“How’s King Zog, Philly?” she said.
“His name’s Sredni Vashtar now,” replied the boy.
“Well! What a funny name.”
Philip looked at the housekeeper as if he suspected a trap. He surveyed her silently for a few seconds and then only said:
“You can hold him if you like.”
He took the rabbit out of its hutch and cuddled it possessively. He looked undeveloped for his age, and his voice was shrill. You would have thought him nine rather than eleven. In the glance which he fixed on his pet there was concentrated an intensity of affection which would have made an intelligent observer wonder if his mental development was any more normal than his physical. Even Mrs. Rodd, not a psychologist, doubted momentarily if it was good for the boy to be all that gone on the animal.
“Will he scratch me?” she said uneasily.
“Sredni Vashtar is fierce and savage,” Philip informed her; “but he will not attack my friends.”
Mrs. Rodd held him gingerly. Sredni did not look savage. His eye was mild and large, his pink nose twitched continually as if he was carrying on a tea-table conversation in sign language. He was fat and his coat was sleek. He turned his head and looked benevolently at Mrs. Rodd. He was a handsome rabbit, and you would say he was aware of it.
But other thoughts were in his head. His rabbity consciousness had realized that this new person was holding him loosely and timorously. With that terrific back-leg kick that rabbits can give he knocked Mrs. Rodd’s arm back and shot into the air. As he landed he gave a thump of triumph with his hind leg, leapt forward again, did a sharp right turn while in the air, and ran off to the chrysanthemum bed, where he began to eat the heads off the young stems.
“Now!” said Mrs. Rodd reproachfully.
“You shouldn’t have let him go,” said Philip.
They both ran forward towards the rabbit who shifted farther into the bed.
“Rodd!” called Mrs. Rodd, sighting her husband the gardener. The three then settled down to the slow task of hemming the rabbit in.
From an upper window Mrs. van Beer watched. She was very, very angry. No animal can do so much harm to a garden as a rabbit. Sredni darted with unexpected speed up and down the garden. He would cover the whole length in a few seconds while the human beings charged desperately over the flower-beds after him. Rodd made some attempt to avoid damage, but Philip made none. And while he waited for them to catch up, the rabbit would eat the tops of a few plants. He never ate the lower leaves: the top appeared more succulent. Whether he knew or not that this destroyed any possibility of flowering is a question that it is no good asking a rabbit. He seemed indifferent, in any case; there are few things more equable than the expression of a rabbit nibbling the head off a prize bloom. He would let the hunters get within three feet of him and then leap off with his sudden half-turn in mid-air. It took them fifteen minutes to catch him, and the garden was heavily trampled as well as rather gnawed at the end.
Rodd immediately set to with a rake to undo some of the more obvious damage. Mrs. van Beer was not consoled by the sight. Did she pay him to clean up after rabbits, or as a gardener? She looked round in vain for someone to ask the question of. She felt how lonely she was.
2
Rosalie van Beer could not have admitted to herself that she disliked her nephew Philip. He had bad habits which needed to be corrected, and because of his weak health a strict watch and control had to be kept on his amusements. To do this she spent her energies and time, as she saw it, devotedly. That she had any pleasure in thwarting him she never realized. At the most, she might have allowed that the thought that he was a thoroughly nasty child came rather too frequently to her mind. But the nearest she ever came to introspection was to reflect repeatedly on the dullness of her life, her lack of companionship, and the unfairness with which she was universally treated.
For this she had some excuse. She and her nephew Philip Arkwright were the last representatives of their family. She had no relatives whom she would recognize and in the corner of Devon in which she was practically condemned to live they had hardly any friends.
