by A. J. Cronin
Fording the stream by the flat stepping-stones, she turned and took Frank’s arm. Let Anna sneer at this display of proprietary right – she did not care. She had her devotion, and would not conceal it. Thus they crossed a narrow field where the butter-cups pollened their boots to bronze; then a briny tang stung the softness of the air, the stream grew wider, shallower, split by sandbanks. From the stones of its bed waving fronds of amber seaweed lifted, twining, floating idly, languidly; from the slope of its banks coarse grass and salted rushes stiffly rose amongst the beaded heads of bright sea-pinks. At last, with a twist of the ending course, they emerged upon the shore.
Lucy drew a long breath of the saline air and let her gaze leap out upon the blue water of the estuary where, through the shimmer, the white sail of a ketch veered like a swinging gull. She felt freer now; yet still her mind was not at ease, that strange emotion latent within her, dormant and unappeased.
On the return trip, lulled by the indolent impulse of the boat, she closed her eyes in a pretence of sleep; she had indeed a curious fatigue, a lassitude ensuing from some unconscious spending of her spirit. The three others were singing: singing in perfect amity, it seemed; and upon the still water the sound fell hushed and soft, blending with the quiet rhythm of the oars. But she had no heart to join with them. Such sentimental songs they were, too, raising an unaccountable turmoil in her breast – the last, at Peter’s earnest request, the childish, stupid little lullaby she had so often crooned to him:
‘My Bonnie is over the ocean,
My Bonnie is over the sea,
My Bonnie is over the ocean,
O bring back my Bonnie to me.
Bring back –
Bring back –’
That haunting implication of desire breaking through the hot, hushed afternoon awoke in her a yearning, a sense of reaching out, which was poignant as any pain. Only the firm pressure of her closed lids prevented a stinging, ridiculous tear from starting from her eyes.
When they reached the jetty and Dave, running out from the sheds, helped them to disembark, she had almost a sensation of relief.
‘You had a grand day for it,’ said Dave, smiling down at her, as he gripped her arm firmly whilst she leaped upon the slip.
‘Yes, it was grand,’ she agreed, with a faint answering smile; she liked Dave.
But why she knew not, it had not been very grand for her. Yet it was good to be back, good even to see Dave’s lively face again, reassuring and substantial. It seemed suddenly an age of time since she had left the slip. She was glad to enter the clean coolness of her own home.
She bathed Peter and put him to bed, then changed her dress, came downstairs. Busy with her ribbon embroidery, she evinced tranquillity; yet, as she made the stitches, inwardly she chafed impatiently for Anna to retire to her room. But tonight Anna lingered. Ten o’clock had struck before she yawned and turned an eye towards the clock. At last, however, she rose and said good night.
Lucy was alone with her husband.
It was the awaited opportunity, and with a quick gathering of determination she laid down her sewing, came over, and sat down beside him on the sofa where he was reading the evening paper.
‘Frank,’ said she in a resolute voice, ‘I want to speak to you about Anna.’
‘Speak away, my dear,’ he murmured, without moving his head. ‘I’m listening.’
She took a long breath. Before she broached the subject of Anna’s past she would afford him one last opportunity to do so. And she said slowly:
‘You knew Anna well before we met. Didn’t you, Frank?’
‘What a question,’ he said lightly: ‘We lived in Levenford, in the same town, for years. Played kiss in the ring when we were kids.’ Unconsciously her lips drew in.
‘And you saw a deal of her, I suppose, when you were in Belfast.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted off-handedly. ‘I suppose I did.’
‘Then why,’ she said, even more slowly, ‘why did you not tell me about her?’
He did not look up, but she saw his eye fix suddenly upon the sheet, the fingers drumming upon his knee become arrested.
‘What do you mean?’ he answered, after a perceptible pause.
‘What I say!’
Slowly he raised his head, turned towards her; but he did not speak. And, perceiving in his silence an avoidance of the issue, she cried out suddenly, with a voice which trembled:
‘Why didn’t you tell me she’d had a baby?’
