgot to introduce them to each other formally. This was a breach of etiquette, but I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had. There is never any love lost between gondoliers and indoor servants, and I think they were jealous of each other from the start. Giuseppina had not been warned that I should have this attendant, and Antonio did not trouble to disguise from her the fact that he regarded me as his possession. She looked about fifty; he was ten years older. She never let him out of her sight if she could help it, and she didn’t want him to unpack for me. At about seven o’clock, before going out, as was his custom, to celebrate with his friends, he asked me if there was anything I wanted—tobacco, cigarettes, cognac? I said I should like some cognac and he brought it back with him when he returned to wait on me at dinner. Afterwards, when he was standing in the dimly-lit sala, saying goodnight, which took him a long time for he had by no means rubbed off the patina of absence, Giuseppina circled round him like a cat round a retriever, and when he had gone she shot the big bolt—the catenaccio—across the door with a sigh of satisfaction.
‘I dined well and slept well, and the next morning what was my surprise and pleasure when Antonio appeared at eight o’clock bringing my early morning tea and beaming at me like the sun. In his other hand he was carrying something else—a bottle. He did everything with a flourish.
‘ “What have you got there?” I asked, when he had gone through our morning salutations and inquiries which, so strong is habit, took the same form they had taken in pre-war years. “It isn’t time to begin drinking yet.”
‘His expression changed and became serious, even severe.
‘ “O signore,” he said accusingly, “what a lot of cognac you drank last night!”
‘He held the bottle up to the light; it was about three-quarters full. I was surprised that I had drunk so much and said so. “I was drinking a toast to my return to Venice,” I added, apologizing for excess.
‘He accepted my explanation graciously but still with a touch of disapproval in his manner; and then suddenly his face relaxed and became sunny again.
‘ “Good news,” he said. “Signor Gretton is in Venice, he is staying at the Grand Hotel.”
‘I was dumbfounded. It was anything but good news to me. Gretton was an old friend of mine of pre-war days, not a member of the colony but a constant visitor to Venice, as I was. I liked him but I didn’t want to see him, and he would bring the whole colony buzzing round my ears.
‘ “Yes, signore,” Antonio went on, “he was leaving to-morrow, but when he heard that you were here he put his departure off a day.
‘ “How did he know that I was here?” I asked—a silly question from someone who knew the workings of the Venetian bush-telegraph as well as I did; but I was so relieved that Gretton was so to speak on the wing that I hardly knew what I was saying.
‘Antonio shrugged his shoulders. “His gondolier must have told him,” he said—forbearing to add, “And I told his gondolier.” “And he wants to know if he may dine with you to-night. He thought you would prefer that to going to his hotel—I expect he is short of money like all the English, alas.” This was a reasonable inference, but quite groundless, for Gretton is the soul of hospitality.
‘So Gretton came to dinner and it wasn’t at all the flop I thought it would be. The moment I saw his tall, thin figure Venice seemed to become itself and I could scarcely believe that so many years had rolled by. Gretton is a man of generous impulses, quick enthusiasms and equally quick resentments. But I didn’t feel uneasy with him, still less quarrel with him, for the things that upset him were always personal matters—someone had treated him badly or had treated badly someone in whom he was interested. If he simmered with small resentments or flared up in sudden indignation these outbursts were like safety-valves, and no pressure of basic disagreement could form while they were spurting; he didn’t reawaken the slumbering feud I had with almost everyone. There was just one thing: his eyes didn’t light up when he saw me, and he didn’t smile; he looked surprised, and I know why. It wasn’t only that I looked much older; it was the sour expression I have now—you needn’t tell me I haven’t, I catch a glimpse of it in the glass sometimes.
‘Well, it was very hot and we sat on the terrace with the night above us and below us, sipping iced water—it was much too hot to drink anything else. I went back in Gretton’s gondola to his hotel, and walked home, revelling in the Venetian night which was like gold thread on black velvet: and it was nearly one o’clock when I reached the flat.
‘Next morning Antonio again appeared with my early tea and I remember not feeling surprised—for I was in the befuddled state between sleeping and waking, when one is disposed to accept everything as a matter of course—to see the brandy bottle in his other hand. Having greeted me he assumed a stem, even a shocked expression, and said:
‘ “O signore, what a lot of cognac you and Mr. Gretton drank last night! Ma quanto! Quanto! “What a lot, what a lot!” And he held the bottle up for my inspection: it was more than half empty.
‘ “But, Antonio,’ I said, now thoroughly mystified, “we didn’t drink any cognac. It was much too hot.”
‘He turned away, but not before I had seen his expression change, and went to the window and looked out.
‘ “Forse mi sbaglio,” he said. “Perhaps I am mistaken.”
‘ “But you can’t be mistaken,” I said. “Someone has drunk it.”
‘At that he turned away from the window and observed, significantly:
‘ “Signore, you were better off in your old flat.”
‘It was plain what he meant. He meant that if I hadn’t drunk the brandy, Giuseppina had. I didn’t answer, but I suddenly remembered how, all those years ago in my old flat, my stock of brandy sometimes used to dwindle, not in this sensational and dramatic fashion, but little by little. After breakfast I was still pondering upon this, and wondering who was the culprit, when in came Giuseppina. She said nothing but beckoned to me, and I saw that she was carrying in her hand a key. She led me from the room where I was sitting to the dining-room, where she fitted the key into the lock of the cellarette. Then she pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows, and withdrew.
‘Later in the morning Gretton called to say good-bye to me. I was so pleased to see him and thought it so good of him to come, on the morning of his departure, that I forgot the problem of the missing brandy. But when I was asking him if he would have a drink I remembered it and told him.
‘He was up in arms at once.
‘ “How monstrous! Let me see the bottle.”
‘I brought it and before I could protest, indeed before I knew what he was up to, he had taken out his fountain pen and scored a thick black line across the label to mark the level of the brandy.
‘ “That’ll teach him,” he said.
‘After Gretton was gone I wondered if I should lock the cellarette and take away the key. I couldn’t bring myself to do that; it was too flagrantly hostile an act, and against someone to whom I was very much attached. But all the same, my resentment mounted. I shouldn’t have minded so much if Antonio had just sipped the brandy on the sly; it was this ridiculous act he had put on this “commedia” as the Italians call it, imagining he could so easily throw dust in my eyes. You can’t throw dust in people’s eyes without getting some of it in your own; and that’s what had happened to him. And then, when he saw the first cock wouldn’t fight, to try to put the blame on Giuseppina! Was there every such a misguided piece of cleverness? What a fool he must think me! That is the Italians all over, I thought; they are not content with theft, they must give it a panache, an extra twist to make them feel how smart they are, what artists. No doubt Antonio was telling the story to his fellow-gondoliers at the traghetto, and it would lose nothing in the telling. In Italy, I thought, there is no public opinion against dishonesty; as long as a man is ingenious about it, and successful (for Italians adore success), they think the better of him.
‘I would willingly have given Antonio a bottle of brandy if he had asked me, but he would rather steal it than take it as a gift, because any nit-wit can have something given to him, but only the clever can steal it. I suppose you would say it’s one of the things that make Italians so human.’
It was time to break in.
‘I shouldn’t say so,’ I protested.
‘Well, I thought you might. But I couldn’t see it in that light. All through the war, in England, stopping at strange hotels and places up and down the country, and not only at hotels, I had been the victim of innumerable acts of pilfering—don’t tell me, Arthur, please don’t tell me, that the war has done our morals any good. All the little trinkets I possessed—yes, and necessities, too—were pinched from me—watches, watch-chains, cuff-links, travelling clocks—even the shirt off my back, when it was new enough. The war turned us into a nation of thieves—oh yes, it did, Arthur, whatever you may say. And to have this happening all over again in Venice it was too maddening.’ My friend looked away from me and the sour look came into his face.
‘All the rest of that day, until dinner-time, Antonio was charming—so attentive, he couldn’t do enough for me. It seemed as though he could hardly get used to the idea that I was back and had a fresh shock of pleasure every time he saw me. I have never been able to find the same thing more than once, but he seemed able to rediscover me many times. That is all very well, I thought; but how do I know that this mood is more genuine than the other? How do I know that it isn’t the brandy he is rediscovering, not me? So I turned a rather glum face to his smiles. But I didn’t take any further steps and didn’t mean to take any, so that when the storm burst it took me completely by surprise.
‘It happened while he was laying the table for dinner. In my old flat he always laid the table. He had his own way of doing it, which was not quite orthodox by English or indeed by Italian standards; and Giuseppina, in pointing this out to me, also observed that she was accustomed to doing it herself. I said that perhaps later on I would tell him not to bother with the table. But I didn’t mean to, knowing it would hurt his feelings.
‘Yet when he burst into my sitting-room with a face twisted and black with rage, my first thought was that it must have something to do with this dispute, this “questione” about the table-laying. Then I saw the brandy-bottle; he was not carrying it delicately in the palm of his large hand, he was grasping it by the neck and looked as if he meant to hit me with it: perhaps I was lucky that he didn’t. I jumped up and said:
‘ “What’s the matter, Antonio?”
‘He came towards me and thrust the bottle under my eyes.
‘ “Who did this?” he demanded in (I don’t exaggerate) a strangled voice.
‘I saw the accusing black line across the label.
‘ “I did,” I said. It was the easiest thing to say, the truth would have involved too many explanations which would, in any case, have been lost upon his fury. Besides, I was to blame for the line being there.
‘ “Does it mean that you have wished to suspect me——?” he began in the same choking voice.
‘Suddenly I saw red. I wasn’t sure that his anger was genuine. I thought he might be putting it on, using his bad temper as a weapon to terrorize me and bounce me into believing he was innocent; and this made me still more angry. I took a long breath.
‘ “I don’t know whom to suspect,” I said. “Tutti gli Italiani sono ladri, specialmente i gondolieri”—“all Italians are thieves, especially gondoliers.”
‘I shouldn’t have said it, of course, but at the moment I was glad to have said it, I wanted to do him the greatest injury I could. I might have stuck a dagger into his heart if I had had one, and felt the same satisfaction.
‘Antonio went as white as a sheet—the only time I have seen him without colour. His normal complexion was a shade darker than brick-red. I remember his once saying to me, alluding to his complexion, “I am red, I have always been red, and when I am dead I shall still be red.”
‘A moment later he was red again, redder than I have ever seen him. He looked away from me, dashed the bottle down on the mosaic terrazzo, squared his shoulders, turned round, and walked out of the room stiffly, like a soldier.
‘I sat down and laughed weakly. In doing so I too was putting on an act, but to impress myself, not someone else. How long I sat there I don’t know, but suddenly I noticed a strong smell and, looking down, I saw a long rivulet of brandy curling round my feet. Dark fragments of broken glass littered the terrazzo, which I now saw was slightly splintered where the bottle had struck it. What would Giuseppina say to all this? I went to look for her and found her in the kitchen, placidly beating up a zabaione.
‘ “Where is Antonio?” I asked.
‘Her face became expressionless, as it always did when I mentioned his name.
‘ “Isn’t he in the dining-room?” she said, as if the dining-room would be contaminated by his presence.
‘But he wasn’t. The oval dining-table was half laid, the door of the cellarette, from which Antonio had been getting out the drinks, stood open. The room had a provisional, expectant air like a child abandoned in the middle of being dressed.
‘I knew Antonio’s tantrums well. He had always had these moods of being what he called “nero”—“black”—and was rather proud of them. They were manifestations of his proper pride, the “amor proprio” so dear to the Italian heart; they showed that he knew his own value and was not going to be put upon. They lasted sometimes for a day or even two days, after which, and without apology or explanation, he would come out of them and be his sanguine, sunny self again. They must have cost him something, for during these times he ate but little and spoke hardly at all; they were a kind of possession. I used to wonder how his wife, who was devoted to him, stood them; they had a very upsetting effect on me. But perhaps like most Italian women she liked a man to be a man and respected his displays of temperament.
‘To Giuseppina’s unconcealed displeasure—she said she would have much preferred to do it herself—he had decided to wait on me at meals. After the first explosion, when he generally absented himself for a time, he never let his tempers interfere with the performance of what he considered his duties, and I fully expected he would come back to help me through dinner.
‘But he didn’t. Giuseppina served me; she made no comment on Antonio’s absence but stood watching me. Any emotional upset affects my digestion, that is why I avoid them whenever I can, and have got the reputation, no doubt, of being an icicle. If I had given way to all the annoyance I have felt during the last twelve years I should long ago have been riddled with gastric ulcers. Oh yes, I should have, Arthur; you needn’t look sceptical. I should have been well advised that evening to have eaten nothing; but how could I, I ask you, with Giuseppina watching my every mouthful? She was determined I should do her cooking justice, and she never took her eyes off me, or stopped talking, except between the courses. At last I could not help speaking of the subject uppermost in my mind, and asked her where she thought Antonio had gone.
‘ “Oh, him,” she said, and made no other comment.
‘By bedtime the nerves of my stomach were thoroughly demoralized and I knew I was in for a bad night. By half-past five in the morning, with the first summons of the Ave Mary bell, I knew that I was in for fever, too. I kept going over in my mind phrases of forgiveness which should also make it clear that there was nothing to forgive, for I did not doubt that Antonio would come in the morning. But instead it was Giuseppina who called me, bringing my tea-tray but no bottle of brandy. She looked more cheerful than I had ever seen her, and I, misinterpreting the signs, asked her if she had seen Antonio.
‘ “Yes,” she said, “he came at seven o’clock and took the gondola away.”
‘ “Took the gondola away?” I echoed.
‘ “Yes, signore, he said he was not going to serve you any more.”
‘ “Did he say why?” I asked.
‘She hesitated a moment and then said, “He said it was because you would not pay him enough.”
‘My illness was sharp and what was more it was recurrent. It was one of those gastric disorders that visitors to Venice sometimes get, and I expect I should have had it anyway: the row with Antonio only aggravated it. But I had never had it before and didn’t quite know what was going to happen. I didn’t call in a doctor because every day Giuseppina assured me I was better, and in the end she proved to be right. But it did for me what an illness so often does, it changed the orientation of my thoughts. The needle of anxiety pointed to myself, not to Antonio. I could think of him without agitation and without working myself into a state.
‘I thought of him a good deal and remembered his many virtues. What patience he had! He never minded how long he was kept waiting. One of the grand ladies who used to employ him before he came to me, once forgot about him, went home another way, and left him out all night: but he didn’t hold it against her—he thought it reflected credit on her, and was the way a great lady should behave.
‘And what courage he had. Many gondoliers are afraid of the water; a puff of wind or a drop of rain will send them scurrying for shelter. Storms get up very suddenly on the lagoon: we had many picnics there in exposed places miles from Venice; often we had to fight our way home against a head wind (for I rowed, too), and it took hours and was really a little dangerous, for a gondola is a most unseaworthy boat. But Antonio never minded that, or getting wet to the skin. He never reproached me with disregarding his warnings about the weather; he contented himself with saying that no other gondolier would do what he did; he was nothing if not boastful, but this at least was true. He had a great regard for appearances and perhaps he saw himself as Ajax defying the lightning. But in a humbler, less exhibitionistic way, he could be very devoted. Like a policeman, he hated having to run; it upset his dignity. Though amphibious, he was primarily a sea-creature, and though by no means awkward on dry land, he had a stiff-legged way of running—throwing his weight from one foot to the other as if he were reaching out to crush a beetle. He must have known it was inelegant, and it was particularly unsuitable to Venice, where an unguarded movement may easily knock someone over. But he would dash off to the station with my late letters and come back breathless but triumphant, saying “Ho fatto un corso!”—“I ran like the wind!”—and without making any complaint.
‘His dignity! It all came back to that. “Far figura”—how do you translate it? “Keeping up appearances”? Face-saving is at the root of the Italian character. He didn’t mind being a thief, but he didn’t like being called one. Among the popolo in Italy an insult is a thing in itself: un’ offesa, and whether it be well founded or not makes little difference to the gravity of the offence, perhaps none. By taking umbrage he was only acting according to his principles; a less dramatic course would have lowered him in his own esteem. How easy it would have been to treat the whole thing as a joke! And perhaps I could have, if he hadn’t wounded my own self-esteem by believing he could bamboozle me about the bottle—and all to satisfy his artistic sense! I had only to think of his stern accusing face—“What a lot of cognac you and Mr. Gretton drank last night, signore—what a lot, what a lot!” to feel myself getting hot under the collar. Of course I shouldn’t have minded so much if I hadn’t had all those things stolen from me in the war—all my trinkets, my cuff-links, my watch-chains, my travelling-clock—don’t laugh, Arthur!’
‘I wasn’t laughing,’ I said, though in fact I was on the verge of a nervous titter, such was his vehemence.
‘You looked as if you might be going to. Of course materially, it wasn’t serious, and yet in a way it was; before the war one bottle of brandy more or less didn’t matter, you could replace it; but how can you replace three thousand lire now, I ask you? And it was the principle of the thing. Somehow I should have minded less if he had had one redeeming virtue instead of one damning vice. His whole being seemed to be organized for deceit. But most Italians are that way, I fancy.’
‘I shouldn’t choose a gondolier as a touchstone of moral behaviour, either in Italy or elsewhere,’ I said, tired of his coat-trailing.
‘Oh, you wouldn’t, wouldn’t you?’ my friend said nastily. ‘Why not? Because he is a poor man, I suppose?’
‘No,’ I said, not wishing to be hoisted on the petard of social snobbery. ‘Because for centuries gondoliers have been dependent on the whims of well-to-do people like yourself, and have had to shape their conduct accordingly. With them it’s a matter of economics, not of morals.’
‘You would defend the Devil,’ he said violently. Then with a sudden change of mood he went on:
‘It was so ironical that during all the war years when we ought to have been wishing each other dead and so on, we hadn’t had an unkind thought about each other, and now, when our Governments had graciously announced we could be friends, we weren’t on speaking terms.
‘As soon as I could I wrote him a letter, in effect apologizing to him for having let him rob me and asking him to come back. I couldn’t bring myself to say that I had drunk the brandy myself or that Giuseppina had. I gave the letter to Giuseppina to post and never doubted it would do the trick. I’ve sometimes wondered whether she did post it, she hated him so much. Certainly he didn’t answer, or come back. Did I afterwards find out he wasn’t the real culprit? Unfortunately, no.
‘Lacking Antonio, Venice seemed an utterly strange place to me. For one thing I had never been ill in Venice before. I had always been particularly well—and, for me, active. The question was how to find time for all the things I wanted to do. And you know how, in that state, one doesn’t look about one very much. I won’t say I never looked at Venice, but I looked at it with the eye of health and hurry—any eye that doesn’t see much. Now I was a prisoner. My sphere of action was limited to one room and, as I got better, to two. I felt utterly cut off. In my old flat I had a telephone and Antonio to run errands for me: here I had no telephone, no Antonio, only Giuseppina as a link with the outside world: she had all the housework to do, as well as marketing and catering for me and, when I was ill, acting as my nurse: and I did not like to inflict any further duties on her, unless it was to ask her to post a letter.
‘And I didn’t want to write any letters. No! After Antonio’s defection my unwillingness to make myself known to my friends in Venice increased, until it amounted to a nervous inhibition. When I thought I was getting over it, I was really getting used to it. A feeling of snugness enfolded me; I was enclosed in my anonymity as in a cocoon, and I had no wish at all to break my bonds; indeed, every day I spun new ones, I didn’t want my convalescence to end and invented new symptoms which would keep me indoors. Giuseppina, with native shrewdness, was quick to discover this. “Si è impressionato,” she said, “you are frightening yourself”—and so I was, though not quite in the way she meant.
‘At the back of my mind was always the thought that Antonio, though absent as a friend was present as an enemy, and my dread of meeting him, if I went out, began to extend to all the inhabitants of Venice. So I was doubly a prisoner, a prisoner of myself and a prisoner of the flat; and when I got tired of the view of my own mind, I had the windows of my two rooms to look out of.
‘From my bedroom windows I enjoyed a roofscape. Domes and towers gave it grandeur and formal beauty, but what chiefly fascinated me was the roofs themselves. I came to know them as intimately as did the sparrows that hopped about on them: a sparrow on the house-tops, that’s what I was myself.
‘Low-pitched, almost flat, the roofs reminded me of shallow pyramids or squat pagodas—Venice has many forms and contours that suggest the East. Red-brown and weather-stained, the tiles lay along them like strings of broken flower-pots, on which, when the sun came out, the lizards basked and darted. (It didn’t come out very much: June had set in wet.) Instead of pots or cowls, the chimney-stacks had roofs on them like tables. Crowning some of the roofs, and higher than the chimney pots, were the altanas, platforms where the washing was hung out; flimsy-looking structures whose posts and palings made a pattern on the sky like Chinese Chippendale. Some of them had small hut-like attachments, bonnets or hoods to keep the weather out. There was something new every time one looked, some new arrangement of lines and surfaces; all, or nearly all, brown-pink and grey, with here and there the vivid green of a creeper, or the top of a cypress nodding against a wall.
‘This view had the slightly hypnotic effect on me that an abstract or a cubist picture might have. It took me out of myself, but not, as you will easily believe, towards anyone else. Except for a woman shaking a duster from a window or hanging washing out on an altana, it was a roofscape without figures—a geometrical world.
‘Below the two windows of my sitting-room was a canal with a pavement—a fondamenta—bordering it. You could only see the pavement by leaning out of the window, it was so far below; but what a rewarding sight it was! Together the canal and the fondamenta made a stage on which the scenery didn’t vary much but the action was always changing. Though nothing sensational ever happened, something was always going to happen; and that something was heralded by shouts of warning or encouragement, advice or reproof: nothing that took place, or looked like taking place, escaped somebody’s comment.
‘It was a way of living by proxy, and it exactly suited me, in my limp convalescent state, to be a spectator of the spectators. I didn’t try to write, I just sat looking. Very often I didn’t even take the trouble to go to the windows: I could see from my chair a great deal—the houses opposite, the big acacia with its tufted top, sensitive to every air that blew, the terrace beside it, sometimes the scene of impassioned carpet-beating, sometimes of alfresco parties, the petunias in boxes along its balustrade, the luxuriant bignonia that dripped from it, and the scarcely less luxuriant wistaria that climbed in and out of the bignonia. It was mid-June; the bignonia was beginning to put out its scarlet tongues—an insult which I took in good part; the wistaria was blooming for the second time; their blossoms did not accord, yet there was something touching about their friendship: it was so intimate yet on so grand a scale.
‘Next came the great palazzo to which the terrace was a foot-stool—the Palazzo Trevisan. It differed in plan from most Venetian palaces in having two wings with a courtyard in between. The courtyard was also a garden in the Italian sense—that is to say it possessed trees, shrubs, creepers and a fountain; but no flowers to speak of. It looked dreary in the rain but on bright days when the sunshine lay heavy on the housetops it made a great patch of shade for which the eye was thankful; and I could imagine how cool it was beneath the trees. The garden had a water-gate let into the wall and a flight of stone steps, stained and seaweedy, that were submerged at high tide. But I never saw it opened. No gondola ever drew up at the steps; the gondolier’s anxious cry, warning his fare against the slippery surface—“Piano—si scivola!”—was never heard. Not that the steps were unused. Barche and sandole—nondescript boats of all work—were moored to them, and moored, too, to the tall blue posts with their gilded and coroneted summits that stood, slanting this way and that, like a forest in the water.
‘No one said them nay, no one told them to tie up elsewhere, for the noble family who owned the palace, and from whom it took its name, had long since left and now it was inhabited, so Giuseppina told me, by many families, some of whom were well to do, while some occupied tenements of no more than two rooms each. The palace had come down in the world. It was encased in pale grey stucco, and had the tall, round-headed windows of the late sixteenth century, each bordered by a thin band of Istrian stone; the balconies, the dripstones, the sham machicolations which held up the roof, were of the same material. The shutters were painted brown outside, but inside they were grey, a darker grey than the stucco, so that when they were open the palace was a symphony of shades from white to dark grey, and might, if it had looked smarter, have been compared to a fashionable elderly lady dressed for a garden-party; but it didn’t look smart—no building in Venice does.
‘Some of the occupants of the palace opened their shutters in the daytime, some left them ajar, some kept them closed; few kept them completely closed, for the front that faced me was the north front, and the sun only reached it in the evening. Venetians—perhaps all Italians—are very shutter-conscious. Facing south, my sitting-room got the full force of the sunshine, if there was any; whether there was or not, Giuseppina would come about midday and try to close my shutters, leaving me in darkness; otherwise, she said, the sun would fade the covers—she was very jealous of her mistress’s possessions. But I insisted on having them left a little open, for me to see out by; when this had been done, my flat and the palace opposite were like two people looking at each other through half-closed eyes.
‘When the sun had gone round I threw the shutters back and resumed my watch at the window. I must have sat for many hours of every day in this way, like a passenger in a railway train, not taking in any special feature of what I saw but passively enjoying the sense of sight.
‘Several days passed and then, one morning, Giuseppina brought me a letter.
‘I thought at once that it was a letter from Antonio, for there was no stamp on it, it had come by hand. But the handwriting told me it was not.
‘Giuseppina watched me open it. It was written in Italian in a very sloping hand, with spidery letters not easy to read. I have it here,’ my friend went on, and pulled out his pocket-book; but like a speaker who does not have to rely on his notes he read, or rather translated, without consulting it:
‘ “Egregio signore,—It is many days now that I have seen you looking from your window and it seems to me that always your eyes have been fixed on me.” ’
My friend looked up, and almost as though he were illustrating the letter, he raised his eyes to mine. Then he dropped them and went on:
‘ “Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think you do not look at me without interest. It would not be possible to gaze so long at one object unless the object had aroused one’s interest. And I, signore, am also interested in you. I know your face—ah, very well. I know—do not ask me how—that you are a foreigner. Ah! You would be surprised if you knew how much I know about you. Do not think it is because I am inquisitive. I cannot help knowing about you, any more than I can help knowing whether we have the sun or not. I ask only one thing, signore, do not leave Venice, do not leave me, without making a sign.” ’
My friend’s voice grew a little unsteady at this point, and he broke off.
‘How did she finish it?’ I asked. ‘Foreigners have such odd ways of ending letters.’
‘She didn’t finish it,’ he answered.
‘She didn’t even give her name?’
He shook his head.
‘But how could she expect you to make a sign when you didn’t know her name or her address?’
He suddenly became too agitated to answer.
‘But you know her name now?’ I persisted.
‘Yes, I know it now.’
After a moment or two my friend took up his tale.
‘I was furious at the letter and my first reflection was: Now I shall never be able to sit at the window again. You don’t know how essential it is for a writer, at least it is for me, to be able to be absolutely passive, well, not quite passive, but as unconscious of absorbing as the body when it breathes. You can’t do that with someone watching you, watching you in a particular way, I mean; speculating about you, wondering what you’re up to, trying to make contact through their eyes. I had enough of that from Giuseppina. She was always peeping at me. I would look up to see the door ajar, and half a face showing—to be followed at once by the entrance of its owner, looking disarmingly frank and innocent. It was bad enough to have this espionage indoors, but to have it from outside as well, a cross-fire, was really too much. I was seriously put out. You know how it is when one is nervous; the full force of one’s irritation concentrates on a single grievance. Then I realized that by shifting my chair to the other window I could still command a view—the view of the creeper-hung terrace—and be out of sight of the harpy in the palace.
‘She had asked me for a sign—well, now she had it.
‘I meant to tear the letter up, but, as you see, I didn’t. I kept it as one does sometimes keep things, to sharpen the edge of my annoyance. One’s nature demands a sensitive place—a soft spot, a sore spot—that will yield a thrill or a pang: at least mine does. As I had no soft spot at the moment, the sore spot did just as well. It reminded me of all the idle, inquisitive women who had from time to time plagued me unmercifully about my work, wasting my time as freely as if it was their own; and whenever I sat down at my new gazebo I felt I was giving them all a retrospective snub.
‘But habit is sometimes stronger than spite and one morning, without being aware of it, I found myself sitting in my old place. I jumped up, as if an enemy had caught me napping; but at the same moment a nerve of curiosity twitched and I became all eyes. Like eyes, the windows of the palace stared back at me, and I thought I detected in the depths of one which had its shutters ajar a sort of commotion, a confusion, a flurry, and then a movement of withdrawal, as if something long and slender and white—I thought of it as a white wand—had been pulled inwards. I’ve never been quite clear what did happen, but suddenly I felt ashamed of having scared a fellow-creature, and as if I was a sort of ogre, and my confidence in the justice of my feelings was shaken.’
‘Did you then lean out and wave?’ I asked.
‘Oh no, I bolted back to the other window, but I didn’t like the view from there so well. The yellow campanile of Santa Eufemia on the Giudecca looked like a water-tower, just as functional as the chimney-stack beside it. And I saw a lot of other things that I didn’t like, but they didn’t vanish just because I didn’t like them. They weren’t so accommodating as she was. All day long, through the narrow strait of blue sky between the acacia and the palace wall, the swifts came, dive-bombing and screaming. They had twice the lung-power of our English swifts and made a target of me. Involuntarily I ducked.—But I expect you are fond of birds?’
‘Not extravagantly,’ I said.
He gave me a sour smile.
‘Most English people are. Well, after a time and as I began to feel better and have fewer set-backs, my feelings about the unknown signorina—la signorina sconosciuta (for so I thought of her) underwent a change. It seemed quite natural and excusable that she should want to look at me—after all, a cat can look at a king. Convalescence creates an appetite for life: I began to lose my morbid dread of being stared at. And as for wanting me to make a sign, that was excusable in a woman, too. I hadn’t the smallest intention of making one, of course; but I liked to think of her thinking that I might. So I moved back to my old window and sat there rather self-consciously, with I dare say a complacent smile on my face, as if I was sitting for my portrait. And I used to scan the window in which I thought I had seen the white wand, or whatever it was, but I never saw it.
‘After that my routine existence began to irk me. Venice called me. I could no longer pretend I was an invalid; I wanted to join the chattering, clattering throng that drifts through the streets of Venice as sluggishly as the tide flows through its canals. Supposing I did run into Antonio, what matter? And I wanted to see my friends, my friends from whom I had been separated by years of war and my own bad habit of not writing.
‘I owed each of them a letter, some more than one; their letters, like Antonio’s had come by devious routes; they had arrived months, sometimes years, after they were written, they were blacked out and smudged, they told me as little of the sender’s present state as if they had been messages from the grave. And I hadn’t answered, partly from inertia, partly from lack of opportunity, but chiefly from a deeper feeling that with the war friendship had come to an end. In those days I was internationally-minded, and it seemed to me that the breakdown of international relationships meant the breakdown of individual relationships too. Peace is indivisible, as somebody said. I had friends in many countries, some of them countries, like Italy, with which we were at war. I could not hate them because the State ordered me to; but neither could I like them as I had liked them. For me the war dried up the springs of liking; the intercourse between souls seemed an activity as meaningless and out-of-date as the other activities I had enjoyed.
‘I don’t believe I was alone in this, Arthur, I believe that for many people the steady warmth of personal relationships perished in the burning heat of September 1939. Certainly with me it did; I felt I had nothing to give out or to take in and this arid state continued, more or less, until the accident of my Venetian convalescence altered it. I won’t say it has never come back.’
‘So that is the explanation,’ I broke in. ‘We all thought——’
‘No, that was it,’ he said, firmly pushing aside what we had all thought. ‘I felt as though the currency restrictions had—well—made all forms of communication impossible. The blight of political hatred was on everything. I’m not sure that it’s gone yet. I believe people still say to themselves, ‘I will really start to feel—for you, or you, or you—and my feeling will be worth something to us both—as soon as, as soon as—the hydrogen bomb is perfected, or this business in Korea is settled. Then I shall feel for you, and perhaps you will feel for me; but until then our feelings are provisional—we are trying them out—they don’t involve us or commit us—they are on appro. We might make a deal in them on the hire-purchase system, but the day of settlement is infinitely remote. Meanwhile, nothing really counts.” ’
‘I don’t think I feel like that,’ I said.
‘Don’t be too sure. Anyhow, one dismal afternoon,—I’d had a nap—under a blanket and an eiderdown, the day was so abominably cold—I started out to see my friends.
‘I had no telephone and couldn’t forewarn them: I had no one to send, and as for writing letters, I had suddenly become too impatient to wait for the answers. The need for friendship had come on me like a hunger.
‘I decided I would call on three—the three who had meant the most to me. They lived a long way apart, one at San Severo, one—oh, but it doesn’t matter where, it’s impossible to describe where any place is in Venice. They were each under the protection of a local saint, though they were not exactly saints themselves. If you think of Venice as a flat fish swimming towards the mainland, one of my friends lived on its tail, another half-way up the north side of its body, and the third somewhere near its eye. They lived, as I said, a long way apart, and though they saw each other fairly often, they didn’t like each other very much. In those days when I went in for personal relationships—when in fact they were almost my religion—I didn’t like to see any two of these friends, still less the three of them, on one day, because they were so critical of each other. I suppose all that sounds rather priggish to you?’
‘No,’ I said primly. ‘I think it does you credit.’
He shot me a suspicious glance. ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘I don’t mind now, of course. But in those days I didn’t like to hear one of my friends run down another, beyond a certain point, I mean, and despised myself for not taking the part of the absent one, or only taking it half-heartedly. Then, when I was with someone I was fond of, he or she was like a mirror to me: I don’t only mean that they reflected me myself, which was agreeable, but the other reflections seemed to me true, unflawed and perfect also: I saw the world in a frame—their frame—and I could live in it and accept it. My vision of them and theirs of me were one—or could become one, I believed, and that was what I aimed at: the merging into one focus of our reciprocal reflections—a sort of fusion. Well, each of my friends was quite willing to play this game with me and we had plenty of conversational material, unconnected with the others, to make our meetings fun. They were all cultivated people, who had spent most of their lives abroad; their outlook was at once cosmopolitan and parochial, and they had several languages at their command. They all had taste, too, in their houses. Though Lady Porteous’s house was by far the most beautiful, each of the three interiors had something that intimately satisfied and pleased me.
‘I did sometimes ask myself what I had to give them, that they should make me welcome, and supposed it was that, coming from London, I could feed them with gossip they might not have got otherwise. Like most expatriates, they were keenly interested in what went on at home. Lady Porteous and Denys Constantine were both great gossips; Miranda Collier wasn’t, she preferred to talk about a subject, but she too liked hearing the latest news. I had written a book or two, which gave me a certain status; and I have since thought that I took too much for granted the appreciation they showered on these callow works. I myself was so astonished at having produced them that I assumed too readily that others would share my wonderment—after all, writers are two a penny. Perhaps, being all people who might have written, but had not, they attached too much importance to the accident of literary creativeness. Come to that, their lives were a creation, for they made an art of living.
‘But it occurs to me now—I can see you’re going to laugh—that what I really had to offer was youth. Compared to them I was young. I was—but no matter how old I was. Their ages were carefully concealed, though always a matter for conjecture. (I rarely saw Denys Constantine without his telling me that Lady Porteous was nearer seventy than sixty.) Most of the colony were on the shady side of middle age, and they were glad to see someone who had the sun before him instead of at his back.
‘So it was as a young man that I started out on my sentimental journey that cold, wet, blustery day in June, and as a young man that I faced the prospect of the five-mile walk which I should have to accomplish if I was to carry out my programme. No gondola for me. Few gondoliers would have turned out on such a day. Antonio would have, but he wasn’t available.
‘I got to the Piazza in good order but then I stopped, for it was like a lake, a lake with islands and peninsulas made by the dips and rises in the pavement, which were imperceptible at normal times. On these a few daring pedestrians stood stranded. The arcade by Florian’s was above the flood-line, but so packed with people that one could hardly stir. In the distance, stretching across the façade of St. Mark’s, a flimsy wooden bridge had been put up, and across it two lines of people were moving in contrary directions—if moving be the word: no traffic jam was ever more complete. I looked round and as I did so a stranger smiled at me. After a moment’s hesitation I smiled back: he must, I thought, be some acquaintance from my Venetian past. Confusion spread over the man’s face and he began to explain:
‘ “You are like somebody I know—the Engineer Tremontin—I was to meet him here.”
‘I bowed and we both tried to cover up the awkwardness—he his disappointment, I my pique at being taken for someone else. All at once he smiled:
‘ “Ah ecco! Here he is!” and following his eye I saw a man whose resemblance to me I at once recognized. And yet, I thought, he can’t be really like me—he’s an old man—that white hair, that whitening moustache!—while I’m a young one—and I remembered my age, which, like my friends in Venice, I had taken to concealing, even from myself.
‘It has often happened to me to be mistaken for other men, but never before had my alter ego been almost simultaneously presented to my gaze, giving my vanity no chance to put a flattering interpretation on the likeness. Offence deepened into outrage; I looked with hatred at that Ancient of Days, my double. And the worst of it was we were jammed together in the crowd; and for several minutes, while we shoved or were being shoved towards the end of the arcade, I was forced to look at the greying stubble and the criss-cross wrinkles on the nape of his neck and wonder if mine had them too. Italians deserve their reputation for good manners, and from time to time the couple would turn their heads and made some civil remark, deprecating the crush; but I received these olive-branches so badly that they soon desisted. I was aware of a process of disacquaintance going on in me, which, to judge from their stiffened shoulders and reddening necks was also going on in them, and when we at last debouched it was, I’m sure, with a common hope that we should never, never, never meet again.’
‘You don’t look old,’ I said. ‘No one would ever take you for whatever age it is you are concealing.’ He looked sixty, or thereabouts.
He smiled and answered, ‘I’m not really vain, so it was specially annoying, at that moment, to have to admit I was.
‘My way lay to the left of St. Mark’s, through the Canonica; but to get there I should have to cross the trestle bridge, where progress was visibly slower than it had been even in the arcade. I couldn’t face the sardine tin again, so I picked my way along the high ground of the Piazzetta towards the two columns and the Bacino. It was rather fun, I remember, like walking on a sandbank with the sea coming in both sides. The sea was dark green and white, the gondolas rode madly up and down between their posts, there was, distinct from all the other storm sounds, that unnerving creaking that wood makes scraping against wood; and all along the Molo, almost up to the arches of the Ducal Palace, there was a jagged line of seaweed and orange peel and other vegetable and marine matter, the detritus of the storm. The seashore in Venice! And in contrast to all this untidiness and uproar was a strange Claude-like feature which enchanted me; for where the sea was actually invading the stone floor of Venice, it came not in angry foam-flecked swirls but in tiny level ripples, which advanced with the utmost gentleness at intervals so regular that in the distance they looked like the steps of a staircase—a shallow staircase leading to the sea.
‘Bludgeoned by the blast, I fought my way along the riva, meaning to strike inland when an opening offered—one of them, I knew, would lead to San Severe The insult to my appearance was losing its smart, and I was wondering how I could make a story of it; it would make a good story to celebrate a reunion with an old friend. Not Denys perhaps; his hair was white and his moustache whitening when I last saw him. Nor Miranda; she would not miss the point, but she would not quite see how it affected me, she would generalize and philosophize about it, and perhaps start some theory of doppelgängers. But Lady Porteous—how she would enjoy the malign little episode! How perfectly its malice would accord with hers! She would equally enjoy laughing with me and laughing at me; and from among her inexhaustible annals she would find a much better anecdote to cap it with.
‘I almost wished I had put her first on my itinerary instead of leaving her, like a bonne bouche, till last.
‘Well, I reached my first destination and I reached my second, and was told at each that the person I had come to see had left Italy before the war broke out and never come back. I could have seen them any day in England during the last ten years, but I could not see them in Venice.’
My friend sighed and I sighed with him. Being a happily married man I did not subscribe to his gospel of multiple personal relationships: it seemed to me a pis aller—l was content with one. But I knew how much it meant, or had meant, to him, and perhaps I should have felt still sorrier for him if I also had not been one of his rejects, and had been banished for twelve years, not ten.
‘One has a different self for every friend,’ he was saying. ‘That is their most precious gift to one—a new self. The boredom of being always the same person! I had condemned myself to it all those years—and yet it was not I, it was the war which somehow upset the balance of my feelings, offering them food they would not accept—rationed food, too—and then making what they would once have accepted, unacceptable. A’s name, B’s name, your name, meant as little to me as a column of strange names in the telephone book. I can’t tell you how blighting it was: it’s not much better now.
‘Where was I? Oh, yes, under the statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, one of the two great equestrian statues of the world. Was there friendship in it? There was not. There was pride, and insolence, and success, and glory; the glory of war and conquest: every quality the statue had, except the quality of art, repudiated every quality I valued. I nearly turned back; but then I remembered Lady Porteous and the extraordinary power that she had, and that her house had, of imposing their standards on one. They were not standards I would be altogether prepared to defend; they were worldly, they were snobbish, they were based on exclusiveness.
‘Do you want me to go on?’ he asked, suddenly and resentfully. ‘I suppose you know what’s coming?’
‘I’ve not the faintest idea,’ I said.
‘Well, what Lady Porteous had—what even her husband Sir Hilary, the light-weight satellite who circled round her, had—was the gift of imparting her own sense of superiority. She made one a present of it—her wealth, her cleverness, her taste, her ability to see everyone as stuck at various levels lower than her own, struggling to reach hers, and failing. Humour was her weapon; she knew something about everyone that made them slightly absurd; the most august figures of our acquaintance, the most feared and revered figures in the world outside—Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin—seemed figures of fun when Caroline Porteous had done with them. There was a story, which I did not believe, that Mussolini had once called on her and had not been received. She obviously liked the story, would not altogether deny it, but she was too clever to authenticate it. Her version was that it was a muddle on the part of the servants, who were so overcome by the visitor’s identity that when they announced him to her they got his name wrong. She would have admitted him, I’m sure. But “No Admittance” was her watchword. How ignoble, you will say, but it wasn’t altogether, for along with much which hadn’t the polish or the glitter to get in, she kept out a lot of things that were better kept out. She had a sort of moral shrewdness, though she was apt to relax her standards in favour of those whom she ironically termed “the great”. Anyhow she had never kept me out, or only once or twice, and suddenly I felt an intense longing for her immense blue drawing-room. You could say it looked out on to the garden and the lagoon; but it would be truer to say that the garden and the lagoon looked into it—they had too much personality, they had sat too often for their portraits, by Guardi and others, to be merely landscapes. She was a little jealous of them, these illustrious outsiders (she would have thought it bourgeois not to be jealous) and didn’t like one looking at them too much.
‘ “What am I here for?” she would ask, plaintively, if one stared out of the window. But she was also proud of them, and if one didn’t look, and kept one’s eyes in the boat, so to speak, she would grow restive and say: “You’ve not looked at the garden. But then you’re not interested in gardens.” One never quite knew where one was with her.
‘How invulnerable she was, or seemed to be! And as one sat, listening to her unpredictable malice, which always had the note of collusion in it, one was almost aware of the subject’s accessories strewn about the floor, as in a picture by Velasquez: the shield, the breastplate, the gauntlets—all the apparatus of defence. And as one by one the idols were thrown down, by hints at this or that little weakness, laughable and belittling, so, piece by piece, one put on the whole armour—not of righteousness, for Lady Porteous was too mundane to clothe herself in that—but of ridicule, which in some circumstances is a defence hardly less strong. I always left her feeling twice the man I was, for she had established the fallibility of mankind on such a firm foundation that with her one could laugh at anything, even at death itself. Indeed, I remember once writing an imaginary dialogue in which Death called at Lady Porteous’s palazzo and was told he could not be received as he lacked the necessary social qualifications—he was in fact too common. So, snubbed, he turned away, leaving her immortal. I used to wonder whether I could show her this, for in certain moods she enjoyed a joke against herself, though she preferred that she should tell it.
‘But I found that in my absence he had called, and had not been turned away; indeed, he had called twice and of the two it was the frail Sir Hilary who had put up the stiffer fight. The joke had been turned against Lady Porteous at last.
‘And it had been turned against me, for I had boasted, not quite truthfully, that she was always at home to me. Perhaps her spirit enjoyed the joke, for she never liked one to call without having rung up first. “I might be out if you didn’t ring up,” she threatened. But Death hadn’t been civil enough to make an appointment with her: she died of a stroke, I was told.
‘I left the palace to its alien occupants,’ my friend said, ‘and got home somehow, feeling half the man I was. I hadn’t counted on the weakening effect of my illness, and the long walk, punctuated by disappointments, was too much for me. I seemed to see “No Admittance” written on every door I passed. Closed doors, closed shutters, iron grilles, cats grimacing at me from behind the grilles: Venice on a wet day is barred like a fortress. I took to my bed again and was too much discouraged to write to my other friends who, in any case, didn’t conjure up the real meaning of the word. But the expedition had created in me a hunger which I couldn’t assuage. The idea of death haunted me as it sometimes does in Venice: the churches, the bells, the beauty, the overwhelming vitality of the people: all this insistence on what the senses can give one, on life: if one cannot accept it, what remains but its opposite, death? In Northern countries there are so many degrees of living: one can turn life down, like a gas-fire, and live by its dull glow: but Italy is a land of contrasts, not of half-tones. I felt that time was pressing and I had a legacy to give someone: myself.
‘For my second convalescence I returned to my first window and when I looked out it wasn’t in the spirit of a railway passenger, finding something in everything, pleased with just seeing: I had a particular object in view. Only the object was not in view. The palace had twenty-seven windows visible from my flat: it was not exactly opposite, it stood at a slight angle and the windows on the nearer side of the deep courtyard were hidden from me. Those I could see, and from which I could be seen, were of many shapes and sizes, some as tall as a modest-sized house, some squat and longitudinal. I scanned them all, and from time to time I would get up and lean out of my window and wave; and then, dazzled by the glare outside, turn back blinking into what seemed the darkness of my own room. But there was never an answering gesture.
‘My month in Venice was running out and I had nothing to show for it. I had scarcely written a word. I had been ill and got better, I had been ill and got better, and I had made one expedition into Venice; otherwise my existence had been as pointless and unfruitful as the Lady of Shalott’s, and far less decorative: you could not have made a poem out of it, you could not have made anything. All I had to show was the money I had ear-marked for Antonio’s wages. On this I could live beyond the time-limit I had prescribed for myself. It was the fruit—the very tangible fruit—of my quarrel with Antonio, and as such had a bitter taste. A sense of utter futility and failure possessed me. It was both personal and moral. Moral for the feeling of time wasted that haunts every unproductive artist: that I was used to. And personally I was a failure: I hadn’t made any contacts. I was used to that, too. But I was not so used to the idea of having let myself down by letting someone else down. La signorina sconosciuta who had found my appearance so interesting and who was so sure that I was interested in her: yielding to a small, spiteful impulse, I had snubbed her, I had rebuffed her, I had taken the line that my privacy was sacrosanct, I had behaved as if a chorus of admirers was egging me on.