Philip’s grandfather, Sir Henry Arkwright (knight, not baronet, without a title to pass on) had had three sons to inherit his considerable fortune. All three had served in the army during the war. Michael, the eldest, had been killed with thousands of others at Passchendaele. Arnold, the professional soldier, had been the only one to come through unscathed. He had served in the East, and after the war had gone with his young wife to take up a responsible post in East Africa. He had never been his father’s favourite, but Sir Henry’s letters had become kinder in tone after the death of his brother. Robert, the youngest, was called up in February, 1918. Before he went out, he married Rosalie Brentt, daughter of a tobacconist in the Wilton Road, Pimlico. It was a war-marriage like hundreds of others. Sir Henry was furious, but fathers’ furies counted for very little in 1918. In any case, Robert never had time either to repent or to feel his wrath. He was posted as missing in July, 1918: he was never heard of again.
Sir Henry made the war-widow an allowance of £500 a year on condition she made no attempt to communicate with him. Rosalie had resented Sir Henry’s rudeness at the time of her marriage; this deliberate insult was the first thing to embitter her. The allowance was paid regularly, even after she married an unpresentable dance band leader named Harry van Beer. Sir Henry was too indifferent to pay any attention. Robert was dead, and like all young men had made a fool of himself and left messes for other people to clear up. To him Rosalie was just a mess to be cleared up: Mr. Archibald Henderson of Simms, Simms, Henderson and Simms did not use those words to Rosalie, but he made his client’s attitude clear enough. Rosalie realized that for the family she was something the cat brought in.
When she was the only girl in the world, and Robert the only boy, she had had a rather common prettiness and a bloom. After Mr. van Beer married her she lost them. The firm little breasts became large bags, drawn up by a tight brassière so that she looked like a duchess or a pouter pigeon. The bottom and hips expanded; the chin doubled. Dye replaced the young sheen of the hair, lines came on the face, the nose grew beaky. Worst of all was the change of expression. The only girl in the world had had a cheerful, unclever face, made a little naïvely touching by a few unskilled 1918-ish efforts with paint and powder. Its chief expression was a simple determination to enjoy life. Mr. van Beer’s suspicious wife had a bad-tempered, over-painted face. You could almost tell by the drawn mouth, and the deep lines from the nose to its corners, that she believed that she had been married for her money, and that it was true; that she believed her husband was consistently unfaithful to her, and that it was true; that she thought she was unpopular, unattractive and likely to get no more enjoyment out of life, and that it was true.
Harry van Beer ran a small car into a standard lamp on the Brighton road on a September night in 1927, and broke his neck. He was drunk, and the girl with him was not Rosalie. His widow did not put on mourning.
Rosalie took her ten pounds a week and her discontent back to Pimlico. The tobacconist’s shop had long been closed. Pa was dead, and Mum lived in Dulwich with a married elder sister. They’d had words when Rosalie married and she had never made it up. They were common, and she belonged to a good family, even if she was done out of her rights. But Pimlico was sort of homely, and rightly considered it was almost Belgravia. It was true that Lupus Street where she had rooms couldn’t be considered classy, really. Still the shops were gay and cheap: there was a very good Henekey’s open there too. Port was a very ladylike drink; Rosalie began to spend quite a time there and pick up rather brassy-looking friends like herself, but older and more inclined to sponge.
It was the arrival of Arnold Arkwright and his wife and child early in the thirties which pulled her up when she was well on the road to becoming a middle-aged soak. Arnold had allowed his leave to accumulate, as wise colonial offi
cers do, and had six months clear in which to settle his son’s future school and have a long holiday in England. Curiosity or kindheartedness made Mrs. Arkwright write to Robert’s widow. Rosalie gave up drinking in pubs, cleaned up her rooms, bought herself new clothes, and as long as the Arkwrights were in London behaved as ladylike as she could. She gushed over the child and chattered at her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who found her rather boring and silly, but by no means the harpy and wanton that Sir Henry considered her. Perhaps they were kinder than they need have been, to make up for his rudeness. When they left Rosalie did not wholly return to her previous life: she kept herself to herself more.
The world would have said that was the salvation of her, but perhaps the world was wrong. It might have been better for Rosalie to continue on the alcoholic path. She was gradually losing her pride and suspicions, and acquiring a little geniality.
“’Lo, Rosy dear!”