Actually it rang out like an accusation. His jaw dropped in a fashion almost ludicrous; for a full half-minute he stared at her.
‘What?’ he stammered. ‘ How do you know about that?’
‘Not through you, anyway,’ she returned with nervous vehemence, realising in one painful rush all her repressions of the last two days, all her sentimental tension of that afternoon. ‘You should have told me. You know you should. Letting me invite Anna here without a word, when you knew about this all the time. And more than that. Letting me leave her here in charge of my house when I went to Ralston. It’s not right. I don’t understand it. And I don’t like it. Why, Frank, in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me?’
‘Half a chance,’ he protested, flushing. ‘Don’t swamp me.’
He was dismayed to be confronted by this evidence of her knowledge of Anna’s history, if only for the plain reason that he had meant to tell her. Yes, he had intended to do so, but somehow – that innate apathy of his – he hadn’t bothered. It was not that he was moved by any noble or bombastic instinct – the exalted fatuity of ‘sealing his lips on Anna’s shame’. It was simply that he had let the matter drift. Once or twice he had begun to think of it, hesitated, then let it slip. And now, conscious suddenly of all this, he flushed more deeply, exclaimed with weak pugnacity:
‘I didn’t tell you for the simple reason that it’s no business of yours. That’s why – if you want to know. It never did concern you. And it doesn’t concern you now.’
‘Indeed,’ she declared, with quickened breathing. ‘ So it doesn’t concern me what kind of woman comes into my house. Because you choose to be dumb, because you feel you’ve got to hide something from your wife, we’re to have someone in our home whose reputation, to say the least of it, is utterly dis-creditable.’
‘Go easy now,’ he cried in a louder voice. ‘Anna’s my cousin. She’s all right. And you know it.’
‘Now we’re coming to something,’ she returned with suppressed intensity, her eyes brightening angrily. ‘And it’s something we’re going to disagree about. So let me tell you it straight. I don’t like Anna. Now that I know too, and know of her, I do not like her. You understand. In the boat today, just to give you a single example, it was perfectly abominable the way she went on about Edward. She’s my guest. She can finish her visit. But I’m not going to stand any nonsense. No, not one inch of it.’
‘Nonsense?’ he echoed incredulously, and the colour heightened on his cheek. ‘ What the devil are you talking about?’
Her own small face was flushed and her lips resolute as she gave him a direct look.
‘As if I didn’t understand at Ardmore,’ she said with a biting Acorn. ‘ To look at the view indeed! The view!’ And she gave a hard little laugh.
‘We did go to look at the view,’ he almost shouted, ‘and nothing else. What in God’s name do you think we went for?’
‘Don’t bawl at me,’ she said in a low, vibrant voice. ‘And don’t let Anna hear how you behave towards your wife.’ She paused, quivering, and, because she loved him, sought for the phrase with which to cut him deepest. ‘You – running after her all day, then raging at me like this at night – making this scene – You should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Haven’t I said that I wasn’t running after her? What earthly harm is there if I try to entertain my cousin? Didn’t I promise to do it?’
‘I know you, Frank,’ she said slowly, from between her set lips, ‘and I know you’re not the entertaining kind. Don’t th
ink that deceives me for one moment. More than that – I love you. I’ve stood by you those nine years through thick and thin. I’ve kept nothing from you. I’ve given you everything. I’ve been loyal to you – and I’m not going to have you make a fool of yourself at this stage of the proceedings. So you’ll kindly let Anna take care of herself in future.’
‘So that’s it,’ he sneered defiantly. ‘ I’m to have my orders. Well, let me say it again. Anna hasn’t been running after me – as you call it – and I haven’t been running after Anna. You know that I wasn’t anxious for her to come. It was you who invited her. Yes, you! Have her you would! And, now that you have got her, you calmly turn round and tell me to snap her nose off. I think you’re crazy! But, since you have brought this up, let me inform you that I’m not going to be dragooned by you. I’ll be as nice to Anna as I like. And much nicer now that you’ve tried this on me. Perhaps Anna’s a better sort than you think.’ And with a jerk he straightened out his paper, raising it like a screen between them.
