Beowulf

by Bryher;

  “Oh, I’m all right. It’s a splendid excuse to turn up late in the mornings. Instead of saying the bus was late, I just say I walked.”

  How hard it was for human beings to adjust to one another! The roots of war were always present in daily life, for it was not really crimes that upset people but their inability to enjoy the same pleasures. She wanted to travel and Joe wanted to take an engine to bits. Was there no way of persuading people to be tolerant, to let each other alone? Still, it was stupid to spoil what she hoped had been a successful afternoon by dragging in philosophy. War taught one to think deeply but to act and speak on the surface. “Anyhow, the only thing to do is live from day to day. It’s Tuesday you go back, isn’t it? I suppose you hate the idea.”

  Joe shook his head. “In some ways, you know, I’ll be glad to get back.” Camp life was more vivid. He did love Mother and Dad, but they seemed to talk only of ailments and old age; there was nothing in his own life that they really cared about at all. Home was stiff, he did not know what to say to them, it was all so different from the rough, warm, joking comradeship of his unit. Even Eve was aloof, though girls of course were difficult and he liked her calmness and her voice. “Well,” he added, glancing up at the clock, “I suppose it’s time to get cracking.” It fussed his mother if he were out when the sirens went. “They have supper so early at home,” he added, to excuse himself.

  Eve tried to smooth things over. “Your mother gets tired, I expect, and likes her evenings by the fire. My aunt is just the same, the one I used to tell you about, she always eats at six.”

  “A nice place.” Joe got into his overcoat and gave Beowulf a mock salute. Eve felt relieved as she stopped to pay the bill; she had been wondering all the time if they ought not to have gone to the West End. “They do their best with the cakes.” It must have been the eleventh time that she had made the same remark. She pulled her scarf up to her ears and wished she were one of the people who always knew the right thing to say.

  There was just enough light to see the pavement, but the sky was dark, it was a black violet with slits and tatters of a lighter colour visible between the chimney pots; a beautiful night for those who could forget the cold, but Eve looked up, missing the lamps. “Don’t you wait in this wind,” Joe said, as they turned the corner; “and next time,” he added boldly, “you come out with me.” By a stroke of good fortune the bus he took stopped just in front of them.

  “Here’s some cigarettes.” Eve thrust a packet into his hand. “I’ll write.”

  “Take my advice, get into the Army, and thanks awfully for the tea.” He jumped onto the step. Everybody wanted to be home, and the conductor pushed the bell impatiently. Eve waved, but the splinter-net and the blackout over the windows hid the passengers as the bus rumbled off into the gathering darkness.

  9

  BEOWULF STOOD AS smugly in the recess that had once been a fireplace as if he had been its sentinel since the Warming Pan had opened. The painted muzzle might be lifelike at a distance, but to Horatio, sitting in the neighbouring corner, the jaws were those of a distorted monster, grinning at him from a cavern, symbol of the times and people rushing towards their own destruction. What an unfortunate day it had been, beginning with Dobbie’s rudeness! He could have eaten, too, at least one dish of scones for his tea; these alerts surprisingly made one hungry. He shivered, for there was a draught, but he was not going upstairs yet, though Mary, he knew, wanted to chase him away. “I’m waiting for the post,” he called, as she passed him, collecting the spoons and sorting them into a baize-lined wicker tray. “Don’t bother about me.”

  “O.K., sir,” Mary said, switching off all the lights except the one in the centre near the front door, “but do you think the postman will come? It’s awfully late.”

  “I’m in no hurry.” It was really worrying that Agatha had not written; a fussy, bad-tempered woman, Horatio thought, remembering how he had once caught her laughing at his sketches. It was petty, but the only time she had sent him even a Christmas card had been that year when his England’s Pride had been in every stationer’s window. He thought affectionately of the drawing, a clipper off Southampton Water with a hint of one of those sunsets he loved so much in the clouds behind the sails.

  The door opened but it was not the postman, it was Eve. Horatio looked up in surprise, for a second door led to the staircase without the occupants of the house having to enter the shop. “I popped in to see if Miss Tippett was downstairs,” she explained. “I wanted to ask her if she could spare me a cake occasionally to send to Joe.”