‘I had treated her as a nuisance, not as a human being, with feelings to be wounded or consoled.
‘How brutal I had been, in my self-sufficiency, brushing her aside! Just because, in my life, a certain good fortune had attended me, I felt I could afford to treat her letter as an un-welcome item in a fan-mail.
‘How good it was of her, I now thought, to single me out for her attention, how good of her to stay in Venice and wait for me, instead of going away, as Denys and Miranda had, or dying, as Lady Porteous had! In all this great city of Venice, which I had once known so well, she was the only human being left who seemed to care for me, and she was a stranger! She possessed the precious, the sacred gift of sympathy! She had pretended to know something about me, but what could she know? The truth was she had felt the impulse to communicate, and she had acted on it, at whatever cost to pride.
‘My visits to the window grew so frequent that in the end I had to ration them to one per quarter of an hour; but I made up for this self-denying ordinance by waving so frantically when I did go that passers-by might well have thought me mad.
‘Several days went by like this, and then the second letter came. Shall I read it to you?’ my friend asked. ‘No, you won’t want to hear it, and in any case it’s unpardonable, undressing myself like this in front of you, and undressing——No, it isn’t decent. You should have stopped me long ago. I can’t think why you let me go on.’
He was quite ready to be angry with me.
‘Yes, please read it,’ I said.
He took out his pocket-book but didn’t open it.
‘I could just give you the gist of it,’ he said, eyeing me doubtfully.
‘No, let me hear it.’
He cleared his throat and read rather loudly, in a voice that was quite unlike his own:
‘ “Carissimo,—At first I thought that you were angry with me, for what I had written, and then I saw your signals, and knew that you were not. But now you will be really angry for I must say no, no, no. I should never have written to you—it was madness. What possessed me I cannot think: it was something plus fort que moi. I have regretted it ever since: I have shed the bitterest tears. Do not think about me, do not ask about me, above all do not try to find me. But no, think about me a little, as someone who wishes you well but must be forever unknown to you.” ’
Without looking at me my friend replaced the letter in his note-case and the note-case in his pocket; and for a moment hardly seemed to know where he was. He made one or two false starts and then said, ‘I asked Giuseppina who had brought the letter. She said she did not know; she had found it in the letter-box. She managed to suggest I had reproached her, both with knowing and not knowing; she was a past-master of reproach.
‘ “But can’t you think of anybody?” I said stupidly.
‘ “But signore, there are so many people in Venice!”
‘I got into an odd state of mind,’ my friend went on. ‘I didn’t lean out of the window any more: I didn’t even look out: if an atom bomb had fallen into the canal I shouldn’t have noticed. My sole occupation was trying to imagine who my correspondent could be, and why she had behaved as she had. That she was beautiful I took for granted: I never doubted it for a moment. Her beauty grew on me with every hour. She was blonde, sumptuous, voluptuous, Venetian, a Veronese figure. And why had she said we must not meet? My mind gave me a dozen answers to that question. She was of too high degree, she was of too low degree, she was ashamed of having made her feelings known to a stranger. For a time—for a few hours—for a few minutes—some one solution would satisfy me; then its plausibility would evaporate, and I would discard it and adopt another.
‘Need I say that I had fallen in love with her? Perhaps I must, for you know me well enough to know that I had never been in love with anyone before. How different friendship is—a matter of adjustments, of balancing this with that, of alternating self-assertion and self-sacrifice—but all conducted under the rules—the more or less reasonable rules—of affection. Friendship fits into one’s conception of life; with me, before the war, it was my conception of life—it was the pattern of my picture. It had no rivals: I did not care about money, or position, or even present or posthumous fame, so long as I could feel about me the fabric of friendship protecting me equally against the heat and cold of life, its dangers, boredoms, even its sorrows, protecting me, some people would say—I suppose you would say—against life itself.
‘Whereas love! Do you think life can contain love, Arthur? Come to terms with it, I mean? I don’t, I think the two are deadly enemies. But I needn’t tell you, no doubt you know better than I do, what love does. I don’t mean love that has declined into friendship,’ he went on scornfully, ‘but the love that is a virus, a fever, an attack. Love keeps out friendship; it is a parasite, and drains life of its juices. Love keeps out friendship, or if friendship is there first, it ousts it like a cuckoo; how often has one seen it happen! And friendship, with any luck, keeps out love. But I was friendless, I had renounced friendship; and then, when I would have taken it back, friendship had renounced me. My heart was swept and garnished, and destitute of defenders: that was how love got in.
‘But I didn’t feel that way at the time. I don’t mean that I didn’t feel tormented, for I did. But the torment was part of the growing together, the fusion of all my faculties which I had so carefully kept separate, to meet, as far as I could, the diverse demands of life. Only so, I thought, could old age be made tolerable—by cultivating one’s responses to the variety of life. Since the war I had neglected this exercise; I had felt the arteries of my mind harden, and been glad of it. For what was the use of trying to keep oneself up to a certain level of—what shall I say? general civilization, when the very people who were most vociferous in defending it were the first to abandon it—had to be, for, if not actually fighting, on them fell all the most decivilizing jobs—of waiting with empty minds and hands for something to happen, or of giving themselves up to some routine employment which an office-boy could have done as well. And feeding their minds with news—news, a quick mental pick-me-up, but how much food is there in it, I ask you, how many vitamins?
‘Well, I see you disagree with me but I don’t mind, not as I should have minded then. Then it was the only thing I minded, being disagreed with: and the less there was of me, the further I could contract into myself, the less there was to feel the pains of disagreement. I didn’t feel much, I thought I had ceased to feel at all.
‘But I hadn’t, and feeling being new to me I felt much more. My feelings were blissful, for I believed my love to be returned; I never doubted that, indeed my love sprang out of it. And never, even when I was most tormented by the thought that it was all no use, that nothing could come of it, that it was like a cheque for a fortune that lacked the drawer’s signature, I never felt any bitterness, none. Remorse and regret in plenty: for I told myself a hundred times a day that if only I had responded to her overture in the first place—before this dreadful second thought had taken hold of her mind—then all would have been well. We should have been together, we should have been whatever she wanted us to be; and—and my life would have had a meaning and a value that I never dreamed of for it. The belief that this meaning and this value were within my grasp gave me an exultation even while the thought of losing them tormented me. It didn’t make me resentful that, like other lovers before me, I was plagued by the question of ways and means. The difficulty was like a challenge to me. Now that I knew my signals from the window would not be answered, I tried to think of other methods of getting in touch with her. It didn’t occur to me, I’m afraid, to respect her prohibition: in fact the prohibition made me all the more eager: I assumed it was unreasonable, I regarded it simply as one more obstacle to be overcome.
‘I could not expect any more help from the windows; they were blind eyes that did not see, or if they saw I could not read their expression. For my purposes the many-windowed façade of the palace, ranged around its deep, dividing chasm, might have been a blank wall, and as at a blank wall I looked at it, when I did look at it.
‘I was up against a blank wall: how could I penetrate it? Suddenly it occurred to me, and I cursed myself for not thinking of it before, that the palace had a door as well as windows, a door through which, at one time or another, each of its occupants must go in and out. The door must be on the other side; it must open on the Zattere.
‘I can never remember how well you know Venice, Arthur, but the Zattere is a mile-long promenade, with bridges and cafés and all the rest of it, that stretches from the Dogana to the south-west corner of Venice. It faces a great curved sheet of water as wide as the Thames at London Bridge. It gets all the sun there is, and all the moon there is, and all the air there is, and is thronged with people at all hours of the day and most hours of the night. Besides those who are going somewhere on business, there are always crowds of loungers, the licensed loiterers of all Italian towns: and these I joined. I took my stand opposite the great door, and when I was tired of standing there were stone benches to sit on, and round bollards, sturdy mushrooms of stone polished to a honey-coloured smoothness, which were not so comfortable, being convex, but had the advantage that on them one could swivel round in any direction. There I sat, sometimes literally for hours, watching the door as, at very irregular intervals, it opened and shut. Of those who came out I got a full front view; how unaware they seemed of being watched! Those who went in I could not see so well, because, having rung, they turned their backs on me and waited for the electric latch to buzz (I could sometimes hear it) and set the door ajar; then they pushed it and went in. But these I had longer to study, I could learn something of them by the way they waited, impatiently or patiently. And sometimes, as a change from sitting or standing, I would go up to the door myself, casually, as though struck by a sudden whim, and when someone opened it I would peep inside at the immense, murky entrata, with its cross-beams, its marbled stucco flaking from the walls, its solemn doorways crowned by architraves, and, far in the distance, the glimmer of light through the iron grille that opened on the garden and the fountain. To the right was the archway of the great staircase, the main artery of the palace; people went up it and came down it, and I marvelled at their unconcern.
‘Sometimes the portinaia—the door-keeper—from her eyrie on the left, or her husband, or one of her children, would challenge the entrant, who would then answer something I could not catch: these, I supposed, were strangers to her. Those who went in without having their business asked were the habitués, the tenants, and these I gradually got to know.
‘And also I got to know that none of them was she; for her I should have recognized instantly, I had as little doubt of that as I had that she would recognize me. And when she recognizes me she will not be able to help betraying it, I thought.
‘Hope was so buoyant in me that for several days my failure to find the object of my search only made me more hopeful; I felt, illogically, that the odds against me were being exhausted, and it was a mathematical certainty that I should be successful. Only patience was needed, and I was unconscious of the need, for hope has no need of patience. But gradually it was borne in on me that the sands were running out, my days in Venice were numbered, and I might have to leave without accomplishing what I had come to think of as the aim and object not only of my visit but of my life.
‘I tried to consider my predicament impartially, and relate it to the canons and requirements of ordinary, rational living; and then I began to suffer in earnest, for fantasy in the grip of facts is like a fly caught in the toils of a spider. I could not bring myself to go back on the promise I had made myself; it seemed like blasphemy against myself, as if I was requiring myself to deny my own existence. In vain, as a discipline, I tried to concentrate on what I was doing at the moment, to do things deliberately, and at set times, to make a ceremony of lighting a cigarette, to be critically conscious of the taste of food and wine, to remind myself, when walking, that I was putting one foot in front of another. Many such exercises in realism I went through, yet they had no reality for me—my only reality was in some room in the Palazzo Trevisan which I had begun to think I should never see.
‘You know the Zattere and how it faces the long crescent of the Giudecca, with the canal in between as wide as the Thames at London Bridge and much deeper—but I told you all that. I’m getting old, I repeat myself—no, you needn’t deny it, Arthur, it’s the truth and I hope I’m not too old to recognize the truth. It’s a wonderful view but I always turned my back on it, the palace interested me so much more.
‘Well, one evening when I had gone out to keep my vigil, about six o’clock I think it was (I usually spent the two hours to dinner-time thus occupied) I was sitting on my stone seat staring at the palace when Antonio came by. My eyes recognized him but for a moment my mind didn’t—he had become an absolute stranger to my thoughts. Then, my whole being welcomed him, I scarcely remembered what had come between us, and for a moment, so potent was his presence in bringing back the past, I could hardly associate myself with the ghost I had turned into—it seemed a dream.
‘He was striding along between the brightly-coloured nurse-maids and their charges, and I jumped up with hand outstretched, meaning to cross his path. But he looked right through me, and if I hadn’t swerved I believe he would have walked right through me, as if I had been indeed a ghost.
‘Shaken, I sat down again, and for several moments I couldn’t even think, I could only feel contrary tides of emotion sweeping over me. Then I saw that I was facing outwards, looking at the Giudecca, not at the palace, and I knew that whatever my mind might tell me, something more instinctive than my mind had given up hope.
‘It was a heavy day threatening thunder, like so many June days in Venice; and in the thick, white sirocco sunlight the colours of the houses on the Giudecca—grey, yellow, terracotta, pink—seemed to merge and lose their proper qualities in a uniform lack of tone; and what stood out was the fenestration, the whitish oblongs and truncated ovals of the windows, monotonously repeated. Except for a dreadful travesty of Gothic, three enormous eyelets beyond the Redentore, scarcely a single pointed arch could I see.
‘I suddenly felt a respect for the five factory chimneys, and I looked with indulgence, almost with affection, on the great bulk of Stucky’s flour mill, battlemented, pinnacled, turreted, machicolated, a monument to the taste of 1870, that might have been built out of a child’s box of bricks. A romantic intention had reared it, and left behind something that was solid and substantial and a benefit to mankind.
‘I am short-sighted, and as my eye travelled backward from the mill, I saw something which I had taken to be a line of fishing boats moored in front of the houses opposite. But now I saw that it was not masts, and spars and rigging that was veiling the houses from me, it was scaffolding; I couldn’t see the houses, but behind the scaffolding they were there all right, waiting to be repaired, to be cured of whatever sickness they were suffering from; it was just a cloud of invisibility, a temporary eclipse, and it would pass. Only let the workmen get on with their job—don’t take them off for one of your European wars, Arthur—and the houses would be as good as ever. I don’t know why, but this discovery put fresh heart in me; and the uprush of confidence brought an idea with it, as it so often does.
‘I jumped off the seat and crossed over to the palace with as much determination as if it had been a fortress I was going to take by storm, and rang the bell as if I had every right to ring it. With the angry buzz of a trapped hornet the door opened, and I was inside. A sigh of fulfilment escaped me, as if something I had long been waiting for at last had come to pass. But where now? Which way? Which of the four staircases should I take? While I was debating a voice slanted down at me, like a shaft of sunlight piercing the shadow in a picture: “Chi xè?” it rasped. Who was I, what did I want? I could not answer either of those questions, I could not even consider them as questions, only as obstacles to my progress. I waved and shouted something, but it did not satisfy the caretaker: she came waddling down her private staircase, almost touching each side, so fat was she. She advanced across the damp flagstones of the entrata and barred my way. “Chi xè?” she asked again and this time I found a kind of answer.
‘ “Cerco una signorina!” I exclaimed. “I am looking for a young lady!”
‘It wasn’t really an answer, and it wouldn’t have gone down in England: but in Italy it did.
‘ “Va bene!” she said, and my mind rather than my eye took note of her disappearance, as if she hadn’t been a woman but a difficulty to be disposed of. Something seemed to guide my footsteps as I dashed up the main staircase: the steps were dirty under the grey and white stucco of the rounded ceiling, and sweating, as I was, from the sirocco. Almost before I was aware of it I had cannoned out into the great sala: I pulled up short on the slippery terrazzo like a schoolboy breaking off a slide. After the gloom of the entrata, the tall windows at either end made the gallery unexpectedly light. A row of doors faced me: I chose the middle one and rang the bell. A man appeared in his shirt sleeves, flanked by two small children who stared up at me with their fingers in their mouths.
‘ “What do you want?” he asked.
‘ “Cerco una signorina,” I replied.
‘He smiled, not altogether pleasantly. “But there are so many young ladies,” he said. “What is her name?”
‘ “I don’t know,” I confessed. “She knows me, but I don’t know her.”
‘ “What does she look like?” he asked. “Is she dark or fair?”
‘Again I had to say I didn’t know, and a sense of the hopelessness of my quest began to steal over me: I felt how silly, and, above all, how unromantic I must look, at my age, looking for a young lady whom I didn’t know.
‘ “But you would recognize her if you saw her?” the man asked.
‘Again I had to say no; and then I had the presence of mind to add “But she would recognize me!”
‘He nodded sagely, as if this was a situation that might easily arise and one which, as a man of the world, and a man of heart, he understood. Excusing himself, he turned away and called to someone inside the flat. A woman came out—his wife, I suppose; she was thin-faced and dark and wore long ear-rings. While he was explaining my quest to her I was again overwhelmed by a conviction of its hopelessness; yet she did not seem to share it; she kept looking at me with quick, measuring eyes as if she was trying to guess, from my appearance, the sort of person I should be interested in.
‘ “There are a score of signorinas living in the palace,” she said to me; “would yours be young or old?”
‘I stared; it had never occurred to me that a signorina could be old; but of course she could, the word only implied unmarried, and I was old; it was a natural question.
‘ “No, young, young,” I cried, “I am sure she is young.”
‘The woman smiled and hesitated.
‘ “Proviamo!” she said. “Let us try!”
‘Fascinated, I watched her ring the bell of the flat next to hers; the door opened, there were explanations, then a girl came out with her, a pretty girl of eighteen or so, who shyly looked me up and down, and then shook her head. Four or five times, at neighbouring doors, the process was repeated; once the couple drew a blank; once they came out with three signorinas all of whom politely looked as if they would have liked to recognize me if they could. Between each identity parade my hopes soared, only to be dashed again.
‘All at once I realized it was over; no more signorinas were forthcoming; my well-wishers had exhausted their stock of suspects; now it was for me to prosecute my search, and they sincerely hoped I should be successful. I stood a moment encircled by their smiles, and then with Latin realism and acceptance of failure, the smiles were turned off and I found myself alone.
‘Twilight was falling. It was thickest where I stood; I might have been in the middle of a tunnel, with a glimmer of violet light at either, end. My excitement had evaporated and the shadow of defeat, which is also the shadow of reality, began to mingle with the other shadows. Again, which way? At which end of the tunnel should I begin? Then I remembered, and was amazed at myself for having been so dense: it was the end that overlooked my flat that I must explore: the inspecting signorinas had come from the middle of the palace, which had no view of mine.
‘With this realization my hopes revived. Looking through the four-arched window I could see my own: for once Giuseppina had not closed the shutters and I had the fancy that I could see myself, looking out, looking at something I didn’t know was there, something I had created without knowing it, as the burning-glass knows nothing of the fire it starts.
‘A puff of heat enveloped me, and all at once the sala, enormous as it was, seemed airless. How often, in Venice, the sirocco dies away at sunset just when it is most needed, making the nights seem hotter than the days. I did not remember this, but the sweat burst out on my forehead, and I felt my shirt sticking to my back. But it wasn’t only my body trying to throw off something that oppressed it, it was my mind, trying to shake off the riding, driving impulse which possessed it, and which had begun to create, in the near distance of my mental landscape, a tract that wavered and trembled and did not, as painters say, explain itself—an agitation of moving shapes of light and dark, a tangle of branches in a high wind, with sometimes a flash of white among them, like a peeled stick tossed to and fro. You know Velasquez’ picture of the Spinners?—well, it was as if the tapestry in the background of that picture had come to life and all its intricate design was wavering tremulously upwards. I was conscious of reality, like a pillar on each side of me, framing my view, but my thoughts were joined to that unstable centre where the vegetable flames were leaping, where nothing was clearly made out save the fact of flux.
Resist it as I would, I felt myself being sucked into this disturbance and soon my feet were moving in time with it rather than in answer to my own control—so that it was without really knowing what I was doing or even where I was that I rang first at one door and then at another, asking questions that I scarcely understood, though their urgency and intensity seemed to shake me, and receiving answers whose purport I gathered from the tone and gestures which accompanied them, not from the words themselves. Without knowing how, I found myself on other floors which might have been in another building, so different were they from the sala I had left: where the ceilings were low, the windows square or squat, where the whole plan of the palace had been be-devilled by party walls, divisions ply-wood thin, ingenious devices to wrest from the once noble simplicity of the great structure its last inch of living room.
‘Up and down I went, by staircases broad and narrow, and I must have crossed the sala again, though I don’t remember doing that, when I found another entry, another staircase and yet another range of doors.
‘By this time I had lost all shyness or self-consciousness: I rang, I waited, I put my question with the impersonal authority of someone asking for help; only vaguely did I register the fact that these doors were better kept and that a different type of person answered them.
‘The last door bell was answered by a maid: she stood in the doorway unsmiling and suspicious. She had a pinched face, hard eyes, and hair drawn tightly back.
‘ “C’è una signorina,” I began. “There is a young lady——”
‘ “Si,” she said, “yes”—and it was like the crack of a whip. “Ma la signorina non riceve nessuno”—“The young lady receives no one.”
‘ “Receives no one?” I gasped, and something told me that I had come to the end of my quest. “She receives no one!” I repeated. “Are you sure?”
‘"No one,” the maid answered stubbornly, “proprio nessuno”—“no one at all.”
‘She was shutting the door on me when I cried:
‘ “But I have an appointment with her!”
‘ “How can you have an appointment with her?” the maid said scornfully. “I tell you she sees no one, only her family, and, and . . .” She stopped.
‘ “And who?” I demanded.
‘But she had already changed her mind about telling me, and shook her head saying, “Non importa—it doesn’t matter—it’s not you.”
‘At that the pillars of reality seemed to dissolve, and framed in the doorway was not the maid keeping me out, or the wall of the passage behind her, but the green trees undulating upwards in golden light, a jungle in which forms had no time to harden into matter; and before the vision could be taken from me I pushed on into it, past the maid, through the door, down the passage whose terminal window faced my own, to where, on the left, another door stood open and the scent of flowers met me as I went through—met me and strengthened, and then I saw the flowers and the waving stems: they were banked up inside the open window, almost hiding it, keeping out the view, the view of me, keeping out what remained of the light, or I should have seen, much sooner than I did see, for the shadows of the leaves were playing on it and there was no other movement—the bed and the face on the pillow.’
My friend stopped and passed his hand across his face, whether to keep his mind’s eye clear for its inner vision or to brush the vision aside I could not tell: and then, perhaps with the same intention, whichever it was, he closed and unclosed his eyes.
‘Is that all?’ I asked at length.
‘No, it isn’t all,’ he said. ‘How kind of you to have listened to me for so long, Arthur! It isn’t all, but it’s all that I feel I can tell—not because the rest’s too private, though it is private, but because I can’t—oh well—externalize it. What happened before, belonged to me; what happened afterwards, belonged to us: it was shared, that was the point of it. You can’t say much about sharing, can you? Not to convey its meaning?’
I agreed.
‘I suppose that’s what I had been wanting all along,’ he went on, ‘to share something, and I did, we did—when I say I, I mean we. It all boiled down to that. I suppose I could tell you, but do you want to hear? Isn’t there something rather putting off . . . unattractive . . . in the spectacle of somebody’s meaning so much to someone else? Isn’t it rather like watching a dog with a bone? You can tolerate it perhaps, but you can’t like it. Besides . . .’
‘Yes?’ I prompted him.
‘Well, I’ve never told anyone. I never meant to tell anyone. But when I’ve got as far as this, I might as well go on. But you will think badly of me. I’m sure you will. You think badly of me already.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘Why do you keep imputing to me feelings I don’t have?’
He frowned at my smile. ‘Yes, but you will. Anyone would, and I couldn’t bear that. Because at the time it seemed . . . well, perfect is a weak word for it. We haven’t seen each other of late years, you and I, but you know enough of me and I’ve told you enough to know what small hopes I’ve ever had of obtaining perfection in my own experience. And it’s the same with me now—a confirmed mental habit is so much stronger than the exception that breaks it. When I look back on that time, it’s as if I was a plain-dweller—old and’—he looked at me and flushed—‘and well, decrepit, looking up at a snow-capped mountain which he can hardly believe that he once climbed.’
‘All the more credit to him for having climbed it once,’ I said. ‘He should be proud of that.’
My friend shook his head.
‘I told you of my fancy of the archway, didn’t I?’ he said, ‘and of the indeterminate springing greenness in between where there were no facts but just the raw material of facts, the inchoate substance of experience before it becomes one’s own, well, in her room it was always there—the symbol and the thing itself, you see what I mean? Afterwards she used to have it dismantled so that we could see each other across the canal; but when I came back she would have it rearranged so that there was no need of blinds, but they don’t go in for blinds in Venice—or shutters or anything to keep us to ourselves.’
‘So you didn’t leave Venice?’ I said. You stayed on?’
‘Yes, that was one of the facts,’ he said, ‘that at the time seemed so unimportant—I hardly remember how I arranged it. I had Antonio’s money, you see. But in her room, there were no facts beside ourselves, everything was beginning, and it began afresh each time I saw her—for her as well as me, I know that, because we said to each other everything we’d been wanting to say all our lives. She was much younger than I was, but that didn’t seem a fact, either. I don’t speak Italian well, but do you know I was never once at a loss for a word—and I said things that I couldn’t ever have said in English. I expect that was part of the enchantment: in another language I was another person.’
‘But isn’t all this rather lovely to look back on?’ I said. ‘It sounds as if it must be. So why——?’
‘Yes,’ he interrupted me, his brow clouding again, ‘it is, in a way because in memory I can go back, but only sometimes, only as just, now, when I feel a sympathy outside myself that helps me—it’s never come from a human being before—then I can remember what I want to remember, without the rest.
‘In July the weather got much hotter—we were quite light-headed sometimes—yet I never felt the heat oppressive, never an enemy. I don’t think I could have conceived the idea of an enemy in all that time.’
‘Was there one?’ I asked.
‘Well, yes there was, Adele, the maid. Perhaps I ought not to call her an enemy: she only acted according to her lights. But she was jealous of me, or she wouldn’t have done what she did, or not the way she did it. I couldn’t have told: those Italian peasant women are so secret: she seemed only to want our happiness. How much that depended on her contriving, I never knew: I took it all for granted; my unobserved entrances and exits, and the untroubled hours between. I think I was quite a favourite with the portinaia of the palace: she always greeted me with a smile. She may have guessed why I came so often: perhaps any Italian would have guessed. But there were so many people going to and fro in the entrata and on the staircases, I seldom saw the same face twice. But I never looked much. The moment I was inside the building one thought possessed me. You know how wonderful that can be, Arthur, it’s the only thing that matters, so long as it’s the right thought. Everything else is a kind of stationariness that one shares with chairs and tables, the sense of being a fixture, imprisoned in oneself, never to alter, never to escape from the mould in which one has been cast. But then I had the freedom of a myriad existences, every day a change, a new growth, a new flower, like the plants in the window. And it wasn’t egotism, for I have never felt less self-sufficient; indeed, I was so dependent on the thought of her that if it had been taken away I think I should have literally fallen over.’
‘What was she like?’ I asked. ‘You haven’t told me.’
My friend glanced at me and away again.
‘I couldn’t describe her, you know,’ he said, ‘feature by feature. She was Venice’s reward to me, but she wasn’t typically Venetian. Venetian women are golden and pink and brown and inclined to be plump when they are young: obvious beauties. They are out in the sun so much, they soak it up. Myself I never cared much for . . . for amplitude, or even for warm colours. I like the Alps, you know, with the snow coming down to the pine-forests. And a sailing ship, when you can see the spars and the rigging. Not all sail set, that’s too oncoming and voluminous for my taste. There’s a kind of opulence that’s rather vulgar, I think: well, she didn’t have it. Her colouring was Northern, though her hair was very dark, nearly black. She had a Gothic fragility and fineness, like a saint from Burgundy or Chartres that had somehow strayed into Venice, though of course there is Gothic in Venice. You remember what Vernon Lee said of Venice, that it was difficult to “isolate the enough”, because of all the claims on one’s attention. Well, it wasn’t so with her. I never felt, with her, that round the corner there might be someone like her. A greeny light filtered into her room, a forest light—just enough to throw a shadow. Too much light hurt her eyes. And yet the room never seemed dark, there was so much white in it. I thought of it as a grove of silver birches. The walls were nearly white, the furniture was white, the muslin on the dressing-table was white, the bed-cover was white, and she . . .’ he hesitated. ‘She was a little pale.’
‘And the white wand,’ I asked, ‘that you thought you saw tossed about among the green? Did you ever find out what that was? Was it an enchanter’s wand?’
He took a long breath and said with difficulty:
‘I think it may have been her arm. She was rather thin, you see.’
After a pause, I said:
‘I understand the need for secrecy, and I can understand how it gave . . . at least how it didn’t take away from the zest of the affair.’
An expression of distaste crossed my friend’s face but I did not regret what I had said. Most of the lovers I have known have thought there was something sacrosanct about their relationship and the word ‘affair’ was too common to describe it.
‘But,’ I went on, ‘didn’t you get tired of meeting always in the same room? And wasn’t it even a little risky? I mean, I don’t know Venice well, but I should have thought it offered quite a number of retreats for clandestine couples—all those arches, and doorways, and dark entries.’
‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘it does. There are those places, and one seldom passes them, at night, without seeing a couple whispering in them. We often used to talk about Venice—of course she knew it much better than I did. And we went everywhere, you know, to—to the restaurants, and the churches and the islands. And we made expeditions to the mainland too, to Malcontenta and Maser and Asolo and Aquileia—all those places. We lingered a long time at the great gateway in the garden of Valsanzibio that looks towards Padua—the only place I know where the reality is equal to one’s memory and expectations of it. Wherever we went, she was the genius loci; she knew just what to look for and how to feel and what to say. Oh, she was a wonderful guide and there was no fear, going with her, that the churches or the picture galleries would be shut, or that it would be raining; she knew the right day and the right time to choose. I have travelled a lot, as you know, but I’ve never travelled with anyone as far as I did with her never so far afield, never so far from my own base, so to speak.’
‘But did you really go about like this?’ I asked him. ‘I somehow thought——’ Suddenly I wondered if he had imagined the whole thing. He looked at me oddly and the light died from his face.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We didn’t. It wasn’t real, that part. You see, she was a cripple. She’d had an illness, and she was a cripple.’
I cannot say how painfully, how disagreeably, this disclosure affected me. It was almost as if he had told me he had been in love with a skeleton. And I was angry with myself for not having foreseen it—for it, or something like it, was implicit in everything my friend had told me. I was angry because I had been taken in, angry because he had warned me I should be angry, angry with myself for being angry. I didn’t know what to say, or where or how to look; I did not try to meet his eye.
To my intense relief he did not seem to notice my confusion, and went on:
‘But the rest was real, the one real thing in my life. If only I had foreseen what was coming! If only I had given Adele, straight away, the tip that I meant to give her at the end! Only I didn’t foresee an end. The time-factor had ceased to exist for me; I felt I should stay in Venice all my life. Perhaps Adele felt that too; perhaps she saw the prospect of her tip receding into the dateless future. Afterwards, she was full of excuses She said she never knew him come at that hour. She said he——’
‘Who?’ I asked.
My friend stared at me as though he couldn’t believe I didn’t know. ‘The doctor. She said he found the flat door open and just walked in. But she contradicted herself, she gave herself away, for she also said she was alarmed for her mistress’s state, thereby admitting she had told the doctor. It was all such nonsense! Every time she saw me——’
‘Every time who saw you?’ I interrupted. ‘The maid, or . . . or . . . You haven’t told me her name.’
‘I couldn’t,’ he answered. ‘At least, I’d rather not. Fate has some power over a name. But she . . . she said that never in her life had she felt so well. Life-giver was one of her names for me: she had so many!’
My friend bent his outraged, protesting gaze on mine, but I looked away, I could not meet his eye: he did not look at all life-giving then. ‘And I could tell, too: I’m not a fool, am I?’ he went on. ‘Didn’t I look at her with a doctor’s eye, as well as with a lover’s? I couldn’t have been mistaken. I noticed every little change, and they were all changes towards health. How could it have been otherwise, when we were drawing all this glory down on us? How could all the other elements have united for her benefit, and one not? I said so to the doctor, once we were out of ear-shot. “You are a physician,” I said, “don’t you know that a patient’s surest road to recovery is happiness? Do you deny,” I said, “that she is happy, now, as she has never been happy before?”
‘But he wouldn’t listen to me; he kept on saying he would allow us one more meeting: “un solo incontro, un solo incontro”. Then I got angry and asked him by what right he was depriving us of this blessing? We walked up and down the vestibule between the Victorian and Edwardian ladies and gentlemen whose coloured photographs hung on the walls. He became as agitated as I was, and poured out a flood of medical terms of which I understood very little. The shock alone, he said, might have killed her. I was still trembling from the shock myself, the irruption into our birch-grove of this alien figure, parting the branches, with the heat and dust and hurry of the streets still on him, holding his professional bag of tricks, wearing, until he saw us, his professional air of wary optimism. It might have been worse, it might have been much worse; but it was bad enough—the secret not only out, but you might say, exploding round us, and the sudden necessity we were under for the first time, to speak, almost to explain ourselves, to a third person.
‘ “I must go back to her,” said the doctor, glancing impatiently at the closed door behind us; but he wouldn’t hear of my going back, not then.
‘ “To-morrow if she is well enough, to-morrow, and for the last time.
My friend paused. All this time with his face and his voice he had been dramatizing his interview with the doctor: first he was one, then the other.
‘I can’t pretend he underestimated what the separation would mean to us,’ he said, ‘he spoke with a gravity which made it seem more than ever final. “And supposing she doesn’t consent?” I asked him. “Then you must make her,” he said. “You must plead with her, for her sake, and yours too, to give up this suicidal folly. Do you want to kill her?”
‘ “Do you want to kill her?” I retorted.
‘We had our last meeting. I won’t say anything about it—it was in almost every way so unlike the others that it hardly counted. You see, they were all outside time, but, in this one, Time was so present he might have been standing over us with his scythe and hour-glass. The moment of real parting came much earlier, the doctor brought it in his bag, like a prescription. It took us unawares, like sudden death. Afterwards we were like ghosts, planning our reunion beyond the grave. I remember that even her voice sounded different. It had been ours, just as a song belongs to the listener as much as to the singer, but it became hers, a lovely voice expressing what she thought, but not what we thought, another person’s voice. I believe we even argued a little about how soon she would be well enough, etc., and whether she shouldn’t consult another doctor. I remember the long pauses, when we were thinking what to say, better than what we said. There had been no pauses before, only the sort of pauses that there are in music, leading up to the next theme. It seemed extraordinary that the world outside should be more real than the world contained in this room. We were only going to be as we had been before we met, it was no worse than that; and yet it seemed to both of us that such an existence, the existence we had known before, would be unbearable. Almost deliberately I tried to keep my thoughts away from hers, there was a refuge in egoism, for to think of her pain doubled mine. So I sat by her bedside as correct as a doctor, as unimplicated as a district visitor; and the love duet, without which no opera is complete, instead of swooning itself away in long, heart-broken phrases, grew more and more tense and staccato and inconsecutive with the things we had to say to keep silence at bay, but hated saying, until somehow I got myself out of the room, and out of the flat, and out of the palace, on to the Zattere where the heat blasted me, but it would have been the same if it had been freezing—I couldn’t have recognized myself in any environment.’
My friend stopped as abruptly as if his memories had come up against a concrete obstacle. I was still uncomfortably aware of seeing the whole thing at an angle different from his, and of withholding some of the sympathy I should have liked to give; and all I could think of to say was:
‘So she agreed to the parting?’
‘Yes,’ he answered listlessly, ‘she agreed to it. In a way, she decreed it, for I should never have consented. But she was not herself that day.’
‘No?’ I said.
‘No. It was the shock, of course, the mortal shock of the . . . discovery and then the strain of those last hours. She reproached herself a good deal . . . for having written to me. That was all nonsense. I could see she was not herself. But how could you expect her to be? I wasn’t, either.’ He added, with an effort: ‘She had to take her tablets.’
‘Had she never taken them before?’ I asked.
‘Never in my presence, I swear. They were for emergencies, you see. She kept them by her bed, in a tortoiseshell box. But the maid said she had taken them quite often, between times, and that was one reason why she was alarmed. I didn’t and don’t believe it.’
‘You saw the maid again?’
‘Oh yes, I saw her every day. I went—to ask, you know, and in case the . . . ban should be lifted. I couldn’t keep away. And I wanted to make up to the maid for what I had left undone. But, do you know, I couldn’t induce her to take it. She changed towards me completely, and was as grim as she had been on the first day. She wouldn’t let me come any further than the door. She said she wished she’d never let me in.’
‘Did you see the doctor again?’ I asked.
My friend hesitated.
‘Yes, but only once. He didn’t want to see me, in fact he refused. I didn’t know his name, so I couldn’t go to his house, and the maid wouldn’t tell me the hours when he made his visits. But I knew he came every day, so once more I kept watch outside the palace and caught him as he came in, about midday, it must have been.’
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
‘Oh, the same technical stuff about her illness, and that she wasn’t so well, and he was anxious about her, and would I kindly keep away, and so on. I waited till he came out again, a long time, but he wouldn’t speak to me, he just shook his head and hurried off.’
‘How unkind,’ I commented.
‘Yes, wasn’t it? And I came to have a hatred for the place, for Venice, I mean, so in the end it wasn’t so difficult to leave. I gave my address in England to the maid, and begged her to write to me as often as she could, since she said her mistress wasn’t allowed to; but I only got one letter.’
‘What did it say?’
‘Oh, it was stuffed with lies.’
‘What sort of lies?’
‘Oh, ridiculous accusations against me, and against the English generally, and Sanctions, and the war, and how badly England had always treated Italy, and how we had won the war and were worse off than before, and she was thankful for that, and a lot more in the same vein.’
‘But what did she accuse you of?’ I asked.
‘Oh, she said I had broken into the house like a burglar, and had been very wicked, and thought only of myself, and I wouldn’t go away, and I ought to have been prosecuted, and the doctor had said this and that, and everyone agreed with him.’
‘You could afford to disregard all that,’ I remarked.
‘Of course. And that the whole thing had been too much for her, and that she only went through with it because I forced her to, and that she would have sent me away only she was sorry for me, but it went on too long and that was why she died.’
‘She died?’
‘Yes, she died. That was the one fact in all that string of falsehoods.’ He lowered his eyes and his voice. ‘But I know one thing. It wasn’t being with me that killed her—it was being without me. She died of a broken heart.’
He was silent for a time and then said:
‘You agree with me, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Because if I thought otherwise, I couldn’t, I really couldn’t——She died because I was taken away from her. You see that, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ I repeated.
‘I don’t value my life very much, and if I thought there was a word of truth in that letter, except the one fact of her death, well, I should want to kill myself. But there wasn’t. You would agree there wasn’t?’
‘Of course,’ I repeated.
‘You are quite sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Will you say it again?’
‘I’m sure there wasn’t a word of truth in it,’ I pronounced firmly. He sighed.
‘Thank you, thank you, Arthur. What a good friend you are!’
The tears were running down his face. I could not leave him like that, late as it was; I stayed with him and tried to comfort him, and it was not, until he had disagreed with me several times that I felt that I could, without unkindness, leave him to himself.
‘Uncle Tim, Uncle Tim!’ There was no escaping the voice. Uncle Tim hoisted himself out of his chair and limped towards the window. It still looked a long way off when the cry began again; close to, this time. ‘Coming!’ called Uncle Tim, but it made no difference; the mournful importunate anapaests followed each other without a break. ‘Uncle Tim, Uncle Tim!’ It was like a weary goods train climbing an incline. Uncle Tim threw open the window and leaned out.
‘Yes, Rupert?’
‘Oh, Uncle Tim,’ said the child, and stopped, as though hypnotized by his own incantation.
‘Well, Rupert?’
‘I want an apple,’ announced Rupert, with an air of detachment, and as though fetching his thoughts from afar. He proceeded with quick gasps. ‘I want you to get me one. They’re right up on the tree. Silly old tree!’
‘Why is the tree silly?’ asked Uncle Tim. He tried to speak indulgently, but a shadow of annoyance crossed his face.
‘Because I can’t get the apples,’ answered Rupert, his voice growing shrill. ‘Do come, Uncle Tim, please. I did say please.’
Uncle Tim was moving away when Rupert called him back.
‘Uncle Tim! Come through the window, it’s ever so much quicker. I must have the apples . . . I want them. I’ve wanted them ever since breakfast!’
‘I’m afraid I’m not an acrobat,’ said Uncle Tim.
‘You’re always thinking about your silly old leg,’ argued Rupert. ‘Mummy says so. It won’t hurt you.’
‘I’m not going to give it a chance,’ said Uncle Tim, and he definitely withdrew.
Rupert was standing by the apple tree when his uncle arrived, leaning against it with one hand as though to introduce it to its despoiler. Around him on the grass lay instruments of assault, stones, sticks, toy bricks, even a doll that belonged to his little sister. There was a horrible gaping hole in its brilliant cheek, and its dress wanted smoothing down. Overhead the apples gleamed in the morning sunlight, each with a kind of halo, intolerably bright.
Uncle Tim steadied himself against the lichen-coated trunk and shook it. The rigid trunk gave a little and vibrated with a strong shudder, as though in pain; the apples tossed, noiselessly knocking each other in frantic mirth. But not one fell. Flushed with his effort, Uncle Tim turned and saw Rupert, his face parallel with the sky, staring into the branches with a bemused expression.
‘Why, they’re not ripe,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘They won’t be ripe for a month.’
Rupert’s jaw dropped and his face crinkled like a pond when a breeze crosses it.
‘Don’t cry, Rupert,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘In a month’s time you’ll have heaps; you won’t know what to do with them, there’ll be so many.’
‘I shan’t want them then,’ said Rupert. ‘I want them now.’ He burst into tears.
The passing of thirty years had made a difference to the apple tree; even by the light of the candles Uncle Tim noticed that. There were five candles: four on the bridge-table and one on the improvised sideboard that held, rather precariously, the glasses and decanters. The tree seemed to have shrunk. Some of its lower boughs were dead; its plumpness was gone; its attitude was set and strained; its bark less adhesive. Even its leaves were sparse and small. But Rupert had bloomed. Not into a passion-flower, exactly, thought Uncle Tim, pausing just beyond the reach of the candle-light. The September night was dark, and very warm and still; the unwinking flames irradiated dully the great orb of Rupert’s face. It glowed like tarnished copper and seemed of one colour with his lips, as his features shared their generous contours. His head lolled on the back of a basket-chair whose cushioned rim creaked beneath its weight; but his half-closed eyes, independent of those movements, never left his partner. She was playing the hand, but at times her jewelled fingers came abruptly across, twitching her fur with a gesture always provisional, always repeated. Suddenly she stopped.
‘Four,’ said Rupert. ‘That’s the rubber.’
Uncle Tim came out of the shadow.
‘Isn’t it very damp?’ he said. ‘And rather late? It’s nearly three.’
Rupert was adding up the score and nobody spoke. At last Rupert said, ‘I make it twelve hundred. Anybody got anything different?’
No one challenged the score.
‘How do you feel about another?’ Rupert asked, still ignoring Uncle Tim.
The man on Rupert’s left found his voice.
‘It depends what you mean by another. Another whisky, yes.’
‘Help yourself,’ said Rupert, ‘and get me one too. It’s Crème de Menthe for you, Birdie?’
‘I don’t mind,’ said the lady so addressed.
During the pause that followed Rupert lit a cigar with great deliberation.
‘Well, who’s for going on?’ he asked. Again there was a silence, broken finally by the other woman. She spoke in a tone that sounded extraordinarily cool and sweet.
‘I think your uncle would like us to go in.’
‘Oh, him,’ said Rupert, rising heavily from his chair. ‘He has such Vic—Victorian ideas. Haven’t you, Uncle Tim?’
‘I don’t want to influence you,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘I only thought you mightn’t have noticed how late it was.’
‘Yes, it is late, deuced late,’ Rupert drawled, refilling his glass. ‘That’s what I like about it. Whisky, Uncle Tim? Drown your sorrows.’ He held the glass out with an unsteady hand. Meanwhile all the players had risen.
‘I want to go to bye-bye,’ said the other man.
‘Put me in my little bed,’ carolled Birdie, and they laughed.
Everyone blew out a candle except Rupert, who could not extinguish his, and finally knocked it on to the ground where it continued to burn until smothered by his foot. The sudden darkness was confusing. Even Uncle Tim felt it; but Rupert lost his balance and fell heavily against the trunk of the apple tree. It seemed as though all the fruit had ripened simultaneously. It thudded softly on the turf, pattered sharply on the card-table, and crashed among the glasses. Uncle Tim struck a match to ascertain the damage. It was negligible. The fruit was lying all round in pre-Raphaelite profusion. Rupert recovered himself.
‘Apples!’ he cried. ‘Look at those bloody apples!’ He stooped to pick one up, but his stomach revolted from it and, clutching the tree, he tossed it, wounded by his teeth, away into the darkness.
The match went out.
‘What about these things?’ called Uncle Tim, who could not keep pace with the others. It was beginning to rain. ‘Shall I leave them, Rupert?’ There was no answer.
It could not have been long after midnight when I found myself awake, and so thoroughly awake, too. I did not feel the misty withdrawal or the drowsy approaches of sleep. I had apparently been reasoning, for some seconds, with admirable lucidity on the practical question: how had I come to wake up? The night was still. The ridiculous acorn-shaped appendage to the blind-cord no longer flapped in its eddying elliptical movement. And what of that odious bluebottle fly? Doubtless it had crept into some corner, a fold in the valance, perhaps. I could not believe it was asleep. It might be scratching itself with one foot, in the way flies have; a curious gesture that seems to imply a kind of equivocal familiarity with oneself—an insulting salute, a greeting one couldn’t possibly acknowledge. Flies have a flair for putrefaction; what had brought this one to my bedside, what strange prescience had inspired its sharp, virulent rushes and brought that note of deadly exultation into its buzz? It had been all I could do to keep the creature off my face. Now it was biding its time, but my ears were apprehensive for the renewal of its message of mortality, its monotonous memento mori. That spray of virginia creeper, too, had apparently given up its desultory, stealthy, importunate attack upon the window. Perhaps it had annoyed the window-cleaner, and he, realizing the trouble it gave, had cut it off and dropped it to lie withering on the grass. I seemed to see its shrivelled, upturned leaves, its pathetic, strained curve of a creature that curls up to die. . . . Surely this was not particularly sensible. A thought came to me suddenly.
It must have been someone knocking. My small sister slept in the next room. I remembered her parting words, uttered in a voice that was half appeal, half command: ‘Now, if I dream I’m being murdered I shall knock on the wall, and I shall expect you to come.’ Of course, I reflected with uneasy amusement, my sister always had a lot to say at bedtime. It was a recognized device; it gained time; it gave an effect of stately deliberation to her departure. It was, in fact, the exercise of a natural right. One could not be packed off to bed in the middle of a sentence. One would linger over embraces, one would adopt attitudes and poses too rich and noble for irreverent interruption. One would drift into conversations and display a sudden interest. . . .
Tap—tap—tap—tap.
As I thought. Now what had put this silly idea into my sister’s head? It was absurd that a child should dream of being murdered. It would not occur to her that there were such dreams. But perhaps someone had suggested it—a servant whose mind was brimful of horrors. I myself had mentioned a dream of my own. Well, it was nothing. Still it had something about a murder in it. Otherwise I suppose I shouldn’t have thought it worth telling. Dreams seem so stupid to other people, so flat, so precisely the commonplace thing that wouldn’t invade a first-rate imagination. Surely it is a privilege to be let into the secret of another person’s dreams? And yet one recalls the despair, hurriedly transformed into a look of conventional interest, that greets confessions of this kind. But an elder brother’s dreams are not to be dismissed lightly. Perhaps I had embroidered mine a little.