For a moment she considered the stiff sheet which she knew he could not be reading, her face pale now, her warm eyes dismayed, hurt, and angry. This, then, was the upshot of her quiet word with him, this defiance, this utterly unreasonable resistance to her overture, her advice, her caution. She knew that she had acted rightly, that her action was just; and he had met this justice with a cascade of reproaches. No explanation of his conduct, no elucidation of his concealment! The last thought pricked her like a lance.
Abruptly she rose, standing rigidly above him. ‘I warn you, Frank,’ she said in a firm, controlled voice. ‘For some reason you’ve hidden this from me. And you don’t know how it’s hurt me. But I’m much too fond of you to let you hurt yourself. Remember that! It’s the explanation of anything I do.’ And with her head held stiffly in the air, her eyes blurred by a sudden rush of tears, she turned and walked swiftly from the room.
Chapter Seven
That night she slept badly, a troubled, restless sleep that left her unrefreshed. And she awoke – her mind still clouded by fancies which had flitted like phantoms across her slumber – to a consciousness of her quarrel with Frank. This, of course, was over, but the burden of it remained, the sad sense of a barrier still between them that would be removed only by their passionate reconciliation. Warm with sleep, her thin nightdress disarranged by the unconscious movements of her limbs, a thick braid of hair darkly upon her shoulder, she contemplated him covertly, taken suddenly by a desire for this reconciliation. Really, she was most awfully fond of him! And, aware now of his nearness, she had a quick impulse to slip her arm around his neck and tell him so. She liked so well the set of his head, the straight line of his nose, that stamp of refinement which seemed – though Edward possessed it in lesser degree – to distinguish him from the rest of his family. Not only from his family, she thought, but from everybody. The very familiarity of his countenance made it unique: he was Frank; he was hers. Now, as he turned and faced her, she smiled constrainedly, watching intently for his answering smile.
‘Another lovely morning,’ she murmured tentatively.
‘Fair enough,’ he answered.
Her face altered, not at the words, but at his manner, which indicated, by a subtle indifference to the weather and to herself, the stiff persistence of his resentment. But she gave no sign of being hurt. Last night it had not been pleasant for her to define so firmly the position. But she had been justified in doing so. And now she would not reopen the matter. Enough that she had spoken. Let there be formality between them; that formality would dissolve, and dissolve more quickly for what she would this day do for him.
For a few moments she waited, wondering if he would offer to fetch her a cup of tea: on certain Sundays he did himself bring up her morning tea – Netta’s strict upbringing precluding her entry to the conjugal bedroom: but he gave no sign of this good intention. And so, with a sudden movement, she put her smooth-skinned legs over the edge of the bed. Then he spoke.
‘You don’t want to get up yet,’ he protested fractiously. ‘The day’s young.’
‘It really is time, Frank,’ she said, with equal formality, ‘I’ve a lot to do. Remember, Mr Lennox is coming tonight.
He yawned, followed the movements of her dressing moodily, saying at length:
‘When I’ve made my pile I’ll never get up before ten.’
‘You’ve not done that yet,’ she answered, with her back to him, coiling her hair swiftly: she was not too sympathetic towards his indolent inclination.
‘I’ll do it all right. One of these days,’ he replied glumly, ‘if you don’t finish me off first.’
‘Don’t speak like that, Frank,’ she answered, in a voice unexpectedly hurt; his flippancy gave her this morning a queer heartache; but she concealed this pang and said evenly:
‘Wait and see what I’ve got to say to Mr Lennox tonight. In the meantime –’ She paused as she went out of the room, and her look signified: ‘ Get up and come out to Mass with Peter and me.’
His face turned petulant again: manifestly it was not conviction which drew him regularly to church, but an influence which now apparently he recognised anew. Am I never to have peace? he thought lazily; and it seemed not; for as he lay back, relaxed, brooding, the door opened and Peter came in. Sounding his father’s mood with a guileless eye, he assumed instantly the privileges of Sunday morning by launching himself on to the large bed.