  “And who is Joe, if it is not presumptuous to ask?”

  “Joe?” Eve’s voice could not have been more indifferent. “He’s the boy who used to work in our office.”

  “Times change, Miss Eve, times change. I venture to think not for the better. My sisters would never have allowed themselves to be seen in a public place with a complete stranger.”

  “Joe isn’t a stranger, Mr. Rashleigh,” Eve laughed. “We worked together at the same table for over a year.” Old people were tiresome, they made everything so complicated; how could you make them understand casual office meetings and partings? Don’t worry, she wanted to say, looking down at Horatio’s white, thin hair. Joe isn’t my boy friend, he doesn’t care for anything except food and football. So direct a statement would shock the old fellow profoundly, and he looked so sad. “Did you have a very bad time last night?”

  “I tried to conquer the torture of it all by making envelopes to save buying them, but who could work in such a fiendish din? At last there came a glorious silence, and I fairly sank into my armchair in which I rarely sit because I love my art too much, and Miss Tippett came in with a nice, hot cup of tea.”

  “Oh, that was where Selina was! I missed her from the shelter.”

  “It seemed to put new life into me, and the all-clear went immediately afterwards.”

  “I wish it would end.” Eve wanted to go upstairs; the hours of her freedom were limited, but if she had to join up, and she supposed it was inevitable, she would rather scrub floors than go into a Ministry. The indecision of bureaucracy was unendurable. “Have you been out today, Mr. Rashleigh?” He was so forlorn that she felt guilty about leaving him.

  “Yes, I had quite a walk this morning, although the northeast wind was bitter cold. I was dreaming—ah, now you are going to laugh—that I could hold one more exhibition of my charcoal drawings.”

  “I think you should,” Eve said with vague hopefulness. She could see no future for Horatio, whatever happened. Even her sisters were against thatched cottages, and would be more likely to hang up a photograph of their spaniel than the best of Horatio’s calendars. “Have you got enough for a show?”

  Rashleigh shook his head. “Alas, with the scoundrel Nazis at the helm it is difficult to keep the Lamp of Art alight. Will you come and see my portfolio one Sunday, Miss Eve? And do me the honour of taking a cup of tea?”

  “Oh, thanks, it would be a great pleasure sometime,” Eve said cautiously; “at present we’re so busy I even bring work home with me evenings.” It was not strictly true, but she was more and more jealous of her hours alone; her doom was near, she felt it every moment of the business day. It was already a question of clearing up and shutting down; sooner or later the purely civilian trades would cease. Her sister liked the noisy army barracks where she was in training; it was, as she said enthusiastically, just like school. But Eve had no temperament for collective life. What a seesaw it all was! She was happy in peace and Joe in war; surely somebody could devise a means so that they could both enjoy their work without the continents being plunged into chaos. “Here’s the post, Mr. Rashleigh,” she said, as the door opened; it was a chance to escape. “I do hope we get a quiet night.” The postman was in a hurry to get his round done before blackout; he slammed the mail on Selina’s desk and left with a muttered “Afternoon” to Mary, who picked up the letters, sorted them onto a tray, and came over to Horatio. “One for you, sir, one f
or Cook, and the rest are for upstairs.” She waited for him to move so that she could turn out the last light.

  Horatio took the rather thick grey envelope; it was Agatha’s writing. He had no excuse now for sitting in the tearoom any longer, though it was an economy of fuel and his joints creaked and he puffed wheezily directly he started up the steps. Extraordinary, he thought, extraordinary; my dear wife would never have believed that I could climb these three flights twice a day. He rested, of course, on each landing.