Tap—tap—tap.
If I went in, what, after all, could I do? Fears are intangible things, but they distort the features. It must be curious to see people looking very much frightened. Would their eyes bulge, their fingers twitch, their mouths be twisted into some unmeaning expression? As a general proposition it would be quite amusing. But to see one’s sister in that deplorable condition! She would probably be in bed, clutching the sheet, peering over the edge like one of Bluebeard’s wives; or perhaps chewing it, the first symptom of feeble-mindedness! Very likely, though, she would be huddled up under the bedclothes, a formless lump that I should be tempted to smack! But there are people who shrink from covering their heads, lest someone should come and hold down the bedclothes and stifle them. It is not very pleasant to think of such a person bending over you. . . . Perhaps the child wouldn’t be in bed; she would have to get out to knock. At first I might not see her at all; she might be crouching behind some piece of furniture, or even hidden in the wardrobe with her head among the hooks. I should have to strike a match. How often they go out; you throw them on the carpet, and the smouldering head burns a little hole. How funny: if she were lying at my feet, I might drop several matches on her and never notice till she screamed.
Tap—tap.
It was much feebler that time. Better after all not to go in. It would create a sort of precedent, and one could not set up as a professional smoother of pillows. Besides, children grow out of this sort of thing much more quickly if left to themselves. Of course, I should not tell my sister I had heard her knocking; she might mistake my reason for not going to the rescue, and think I had somehow left her in the lurch. That would be absurd, for in spite of the cold I would get out this minute, slip on my dressing-gown, and say, ‘There, there, everything’s all right, it’s only a dream!’ Perhaps when my sister grew up I would tell her that I stayed away intentionally, feeling it was better for her to fight her battles alone; we had all gone through it. Everyone keeps a few such explanations up his sleeve; age mellows them, and there is a kind of pleasure in telling a story against oneself. For the present it was to remain my little secret. For my sister knew, or would know now at any rate, that I was a heavy sleeper; and if she referred to the matter at breakfast I would use a little pious dissimulation—children are so easily put off. Probably she would be ashamed to mention it. After all it wasn’t my fault; I couldn’t direct people’s dreams; at her age, too, I slept like a top. Dreaming about murders . . . not very nice in a child. I would have to talk to her alone about it some time.
Minutes passed, and the knocking was not renewed. I turned over. The bed was comfortable enough, but I felt I should sleep sounder if my sister changed her room. This, after all, could easily be arranged.
‘Is Sir Sigismund Keen at home?’
I will just go and see, sir,’ replied the man, opening a door on the left-hand side of the hall. ‘What name shall I say?’
‘Amber—Mr. Amber.’
Mr. Amber strayed into the waiting-room and sat down in the middle of an almost interminable sofa. On either hand it stretched away, a sombre crimson expanse figured with rather large fleurs-de-lys and flanked by two tight bolsters that matched the sofa, and each other. The room had heavy Oriental hangings, indian-red, and gilt French chairs, upholstered in pink. ‘A mixture of incompatibles,’ thought Mr. Amber, ‘is contrary to the traditional usages of pharmacy, but in practice it may sometimes be not inadmissible.’ His mind was sensitive to its environment. Framed in the table-top and table-legs was an anthracite stove, black and uninviting, this July Afternoon, as the gate of hell with the fire put out. Still the man did not come. Mr. Amber murmured against the formality of distinguished physicians. The appointment was a week old, it was Sir Sigismund’s business to be at home; he had crossed the hall before Mr. Amber’s eyes, and yet the servant must ‘go and see’! Like a jealous landlord, fearful lest people should establish a common of pasture on his experience, the doctor kept up this figment of a kind of contingent existence. Mr. Amber was considering this problem when the footman appeared.
‘Sir Sigismund is sorry, sir, but no appointment appears to have been made in your name. Sir Sigismund is to see a Mr. Coral at five o’clock.’
Mr. Amber changed colour.
‘I made the appointment over the telephone, didn’t I?’
‘I don’t know how it was made,’ said the footman, who had moved to the front door and was holding it tightly as though it might escape.
Mr. Amber took a pace forward towards the street; then checked himself and said with a great effort: ‘I think, I am sure, that I must be Mr. Coral.’
The footman stared. ‘But you gave the name of Amber just now, sir.’
Suddenly the situation seemed easier to Mr. Amber. ‘But they’re both so much alike!’ He was too much engrossed in his solution to see the slight change that came over the footman’s manner.
‘Oh yes, sir. Though coral is pink.’
‘That’s true,’ replied Mr. Amber, restored to a quiet dignity. ‘But if you think, they are both connected with the sea, they are both a substitute for jewels worn by people who would prefer to wear pearls—and, and the telephone is so confusing,’ concluded Mr. Amber. ‘I’m sure you find that if you have occasion to use it yourself
Satisfied to all appearances by this explanation, the footman disappeared, and Mr. Amber was presently ushered into Sir Sigismund’s consulting-room.
‘Take a chair, Mr.—er—Amber, is it?’ said the doctor. ‘It’s not often I have the pleasure of meeting gentlemen with alternative names. But my friend the Superintendent of Police tells me they’re not uncommon in the neighbourhood of Scotland Yard.’
Though Sir Sigismund’s manner was reassuring, Mr. Amber declined the proffered chair and seated himself, as near the door as possible, on a towering sculptured edifice, the last in an ornamental series.
‘I hope you don’t think I’m a criminal, Sir Sigismund,’ he began earnestly, ‘or a lunatic. I should be sorry if I had given your servant that impression; he seemed such a nice man. It’s the case with many people, isn’t it, that the telephone confuses them and makes them say what they don’t mean. I’m not unusual in that respect, am I?’
‘Unusual, yes,’ put in the doctor. ‘Not, of course, unique!’
Mr. Amber looked troubled. ‘Well, anyhow, not unique. But it wasn’t about my aphasia—no, not aphasia, absent-mindedness’ (he sought the doctor’s eye for approval of this emendation, and the latter nodded) ‘that I wanted to ask your advice, Sir Sigismund. It was about something else.’
Mr. Amber hesitated.
‘Yes?’ said Sir Sigismund Keen.
‘I’m afraid you’ll think me frivolous, seeming and looking as well as I do, to consult you on such a trifling matter. With your experience, I expect you only like attending cases that are almost desperate, cases of life and death?’
‘Doctors are not undertakers,’ replied Sir Sigismund. ‘Let me assure you, Mr. Amber, that if only from a pecuniary point of view, I like to be in well before the death. My patients often recover. I’m sure I hope you will.’
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Amber, a little scared, ‘it’s not a question of recovery, not in that sense, so much as of establishing the health. I don’t look ill, do I?’
‘I can’t see very well,’ said the doctor. ‘Won’t you come a little nearer, Mr. Amber? This is a more comfortable chair, and it must tire you to talk from a distance.’
Mr. Amber, aware that his naturally confidential voice had to be raised rather ludicrously to make itself heard across the room, complied. He sat down nervously on the edge of the chair.
‘Now,’ said Sir Sigismund, ‘tell me about yourself.’
‘About myself?’ echoed Mr. Amber, looking hopelessly round the room.
‘Yes, yourself’ said Sir Sigismund energetically, ‘and your symptoms.’
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Amber, on firm ground at last, ‘I haven’t any symptoms. I’m only a little run down. All I want is a tonic.’
‘A tonic!’ The idea seemed as unfamiliar to Sir Sigismund as the notion of his own personality had appeared strange to Mr. Amber.
‘There,’ said Mr. Amber in a melancholy tone, ‘I was afraid you’d think me frivolous.’
Sir Sigismund recovered himself. ‘No, not frivolous, Mr. Amber, anything but that. Your request is a very reasonable and sensible one. Only, you see, there are so many different tonics, suitable for different conditions in the patient. There is a type of man, I might say a figure of a man, for whom cod-liver oil would be less beneficial than, say, Parrish’s Food.’
‘Byno-Hypophosphites,’ Mr. Amber corrected.
Sir Sigismund bowed.
‘I’ve tried that,’ said Mr. Amber. ‘It didn’t seem to do me any good; neither did Easton’s Syrup, though there is said to be poison in it.’
There was a pause.
‘I thought you would be able to recommend me something better,’ said Mr. Amber at last, rather lamely.
‘But you give me so little to go on!’ cried Sir Sigismund, exasperated by his patient’s marches and counter-marches. ‘Better for what? On your own showing you are highly strung; if you want me to prescribe for your nerves, I shouldn’t recommend a tonic but a sedative, bromide, perhaps.’
‘Bromide!’ repeated Mr. Amber, awestruck. ‘Isn’t that a drug?’ The doctor suppressed an exclamation.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘I haven’t tried drugs,’ said Mr. Amber reflectively. ‘If I had a drug by me when an attack came on——’
‘Tell me about your attacks,’ said the doctor. ‘You feel faint, perhaps?’
‘Oh, no, not faint,’ Mr. Amber protested. ‘I feel giddy and ill, you know, and the room goes round; and then if I can, I lie down; or when I’m outside I sit on a doorstep; and if I have time I drink some brandy——’
‘How do you mean,’ said Sir Sigismund, ‘if you have time?’
‘Well,’ said Mr. Amber reluctantly, ‘sometimes there isn’t time.’
‘You mean, before you f——’
‘Oh, no, I don’t faint. Everything goes dim and dark, but it’s all over in a minute. If I fainted, there might be something wrong with my heart, and that would be serious and—and interfere with my work perhaps.’
‘But surely your attacks interfere with your work as it is?’ the doctor asked.
‘Only at odd times,’ said Mr. Amber, ‘If my heart was affected I should have to stay in bed like my Aunt Edith; she was my last relation left in the world, and she was bedridden for years.’
Sir Sigismund Keen fingered the stethoscope that lay on the table by his hand. But seeing a look of apprehension on his patient’s face he let it drop and said tentatively, ‘I could examine you quite easily without this.’
Alarm made Mr. Amber voluble.
‘I’ve no doubt you could, Sir Sigismund. To a specialist of your standing the inventions of science must seem merely figureheads.’ Anxiety to convey his sense of Sir Sigismund’s superiority to ordinary practitioners almost choked Mr. Amber’s utterance, and he went on more slowly. ‘That’s why I came to you. I knew you would be able to tell at a glance what . . . what kind of tonic would be best for me.’
Sir Sigismund did not raise his eyes from the blotting-paper on which he was scribbling.
‘Yes, I can tell something.’
Mr. Amber’s face showed a momentary discouragement; but he said with a forced cheerfulness: ‘But it isn’t anything serious, is it? Whereas if I had called in Dr. Wormwood, my own doctor, he would have insisted on examining me and then it would have been revealed’ (Mr. Amber’s voice dropped at the word) ‘that I had angina pectoris and perhaps even pericarditis and hypertrophy as well.’
Sir Sigismund rose.
‘I can assure you, Mr. Amber, that a medical examination doesn’t necessarily reveal the presence of any of those disorders; and cases of the three being found together would be, to say the least, extremely rare.’ He continued very kindly: ‘You worry too much about yourself. You are——’
‘A hypochondriac,’ interposed Mr. Amber eagerly.
‘Well, no, I wouldn’t say that,’ said the doctor. ‘But it is evident from your unusual familiarity with medical terms and your—your apt use of them, that you have been uneasy about your health. Indeed, you told me so yourself.’
‘I read about diseases for pleasure!’ said Mr. Amber simply. ‘But of course it is hard when you have so many of the symptoms, not to feel that you must have at any rate one or two of the diseases.’
Sir Sigismund Keen squared his shoulders against the chimney-piece.
‘That is exactly my point. If I gave you my word of honour that you weren’t such an exceptional victim of misfortune it would reassure you, wouldn’t it?’
Mr. Amber admitted that it would.
‘But before I can do that I’m afraid I must examine you.’ It was Sir Sigismund’s last word.
‘No!’ cried Mr. Amber, rising rather shakily to his feet. ‘Why should I submit to such an indignity? I won’t be examined, and take my clothes off in this icy room when I am so susceptible to chills!’ His technical vocabulary hadn’t deserted him, but, swaying slightly, he went on in a more conciliatory tone: ‘You couldn’t possibly want to examine me, Sir Sigismund! I am an uninteresting specimen; they told me so when I was passed for a sedentary occupation into the Army. They said I was a miserable specimen, too. They said I wasn’t the sort of man you would want to look at twice.’ Memories of Mr. Amber’s dead life seemed to rush to the surface. ‘And for all you say, I know you would tell me that I’m very ill, perhaps dying lingeringly! Though it would be worse to die suddenly.’ Mr. Amber’s voice dropped and he steadied himself by the arm of the chair. ‘I only came to ask you for a tonic; surely that’s a simple thing. A good strong tonic. I wouldn’t have minded taking it, even if it had disagreed with me at first! But you doctors are all alike; you will pry into the body of a perfectly uninteresting person, you will have your money’s worth! You shan’t be disappointed, Sir Sigismund. I’m not a rich man, but I can afford to pay your fee.’ Mr. Amber fumbled desperately in his pockets, bringing up a strange medley of possessions and dropping them on the floor; but the effort had been too much for him and he had lost the support of the chair. Sir Sigismund caught him as he was falling and lifted him on to a sofa. Mr. Amber lay quite still. Sir Sigismund undid his collar which was fastened with a patent stud and, as he came round, conducted the examination which Mr. Amber, in his waking senses, had so passionately withstood.
Sir Sigismund Keen was writing at his desk when the dark dust thinned away from before Mr. Amber’s eyes. He asked if he might have another cushion, and Sir Sigismund arranged it under his head.
‘That’s better,’ said the patient. ‘I must have had one of my attacks.’
As Sir Sigismund continued to write, Mr. Amber slid weakly off the sofa and tottered across the room to the doctor’s side.
‘Are you making out a prescription for me?’ he asked in a subdued voice.
Sir Sigismund nodded.
‘Is it a tonic?’ he inquired timidly.
‘It will have a certain tonic effect,’ Sir Sigismund answered guardedly.
‘I’m sorry I made such a scene just now—you must have thought me very badly brought up,’ Mr. Amber murmured, altogether crestfallen.
Sir Sigismund described a semi-circle with his head in order to lick an envelope. ‘No, Mr. Amber; your reluctance to be examined was entirely understandable.’
‘Then I am very ill?’ asked Mr. Amber. The tenseness of his earlier manner had disappeared and he seemed happier.
‘I have written to Dr. Wormwood about you,’ replied the doctor. ‘His address appears to be 19A, St. Mary’s Buildings, Studdert Street, West.’
‘West fourteen,’ said Mr. Amber.
‘West fourteen. I’m afraid your heart is affected, and you will have to take considerable care—great care. You must go to bed as soon as you get home. . . . Oh, never mind, Mr. Amber; you can send me a cheque.’
‘A cheque?’ said Mr. Amber doubtfully.
‘It will be one guinea, then. Thank you.
As the door closed on Mr. Amber, Sir Sigismund rang the bell. A nurse appeared.
‘Nurse, I should be glad if you would see Mr. Amber to his home.’
‘Yes, Sir Sigismund. Shall I inform the relatives?’
‘You had better ask him,’ Sir Sigismund Keen replied. ‘But I forgot he has no relatives.’
There are things one cannot get used to. A hot bath may, and perhaps ought to be, a habit; it rarely demands resolution; its frequency, within limits, is taken for granted, and, among ordinary people, scarcely commands respect. But a cold bath, however misrepresented by self-hypnotism or conscience, is usually a practice, seldom a habit, never an indulgence. Be the prospect of immersion never so attractive, the reality of it, the imminence even, sets one’s inclinations in revolt. It is a chronic insurrection; the conscript forces of the will—that minion of manliness, respectability’s redoubt—may scotch but cannot kill it.
But these are paltry encounters, bloodless Italian wars, compared with the campaign which opens with one’s determination to bathe; and I, as with towel draped about my neck, I started on the ‘good’ twenty minutes’ walk to the river, was complacently aware of this inward conflict. In the unwonted firmness—finality almost—of my farewells and in my avoidance of their tiresome sentimental frillings, resolution must, I thought, have been apparent; the snap of the gate was purposeful; my choice of the steep, adder-haunted path to the wood was unmistakable; I evidently meant business. On the reverse slope that dropped more gradually to the river this self-imposed tension gave way to a more legitimate excitement. Gleams of the river kindled anticipation. The brilliance of the sunlit grass glimpsed tantalizingly between twisted branches or framed in occasional openings, made my heart beat faster. I began to run.
But before reaching the little gate that led into the meadow I stopped. My thoughts took a gloomier turn. The danger of bathing when overheated was only one of many perils; weeds, cramp, heart failure, the odious oozy circumstances of drowning. My loneliness increased, but I revelled in it; everything led up to it and emphasized it. Better to be drowned, I thought, than to be saved from drowning; fished out of a swimming-bath by an obese instructor, and ‘brought round’ by the relentless appliance of physical indignities in an atmosphere staled by the breath of obscenely curious urchins! Better be drowned than rescued to make a Brighton holiday by some officious tripper, who would wear the Royal Humane Society’s medal and never weary of retelling his exploit.
In this intolerant mood, feeling that the very existence of the human race was an insult to my self-sufficiency, I approached the little green knoll whose further bank, I knew, sloped steeply to the water, but not so steeply as to forbid one to recline on it and bask in the sunshine. Essential solitude and privacy, protection militarily perfect awaited me in this declivity; a security almost tangible, an exquisite medium through which my thoughts could roam with something amounting to physical pleasure. Reaching the summit, I stopped; for my stronghold had been surprised.
A man was lying there in the most perfect, because the most unconscious, occupation. His formidable boots, his grey flannel shirt, his corduroy trousers were lying all about. Ordinarily, the thought that so much should be encased in so little gives a pathos to divested clothing; but his had an amplitude, an air of being successfully, if rudely worn, that forbade pity. The impression of size was repeated by their owner. His head, pivoted on a large arm, turned slowly; he said ‘Good morning’ indistinctly down two sides of a pipe, and resumed his reflections.
Hedged about by his ponderous garments, daunted and almost intimidated by his immobility, I undressed; it was a prosaic business, robbed of all romance. Subject as I was to scrutiny, observed, sized up, I had as little joy of the process as though I were stripping for a Medical Board. The man was intensely difficult to talk to; and his monosyllabic replies had, I was afterwards to remember, a sinister intonation as though he were secretly bargaining with Destiny for my downfall. Mechanically I stuffed my socks into my shoes, after them my spectacles and wrist-watch, and sighed to think that this simple action should once have had all the thrill and significance of a final initiation. Instead of lingering on the bank until the forces of attraction and recoil had reached a delicate equilibrium—without giving the water a chance to get ready for me—I plunged in. The shock of the dive, usually as effective as a night’s sleep in supplying a brand-new set of thoughts and sensations, left mine exactly as they were—small, thwarted and commonplace.
This was awful. I swam round a corner to be out of sight of the monster on the bank, uneasily conscious that his proximity gave me a pioneering impetus, a confidence in negotiating weeds that I lacked before. The sudden rising of fish, the startling croak of a moor-hen in the sparse discoloured reeds, had no terrors for me. With equanimity I clove my way through slow-moving groups of foamy, closely-massed bubbles, to which I was wont to give a wide berth—thinking them the expiring sighs of men long drowned. The climax of my courage came when I investigated and bestrode a great log. This in other days I would have shunned; its curious conformation in three coils suggested a serpent, and who knew how much it trailed, like an iceberg, below it in the water? I stood on a shelving bank of gravel and laughed to feel it suddenly wriggled under my feet; and I dived in deep water and brought up a huge, pale, fleshy weed. At last, trembling and feeling incredibly weak and heavy, I climbed out on to the bank and reached for my towel. My eyes were blurred, and it was some seconds before I noticed that the man on the bank was partially dressed; still longer before I realized that the trousers he was wearing were not his but my own. He had drawn my coat up to his side.
There might be all sorts of explanations; there were perhaps as many lines to take. One could not tell from his attitude whether he was a madman, a convict, or simply a practical joker. If he was a thief, why hadn’t he decamped with the clothes? If he had meant it for a joke he wouldn’t have left the job half done. There was nothing, moreover, in his appearance to suggest jocularity. Provisionally, I was forced to conclude that he was mad; and I thought perhaps the question might be thrashed out more amicably over a couple of cigarettes. I moved across to get them out of my coat pocket.
‘Who asked you to touch that coat?’ said he. ‘It’s mine.’
In spite of my surprise I managed to stammer, ‘Oh, is it? Then I wonder if you would very much mind giving me a cigarette? I usually smoke one after bathing.’ I heard my voice trailing away into uncertainty under the look of his eyes.
‘Now look here,’ he said, ‘it ain’t no——good. I’ve taken a fancy to these clothes, and if you want any you can have mine.’
I was relieved to hear him swear, it made him more human. His madness, too, if such it were, had method in it; but I was not reassured. Sweet reasonableness, I felt, was the line to adopt.
‘I’m afraid your clothes wouldn’t be much use to me,’ I remarked. ‘Mind, I don’t say there’s anything wrong with them. They look very good wearing, and mine aren’t that, as you’ll find, I fear.’ I stopped, once more on a note of futility; his scornful, indifferent eyes held a message that I was beginning dimly to understand.
‘You’d like them back, wouldn’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes, I should,’ I exclaimed in exasperation; but I could have bitten my tongue off when I saw the look of grim satisfaction—the only expression he had yet worn to which you could give a name—cross his face and die away. He said very quietly:
‘That’s how it is, is it? Then don’t you think you’d better try and get hold of them?’
At last, through his elementary sarcasm, the immitigable hostility of his tone, the carefully maintained purposelessness of his outrageous behaviour, I saw his drift; I was up to his little game. He aimed at compassing my complete humiliation, my unconditional surrender to his mastery of the situation. He expected me to go down on my knees, to grovel, to display all the interesting symptoms of moral and physical collapse. He was more subtle than I could have supposed.
I began to feel very cold—faint, too, and a little hysterical. Clouds had darkened the sky and lowered it. My sense of the reality of the situation and of the circumstances that had led up to it was lost; and in its place came a consciousness that I had reached an impasse, a cul-de-sac against which thought continually hurled itself, only to fall away bruised. Small practical movements lost their intention and faltered into meaningless gestures. To convince myself that I retained the use of my limbs I jumped to my feet. The man also rose; and his rising was a fine affair, artistically considered; I was able to reflect that my trousers had never assumed perpendicularity with so much dignity, or participated in such a striking cumulative effect. Any hope I might have cherished of forcibly recovering these garments fell from me. Their possessor’s eyes followed mine round the horizon.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said.
I didn’t, nor, as he might have seen, was I in any condition to; but the formulation of this magnificent comprehensive negative riveted, so to speak, my fetters. He came a step nearer.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘you can have this nice suit of yours back if——’ He lingered on the protasis like a schoolboy afraid of putting the verb in the wrong tense. To give the consonant full play his lips curved back, exposing his teeth, and his eyes, under the stress of unwonted mental exertion, narrowed nearly to slits, preserving long after his lips had abandoned it the sense, almost the sound, of that suppressed condition. I was wondering what fantastic form his proposal would take when suddenly he burst out laughing, slapped me a terrific blow on the shoulder and subsided on the ground convulsed with merriment. Somehow I fancied his heartiness was not wholly genuine. Presently he remarked:
‘You can have them now; I’ve kept them aired for you.’ An incredible peevishness, the result, I suppose, of reaction, seized me.
‘I don’t think I want to wear them after you,’ I said; but instead of the outburst I expected he only remarked:
‘Why the hell not? One man’s legs are as good as another’s.’
Without a word and as though for ocular proof of his assertion he thrust those limbs in front of me, half leaning on his back and half supporting himself with his hands. My trousers sagged round his ankles in an imperfect ellipse. Suddenly, as if impelled by an exterior force, I seized the garment and began to draw it off; but he held on to it with one hand from the other end, shouting ‘pull’ and roaring with laughter.
What have I done? I thought, as the trousers, released at last, gave a little spring into my hands. It struck me that they were none the worse for being a bit stretched. The man, who had relapsed into something more than his former gloom, was dressing with swift precision like a play-goer anxious to get away before the National Anthem.
Why had I undertaken to act as this creature’s valet? My recovered garments were infinitely distasteful to me. Just because he would not be at the trouble to remove them himself I, I the injured party, the rightful owner, had stooped to that degrading office. It had been the culmination, the outward visible sign, of my abasement. He had not even asked me to do it. I had nothing to fear. He had withdrawn his foolish condition, he had ‘shown friendly’ after his uncouth manner, as my stinging shoulder still testified. He was just a high-spirited Briton, addicted, perhaps regrettably, to horseplay; and I, incredibly infatuated that I was, had made him a gratuitous offering of my self-respect. Why, I ought to have chucked him into the river and then argued with him from the bank. . . . His voice fell like a sword on the promising infant, my self-esteem.
‘Why don’t you get dressed instead of sitting there like the Light of Nature?’
I made no reply.
He took a step forward to adjust round his knee that traditional, much-affected encumbrance called, I believe, ‘York to London.’ The movement brought his face close to mine.
‘So you did it after all,’ said he.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Why, pulled them——trousers of yours off my legs,’ he explicitly replied, adding, with a preposterous straining after cultured pronunciation, ‘ ’Orace, I shall require my shaving water early to-morrow!’
That, then, was his suppressed condition—and I had complied with it.
‘For Witheling End?’ asked my porter, his hand hovering over the glue-pot.
It is no longer to the people that one must go for traditional vulgarities of pronunciation. ‘Willing End,’ I commented. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘This line is run for the convenience of intending passengers and boneafied travellers,’ remarked the porter, friendly but ironical. ‘Think it over. You’re not obliged. You needn’t go if you don’t want.’
Under the fierce assault of his brush the captive, peace-loving glue almost foamed in its agony.
‘Ah,’ I sighed, ‘you don’t know.’
Nor for that matter, I thought, as the train drew out of the dusky station, did I. Not yet. Logically, of course, it made no difference whether I stayed or went. It was the fact of the invitation that counted; the fact of its having, so menacingly, so—there was no burking it—disastrously come to hand. Just a week ago Oswald Clayton had been one of my most cherished friends. And now what was he? An enemy? Well, scarcely anything so personal as that. The others hadn’t, as their turns came, regarded him as an enemy. On the contrary, they had no dealings with him, they hardly ever mentioned him. They acquiesced in, they almost connived at, their own ostracism. And one and all, when pressed to give an account of what had passed, they refused—betrayed uneasiness and turned the question off. Or they would hide their hurt behind a show of pride. ‘Of course, a man with so many friends—he must grow tired of them.’ And secure in Oswald’s friendship one had considered, critically, the smarting cast-off, unattractive like all men with a grievance, and thought ‘Oswald knows his own business best.’
It was odd that he should have chosen this particular method of conveying to his friends that their affection had become otiose. In other people’s houses, in one’s own house, he might be met without the slightest risk. Risk! With pleasure always, that rare pleasure that his off-handedness, his plain-speaking, his genius for being amused at one’s expense, never failed to give. With his capacity for enjoyment (call it selfishness, now perhaps) he kindled the host in one as nobody else could. In fact the great privilege he conferred was the privilege of waiting on him hand and foot. He awoke in his friends a quite ravenous desire to please; not a repressive, conscientious self-effacement, but an active response to his needs, captious and exacting as they often were. His needs weren’t material, he wasn’t a common cadger, but he couldn’t escape (I searched for a harsh term) the charge of being an emotional adventurer. Given leave, he would open up for one new fields of consciousness; he was the self-appointed prospector, he held the concession. But it was you who worked the field, did the digging and turned up the lumps of ore. His feeling for a relationship, his view of it to himself, happily stopped short of, didn’t include the crucial fact that it was he who made the wheels go round. He thought or pretended to think, in any encounter, that he had stumbled across a little hive of happiness which had buzzed as gaily before he came as it would after he went away. In reality, both before and after, in as far as it buzzed at all, it buzzed to a very different tune. But while he was there, perching and flitting and settling in his agreeable way, his ingenuousness, his irresponsibility carried all before them. He affected to be amazed at the worldly wisdom of his friends; he declared that they were so many serpents, masquerading as doves, and threw himself on the mercy which they unstintingly provided. He only asked to be excused, permitted, taken care of.
Rather mournfully I made out for myself this inventory of his qualities, for, first-hand at any rate, I was to know them no more. It was to be for me his obituary notice, and I flattered myself that in this sad task I had shown both charity and discrimination; it would be the balsam of his memory, the entelecheia and soul of his subsistence. For I was certainly discarded. Of the half dozen or so who had spent those fatal week-ends at Witheling End, none had survived, none had told the tale. It had become a commonplace among us, the significance of an invitation to Oswald’s home. It was a death warrant, and its probable incidence was the subject of jokes and even bets among the almost decimated battalion of his friends. And now the blow had fallen upon me.
What, after all, I asked myself while the train thundered remorselessly on, could Oswald do to enforce an estrangement? For it was to be an estrangement on both sides. Otherwise my predecessors in exile, granted that they were committed to keeping up appearances, must have made some slips. News would have leaked through of overtures, tentative essays in reconciliation that Oswald had sternly repelled. And they were not men to take a slight lying down. If they hadn’t been proud before, the distinction of Oswald’s friendship had lent them pride, and the inflation was theirs to keep. Oswald’s tardy application of the pin would only have induced a new inflammation, flushed with anger against him and discharging venom. His creatures would have rounded upon him with all the weight of their derived, threatened importances. But—it came back to me again—they had done nothing of the kind. They had been content to watch their power, their glory pass without lifting a finger. They hadn’t even permitted themselves the exquisite revenge, such was their pious resignation, of turning the other cheek. They seemed to have taken counsel of Desdemona’s meekness; they approved of Oswald’s scorn, they wouldn’t hear of having him blamed.
Well, I was not so easily to be set aside. If Oswald meant to jettison me, he should have his work cut out. What, I wondered, would be his line of action? And when I considered the almost unlimited power to bore, embarrass and terrify which any host has at his command, I quailed. But, in justice to Oswald, I had to admit that his arsenal wouldn’t be stocked with ordinary instruments of torture. He wouldn’t spring upon me, my first evening, an obligatory charade which I should have to attend in some improvised costume—as a tinker perhaps, tricked out in domestic utensils, hung with saucepans, scoured, polished and sound beyond hope of dint or flaw. It was unlikely that I should be called upon to conceal my identity or exhibit a false one, with the implication that I was only tolerable in the likeness of somebody else. But there were other disguises, I pondered, less palpable and at first blush less disconcerting; but not less obligatory and far more exacting. False impressions, for instance. Oswald wouldn’t launch me as a renowned arctic explorer, but he might convey, by a mere inflection of the voice, that I was something other than I really was, something I might love or loathe to be, it made no difference. I should be committed. Or he might put me to a severer test—the crucible of the haunted room. The reticence shown by his friends, indeed, argued some exposure of this kind. Coaxed, beguiled, flattered, browbeaten, perhaps bribed, they had undergone an experience which, for its very horror, they must for ever keep to themselves. And it needn’t be a horror, I thought, that disclosed itself locally, that was charted, so to speak, and set and timed. That was the snare that was laid vainly in the sight of any bird. But supposing it was something strange in the character of my host, some baseness of fibre, some odious moral lapse or relaxation which he awaited in seclusion and the secret of which he imparted to his friends? Suppose my arrival were to chime with a (to him) calculable outbreak in some awful periodicity, whose convenient punctual eruptions he had cynically harnessed to his own ends—the incineration of spare acquaintances? Picking my way and holding my nose against the unsavoury conditions of my inquiry, I went a step farther. Lycanthropy lifted its head. Oswald might break the thread of conversation by becoming a wolf, furry on the outside, or, more horribly and incurably (for the malady had two forms) furry on the inside. Before such an object the most established affection might pardonably falter. By the time I reached the main-line station which boasted, as the least of its importances, that of being the junction for Witheling End, I had given up expecting to find in Oswald even the scarred outline of a human trait. He loomed before me the hero of some Near Eastern legend—marauding, predatory, fatal.
But the necessity to alight and pace the platform, to stand sentinel, unchallenged and ignored, by the luggage van, to stow away my things in the dirty branch-line carriage, to go through the routine, the mill, one might say, of ‘changing’, this prosaic occupation brought my thoughts to earth. Sadness succeeded terror. Of course, Oswald wouldn’t need to call upon the resources of demonology for my eviction; he could dismiss me without that, as he had dismissed the others. If anyone practised black magic it would be I the following Monday, the day after to-morrow, the first day of my registered recognized exile. I might be excused if, to beguile my disconsolate homecoming, I stuck imaginary pins into his wasting receding image. However flattering the portent to my self-esteem, I needn’t fear that merely out of sympathy with my eclipse the sun would turn into darkness, and the moon into blood. It wouldn’t be necessary to mount me on a horse to reveal my poverty in deportment to the gaping ‘county’. I could display unorthodoxy without being exposed by an archbishop; self-consciousness without the stimulus of a game of forfeits. What shortcoming was there, what social inadequacy or private self-sufficiency, I thought, with melancholy candour, that I couldn’t show, and that without the least external help—without malicious arrangements of background, or predicaments contrived for my downfall? I had no aptitude for ‘social surf-riding’. Oswald’s victory over me, if it consisted in a demonstration of my unfitness and unworthiness, needn’t be costly, needn’t be in the least Pyrrhic. I was shy-flowering, not all hardy or perennial; a hot-house plant, I told myself, with a flamboyant impulse, that would thrive only in a tepid air. It would be enough to turn off the heat and shut out the sun. And that would be his line. A perfunctory welcome would be followed by an evening’s bridge—that game which, however listlessly played, throws over everyone the chill of its formality or brings out the surly side. Then, next morning, a dyspeptic and disorderly application to the Sunday papers, the interchange of spare sheets over a strewn untidy floor, the interchange too, of promiscuous tit-bits, scandalous items, in lieu of conversation. Then the bleak three-quarters of an hour before luncheon. . . . Why, that was the very entertainment I had given Oswald himself at our last meeting. I had been too preoccupied to let his careless good spirits have their way with me. Well, he would get his own back. And what plea could I urge, what declaration could I make to compound for my bad manners? There was nothing left me but my determination, under however many affronts and provocations, never on my side to let go, but be torn, protesting faithfulness, from the very horns of Friendship’s altar.
An hour later there came a tap on my bedroom door. It was Oswald again. He peeped in furtively, as though fearful of committing a trespass on my absolute occupation.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’
‘What?’
‘Changing for dinner. I was afraid you might think it silly and pretentious when we’re just to ourselves.’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I expected to. Look at all my finery. It would have broken my heart not to wear it.’
Still as if on sufferance, he sidled appreciably farther into the warm, light, admirably appointed room.
‘Oh, so he has put them out for you. Then that’s all right. And it suits you, dining at eight?’
That had been the object of his first visit, to obtain my sanction for the hour of dinner.
‘Eight o’clock is quite my favourite time,’ I assured him.
‘Good,’ he said, and discreetly withdrew.
Ever since he had greeted me on the steps of that solid red-brick house, voluble explaining and regretting his failure to meet me at the station, he had been—he had ‘gone on’, I felt inclined to say—like that. Apologetic, conciliatory, concerned, he had raised point after point, problem after problem, neglect of which, he seemed to think, would jeopardize my happiness. And though I had tried to meet his misgivings half-way with contra-assertions and confirmations, I couldn’t convince him that I was satisfied, that I had made up my mind, as it were, to stay. He seemed to think that at the smallest domestic rub or breakdown, failure of the bell to ring or of the bath water to boil, I should stalk out of the house. The utmost he seemed to expect of me, his guest, was that I should consent to remain, that, like a captious newly-engaged servant, I should waive my prerogative of impermanence and ‘settle’.
At first I was flattered. It hardly seemed necessary to congratulate myself on my success, it had come so easily. I even planned, in the interval before dinner, to write to my unluckier friends and tell them how deeply I had struck my roots. They, no doubt, had had to clean their own boots and wash at the pump in the stable-yard; whereas I was met at every turn by gratifying traces of the slaughter of the fatted calf. For them Oswald had been at his most casual—indifferent, irresponsible, careless of their creature comforts. For me, how different. In compliment to me he had put off his ordinary manner, the genial feckleness that sat on him so light, and assumed the air of an anxious housewife bristling (so far as his sobered attenuated demeanour allowed him to bristle) with petits soins. They were even embarrassing, these attentions, in their insistence, in their hydra-like quality of springing up double where one had been scotched. And so I went on, multiplying the instances, deepening the contrast, until the sound of a bell, hastily smothered like a rising indiscretion, invited me to dinner.
It was to be the keynote of my visit, I reflected, as I lay in bed—invitation. The bell had invited me to dinner; Oswald’s man had invited me to take wine. Oswald himself in his first remarks, delivered ever so courteously across the oval table, had the air of inviting reply. He began:
‘Perhaps you’ve never been in this part of the world before?’
I was encouraged to say ‘No.’
After a moment’s reflection in which, I supposed, he was passing the countryside in review, he said:
‘There’s Clum Abbey near by; would you care to see it?’ I hesitated, not wholly from lukewarmness but because I was at a loss how to frame my answer, how to appear politely eager. He misinterpreted my silence. ‘Don’t feel obliged,’ he said; ‘only I generally take people there.’
Was this a threat? I longed to say, ‘Take me anywhere else.’ To my lively apprehensions the innocent ruin took on the hues and horrors of a Blue Chamber. But I complied; I succumbed to Clum.
Other invitations had followed: to smoke, to inspect the house, to play picquet, to take the younger hand first, to name the stakes.
‘Give me some indication,’ I said, wishing that he hadn’t, after the insinuating fashion of the odd-job man, ‘left it to me’.
‘Do you think a shilling?’
‘A point?’
‘Just as you like,’ he said.
I saw myself a financial cripple, perhaps a bankrupt; but it seemed impossible without vulgarizing the lofty accent of our intercourse, to suggest a humbler sum.
‘The game generally ends all square, doesn’t it?’ I said, flying in the face of experience.
‘I have known it not,’ he admitted.
‘You think, perhaps——?’ Longingly I eyed the ignoble straw, not daring to clutch it. But he had seen it too.
‘Well, I really meant a shilling a hundred.’
We were saved. But with what expense of spirit, with what reckless doles of hostages to misunderstanding! The appearance of whisky, with all its mitigating accessories, turned on a cascade of major and minor invitations. Fortunately for this contingency I was armed with ready desires; I directed, encouraged and restrained with a will; and, as a small return on my former prodigious outlay of reluctant adaptability, I did find the water hotter the whisky smoother, the sugar sweeter, the whole brew more grateful and harmonious, for the fact that it had been extracted, fought for, out of the inmost pattern and texture of polite behaviour. It was a stolen water, and if I had received it with some natural colloquialism such as ‘Whisky, not half!’ it would have tasted brackish and bitter. Instead, all the pleased propitiated forces of convention and propriety came to its aid, and poured their cautious sweetness into the cup. When, like a climacteric, the last invitation came, the invitation to bed, final and inevitable as I felt it to be, I detected stirrings of revolt, I almost jibbed. A defiant impulse came to me, as it might come to one on the summons of the Last Trump, to turn a deaf ear, to tender a qualified compliance, to suggest an alternative; almost to refuse.
But here I was in bed, and I had gone quietly enough. Refusal! that was the obverse of the golden coin that we had tossed each other, with rigid dexterity, throughout the evening. But only at the last had I managed to catch a glimpse of it; invitation’s suave, deferential head was ever uppermost. I pondered over classical invitations: Weber’s to the Valse; Shelley’s less specifically to Jane. They didn’t help because, from their buoyant confident tone one could see they didn’t contemplate a refusal. But to all Oswald’s invitations an engraved, an almost embossed R.S.V.P., was palpably subscribed. If he had just said ‘Come away!’ without troubling to call me ‘best and brightest’ or comparing the weather unfavourably with me, I would have gone with a light heart, ready for any enterprise, even excavations at Clum. Or if he had piped to me in Weber’s florid strain I would have cried shame on my poor spirit, and plunged into the dance. And that was what he would have done before my visit, or the mysterious cause that determined my visit, had cast its blighting spell. I should have been given no time to decide; my hesitations and doubts would have been overridden or tossed aside, my self-consciousness anaesthetized. Instead of losing myself in this delirious experience I was condemned to sit eating unpalatable blackberries at a respectful distance from the still smouldering embers of the Burning Bush—for its blaze and crackle illuminated memory, unquenched by the berries’ bitter juice. And for music I had the refrain of ‘Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, join,’ well what? The figured, frigid capering of conventional ghosts. I didn’t want to, and I didn’t want not to. Oswald flattered himself when he took such elaborate precautions against a possible refusal. It was a strain, too, negotiating his insipid proposals, threading my way through the tiresome labyrinth that promised no Minotaur.
‘Will you, won’t you?’ Well, I wouldn’t. I would refuse.
Daylight saw the ebb of my Dutch courage. It had receded infinitely far, leaving a barren strand. All day I waited for the tide to turn. On the horizon of my mind (never very distant, now stuffily close) I wrote the charmed word in letters of scarlet: refuse.
There seemed to be an opening at Clum. Among its treasures was a large squat perpendicular window, ribbed and tight-laced with massive angular tracery. Its forbidding aspect, presented successively to shrinking centuries, had kept injurious Time in awe. Oswald led me to a green knoll, which had a local reputation as a vantage-point from which this monster could be all too clearly seen. There it stood, or rather it didn’t stand, it came ‘at’ you, secure in its harsh virginity, unmarried and unmarred, one of survival’s most palpable mistakes. But Oswald invited my admiration; and I nearly withheld it. I hated to hear him speak with the voice if not with the accent (and that made it so much worse) of every tasteless tripper. And it wasn’t his voice; it was the voice that for the sake of safety, for the sake of maintaining the straddled flat-footed poise of the vulgar, he felt compelled to use to me. He wouldn’t be thrown off his balance; he would bring home to me, by the persistence with which he applauded the second-rate and took refuge, for opinion, in the second-hand, the fact that I ceased to count. How could I, with any feeling for my own dignity, challenge his impersonality? I should only succeed in being rude. It was the triumph of his policy to have brought our friendship to a pass where rudeness and disagreement were synonymous.
But I didn’t give up hope. I remembered my resolve; and though to my inspection the altar of friendship appeared as cold, as foreign to sacramental rites as Clum itself, I would still cling to it, though no one should take enough interest to pull me off it. All swabbed and scraped and slippery as it was, I couldn’t help thinking that an acolyte had lately been at work upon it, removing vestiges of former feasts. For though swept it wasn’t garnished, even with a vegetable marrow. It had an air of dereliction, I noted maliciously, not of preparation. The manger might be empty, but I was the only dog in the manger; it wasn’t coldly furnished forth with viands ear-marked for the next mongrel, denied to me. Oswald didn’t readily discuss our common friends, though after dinner I tried to draw him, by dangling names, into this, often the most rewarding of all forms of conversation. Perhaps it was snobbery; he wouldn’t rise to the minnows with which my poor line was forlornly baited. I had resolved not to change the direction of my attack, but to intensify it—to meet his most frigid propositions with passionate agreement, to glut his devouring sense of responsibility with continual titbits. Zealous as I was, he easily outstripped me in the competition for conferring favours. He looked all his own gift-horses in the mouth, before he presented them, whereas I was too apt to make mine show their paces, too raw not to recommend them. I felt as the evening drew on that something was sure to happen, some outburst, probably physical. He would scream, or I should. We were playing picquet and I had won the second partie.
‘I’m terribly afraid you’re rubiconed,’ I said, adding up the score for the third time.
‘Well,’ he replied, glancing sidelong at my figures, ‘I shall hope to do the same by you before the evening’s out.’
Hope stirred in me. Was there to be a show-down? His words had an ominous ring: last night we had been more jubilant under defeat.
‘I shall not grudge you the last laugh,’ I said, looking at him hard.
He laughed then, and rather bitterly, I thought.
‘It will be a new experience for me.’
‘Oh, surely,’ I protested. In vision I saw a series of week-end campaigns, lightning successes without a check; I saw too the casualties privately wringing their hands.
‘You held all the cards,’ he said, still a little resentful.
‘Oh, did I?’ I replied, and added, ‘But it was my misfortune. I’m so sorry.’
He took up the cards.
‘Should we cut?’
‘I think we might.’
‘After you, then.’
At length, all preliminary conditions satisfied, the game once more got under way.
‘And I’ve a quatorze of Kings, the whole phalanx,’ I heard my host say. It was the coup-de-grâce. I was ‘repiqued’.
‘Ninety-five,’ he announced.
‘Nothing.’
‘Ninety-six.’
‘Nothing.’
He played the cards almost vindictively, winning all the tricks and ‘capotting’ me. Again I noticed in his tone signs of excitement and satisfaction that were a betrayal of our code. We had taken our triumphs sadly.
‘With forty that makes you a hundred and forty-six,’ I said, ‘and nothing for me, poor me.’ I felt that, in view of his elation, I was entitled to a syllable of self-pity.
‘You’ve forgotten the last trick,’ he reminded me. ‘I had to work for it. That’s a hundred and forty-seven, please. And why “poor you”?’
I was still smarting under the ‘please’, trying to explain it away as ironical, when he repeated the question.
‘Why “poor you”?’
I really had to think. It would have been much easier simply to be annoyed.
‘Because I got nothing, I suppose,’ I said lamely. I thought it a sufficient explanation for a casual word, and even remarkably good-tempered. But it had an unsettling effect on Oswald. He rose and went to the fireplace.
‘But you have everything!’ he brought out at last. ‘Everything!’
Like a bankrupt and with the unenviable sensations of a bankrupt, I went over my meagre property, personal and real. The only considerable asset I had appeared to be my investment, my shares in the ‘concern’ that was Oswald—and then I was going to lose, had already lost. He couldn’t possibly—it was too heartless, be poking fun at my imminent destitution. He couldn’t seriously mean me to give him a financial statement—an outline of my ‘circumstances’. That they were straitened was common property—the only sort of property, in fact, in which they at all generously abounded. Judged by any standard the disparity in our fortunes was tremendous and the advantages all his. It was my luck with the cards, I decided, that had set growling the green-eyed monster, which must have slumbered since its owner’s childhood. And this was a childish outburst, a childish solecism which I would overlook.
‘I’ve been horribly lucky,’ I said, looking up at him. ‘I’ve won all along the line. And I won last night too.’
I had, a paltry hundred.
He laughed and returned to his chair.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You did. But I wasn’t meaning that.’ His face narrowed over the cards.