Several ladies of uncertain, or but too certain, occupation had begun to greet her like that every morning and to suggest a little one at eleven. She was becoming more contented, and even learning to distinguish between the sugariest cheap Ruby and a drier, older port. She had begun to exchange confidences and had even listened without reproaches to one or two which showed the speaker was not all that a good girl should be. Port is not, it is true, good for the health when drunk steadily in large quantities, but she had a healthy and resistant body. She’d have been good for many years.
Now that was all changed. She didn’t hear when she was called to across the road; she even refused offers of drinks, let alone buy a friend one. She was called stuck-up, and she was; and she had nothing to compensate her for the loss of her friends. There is a peculiar hell for snobs who cannot find fellow-snobs to practise snobbery with: Mrs. van Beer sat for hours together in her renovated rooms being genteel, despising the vulgarity of her neighbours, hating her superior relatives, and being desolate in her heart.
She wrote regularly to Philip’s parents in Africa, who long ago wished they had never dug her out, and who answered irregularly. She once went to call on Philip, who had been left in an English boarding school. But the boy had taken a strong dislike to her and the school very civilly asked her not to come again unless the parents requested her to. Sir Henry was looking after his grandson in England.
The end to this life came very suddenly.
Arnold Arkwright and his wife were due to come home on leave. They were anxious to spend all the time they could with their child and Sir Henry, so they telegraphed to him that they would come by air.
He went down to Devon, to the small but luxurious house he had built himself, where all the work was done by Rodd and his wife, who had been his servants since 1919. The house was opened up, beds aired, Arnold’s favourite claret—Chateau Pontet Canet 1920—brought up with delicate care from town. Philip was excused from school after a personal, pressing letter from Sir Henry.
The evening before they were due to arrive Sir Henry was sitting on a big wicker chair on the very lawn where the pet rabbit later escaped from control. He was rather a heavy man, seventy-five, and moved with difficulty. Once he was in a chair he disliked having to rise again.
Rodd brought a telegram out to him. The sun was setting, but the light was strong enough for it to be read. Sir Henry fumbled with his glasses, at last put them on and read it. His face changed so suddenly that Rodd ventured to offer a remark without being addressed:
“Any bad news, sir?”
Not trusting himself to speak Sir Henry held the wire out for him to read. The aeroplane had crashed: the company regretted to report there were no survivors.
There was absolute silence.
After what seemed an immense time Rodd said hesitantly, “And Master Philip, sir. Shall I—”
“No,” said Sir Henry in a harsh voice. “I must tell him myself.” He tried to move from his chair and found it difficult. “Leave me for a while. I will come in later.”
The clear sky grew a deeper blue, the few clouds began to lose their postcard-like pink colouring. In the long row of trees beyond the bottom of the garden the rooks cawed and rustled and at last settled down to silence. The trunks were black against a few last horizontal strips of orange sky. Still Sir Henry stared motionless towards where the sun had set.
The garden became dark, the lighter flowers standing out like white spots, and all colours were lost. Still the man in the chair, now an indistinguishable black humped figure, did not move. At last Mrs. Rodd said to her husband:
“It’s not healthy for him, sitting out there in the cold night air, brooding. If you won’t go and speak to him, I will.”
Sir Henry didn’t answer when she spoke to him, or move when she touched him. Nor would he ever speak or move again. His heart had stopped beating, without pain or shock. The doctor when he came said that it had been weak for a long time, and that there was no need for any inquest.
So it was, that some days later Rosalie van Beer was summoned by Mr. Archibald Henderson to hear the reading of a will. Philip, a sallow, bronchial boy bearing marks of his birth in Africa, was there in a black suit, escorted by Mr. and Mrs. Rodd. Sir Henry’s will left all his fortune, estimated at £78,000, jointly to Arnold and Margaret Arkwright, and if they predeceased him to their son Philip. Either of these legatees were to retain James and Elizabeth Rodd in their service, or if the Rodds chose to leave, a sum of £500 each was to be paid to them. No guardian was named for Philip, but Messrs. Simms, Simms, Henderson and Simms were named as trustees. The existing allowance paid to Mrs. van Beer was to be continued.