  If he had to define to Eve the difference—the only difference—between her high spirits and his old age, Horatio thought, he would describe it as monotony. There were fewer breaks in the routine of unpleasant repetition. He paused opposite the door of the first-floor parlour that was now used as a storeroom. It was the sallow paint and the smell of soap and soda that became unendurable, at least to a temperament accustomed to the scent of grasses, a lacy parasol of leaves. Miss Tippett was a person of neither affluence nor taste or she would not sit behind a teashop desk; but she could have done something to this bleakness—repainted it, for example, some soft, attractive colour: green, a pale almond green with a grey carpet and a door that opened not on bins of sago but a bowl of roses. You could do a lot with a house as old as this, almost eighteenth century, if you only had the means. It is sad, my young friend, Rashleigh felt he ought to say to Eve the day that she had tea with him, to have the instinct for palaces and to be obliged to dwell in lodgings; but as a young man I had the whole of Nature for my kingdom. Yes, the sky was my ceiling with little, tumbling clouds making a medallion of nymphs above my head.

  The chair was drawn up by the gas fire with a box of matches handy when Horatio panted his way at last into the attic. Mary had blacked out the window and left, as she did so often, a duster over the bed-rail. He hung up his coat carefully; perhaps tonight, if Miss Tippett were very pressing, he would consider the shelter. Then he settled down, pulled the rug over his knees, and opened Agatha’s letter.

  There was a cheque inside for the usual amount. Horatio slipped it carefully into his wallet: an old and shiny thing but solid, he thought, running his fingers over its dark leather. Nobody would know that a corner had come unsewn; but quality paid, it was seventeen years now since his wife had given it to him. He replaced it in his pocket and began to read the rather coarse handwriting.

  “Dear Cousin Horatio, Here is your monthly allowance. As you know, this is a voluntary action on my part for you have no call on me or mine” (that was untrue), “and I feel I owe it to myself to discontinue these payments. The times are hard and I am obliged because of the war to retrench my expenses. So many sufferers need our help and my nephew, who you will remember joined up last November, is expecting an addition to his family.” Of course the fellow would volunteer, his wife was always nagging at him. “I hope you have escaped our current perils. We had a bomb at the bottom of our street and in addition I have caught a severe cold, which has brought on my old enemy, bronchitis. Our shelter, unfortunately, is damp and though I have lodged complaints with the builders nothing has been done to remedy it. I trust my inability to continue your pocket money” (but it is all I have to live on, Rashleigh moaned) “will not cause you undue inconvenience. We must suffer our bit for the war. Your affectionate cousin” (no, no, Horatio almost screamed, she was never that), “Agatha.”

  It was impossible. Horatio dropped the letter onto the table and stared at the whorl of peonies that ran up the wallpaper. He must write to Agatha; hard as she was, surely she would be reasonable, for this was condemning a human being to death. People had no imagination. If they had they would project themselves into the lives of others; then there would be neither battle nor ugliness. His wife had always been so good to the woman; he could see Margaret now sitting behind the square, white teapot and saying, “Aggie’s got another of her attacks. Do you think, dear, you could manage for lunch? Good, then I’ll pop over and see what I can do.” Slaved, she had, his dear Margaret, with never a word of thanks.

  There had always been the barrier of money, whether they spoke of it or not. Agatha, and he scribbled her face, her mean little eyes on the edge of the envelope, had resented every gift he had made to his wife. “What about a rainy day?” she had cackled that last birthday when he had brought Margaret a gay little parasol with poppies all over it. He suspected he had heard her murmuring something about “old junk” when she went through the studio. We had a gracious life together, Horatio thought, and if Margaret’s last illness had eaten up any funds they had had, he regretted nothing. “I regret nothing!” He said it aloud and fiercely to the wallpaper and the blacked-out window. He would be earning now, his hand was extraordinarily steady, if it were not for popular taste.

  “I am glad my dear Margaret has been spared this.” He wrote the sentence firmly under the sketch of Agatha. Perhaps Miss Johnson would write to him? He saw thin notepaper: “My dear Mr. Rashleigh, What a pleasant surprise to receive your letter in these troubled days. My mother used to speak of you and I have often wondered about you for somehow your address was mislaid. Do you remember the delightful water colour you once painted of our lupines? It is still here, in the same place, hanging over the piano. Now I know where you live, but to think that you are in London! Dear Mr. Rashleigh, if you will permit a stranger but I hope a friend to chide you, is it a place for a painter in wartime? They have evacuated a school to our village and artists are, they say, like children. Will you not accept the hospitality of our little home for the duration? We have no car, of course, but I have got out the pony cart, quite a museum piece, so with a wire I shall be at the station. You must get away from those horrible bombs.”