What, then, did he mean? I longed to ask; and last night, fortified by toddy, perhaps I could have asked. But the interval had choked that weakling, our intimacy, beneath a jungle of misunderstanding and constraint. I could no more ask the question than an actor could show himself aware of a conventional aside spoken well within his hearing. And if the saving mood failed me then, the next morning at breakfast, a breakfast that looked so earnestly into the future that it seemed to have outrun the present and be taking place at the station or even in the train—this mood had faded into the shadow of a dream. I had ceased to take pains, ceased even to cling. I suppose I cut an awkward figure, realizing that if I didn’t stand on my dignity I didn’t stand at all. And it was from this pedestal, and not from the horns of Friendship’s altar, that I waved Oswald Clayton good bye.
As far as London allowed of it, I passed the week that followed my visit to Witheling End in seclusion. There was little to distract me. The cheerful or distinguished gatherings in which, as Oswald’s familiar, I had been welcome were closed to me; and I hadn’t the heart to ogle the other scarecrows of older standing, with which Oswald’s waste ground had been so thickly planted. Dully I realized that outlets were stopped up; but even if I were robbed of motion, socially paralysed, I could still hug my immobility and postpone the moment when I too must flap and twirl for a warning to the rest. And so it was with sinking of the heart that I heard a bounding step on the stairs followed by a resounding voice. It was Ponting, the artist.
‘Ha!’ he said, drawing a fold of the window-curtain on to the table and sitting on it. ‘What are you doing here, with a face as long as three wet days?’ He had a vigorous vocabulary and his work was exuberantly morbid.
‘I pass away the time,’ I said.
‘You should have been where I’ve come from,’ he proclaimed. ‘Then you wouldn’t be looking like a candidate for confirmation.’ I disliked his tone, and felt little interest in the place that had made him what he was; but he forestalled my inquiry.
‘I’ve been at Witheling End.’
‘Why,’ I exclaimed in spite of myself, ‘I was there a week ago!’
‘And didn’t you enjoy it?’ he demanded.
‘If you mean in the sense that one enjoys poor health,’ I replied, ‘I enjoyed it immensely. Frankly, I loathed every minute of it.’
He examined me curiously, as though I had some disease.
‘Well!’ he declared. ‘You are a comical character.’
‘I didn’t amuse Oswald,’ I said.
At that he laughed aloud, slipped off the table and danced up and down the room chanting:
‘He’s one of Oswald’s misfits! He’s one of Oswald’s misfits!’
‘Tell me the secret of your success,’ I said, fascinated by his ungainly antics. ‘I suppose you fitted like a glove.’
My friend struck an attitude.
‘It was bone to his bone,’ he assured me.
I tried to visualize this composite skeleton.
‘When I arrived,’ he went on, ‘the place felt unhome-like. Oswald wanted to wrap me up in cotton-wool. But I soon put the lid on that.’
‘How?’ I asked.
‘I waited till we were alone,’ said Ponting. His face wore a puzzled expression, as though he were inwardly marvelling at his own astuteness, and he spoke slowly and emphatically, studying the exits and apertures of my room, anxious to bring home to me, by pantomime, the very scent and savour of his discretion.
‘Yes?’ I said.
He looked at me hard, to make sure I had taken it in.
‘I waited till we were alone,’ he repeated, ‘and when we were alone I just touched him on the shoulder like that. Nothing more.’
He gave me a heavy pat. The ‘more’, from which he had refrained, would certainly have been a knock-down blow.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘and then?’
‘He seemed surprised,’ Ponting said, ‘so I drew him aside——’
‘But you told me you were alone,’ I objected.
‘I drew him aside,’ Ponting went on, ‘and said, “Now that we’re between ourselves, there’s something I want to say to you,” and Oswald said “Say on!” or something like that. I think it was “say on” he said.’
‘And what did you say?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t want to be heavy about it,’ Ponting remarked carelessly. ‘I said, “A truce to all this palaver. I shan’t melt, Oswald, and I shan’t break. There’s no need to treat me like a Vestal Virgin.” That was all; but it did the trick.’
‘What trick?’ I inquired.
‘Why,’ said Ponting, plunging into metaphor, ‘the Gateless Barrier was surmounted; the walls of Jericho fell down. It was his soul to my soul, from that time forth. We talked—it was more than that—we conversed; for all the world like two love-birds on an identical twig. “Spit it out,” I said, meaning his trouble, whatever it was. And he did, too. He told me everything.’
‘Ah!’I breathed.
‘I can’t remember his exact words,’ Ponting continued. ‘I can remember better what I said. But he told me he never meant a week-end party to be a frost; his true intent, he said, was all for our delight. That was an eye-opener to me, I tell you, and it sounded like a quotation, that’s how I came to recall it. He said he’d been afraid he’d offended me, and he mentioned you, and some others; so he asked us to Witheling End to make it up. He thought we had a down on him, while we thought he had a down on us,’ Ponting lucidly explained. ‘And then it struck me that I had been a bit snappy the last time he came to see me; I was feeling seedy, off colour, and got my tail thoroughly down. He stayed a long time and I got fed up, and said the studio wasn’t a home for lost animals.’
‘I didn’t say anything like that,’ I mused.
‘No?’ said Ponting. ‘Well, everyone has his own way of being rude. I didn’t mean any harm, but he must have taken it to heart. He said it made him nervous and shy, looking after people in his own house, especially when he felt he had got on their nerves. He did everything he could, he went out of his way to give them a jolly time; but it was killing work, he said, like trying to warm up an icicle; they just moped and drooped and dripped. What he really meant was, they were like warmed-up death. But he didn’t blame them; he said it was all his fault. Then we laughed over the whole affair. Lord, how we laughed! My sides still ache!’ He rocked with merriment and even I couldn’t help laughing a little.
‘Well,’ Ponting said at last, ‘I mustn’t stop any longer, mooning about. Oswald’s waiting for me.’
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘Why, where I deposited him, I suppose,’ said Ponting. ‘To wit, at the foot of the stairs. He won’t thank me for telling you, though. He didn’t want you to know. Would you like to see him?’
I hesitated. ‘I thought I would wait until he called on me.’
Ponting burst into another guffaw. ‘But that’s just what he said about you!’
I began to feel rather foolish. ‘All right, then,’ I said. ‘Invite him to come up. But no, stop!’ I cried, for Ponting was already on the landing. ‘Tell him to come up!’
‘I’ll whistle him,’ said Ponting, and I stopped my ears. Ponting was a genius; I should never have thought of that.
How it became known in Settlemarsh that Mr. Blandfoot was the owner of an interesting picture it would be hard to say: the rumour of its existence seemed to come simultaneously from many quarters. But in the full tide of its popularity as a subject of discussion, when its authorship was being eagerly disputed at greater and lesser tea-parties, the question of its origin got somehow overlooked. No one with any reverence for the established order of Settlemarsh society could doubt that Mrs. Marling, of The Grove, would be the first to pronounce judgment on it, or that Mrs. Pepperthwaite, of The Pergola, would be among the first to make inquiry about it: their respective roles were to ask questions and to answer them.
‘So you haven’t met him yet?’ suggested Mrs. Pepperthwaite.
As always, Mrs. Marling paused before replying, and fixed upon her interlocutor that wintry look which had blighted so much budding conversation.
‘Met him?’ she said. ‘No, why should I have met him?’
Mrs. Marling’s questions were generally rhetorical.
‘So you haven’t heard about his picture?’ Mrs. Pepperthwaite suggested.
‘I don’t see why you connect the two things,’ rejoined Mrs. Marling. ‘Have you heard about Raphael’s pictures?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you met Raphael?’
‘No, but Raphael is dead, and Mr. Blandfoot is very much alive; I only just missed him yesterday at Mrs. Peets’s. He had only that moment gone, she told me.’
‘I can’t think why you visit that woman,’ Mrs. Marling observed. ‘Tell me what you see in her.’
The conversation lapsed; but none the less a seed was sown, or rather it was watered. Of course, Mrs. Marling had heard about the picture; she heard about everything in Settlemarsh. But she never decided hastily. She collected evidence, she felt her way, and when the moment was ripe she acted. She invited or she did not invite, and on her action depended or was said to depend, the fate of the newcomer to Settlemarsh. It was chiefly due to her that though Settlemarsh was a large place its society remained a small one. Her verdicts seemed capricious, but they were not really the outcome of caprice; she took her duties as social censor much more seriously than those who murmured at but accepted her decrees would have believed. The reasons she gave for disliking people were generally frivolous, and painful to the parties concerned when they became known, as they nearly always did; but at the back of them, as often as not, was a valid objection which she had unearthed with difficulty and which, to do her justice, she did not always make public.
When her guests had gone she retired to her room, and sitting before the tarnished Venetian mirror which gave back a very subdued version of her dark, intelligent, aquiline, handsome face, she wrote a note: but first, as was her habit, she addressed the envelope:
Mrs. Stornway,
The Uplands,
Little Settlemarsh.
Most of her friends lived in Little Settlemarsh; she herself still inhabited that part of the town which had been fashionable thirty years earlier.
Dearest Eva (she wrote),
I cannot quite forgive you for not coming here to-day. You would have been so bored! but at any rate I should have had some amusement. Foremost among the bores was (dare I say it?) your foundling, Mrs. Pepperthwaite, or words to that effect—I forget the exact name and her card, if it ever reached me, has been mislaid. Among other subjects that she touched but did not adorn was Mr. Blandfoot and his picture, gossip she had heard at Mrs. Peets’s. Now do tell me, what is all this about. And another time don’t desert your poor distracted friend,
Next day brought an answer:
Dearest Alice,
A thousand apologies! I couldn’t come yesterday because I was expecting—who do you think? Mr. Blandfoot! He had proposed himself for that day, but he never turned up. He sent me quite a civil note saying he had been caught in a shower at the ninth hole, and had to take shelter, as he dare not risk getting wet. I wonder why: he looks quite a strong man. He has taken ‘Heather Patch’ at the bottom of our garden and is putting in some orange-and-blue curtains. More than that? and his golf, dearest, I simply do not know! I expect we shall all see the picture when his house is straight—I don’t suppose he has even hung it yet. Horace thinks it may be of the Dutch School, as Mr. Blandfoot is said to have been something in Java. I wish I could be more helpful, dearest.
Yours,
Such information as Mrs. Marling gleaned about the newcomer was always fragmentary and unsatisfactory. The days passed, and still the polite society of Settlemarsh awaited in vain a signal from its leader.
Meanwhile, there was no doubt of it, Mr. Blandfoot was making headway; he joined clubs, was a fugitive visitor at tea-parties, he went out in the evening and played bridge. In spite of Mrs. Marling’s withheld permission, he seemed to be establishing himself. To those in whom awe of Mrs. Marling was still as second nature, he seemed to go about with a furtive air, like a foreigner without a passport. At any moment, it was felt, some official, acting on her instructions, would come up and ask for his credentials. It was observed that Mrs. Marling’s immediate circle still held aloof, and Mrs. Stornway never repeated the indiscretion of inviting him to tea. But people began to ask themselves, was his case still sub judice? Had Mrs. Marling rejected him, or had she not? And this uncertainty was new to Settlemarsh. For whatever else Mrs. Marling might be she was never indifferent, nor had she ever shirked the responsibility of saying yes or no. In this matter of maintaining the standard of Settlemarsh society her conscience and her honour were involved. Her inactivity was inexplicable.
More than that, it was dangerous; dangerous to Mrs. Marling, dangerous to Settlemarsh. There had always been rebellious provinces on the fringe of Mrs. Marling’s dominion, and these, as the central authority seemed to weaken, began to hold up their heads. Mrs. Peets had to order a new tea-service, so thronged was her table, and there were some who preferred its vigorous blue and yellow stripes to Mrs. Marling’s gold and white, just as there were some who preferred her house with its tiers of wooden balconies painted white to the Victorian exterior of The Grove. Everyone acknowledged that The Grove had been a good house in its day and for its time. But now even its habitués began to look at it with purged and critical eyes. They saw the brickwork, once yellow, now dingy with smoke, relieved by string-courses, also brick, of a hard, dark, metallic blue. They observed that the serviceable and decorative magnolias which swarmed the walls and were cut back (so Mrs. Peets said) to exhibit the blue-brick arabesque did not really conceal the scaffolding of drain-pipes with which Mrs. Marling’s grandfather, at the coming of the bathroom age, had fortified the walls. At Mrs. Peets’s you had air and light and virgin soil. But when you went to The Grove you were conscious that the trees from which it took its name, a respectable cluster, larger than a shrubbery but smaller than a spinney, were on their last legs, and that one was trying to do duty for two; that the soil was sour and impoverished and, like an old coat, looked the more threadbare for its careful raking and tending; that every shrub would be an elderberry if it could, every flower a lobelia, every fern an aspidistra.
‘And how many of them have had their wish!’ thought Mrs. Stornway, as she trod lightly over the earthy gravel of the drive, her eyes still dazzled by the remembrance of Mrs. Peets’s carriage sweep, a veritable shingle-bank for depth and glitter. Poor Alice! Sooner or later she had to become a back number. How could she hope to keep pace, Mrs. Stornway ruminated, as a blue-slated turret of vaguely ogee outline burst into view, with the growth of the town, the newcomers who gave you cocktails at tea, and whose baths filled in a moment, so fierce and sudden was the rush of water? How could she make herself felt, exert her authority over a society whose members dropped in casually on each other, who might as easily as not precede the servant into the drawing-room, whose very clothes had a different aim from hers? How easily people of to-day moved! Just as the whim took them, they got up, they sat down, they sprawled, lounged, and smoked; their conversation was short, sharp, and informal, familiar and pert. Mrs. Marling’s words, like her attitudes, were poured into a mould; they had no elasticity, no give-and-take! She had ruled, indeed, by getting people into her house and making them feel so strange, so tense, so awkward, so incapable of movement, that she could do anything she liked with them! She had no notion of how to make her guests feel relaxed and comfortable. ‘Poor Alice!’ thought Mrs. Stornway again. ‘The sap of her mind is dried up. She can’t absorb fresh subjects. Look how hide-bound she is about Mr. Blandfoot’s picture! She affects not to take any interest in it. I really must speak to her seriously!’
But as she confronted Mrs. Marling’s slightly ecclesiastical porch, smothered in soiled ivy and surmounted by crockets and finials, her brave thoughts began to change colour. And when, in response to her inquiry, the butler had gone to find out whether Mrs. Marling was in and Mrs. Stornway remembered that rarely as Mrs. Marling left her home, as rarely was she at it, those thoughts died completely. She waited; the sombre trophies from India and the Boxer Rebellion, scraps of armour without faces, scraps of faces without armour, pallid wooden hands projecting from hollow sleeves supporting flower pots, completed her discomfiture. She watched the butler returning from the far end of the long hall, his advancing figure silhouetted against a large window, enclosed in an oblong frame of stained glass. Till the man spoke, she could not tell, no one could have told, whether Mrs. Marling was at home or not. And as he conducted her towards the drawing-room, walking a little in front and a little to one side, he might have been taking one ghost to interview another.
At first Mrs. Marling did not seem to notice her visitor; she stretched her work out in front of her and peered over the edge in an abstracted fashion. Then suddenly she rose.
‘My dear Eva, to think of you coming all this way, and in this heat, to talk to a poor imbecile like me! I can tell you how flattered I feel. Nobody ever comes to see me now.’
The slightly complacent tone in which she said this bewildered Mrs. Stornway.
‘Of course they will always come, dearest Alice,’ she ventured. ‘You are our chief place of pilgrimage.’
But she had taken the wrong tack. Mrs. Marling seemed able to read what was in her mind.
‘Oh, believe me I am quite démodée,’ she said, more to the needlework than to her friend. ‘And do you know, I like it? I hear of Mrs. Peets giving parties; Mrs. Pepperthwaite has At Homes; you, yourself, are organizing a garden fête, they tell me, and no doubt Mr. Blandfoot will soon be giving a ball. And here I sit, quite happy to be out of it all.’
‘Everyone has missed you so much,’ Mrs. Stornway murmured.
‘How nice of you to say that! I have missed you, dear Eva, more than once: but the others——! No. I am really meant for solitude. Do you like my picture?’ she went on, presenting to her friend’s view a remarkable seascape. In a violet sea a man of war of the Nelson period, all square lines and portholes, had heeled over away from the spectator, and was sinking with all sail set. ‘It’s an emblem of my life, dearest Eva,’ she continued. ‘Do you think it would be considered more of a masterpiece if I left it unfinished? Or better still, I might hide it away and just talk about it, and then I should make quite a name for myself, like your Mr.—Mr.——’
‘Blandfoot,’ put in Mrs. Stornway eagerly.
‘Like him,’ said Mrs. Marling, disdaining to repeat the name. ‘Have you been seeing a lot of him, my dear?’
Mrs. Stornway would only admit to having seen him once or twice. Like most people, she could not tell a disagreeable truth to Mrs. Marling. ‘But to-morrow I and one or two others thought of going in about tea-time to help him hang his pictures. Poor fellow, he is very helpless, like all men, and has no one in the house to lend a hand.’
‘I suppose he invited you,’ Mrs. Marling suddenly remarked.
‘We sort of decided it between us,’ said Mrs. Stornway hastily. ‘And, of course,’ she added, taking a run at it, and adopting the slightly self-conscious air that everyone who talked to Mrs. Marling sooner or later fell into—‘we hope to be shown the picture.’
‘What picture?’ inquired Mrs. Marling.
‘Why, the one everybody is talking about,’ exclaimed Mrs. Stornway. ‘You mentioned it yourself a moment ago.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Mrs. Marling. ‘I don’t think that exists. Oh, no. It’s just an idea that people have got into their heads. But I do pity you, my dear, heaving aloft those large photographic reproductions of the Blandfoot family portraits. I shall think of you, as I sit here listening to poor Mr. Hesketh. He does tire me.’
‘Hesketh!’ exclaimed Mrs. Stornway in awed tones. ‘Not the Hesketh, the novelist? Is he coming to stay with you?’
‘He is already here,’ said Mrs. Marling, ‘only as I wanted the pleasure of talking to you alone I sent him out for a walk. And now,’ she went on briskly, relishing the visible pang of disappointment that crossed her visitor’s face, let us have some tea. But don’t forget to come and tell me what the picture is like, who painted it, and what it is worth.’
The conversation passed into other channels. Mrs. Stornway listened abstractedly, hoping that Mr. Hesketh would appear. But the minutes passed and he did not come.
Punctually at half-past four Mrs. Stornway was shown into the drawing-room of Heather Patch. She was, as she meant to be, the first to arrive; Mrs. Peets and Mrs. Pepperthwaite were still unannounced, and her host himself lingered somewhere in the interior. Yes, there were the pictures, numbers of them, leaning against each other, their strings and wires sticking out untidily, their faces turned to the wall. Mrs. Stornway studied their brown backs with passionate interest. Which of them would be it? A friend had once told her that she was psychic beyond ordinary women. Surely she could use this special power to pierce Mr. Blandfoot’s secret? She stood still, emptied her mind of thought, and tried to let the brown shapes before her pass into it. At first she saw nothing but knowing-looking dogs with heads cocked sideways and pipes in their mouths. Then one picture began to oust the others: its subject remained obscure, but she recognized its material form and, tiptoeing across the room, took hold of the frame and began to draw it slowly backwards.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Stornway.’ The voice startled her so much that she let go the picture, which subsided with a thud. She rose awkwardly, her feet imprisoned by the picture-cords.
‘Oh, Mr. Blandfoot, forgive me! I couldn’t resist taking a look!’
‘How charming of you to be so interested,’ he said, coming forward, his large figure blocking up the light and casting a soft gloom before it. ‘Tell me which one you were looking at.’
Mrs. Stornway’s impulse was always to lie.
‘This one,’ she said, indicating one of the smaller pictures.
Mr. Blandfoot pulled it out.
‘Ah, Jake,’ he said, looking at it. ‘Poor old Jake with a bandaged head.’
They went to the window. It was a dog—a dog with his head on one side and tied up in a handkerchief.
‘Why, what’s happened to him?’ she said, looking from Mr. Blandfoot to the picture and back to Mr. Blandfoot again.
He was a tall man, put together so loosely that one or other of his limbs always seemed on the verge of dislocation. His hair, which was thin and pale, the same colour as his face, seemed to cling together, as though for protection, in half a dozen long lank wisps, showing pink tracts between. His face was bony, his features were irregular, and his eyes so light they seemed to have been bleached. He could never give an effect of neatness, thought Mrs. Stornway: even the skin on the hand which held the picture was unevenly tinted, it looked coarse and porous without being firm and hardly seemed to fit him.
‘What’s happened to the dog?’ she repeated.
‘Why,’ he said slowly, ‘dogs will be dogs. I had to teach him——’
But what the lesson was Mr. Blandfoot had sought to inculcate Mrs. Stornway never knew; Mrs. Peets and Mrs. Pepperthwaite arrived simultaneously, and they had tea in the bow-window, flanked by the orange-and-blue curtains. Outside could be seen the patches of heather which gave the house its name. It flowered with a commendable persistence, although in the forefront of villadom’s advance—trenches, incipient walls, overturned wheelbarrows, splodges of whitewash, moist spots for mixing mortar. It looked as dry and wiry and tenacious as the owner of Heather Patch, only more beautiful, thought Mrs. Stornway unwillingly.
The work went on apace, and of the forty-odd pictures only a mere handful remained to be hung. Many of them had been photographs of the Far East, representing, as often as not, severe, thin men in shirtsleeves, standing very erect outside their temporary dwellings, putting, as it seemed, the thought of tiffin behind them. Others showed native women holding their babies, or naked warriors in open formation holding spears. No one ever seemed to sit down. All the pictures suggested a sort of flimsy precarious verticality. For contrast there were views of English interiors, the dreams of nostalgia, where everyone was sitting or lying or reclining. The largest of these, a picture displaying a group of couchant rich people watching their children, dressed in costumes of a bygone age, resting from a game of Ring-a-ring of Roses, Mrs. Stornway hung over the piano. The picture and the instrument were exactly the same length.
‘I believe,’ she murmured, ‘that Mrs. Marling has a copy of this, only not such a fine one, at The Grove. Do you remember it, Mrs. Peets?’
‘You forget,’ said Mrs. Peets, ‘I’ve never seen the inside of the good lady’s house.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Stornway, with well-assumed confusion, ‘I thought everyone——You remember it, Muriel?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Pepperthwaite, ‘in the dining-room.’
‘No, not in the dining-room,’ Mrs. Stornway remarked complacently, ‘it’s upstairs, the second passage you come to, on the right, if my memory serves me. He really ought to see the house, oughtn’t he, Mrs. Peets? Alice Marling has such interesting pictures.’
‘You forget, I haven’t had the privilege of going,’ said Mrs. Peets again, busying herself with a picture. Only three remained unhung. The exaltation Mrs. Stornway had felt as one by one the pictures were disposed of in the various rooms deepened into ecstasy. She persuaded herself that the last of the three was the one she was examining when Mr. Blandfoot interrupted her. They were back in the drawing-room; it was the largest room, and it’s walls still had empty spots, though they had thought it finished when they left it. In the intoxication that possessed her, as the moment of revelation drew near, Mrs. Stornway felt that there was no limit to her powers: she could say anything, do anything: she could bring Mahomet to the mountain, Mr. Blandfoot to Mrs. Marling, and everything she did would become her.
‘I always think,’ she said, ‘that in all Settlemarsh there’s no one so really worth while as Alice Marling.’ To make this declaration she stopped working, came into the middle of the room and clasped her hands in front of her.
There was a pause. Then Mr. Blandfoot took another picture and, mounting the steps with the cord in his mouth, muttered, ‘Why are you always talking about this Mrs. Marling?’
‘Oh,’ Mrs. Stornway exclaimed, her eyes aglow with the fire of evangelizing the heathen, ‘she stands for all that is best in Settlemarsh—so it seems to me. There was a time when she used to keep open house.’
‘She doesn’t keep open house for me,’ said Mrs. Peets.
‘Nor for me,’ Mr. Blandfoot echoed. Again his utterance was impeded, this time, as Mrs. Stornway saw when he turned his head, by a long nail that he held clamped between his teeth.
There they both stood, Mrs. Peets and Mr. Blandfoot, the rejected of Mrs. Marling, their faces to the wall and the silence deepening round them. Mrs. Pepperthwaite, who had taken the last picture but one, a study of Highland cattle in a mist, and was carrying it about while she gazed inquiringly but helplessly at the crowded picture-rail, flung herself into the breach.
‘Why, there’s only one more left!’ she cried nervously. ‘It must be the picture that everyone’s been talking about! Now, let’s all guess what it is.’
Her intervention was a complete success. The cloud cleared from the brow of Mrs. Peets; Mrs. Stornway’s face lost its Sibylline look; and Mr. Blandfoot turned round and sat on the top of the steps, his knees projecting enormously, his chin supported by his hands while he looked down at them with an enigmatic smile.
‘First of all, how did you get hold of it?’ demanded Mrs. Peets.
‘Yes,’ echoed Mrs. Stornway a little wanly, ‘how did it come into your possession?’
‘Perhaps we ought not to ask him that,’ said Mrs. Pepperthwaite coyly. Her success as a peacemaker had given a sense of power which she seldom enjoyed.
‘Well, then, where did you get it? He can’t mind telling us that,’ said Mrs. Peets in her decided tone.
Fascinated, they stared at the medium-sized oblong of brown paper, Mrs. Stornway still convinced that it was the one her second sight had revealed to her.
‘I got it in Java,’ said Mr. Blandfoot from the steps.
They all three nodded at each other, as if a secret suspicion was at last openly confirmed.
‘And how did you get it?’ persisted Mrs. Peets. ‘After everything we’ve done for you, three tired perspiring women, I think you might tell us.’
Mr. Blandfoot paused a moment. ‘It was given me by a man I met,’ he said at last. ‘He painted it specially for me.’
‘Ah, then, it’s a portrait of you,’ put in Mrs. Pepperthwaite quickly, as though to get her say in before the others could speak. ‘Just the head, perhaps?’ she suggested, scrutinizing the back of the picture which looked too small for a full length.
‘No, it’s not a portrait of me,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, his voice dwelling on the preposition. ‘It would be a pity to waste a good canvas on me, wouldn’t it?’ So yellow did his face look in the high shadowy place where he sat that for a moment nobody spoke. Mrs. Stornway’s fluttering ‘How can you say such a ridiculous thing?’ came too late. Mr. Blandfoot seemed to have observed the pause, for there was a noticeable grimness in his voice as he added:
‘In fact it’s not a portrait at all—of any living person.’
‘Oh, then he’s dead,’ concluded Mrs. Pepperthwaite quickly.
‘There’s more than one,’ Mr. Blandfoot rejoined. Some would say they’re dead; some would say they never lived at all; some would say they’re still living. I’m a plain man: I can’t pretend to judge.’
‘You say you’re plain,’ said Mrs. Peets, a little impatiently. ‘But you speak in riddles. I expect it’s a mythological subject.’
‘You’re not far wrong,’ said Mr. Blandfoot. ‘Just a little blasphemous, that’s all.’
‘I don’t care for them much myself,’ observed Mrs. Peets. ‘And how can it be a mythological subject, if it was painted specially for you? I thought they never did that sort of thing now.’
‘By request,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, who seemed to enjoy the conversation, ‘they’ll do almost anything.’
‘Well, we’ve learned a certain amount,’ said Mrs. Peets briskly, ‘though I must say it’s been like drawing blood out of a stone. It’s a semi-mythological picture, painted in Java at Mr. Blandfoot’s request. Who, may I ask, was the artist?’
‘I’m afraid his name wouldn’t mean anything to you, though in his time he was supreme,’ said Mr. Blandfoot.
‘Well, really, Mr. Blandfoot,’ protested Mrs. Pepperthwaite bridling, ‘you seem to think we don’t know anything about Art. Settlemarsh isn’t a big place, but we have a picture-gallery, as you should know by this time.’
‘Yes, now that you’ve insulted us,’ said Mrs. Peets, ‘I think you ought to let us see the picture. We simply cannot wait another minute.’
‘Well, there it is,’ said Mr. Blandfoot. ‘Look at it. Excuse me coming down, my foot’s gone to sleep.’ He began to wave it in the air.
Together they walked slowly towards the picture. Mrs. Peets took it and reverently but firmly turned it round towards the light. First came an impression of blue, stabbed by an arrow of white. Then the subject revealed itself to all their eyes.
‘Why, it’s the Matterhorn!’ Mrs. Peets exclaimed.
‘No, Mt. Cervin,’ said Mrs. Pepperthwaite, examining it more closely.
‘They’re both the same,’ said Mrs. Stornway, who had travelled.
‘Then it’s not the picture!’ they cried in chorus, the inflexion of their voices making a very chord of disappointment.
‘No,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, ‘it’s not the picture. Why, did you think it was?’
‘Now I call that too bad of you,’ said Mrs. Peets.
‘Isn’t he a tease?’ demanded Mrs. Pepperthwaite with ineffective playfulness.
‘I don’t believe they ever try to climb the Matterhorn from this side,’ announced Mrs. Stornway. ‘But the picture will go very nicely here.’ As though fortified by the knowledge of Mrs. Marling’s friendship she was the first to recover herself. There was a silence while she fitted the very blue print into a space between two photographic jungle-studies. When she had finished she looked round the crowded walls and said in a voice that sounded hurt but well-bred:
‘But now there’s no room for the real picture—the one Mr. Blandfoot wouldn’t show us.’
‘Oh,’ said he, still from the top of the steps, ‘that’s hung already.’
‘But we’ve been everywhere,’ protested Mrs. Pepperthwaite, who couldn’t forgo the appearance of curiosity as easily as could Mrs. Stornway.
‘No,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, his voice conveying reproach, ‘not quite everywhere.’
Both of the other women suffered while Mrs. Pepperthwaite racked her memory for places they had not seen. Her mental processes were becoming clear even to herself when Mrs. Peets cut in:
‘Not in the coal cellar, for instance.’
‘No,’ said Mr. Blandfoot. ‘The picture has never been there.’
‘So it walks about, does it?’ said Mrs. Peets. ‘How curious.’ She was still ruffled, as they all were, by the practical joke that they felt had been played on them.
‘I usually take it with me,’ Mr. Blandfoot admitted.
‘Then it must be a miniature,’ declared Mrs. Pepperthwaite triumphantly. Her less sophisticated nature quickly threw off its mood of sulkiness, but her companions still stood on their dignity.
‘No,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, who always seemed pleased to disagree. ‘It’s a fair size—the ordinary size.’
‘What is the ordinary size?’ demanded Mrs. Peets.
‘Oh,’ Mr. Blandfoot replied, making a wide gesture on his airy perch, ‘the size that fits the circumstances.’
‘What are the circumstances?’ Mrs. Peets persisted.
‘Well, the flesh, for example, is the circumstances of the soul.’
The three women received this dictum in silence. Doubt and disappointment appeared in their faces. What a tame dull ending to an enterprise that had seemed so full of promise. Mrs. Pepperthwaite began looking behind the sofa for her bag; Mrs. Stornway picked up hers and started to put on her gloves. Only Mrs. Peets held her ground. She looked up thoughtfully at Mr. Blandfoot, who had the appearance of an umpire at a tennis match.
‘I don’t suppose you want to sell your picture?’ she inquired. Her voice suggested that, little though it would fetch, the thought of selling it might easily have occurred to such a man as Mr. Blandfoot.
‘Oh no,’ said he, ‘we are inseparable.’
‘But if its value goes up, wouldn’t you consider parting with it then?’
‘I hope,’ he answered rather gravely, ‘I shan’t have to part with it for many years,’ He came down the steps, but so tall was he that Mrs. Pepperthwaite, whose grasp of facts was feeble and at the mercy of her imagination, could scarcely believe he was not still aloft. With various shades of ungraciousness they accepted his thanks for their kind offices, but something in his manner made them unwilling to show their disappointment openly. As they stood on the doorstep Mrs. Peets made a last appeal:
‘So you won’t show us the picture after all?’
For a moment he looked as though he might really oblige them, and all their curiosity flooded back.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ he said suddenly. I’ll show it to Mrs. Marling.’
He smiled down into their bewildered faces; and as he shut the door, they could still see, though his face was turned away, the smile lingering on his large, spare, yellowish cheek.
‘I know the word to describe that man,’ exclaimed Mrs. Stornway, who had just learned it and used it more often than the occasion warranted. ‘He’s sinister!’
Directly she reached home she telephoned to Mrs. Marling. Mrs. Marling, it was well known, resented the telephone as an intrusion upon private life: she was as inaccessible to it as to all other demands on her attention. But finally she came.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Eva, Alice, Eva.’
‘Eva Alice Eva: I don’t know the name. Alice is my name: would you kindly spell yours?’
Mrs. Stornway spelt it.
‘My darling Eva, how good of you to telephone, though of course you know I hardly ever use it, it makes me feel so deaf. Can’t bear to feel deaf at my age. Had you anything to say, dearest?’
‘Oh, Alice, I’ve got such heaps to tell you. May I come round tomorrow?’
‘I’m afraid I’m engaged to-morrow.’
‘Wednesday then?’
‘Wednesday is no good.’
‘What about Thursday?’
‘Dearest Eva, you mustn’t let me take up your whole week! Couldn’t you tell me now?’
‘It’s about Mr. Blandfoot’s picture.’
‘His brick shirt?’
‘No, his picture.’
‘Oh,’ in disappointed tones. ‘Have you seen it?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not. Then what have you got to say about it?
‘He wants you to see it, he wants to show it to you.’
‘To me? Oh no. That wouldn’t do. Oh no. Not at my age. I’m too old to look at pictures: I make them myself now.’
‘Well, that’s what he said.’
‘Darling, how frivolous you are. Come and see me on Friday. Yes, Mr. Hesketh will still be here. There’s no sign of his going away.’
It was two days later. Dinner was over, and Mrs. Marling and Mr. Hesketh were sitting over their port: over his port, that is. It had ceased to circulate. As Mr. Hesketh raised his glass, his rich booming voice caused tiny tremors to appear on the surface of the wine.
‘You ought to drink more port,’ said Mrs. Marling. ‘It’s well known to be good for the throat.’ Her pose was upright and her slender body never moved; but there was a hint of weariness in the lines round her eyes.
‘Very kind of you, my dear Alice, I’m sure,’ replied Mr. Hesketh, refilling his glass and staring into it. ‘I shall take your advice to heart. How long has this very excellent port wine lain in your cellar?’
‘You must ask Dodge,’ said Mrs. Marling. ‘He has the key. But I believe my husband put some down the same year that The Logic of the Grape came out—twenty-five years ago?’
‘Thirty.’
‘To look at you,’ said Mrs. Marling, with one of her rare smiles, ‘who would have thought it? Of the two vintages, if I may say so, I prefer your novel.’ She sipped her wine.
‘It has often occurred to me to wonder, Alice,’ remarked Mr. Hesketh, pleased by the compliment—as everyone was pleased when Mrs. Marling said something nice to them, so clearly did she go out of her way to do it—‘why, when Richard died, you stayed on here, a triton among minnows?’ He put his hands on the table-edge and looked hard at her, as though he really wanted an answer.
‘But does that matter when whales like yourself, great, gambolling, famous, good-natured whales, come to stay with me?’
‘Unfortunately, I can’t be here all the time,’ said Mr. Hesketh a trifle heavily.
‘But you’re here a good time—at least I mean when you’re here I have a good time,’ said Mrs. Marling.
‘You are quite right,’ the novelist agreed. Like many people slightly under the influence of alcohol, he was appealing to the Past to give up a decaying friendship, and he thought the best way of recovering it was by a series of intimate references to their common memories. ‘With your talents, if you had lived in London, you might have done almost anything—you might have gone far, very far.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ replied Mrs. Marling. ‘But don’t you think it’s better that I should be somebody in Settlemarsh than almost nobody in London?’
‘Oh, my dear Alice,’ Mr. Hesketh exclaimed, ‘don’t mistake my meaning. I was talking to Dick Gresham the other day, and Richard Gresham is not a man to use words lightly, and he said, “Of all the women I ever knew” (and he’s known a great many) “the most brilliant by far was Alice Ingilby” (that’s you, of course). “Most provincial towns are deadly,” he said, “and Settlemarsh not least; but when you had met her, say just coming away from church, the very bricks and slates sparkled, and the streets were alive with joy!” Once, he said, when he had met you he counted all the palings between his house and Chittlegate, it was so impossible, after one had talked to you, not to find the world interesting! And now I come and I see you surrounded by wretched second-rate people swarming in jerry-built bungalows, with no feeling for the art of life, only an idle curiosity in what the day brings forth and a pitiful competitive snobbishness that has its goal, as it always had, in you.’
Mrs. Marling was silent for a moment after this tribute. To what emotion the slight movement of the muscles about her mouth testified, who could say? Then her eyes hardened, she leaned back as though taking control of the conversation and said:
‘At least I haven’t troubled you with these second-rate people. I kept them from you. It is true they can only take in one word at a time, and your longer speeches might be above their heads. I have always tried to do my best for everybody, Arthur! Even when that means not seeing them for months together! I have my duty to these unhappy creatures, you forget that. You’re so mobile, you’re such a gadabout and welcome in so many houses, you don’t remember what it is to stay at home and hear about the gardener’s baby. You have a large public which looks after you—I a small district which I look after—don’t I seem,’ she went on, her mood lightening, ‘to have the cares of the community on my shoulders? And if you think I should like to live always among brilliant people like yourself you mistake me utterly, Arthur! You are a treat to me, a sugar-plum, a prize for a good, clever girl. But I’m not often good and hardly ever clever, and I couldn’t have you here very much, I shouldn’t dare. Oh no! Oh no!’ she went on, wagging her finger at him. ‘You and your standards would kill me. I must have my stupid friends, that you haven’t been allowed to see, to come in and say one word at a time—one word at a time. “Does—Mrs.—Peets—dye—her hair?” That’s the sort of thing I really enjoy. But now, tell me, where have you seen my second-rate friends, swarming in their bungalows? You can’t have seen them. They live in fashionable Little Settlemarsh, far from this slum. You can’t have heard their wireless sets, much less them.’
Mrs. Marling had put her question like an inquisitor, and the novelist, the wheels of whose conversational machinery had run down while she talked, did not answer immediately. Moreover, it was never easy to tell Mrs. Marling of an acquaintance of whom she might not approve.
‘I ran into Catcomb yesterday,’ he said as casually as he could.
‘What, that man? I thought he was dead years ago!’
‘No,’ said Mr. Hesketh, his confidence returning now that the worst was over. ‘He’s very much alive and bubbling over with excitement.’
‘He always was,’ Mrs. Marling murmured with distaste.
‘Excitement because a man has come to live in Settlemarsh who owns a picture of fabulous value. It’s so valuable, it seems, that he won’t let it out of his sight.’
‘Or into anyone else’s,’ Mrs. Marling put in.
‘I’m coming to that. In places like this people exaggerate. What they mean is he keeps it under lock and key. From the description, size, subject, etc., and the fact that it was found in Java, always a Dutch colony, I should judge it to be a Vermeer. In fact I’m practically sure it’s a Vermeer: so few of them are known, there must be more somewhere.’
‘Do you mean to say that this Mr. Blandfoot conceals about his person a picture by Vermeer?’
‘No, no, but if he is a prudent man, and the picture is as yet unauthenticated, no doubt he keeps it in a safe place. But the point I was coming to is this.’
‘Well?’
‘You know how reluctant he has been—naturally, considering its value—to let anyone see the picture?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Mrs. Marling. ‘As you were saying, I live in Settlemarsh and unfortunately I can’t be blind or deaf to all that goes on there.’
‘Well,’ said the novelist, ‘Catcomb tells me that Blandfoot wants to show the picture to you.’
Mrs. Marling said nothing. Thoughts crowded into her mind: her youth when she had had Settlemarsh at her feet, the parties she had given, the people from the great world who had graced them, the larger ambitions she had entertained but which she had abandoned from cautiousness, from laziness, from conscience, for a dozen reasons. She thought of her empire which, like the Roman Empire under Hadrian, was now technically at its greatest extent. She had maintained it for many years against every kind of opposition and difficulty: assault, intrigue, her own diminished resources. The advent of Mr. Blandfoot troubled her, and taxed her powers as they had not been taxed for a long time. To the world of Settlemarsh it seemed that she was merely reserving her fire. But she knew too well that in her inactivity there lurked a grain of fatigue. She was not really weighing the reasons for and against Mr. Blandfoot’s admission into her charmed circle; she was shirking her responsibilities as the mentor of Settlemarsh, she was letting things slide. And it troubled her the more to feel this lethargy, because she was aware that Mr. Blandfoot was already a centre of disaffection and revolt, and that he must be definitely assimilated into her system, or rejected from it. And her own indifference to whether he was admitted or not alarmed her: it was like the sound of the footsteps of old age gaining upon her. She must pull herself together and take the field. After all, what better occasion than the present, with a renowned novelist at her side to support her, supposing she needed support? She turned to Mr. Hesketh, who was meditatively eyeing the decanter.
‘Dear Arthur, it must be very dull for you alone with such a fossil as me.’
‘Alice, how can you say such a thing?’ he protested.
‘Oh no, oh no,’ she said, ‘in spite of your beautiful manners, I can see your eye wandering whenever I begin these long sentimental anecdotes about my early years. I see I am becoming a bore. Don’t say “no” again. I can’t bear to be contradicted. But I tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going to give a party for all those second-rate people you despise so much! For one evening at least their bungalows will know them no more. Then you will realize that I, like you, am a public benefactor. To make it amusing for them I shall say that you are here. And to make it amusing for you—do you know what I shall do?’
‘Alice, you derange yourself too much!’ murmured the novelist.
‘I shall invite Mr. Blandfoot to come and show us his picture!’
‘Ah!’cried Mr. Hesketh.
‘And now,’ said Mrs. Marling, rising briskly, ‘I shall go and join the ladies. You must stay here and drink some port. You simply haven’t had any! What would my husband say, if he saw that poor little decanter still groaning with wine!’
Mr. Hesketh held the door open for her and she passed out of the room, a slender, distinguished figure, seeming somehow to take up even less space than her scanty envelope of flesh demanded. To say that she fitted her rich heavy ugly surroundings did not do her justice; but her presence completed a harmony whose innate grace and rarity the amateur of life immediately recognized. Mr. Hesketh, watching her go, suddenly felt grateful for her. A warm sentimental emotion welled up in his heart—when she dies, he thought, she can never be replaced. He tried to find words to describe that felicitous relationship between her and her possessions in which her charm seemed to reside. He fancied that the objects she passed made obeisance to her and that her graciousness flowed out, enveloping them in its gentle radiance. But the remembered asperity of her nature kept pricking his honeyed thoughts of her; and returning to his port, he gave up trying to enclose her in a formula.
Alone in the drawing-room, Mrs. Marling sat down at her bureau. She took out an envelope and wrote ‘—Blandfoot, Esq.’ Then she hesitated. So written, the name had an unceremonious, unfriendly air. It reminded her that she did not know Mr. Blandfoot: perhaps he would resent being prefixed by a dash. She entertained the thought, however, only to dismiss it. Who, among the servile population of Settlemarsh would not be flattered to hear from her, by whatever style she addressed them? For a moment she indulged her imagination with a prevision of her party, and the room, as though aware of her thought, glowed softly back at her, loosing for her all its influences of comfort and dignity and order and security. The words flowed easily from her pen as she wrote to the unknown art collector.
At nine o’clock the next morning the maid knocked at Mr. Blandfoot’s bedroom door—knocked several times, though with an air of misgiving. At last she heard a growl: ‘Come in!’ The room was so dark she could see nothing and she paused on the threshold.
‘How often have I told you,’ said a voice, ‘not to come until I ring.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the maid, timidly.
‘Well, come in, if you’re coming,’ said the voice, still implacable.
There was a vast heaving movement on the bed.
‘Now the curtains, now the blinds, now the hot water, now the bath,’ the voice chanted rapidly and irritably, ‘and you haven’t told me why you came at all yet.’
‘Please, sir,’ said the maid, stumbling towards the window, ‘there’s a letter marked “urgent”, so I thought——’
‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ snapped the voice. ‘Well, hand it over.’
But in her flurry the maid had dropped the letter. She groped for it on the floor, obscurely feeling that she must not pull up the blind until she had given her master the letter. She did not know whereabouts in the room she was; she thought she must be near the bed, but she was afraid to touch it and every moment her movements grew more rigid.
‘I had it only just now,’ she murmured, almost crying.
‘Clumsy, clumsy,’ admonished the voice, in gender accents. ‘Here, I’ve got it.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then, sir,’ said the maid, almost gasping with relief.
‘No,’ said the voice, drawing nearer.
‘I want you to give it to me.’
Bewildered, the maid held out her hand in the darkness.
‘No, just a little more this way,’ persuaded the voice, still advancing to meet her.
Again she stumbled forward in the gloom, her hand stretched stiff like a fencer’s. Mr. Blandfoot seemed to have reared himself up in the bed: she could see a vague outline towering above her.
‘A shade to the left now,’ said the voice.
The maid obeyed.
‘And now straight into the letter-box.’
She made a half-hearted prodding movement. Something caught her finger: a sharp pain ran down her arm. She called out, and the whole room was suddenly flooded with light. Afterwards she realized it must have been electric light; but at the time she was aware only of the pain, of the sight of her finger wedged between Mr. Blandfoot’s large irregular teeth, and of his face looking down at her with a smile that had no kindness in it. The blankets were tumbled together in the middle of the bed; the floor, as much of it as she could see, was lumpy with sorry-looking underclothes: the biscuit-coloured walls refracted the unsympathetic light, as did also Mr. Blandfoot’s parchment-coloured face. The spiritless, yellow hues around her were infinitely uncomforting; she felt the world beginning to dissolve.
‘There’s the letter,’ remarked Mr. Blandfoot, ‘on the floor behind you.’
Her finger dropped from his mouth: obsequiously she picked up the letter and handed it to him. Her face was half averted; but she noticed that he pulled the jacket of his pyjamas more firmly across his chest, and this gesture, which seemed to recognize her right to be treated as a human being, restored her a little.
Mr. Blandfoot lay in the bath, the letter in his hand. Dabs of shaving soap had fallen on it, and steam had made the lines run. It was a pitiful object, fallen on evil days since it left Mrs. Marling’s writing-table. We will read the letter over his shoulder. He has cleaned his razor on the envelope, but one has no difficulty in recognizing Mrs. Marling’s elegant Italian hand.