In the event of Philip’s decease before the age of twenty-one, £2,000 each was willed to the Rodds, several bequests made to charity and the residue left to Mrs. van Beer. Sir Henry had not considered that eventuality very seriously, it appeared.
Rosalie after the reading of the will came up to Mr. Henderson.
“I am the poor boy’s only remaining relative,” she said. “I am his natural guardian. I expect you to recognize that.”
Mr. Henderson looked at her uneasily. But there were no other persons with even a shadow of a claim.
“Very well,” he said. “Very well. I suppose so.”
Rosalie came down to Devon, occupied Sir Henry’s house, and brought Philip back from school. She declared his health required a private tutor, and a young man selected rather at random from a scholastic agency bicycled in every day to educate him.
She called upon a number of Sir Henry’s friends, who did not return the call, with the exception of the vicar. After a while he too spaced out his visits and forgot to invite her. She had not very much free money to devote to church objects; he permitted his natural dislike for her to have its head. She did not after all attend church regularly.
Only elderly Dr. Parkes, for whom her wholly imaginary illnesses and Philip’s partly imaginary weakness were a considerable source of income, was continually assiduous. He would listen to her reminiscences for hours, rarely refused an invitation to stay to lunch, and was willing to be called out at any time of day or night. He wholly agreed with her opinion of Philip’s weakliness and approved of nearly all of her prohibitions. The diet he prescribed for him corresponded exactly with her idea of a healthy diet for a child (the prunes-and-rice and plenty of sops system); for herself he insisted upon a good glass of good port after every meal and whenever she felt weak.
He was an old man, slight, with white hair and bowed head, and with a professional caressing voice. His practice had shrunk, and his bills to Mrs. van Beer were large and paid without question. He was not dishonest or in any way a dishonourable man. Later events threw an unkindly brilliant light upon him. But he was an averagely diligent G.P., with a professional equipment which had been moderately good in 1889, the last year in which he had attempted to learn anything, with failing eyesight and memory and with an increasing difficulty in concentrating. Lack of a
ny other resources forced him to go on practising when he should have retired. He had to live, and for that reason, someone else was to have to die.
3
Four more persons must be described to complete the picture. Edward Gillingham, Philip’s tutor, was not present when the rabbit escaped. His visits were getting more and more infrequent, and this September there had been none at all, for Mrs. van Beer had decreed that Philip must have a holiday, because education was “overstraining him”. Possibly this order was due to jealousy of Philip’s admiration for him, for though Mr. Gillingham was not much interested in his sallow pupil, he was intelligent and patient, and was the only person in the world who spoke to the child as a reasonable being. But it was more immediately due to a circumstance that he never heard about. He had tutored Philip successfully for several months, and in May Mrs. van Beer had begun to telephone him and tell him to stay away, at first only for a day or two days, and then sometimes for a week at a time. As he was paid anyway, he did not trouble to inquire why. If he had suspected Mrs. van Beer was meditating dismissing him as soon as she could find a tutor nearer to her wishes, he might have been more inquisitive.
Mrs. van Beer believed in astrology; her second Sunday paper was purchased only because of its page “Advice from the Stars”. Philip one day asked Mr. Gillingham about these predictions, and he, unsuspicious, told him the truth. Next Sunday when Rosalie commented in alarm over a prophecy of ill-luck next Tuesday owing to Saturn, Philip remarked:
“Mr. Gillingham says only silly old women believe that sort of nonsense.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” said Rosalie, flushing.
“Mr. Gillingham says the Sunday —— ought to be prosecuted for swindling. The planets don’t—”
“You’re talking about what you don’t understand.”
“The planets go round the sun,” Philip informed her levelly, “and the earth’s only a planet. They haven’t anything to do with us and don’t mind us a bit. Mr. Gillingham says only fools don’t know that.”
Verdict of Twelve Page 9