  What a triumph it would be! After a few days he would write to Agatha, “Here in this peaceful seclusion where kind friends prevent even the news of war coming to my ears, I want to reply to your letter. It was a shock, I confess it was a shock, less because your allowance was insurance and not pocket money, than because of your uncousinly disregard of my welfare. In these difficult days the ties of relationship should be doubly knit, but it has been given to a patron of my art to look after me in the evening of my life. I am well, I am happy and painting as never before, with all my old enthusiasm and love of my drawing. And I have the sympathy of very dear ladies for having been so disparagingly treated. I will, therefore, say farewell as it will be unnecessary to continue this correspondence.”

  The tiny clock on the mantelpiece struck six. He ought to light the fire, but Horatio felt that he could not pull himself out of the chair. His legs were stiff, he huddled under the rug, shivering in the faint light of the bulb overhead. Perhaps Miss Johnson had gone away? She might never answer his letter, and then what would he do? First the calendar firm had refused a batch of drawings, then their works had been burnt out in the first days of September. Nobody wanted art any more. Only canvases centuries old, buried in museum cellars. He would die in this weather if they turned him out of the attic. Miss Tippett would help him if she could, but her partner, that frightful woman, grudged him even a pennyworth of care. Every moment was so precious. Every second brought him nearer to that blank, inexorable moment when … but he could not name it, nightmare would triumph and he would not wake to see the sun shining in at his window. He looked miserably at the wedge of wallpaper beside the fireplace, and there in the crack a face was jeering at him; no, of course it was imagination; it was being angry, and he could hear his wife’s voice: “Now, Horatio, you mustn’t get upset, it makes you talk in your sleep!” The raids are less, he thought in surprise, than being reminded of that awful time when the neighbour’s children had rolled him in the dust and sat on his head. The helpless fury, the wild terror of suffocation had remained more vivid (strange, how disagreeable things stuck in one’s memory) than his first picture of any of his youthful triumphs. He had always loved trees and hated forests, for it was in the little wood behind the garden that his disgrace had happened.

  Lawless, that was what the world was n
ow, all the sweet virtues gone. He was glad that Margaret had been spared the war, though he missed her, he missed her horribly. She would have been full of practical ideas. “Don’t fret so, Horatio,” she would have said, “there’s always the future.” He must pull himself together and write to Agatha. Even if she halved the allowance, perhaps he could manage. Do you realize—he began to compose sentences—I am alone here, in the middle of craters? It was the injustice that made him boil. The news was enough to have brought on a heart attack with anyone less robust. There Agatha was, fat, with three meals a day and a home. It would have been reasonable to have asked her for more help to go away to the country. He was not through with his life, the sky was as blue, the sunlight as welcome, as ever. He tried to picture a sailing ship, as he did when the warning sounded, but tonight even that comfort failed him. There was no safety; the wallpaper flowers were like heads, grinning and leering, though he knew it was his fancy. He was shivering, and it was with fear; this was his home, and people said they were fighting for their homes. Perhaps he would tell Miss Tippett when she came in, as she always did, to persuade him to go to the shelter? Selina might sympathize; or would her face change, would he see her think, well, if a lodger can’t pay the rent why does he want to live? No, he could not tell her tonight, he would wait till the morning. In the morning he must write to Agatha….

  Perhaps there would be no morning.

  10

  IT WAS A QUARTER to seven. The siren might sound at any moment, and then the wardens were particular about torches. However often she made the trip to Mr. Dobbie’s shop, it was still a nightmare to Selina. Either she fell off the pavement or she bumped into the grating of the house next door. There was something morally reprehensible about the blackout, and in spite of the raids she could not crush out a feeling in her heart that “they” had decreed it merely to upset daily life as much as possible.