Dear Mr. Blandfoot,
I hope you will forgive me for taking the liberty of writing to you without an introduction. I have long wanted to make your acquaintance but your friends are so jealous of you, they wouldn’t let us meet: so I am defying convention and writing to you myself. I think I would not have dared had not my friend Arthur Hesketh given me courage—perhaps you know him, a most charming person, whatever one may feel about his later books. I want to discuss them with you. He leads me to hope that you will forgive my boldness on the score of my age, and spend next Thursday evening at my house—I have a few friends coming. He even whispered to me something about that picture we are all so longing to see—but this is mere naked presumption, and I feel I have tried your patience already too far. Let me have the pleasure of seeing you on Thursday evening at ten o’clock and I shall feel I am forgiven for my indiscretion. At your age (if I may say so) one can afford to postpone a pleasure. At mine, one can’t; so you see I must indulge my impatience.
Hoping to see you.
Yours sincerely,
With astonishing dexterity Mr. Blandfoot converted the letter into a paper boat, and propelled it with his breath to the far end of the bath. Then he took aim with his sponge and an accurate shot sent the boat to the bottom. It did not reappear. Rising from the bath, Mr. Blandfoot arranged the towel round his waist like an apron. He walked slowly towards a pier glass. Except for a bright narrow margin round the edge, the mirror was misted over with steam; but so tall was Mr. Blandfoot that he could see his eyes reflected in the unclouded area at the top. Our observer, stationed discreetly by the door, could also see them and see the smile which, with ever-growing intensity, they gave back to Mr. Blandfoot’s approaching figure.
‘Do you think he’s come yet?’ asked Mrs. Pepperthwaite of Mrs. Stornway, glancing at the clock in the hall of Mrs. Marling’s house. It showed a minute to ten.
‘He told me at tea,’ Mrs. Stornway whispered, ‘that he might be a little late as he wanted to wash the picture. I said “Is that quite wise?” and he said “Yes, it makes the colours fresher.” ’
‘You are the only person in Settlemarsh who is in his confidence!’ exclaimed Mrs. Pepperthwaite simply.
‘Oh no! But I do think that this time he really means to bring the picture. He practically told me so.’
They were led away. People who came to Mrs. Marling’s house were taken into as many ante-chambers as possible before they were admitted to her presence. The turning of several corners confused them as to their physical and mental whereabouts, so that when they encountered their hostess such self-confidence as they possessed was considerably shaken. Like people who have been blindfolded in a children’s game and whisked rapidly round, they were conscious of cutting an awkward figure.
‘How good of you to come so soon,’ said Mrs. Marling as she greeted them. ‘I am always grateful when my oldest friends arrive early. This is Mr. Hesketh, Mrs. Stornway. An old friend of Settlemarsh. It was very different when you lived here, wasn’t it, Arthur? You must tell him about the new building developments in your neighbourhood, Eva: he’s fond of architecture: I wish he could have seen your new house before he went away: it would have interested him so much.’
The room began to fill. To Mrs. Pepperthwaite a party of any kind was like heaven. Her timidity, that distressed her in the company of two or three people, she felt to be an asset in the presence of forty or fifty: she knew instinctively that it pleased them to find someone less at ease than they were: she went the round of her acquaintance, making to each a small offering of her self-esteem, a sacrifice which, in the prevailing communal amiability, was always graciously accepted. Whereas most of her friends preferred to hide their ignorance, she was delighted to inquire who so-and-so was, whose photograph she had so often seen in the Settlemarsh Clarion, but whose name she could not remember. Never had she had so many opportunities of indulging her craving for humility as to-night: all the chief personages of the neighbourhood were gathered together in Mrs. Marling’s drawing-room. Some of the citizens of Settlemarsh, headed by Mrs. Peets, were inclined to cling together defensively, eyeing with hostility and apprehension these visitants from a larger world. Mrs. Pepperthwaite was unconscious of their ignoble herd-feeling; she rejoiced in strange contacts and she was justified in her confidence: everyone was nice to her. She wandered into the bridge-room and stood behind the chairs of the players. When one of them took a trick she smiled as if she had taken it herself. Once she leaned over the shoulder of a forbidding-looking man whose name she scarcely knew and indicating a card said, ‘I should play that.’ ‘Now would you?’ he said, selecting a card from another part of his hand, from a different suit indeed; but he smiled at her so charmingly it was quite as if he had followed her suggestion. In a corner she found a couple playing chess, their heads bent over the board.
‘Can you play four games at once like Capablanca?’ she asked at random of the two of them. One of the men looked up, the strain of concentration dying from his face like a cloud from the sky. ‘Do you mean me?’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’m a very moderate player.’ But Mrs. Pepperthwaite could see he was flattered that she had imagined him capable of such a feat.
The sound of music recalled her to the drawing-room. It was Anton Melzic at the piano: she recognized him the moment she saw him. He had been plain Antony Mellish when he lived in Settlemarsh before he had gone away and made a name for himself abroad. And now he had come back to play for Mrs. Marling, though it was said she hadn’t always been very kind to him when he practised scales and exercises in the room above his father’s bakehouse. But all that was forgotten: Time had no revenges for Mrs. Marling; if he nourished any he relented at the last moment, and transformed them into bouquets. How attentively everyone was listening! Mrs. Pepperthwaite beat time with her forefinger, ecstatically aware of a harmony within herself more complete than the imperfect copy of it rendered by the strains around her. When the piece was over she would be the first to move across the room and congratulate the pianist. The right words would rise to her lips: that was the joy, the thrilling excitement and release, granted her by the party. What a triumph for Alice Marling! Mrs. Pepperthwaite felt that she and Mrs. Marling had been united for many years in a close bond which had for object the perfect and appropriate entertainment of all the choicer spirits in Settlemarsh. The executive power was Mrs. Marling’s, but surely the inspiration, the vital force, had been all hers! Mrs. Pepperthwaite gave Mrs. Marling, who was sitting at the far end of the room, a warm, confiding glance intended to convey this sense of partnership, and she fancied it was returned. The music was galloping ahead; a kind of recklessness had got into its rhythm, as though everything that went before had been provisional, looking forward to this. A loud brilliant passage was repeated twice as loudly and twice as brilliantly. The excitement which a perfect technique begets in the least musical of listeners was apparent on every face and in every pose. Mrs. Pepperthwaite scanned the guests, eagerly, even critically, as though about to visit with condign punishment the smallest sign of indifference or inattention. She was arranging her hands ready to clap when something jogged her elbow. The door against which she was standing was moving inwards. Someone was trying to come in. What a sacrilege at this moment of all moments. She peered round the door, fury written on her face, meaning to repel the intruder. Her outraged glance, travelling upwards, encountered the large yellowish face of Mr. Blandfoot, impending over her like a parchment lantern, in the dim light of the hall. She had completely forgotten his existence.
Shaken, she turned back to the room. The applause was tremendous, but her own contribution was half-hearted and pre-occupied. When the clapping died down the door opened and Mr. Blandfoot was announced. Mrs. Pepperthwaite noticed it was already eleven o’clock.
He stood in the middle of the room without seeming to face any one part of it, his figure so thin it was like a silhouette, his wide shoulders moving independently like the arms of a semaphore. He drew all eyes towards him and radiated a silence which threatened to stretch into the corners of the room. But Mrs. Marling was already on her feet.
‘How nice to see you,’ she said, ‘and what a pity you missed the last piece.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Mr. Blandfoot. ‘I heard it from the passage, outside the door.’
‘You would have been so much more comfortable in here,’ returned Mrs. Marling, as though he had stayed outside on purpose. ‘Now you must come and sit by me.’ She piloted him to a chair by her side.
The pianist played again as brilliantly as ever and the guests listened entranced, but Mrs. Pepperthwaite knew that the party had changed its character. Before it was fulfilling itself as it went along: now it was leading up to something. Up or down? Mrs. Pepperthwaite had a sense of increasing velocity; her thoughts seemed to outstrip her and to leave her dissatisfied with the present. She felt that her remarks were now aimed at a moving target which they failed to hit. In the next interval she wandered uneasily into the buffet. Mr. Blandfoot was drinking a whisky and soda, even yellower than himself. Scraps of conversation kept coming to her ears. ‘Oh—probably in the cloakroom with his hat.’ ‘But that’s only a figure of speech, my dear, he can’t sleep with it.’ ‘Really, I can’t say, it might be a Vermeer: I know so little about the Dutch School,’ ‘They invented painting in oils.’ ‘But no one said it was an oil-painting.’ ‘But, my dear, the paint would run.’ ‘Not after all these years.’ ‘His waistcoat pocket? But it isn’t a miniature.’ ‘Eva Stornway says it’s not old at all: he had it made for himself.’ ‘Oh, he was kidding her; he looks just that sort of man. Hesketh must know better.’
Vaguely distressed she walked over to where Hesketh was standing, and heard him say to Mrs. Marling, with a smile:
‘A bad fairy, I’m afraid.’
‘Do you think he will cast a spell?’
‘If he does, Alice, it is you who will be the Sleeping Beauty, not me.’
‘Ah, but I invited him: he can’t do me any harm: it’s against the rules.
‘When shall you ask him to——?’
‘I don’t quite know, Arthur. Yes, please, I will have some champagne. Perhaps after the next piece.’
The last piece was over. Some called for more, but the majority agreed, with a note of determination in their voices, that the pianist had been only too generous: they must not be greedy and presume upon his kindness. Mr. Melzic bowed to right and left, rising from his stool a little reluctantly: a monarch relinquishing his throne. The guests moved about studying pictures and objets d’art: it was midnight but they made no attempt to move, and they talked so little that everyone could hear the sound of his own voice.
‘Where’s Blandfoot?’ asked someone, bolder than the rest.
‘In the buffet, I think.’
‘Shall I fetch him?’
‘What for?’
‘Oh, he’ll know.’
At that moment Mr. Blandfoot entered. His cheek bones were flushed and his eyes bright. He walked on to the hearth-rug and stumbled over it, making a fold, which he unceremoniously kicked. The fold did not yield to his treatment, so he kicked it again, harder than before. Then he stared moodily at it while the others fell back into a rough semicircle. There was literally a breach in the company. Mrs. Marling moved quietly into it.
‘Don’t trouble about the carpet, Mr. Blandfoot,’ she said. ‘It always behaves like that.’
‘Bit dangerous, isn’t it?’
‘When you’ve been here a few more times,’ said Mrs. Marling quietly, ‘you’ll get used to its ways.’
‘I might have fallen over it.’
‘How we should have laughed!’ said Mrs. Marling, looking up at him with her bright eyes.
There was a pause.
‘But do do something for us, Mr. Blandfoot,’ she continued persuasively. ‘Dance for us.’
‘I can’t dance,’ he muttered.
‘Then sing us a song?’
He was silent.
‘Or tell us a story?’
He glowered down at her helplessly.
‘He’s a strong, silent man,’ she said to the company at large. ‘But there’s something you can do for us, Mr. Blandfoot!’
‘What?’
‘Why, show us your picture!’
‘Yes, do show it to us!’ came in a confused murmur from the room. There was a general movement. The tension relaxed. Smiles broke out on puzzled faces: women made delicate gestures of eagerness; men settled themselves comfortably into their chairs. The optimistic party-spirit had reasserted itself, and once again Mrs. Marling’s drawing-room breathed freely. Even Mr. Blandfoot smiled.
‘Do you really want to see it?’ he asked them.
‘Yes, yes,’ they cried, all looking towards him.
‘But I must warn you,’ he added, ‘that it may be more than you bargain for.’
Mrs. Marling looked up from the chair in which, when Mr. Blandfoot showed signs of coming to heel, she had seated herself.
‘Will it be like the head of Medusa? Will it turn us to stone?’
‘I don’t know what it will turn you into,’ he said, looking round him reflectively.
They all smiled delightedly at each other.
‘Nothing worse than donkeys?’ suggested someone facetiously.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, ‘how bad you can be.’
‘And after to-night,’ asked one of the guests, ‘everyone will be able to see it—it will be hung up in your house?’
Mr. Blandfoot thought a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This is a private view, and I doubt if I shall show the picture again. You might not even want to see it a second time.’
There was a pause. Mrs. Marling stirred in her chair.
‘Would you like me to send someone to fetch it?’
Everyone hung on Mr. Blandfoot’s lips.
‘No, thank you, I have it on me, here.’
‘Dear me, how the man does tease us,’ said a woman’s voice.
‘Come on, Blandfoot,’ said a man from among the company. ‘You can’t get us more excited than we are now. You’ll miss your market if you keep us on tenterhooks any longer.’
‘He’s forgotten it, and doesn’t dare say so.’
‘Blandfoot, we shall skin you alive if you disappoint us. Alice has all the engines of Oriental torture in the hall being heated ready for you, so hurry up!’
‘I tell you what,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, ‘if you skin me alive you can have the picture to keep. There’s an offer.’
Mrs. Marling rose from her chair. ‘Mr. Blandfoot, I don’t think you really want to show us the picture. Keep it for another time. It’s late now, and we don’t want to worry you,’ She glanced at the clock.
Mr. Blandfoot pulled something slowly out of his pocket. Every eye was focused upon his waistcoat, and when the object turned out to be in truth his watch, there was a general sigh, half of relief, half of disappointment.
‘No, no,’ he said, ignoring what was perhaps the most palpable hint Mrs. Marling had ever given in her life.
‘Believe me, there’s plenty of time. Only I should be much obliged if you would send and ask if my car is standing at the door.’
‘I’m afraid all the servants have gone to bed,’ said Mrs. Marling.
The silence that followed this pronouncement was broken by Mrs. Pepperthwaite’s thin piping voice:
‘There must be someone about to give us back our hats and coats.’
Mrs. Marling looked straight in front of her; and a man at the back of the room said in a good natured voice: ‘All right, Blandfoot, I’ll go and look.’
When he had gone the murmur of conversation began again, though Mr. Blandfoot and Mrs. Marling, at their posts on the hearth-rug, contributed nothing to it.
The man returned with a beaming smile, as though he had smoothed away every difficulty. ‘The Rover? Yes, it’s there all right. Now, Blandfoot. Out with the Murillo.’
Mrs. Marling and Mr. Blandfoot gave each other a long stare. Then Mrs. Marling spoke.
‘I don’t think we should find the picture very interesting. I hope, Mr. Blandfoot, you’ll respect my wishes and not show it to us now.’
Instantly the room was alive with voices raised in protest. ‘Really, Alice, you mustn’t spoil the fun.’ ‘Oh, do let us see it, just for a moment! What harm can it do? It’s only a picture.’
The various intonations of appeal and persuasion and protest united made quite a hubbub. Some rose to their feet and made oratorical gestures; some whispered fiercely into the ears of their neighbours, with heavy emphasis on single words; some studied the ceiling as though dissociating themselves from what was going on round them. Each, after speaking, looked as though no one on earth could challenge the reasonableness of his or her remarks. Mr. Blandfoot glanced from Mrs. Marling to the rebels, and back to Mrs. Marling again. His look spoke volumes. She turned to her unruly guests and said:
‘In that case you must excuse me if I leave you.
In the silence that followed she was preparing to depart when Mr. Blandfoot cried:
‘Stop! You wanted to see it, and by God you shall!’
His hands flew to his collar; his pale face turned red, then purple and seemed to swell; he swayed, clutched at the mantelpiece and fell heavily on the carpet.
The man who had gone to find the car ran forward. ‘Give him air!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll unfasten his collar.’ He wrenched at the starched linen, and at last it gave; the shirt front came open with it, disclosing a crimson stain. ‘Ah, what’s this?’ he cried. ‘Get back—it’s more serious than we thought!’ He bent over his patient, cutting him off from the view of those around. Another rending sound followed and further garments became apparent. “What is it, what is it?’ they cried. ‘Is he dying?’ ‘Tell us what the matter is.’ The man gave a laugh which sounded strangely on the ears of those who knew him well. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said; ‘it’s his picture; it’s his picture, that’s all. I think he’s coming round.’ He began to laugh uncomfortably; but he did not move; his body still screened Mr. Blandfoot’s chest from the eyes of the others. A man detached himself from the group of staring guests, walked across to the fallen man, paused, looked down and went on to the door, his expression scarcely changing. ‘Good night, good night, Alice,’ he said. ‘Thank you for a most charming evening.’ Another man left his chair, hesitated, walked rather quickly to where Blandfoot lay, and peered down at him. Then with a smile on his lips he gave the tips of his fingers to Mrs. Marling and softly went away. Two other men did the same; the rest followed the women who made a wide circuit to reach the door. ‘Good night, good night,’ they said, in lower voices; but their hostess did not answer. She looked neither at them nor at the figure on the carpet, but at the ferns in the grate; she paid no heed to Hesketh who had taken her hand; her lower lip twitched slightly and she seemed to have grown smaller. ‘Never mind, never mind,’ said the man at Mr. Blandfoot’s side. ‘Leave him to us, Mrs. Marling. Don’t you stay; he’ll be all right in a moment.’ Then she too went. Mr. Blandfoot’s face twitched. The man beside him caught Hesketh’s eye and the novelist reluctantly moved over to him. ‘He’s sweating,’ said the man; ‘better cover him up.’ He folded Mr. Blandfoot’s garments over the tattoo-marks, his whole body quivering with uncontrollable laughter, but his companion did not join in. ‘I’m glad you see something to laugh at,’ he said.
How stealthily, like the imperceptible approaches of a painless but fatal illness, does a passion for the antique grow on one! Timothy Carswell had inherited some Oriental china, enough to dress a chimney piece and fill a corner cupboard. His friends congratulated him and he was full of the pride of possession; when that wore off he lost interest and was half inclined to agree with his maid, that ornaments so breakable ought not to be left about.
But one day an elderly relation told him that in the time of his great-grandmother a certain plate had been used for feeding the chickens. Yes, here it was—great excitement—and as Timothy doubtless knew, was famille verte and valuable.
When she had gone Timothy studied the plate. From a circular yellow medallion in the centre radiated branches bearing blue flowers and mauve flowers, and terra-cotta roses with leaves of two shades of green. It was the leaves that especially fascinated Timothy. The point of transition between the two greens, where they leaned towards each other, affected him almost as deeply as a change of key in Schubert. He was horrified to think of the chickens pecking at the leaves and replaced the plate on the chimneypiece with exaggerated care.
Now the china was his chief delight, and though none of the other pieces gave him quite the same satisfaction as the plate, they all gave him something to read about, to discuss, and to contemplate in a dreamy mood between thought and feeling which he found extremely seductive.
And so it was with bitter disappointment that he learned from the porter of a London museum that the ceramics department was still closed for repairs. ‘Come again in three years’ time,’ the man told him with a twinkle.
But to Timothy even three minutes seemed too long to wait. He had come up to London to see Chinese porcelain, and Chinese porcelain he would see. A bus hove in sight, going to a region north of the Park where antique shops abounded. Timothy got in.
The inside of the shop was much larger than one would have guessed from the street. A thick carpet muffled Timothy’s tread. There was no one about, so he tip-toed up to the shelves which lined the walls and, looking at one piece after another, tried to measure in terms of feeling the attraction that each piece might have for him. Suddenly he stopped, for on a shelf above his head was a vase that arrested his attention as sharply as if it had spoken to him. Who can describe perfection? I shall not attempt to, nor even indicate the colour; for, like a pearl, the vase had its own colour, which floated on its surface more lightly than morning mist hangs on a river.
‘You were looking at this vase,’ said a voice at his elbow, a courteous voice but it made Timothy jump. ‘You are right to admire it: it is a unique piece.’
The speaker was a clean-shaven man of middle height and middle age with an urbane manner and considerable presence.
‘It is most beautiful,’ said Timothy and was immediately abashed at having spoken to a stranger in such a heart-felt tone.
His interlocutor turned and called into the depth of the shop: ‘Get the celadon vase down and show it to the gentleman.’
‘Yes, Mr. Joshaghan.’
One of several men who had suddenly appeared from nowhere brought some steps and, with an expressionless face, took down the vase and set it on a table.
‘Turn on the light!’ commanded the proprietor. So illuminated, the vase shone as if brightness had been poured over it. It might have been floating in its own essence, so insubstantial did it look. Through layer on layer of soft transparency you seemed to see right into the heart of the vase.
‘Clair-de-lune,’ said Mr. Joshaghan. ‘Ming?’ he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Perhaps. We do not guarantee. You like the vase, sir?’
‘How much is it?’ asked Timothy, absently.
He started when he was told the sum. And yet, he thought, it might have been much more. How can you put a price on perfection? He gave the proprietor a regretful smile to indicate that the vase was not for him.
‘Too much, eh?’ said Mr. Joshaghan in a business-like tone. ‘Come here, Mr. Kirman, and tell this gentleman what you think about this vase.’
Mr. Kirman, detaching himself from the little pack, came forward and looked down thoughtfully at the vase.
‘It is a wonderful piece, Mr. Joshaghan,’ he said. ‘In all our experience we have never had one like it. This gentleman would be well advised to buy it, if only as an investment.’
‘You see?’ said Mr. Joshaghan. ‘Come here, Mr. Solstice, and tell this gentleman what you think about this vase.’
Dark-browed and aquiline like his predecessor, Mr. Solstice joined them and stared down at the vase.
‘It is a bargain, indeed it is, sir,’ he said earnestly. ‘You would not find a vase like this wherever you looked. It is a piece of extraordinary good fortune that we are able to offer it to you.’
Mr. Joshaghan raised his eyebrows at Timothy and gave his hands a half-turn outwards. ‘You hear? He agrees with the other. We will ask again. Come here, Mr. Doverman, and tell this gentleman——’
‘No, no, please don’t bother,’ cried Timothy, forestalling almost rudely Mr. Doverman’s testimony. ‘I couldn’t possibly——’ He stopped and looked with distaste at the vase, its lustre dimmed by all the exudations of commerce that so thickly smeared it. How could he have dreamed? . . .
Into the moody silence round the vase came the sound of the shop door opening, and a shadow moved along the carpet.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Mr. Joshaghan. ‘What a good chance! Here is Mr. Smith of Manchester, in the nick of time. Mr. Smith, if you will be so kind, tell this gentleman what you think about this vase.’
Sharp-featured, sandy-haired and very English-looking, Mr. Smith seemed embarrassed. He stroked his chin, cleared his throat and said with an effort, ‘Well, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it?’
At once Timothy’s mood changed. The others had all spoken for the vase. Mr. Smith, more perceptive, had said the vase spoke for itself. It did; it needed no recommendation from anyone. It had perfection; it was perfection; the Absolute in terms of a vase. If Timothy possessed it he would have the Absolute always at his command. Had his life been a quest, it would have ended here.
But the price was totally disproportionate to his capital, his income, his way of life and his prospects. To pay it would be a step towards madness. Worried by the pressure of the wills around him, he shook his head.
‘Mr.——?’ said Mr. Joshaghan softly. ‘I do not have the pleasure of knowing your name.’
‘Carswell,’ said Timothy.
‘Mr. Carswell,’ said Mr. Joshaghan, as reverently as if the name was a benediction, ‘do you know that Lord Mountbatten will soon be leaving India?’
Timothy stared at him. He had been so deeply absorbed in the vase that he could not get India into focus.
‘I suppose so,’ he said, doubtfully.
‘Mr. Carswell,’ repeated Mr. Joshaghan, ‘India is a very large place.’
‘Very large,’ Timothy agreed, hoping he was not going to get drawn into a political argument.
‘What would you say was the population of India?’ Mr. Joshaghan eyed him closely.
Timothy was fond of statistics. ‘Four hundred million,’ he replied with unkind promptness. But to his surprise Mr. Joshaghan was not in the least put out.
‘Four hundred and fifteen million, to be exact,’ he said. ‘And what fraction would that be of the total population of the world?’
‘About a fifth.’
Again Mr. Joshaghan did not seem to mind having his aces trumped.
‘You are quite right, Mr. Carswell,’ he said, slowly and impressively. ‘There are two thousand million people in the world, and not one of them could make this vase!’
The onlookers stood with downcast eyes, like donors in a picture. But to Timothy they had multiplied, multiplied into the two thousand million people of the world, for whom the making of this vase must for ever remain an unattainable ideal. The poetry of the idea swept over him, loosening his heart-strings.
‘I’ll have it,’ he said.
‘I congratulate you,’ said Mr. Joshaghan.
Immediately the knot of tension broke; the cloud of witnesses, their faces indifferent now, melted away; even Mr. Joshaghan, still murmuring compliments, withdrew into his office. Timothy was left alone with his prize. How could he bear to be separated from it?
‘But there is no need,’ said Mr. Joshaghan, when consulted about payment. ‘We will gladly accept your cheque and you can take the vase away with you.’
Joy surged up in Timothy again, and he could hardly refrain from embracing Mr. Joshaghan.
‘I will arrange for it to be packed,’ said Timothy’s benefactor, pocketing his cheque and bowing himself away. ‘Meanwhile, perhaps, you would like to have another look round. We may have other vases. . .’
Timothy smiled, for of course there were no other vases in the world. But there was plenty to look at, and plenty of reason, every time he looked, to congratulate himself that bis vase was not as these.
His mind had travelled far before the assistant returned, bearing an immense square box which he respectfully tendered to Timothy. How solid beauty was! Clasping it, almost eclipsed by it, Timothy moved towards the door. Another customer had come in; another vase was being displayed; and as Timothy passed by he heard Mr. Joshaghan say ‘There are two thousand million people in the world, Mr. Gainfoot and not one of them——’
But Timothy did not care, for before him, like a buckler against all those millions, he was carrying the Absolute.
Henry Tarrant had been asked to write a short story but he couldn’t think of one.
He tried all sorts of devices. He studied the ornaments in his room (and they were many, for he was an inveterate collector); he recalled the circumstances in which he had inherited or acquired them. How many good stories had been written about objects!—The Tinder Box, Le Peau de Chagrin, The Golden Bowl. But his had nothing to tell him. They had risen above context, they were complete in themselves, they did not want to be questioned about their pasts.
Well, what about Nature? Many admirable stories had been written about Nature. Was not the sea the chief character in most of Conrad’s novels? Did not the moors dominate The Return of the Native? Could Green Mansions have been written without trees?
Henry Tarrant knew about Nature, of course. Nature had made discreet appearances in his novels. He knew when flowers came out; he would never have committed Emily Brontë’s blunder of making wallflowers blossom in September. But Nature had always come to him in his study. He did not have to go out in search of it, it was there when he took out his botany book. And if he wanted a more direct view he had only to go to his window, which commanded both the moors and the sea. What was Nature doing? He looked out. A September drizzle shrouded moors and sea, reducing the one to a pinkish, the other to a greyish monochrome. So much for Nature. He turned back with relief to his well-ordered room.
The date for the delivery of the story drew nearer, but Henry was no nearer to writing it. Art had failed him, Nature had failed him; they would not dramatize themselves in his mind.
There remained the human race. At the thought of the human race Henry’s face, could he have seen it, lengthened. As a novelist he had written a lot about the human race, of course; he had even been complimented on his knowledge of it. And he did, he felt, know a lot about it, quite enough, too much. Sitting in his study he had paraded it before him. The human race had its apologists but Henry Tarrant was not among them. He was not going to say smooth things about it. It was a wonder that his public went on reading him, but from a sort of masochism, which was one of their less endearing traits, they did. They took their medicine and came back for more. Surely it should be easy to pour out another little dose?
Henry Tarrant was a bachelor and fiction-writing had confirmed him in the single state. The more he wrote about human beings the less he wanted to have anything to do with them. He had got them where he wanted them, and that was outside. Outside, they obeyed the rules—his rules. Critics had remarked on his aloofness, but it was perfectly in order for an artist to be aloof. A portrait-painter does not embrace his subject, at least he is under no obligation to; he stands away from it at whatever distance he finds convenient—in Henry’s case, the range of a good pair of field glasses. But when he peered into the distance, once so thickly populated with unprepossessing figures, he could see nothing.
An idea came into his mind. ‘I must provoke an incident,’ he thought; ‘I must provoke an incident.’ He did not know where the words came from—perhaps they were an echo from some old newspaper. Dictators provoked incidents. But his whole life—nearly forty years of it now—had been designed to keep incidents at bay. He had kept illness at bay, the war at bay, marriage at bay: he had kept life itself at bay. Only art had he welcomed; and now art had gone back on him.
So how could he provoke an incident—ridiculous phrase? He looked round the snug little room. The only incidents that ever occurred in it were breakages. Sometimes he broke a thing himself and then his housekeeper would say: ‘Well, sir, I’m glad it was you did it,’ and this annoyed him, but it did not constitute an incident in the literary sense. One cannot provoke an incident with oneself.
In a panic he snatched up his hat, mackintosh and stick and hurried out. A sense of dislocated routine oppressed him, as if he was wearing someone else’s clothes. The hour, six-thirty, was sacred to literary effort. The warm wet autumnal twilight wrapped him round. Which way? It didn’t matter which way; he chose the road between occasional bungalows that led towards the golf house. Suddenly he saw a dog was following him. He didn’t like dogs. ‘Go away!’ he said. But the animal wouldn’t go away: it trotted beside him with a proprietary air as if it had adopted him.
Presently it halted. ‘Good,’ thought Henry, and walked on, thankful to be relieved of this encumbrance. Then he saw, some way ahead, a lady also with a dog: she must be giving it an airing. He heard a scamper; the yellow dog tore past him and bore down on the lady’s dog. There was a moment’s parley between the two; then a scuffle; then the indescribable ear-piercing uproar of a dog fight.
‘Call off your dog, please, call off your dog!’ the lady shouted.
‘It isn’t my dog!’ Henry Tarrant replied.
‘Well, please do something,’ cried the lady, ‘or my dog will get murdered.’ She had no stick or whip, only a lead with which she was vainly thrashing the aggressor’s back.
No pepper-pot, no bucket of water. Henry paused a moment, then plunged into the mêlée of gleaming eyes and snapping teeth.
The yellow dog had got the spaniel down and was literally wiping the floor with it; the blows of Henry’s stick went off its back like water. Leaning down he seized it by the collar and lifted it into the air. It released the spaniel, wriggled round, and bit him to the bone. ‘Ow!’ he exclaimed and dropped the dog, which darted off into the gloom like the yellow streak it was.
Tall, dark and soft-featured, the lady bent over her pet. ‘Poor Sherry! Poor Sherry!’ she panted. The spaniel struggled to its feet and took some trial steps. She hadn’t noticed Henry’s hand. Better not tell her: let the incident be closed. But then she saw the blood flowing.
‘Oh, your poor hand!’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Henry, rather ungraciously.
‘But it is! You must put something on it at once. Have you anyone to do it for you?’
‘Well, no,’ said Henry, which was not quite true.
‘Then may I?’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ said Henry in a distant voice.
‘It’s the least I can do,’ the lady said. ‘Do you live near here?’
Unwillingly Henry pointed to his house.
‘Oh, then you’re Henry Tarrant—how exciting!’
But Henry didn’t ask the lady her name.
Later she said to him across the reassuring fumes of Dettol:
‘But I thought you never saw anyone!’
‘I don’t,’ said Henry, self-consciously.
‘But,’ she exclaimed inconsequently, ‘it’s such a pretty house!’
Henry Tarrant grunted. The basin was running with blood; the bathroom floor was splashed with blood; the towel was blood-stained. Blood everywhere: his blood. He felt absurdly proud of it. But the lady, following his eyes, suddenly realized the damage she had done, and was appalled. First she had wounded a writer and then wrecked his house. ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, ‘how you must wish you had never met us!’
‘Not at all,’ said Henry. ‘It’s been a most rewarding experience.’
He meant it, but she scented sarcasm and shook her head. And there was worse to follow when they went downstairs. The incident had been too much for Henry’s nerves, as a large, dark, sullen pool on Henry’s best rug testified.
‘At least let me——’ she stammered.
‘We’ll do it together,’ Henry said.
If only he could tell her how much better he liked the house this way, fouled and blood-stained! But he couldn’t; he couldn’t pierce the shell of her shame and remorse. He felt that they were turning her against him.
‘Please stay and have a drink,’ he begged. ‘I have some sherry here—another kind of sherry,’ he added, nervously facetious.
But she was firm. She could hardly bring herself to speak to him.
‘Then I’ll see you to the door.’
In silence they went down the flagged path to the gate. He held out his left hand.
‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘and thank you.’
Again she suspected sarcasm. ‘Good-bye,’ she said, and added with an effort, ‘I think I should keep that arm in a sling.’
‘How kind of you to think of it!’
She winced and did not answer. Henry opened the gate and there, waiting for them, its hackles rising, its teeth bared, its eyes ablaze as though it was a veritable hell-hound, stood the yellow dog. A deep growl came from its throat.
The lady screamed.
Henry hastily shut the gate. ‘Now you simply must come back!’ he said.
She heard the triumph in his voice and wonderingly followed him into the house.
The first postcard came from Forfar. ‘I thought you might like a picture of Forfar,’ it said. ‘You have always been so interested in Scotland, and that is one reason why I am interested in you. I have enjoyed all your books, but do you really get to grips with people? I doubt it. Try to think of this as a handshake from your devoted admirer, W.S.’
Like other novelists, Walter Streeter was used to getting communications from strangers. Usually they were friendly but sometimes they were critical. In either case he always answered them, for he was conscientious. But answering them took up the time and energy he needed for his writing, so that he was rather relieved that W.S. had given no address. The photograph of Forfar was uninteresting and he tore it up. His anonymous correspondent’s criticism, however, lingered in his mind. Did he really fail to come to grips with his characters? Perhaps he did. He was aware that in most cases they were either projections of his own personality or, in different forms, the antithesis of it. The Me and the Not Me. Perhaps W.S. had spotted this. Not for the first time Walter made a vow to be more objective.
About ten days later arrived another postcard, this time from Berwick-on-Tweed. ‘What do you think of Berwick-on-Tweed?’ it said. ‘Like you, it’s on the Border. I hope this doesn’t sound rude. I don’t mean that you are a border-line case! You know how much I admire your stories. Some people call them other-worldly. I think you should plump for one world or the other. Another firm handshake from W.S.’
Walter Streeter pondered over this and began to wonder about the sender. Was his correspondent a man or a woman? It looked like a man’s handwriting—commercial, unself-conscious—and the criticism was like a man’s. On the other hand, it was like a woman to probe—to want to make him feel at the same time flattered and unsure of himself. He felt the faint stirrings of curiosity but soon dismissed them; he was not a man to experiment with acquaintances. Still it was odd to think of this unknown person speculating about him, sizing him up. Other-worldly, indeed! He re-read the last two chapters he had written. Perhaps they didn’t have their feet firm on the ground. Perhaps he was too ready to escape, as other novelists were nowadays, into an ambiguous world, a world where the conscious mind did not have things too much its own way. But did that matter? He threw the picture of Berwick-on-Tweed into his November fire and tried to write; but the words came haltingly, as though contending with an extra-strong barrier of self-criticism. And as the days passed he became uncomfortably aware of self-division, as though someone had taken hold of his personality and was pulling it apart. His work was no longer homogeneous, there were two strains in it, unreconciled and opposing, and it went much slower as he tried to resolve the discord. Never mind, he thought: perhaps I was getting into a groove. These difficulties may be growing pains, I may have tapped a new source of supply. If only I could correlate the two and make their conflict fruitful, as many artists have!
The third postcard showed a picture of York Minster. ‘I know you are interested in cathedrals,’ it said. ‘I’m sure this isn’t a sign of megalomania in your case, but smaller churches are sometimes more rewarding. I’m seeing a good many churches on my way south. Are you busy writing or are you looking round for ideas? Another hearty handshake from your friend W.S.’
It was true that Walter Streeter was interested in cathedrals. Lincoln Cathedral had been the subject of one of his youthful fantasies and he had written about it in a travel book. And it was also true that he admired mere size and was inclined to under-value parish churches. But how could W.S. have known that? And was it really a sign of megalomania? And who was W.S. anyhow?
For the first time it struck him that the initials were his own. No, not for the first time. He had noticed it before, but they were such commonplace initials; they were Gilbert’s, they were Maugham’s, they were Shakespeare’s—a common possession. Anyone might have them. Yet now it seemed to him an odd coincidence; and the idea came into his mind—suppose I have been writing postcards to myself? People did such things, especially people with split personalities. Not that he was one, of course. And yet there were these unexplained developments—the cleavage in his writing, which had now extended from his thought to his style, making one paragraph languorous with semi-colons and subordinate clauses, and another sharp and incisive with main verbs and full-stops.
He looked at the handwriting again. It had seemed the perfection of ordinariness—anybody’s hand—so ordinary as perhaps to be disguised. Now he fancied he saw in it resemblances to his own. He was just going to pitch the postcard in the fire when suddenly he decided not to. I’ll show it to somebody, he thought.
His friend said, ‘My dear fellow, it’s all quite plain. The woman’s a lunatic. I’m sure it’s a woman. She has probably fallen in love with you and wants to make you interested in her. I should pay no attention whatsoever. People whose names are mentioned in the papers are always getting letters from lunatics. If they worry you, destroy them without reading them. That sort of person is often a little psychic, and if she senses that she’s getting a rise out of you she’ll go on.’
For a moment Walter Streeter felt reassured. A woman, a little mouse-like creature, who had somehow taken a fancy to him! What was there to feel uneasy about in that? It was really rather sweet and touching, and he began to think of her and wonder what she looked like. What did it matter if she was a little mad? Then his subconscious mind, searching for something to torment him with, and assuming the authority of logic, said: Supposing those postcards are a lunatic’s, and you are writing them to yourself, doesn’t it follow that you must be a lunatic too?
He tried to put the thought away from him; he tried to destroy the postcard as he had the others. But something in him wanted to preserve it. It had become a piece of him, he felt. Yielding to an irresistible compulsion, which he dreaded, he found himself putting it behind the clock on the chimney-piece. He couldn’t see it but he knew that it was there.
He now had to admit to himself that the postcard business had become a leading factor in his life. It had created a new area of thoughts and feelings and they were most unhelpful. His being was strung up in expectation of the next postcard.
Yet when it came it took him, as the others had, completely by surprise. He could not bring himself to look at the picture. ‘I hope you are well and would like a postcard from Coventry,’ he read. ‘Have you ever been sent to Coventry? I have—in fact you sent me there. It isn’t a pleasant experience, I can tell you. I am getting nearer. Perhaps we shall come to grips after all. I advised you to come to grips with your characters, didn’t I? Have I given you any new ideas? If I have you ought to thank me, for they are what novelists want, I understand. I have been re-reading your novels, living in them, I might say. Another hard handshake. As always, W.S.’
A wave of panic surged up in Walter Streeter. How was it that he had never noticed, all this time, the most significant fact about the postcards—that each one came from a place geographically closer to him than the last? ‘I am coming nearer.’ Had his mind, unconsciously self-protective, worn blinkers? If it had, he wished he could put them back. He took an atlas and idly traced out W.S.’s itinerary. An interval of eighty miles or so seemed to separate the stopping-places. Walter lived in a large West Country town about ninety miles from Coventry.
Should he show the postcards to an alienist? But what could an alienist tell him? He would not know, what Walter wanted to know, whether he had anything to fear from W.S.
Better go to the police. The police were used to dealing with poison-pens. If they laughed at him, so much the better.
They did not laugh, however. They said they thought the postcards were a hoax and that W.S. would never show up in the flesh. Then they asked if there was anyone who had a grudge against him. ‘No one that I know of,’ Walter said. They, too, took the view that the writer was probably a woman. They told him not to worry but to let them know if further postcards came.
A little comforted, Walter went home. The talk with the police had done him good. He thought it over. It was quite true what he had told them—that he had no enemies. He was not a man of strong personal feelings such feelings as he had went into his books. In his books he had drawn some pretty nasty characters. Not of recent years, however. Of recent years he had felt a reluctance to draw a very bad man or woman: he thought it morally irresponsible and artistically unconvincing, too. There was good in everyone: Iagos were a myth. Latterly—but he had to admit that it was several weeks since he laid pen to paper, so much had this ridiculous business of the postcards weighed upon his mind—if he had to draw a really wicked person he represented him as a Communist or a Nazi—someone who had deliberately put off his human characteristics. But in the past, when he was younger and more inclined to see things as black or white, he had let himself go once or twice. He did not remember his old books very well but there was a character in one, ‘The Outcast’, into whom he had really got his knife. He had written about him with extreme vindictiveness, just as if he was a real person whom he was trying to show up. He had experienced a curious pleasure in attributing every kind of wickedness to this man. He never gave him the benefit of the doubt. He had never felt a twinge of pity for him, even when he paid the penalty for his misdeeds on the gallows. He had so worked himself up that the idea of this dark creature, creeping about brimful of malevolence, had almost frightened him.
Odd that he couldn’t remember the man’s name.
He took the book down from the shelf and turned the pages—even now they affected him uncomfortably. Yes, here it was, William . . . William . . . he would have to look back to find the surname. William Stainsforth.
His own initials.
Walter did not think the coincidence meant anything but it coloured his mind and weakened its resistance to his obsession. So uneasy was he that when the next postcard came it came as a relief.
‘I am quite close now,’ he read, and involuntarily he turned the postcard over. The glorious central tower of Gloucester Cathedral met his eye. He stared at it as if it could tell him something, then with an effort went on reading. ‘My movements, as you may have guessed, are not quite under my control, but all being well I look forward to seeing you some time this week-end. Then we can really come to grips. I wonder if you’ll recognize me! It won’t be the first time you have given me hospitality. My hand feels a bit cold to-night, but my handshake will be just as hearty. As always, W.S.’
‘P.S. Does Gloucester remind you of anything? Gloucester gaol?’
Walter took the postcard straight to the police station, and asked if he could have police protection over the week-end. The officer in charge smiled at him and said he was quite sure it was a hoax; but he would tell someone to keep an eye on the premises.
‘You still have no idea who it could be?’ he asked.
Walter shook his head.
It was Tuesday; Walter Streeter had plenty of time to think about the week-end. At first he felt he would not be able to live through the interval, but strange to say his confidence increased instead of waning. He set himself to work as though he could work, and presently he found he could—differently from before, and, he thought, better. It was as though the nervous strain he had been living under had, like an acid, dissolved a layer of non-conductive thought that came between him and his subject: he was nearer to it now, and his characters, instead of obeying woodenly his stage directions, responded wholeheartedly and with all their beings to the tests he put them to. So passed the days, and the dawn of Friday seemed like any other day until something jerked him out of his self-induced trance and suddenly he asked himself, ‘When does a week-end begin?’
A long week-end begins on Friday. At that his panic returned. He went to the street door and looked out. It was a suburban, unfrequented street of detached Regency houses like his own. They had tall square gate-posts, some crowned with semi-circular iron brackets holding lanterns. Most of these were out of repair: only two or three were ever lit. A car went slowly down the street; some people crossed it: everything was normal.
Several times that day he went to look and saw nothing unusual, and when Saturday came, bringing no postcard, his panic had almost subsided. He nearly rang up the police station to tell them not to bother to send anyone after all.
They were as good as their word: they did send someone. Between tea and dinner, the time when week-end guests most commonly arrive, Walter went to the door and there, between two unlit gate-posts, he saw a policeman standing—the first policeman he had ever seen in Charlotte Street. At the sight, and at the relief it brought him, he realized how anxious he had been. Now he felt safer than he had ever felt in his life, and also a little ashamed at having given extra trouble to a hard-worked body of men. Should he go and speak to his unknown guardian, offer him a cup of tea or a drink? It would be nice to hear him laugh at Walter’s fancies. But no—somehow he felt his security the greater when its source was impersonal and anonymous. ‘P.C. Smith’ was somehow less impressive than ‘police protection’.
Several times from an upper window (he didn’t like to open the door and stare) he made sure that his guardian was still there; and once, for added proof, he asked his housekeeper to verify the strange phenomenon. Disappointingly, she came back saying she had seen no policeman; but she was not very good at seeing things, and when Walter went a few minutes later he saw him plain enough. The man must walk about, of course, perhaps he had been taking a stroll when Mrs. Kendal looked.
It was contrary to his routine to work after dinner but to-night he did, he felt so much in the vein. Indeed, a sort of exaltation possessed him; the words ran off his pen; it would be foolish to check the creative impulse for the sake of a little extra sleep. On, on. They were right who said the small hours were the time to work. When his housekeeper came in to say good night he scarcely raised his eyes.
In the warm, snug little room the silence purred around him like a kettle. He did not even hear the door bell till it had been ringing for some time.
A visitor at this hour?
His knees trembling, he went to the door, scarcely knowing what he expected to find; so what was his relief on opening it, to see the doorway filled by the tall figure of a policeman. Without waiting for the man to speak—
‘Come in, come in, my dear fellow,’ he exclaimed. He held his hand out, but the policeman did not take it. ‘You must have been very cold standing out there. I didn’t know that it was snowing, though,’ he added, seeing the snowflakes on the policeman’s cape and helmet. ‘Come in and warm yourself.’
‘Thanks,’ said the policeman. ‘I don’t mind if I do.’
Walter knew enough of the phrases used by men of the policeman’s stamp not to take this for a grudging acceptance. ‘This way,’ he prattled on. ‘I was writing in my study. By Jove, it is cold, I’ll turn the gas on more. Now won’t you take your traps off, and make yourself at home?’
‘I can’t stay long,’ the policeman said, ‘I’ve got a job to do, as you know.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Walter, ‘such a silly job, a sinecure.’ He stopped, wondering if the policeman would know what a sinecure was. ‘I suppose you know what it’s about—the postcards?’
The policeman nodded.
‘But nothing can happen to me as long as you are here,’ said Walter. ‘I shall be as safe . . . as safe as houses. Stay as long as you can, and have a drink.’
‘I never drink on duty,’ said the policeman. Still in his cape and helmet, he looked round. ‘So this is where you work,’ he said.
‘Yes, I was writing when you rang.’
‘Some poor devil’s for it, I expect,’ the policeman said.
‘Oh, why?’ Walter was hurt by his unfriendly tone, and noticed how hard his gooseberry eyes were.
‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ said the policeman, and then the telephone bell rang. Walter excused himself and hurried from the room.
‘This is the police station,’ said a voice. ‘Is that Mr. Streeter?’
Walter said it was.
‘Well, Mr. Streeter, how is everything at your place? All right, I hope? I’ll tell you why I ask. I’m sorry to say we quite forgot about that little job we were going to do for you. Bad co-ordination, I’m afraid.’
‘But,’ said Walter, ‘you did send someone.’
‘No, Mr. Streeter, I’m afraid we didn’t.’
‘But there’s a policeman here, here in this very house.’
There was a pause, then his interlocutor said, in a less casual voice:
‘He can’t be one of our chaps. Did you see his number by any chance?’
‘No.’
A longer pause and then the voice said:
‘Would you like us to send somebody now?’
‘Yes, p . . . please.’
‘All right then, we’ll be with you in a jiffy.’
Walter put back the receiver. What now? he asked himself. Should he barricade the door? Should he run out into the street? Should he try to rouse his housekeeper? A policeman of any sort was a formidable proposition, but a rogue policeman! How long would it take the real police to come? A jiffy, they had said. What was a jiffy in terms of minutes? While he was debating the door opened and his guest came in.
‘No room’s private when the street door’s once passed,’ he said. ‘Had you forgotten I was a policeman?’
‘Was?’ said Walter, edging away from him. ‘You are a policeman.’
‘I have been other things as well,’ the policeman said. ‘Thief, pimp, blackmailer, not to mention murderer. You should know.’
The policeman, if such he was, seemed to be moving towards him and Walter suddenly became alive to the importance of small distances—the distance from the sideboard to the table, the distance from one chair to another.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said. ‘Why do you speak like that? I’ve never done you any harm. I’ve never set eyes on you before.’
‘Oh, haven’t you?’ the man said. ‘But you’ve thought about me and’—his voice rose—’and you’ve written about me. You got some fun out of me, didn’t you? Now I’m going to get some fun out of you. You made me just as nasty as you could. Wasn’t that doing me harm? You didn’t think what it would feel like to be me, did you? You didn’t put yourself in my place, did you? You hadn’t any pity for me, had you? Well, I’m not going to have any pity for you.’
‘But I tell you,’ cried Walter, clutching the table’s edge, ‘I don’t know you!’
‘And now you say you don’t know me! You did all that to me and then forgot me!’ His voice became a whine, charged with self-pity. ‘You forgot William Stainsforth.’
‘William Stainsforth!’
‘Yes. I was your scapegoat, wasn’t I? You unloaded all your self-dislike on me. You felt pretty good while you were writing about me. You thought, what a noble, upright fellow you were, writing about this rotter. Now, as one W.S. to another, what shall I do, if I behave in character?’
‘I . . . I don’t know,’ muttered Walter.
‘You don’t know?’ Stainsforth sneered. ‘You ought to know, you fathered me. What would William Stainsforth do if he met his old dad in a quiet place, his kind old dad who made him swing?’
Walter could only stare at him.
‘You know what he’d do as well as I,’ said Stainsforth. Then his face changed and he said abruptly, ‘No, you don’t, because you never really understood me. I’m not so black as you painted me.’ He paused, and a flicker of hope started in Walter’s breast. ‘You never gave me a chance, did you? Well, I’m going to give you one. That shows you never understood me, doesn’t it?’
Walter nodded.
‘And there’s another thing you have forgotten.’
‘What is that?’
‘I was a kid once,’ the ex-policeman said.
Walter said nothing.
‘You admit that?’ said William Stainsforth grimly. ‘Well, if you can tell me of one virtue you ever credited me with—just one kind thought—just one redeeming feature——’
‘Yes?’ said Walter, trembling.
‘Well, then I’ll let you off.’
‘And if I can’t?’ whispered Walter.
‘Well, then, that’s just too bad. We’ll have to come to grips and you know what that means. You took off one of my arms but I’ve still got the other. “Stainsforth of the iron hand” you called me.’
Walter began to pant.
‘I’ll give you two minutes to remember,’ Stainsforth said. They both looked at the clock. At first the stealthy movement of the hand paralysed Walter’s thought. He stared at William Stainsforth’s face, his cruel, crafty face, which seemed to be always in shadow, as if it was something the light could not touch. Desperately he searched his memory for the one fact that would save him; but his memory, clenched like a fist, would give up nothing. ‘I must invent something,’ he thought, and suddenly his mind relaxed and he saw, printed on it like a photograph, the last page of the book. Then, with the speed and magic of a dream, each page appeared before him in perfect clarity until the first was reached, and he realized with overwhelming force that what he looked for was not there. In all that evil there was not one hint of good. And he felt, compulsively and with a kind of exaltation, that unless he testified to this the cause of goodness everywhere would be betrayed.
‘There’s nothing to be said for you!’ he shouted. ‘And you know it! Of all your dirty tricks this is the dirtiest! You want me to whitewash you, do you? The very snowflakes on you are turning black! How dare you ask me for a character? I’ve given you one already! God forbid that I should ever say a good word for you! I’d rather die!’
Stainsforth’s one arm shot out. ‘Then die!’ he said.
The police found Walter Streeter slumped across the dining-table. His body was still warm, but he was dead. It was easy to tell how he died; for it was not his hand that his visitor had shaken, but his throat. Walter Streeter had been strangled. Of his assailant there was no trace. On the table and on his clothes were flakes of melting snow. But how it came there remained a mystery, for no snow was reported from any district on the day he died.
Those garden-statues! My host was pardonably proud of them. They crowned the balustrade of the terrace; they flanked its steps; they dominated the squares and oblongs—high, roofless chambers of clipped yew—which, seen from above, had somewhat the appearance of a chessboard. In fact, they peopled the whole vast garden; and as we went from one to another in the twilight of a late September evening, I gave up counting them. Some stood on low plinths on the closely-shaven grass; others, water-deities, rose out of goldfish-haunted pools. Each was supreme in its own domain and enveloped in mystery, secrecy and silence.
‘What do you call these?’ I asked my host, indicating the enclosures. ‘They have such an extraordinary shut-in feeling.’
‘Temene,’ he said, carefully stressing the three syllables. ‘Temenos is Greek for the precincts of a god.’
‘The Greeks had a word for it,’ I said, but he was not amused.
Some of the statues were of grey stone, on which lichen grew in golden patches; others were of lead, the sooty hue of which seemed sun-proof. These were already gathering to themselves the coming darkness: perhaps they had never really let it go.
It was the leaden figures that my host most resembled; in his sober country clothes of almost clerical cut—breeches, tight at the knee, surmounting thin legs cased in black stockings, with something recalling a Norfolk jacket on top—he looked so like one of his own duskier exhibits that, as the sinking sun plunged the temene in shadow, and he stood with outstretched arm pointing at a statue that was also pointing, he might have been mistaken for one.
‘I have another to show you,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll let you go and dress.’
Rather to my surprise, he took my arm and steered me to the opening, which, I now saw, was in the further corner. (Each temenos had an inlet and an outlet, to connect it with its neighbours.) As we passed through, he let go of my arm and bent down as though to tie up his shoe-lace. I walked slowly on towards a figure which, even at this distance, seemed in some way to differ from the others.
They were all gods and goddesses, nymphs and satyrs, dryads and oreads, divinities of the ancient world: but this was not. I quickened my steps. It was the figure of a man in modern dress, and something about it was familiar. But was it a statue? Involuntarily I stood still and looked back. My host was not following me; he had disappeared. Yet here he was, facing me, with his arm stretched out, almost as if he were going to shake hands with me. But no; the bent forefinger showed that he was beckoning.
Again I looked behind me to the opening now shrouded in shadow, but there was no one. Stifling my repugnance, and to be frank, my fear, and putting into my step all the defiance I could muster, I approached the figure. It was smiling with the faint sweet smile of invitation that one sees in some of Leonardo’s pictures. So life-like was the smile, such a close copy of the one I had seen on my host’s face, that I stopped again, wondering which to believe: my common sense or my senses. While I was debating, a laugh rang out. I jumped—the figure might have uttered it; it sounded so near. But the smiling features never changed, and a second later I saw my host coming to me across the grass.
He laughed again, less histrionically, and rather uncertainly I joined in.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘you must forgive my practical joke. But you’ll understand how it amuses me to see what my guests will do when they see that figure. I’ve had a hole made through the hedge to watch. Some of them have been quite frightened. Some see through the trick at once and laugh before I get the chance to—the joke is then on me. But most of them do what you did—start and stop, and start and stop, wondering if they can trust their eyes. It’s fun watching people when they don’t know they are being watched. I can always tell which are the . . . the imaginative ones.’
I laughed a little wryly.
‘Cheer up,’ he said, though I would have rather he had not noticed my loss of poise. ‘You came through the ordeal very well. Not an absolute materialist like the brazen ones, who know no difference between seeing and believing. And not—certainly not—well, a funk, like some of them. Mind you, I don’t despise them for it. You stood your ground. A well-balanced man, I should say, hard-headed but open-minded, cautious but resolute. You said you were a writer?’
‘In my spare time,’ I mumbled.
‘Then you are used to looking behind appearances.’
While he was speaking, I compared him to the figure, and though the general resemblance was striking—the same bold nose, the same retreating forehead—I wondered how I could have been taken in by it. The statue’s texture was so different! Lead, I supposed. Having lost my superstitious horror, I came nearer. I detected a thin crack in the black stocking, and thoughtlessly put my finger-nail into it.
‘Don’t do that,’ he warned me. ‘The plaster flakes off so easily.’
I apologized. ‘I didn’t mean to pull your leg. But is it plaster? It’s so dark, as dark as, well—your suit.’
‘It was painted that colour,’ my host said, ‘to make the likeness closer.’
I looked again. The statue’s face and hands were paler than its clothes, but only a pale shade of the same tone. And this, I saw, was true to life. A leaden tint underlay my host’s natural swarthiness.
‘But the other statues are of stone, aren’t they?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they are. This one was an experiment.’
‘An experiment?’
‘My experiment,’ he said. ‘I made it.’ He did not try to conceal his satisfaction.
‘How clever of you!’ I exclaimed, stepping back to examine the cast more critically. ‘It’s you to the life. It almost seems to move.’
‘Move?’ he repeated, his voice distant and discouraging.
‘Yes, move,’ I said, excited by my fantasy. ‘Don’t you see how flat the grass is round it? Wouldn’t a statue let the grass grow under its feet?’
He answered still more coldly: ‘My gardeners have orders to clip the grass with shears.’
Snubbed and anxious to retrieve myself, I said, ‘Oh, but it’s the living image!’ I remembered the motto on his crested writing-paper. ‘Vayne sed non vanus. I adore puns. “Vayne but not vain.” You but not you. How do you translate it?’
‘We usually say, “Vayne but not empty”.’ My host’s voice sounded mollified.
‘How apt!’ I prattled on. ‘It’s Vayne all right, but is it empty? Is it just a suit of clothes?’
He looked hard at me and said:
‘Doesn’t the apparel oft proclaim the man?’
‘Of course,’ I said, delighted by the quickness of his answer. But isn’t this Vayne a bigger man than you are—in the physical sense, I mean?’
‘I like things to be over-life size,’ he replied. ‘I have a passion for the grand scale.’
‘And here you are able to indulge it,’ I said, glancing towards the great house which made a rectangle of intense dark in the night sky.
‘But service isn’t what it was before the war,’ he rather platitudinously remarked. ‘The trouble I’ve had, looking for a footman! Still, I think you’ll find your bath has been turned on for you.’
I took the hint and was moving away when suddenly he called me back.
‘Look!’ he said, ‘don’t let’s change for dinner. I’ve got an idea. Fairclough hasn’t been before; it’s his first visit, too. He hasn’t seen the statues. After dinner we’ll play a game of hide and seek. I’ll hide, and you and he shall seek—here, among the statues. It may be a bit dull for you, because you’ll be in the secret. But if you’re bored, you can hunt for me, too—I don’t think you’ll find me. That’s the advantage of knowing the terrain—perhaps rather an unfair one. We’ll have a time-limit. If you haven’t found me within twenty minutes, I’ll make a bolt for home, whatever the circumstances.’
‘Where will “home” be?’
‘I’ll tell you later. But don’t say anything to Fairclough.’
I promised not to. ‘But, forgive me,’ I said, ‘I don’t quite see the point——’
‘Don’t you? What I want to happen is for Fairclough to mistake the statue for me. I want to see him . . . well . . . startled by it.’
‘He might tackle it low and bring it crashing down.’
My host looked at me with narrowed eyes.
‘If you think that, you don’t know him. He’s much too timid. He won’t touch it—they never do until they know what it is.’
By ‘they’ I supposed him to mean his dupes, past, present and to come.
We talked a little more and parted.
I found the footman laying out my dress-suit on the bed. I told him about not changing and asked if Mr. Fairclough had arrived yet.
‘Yes, sir, he’s in his room.’
‘Could you take me to it?’
I followed along a passage inadequately lit by antique hanging lanterns, most of which were solid at the bottom.
Fairclough was changing. I told him we were to wear our ordinary clothes.
‘What!’ he exclaimed. ‘But he always changes for dinner.’
‘Not this evening.’ I didn’t altogether like my rôle of accomplice, but Fairclough had the weakness of being a know-all. Perhaps it would do him no harm to be surprised for once.
‘I wonder if Postgate changed,’ I said, broaching the topic which had been exercising my mind ever since I set foot in the house.
‘He must have done,’ said Fairclough. ‘Didn’t you know? His dress-clothes were never found.’
‘I don’t remember the story at all well,’ I prompted him.
‘There’s very little to remember,’ Fairclough said. ‘He arrived, as we have; they separated to change for dinner, as we have; and he was never seen or heard of again.’
‘There were other guests, weren’t there?’
‘Yes, the house was full of people.’
‘When exactly did it happen?’
‘Three years ago, two years after Vayne resigned the chairmanship.
‘Postgate had a hand in that, hadn’t he?’
‘Yes, don’t you know?’ said Fairclough. ‘It was rather generous of Vayne to forgive him in the circumstances. It didn’t make much difference to Vayne; he’d probably have resigned in any case, when he inherited this place from his uncle. It was meant to be a sort of reconciliation party, burying the hatchet, and all that.’
I agreed that it was magnanimous of Vayne to make it up with someone who had got him sacked. ‘And he’s still loyal to the old firm,’ I added, ‘or we shouldn’t be here.’
‘Yes, and we’re such small fry,’ Fairclough said. ‘It’s the company, not us, he’s being kind to.’
I thought of the small ordeal ahead of Fairclough, but it hardly amounted to a breach of kindness.
‘I suppose we mustn’t mention Postgate to him?’ I said.
‘Why not? I believe he likes to talk about him. Much better for him than bottling it up.’
‘Would you call him a vain man?’ I asked.
‘Certainly, Vayne by name and vain by nature.’
‘He seemed rather pleased with himself as a sculptor,’ I remarked.
‘A sculptor?’ echoed Fairclough.
I realized my indiscretion, but had gone too far to draw back. ‘Yes, didn’t you know?’ I asked maliciously. ‘He’s done a statue. A sort of portrait. And he talks of doing some more. Portraits of his friends in plaster. He asked me if I’d be his model.’
‘I wonder if he’d do one of me?’ asked Fairclough, with instinctive egotism. ‘I should make rather a good statue, I think.’ Half-undressed, he surveyed himself in the mirror. Long and willowy, fair complexioned as his name, he had a bulging knobby forehead under a thin thatch of hair. ‘Did you say yes?’ he asked.
‘I said I couldn’t stand, but if he would make it a recumbent effigy, I would lie to him.’
We both laughed.
‘Where’s his studio?’ asked Fairclough, almost humbly.
‘Underground. He says he prefers to work by artificial light.’
We both thought about this, and some association of ideas made me ask:
‘Is the house haunted?’
‘Not that I ever heard of,’ Fairclough said. ‘But there’s a legend about a bath.’
‘A bath?’
‘Yes, it’s said to be on the site of an old lift-shaft, and to go up and down. Funny how such stories get about. And talking of baths,’ Fairclough went on, ‘I must be getting into mine. You may not know it, but he doesn’t like one to be a minute late.’
‘Just let me look at it,’ I said. ‘Mine’s down a passage. You have one of your own, you lucky dog.’
We inspected the appointments, which were marble and luxurious, and very up to date, except for the bath itself, which was an immense, old-fashioned mahogany contraption with a lid.
‘A lid!’ I exclaimed. ‘Don’t you know the story of the Mistletoe Bough?’ Fairclough clearly didn’t, and with this parting shot I left him.
In spite of Fairclough’s warning, I was a few minutes late for dinner. How that came about occupied my thoughts throughout the marvellous meal, though I could not bring myself to speak of it and would much rather not have thought about it. I’m afraid I was a dull guest, and Vayne himself was less animated than he had been before dinner. After dinner, however, he cheered up, and when he was giving us our orders for the evening, editing them somewhat for Fairclough’s benefit, he had recovered all his old assurance. We were to divide, he said; I was to take the left-hand range of yew compartments, or temene, as he liked to call them, Fairclough the right. From the top of the terrace steps, a long steep flight, he indicated to us our spheres of action. ‘And home will be here, where I’m standing,’ he wound up. ‘I’ll call “coo-ee” when I’m ready.’
He strolled off in the direction of the house. Fairclough and I walked cautiously down the steps on to the great circle of grass from which the two blocks of temene diverged. Here we bowed ceremoniously and parted. Fairclough disappeared into the black wall of yew.
At last I was alone with my thoughts. Of course it was only another of Vayne’s practical jokes; I realized that now. But at the moment when it happened, I was scared stiff. And I still couldn’t help wondering what would have become of me if—well, if I had got into the bath. I just put my foot in, as I often do, to test the water. I didn’t pull it out at once, for the water was rather cool. In fact I put my whole weight on it.
‘Coo-ee!’
Now the hunt was up. Fairclough would be peering in the shadows. But mine was merely a spectator’s rôle; I was Vayne’s stooge. His stooge. . . .
Directly I felt something give, I pulled my foot out, and the lid came down and the bath sank through the floor like a coffin at a cremation service. Goodness, how frightened I was! I heard the click as the bath touched bottom; but I couldn’t see it down the shaft. Then I heard rumbling again, and saw the bath-lid coming up. But I did not risk getting in, not I.
‘Coo-ee!’
I jumped. It sounded close beside me. I moved into another temenos, trying to pretend that I was looking for Vayne. Really it would serve him right if I gave him away to Fairclough. He had no business to frighten people like that.
‘Coo-ee!’
Right over on Fairclough’s side, now. But it sounded somehow different; was it an owl? It might not be very easy to find Fairclough; there must be half a hundred of these blasted temene, and the moon was hidden by clouds. He might go out through one opening just as I was entering by another, and so we might go on all night. Thank goodness the night was warm. But what a silly farce it was.
I could just see to read my watch. Another quarter of an hour to go. Fairclough must be getting jumpy. I’ll go and find him, I thought, and put him wise about the figure. Vayne would never know. Or would he? One couldn’t tell where he was, he might be in the next temenos, watching me through a hole.
A light mist was descending, which obscured the heads of such statues as I could see projecting above the high walls of the temene. If it grew thicker, I might not see Fairclough even if he were close to me, and we might wander about till Doomsday—at least, for another ten minutes, which seemed just as long to wait.
I looked down, and saw that my feet had left tracks, dark patches in the wet grass. They seemed to lead in all directions. But were they all mine? Had I really walked about as much as that? I tried to identify the footprints and see if they tallied.
‘Coo-ee!’
That almost certainly was an owl; the sound seemed to come from above. But perhaps Vayne added ventriloquism to his other accomplishments. He was capable of anything. Not a man one could trust. Postgate hadn’t trusted him—not, at least, as the chairman of the company.
It was my duty, I now felt, to warn Fairclough. And I should be quite glad to see him myself, quite glad. But where was he?
I found myself running from one temenos to another and getting back to the one I started from. I could tell by the figure: at least that didn’t move. I started off again. Steady, steady. Here was a temenos with no footprints on it—a virgin temenos. I crossed it and found myself in the central circle. I crossed that too.
Now I was in Fairclough’s preserves. Poor Fairclough! To judge by the footprints, he had been running round even more than I had. But were they all his? Here was the figure of Pan—the god of panic. Very appropriate.
‘Fairclough! Fairclough!’ I began to call as loudly as I dared having nearly but not quite lost my head.
‘Fairclough! Fairclough!’ I couldn’t bring myself to hug the walls; the shadows were too thick; I stuck to the middle of each space.
I suppose I was expecting to find him, and yet when I heard him answer ‘Here!’ I nearly jumped out of my skin. He was crouching against a hedge. He evidently had the opposite idea from mine; he felt the hedge was a protection; and I had some difficulty in persuading him to come out into the open.
‘Listen!’ I whispered. “What you’ve got to do is——’
‘But I’ve seen him,’ Fairclough said. ‘There’s his footmark.’
I looked: the footmark was long and slurred, quite unlike his or mine.
‘If you were sure it was him,’ I said, ‘why didn’t you speak to him?’
‘I did,’ said Fairclough, ‘but he didn’t answer. He didn’t even turn round.’
‘Someone may have got into the garden,’ I said, ‘some third person. But we’ll find out. I’ll take you to the statue.’
‘The statue?’
‘I’ll explain afterwards.’
I had regained my confidence, but could not remember in which direction Vayne’s statue lay.
Suddenly I had an idea.
‘We’ll follow the footprints.’
‘Which?’ asked Fairclough.
‘Well, the other person’s.’
Easy to say; easy to distinguish them from ours; but which way were they pointing? That was the question.
‘He walks on his heels,’ I said. ‘It’s this way.’
‘We followed and reached the temenos where the statue had stood. No possibility of mistake. We saw the patches of dead grass where its feet had been; we saw the footprints leading away from them. But the statue was not there.
‘Vayne!’ I shouted. ‘Vayne!’
‘Coo-ee!’ came a distant call.
‘To the steps,’ I cried. ‘To the steps! Let’s go together!’
Vayne was standing on the terrace steps: I saw him plainly; and I also saw the figure that was stalking him: the other Vayne. Two Vaynes. Vayne our host, the shorter of the two, stood lordly, confident, triumphing over the night. ‘Coo-ee!’ he hooted to his moonlit acres. ‘Coo-ee!’ But the other Vayne had crept up the grass slope and was crouching at his back.
For a moment the two figures stood one behind the other, motionless as cats. Then a scream rang out; there was a whirl of limbs, like the Manxman’s wheel revolving; a savage snarl, a headlong fall, a crash. Both fell, both Vaynes. “When the thuds of their descent were over, silence reigned.
They were lying in a heap together, a tangled heap of men and plaster. A ceiling might have fallen on them, yet it was not a ceiling; it was almost a third man, for the plaster fragments still bore a human shape. Both Vaynes were dead but one of them, we learned afterwards, had been dead for a long time. And this Vayne was not Vayne at all, but Postgate.
‘He’s a strange man,’ said Nesta.
‘Strange in what way?’ I asked.
‘Oh, just neurotic. He has a fire-complex or something of the kind. He lies awake at night thinking that a spark may have jumped through the fireguard and set the carpet alight. Then he has to get up and go down to look. Sometimes he does this several times a night, even after the fire has gone out.’
‘Does he keep an open fire in his own house?’ I asked.
‘Yes, he does, because it’s healthier, and other people like it, and he doesn’t want to give way to himself about it.’
‘He sounds a man of principle,’ I observed.
‘He is,’ my hostess said. ‘I think that’s half the trouble with Victor. If he would let himself go more he wouldn’t have these fancies. They are his sub-conscious mind punishing him, he says, by making him do what he doesn’t want to. But somebody has told him that if he could embrace his neurosis and really enjoy it——’
I laughed.
‘I don’t mean in that way,’ said Nesta severely. ‘What a mind you have, Hugo! And he conscientiously tries to. As if anyone could enjoy leaving a nice warm bed and creeping down cold passages to look after a fire that you pretty well know is out!’
‘Are you sure that it is a fire he looks at?’ I asked. ‘I can think of another reason for creeping down a cold passage and embracing what lies at the end of it.’
Nesta ignored this.
‘It’s not only fires,’ she said, ‘it’s gas taps, electric light switches, anything that he thinks might start a blaze.’
‘But seriously, Nesta,’ I said, ‘there might be some method in his madness. It gives him an alibi for all sorts of things besides love-making: theft, for instance, or murder.’
‘You say that because you don’t know Victor,’ Nesta said. ‘He’s almost a Buddhist—he wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘Does he want people to know about his peculiarity?’ I asked. ‘I know he’s told you——’
‘He does and he doesn’t,’ Nesta answered.
‘It’s obvious why he doesn’t. It isn’t so obvious why he does,’ I observed.
‘It’s rather complicated,’ Nesta said. ‘I doubt if your terre-à-terre mind would understand it. The whole thing is mixed up in his mind with guilt——’
‘There you are!’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes, but not real guilt. And he thinks that if someone caught him prowling about at night they might——’
‘I should jolly well think they would!’
‘And besides, he doesn’t want to keep it a secret, festering. He would rather people laughed at him.’
‘Laugh!’ I repeated. ‘I can’t see that it’s a laughing matter.’
‘No, it isn’t really. It all goes back to old Œdipus, I expect. Most men suffer from that, more or less. I expect you do, Hugo.’
‘Me?’ I protested. ‘My father died before I was born. How could I have killed him?’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Nesta, pityingly. ‘But what I wanted to say was, if you should hear an unusual noise at night——’
‘Yes?’
‘Or happen to see somebody walking about——’
‘Yes?’
‘You’ll know it’s nothing to be alarmed at. It’s just Victor, taking what he calls his safety precautions.’
‘I’ll count three before I fire,’ I said.
Nesta and I had been taking a walk before the other week-end guests arrived.
The house came into sight, long and low with mullioned windows, crouching beyond the lawn. This was my first visit to Nesta’s comparatively new home. She was always changing houses. Leaving the subject of Victor we talked of the other guests, of their matrimonial intentions, prospects or entanglements. Our conversation had the pre-war air which Nesta could always command.
‘Is Walter here?’ I asked. Walter was her husband.
‘No, he’s away shooting. He doesn’t come here very much, as you know. He never cared for Monkshood, I don’t know why. Oh, by the way, Hugo,’ she went on, ‘I’ve an apology to make to you. I never put any books in your room. I know you’re a great reader, but——’
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I go to bed to sleep.’
She smiled. ‘Then that’s all right. Would you like to see the room?’
I said I would.
‘It’s called the Blue Bachelor’s room, and it’s on the ground floor.’
We joked a bit about the name.
‘Bachelors are always in a slight funk,’ I said, ‘because of the designing females stalking them. But why didn’t you give the room to Victor? It might have saved him several journeys up and down stairs.’
‘It’s rather isolated,’ she said. ‘I know you don’t mind that, but he does.’
‘Was that the real reason?’ I asked, but she refused to answer.
I didn’t meet Victor Chisholm until we assembled for drinks before dinner. He was a nondescript looking man, neither dark nor fair, tall nor short, fat nor thin, young nor old. I didn’t have much conversation with him, but he seemed to slide off any subject one brought up—he didn’t drop it like a hot coal, but after a little blowing on it, for politeness’ sake, he quietly extinguished it. At least that was the impression I got. He smiled quite a lot, as though to prove he was not unsociable, and then retired into himself. He seemed to be saving himself up for something—a struggle with his neurosis, perhaps. After dinner we played bridge, and Victor followed us into the library, half meaning to play, I think; but when he found there was a four without him he went back into the drawing-room to join the three non-bridge playing members of the party. We sat up late trying to finish the last rubber, and I didn’t see him again before we went to bed. The library had a large open fireplace in which a few logs were smouldering over a heap of wood-ash. The room had a shut-in feeling, largely because the door was lined with book-bindings to make it look like shelves, so that when it was closed you couldn’t tell where it was. Towards midnight I asked Nesta if I should put another log on and she said carelessly, ‘No. I shouldn’t bother—we’re bound to get finished sometime, if you’ll promise not to overbid, Hugo,’ which reminded me of Victor and his complex. So when at last we did retire I said meaningly, ‘Would you like me to take a look at the drawing-room fire, Nesta?’
‘Well, you might, but it’ll be out by this time,’ she said.
‘And the dining-room?’ I pursued, glancing at the others, to see if there was any reaction, which there was not. She frowned slightly and said, ‘The dining-room’s electric. We only run to two real fires,’ and then we separated.
In spite of my boasting, for some reason I couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed to and fro, every now and then turning the light on to see what time it was. My bedroom walls were painted dark blue, but by artificial light they looked almost black. They were so shiny and translucent that when I sat up in bed I could see my reflection in them, or at any rate my shadow. I grew tired of this and then it occurred to me that if I had a book I might read myself to sleep—it was one of the recognized remedies for insomnia. But I hadn’t: there were two book-ends—soap-stone elephants, I remember, facing each other across an empty space. I gave myself till half-past two, then I got up, put on my dressing-gown and opened my bedroom door. All was in darkness. The library lay at the other end of the long house and to reach it I had to cross the hall. I had no torch and didn’t know where the switches were, so my progress was slow. I tried to make as little noise as possible, then I remembered that if Nesta heard me she would think I was Victor Chisholm going his nightly rounds. After this I grew bolder and almost at once found the central switch panel at the foot of the staircase. This lit up the passage to the library. The library door was open and in I went, automatically fumbling for the switch. But no sooner had my hand touched the wall than it fell to my side, for I had a feeling that I was not alone in the room. I don’t know what it was based on, but something was already implicit in my vision before it became physically clear to me: a figure at the far end of the room, in the deep alcove of the fireplace, bending, almost crouching over the fire. The figure had its back to me and was so near to the fire as to be almost in it. Whether it made a movement or not I couldn’t tell, but a spurt of flame started up against which the figure showed darker than before. I knew it must be Victor Chisholm and I stifled an impulse to say ‘Hullo!’—from a confused feeling that like a sleep-walker he ought not to be disturbed; it would startle and humiliate him. But I wanted a book, and my groping fingers found one. I withdrew it from the shelf, but not quite noiselessly, for with the tail of my eye I saw the figure move.
Back in my room I wondered if I ought to have left the hall lights on for Victor’s return journey, but at once concluded that as he hadn’t turned them on himself, he knew his way well enough not to need them. A sense of achievement possessed me: I had caught my fellow-guest out, and I had got my book. It turned out to be the fourth volume of John Evelyn’s Diary; but I hadn’t read more than a few sentences before I fell asleep.
When I met Victor Chisholm at breakfast I meant to ask him how he had slept. It was an innocent, conventional inquiry, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to put it. Instead, we congratulated each other on the bright, frosty, late October morning, almost as if we had been responsible for it. Presently the two other men joined us, but none of the ladies of the party, and lacking their conversational stimulus we relapsed into silence over our newspapers.
But I didn’t want to keep my adventure to myself, and later in the morning, when I judged that Nesta would not be preoccupied with household management, I waylaid her.
‘Your friend Victor Chisholm has been on the tiles again,’ I began, and before she could get a word in I told her the story of last night’s encounter. Half-way through I was afraid it might fall flat, for, after all, her guest’s peculiarities were no news to her; but it didn’t. She looked surprised and faintly worried.
‘I oughtn’t to have told you,’ I said with assumed contrition, ‘but I thought it would amuse you.’
She made an effort to smile.
‘Oh well, it does,’ she said, and then her serious look came back. ‘But there’s one thing that puzzles me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘He told me he had had a very good night.’
‘Oh well, he would say that. It’s only civil if you’re staying in someone’s house. I should have said the same if you had asked me, only I thought you would want to hear about Victor.’
Nesta didn’t take this up.
‘But we know each other much too well,’ she said, arguing with herself. ‘Victor comes down here—well, he comes pretty often, and he always tells me if he’s been taking his security measures. I can’t understand it.’
Why does she seem so upset? I asked myself. Does she care more for Victor than she admits? Is she distressed by the thought that he should lie to her? Does she suspect him of infidelity?
‘Oh, I expect he thought that for once he wouldn’t bother you,’ I said.
‘You’re quite sure it was Victor?’ she asked, with an effort.
I opened my eyes.
‘Who else could it have been?’
‘Well, somebody else looking for a book.’
I said I thought this most unlikely. ‘Besides, he wasn’t looking for a book. He was looking at the fire—I think he stirred it with his foot.’
‘Stirred it with his foot?’
‘Well, something made a flame jump up.’
Nesta said nothing, but looked more anxious than before.
Hoping to make her say something that would enlighten me, I observed jokingly:
‘But he’s come to the right place. I saw a row of buckets in the hall and one of those patent fire-extinguishers——’
‘Oh, Walter insisted on having them,’ said Nesta, hurriedly. ‘This is a very old house, you know, and we have to take reasonable precautions. Having a fire-complex doesn’t mean there isn’t such a thing as having a fire, any more than having persecution mania means there isn’t such a thing as persecution.’
Then I remembered something.
‘If he doesn’t want to be taken for a burglar,’ I said, ‘why doesn’t he turn on the lights?’
‘But he does turn them on,’ said Nesta, just for that reason.’
I shook my head.
‘He didn’t turn them on last night.’
The problem of Victor’s nocturnal ramblings exercised me and made me unsociable. I never enjoy desultory conversation, and our pre-luncheon chit-chat seemed to me unusually insipid. So when the meal was over I excused myself from playing golf, though I had brought my clubs with me, and announced that I was going to have a siesta as I had slept badly. There was a murmur of sympathy, but Nesta made no comment and no one, least of all Victor, betrayed uneasiness.
In the middle of the afternoon I woke up and had an idea. I strode down to the village to search out the oldest inhabitant. To my surprise I found him, or his equivalent, digging in his front garden. Leaning over the wall I engaged him in conversation; and very soon he told me what I had somehow expected to hear, though, me so many pieces of knowledge that one picks up, it was difficult to act upon, and I rather wished I had never heard it. What chiefly intrigued me was the question: Did Victor know what I knew? It was clear, I thought, that Nesta did. But had she told him?
I did not think that I could ask her, it would seem too like prying; besides if she had wanted to tell me, she would have told me. What I had heard could be held to explain a good many things.
My secret gnawed at me and made the social contacts of the party seem unreal, as though I were a Communist in a Government office, my only accomplice being the head of the Department.
Suddenly, after tea I think it was, the conversation turned my way.
‘Is the house haunted, Nesta?’ asked one of the visitors, a woman, who like myself was a stranger to the house. ‘It ought to be—it wouldn’t be complete without a ghost!’
I watched Nesta as she answered carefully, ‘No, I’m afraid I must disappoint you—it isn’t.’ And I watched Victor Chisholm, but he kept what might have been called his poker face—if it had been sinister, which it was not. The speaker wasn’t to be satisfied; she returned to the charge more than once, suggesting various phantoms suitable to Monkshood Manor; but Nesta disowned them all, finally suppressing them with a yawn. One by one, on various pretexts, the company disbanded, and Victor Chisholm and I were left alone.
‘I once stayed in a country house that was said to be haunted,’ I remarked chattily.
‘Oh, did you?’ he said, with his air of being politely pleased to listen, while he was saving himself up for something in which one had no concern; ‘was it fun?’
‘Well, not exactly fun,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you about it if you can. bear to hear. The house was an old one, like this, and the land on which it stood had belonged to the Church. Well, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries they pulled the Abbey, or whatever it was, down, and used some of the stones for building this house I’m telling you about. Nobody could stop them. But one of the old monks who had fallen into poverty, as a result of being dissolved, and who remembered the bygone days when they feasted and sang and wassailed and got fat and clapped each other on the back in the way you see in the pictures—he felt sore about it, and on his deathbed he laid a curse on the place and swore that four hundred years later he would come back from wherever he was and set fire to it.’
I watched Victor Chisholm for some sign of uneasiness but he showed none and all he said was:
‘Do you think a ghost could do that? I’ve always understood that it wasn’t very easy to set a house on fire. It isn’t very easy to light a fire, is it, when it’s been laid for the purpose, with paper and sticks and so on.’
This, I thought—and I congratulated myself upon my subtlety—is the voice of reassurance speaking: this is what well-meaning people tell him, and what he tells himself, hoping to calm his fears.
‘I’m not up in the subject of ghosts,’ I said, ‘but they can clank chains and presumably some of them come from a hot place and wouldn’t mind handling a burning brand or two. Or kicking one. That fire in the library, for instance——’
‘Oh, but surely,’ he said—and I saw that I had scared him—‘the library fire is absolutely safe? I—I’m sometimes nervous about fires myself, but I should never bother about that one. There’s so much stone flagging around it. Do you really think——’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I said, feeling I had the answer to one of my questions. ‘But my hostess at the time was certainly apprehensive. I had to worm the story out of her. It’s a very usual one, of course, almost the regulation legend, very boring, really.’
‘And was the house ever burnt down?’ asked Victor.
‘I never heard,’ I said.
Of course Victor might have been dissembling. He might have known the legend of Monkshood Manor, he might have been afraid of the library fire: neurotic people are notoriously given to lying. But I didn’t think so. Yet the alternative was too fantastic. I couldn’t believe in it either, and gradually (for logic can sometimes be bluffed) I succeeded in disbelieving both alternatives at once.
Before nightfall I took the precaution of furnishing my blue room with books more interesting than Evelyn’s Diary. But I didn’t need them. I slept excellently, and so, to judge from discreet inquiries I made in the morning, did the rest of the party.
I couldn’t get much out of Nesta. She rather avoided me, and for the first time in my life I felt like a policeman who must be treated with reserve in case he finds out too much. I still persuaded myself that Victor Chisholm had been and had not been in the library in the early hours of Saturday morning: if pressed, I should have said he had been. The third possibility, put forward by Nesta, that another guest had been searching for a book, I dismissed. My theory was that Nesta had a superstitious dread of a fire breaking out at Monkshood Manor and was keeping Victor in ignorance while she availed herself of his services as a night-watchman without warning him of the risk he ran.
Risk? There was no risk: yet I vaguely felt that I ought to do something about it, so I tried to make my social prevail over my private conscience and throw myself into the collective life of a week-end party. I thought about the form my coming Collins would take, and wondered if I ought to apologize for being a dull guest. In the meantime I could search Nesta out and make amends for something that I felt had been slightly critical in my attitude towards her.
My quest took me to the library. Nesta was not there but someone was—a housemaid on her hands and knees working vigorously at the carpet with a dust-pan and brush.
‘Good heavens!’ I exclaimed, surprised into speech by the sight of such antiquated cleaning methods; ‘haven’t you got a vacuum cleaner?’
The maid, who was pretty, looked up and said:
‘Yes, but it won’t bring these marks out.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘What sort of marks are they?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the maid. ‘But they look like footmarks.’
I bent down: they did look like footmarks, but they had another peculiarity which for some reason I refrained from commenting on. Instead I said, glancing at the fireplace:
‘It looks as though someone had been paddling in the ashes.’
‘That’s what I think,’ she said, leaning back to study the marks on the carpet.
‘Well, it’s clean dirt,’ I observed, ‘and should come off all right.’
‘Yes, it should,’ she agreed. ‘But it doesn’t. It’s my belief that it’s been burnt in.’
‘Oh no!’ I assured her, but curiosity overcame me, and I, too, got down on my hands and knees, and buried my nose in the carpet.
‘Hugo, what are you doing?’ said Nesta’s voice behind me.
I jumped up guiltily.
‘What were you doing?’ she repeated almost sternly.
I had an inspiration.
‘To tell you the truth,’ I said, ‘I wanted to know whether this lovely Persian carpet had been dyed with an aniline dye. There’s only one way to tell, you know—by licking it. Aniline tastes sour.’
‘And does it?’ asked Nesta.
‘Not in the least.’
‘I’m glad of that,’ said Nesta, and leading me from the room she began to tell me the history of the carpet. This gave me an opportunity to praise the house and all its appointments.
‘What treasures you have, Nesta,’ I wound up. ‘I hope they are fully insured.’
‘Yes, they are,’ she answered, rather dryly. ‘But I didn’t know you were an expert on carpets, Hugo.’
As soon as I could I returned to the library. The maid had done her work well: hardly a trace of the footmarks remained, and the smell of burning, which I thought I had detected, clinging to them, had quite worn off. You could still see the track they made, away from the fireplace towards the door: but they didn’t reach the door or go in a direct line for it; they stopped at a point halfway between, against the inner wall, which was sheathed in books. There was nothing surprising in that: after a few steps the ashes would have been all rubbed off.
And there was another thing I couldn’t see, and almost wondered if I had seen it—the mark of the big toe, which showed that the feet had been bare. Victor might have come down in his bare feet, to avoid making a noise; but it was odd, all the same, if not as odd as I had first thought it.
In the afternoon we went a long motor drive in two cars to have tea with a neighbour. As soon as Monkshood Manor was out of sight its problems began to fade, and in the confusion of the two parties joining forces round the tea-table they seemed quite unreal. And even when the house came into view again, stretched cat-like beyond the lawn, I only felt a twinge of my former uneasiness. By Sunday evening a week-end visit seems almost over; the threads with one’s temporary residence are snapping; mentally one is already in next week. Before I got into bed I took out my diary and checked up my engagements. They were quite ordinary engagements for luncheon and dinner and so on, but suddenly they seemed extraordinarily desirable. I fixed my mind on them and went to sleep thinking about them.
I even dreamed about them, or one of them. It started as an ordinary dinner party but one of the guests was late and we had to wait for him. ‘Who is he?’ someone asked, and our host answered, ‘I don’t know, he will tell us when he comes.’ Everyone seemed to accept this answer as reasonable and satisfactory, and we hung about talking and sipping cocktails until our host said, ‘I don’t think he can be coming after all. We won’t wait any longer.’ But just as we were sitting down to dinner there was a knock at the door and a voice said, ‘May I come in?’ And then I saw that we weren’t at my friend’s house in London, but back again at Monkshood, and the door that was opening was the library door, which was lined with bindings to make it look like bookshelves. For some reason it wasn’t at the end of the wall but in the middle; and I said, ‘Why is he coming in by that door?’ ‘Because it’s the door he used to use,’ somebody answered. The door was a long time opening, and it seemed to be opening by itself with nobody behind it; then came a hand and a sleeve—and a figure wearing a monk’s cowl.
I woke with a start and was at once aware of a strong smell. For a moment I thought it was the smell of cooking, and wondered if it could be breakfast-time. If so, the cook had burnt something, for there was a smell of burning too. But it couldn’t be breakfast time for not a glimmer of light showed round the window curtains. Actually, as I discovered when I turned on my bedside lamp, it was half-past two—the same hour that I had chosen for my sortie two nights before.
The smell seemed to be growing fainter, and I wondered if it could be an illusion, an effect of auto-suggestion. I opened the door and put my head into the passage and as quickly withdrew it. Not only because the smell was stronger there, but for another reason. The passage was not in darkness, as it had been the other night, for the hall lights had been turned on.
Well, let Victor see to it, I thought, whatever it is; no doubt he’s on the prowl: let his be the glory. But curiosity overcame me and I changed my mind.
In the hall the smell was stronger. It seemed to come in waves, but where did it come from? My steps took me to the library. The door was open. A flickering light came through, and a smell strong enough to make my throat smart and my eyes water. I lingered, putting off the moment of going in: then I remembered the fire buckets in the hall and ran back for one. The water had a thick film of dust over it and I had an irrational feeling that it would be less effective so, and that I ought to change it. I did not do so, however, but hurried back and somehow forced myself to go into the room.
There were shadows, of course, and there was smoke, drifting about as smoke does. The two together make a shape that is almost opaque. And the shape was opaque that I saw before I saw anything else, a shape that seemed to rise from its knees beside the fireplace and glide slantwise across my vision towards the inner wall of the library. I might not have noticed it so particularly had it not recalled to me the shape of the latecomer in my dream. Before I could ask myself what it was, or meant, it had disappeared, chased perhaps from my attention by the obligation to act. I had the bucket: where should I begin? The dark mass of the big round library table was between me and the fireplace; beyond it should have been the card-table, but that I could not see. Except on the hearth no flames were visible.
Relief struggling with misgiving, I turned the light on and advanced towards the fireplace, but I stopped half-way, for lying in front of it, beside the overturned card-table, lay a body—Victor’s. He was lying face downwards, curiously humped like a snail, under his brown Jaeger dressing-gown, which covered him and the floor around him. And it was from his dressing-gown, which was smouldering in patches, and stuck all over with playing cards, some of which were also alight, that the smell of burning came. Yes, and from Victor himself; for when I tried to lift him up I found beneath him a half-charred log, a couple of feet long, which the pressure of his body had almost extinguished, but not quite, and from which I could not at once release him, so deeply had it burnt into his flesh.
But the Persian carpet, being on the unburnt, underside of the log, was hardly scorched.
Afterwards, the explanation given was that the log had toppled off the fireplace and rolled on to the carpet; and Victor, coming down on a tour of inspection, had tripped over it and died of shock before being burnt. The evidence of shock was very strong, the doctor said. I don’t know whether Nesta believed this: shortly afterwards she sold the house. I have since come to believe it, but I didn’t at the time. At the time I believed that Victor had met his death defending the house against a fire-raising intruder, who, though defeated in his main object, had got the better of Victor in some peculiarly horrible way; for though one of Victor’s felt slippers had caught fire, and was nearly burnt through, the other was intact, while the footprints leading to the wall—though they were fainter than they had been the other time—both showed the mark of a great toe. I pointed this out to the police who shrugged their shoulders. He might have taken his slippers off and put them on again, they said. One thing was certain: Victor had literally embraced his neurosis, and by doing so had rid himself of it for ever.
I was surprised to get a letter from Christopher Fenton with a Rome postmark, for I did not know that he had gone abroad. I was surprised to get a letter from him at all, for we had not been on letter-writing terms for some time.
‘My dear Ernest,’ he began, and the opening, conventional as it was, gave me a slight twinge; ‘How are you getting on? I’ve never had to ask you this before—I’ve always known! But it’s my fault, I’ve let myself drop out of things, and it’s a good deal thanks to all this gardening. Gardening was to have been the solace of my middle age, but it’s become a tyrant, and holds me in a kind of spell while you have been forging ahead. Well, now I am punished because I’ve had to go abroad just as the rhododendrons and azaleas were coming out. They should have been nearly over, if they had obeyed the calendar, and I timed my departure accordingly, but, as you may have noticed, spring this year is three weeks late, and they have let me down. I promised R.M. I would pay him this visit and I can’t possibly get out of it. All unwillingly I have made myself “the angel with the flaming sword”.
‘In a world bursting with sin and sorrow I oughtn’t to make a grievance of such a small matter, but I can’t bear to think of all my flowers (very good ones some of them) blooming without me. And this is where you come in, or where I hope you will. I know you’re not much interested in gardens, you have more important fish to fry, but you used to quite enjoy them in the old days, so perhaps you would do me a kindness now. Will you spend a week-end—the week-end after next would be the best from the flowers’ point of view—at Crossways? My couple are in charge. You were always one of their favourite visitors and I know they will do their best to make you comfortable. Please get what you like out of the cellar, I still have left a few bottles of the Mouton Rothschild 1929 that you used to like. Make yourself thoroughly at home—but I know you will. I always think that a host’s first duty is to absent himself as much as possible; I shall be with you in spirit, though not in the flesh. There’s just one thing—I won’t call it a condition or a stipulation, because in these days the burden of hospitality (if one can call it that) falls more heavily on the guest than on the host—what with tips, train-fares, the discomforts of travelling, etc., and, in your case, loss of valuable time. It is really for the host to write a Collins. So I will only say that if you consent to do this it will increase my sense of obligation. I know how tiresome other people’s hobbies can be—lucky you, you never needed any, your career has always been your hobby. I don’t suppose you will really want to look at the flowers very much—they toil not neither do they spin!—and a glance from the dining-room window may be all you will want to give my Eden. But all the same, I do want the flowers to be seen, even more urgently, perhaps, than I want you to see them. Somehow I feel that if no one sees them except the gardeners (who don’t care much for flowers anyhow and just take them for granted) they might as well not exist. Perhaps, if Ronald Knox’s limerick is true, they don’t exist! All that glorious colour lost, as if it had never been, and the scent of the azaleas just fading into the sky! It is the only beauty I have ever created and I should like to think it was preserved in someone’s mind. I really ought to have had the garden “thrown open” (ridiculous expression) to the public, but it needed more arranging than I now feel equal to. So would you, my dear Ernest, at four o’clock on the Sunday afternoon, stroll down what I magniloquently call the Long Walk, from the fountain at one end to what you once called the temple d’amour at the other? (The fountain is new, you haven’t seen it.) And as you go, give the flowers a good look and don’t hesitate to tread on the beds to read the names of anything that specially takes your fancy (but I don’t suppose anything will). And try to keep me in mind at the time, as though you were looking through my eyes as well as yours.
‘Will you do this for the sake of our old friendship? Will you even promise to do it?
‘I know how busy you are, but perhaps you would send me a line to say yes or no.
‘Yours ever, Christopher.’
Christopher was right. I was busy and though I didn’t happen to have any engagement for the week-end he suggested, I didn’t want to travel all the way down to the New Forest to spend a lonely Sunday. And I didn’t want to get drawn again into what I felt to be the unreality of Christopher’s life, of which this proposal was such an excellent example. He had never out-grown his adolescence or improved his adolescent gift for painting. He had allowed himself to become a back number. A private income had enabled him to indulge a certain contempt for the world where men strove, but he was jealous of it really; hence the digs and scratches in his letter. I had got on at the Bar, whereas he had not been even a successful dilettante. I imagine that he did now know the way that people talked about him, but perhaps he guessed. At Oxford he had been a leading figure in a group of which I was an inconspicuous member; we looked up to him then, and foretold a future for him, but I doubt if he would have achieved it, even without the handicap of his silver spoon. Except in what pertained to hospitality he was out of touch, à côté de la vie. He was good at pouring out drinks, and his friends, myself among them, appreciated this talent long after it was clear to most of us that his other talents would come to nothing. And though a drink is a drink, the satisfaction it gives one varies with whom one takes it with. At one time Christopher could afford drinks when we couldn’t. Later, we would buy our own drinks and consume them in circumstances and in company which he couldn’t attain to. There is a freemasonry of the successful which we shared and he did not. This he must have realized, for mine was not the only defection from his circle. I didn’t dislike him—one couldn’t dislike him—but equally one couldn’t take him quite seriously as a human being.
So my first impulse was to say no, for I hate prolonging any relationship that the meaning has gone out of. But then I remembered Constantia and I thought again. I hadn’t forgotten her but I had pushed her out of my mind while reading Christopher’s letter.
Christopher hadn’t mentioned Constantia in his letter but she was there all the same, in the wistful tone of it and the scarcely concealed bitterness. Yet he had no right to feel bitter; she told me that at one time she would have married him gladly if he had asked her. She was thirty-two and wanted to get married. But he didn’t ask her. She hadn’t told me, but I am sure that their relationship was never more than an amitié amoureuse. It was a sentimental attachment with the same unreality about it that there was in everything he did, and I felt no qualms about taking her from him. It is true that I met her through him—at Crossways, as a matter of fact, at a week-end party—and to that extent I owed her to him. But that is an unreal way of looking at things, and I did not think I was betraying his hospitality or anything of that sort, when I persuaded her that I could give her more than he could. He had no right to keep her indefinitely paddling in the shallows in which his own life was passing. But though we were lovers she hadn’t said that she would marry me and I guessed it was some scruple about Christopher that stopped her.
I suppose some of her tenderness for him must have entered into me for when I read the letter again I felt that I ought to humour him, as much for her sake as for his. After all, she was the last, the only person who cared for him in the way he wanted to be cared for—whatever that was. I should get through the week-end somehow. I wrote to Christopher and I wrote to the Hancocks, Christopher’s married couple, telling them the train that I should come by.
What surprised me, when I got there, was the familiarity of it all. I had forgotten what a frequent visitor I used to be.
‘Why, Mr. Gretton,’ Hancock said, ‘you’ve deserted us, you’re quite a stranger!’ But I didn’t feel one; I could have found my way about the house blindfolded.
‘It’s over a year since you came to us,’ he reproached me. ‘We often used to ask Mr. Fenton what had become of you.’
‘And what did he say?’ I asked.
‘Oh, he said you were too busy, but as I said, you couldn’t be too busy to get away at the week-end.’
‘Oh, but I expect you have plenty of visitors without me,’ I said.
‘No, sir, we don’t, not like we used to have. Of course it’s a nuisance, food being what it is, but Mr. Fenton likes having them, and it’s always a real treat to see you, sir. The new faces aren’t the same by any means, not the same class of people either.’ I took up the Visitors’ Book and saw several names that were strange to me. Christopher had been trying out some new friends. But there weren’t many names at all; to turn back a page was to turn back a year, and I soon found my own.
‘It does seem too bad that you should be here when Mr. Fenton isn’t,’ Hancock prattled on. ‘He always looks forward particularly to you coming, sir. Though now, of course, he’s a good deal taken up with his garden. Often he works in it quite late. He’s got to be terrible fond of flowers. Those rhododendrons he’s so set on, sir, of course they looks after themselves, as you might say. But gardeners are all alike, sir, you can’t get them to weed the flower-beds. Now this herbaceous border, sir, you can see it from the window——’ His glance invited me to go to the window, but for some reason I didn’t want to go. ‘Often of an evening I go to the window and see him stooping and call out to him that dinner’s ready. Would you like to see the garden, sir? He was ever so anxious you should see it.’
‘Well, not just now,’ I said. ‘Of course I shall go and see it to-morrow. Now I think I shall have a bath. Dinner’s at eight, I suppose?’
‘Yes, sir, that’s Mr. Fenton’s hour, though there’s many in these times has put it earlier. The wife she sometimes has a moan about it, but of course we have to respect Mr. Fenton’s wishes.’
A question that had absurdly been nagging me all day now demanded utterance. ‘I’ve brought my dinner-jacket, Hancock,’ I said, ‘because I know Mr. Fenton likes one to change for dinner. But as I’m going to be alone, do you suppose he would mind?’
‘Well, sir, it’s just as you like, of course, but you won’t be alone because there’s a lady coming.’
‘A lady?’
‘Yes, sir, didn’t you know? But perhaps Mr. Fenton forgot to tell you. He’s been very forgetful lately, we’ve both remarked on it. Yes, sir, Miss Constantia Corwen, you know her, don’t you, you’ve stayed with her here several times. A tall lady.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know her quite well. I wonder if Mr. Fenton told her I was going to be here.’
‘Oh yes, sir, I expect so. He wouldn’t forget the same thing twice.’
It was six o’clock. I went to my room, meaning to stay there till dinnertime, but when I heard the crunch of wheels curiosity overcame me and I tiptoed out on to the landing above the hall and listened.
‘Yes, Miss,’ I heard Hancock say, ‘the master was dreadfully cut up about missing the flowers and all on account of spring being so late.’
I could understand Constantia making sympathetic noises, but there were tears in her voice as she said, ‘Yes, it was terribly bad luck. I am so sorry. Is there time to go out and see the garden now?’
‘Well, Miss, it’s just as you like but dinner’s at eight and there’s a soufflé.’
‘I shall only be a moment and I think I won’t change for dinner as I shall be alone.’
There was quite a long pause and then Hancock said, in a puzzled, different voice, ‘You won’t be altogether alone, Miss, because you see Mr. Gretton’s here.’
‘Mr. Gretton?’
‘Yes, Miss. Didn’t Mr. Fenton tell you?’
‘No, he must have forgotten. I think I’ll go up to my room now.’
‘Yes, Miss, it’s the usual one. I’ll bring your things.’
We were sitting together in the drawing-room after dinner, still a little in the shadow of our first embarrassed greeting. When we met in public we often didn’t smile; but never until now had we not smiled when we met in private.
‘Should we take a turn in the garden?’ Constantia asked.
I demurred. ‘It’s too late, don’t you think? Probably all the flowers are shut up for the night.’
‘I don’t think rhododendrons shut up,’ Constantia said.
‘Well, there isn’t enough light to see them by.’
‘Let’s make sure,’ said Constantia, and unwillingly I followed her to the bay window. It was a house of vaguely Regency date and the drawing-room was on the first floor. The Long Walk ran at right angles to it, nearly a hundred yards away. It made the southern boundary of the garden. We could see the tops of the rhododendrons, they were like a line of foam crowning a long dark billow; and in front of and below them the azaleas, a straggling line, hardly a line at all, gave an effect of sparseness and delicacy and fragility. But the colour hardly showed at all.
‘You see,’ I said. ‘You can’t see.’
She smiled. ‘Perhaps you’re right, but we’ll go first thing in the morning.’
I laughed. ‘First thing with you isn’t very early.’
We went back into the room and sat one on each side of the fireplace, trying to look and feel at home; but the constraint had not left us and the house resisted us. It would not play the host. I felt an intruder, almost a trespasser, and caught myself listening for Christopher’s footstep on the stairs.
‘Christopher’s absence is more potent than his presence,’ I said as lightly as I could.
‘Ah, poor Christopher,’ Constantia said. ‘I wish I could feel we were doing what he wanted us to do.’
‘What did he want us to do,’ I asked, ‘besides look at the flowers?’
‘I wish I knew,’ Constantia answered.
I was glad to find myself growing annoyed. Christopher had somehow turned the tables on us; he had got us into his world of make-believe, his emotional climate of self-stultifying sentimentalism. He had becalmed us with his spell of inaction, which made the ordinary pursuits of life seem not worth-while. He had put us into an equivocal position; even in the conventional sense of the term it was equivocal. Well, I must get us out.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to go?’ I said. ‘The Tyrrel Arms is only a mile away.’
‘No, no,’ she answered. ‘He wouldn’t want you to, nor do I.’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘If it was a practical joke it was a damn bad one. You don’t really think he forgot to warn us both that the other would be there?’
‘Warn us?’
‘Well, would you have come if you’d known I was to be here?’
‘Would you?’ she parried.
‘Certainly,’ I said, with more decision than I felt. ‘I would go anywhere where you were, Constantia. It would be a plain issue to me. All the issues are plain where you are concerned. I don’t have to dress them up in flowers.’
‘Ah, the flowers,’ she said, and turned again to the window.
‘If he meant to make us doubt our feelings for each other,’ I argued, ‘he will be disappointed, as far as I’m concerned. He has thrown us together by a trick. He has arranged for us to be alone together in his house. He has put us into the position of an illicit couple. Why don’t we accept the challenge?’
Constantia frowned. ‘He wanted us to see the flowers,’ she said, and she was still saying it, in effect if not in word, when the time came for week-end visitors to separate for the night.
I am usually a good sleeper but I could not sleep and was the more annoyed because I felt that Christopher’s influence was gaining—it had spread from the emotional into the physical sphere. First he had surprised and kept me guessing; now he was keeping me awake. I had a shrewd idea that Constantia too was wakeful; and the irony and futility of our lying sleepless in separate rooms all because of some groundless scruple that Christopher had insinuated into our minds enraged me and made me more than ever wakeful, as anger will. About two o’clock I rose and, turning on the light, I stole along the passage towards Constantia’s room. To reach it I had to pass the head of the staircase where it disappeared into the thick darkness of the hall below. Accentuated by the stillness of the night, the blackness seemed to come up at me, as though it was being brewed in a vat and given off like vapour; and though I wasn’t frightened I felt that Christopher was trying to frighten me and this made me still more angry. I listened at Constantia’s door and if I had heard a movement I should have gone in, but there was none, and I would not risk waking her; my love for her was intensified by my irritation against Christopher, and I could not bear to do her a disservice. So I turned away and deliberately bent my steps towards Christopher’s room, for I knew that he left his letters lying about and I thought I might find something that would let me into the secret of his intentions—if intentions he had; but more and more I felt that the conception of the visit was an idle whim, with hardly enough purpose behind it to be mischievous.
I like a bedroom to be a bedroom, a place for sleeping in, not an extra sitting-room arranged for the display of modish and chi-chi-objects. Christopher’s bedroom was even less austere than I remembered it; there were additions in the shape of fashionable Regency furniture, which I never care for. The bed looked as if it never had been and never could be slept in. And in contrast to this luxury were vases full of withered flowers, lilac and iris; the soup-green water they stood in smelt decidedly unpleasant. The Hancocks were not such perfect servants as Christopher liked to make out. Nothing looks so dead as a dead flower, and the bright light gave these a garish look as though they had been painted. But there was nothing to my purpose; no letters, sketches, no books even; only a tall pile of flower catalogues, topped by a Government pamphlet on pest control.
Pest control! It was the pamphlet, no less than the shrivelled flowers, which gave me the idea that burst into full bloom as soon as I was back in bed. The flowers, I felt, represented that part of Christopher with which I was least in sympathy; his instinct to substitute for life something that was apart from life—something that would prettify it, aromatize it, falsify it, enervate and finally destroy it. These flowers were pests and must, in modern parlance, be controlled and neutralized. Thinking how to do it I soon fell asleep.
I was sitting at Christopher’s writing-table drafting an opinion when, at the hour at which well-to-do women usually make their first appearance, that is to say about half-past eleven, Constantia came in. She was dressed in grey country clothes the severity of which was relieved by a few frivolous touches here and there, and she was wearing a hat, or the rudiments of a hat. I kissed her and asked how she had slept.
‘Not very well,’ she said.
‘Oh?’ I said. ‘Why not?’
‘I was thinking about Christopher’s flowers,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t get them out of my head. I nearly went down to them in the watches of the night. But I’m going now. Will you come with me, Ernest, or are you too busy?’
‘I am rather busy,’ I said, ‘and to tell you the truth, Constantia, I think this flower business is rather a bore.’
Constantia opened her grey eyes wide. ‘Oh, why?’ she said.
I pulled a chair towards the writing-table as if she was a client come to interview me, and sat down in Christopher’s place.
‘Because they distract you from me,’ I replied. ‘That’s one thing. And another is, I have reasons for thinking they are not very good flowers.’
‘Not?’ queried Constantia, puzzled. ‘But Christopher has spent so much time and money on them.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I also know that Christopher never gets anything quite right. You must have noticed that yourself.’
Constantia smiled. ‘Poor Christopher, I suppose he doesn’t quite, but still—Ernest, let’s go out and look at them.’
‘I hate the second-rate,’ I said. ‘My motto is, don’t touch it.’
Constantia shifted in her chair and gave her dress a little pat. ‘Oh well, if you don’t want to, I’ll——’ she began.
‘But I don’t want you to, either,’ I said, pointing my pen at her. ‘You’ll only regret it if you do.’
‘Regret it?’ she repeated. ‘Ernest, darling, I quite understand if you don’t want to go into the garden now, but please don’t try to stop me.’ She began to get up, but I motioned her to be seated.
‘Yes, regret it,’ I said, firmly. ‘Do you know why Christopher played this trick on us?’
‘But was it a trick?’ Constantia asked doubtfully.
‘Of course it was! He was leading us, if I may say so, up the garden path. I think he had two ideas in his mind, an upper and a lower one, and both were meant to separate us.’
She looked at me reproachfully and without speaking.
‘The first was, frankly, to compromise us.’
‘Oh, my dear Ernest!’ Constantia protested.
‘Yes, it was. He may not have put it to himself as crudely as that. He may not have meant to publish it abroad; that would have been the natural tiling to do and he doesn’t like the natural. No; the satisfaction he would get—will get—is from knowing that we know that he knows. It will enable him to practise a kind of gentle blackmail on us. We shall never be quite alone together any more; he will always be there, watching our thoughts. He will be like an agent—Cupid’s agent—taking a ten per cent commission on our love. He will expect us to feel guilty and grateful at the same time and it will act like a poison—it will come between us.’
Constantia made a grimace of distaste. ‘Really, Ernest, I don’t think he meant anything of the sort.’
But I saw I had impressed her. ‘He did, he did,’ I said. ‘You have no idea what fancies people get when they live alone and play at life.’
Constantia sighed but she did not meet my eye. ‘What was the other idea?’ she asked.
‘I’ll tell you,’ I said. ‘But first I must ask you a question which I think our relationship entitles me to ask. He was never your lover, was he?’
After a pause Constantia said, ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘No need for you to say anything,’ I said. ‘By shielding him you have answered my question. He was not. He kept you for years—where? In his enchanted garden, among the loves of the plants, despising this trivial act of union, infecting you with his unreality; and now he means us to meet in his Eden (he called it Eden in his letter) exposed to this same beauty of flowers, like Adam and Eve before the Fall, with this difference’—here I tapped the table with my pen and it gave out a sharp, dry sound—‘that we shall have been warned. We shan’t dare to eat of the tree of knowledge; we shall be trapped for life in a labyrinth of false values, captives of a memory too gracious and delicate to be contaminated by such an ugly fact as man and wife. Yes,’ I went on, for I saw that against herself she was being convinced, ‘if you went out into that garden now you might well find a snake and what would it be? An incarnation of our old friend Christopher, luring us back to his eunuch’s paradise!’
With frightened eyes Constantia looked about her; but I noticed that her glance avoided the window, through which I could see the rhododendrons stirring in the gentle summer breeze.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I think you are more fanciful than poor Christopher ever was, but if you like I’ll go and write some letters until lunch-time.’
‘And you promise not to go into the garden?’
‘Yes, since you’re so childish.’
‘And you won’t even speak of going?’
‘No, not till four o’clock.’
‘All right,’ I said. I knew that Constantia would be as good as her word.
After luncheon we decided that our morning’s hard work entitled us to a siesta. Constantia had kept her promise, she had not even mentioned the garden; but she stipulated that Hancock should rouse us at a quarter to four, in case either of us overslept.
I did not sleep, however. The watch ticking on my wrist was not more careful of the minutes than I was. After half an hour of this I got up (it was just on three) and decided to take a walk. Where? I knew the walks round Crossways, of course, quite well. Two of them, the best two, were reached by the garden gate that opened on the lane. What of it? The flowers were dangerous to Constantia, but not to me. Anyhow, I needn’t look. But as I started out my steps came slower; I stopped and glanced back at the house. ‘Confound it!’ I thought. ‘Confound Christopher and all his works!’ I found myself walking back to the house and my rage against him redoubled. Then I had an idea. I had brought a pair of dark glasses with me, sun-glasses, so strong they turned day into night. I put them on and started out with firmer tread. Such colours as I saw were wholly falsified by an admixture of dark sepia tints. I was not looking at Christopher’s flowers. But indeed I kept my eyes fixed on the broad path, I did not have to look about me, and here was the gate, the door rather, that led into the lane; and according to Christopher’s custom the key had been left in it, for the convenience of guests bent on exercise. The key out of Eden! I unlocked the door, locked it on the other side, put the key in my pocket, and drew a deep breath.
I had been walking for some time when my first plan occurred to me, and I wondered why I had not thought of it before, for it was such an obvious one. I would not go back; I would leave Constantia to keep her tryst with Christopher’s spirit, for she would keep it: I had shaken her mind, but not her resolution. She would go through the silly ritual by herself and it would mean to her—well, whatever it did mean. It could not fail to be something of an anti-climax. She would wait, toeing the line like a runner, and looking round for me; she would give me a minute or two, and then she would start off. And as she went through that afternoon blaze of flowers, very slowly, drinking it in and thinking of Christopher, as no doubt he had enjoined her to—what would her reactions be? What would any woman’s reactions be? Would she think less kindly of Christopher and more kindly of me? She would remember the many times she had walked there with him, wishing, no doubt, that he was other than he was, but indulgent to his faults, as women are, perhaps half liking him for them, not minding his ineffectualness. And the flowers would plead for him. She would not care if they were poor specimens (I had invented that), it would only make her feel sorry for him, and protective.
No, it would not do to let her go down the Long Walk alone. And nor would I escort her, for that would be the ultimate surrender to all that I was saving her from.
It was time to turn back and I still had formed no plan. I stopped and as I put my hands in my pockets the key of the garden door jingled and seemed to speak to me. At once the peace of decision, unknown to men of Christopher’s type, descended on me. I felt that the problem of the garden was already solved. I had plenty of time to get back by a quarter to four, so I did not hurry, indeed I loitered. Suddenly I wondered why the familiar landscape looked so odd, and I remembered I was still wearing my dark glasses. I took them off and immediately felt interested in the wayside flowers, the dog-roses and honeysuckle of the hedgerows. In spite of what Christopher said I am really quite fond of flowers, and it gave me an intimate sense of power and freedom to examine these, which he had not asked me to examine. What plainer proof could I have that I was free of him and that my will was uncontaminated by his?
But when I reached the lane that bordered his garden wall I stopped botanizing and put on my sun-glasses again, for I still judged it better not to take risks. And I had thought out all my actions during the next twenty minutes so carefully that it came as a great surprise when I found that something had happened outside my calculations.
The garden door was open.
There could only be one explanation and it disturbed me: Constantia must have opened the door, and to do so must have passed through the garden. She must have asked Hancock for one of the several duplicate keys that Christopher had had made (the key of the garden door was always getting lost) and gone for a walk as I had. I did not want to disturb the rest of my plan so I left the door as it was and went towards the house. I did not return by the Long Walk; I went another way, invisible from the house, for I did not want to be seen by anyone just then.
But Constantia had not gone out; she was sitting by the drawing-room window. She jumped up. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘thank goodness, here you are. I was afraid you were going to be late. But I have a bone to pick with you. You stole a march on me.’
‘How?’ I challenged her.
‘You’ve been to see the flowers already.’
‘What makes you think so?’
‘I saw you in the Long Walk, don’t tell me it wasn’t you!’
‘When?’
‘About ten minutes ago.’
‘What was I doing?’
‘Oh, Ernest, don’t be so mysterious! You were looking at the flowers, of course.’
I joined her at the window.
‘You couldn’t see from here,’ I said.
‘Of course I could! And you were ashamed—you didn’t want to be seen, you dodged in and out of the bushes, and pretended to be a rhododendron. But I knew you by your hat.’
Nothing she said made any sense to me; I hadn’t gone out in a hat; but I said quickly, ‘I think you’re imagining things, but afterwards I’ll explain.’ It was like being back on the main road after a traffic diversion. ‘Now what is our plan of campaign? At the stroke of four we are to walk from the fountain to the temple?’
Constantia hurriedly searched in her bag and brought out a letter. ‘No, no, Ernest,’ she said in agitation. ‘He says from the temple to the fountain.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Did you promise him to do it?’
‘Yes, did you?’
‘Well, I suppose I did. But my instructions were the other way round. He means us to meet in the middle, then.’
‘Yes. What time is it, Ernest? We mustn’t be late.’
‘Three minutes to four. Just let me get my stick.’
‘Stick, you won’t want a stick. What do you want a stick for?’
‘To beat you with,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Be quick, then.’
I hurried out, shutting the door behind me and turning the key in the lock. Suddenly feeling tired I sat down on a chair on the landing.
In the hall below me the grandfather clock struck four.
Oh, the ecstasy of that moment! It seemed to me that my whole life was being fulfilled in it. I heard Constantia’s voice calling ‘Ernest! Ernest!’ But I could not move, I could not even think, for the waves of delight that were surging through me. I heard the rattle of the door-handle; I could see it stealthily turning, backwards and forwards, in a cramped semi-circle. Soon she began to beat upon the door. ‘Her little fists will soon get tired of that,’ I thought. ‘And she can’t get out through the window: there’s a drop of twenty feet into the garden.’
As distinctly as if there had been no door between us I saw her face clenched in misery and fury. Ah, but this was real! This was no sentimental saunter down a garden-path! Presently the hammering ceased and another sound began. Constantia was crying: she did not do it prettily: she did not know she had a listener: she coughed her tears out. That, too, ministered to my ecstasy; I was the king of pain. I sat on, savouring it till all sounds ceased, except the ticking of the clock below.
How long my drowse lasted I cannot tell, but it was broken by the crack of a shot. It seemed to be inside me, it hurt me so much. I jumped up as if it was I who had been hit. I pressed the key against the lock too hard: it turned unwillingly, but at last I was in the room.
She was sitting bent forward with her face in her hands, blood was trickling from her broken knuckles, and for a moment I believed that she was dead. But she raised her face and looked at me unrecognizingly. ‘Ernest?’ she said, as if it was a question. ‘Ernest?’
‘I’m sorry, Constantia,’ I said. ‘Something delayed me. Shall we go into the garden now?’
She rose without a word and followed me downstairs, and we went out through the french windows in Christopher’s room.
‘Here we divide,’ I said. ‘You go to the temple and I’ll go to the fountain, and we’ll meet in the middle, Constantia.’ She obeyed me like a child.
I looked at the flowers as Christopher wished me to. I did not look at anything else, though when I raised my eyes I could see Constantia, very small and far away, coming towards me. The afternoon sunshine lay thick on all these thousands of blooms. Not a single one seemed to be in shadow: all were displayed for us to look at, as Christopher had wished them to be. Constantia and I were representing the public, the great public, in fact the world, to whom Christopher had felt this strange obligation to make known the beauty he had helped to create. And now I was not only willing but eager to fall in with his plan. Methodically I zig-zagged from one side of the grass path to the other, from the rhododendrons to the azaleas, from the Boucher-like luxuriance of the one to the Chinese delicacy and tenuousness of the other. I went on the flowerbeds; I lifted the brown labels, trying to decipher rain-smudged names; I stooped to the earth, yes, from time to time I knelt, to read the inscriptions on the leaden markers. Nothing that he would have wished me to see escaped me; the smallest effect was as clear to me as the largest; I found no faults—no dissonance, even, between the prevailing pink of the rhododendrons and the prevailing orange of the azaleas, which had hitherto always offended my eye when these flowers were juxtaposed. Yes, I thought, he has brought it off, he has established a harmony; the flowers all sing together an anthem to his glory.
I was approaching the middle of the Long Walk and my journey’s end when I heard Constantia scream. Instantly the garden was in ruins, its spell broken.
I did not see her at first. Like me, she had been going to and fro among the flower-beds, and it was there, under the shadow of a towering rhododendron that I found her, bending over Christopher. Something or someone—perhaps Christopher, perhaps Constantia in the shock of her discovery, had shaken the bush, for the body was covered with rose-pink petals, and his forehead, his damaged forehead, was adrift with them. Even the revolver in his hand had petals on it, softening its steely gleam. But for that, and for something in his attitude that suggested he was defying Nature, not obeying her, one might have supposed that he had fallen asleep under his own flowers.
In his pocket we afterwards found a letter. It was addressed to both of us and dated Sunday 4.30. ‘I had meant to join you at the garden-party,’ it said, ‘but now I feel it’s best I shouldn’t. Only half an hour, but long enough to be convinced that I have messed things up. And yet I can’t quite understand it, for I felt so differently at four o’clock. Was it too much to ask, that you should keep your promise to me, or too little? All my life I have been asking myself this question, in one form or another, and perhaps this is the only answer. Bless you, my children, be happy.—Christopher.’
‘But don’t you see,’ I said to Constantia, ‘it all proves what I said? He couldn’t come to terms with life, he didn’t know how to live, and so he had to die?’
‘You may be right,’ she answered listlessly. ‘But I shall never forgive myself for failing him—or you.’
I argued with her—I even got angry with her—but she would not see reason, and after the inquest we never met again.
It may take time to get over an obsession, even after the roots have been pulled out. Eustace was satisfied that ‘going away’ did not mean that he was going to die; but at moments the fiery chariot still cast its glare across his mind, and he was thankful to shield himself behind the prosaic fact that going away meant nothing worse than going to school. In other circumstances the thought of going to school would have alarmed him; but as an alternative to death it was almost welcome.
Unconsciously he tried to inoculate himself against the future by aping the demeanour of the schoolboys he saw about the streets or playing on the beach at Anchorstone. He whistled, put his hands in his pockets, swayed as he walked, and assumed the serious but detached air of someone who owes fealty to a masculine corporation beyond the ken of his womenfolk: a secret society demanding tribal peculiarities of speech and manner. As to the thoughts and habits of mind which should inspire these outward gestures, he found them in school stories; and if they were sometimes rather lurid they were much less distressing than the fiery chariot.
His family was puzzled by his almost eager acceptance of the trials in store. His aunt explained it as yet another instance of Eustace’s indifference to home-ties, and an inevitable consequence of the money he had inherited from Miss Fothergill. She had to remind herself to be fair to him whenever she thought of this undeserved success. But to his father the very fact that it was undeserved made Eustace something of a hero. His son was a dark horse who had romped home, and the sight of Eustace often gave him a pleasurable tingling, an impulse to laugh and make merry, such as may greet the evening paper when it brings news of a win. A lad of such mettle would naturally want to go to school.
To Minney her one time charge was now more than ever ‘Master’ Eustace; in other ways her feeling for him remained unchanged by anything that happened to him. He was just her little boy who was obeying the natural order of things by growing up. Barbara was too young to realize that the hair she sometimes pulled belonged to an embryo schoolboy. In any case, she was an egotist, and had she been older she would have regarded her brother’s translation to another sphere from the angle of how it affected her. She would have set about finding other strings to pull now that she was denied his hair.
Thus, the grown-ups, though they did not want to lose him, viewed Eustace’s metamorphosis without too much misgiving; and moreover they felt that he must be shown the forbearance and accorded the special privileges of one who has an ordeal before him. Even Aunt Sarah, who did not like the whistling or the hands in the pockets or the slang, only rebuked them half-heartedly.
But Hilda, beautiful, unapproachable Hilda, could not reconcile herself to the turn events had taken. Was she not and would she not always be nearly four years older than her brother Eustace? Was she not his spiritual adviser, pledged to make him a credit to her and to himself and to his family?
He was her care, her task in life. Indeed, he was much more than that; her strongest feelings centred in him and at the thought of losing him she felt as if her heart was being torn out of her body.
So while Eustace grew more perky, Hilda pined. She had never carried herself well, but now she slouched along, hurrying past people she knew as if she had important business to attend to, and her beauty, had she been aware of it, might have been a pursuer she was trying to shake off.
Eustace must not go to school, he must not. She knew he would not want to, when the time came; but then it would be too late. She had rescued him from Anchorstone Hall, the lair of the highwayman, Dick Staveley, his hero and her bête noire; and she would rescue him again. But she must act, and act at once.
It was easy to find arguments. School would be bad for him. It would bring out the qualities he shared with other little boys, qualities which could be kept in check if he remained at home.
‘What are little boys made of?’ she demanded, and looked round in triumph when Eustace ruefully but dutifully answered:
He would grow rude and unruly and start being cruel to animals. Schoolboys always were. And he would fall ill; he would have a return of his bronchitis. Anchorstone was a health-resort. Eustace (who loved statistics and had a passion for records) had told her that Anchorstone had the ninth lowest death-rate in England. (This thought had brought him some fleeting comfort in the darkest hours of his obsession.) If he went away from Anchorstone he might die. They did not want him to die, did they?
Her father and her aunt listened respectfully to Hilda. Since her mother’s death they had treated her as if she was half grown up, and they often told each other that she had an old head on young shoulders.
Hilda saw that she had impressed them and went on to say how much better Eustace was looking, which was quite true, and how much better behaved he was, except when he was pretending to be a schoolboy (Eustace reddened at this). And, above all, what a lot he knew; far more than most boys of his age, she said. Why, besides knowing that Anchorstone had the ninth lowest death-rate in England, he knew that Cairo had the highest death-rate in the world, and would speedily have been wiped out had it not also had the highest birthrate. (This double pre-eminence made the record-breaking city one of Eustace’s favourite subjects of contemplation.) And all this he owed to Aunt Sarah’s teaching.
Aunt Sarah couldn’t help being pleased; she was well-educated herself and knew that Eustace was quick at his lessons.
‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he gets into quite a high class,’ his father said; ‘you’ll see, he’ll be bringing home a prize or two, won’t you, Eustace?’
‘Oh, but boys don’t always learn much at school,’ objected Hilda.
‘How do you know they don’t?’ said Mr. Cherrington teasingly. ‘She never speaks to any other boys, does she, Eustace?’
But before Eustace had time to answer, Hilda surprised them all by saying: ‘Well, I do, so there! I spoke to Gerald Steptoe!’
Everyone was thunderstruck to hear this, particularly Eustace, because Hilda had always had a special dislike for Gerald Steptoe, who was a sturdy, round-faced, knockabout boy with rather off-hand manners.
‘I met him near the post office,’ Hilda said, ‘and he took off his cap, so I had to speak to him, hadn’t I?’
Eustace said nothing. Half the boys in Anchorstone, which was only a small place, knew Hilda by sight and took their caps off when they passed her in the street, she was so pretty; and grown-up people used to stare at her, too, with a smile dawning on their faces. Eustace had often seen Gerald Steptoe take off his cap to Hilda, but she never spoke to him if she could help it, and would not let Eustace either.
Aunt Sarah knew this.
‘You were quite right, Hilda. I don’t care much for Gerald Steptoe, but we don’t want to be rude to anyone, do we?’
Hilda looked doubtful.
‘Well, you know he goes to a school near the one—St. Ninian’s—that you want to send Eustace to.’
‘Want to! That’s good,’ said Mr. Cherrington. ‘He is going, poor chap, on the seventeenth of January—that’s a month from to-day—aren’t you, Eustace? Now don’t you try to unsettle him, Hilda.’
Eustace looked nervously at Hilda and saw the tears standing in her eyes.
‘Don’t say that to her, Alfred,’ said Miss Cherrington. ‘You can see she minds much more than he does.’
Hilda didn’t try to hide her tears, as some girls would have; she just brushed them away and gave a loud sniff.
‘It isn’t Eustace’s feelings I’m thinking about. If he wants to leave us all, let him. I’m thinking of his—his education.’ She paused, and noticed that at the word education their faces grew grave. ‘Do you know what Gerald told me?’
‘Well, what did he tell you?’ asked Mr. Cherrington airily, but Hilda saw he wasn’t quite at his ease.
‘He told me they didn’t teach the boys anything at St. Ninian’s,’ said Hilda. ‘They just play games all the time. They’re very good at games, he said, better than his school—I can’t remember what it’s called.’
‘St. Cyprian’s,’ put in Eustace. Any reference to a school made him feel self-important.
‘I knew it was another saint. But the boys at St. Ninian’s aren’t saints at all, Gerald said. They’re all the sons of rich swanky people who go there to do nothing. Gerald said that what they don’t know would fill books.’
There was a pause. No one spoke, and Mr. Cherrington and his sister exchanged uneasy glances.
‘I expect he exaggerated, Hilda,’ said Aunt Sarah. ‘Boys do exaggerate sometimes. It’s a way of showing off. I hope Eustace won’t learn to. As you know, Hilda, we went into the whole thing very thoroughly. We looked through twenty-nine prospectuses before we decided, and your father thought Mr. Waghorn a very gentlemanly, understanding sort of man.’
‘The boys call him “Old Foghorn”,’ said Hilda, and was rewarded by seeing Miss Cherrington stiffen in distaste. ‘And they imitate him blowing his nose, and take bets about how many times he’ll clear his throat during prayers. I don’t like having to tell you this,’ she added virtuously, ‘but I thought I ought to.’
‘What are bets, Daddy?’ asked Eustace, hoping to lead the conversation into safer channels.
‘Bets, my boy?’ said Mr. Cherrington. “Well, if you think something will happen, and another fellow doesn’t, and you bet him sixpence that it will, then if it does he pays you sixpence, and if it doesn’t you pay him sixpence.’
Eustace was thinking that this was a very fair arrangement when Miss Cherrington said, ‘Please don’t say “you”, Alfred, or Eustace might imagine that you were in the habit of making bets yourself.’
‘Well—’ began Mr. Cherrington.
‘Betting is a very bad habit,’ said Miss Cherrington firmly, ‘and I’m sorry to hear that the boys of St. Ninian’s practise it—if they do: again, Gerald may have been exaggerating, and it is quite usual, I imagine, for the boys of one school to run down another. But there is no reason that Eustace should learn to. To be exposed to temptation is one thing, to give way is another, and resistance to temptation is a valuable form of self-discipline.’
‘Oh, but they don’t resist!’ cried Hilda. ‘And Eustace wouldn’t either. You know how he likes to do the same as everyone else. And if any boy, especially any new boy, tries to be good and different from the rest they tease him and call him some horrid name (Gerald wouldn’t tell me what it was), and sometimes punch him, too.’
Eustace, who had always been told he must try to be good in all circumstances, turned rather pale and looked down at the floor.
‘Now, now, Hilda,’ said her father, impatiently. ‘You’ve said quite enough. You sound as if you didn’t want Eustace to go to school.’
But Hilda was unabashed. She knew she had made an impression on the grown-ups.
‘Oh, it’s only that I want him to go to the right school, isn’t it, Aunt Sarah?’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t like him to go to a school where he learned bad habits and—and nothing else, should we? He would be much better off as he is now, with you teaching him and me helping. Gerald said they really knew nothing; he said he knew more than the oldest boys at St. Ninian’s, and he’s only twelve.’
‘But he does boast, doesn’t he?’ put in Eustace timidly. ‘You used to say so yourself, Hilda.’ Hilda had never had a good word for Gerald Steptoe before to-day.
‘Oh, yes, you all boast,’ said Hilda sweepingly. ‘But I don’t think he was boasting. I asked him how much he knew, and he said, The Kings and Queens of England, so I told him to repeat them and he broke down down at Richard II. Eustace can say them perfectly, and he’s only ten, so you see for the next four years he wouldn’t be learning anything, he’d just be forgetting everything, wouldn’t he, Aunt Sarah? Don’t let him go, I’m sure it would be a mistake.’
Minney, Barbara’s nurse, came bustling in. She was rather short and had soft hair and gentle eyes. ‘Excuse me, Miss Cherrington,’ she said, ‘but it’s Master Eustace’s bedtime.’
Eustace said good night. Hilda walked with him to the door and when they were just outside she said in a whisper:
‘I think I shall be able to persuade them.’
‘But I think I want to go, Hilda!’ muttered Eustace.
‘It isn’t what you want, it’s what’s good for you,’ exclaimed Hilda, looking at him with affectionate fierceness. As she turned the handle of the drawing-room door she overheard her father saying to Miss Cherrington: ‘I shouldn’t pay too much attention to all that, Sarah. If the boy didn’t want to go it would be different. As the money’s his, he ought to be allowed to please himself. But he’ll be all right, you’ll see.’
The days passed and Hilda wept in secret. Sometimes she wept openly, for she knew how it hurt Eustace to see her cry. When he asked her why she was crying she wouldn’t tell him at first, but just shook her head. Later on she said, ‘You know quite well: why do you ask me?’ and, of course, Eustace did know. It made him unhappy to know he was making her unhappy and besides, as the time to leave home drew nearer, he became much less sure that he liked the prospect. Hilda saw that he was weakening and she played upon his fears and gave him Eric or Little by Little as a Christmas present, to warn him of what he might expect when he went to school. Eustace read it and was extremely worried; he didn’t see how he could possibly succeed where a boy as clever, and handsome, and good as Eric had been before he went to school, had failed. But it did not make him want to turn back, for he now felt that if school was going to be an unpleasant business, all the more must he go through with it—especially as it was going to be unpleasant for him, and not for anyone else; which would have been an excuse for backing out. ‘You see it won’t really matter,’ he explained to Hilda, ‘they can’t kill me—Daddy said so—and he said they don’t even roast boys at preparatory schools, only at public schools, and I shan’t be going to a public school for a long time, if ever. I expect they will just do a few things to me like pulling my hair and twisting my arm and perhaps kicking me a little, but I shan’t really mind that. It was much worse all that time after Miss Fothergill died, because then I didn’t know what was going to happen and now I do know, so I shall be prepared.’ Hilda was nonplussed by this argument, all the more so because it was she who had told Eustace that it was always good for you to do something you didn’t like. ‘You say so now,’ she said, ‘but you won’t say so on the seventeenth of January.’ And when Eustace said nothing but only looked rather sad and worried she burst into tears. ‘You’re so selfish,’ she sobbed. ‘You only think about being good—as if that mattered—you don’t think about me at all. I shan’t eat or drink anything while you are away, and I shall probably die.’
Eustace was growing older and he did not really believe that Hilda would do this, but the sight of her unhappiness and the tears (which sometimes started to her eyes unbidden the moment he came into the room where she was) distressed him very much. Already, he thought, she was growing thinner, there were hollows in her cheeks, she was silent, or spoke in snatches, very fast and with far more vehemence and emphasis than the occasion called for; she came in late for meals and never apologized, she had never been interested in clothes, but now she was positively untidy. The grown-ups, to his surprise, did not seem to notice.
He felt he must consult someone and thought at once of Minney, because she was the easiest to talk to. But he knew she would counsel patience; that was her idea, that people would come to themselves if they were left alone. Action was needed and she wouldn’t take any action. Besides, Hilda had outgrown Minney’s influence; Minney wasn’t drastic enough to cut any ice with her. Aunt Sarah would be far more helpful because she understood Hilda. But she didn’t understand Eustace and would make him feel that he was making a fuss about nothing, or if he did manage to persuade her that Hilda was unhappy she would somehow lay the blame on him. There remained his father. Eustace was nervous of consulting his father, because he never knew what mood he would find him in. Mr. Cherrington could be very jolly and treat Eustace almost as an equal; then something Eustace said would upset him and he would get angry and make Eustace wish he had never spoken. But since Miss Fothergill’s death his attitude to Eustace had changed. His outbursts of irritation were much less frequent and he often asked Eustace his opinion and drew him out and made him feel more self-confident. It all depended on finding him in a good mood.
Of late Mr. Cherrington had taken to drinking a whisky and soda and smoking a cigar when he came back from his office in Ousemouth; this was at about six o’clock, and he was always alone then, in the drawing-room, because Miss Cherrington did not approve of this new habit. When he had finished she would go in and throw open the windows, but she never went in while he was there.
Eustace found him with his feet up enveloped in the fumes of whisky and cigar smoke, which seemed to Eustace the very being and breath of manliness. Mr. Cherrington stirred. The fragrant cloud rolled away and his face grew more distinct.
‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘here’s the Wild Man.’ The Wild Man from Borneo was in those days an object of affection with the general public. ‘Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Now, what can I do for you?’
The armchair was too big for Eustace: his feet hardly touched the floor.
‘It’s about Hilda,’ he said.
‘Well, Hilda’s a nice girl, what about her?’ said Mr. Cherrington, his voice still jovial. Eustace hesitated and then said with a rush:
‘You see, she doesn’t want me to go to school.’
Mr. Cherrington frowned, and sipped at his glass.
‘I know, we’ve heard her more than once on that subject. She thinks you’ll get into all sorts of bad ways.’ His voice sharpened; it was too bad that his quiet hour should be interrupted by these nursery politics. ‘Have you been putting your heads together? Have you come to tell me you don’t want to go either?’
Eustace’s face showed the alarm he felt at his father’s change of tone.
‘Oh, no, Daddy. At least—well—I . . .’
‘You don’t want to go. That’s clear,’ his father snapped.
‘Yes, I do. But you see . . .’ Eustace searched for a form of words which wouldn’t lay the blame too much on Hilda and at the same time excuse him for seeming to shelter behind her. ‘You see, though she’s older than me she’s only a girl and she doesn’t understand that men have to do certain things’—Mr. Cherrington smiled, and Eustace took heart—‘well, like going to school.’
‘Girls go to school, too,’ Mr. Cherrington said. Eustace tried to meet this argument. ‘Yes, but it’s not the same for them. You see, girls are always nice to each other; why, they always call each other by their Christian names even when they’re at school. Fancy that! And they never bet or’ (Eustace looked nervously at the whisky decanter) or drink, or use bad language, or kick each other, or roast each other in front of a slow fire.’ Thinking of the things that girls did not do to each other, Eustace began to grow quite pale.
‘All the better for them, then,’ said Mr. Cherrington robustly. ‘School seems to be the place for girls. But what’s all this leading you to?’
‘I don’t mind about those things,’ said Eustace eagerly. ‘I . . . I should quite enjoy them. And I shouldn’t even mind, well, you know, not being so good for a change, if it was only for a time. But Hilda thinks it might make me ill as well. Of course, she’s quite mistaken, but she says she’ll miss me so much and worry about me, that she’ll never have a peaceful moment, and she’ll lose her appetite and perhaps pine away and . . .’ He paused, unable to complete the picture. ‘She doesn’t know I’m telling you all this, and she wouldn’t like me to, and at school they would say it was telling tales, but I’m not at school yet, am I? Only I felt I must tell you because then perhaps you’d say I’d better not go to school, though I hope you won’t.’
Exhausted by the effort of saying so many things that should (he felt) have remained locked in his bosom, and dreading an angry reply, Eustace closed his eyes. When he opened them his father was standing up with his back to the fireplace. He took the cigar from his mouth and puffed out an expanding cone of rich blue smoke.
‘Thanks, old chap,’ he said. I’m very glad you told me, and I’m not going to say you shan’t go to school. Miss Fothergill left you the money for that purpose, so we chose the best school we could find; and why Hilda should want to put her oar in I can’t imagine—at least, I can, but I call it confounded cheek. The very idea!’ his father went on, working himself up and looking at Eustace as fiercely as if it was his fault, while Eustace trembled to hear Hilda criticized. ‘What she needs is to go to school herself. Yes, that’s what she needs.’ He took a good swig at the whisky, his eyes brightened and his voice dropped. ‘Now I’m going to tell you something, Eustace, only you must keep it under your hat.’
‘Under my hat?’ repeated Eustace, mystified. ‘My hat’s in the hall. Shall I go and get it?’
His father laughed. ‘No, I mean you must keep it to yourself. You mustn’t tell anyone, because nothing’s decided yet.’
‘Shall I cross my heart and swear?’ asked Eustace anxiously. ‘Of course, I’d rather not.’
‘You can do anything you like with yourself as long as you don’t tell Hilda,’ his father remarked, ‘but just see the door’s shut.’
Eustace tiptoed to the door and cautiously turned the handle several times, after each turn giving the handle a strong but surreptitious tug. Coming back still more stealthily, he whispered, ‘It’s quite shut.’
‘Very well, then,’ said Mr. Cherrington. ‘Now give me your best ear.’
‘My best ear, Daddy?’ said Eustace, turning his head from side to side. ‘Oh, I see!’ and he gave a loud laugh which he immediately stifled. ‘You just want me to listen carefully.’
‘You’ve hit it,’ and between blue, fragrant puffs Mr. Cherrington began to outline his plan for Hilda.
While his father was speaking Eustace’s face grew grave, and every now and then he nodded judicially. Though his feet still swung clear of the floor, to be taken into his father’s confidence seemed to add inches to his stature.
‘Well, old man, that’s what I wanted to tell you,’ said his father at length. ‘Only you mustn’t let on, see? Mum’s the word.’
‘Wild horses won’t drag it out of me, Daddy,’ said Eustace earnestly.
‘Well, don’t you let them try. By the way, I hear your friend Dick Staveley’s back.’
Eustace started. The expression of an elder statesman faded from his face and he suddenly looked younger than his years.
‘Oh, is he? I expect he’s just home for the holidays.’
‘No, he’s home for some time, he’s cramming for Oxford or something.’
‘Cramming?’ repeated Eustace. His mind suddenly received a most disagreeable impression of Dick, his hero, transformed into a turkey strutting and gobbling round a farmyard.
‘Being coached for the ’Varsity. It may happen to you one day. Somebody told me they’d seen him, and I thought you might be interested. You liked him, didn’t you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Eustace. Intoxicating visions began to rise, only to be expelled by the turn events had taken. ‘But it doesn’t make much difference now, does it? I mean, I shouldn’t be able to go there, even if he asked me.’
Meanwhile, Hilda on her side had not been idle. She turned over in her mind every stratagem and device she could think of that might keep Eustace at home. Since the evening when she so successfully launched her bombshell about the unsatisfactory state of education and morals at St. Ninian’s, she felt she had been losing ground. Eustace did not respond, as he once used to, to the threat of terrors to come; he professed to be quite pleased at the thought of being torn limb from limb by older stronger boys. She didn’t believe he was really unmoved by such a prospect, but he successfully pretended to be. When she said that it would make her ill he seemed to care a great deal more; for several days he looked as sad as she did, and he constantly, and rather tiresomely, begged her to eat more—requests which Hilda received with a droop of her long, heavy eyelids and a sad shake of her beautiful head. But lately Eustace hadn’t seemed to care so much. When Christmas came he suddenly discovered the fun of pulling crackers. Before this year he wouldn’t even stay in the room if crackers were going off; but now he revelled in them and made almost as much noise as they did, and his father even persuaded him to grasp the naked strip of cardboard with the explosive in the middle, which stung your fingers and made even grown-ups pull faces. Crackers bored Hilda; the loudest report did not make her change her expression, and she would have liked to tell Eustace how silly he looked as, with an air of triumph, he clasped the smoking fragment; but she hadn’t the heart to. He might be at school already, his behaviour was so unbridled. And he had a new way of looking at her, not unkind or cross or disobedient, but as if he was a gardener tending a flower and watching to see how it was going to turn out. This was a reversal of their roles; she felt as though a geranium had risen from its bed and was bending over her with a watering-can.
As usual, they were always together and if Hilda did not get the old satisfaction from the company of this polite but aloof little stranger (for so he seemed to her) the change in his attitude made her all the more determined to win him back, and the thought of losing him all the more desolating. She hated the places where they used to play together and wished that Eustace, who was sentimental about his old haunts, would not take her to them. ‘I just want to see it once again,’ he would plead, and she did not like to refuse him, though his new mantle of authority sat so precariously on him. Beneath her moods, which she expressed in so many ways, was a steadily increasing misery; the future stretched away featureless without landmarks; nothing beckoned, nothing drew her on.
Obscurely she realized that the change had been brought about by Miss Fothergill’s money. It had made Eustace independent, not completely independent, not as independent as she was, but it had given a force to his wishes that they never possessed before. It was no good trying to make him not want to go to school; she must make him want to stay at home. In this new state of affairs she believed that if Eustace refused to go to school his father would not try to compel him. But how to go about it? How to make Anchorstone suddenly so attractive, so irresistibly magnetic, that Eustace would not be able to bring himself to leave?
When Eustace told her that Dick Staveley was coming to live at Anchorstone Hall he mentioned this (for him) momentous event as casually as possible. Hilda did not like Dick Staveley, she professed abhorrence of him; she would not go to Anchorstone Hall when Dick had invited her, promising he would teach her to ride. The whole idea of the place was distasteful to her; it chilled and shrivelled her thoughts, just as it warmed and expanded Eustace’s. Even to hear it mentioned cast a shadow over her mind, and as to going there, she would rather die; and she had often told Eustace so.
It was a sign of emancipation that he let Dick’s name cross his lips. He awaited the explosion, and it came.
‘That man!’—she never spoke of him as a boy, though he was only a few years older than she was. ‘Well, you won’t see him, will you?’ she added almost vindictively. ‘You’ll be at school.’
‘Oh,’ said Eustace, ‘that won’t make any difference. I shouldn’t see him anyhow. You see, he never wanted to be friends with me. It was you he liked. If you had gone, I dare say he would have asked me to go too, just as your—well, you know, to hold the horse, and so on.’
‘You and your horses!’ said Hilda, scornfully. ‘You don’t know one end of a horse from the other.’ He expected she would let the subject drop, but her eyes grew thoughtful and to his astonishment she said, ‘Suppose I had gone?’ ‘Oh, well,’ said Eustace, ‘that would have changed everything. I shouldn’t have had time to go to tea with Miss Fothergill—you see we should always have been having tea at Anchorstone Hall. Then she wouldn’t have died and left me her money—I mean, she would have died; but she wouldn’t have left me any money because she wouldn’t have known me well enough. You have to know someone well to do that. And then I shouldn’t be going to school now, because Daddy says it’s her money that pays for me—and now’ (he glanced up, the clock on the Town Hall, with its white face and black hands, said four o’clock) ‘you would be coming in from riding with Dick, and I should be sitting on one of those grand sofas in the drawing-room at Anchorstone Hall, perhaps talking to Lady Staveley.’
Involuntarily Hilda closed her eyes against this picture—let it be confounded! Let it be blotted out! But aloud she said:
‘Wouldn’t you have liked that?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Eustace fervently.
‘Better than going to school?’
Eustace considered. The trussed boy was being carried towards a very large, but slow, fire; other boys, black demons with pitchforks, were scurrying about, piling on coals. His mood of heroism deserted him.
‘Oh yes, much better.’
Hilda said nothing, and they continued to saunter down the hill, past the ruined cross, past the pierhead with its perpetual invitation, towards the glories of the Wolferton Hotel—winter-gardened, girt with iron fire-escapes—and the manifold exciting sounds, and heavy, sulphurous smells, of the railway station.
‘Are we going to Mrs. Wrench’s?’ Eustace asked.
‘No, why should we? We had fish for dinner; you never notice. Oh, I know, you want to see the crocodile.’
‘Well, just this once. You see, I may not see it again for a long time.’
Hilda sniffed. ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying that,’ she said. ‘It seems the only thing you can say. Oh, very well, then, we’ll go in and look round and come out.’
‘Oh, but we must buy something. She would be disappointed if we didn’t. Let’s get some shrimps. Aunt Sarah won’t mind just for once, and I don’t suppose I shall have any at St. Ninian’s. I expect the Fourth Form gets them, though.’
‘Why should they?’
‘Oh, didn’t you know, they have all sorts of privileges.’
‘I expect they have shrimps every day at Anchorstone Hall,’ said Hilda, meaningly.
‘Oh, I expect they do. What a pity you didn’t want to go. We have missed such a lot.’
Cautiously they crossed the road, for the wheeled traffic was thick here and might include a motor car. Fat Mrs. Wrench was standing at the door of the fish shop. She saw them coming, went in, and smiled expectantly from behind the counter.
‘Well, Miss Hilda?’
‘Eustace wants a fillet of the best end of the crocodile.’
‘Oh Hilda, I don’t!’
They all laughed uproariously, Hilda loudest of all; while the stuffed crocodile (a small one) sprawling on the wall with tufts of bright green foliage glued round it, glared down on them malignantly. Eustace felt the tremor of delighted terror that he had been waiting for.
‘I’ve got some lovely fresh shrimps,’ said Mrs. Wrench.
‘Turn round, Eustace,’ said Miss Cherrington.
‘Oh must I again, Aunt Sarah?’
‘Yes, you must. You don’t want the other boys to laugh at you, do you?’
Reluctantly, Eustace revolved. He hated having his clothes tried on. He felt it was he who was being criticized, not they. It gave him a feeling of being trapped, as though each of the three pairs of eyes fixed on him, impersonal, fault-finding, was attached to him by a silken cord that bound him to the spot. He tried to restrain his wriggles within himself but they broke out and rippled on the surface.
‘Do try to stand still, Eustace.’
Aunt Sarah was operating; she had some pins in her mouth with which, here and there, she pinched grooves and ridges in his black jacket. Alas, it was rather too wide at the shoulders and not wide enough round the waist.
‘Eustace is getting quite a corporation,’ said his father.
‘Corporation, Daddy?’ Eustace was always interested in words.
‘Well, I didn’t like to say fat.’
‘It’s because you would make me feed up,’ Eustace complained. ‘I was quite thin before. Nancy Steptoe said I was just the right size for a boy.’
No one took this up; indeed, a slight chill fell on the company at the mention of Nancy’s name.
‘Never mind,’ Minney soothed him, ‘there’s some who would give a lot to be so comfortable looking as Master Eustace is.’
‘Would they, Minney?’
Eustace was encouraged.
‘Yes, they would, nasty scraggy things. And I can make that quite all right.’ She inserted two soft fingers beneath the tight line round his waist.
‘Hilda hasn’t said anything yet,’ said Mr. Cherrington. ‘What do you think of your brother now, Hilda?’
Hilda had not left her place at the luncheon table, nor had she taken her eyes off her plate. Without looking up she said:
‘He’ll soon get thin if he goes to school, if that’s what you want.’
‘If he goes,’ said Mr. Cherrington. ‘Of course he’s going. Why do you suppose we took him to London to Faith Brothers if he wasn’t? All the same, I’m not sure we ought to have got his clothes off the peg. . . . Now go and have a look at yourself, Eustace. Mind the glass doesn’t break.’
Laughing, but half afraid of what he might see, Eustace tiptoed to the mirror. There stood his new personality, years older than a moment ago. The Eton collar, the black jacket cut like a man’s, the dark grey trousers that he could feel through his stockings, caressing his calves, made a veritable mantle of manhood. A host of new sensations, adult, prideful, standing no nonsense, coursed through him. Involuntarily, he tilted his head back and frowned, as though he were considering a leg-break that might dismiss R. H. Spooner.
‘What a pity he hasn’t got the cap,’ said Minney admiringly.
Eustace half turned his head. ‘It’s because of the crest, the White Horse of Kent. You see, if they let a common public tailor make that, anyone might wear it.’
‘Don’t call people common, please Eustace, even a tailor.’
‘I didn’t mean common in a nasty way, Aunt Sarah. Common just means anyone. It might mean me or even you.’
Hoping to change the subject, Minney dived into a cardboard box, noisily rustling the tissue paper.
‘But we’ve got the straw hat. Put that on, Master Eustace. . . . There, Mr. Cherrington, doesn’t he look nice?’
‘Not so much on the back of your head, Eustace, or you’ll look like Ally Sloper. That’s better.’
‘I wish it had a guard,’ sighed Eustace, longingly.
‘Oh well, one thing at a time.’
‘And of course it hasn’t got the school band yet. It’s blue, you know, with a white horse.’
‘What, another?’
‘Oh, no, the same one, Daddy. You are silly.’
‘Don’t call your father silly, please, Eustace.’
‘Oh, let him, this once. . . . Now take your hat off, Eustace, and bow.’
Eustace did so.
‘Now say “Please sir, it wasn’t my fault”.’
Eustace did not quite catch what his father said.
‘Please, sir, it was my fault.’
‘No, no. Wasn’t my fault.’
‘Oh, I see, Daddy. Please, sir, it wasn’t my fault. But I expect it would have been really. It nearly always is.’
‘People will think it is, if you say so. Now say “That’s all very well, old chap, but this time it’s my turn”.’
Eustace repeated the phrase, imitating his father’s intonation and dégagé man-of-the-world air; then he said:
‘What would it be my turn to do, Daddy?’
‘Well, what do you think?’ When Eustace couldn’t think, his father said: ‘Ask Minney.’
Minney was mystified but tried to carry it off.
‘They do say one good turn deserves another,’ she said, shaking her head wisely.
‘That’s the right answer as far as it goes. Your Aunt knows what I mean, Eustace, but she won’t tell us.’
‘I don’t think you should teach the boy to say such things, Alfred, even in fun. It’s an expression they use in a. . . in a public house, Eustace.’
Eustace gave his father a look of mingled admiration and reproach which Mr. Cherrington answered with a shrug of his shoulders.
‘Between you you’ll make an old woman of the boy. Good Lord, at his age, I. . .’ he broke off, his tone implying that at ten years old he had little left to learn.’ Now stand up, Eustace, and don’t stick your tummy out.’
Eustace obeyed.
‘Shoulders back.’
‘Head up.’
‘Don’t bend those knees.’
‘Don’t arch your back.’
Each command set up in Eustace a brief spasm ending in rigidity, and soon his neck, back, and shoulders were a network of wrinkles. Miss Cherrington and Minney rushed forward.
‘Give me a pin, please Minney, the left shoulder still droops.’
‘There’s too much fullness at the neck now, Miss Cherrington. Wait a moment, I’ll pin it.’
‘It’s the back that’s the worst, Minney. I can get my hand and arm up it—stand still, Eustace, one pin won’t be enough—Oh, he hasn’t buttoned his coat in front, that’s the reason——’
Hands and fingers were everywhere, pinching, patting, and pushing; Eustace swayed like a sapling in a gale. Struggling to keep his balance on the chair, he saw intent eyes flashing round him, leaving gleaming streaks like shooting stars in August. He tried first to resist, then to abandon himself to all the pressures. At last the quickened breathing subsided, there were gasps and sighs, and the ring of electric tension round Eustace suddenly dispersed, like an expiring thunderstorm.
‘That’s better.’
‘Really, Minney, you’ve made quite a remarkable improvement.’
‘He looks quite a man now, doesn’t he, Miss Cherrington? Oh, I wish he could be photographed, just to remind us. If only Hilda would fetch her camera——’
‘Hilda!’
There was no answer. They all looked round.
The tableau broke up; and they found themselves staring at an empty room.
‘Can I get down now, Daddy?’ asked Eustace.
‘Yes, run and see if you can find her.’
‘She can’t get used to the idea of his going away,’ said Minney when Eustace had gone.
‘No, I’m afraid she’ll suffer much more than he will,’ Miss Cherrington said.
Mr. Cherrington straightened his tie and shot his cuffs. ‘You forget, Sarah, that she’s going to school herself.’
‘It’s not likely I should forget losing my right hand, Alfred.’
After her single contribution to the problems of Eustace’s school outfit, Hilda continued to sit at the table, steadily refusing to look in his direction, and trying to make her disapproval felt throughout the room. Unlike Eustace, she had long ago ceased to think that grown-up people were always right, or that if she was angry with them they possessed some special armour of experience, like an extra skin, that made them unable to feel it. She thought they were just as fallible as she was, more so, indeed; and that in this instance they were making a particularly big mistake. Her father’s high-spirited raillery, as if the whole thing was a joke, exasperated her. Again, she projected her resentment through the æther, but they all had their backs to her, they were absorbed with Eustace. Presently his father made him stand on a chair. How silly he looked, she thought, like a dummy, totally without the dignity that every human being should possess. All this flattery and attention was making him conceited, and infecting him with the lax standards of the world, which she despised and dreaded. Now he was chattering about his school crest, as if that was anything to be proud of, a device woven on a cap, such as every little boy wore. He was pluming and preening himself, just as if she had never brought him up to know what was truly serious and worthwhile. A wave of bitter feeling broke against her. She could not let this mutilation of a personality go on; she must stop it, and there was only one way, though that way was the hardest she could take and the thought of it filled her with loathing.
Her aunt and Minney were milling round Eustace like dogs over a bone; sticking their noses into him. It was almost disgusting. To get away unnoticed was easy; if she had fired a pistol they would not have heard her. Taking her pencil box which she had left on the sideboard she slouched out of the room. A moment in the drawing-room to collect some writing paper and then she was in the bedroom which she still shared with Eustace. She locked the door and, clearing a space at the corner of the dressing-table, she sat down to write. It never crossed Hilda’s mind that her plan could miscarry; she measured its success entirely by the distaste it aroused in her, and that was absolute—the strongest of her many strong feelings. She no more doubted its success than she doubted that, if she threw herself off the cliff, she would be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. In her mind, as she wrote, consoling her, was the image of Eustace, stripped of all his foolish finery, his figure restored to its proper outlines, his mouth cleansed of the puerilities of attempted schoolboy speech, his mind soft and tractable—forever hers.
But the letter did not come easily, partly because Hilda never wrote letters, but chiefly because her inclination battled with her will, and her sense of her destiny warned her against what she was doing. More than once she was on the point of abandoning the letter, but in the pauses of her thoughts she heard the excited murmur of voices in the room below. This letter, if she posted it, would still those voices and send those silly clothes back to Messrs. Faith Brothers. It could do anything, this letter, stop the clock, put it back even, restore to her the Eustace of pre-Miss Fothergill days. Then why did she hesitate? Was it an obscure presentiment that she would regain Eustace but lose herself?
Dear Mr. Staveley (she had written),
Some time ago you asked me and Eustace to visit you, and we were not able to because . . . (Because why?)
Because I didn’t want to go, that was the real reason, and I don’t want to now except that it’s the only way of keeping Eustace at home.
Then he would see where he stood; she had sacrificed her pride by writing to him at all, she wouldn’t throw away the rest by pretending she wanted to see him. Instinctively she knew that however rude and ungracious the letter, he would want to see her just the same.
So we can come any time you like, and would you be quick and ask us because Eustace will go to school, so there’s no time to lose.
Yours sincerely,
Hilda was staring at the letter when there came a loud knock on the door, repeated twice with growing imperiousness before she had time to answer.
‘Yes?’ she shouted.
‘Oh, Hilda, can I come in?’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m busy, that’s why.’
Eustace’s tone gathered urgency and became almost menacing as he said:
‘Well, you’ve got to come down because Daddy said so. He wants you to take my snapshot.’
‘I can’t. I couldn’t anyhow because the film’s used up.’
‘Shall I go out and buy some? You see, it’s very important, it’s like a change of life. They want a record of me.’
‘They can go on wanting, for all I care.’
‘Oh, Hilda, I shan’t be here for you to photograph this time next Thursday week.’
‘Yes, you will, you see if you’re not.’
‘Don’t you want to remember what I look like?’
‘No, I don’t. Go away, go away, you’re driving me mad.’
She heard his footsteps retreating from the door. Wretchedly she turned to the letter. It looked blurred and misty, and a tear fell on it. Hilda had no blotting paper, and soon the tear-drop, absorbing the ink, began to turn blue at the edges.
‘He mustn’t see that,’ she thought, and taking another sheet began to copy the letter out. ‘Dear Mr. Staveley . . .’ But she did not like what she had written; it was out of key with her present mood. She took another sheet and began again:
‘Dear Mr. Staveley, My brother Eustace and I are now free . . .’ That wouldn’t do. Recklessly she snatched another sheet, and then another. ‘Dear Mr. Staveley, Dear Mr. Staveley.’ Strangely enough, with the repetition of the words he seemed to become almost dear; the warmth of dearness crept into her lonely, miserable heart and softly spread there—‘Dear Richard,’ she wrote, and then, ‘Dear Dick.’ ‘Dear’ meant something to her now; it meant that Dick was someone of whom she could ask a favour without reserve.
Dear Dick,
I do not know if you will remember me. I am the sister of Eustace Cherrington who was a little boy then and he was ill at your house and when you came to our house to ask after him you kindly invited us to go and see you. But we couldn’t because Eustace was too delicate. And you saw us again last summer on the sands and told Eustace about the money Miss Fothergill had left him but it hasn’t done him any good, I’m afraid, he still wants to go to school because other boys do but I would much rather he stayed at home and didn’t get like them. If you haven’t forgotten, you will remember you said I had been a good sister to him, much better than Nancy Steptoe is to Gerald. You said you would like to have me for a sister even when your own sister was there. You may not have heard but he is motherless and I have been a mother to him and it would be a great pity I’m sure you would agree if at this critical state of his development my influence was taken away. You may not remember but if you do you will recollect that you said you would pretend to be a cripple so that I could come and talk to you and play games with you like Eustace did with Miss Fothergill. There is no need for that because we can both walk over quite easily any day and the sooner the better otherwise Eustace will go to school. He is having his Sunday suit tried on at this moment so there is no time to lose. I shall be very pleased to come any time you want me and so will Eustace and we will do anything you want. I am quite brave Eustace says and do not mind strange experiences as long as they are for someone else’s good. That is why I am writing to you now.
With my kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
She sat for a moment looking at the letter, then with an angry and despairing sigh she crossed out ‘sincerely’ and wrote ‘affectionately’. But the word ‘sincerely’ was still legible, even to a casual glance; so she again tried to delete it, this time with so much vehemence that her pen almost went through the paper.
Sitting back, she fell into a mood of bitter musing. She saw the letter piling up behind her like a huge cliff, unscalable, taking away the sunlight, cutting off retreat. She dared not read it through but thrust it into an envelope, addressed and stamped it in a daze, and ran downstairs.
Eustace and his father were sitting together; the others had gone. Eustace kept looking at his new suit and fingering it as though to make sure it was real. They both jumped as they heard the door bang, and exchanged man-to-man glances.
‘She seems in a great hurry,’ said Mr. Cherrington.
‘Oh yes, Hilda’s always like that. She never gives things time to settle.’
‘You’ll miss her, won’t you?’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Eustace. ‘I shall be quite unconscionable.’ It was the new suit that said the word; Eustace knew the word was wrong and hurried on.
‘Of course, it wouldn’t do for her to be with me there, even if she could be, in a boys’ school, I mean, because she would see me being, well, you know, tortured, and that would upset her terribly. Besides, the other fellows would think she was bossing me, though I don’t.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Oh no, it’s quite right at her time of life, but, of course, it couldn’t go on always. They would laugh at me, for one thing.’
‘If they did,’ said Mr. Cherrington, ‘it’s because they don’t know Hilda. Perhaps it’s a good thing she’s going to school herself.’
‘Oh, she is?’ Eustace had been so wrapped up in his own concerns that he had forgotten the threat which hung over Hilda. But was it a threat or a promise? Ought he to feel glad for her sake or sorry? He couldn’t decide, and as it was natural for his mind to feel things as either nice or nasty, which meant right or wrong, of course, but one didn’t always know that at the time, he couldn’t easily entertain a mixed emotion, and the question of Hilda’s future wasn’t very real to him.
‘Yes,’ his father was saying, ‘we only got the letter this morning, telling us we could get her in. The school is very full but they are making an exception for her, as a favour to Dr. Waghorn, your head-master.’
‘Then it must be a good school,’ exclaimed Eustace, ‘if it’s at all like mine.’
‘Yes, St. Willibald’s is a pretty good school,’ said his father carelessly. ‘It isn’t so far from yours, either; just round the North Foreland. I shouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t see each other with a telescope.’
Eustace’s eyes sparkled, then he looked anxious. ‘Do you think they’ll have a white horse on their hats?’ Mr. Cherrington laughed. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you that.’ Eustace shook his head, and said earnestly:
‘I hope they won’t try to copy us too much. Boys and girls should be kept separate, shouldn’t they?’ He thought for a moment and his brow cleared. ‘Of course, there was Lady Godiva.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t see the connection,’ said his father.
‘Well, she rode on a white horse.’ Eustace didn’t like being called on to explain what he meant. ‘But only with nothing on.’ He paused. ‘Hilda will have to get some new clothes now, won’t she? She’ll have to have them tried on.’ His eye brightened; he liked to see Hilda freshly adorned.
‘Yes, and there’s no time to lose. I’ve spoken to your aunt, Eustace, and she agrees with me that you’re the right person to break the news to Hilda. We think it’ll come better from you. Companions in adversity and all that, you know.’
Eustace’s mouth fell open.
‘Oh, Daddy, I couldn’t. She’d—I don’t know what she might not do. She’s so funny with me now, anyway. She might almost go off her rocker.’
‘Not if you approach her tactfully.’
‘Well, I’ll try,’ said Eustace. ‘Perhaps the day after to-morrow.’
‘No, tell her this afternoon.’
‘Fains I, Daddy. Couldn’t you? It is your afternoon off.’
‘Yes, and I want a little peace. Listen, isn’t that Hilda coming in? Now run away and get your jumping-poles and go down on the beach.’
They heard the front door open and shut; it wasn’t quite a slam but near enough to show that Hilda was in the state of mind in which things slipped easily from her fingers.
Each with grave news to tell the other, and neither knowing how, they started for the beach. Eustace’s jumping-pole was a stout rod of bamboo, prettily ringed and patterned with spots like a leopard. By stretching his hand up he could nearly reach the top; he might have been a bear trying to climb up a ragged staff. As they walked across the green that sloped down to the cliff he planted the pole in front of him and took practice leaps over any obstacle that showed itself—a brick it might be, or a bit of fencing, or the cart-track which ran just below the square. Hilda’s jumping-pole was made of wood, and much longer than Eustace’s; near to the end it tapered slightly and then swelled out again, like a broom-handle. It was the kind of pole used by real pole-jumpers at athletic events, and she did not play about with it but saved her energy for when it should be needed. The January sun still spread a pearly radiance round them; it hung over the sea, quite low down, and was already beginning to cast fiery reflections on the water. The day was not cold for January, and Eustace was well wrapped up, but his bare knees felt the chill rising from the ground, and he said to Hilda:
‘Of course, trousers would be much warmer.’
She made no answer but quickened her pace so that Eustace had to run between his jumps. He had never known her so preoccupied before.
In silence they reached the edge of the cliff and the spiked railing at the head of the concrete staircase. A glance showed them the sea was coming in. It had that purposeful look and the sands were dry in front of it. A line of foam, like a border of white braid, was curling round the outermost rocks.
Except for an occasional crunch their black beach shoes made no sound on the sand-strewn steps. Eustace let his pole slide from one to the other, pleased with the rhythmic tapping.
‘Oh, don’t do that, Eustace. You have no pity on my poor nerves.’
‘I’m so sorry, Hilda.’
But a moment later, changing her mind as visibly as if she were passing an apple from one hand to the other, she said, ‘You can, if you like. I don’t really mind.’
Obediently Eustace resumed his tapping but it now gave him the feeling of something done under sufferance and was not so much fun. He was quite glad when they came to the bottom of the steps and the tapping stopped.
Here, under the cliff, the sand was pale and fine and powdery; it lay in craters inches deep and was useless for jumping, for the pole could get no purchase on such a treacherous foundation; it turned in mid air and the jumper came down heavily on one side or the other. So they hurried down to the beach proper, where the sand was brown and close and firm, and were soon among the smooth, seaweed-coated rocks which bestrewed the shore like a vast colony of sleeping seals.
Eustace was rapidly and insensibly turning into a chamois or an ibex when he checked himself and remembered that, for the task that lay before him, some other pretence might be more helpful. An ibex could break the news to a sister-ibex that she was to go to boarding school in a few days’ time, but there would be nothing tactful, subtle, or imaginative in such a method of disclosure; he might almost as well tell her himself. They had reached their favourite jumping ground and he took his stand on a rock, wondering and perplexed.
‘Let’s begin with the Cliffs of Dover,’ he said. The Cliffs of Dover, so called because a sprinkling of barnacles gave it a whitish look, was a somewhat craggy boulder about six feet away. Giving a good foothold it was their traditional first hole, and not only Hilda but Eustace could clear the distance easily. When he had alighted on it, feet together, with the soft springy pressure that was so intimately satisfying, he pulled his pole out of the sand and stepped down to let Hilda do her jump. Hilda landed on the Cliffs of Dover with the negligent grace of an alighting eagle; and, as always, Eustace, who had a feeling for style, had to fight back a twinge of envy.
‘Now the Needles,’ he said. ‘You go first.’ The Needles was both more precipitous and further away, and there was only one spot on it where you could safely make a landing. Eustace occasionally muffed it, but Hilda never; what was his consternation therefore to see her swerve in mid-leap, fumble for a foothold, and slide off on to the sand.
‘Oh, hard luck, sir!’ exclaimed Eustace. The remark fell flat. He followed her in silence and made a rather heavy-footed but successful landing.
‘You’re one up,’ said Hilda. They scored as in golf over a course of eighteen jumps, and when Hilda had won usually played the bye before beginning another round on a different set of rocks. Thus, the miniature but exciting landscape of mountain, plain and lake (for many of the rocks stood in deep pools, starfish-haunted), was continually changing.
Eustace won the first round at the nineteenth rock. He could hardly believe it. Only once before had he beaten Hilda, and that occasion was so long ago that all he could remember of it was the faint, sweet feeling of triumph. In dreams, on the other hand, he was quite frequently victorious. The experience then was poignantly delightful, utterly beyond anything obtainable in daily life. But he got a whiff of it now. Muffled to a dull suggestion of itself, like some dainty eaten with a heavy cold, it was still the divine elixir.
Hilda did not seem to realize how momentous her defeat was, nor, happily, did she seem to mind. Could she have lost on purpose? Eustace wondered. She was thoughtful and abstracted. Eustace simply had to say something.
‘Your sandshoes are very worn, Hilda,’ he said. ‘They slipped every time. You must get another pair.’
She gave him a rather sad smile, and he added tentatively:
‘I expect the ibex sheds its hoofs like its antlers. You’re just going through one of those times.’
Oh, so that’s what we’re playing,’ said Hilda, but there was a touch of languor in her manner, as well as scorn.
‘Yes, but we can play something else,’ said Eustace. Trying to think of a new pretence, he began to make scratches with his pole on the smooth sand. The words ‘St. Ninian’s’ started to take shape. Quickly he obliterated them with his foot, but they had given him an idea. They had given Hilda an idea, too.
He remarked as they moved to their new course, ‘I might be a boy going to school for the first time.’
‘You might be,’ replied Hilda, ‘but you’re not.’
Eustace was not unduly disconcerted.
‘Well, let’s pretend I am, and then we can change the names of the rocks, to suit.’
The incoming tide had reached their second centre, and its advancing ripples were curling round the bases of the rocks.
‘Let’s re-christen this one,’ said Eustace, poised on the first tee. ‘You kick off. It used to be “Aconcagua”,’ he reminded her.
‘All right,’ said Hilda, ‘call it Cambo.’
Vaguely Eustace wondered why she had chosen the name of their house, but he was so intent on putting ideas into her head that he did not notice she was trying to put them into his.
‘Bags I this one for St. Ninian’s,’ he ventured, naming a not too distant boulder. Hilda winced elaborately.
‘Mind you don’t fall off,’ was all she said.
‘Oh, no. It’s my honour, isn’t it?’ asked Eustace diffidently. He jumped.
Perhaps it was the responsibility of having chosen a name unacceptable to Hilda, perhaps it was just the perversity of Fate; anyhow, he missed his aim. His feet skidded on the slippery seaweed and when he righted himself he was standing in water up to his ankles.
‘Now we must go home,’ said Hilda. In a flash Eustace saw his plan going to ruin. There would be no more rocks to name; he might have to tell her the news outright.
‘Oh, please not, Hilda, please not. Let’s have a few more jumps. They make my feet warm, they really do. Besides, there’s something I want to say to you.’
To his astonishment Hilda agreed at once.
‘I oughtn’t to let you,’ she said, ‘but I’ll put your feet into mustard and hot water, privately, in the bathroom.’
‘Crikey! That would be fun.’
‘And I have something to say to you, too.’
‘Is it something nice?’
‘You’ll think so,’ said Hilda darkly.
‘Tell me now.’
‘No, afterwards. Only you’ll have to pretend to be a boy who isn’t going to school. Now hurry up.’
They were both standing on Cambo with the water swirling round them.
‘Say “Fains I” if you’d like me to christen the next one,’ said Eustace hopefully. ‘It used to be called the Inchcape Rock.’
‘No,’ said Hilda slowly, and in a voice so doom-laden that anyone less preoccupied than Eustace might have seen her drift. ‘I’m going to call it “Anchorstone Hall”.’
‘Good egg!’ said Eustace. ‘Look, there’s Dick standing on it. Mind you don’t knock him off!’
Involuntarily Hilda closed her eyes against Dick’s image. She missed her take-off and dropped a foot short of the rock, knee-deep in water.
‘Oh, poor Hilda!’ Eustace cried, aghast.
But wading back to the rock she turned to him an excited, radiant face.
‘Now it will be mustard and water for us both.’
‘How ripping!’ Eustace wriggled with delight. ‘That’ll be something to tell them at St. Ninian’s. I’m sure none of the other men have sisters who dare jump into the whole North Sea!’
‘Quick, quick!’ said Hilda. ‘Your turn.’
Anchorstone Hall was by now awash, but Eustace landed easily. The fear of getting his feet wet being removed by the simple process of having got them wet, he felt gloriously free and ready to tell anyone anything.
‘All square!’ he announced. ‘All square and one to play. Do you know what I am going to call this one?’ He pointed to a forbiddingly bare, black rock, round which the water surged, and when Hilda quite graciously said she didn’t, he added:
‘But first you must pretend to be a girl who’s going to school.’
‘Anything to pacify you,’ Hilda said.
‘Now I’ll tell you. It’s St. Willibald’s. Do you want to know why?’
‘Not specially,’ said Hilda. ‘It sounds such a silly name. Why should Willie be bald?’ When they had laughed their fill at this joke, Eustace said:
‘It’s got something to do with you. It’s . . . well, you’ll know all about it later on.’
‘I hope I shan’t,’ said Hilda loftily. ‘It isn’t worth the trouble of a pretence. Was this all you were going to tell me?’
‘Yes, you see it’s the name of your school.’
Hilda stared at him. ‘My school? What do you mean, my school? Me a school-mistress? You must be mad.’
Eustace had not foreseen this complication.
‘Not a school-mistress, Hilda,’ he gasped. ‘You wouldn’t be old enough yet. No, a schoolgirl, like I’m going to be a schoolboy.’
‘A schoolgirl?’ repeated Hilda. ‘A schoolgirl?’ she echoed in a still more tragic voice. ‘Who said so?’ she challenged him.
‘Well, Daddy did. They all did, while you were upstairs. Daddy told me to tell you. It’s quite settled.’
Thoughts chased each other across Hilda’s face, thoughts that were incomprehensible to Eustace. They only told him that she was not as angry as he thought she would be, perhaps not angry at all. He couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t, but the relief was overwhelming.
‘We shall go away almost on the same day,’ he said. ‘Won’t that be fun? I mean it would be much worse if one of us didn’t. And we shall be quite near to each other, in Kent. It’s called the Garden of England. That’s a nice name. You’re glad, aren’t you?’
Her eyes, swimming with happy tears, told him she was; but he could hardly believe it, and her trembling lips vouchsafed no word. He felt he must distract her.
‘You were going to tell me something, Hilda. What was it?’
She looked at him enigmatically, and the smile playing on her lips restored them to speech.
‘Oh, that? That was nothing.’
‘But it must have been something,’ Eustace persisted. ‘You said it was something I should like. Please tell me.’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said, ‘now that I am going to school.’ Her voice deepened and took on its faraway tone. ‘You will never know what I meant to do for you—how I nearly sacrificed all my happiness.’
‘Will anyone know?’ asked Eustace.
He saw he had made a false step. Hilda turned pale and a look of terror came into her eyes, all the more frightening because Hilda was never frightened. So absorbed had she been by the horrors that the letter would lead to, so thankful that the horrors were now removed, that she had forgotten the letter itself. Yes. Someone would know. . . .
Timidly Eustace repeated his question.
The pole bent beneath Hilda’s weight and her knuckles went as white as her face.
‘Oh, don’t nag me, Eustace! Can’t you see? . . . What’s the time?’ she asked sharply. ‘I’ve forgotten my watch.’
‘But you never forget it, Hilda.’
‘Fool, I tell you I have forgotten it! What’s the time?’
Eustace’s head bent towards the pocket in his waistline where his watch was lodged, and he answered with maddening slowness, anxious to get the time exactly right:
‘One minute to four.’
‘And when does the post go?’
‘A quarter past, But you know that better than I do, Hilda.’
‘Idiot, they might have changed it.’ She stiffened. The skies might fall but Eustace must be given his instructions.
‘Listen, I’ve got something to do. You go straight home, slowly, mind, and tell them to get the bath water hot and ask Minney for the mustard.’
‘How topping, Hilda! What fun we shall have.’
‘Yes, it must be boiling. I shall hurry on in front of you, and you mustn’t look to see which way I go.’
‘Oh, no, Hilda.’
‘Here’s my pole. You can jump with it if you’re careful. I shan’t be long.’
‘But, Hilda——’
There was no answer. She was gone, and he dared not turn round to call her.
A pole trailing from either hand, Eustace fixed his eyes on the waves and conscientiously walked backwards, so that he should not see her. Presently he stumbled against a stone and nearly fell. Righting himself he resumed his crab-like progress, but more slowly than before. Why had Hilda gone off like that? He could not guess, and it was a secret into which he must not pry. His sense of the inviolability of Hilda’s feelings was a sine qua non of their relationship.
The tracks traced by the two poles, his and Hilda’s, made a pattern that began to fascinate him. Parallel straight lines, he knew, were such that even if they were produced to infinity they could not meet. The idea of infinity pleased Eustace, and he dwelt on it for some time. But these lines were not straight; they followed a serpentine course, bulging at times and then narrowing, like a boa-constrictor that has swallowed a donkey. Perhaps with a little manipulation they could be made to meet.
He drew the lines closer. Yes, it looked as though they might converge. But would it be safe to try to make them when a law of Euclid said they couldn’t?
A backward glance satisfied Hilda that Eustace was following her instructions. Her heart warmed to him. How obedient he was, in spite of everything. The tumult in her feelings came back, disappointment, relief, and dread struggling with each other. Disappointment that her plan had miscarried; relief that it had miscarried; dread that she would be too late to spare herself an unbearable humiliation.
She ran, taking a short cut across the sands, going by the promenade where the cliffs were lower. She flashed past the Bank with its polished granite pillars, so much admired by Eustace. Soon she was in the heart of the town.
The big hand of the post office clock was leaning on the quarter. Breathless, she went in. Behind the counter stood a girl she did not know.
‘Please can you give me back the letter I posted this afternoon?’
‘I’m afraid not, Miss. We’re not allowed to.’
‘Please do it this once. It’s very important that the letter shouldn’t go.’
The girl—she was not more than twenty herself—stared at the beautiful, agitated face, imperious, unused to pleading, the tall figure, the bosom that rose and fell, and it scarcely seemed to her that Hilda was a child.
‘I could ask the postmaster.’
‘No, please don’t do that, I’d rather you didn’t. It’s a letter that I. . . regret having written.’ A wild look came into Hilda’s eye; she fumbled in her pocket.
‘If I pay a fine may I have it back?’
How pretty she is, the girl thought. She seems thoroughly upset. Something stirred in her, and she moved towards the door of the letter box.
‘I oughtn’t to, you know. Who would the letter be to?’
‘It’s a gentleman.’ Hilda spoke with an effort.
I thought so, the girl said to herself; and she unlocked the door of the letter box.
‘What would the name be?’
The name was on Hilda’s lips, but she checked it and stood speechless.
‘Couldn’t you let me look myself?’ she said.
‘Oh, I’m afraid that would be against regulations. They might give me the sack.’
‘Oh, please, just this once. I. . . I shall never write to him again.’
The assistant’s heart was touched. ‘You made a mistake, then,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ breathed Hilda. ‘I don’t know . . .’ she left the sentence unfinished.
‘You said something you didn’t mean?’
‘Yes,’ said Hilda.
‘And you think he might take it wrong?’
‘Yes.’
The assistant dived into the box and brought out about twenty letters. She laid them on the counter in front of Hilda.
‘Quick! quick!’ she said. ‘I’m not looking.’
Hilda knew the shape of the envelope. In a moment the letter was in her pocket. Looking at the assistant she panted; and the assistant panted slightly too. They didn’t speak for a moment; then the assistant said:
‘You’re very young, dear, aren’t you?’
Hilda drew herself up. ‘Oh, no, I’ve turned fourteen.’
‘You’re sure you’re doing the right thing? You’re not acting impulsive-like? If you’re really fond of him . . .’
‘Oh, no,’ said Hilda. ‘I’m not. . . I’m not.’ A tremor ran through her. ‘I must go now.’
The assistant bundled the letters back into the box. There was a sound behind them: the postman had come in.
‘Good evening, Miss,’ he said.
‘Good evening,’ said the assistant languidly. ‘I’ve been waiting about for you. You don’t half keep people waiting, do you?’
‘There’s them that works, and them that waits,’ said the postman.
The assistant tossed her head.
‘There’s some do neither,’ she said tartly, and then, turning in a business-like way to Hilda:
‘Is there anything else, Miss?’
‘Nothing further to-day,’ said Hilda, rather haughtily. ‘Thank you very much,’ she added.
Outside the post office, in the twilight, her dignity deserted her. She broke into a run, but her mind outstripped her, surging, exultant.
‘I shall never see him now,’ she thought, ‘I shall never see him now,’ and the ecstasy, the relief, the load off her mind, were such as she might have felt had she loved Dick Staveley and been going to meet him.
Softly she let herself into the house. The dining-room was no use: it had a gas fire. She listened at the drawing-room door. No sound. She tiptoed into the fire-stained darkness, crossed the hearthrug and dropped the letter into the reddest cleft among the coals. It did not catch at once so she took the poker to it, driving it into the heart of the heat. A flame sprang up, and at the same moment she heard a movement, and turning, saw the fire reflected in her father’s eyes.
‘Hullo, Hilda—you startled me. I was having a nap. Burning something?’
‘Yes,’ said Hilda, poised for flight.
‘A love letter, I expect.’
‘Oh, no, Daddy; people don’t write love letters at my age.’
‘At your age——’ began Mr. Charrington. But he couldn’t remember, and anyhow it wouldn’t do to tell his daughter that at her age he had already written a love letter.
‘Must be time for tea,’ he said, yawning. ‘Where’s Eustace?’
As though in answer they heard a thud on the floor above, and the sound of water pouring into the bath.
‘That’s him,’ cried Hilda. ‘I promised him I would put his feet into mustard and water. He won’t forgive me if I don’t.’
She ran upstairs into the steam and blurred visibility, the warmth, the exciting sounds and comforting smells of the little bathroom. At first she couldn’t see Eustace; the swirls of luminous vapour hid him; then they parted and disclosed him, sitting on the white curved edge of the bath with his back to the water and his legs bare to the knee, above which his combinations and his knickerbockers had been neatly folded back, no doubt by Minney’s practised hand.
‘Oh, there you are, Hilda!’ he exclaimed. ‘Isn’t it absolutely spiffing! The water’s quite boiling. I only turned it on when you came in. I wish it was as hot as boiling oil—boiling water isn’t, you know.’
‘How much mustard did you put in?’ asked Hilda.
‘Half a tin. Minney said she couldn’t spare any more.’
‘Well, turn round and put your feet in,’ Hilda said.
‘Yes. Do you think I ought to take off my knickers, too? You see I only got wet as far as my ankles. I should have to take off my combinations.’
Hilda considered. ‘I don’t think you need this time.’
Eustace swivelled round and tested the water with his toe.
‘Ooo!’
‘Come on, be brave.’
‘Yes, but you must put your feet in too. It won’t be half the fun if you don’t. Besides, you said you would, Hilda.’ In his anxiety to share the experience with her he turned round again. ‘Please! You got much wetter than I did.’
‘I got warm running. Besides, it’s only salt water. Salt water doesn’t give you a cold.’
‘Oh, but my water was salt, too.’
‘You’re different,’ said Hilda. Then, seeing the look of acute disappointment on his face, she added, ‘Well, just to please you.’
Eustace wriggled delightedly, and, as far as he dared, bounced up and down on the bath edge.
‘Take off your shoes and stockings, then,’ It was delicious to give Hilda orders. Standing stork-like, first on one foot, then on the other, Hilda obeyed.
‘Now come and sit by me. It isn’t very safe, take care you don’t lose your balance.’
Soon they were sitting side by side, looking down into the water. The clouds of steam rising round them seemed to shut off the outside world. Eustace looked admiringly at Hilda’s long slim legs.
‘I didn’t fill the bath any fuller,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘because of the marks. It might be dangerous, you know.’
Hilda looked at the bluish chips in the enamel, which spattered the sides of the bath. Eustace’s superstitions about them, and his fears of submerging them, were well known to her.
‘They won’t let you do that at school,’ she said.
‘Oh, there won’t be any marks at school. A new system of plumbing and sanitarization was installed last year. The prospectus said so. That would mean new baths, of course. New baths don’t have marks. Your school may be the same, only the prospectus didn’t say so. I expect baths don’t matter so much for girls.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’re cleaner, anyway. Besides, they wash.’ Eustace thought of washing and having a bath as two quite different, almost unconnected things. ‘And I don’t suppose they’ll let us put our feet in mustard and water.’
‘Why not?’ repeated Hilda.
‘Oh, to harden us, you know. Boys have to be hard. If they did, it would be for a punishment, not fun like this. . . . Just put your toe in, Hilda.’
Hilda flicked the water with her toe, far enough to start a ripple, and then withdrew it.
‘It’s still a bit hot. Let’s wait a minute.’
‘Yes,’ said Eustace. ‘It would spoil everything if we turned on the cold water.’
They sat for a moment in silence. Eustace examined Hilda’s toes. They were really as pretty as fingers. His own were stunted and shapeless, meant to be decently covered.
‘Now, both together!’ he cried.
In went their feet. The concerted splash was magnificent, but the agony was almost unbearable.
‘Put your arm round me, Hilda!’
‘Then you put yours round me, Eustace!’
As they clung together their feet turned scarlet, and the red dye ran up far above the water-level almost to their knees. But they did not move, and slowly the pain began to turn into another feeling, a smart still, but wholly blissful.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ cried Eustace. ‘I could never have felt it without you!’
Hilda said nothing, and soon they were swishing their feet to and fro in the cooling water. The supreme moment of trial and triumph had gone by; other thoughts, not connected with their ordeal, began to slide into Eustace’s mind.
‘Were you in time to do it?’ he asked.
‘Do what?’
‘Well, what you were going to do when you left me on the sands.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Hilda indifferently. ‘Yes, I was just in time.’ She thought a moment, and added: ‘But don’t ask me what it was, because I shan’t ever tell you.’