‘Now fun, father,’ he commanded, without delay. ‘I want fun!’
Moore looked at his son querulously.
‘A story?’ he said slowly – this the least enervating form of entertainment.
‘No, fun! King of the Castle!’
Moore groaned; he liked the boy, of course; loved him indeed; yes, he supposed he did. But the playful parent! Him? And this morning particularly: after that wretched business with Lucy last night, that stupid scene all about nothing. And what was this fuss about Lennox coming?
Lucy was all right; he recognised her worth; loved her, in fact, infinitely more than the boy. But sometimes she had a way with her, the bit clenched between her small white teeth, which upset him entirely. Made him look such a fool.
He wouldn’t put up with it, not this time – no, he wouldn’t. He would make a stand once and for all: assert his position as head of the household.
‘Come on, father,’ cried Peter again. ‘King of the Castle.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Moore impatiently, stung by the ironic implication in the words. ‘Don’t you start next.’
The historic game began: angled elevation of the paternal knees accompanied by liturgical chanting and sudden terrific subsidences; shrieks of laughter, flapping up of a short blue and red striped nightshirt, and a lethargic pretence of castigation. For Peter the humour of this last antic was convulsive even to tears. But Moore, as always, seemed not to capture the full rapture of the moment. He tired of it quickly, and, in his own words, ‘called a halt’.
Meanwhile a rich smell of crisping, bacon had mounted the morning air, and now a thin note from the breakfast gong rang out at Netta’s persistent touch.
‘Off now, boy,’ said Moore, ‘and get your clothes on.’ Then, with a final yawn, he himself got up, dressed – an easy process – and in a few moments followed his son downstairs.
Peter and Lucy were already at table as he sat in; Anna had not appeared: straining her prerogative as guest, she would ‘have her tray’ in bed and ‘hear’, if indeed she ‘heard’ at all, a later Mass.
And so the three members of the family breakfasted together. The pleasant light of the morning streamed through the window, and fell upon the candid face of Lucy, revealing some force behind her eyes, some power outflowing with the quiet movements of her hands, a power with which she strove, it seemed, to draw the three together and hold them closely thus in a warm mystical unity. Always it gratified her, this sense of unity, strengthened the mood of confident tranquillity with which she faced the universe. Later, on the
way to church, with Peter marching between, linking them by his outstretched hands, she had again a warm gush of feeling, a sense of almost painful vindication tightening her throat. Was it not better, she thought, to rise decently, to dress decently, to advance decently to church as a united family, rather than lie slovenly abed and cast a mocking disparagement upon religion? Let that be Anna’s inclination. It was not hers. Nor so long as she drew breath would she permit it to be Frank’s.
After Mass she turned to him as they reached the sea front, halted, and said:
‘You and Peter have a walk before dinner. I’m going to be busy – getting ready for tonight.’
‘I’m not very caring about a walk,’ he muttered. ‘ I’ll come back with you.’
‘No, Frank,’ she insisted. ‘I want you both to get the air. It’ll do you good.’
‘Come on, father,’ cried Peter, tugging violently, ‘we’ll go and gather chestnuts in the Gilston wood.’
Moore made no reply, and, having straightened Peter’s tie, she stood for a moment with a faint smile watching them go along the promenade together. It was a proprietary smile, of course, but now, somehow, it had a quality almost wistful: the recognition of how much they meant to her, those two – Frank and Frank’s son. Turning, she went slowly home.
Still, her remark that she intended to exert herself was just; and these exertions centred upon the preparation in advance of the supper for this evening. Dinner today would be, in her own words, something of a put off; but for the defections of the midday meal the evening repast would more than compensate. Not that stark gluttony was the object of her cuisine. No! Ignoring the disturbing influence of Anna’s presence in the house, she had decisively resolved to take tonight that step which had long been maturing in her mind. To this end she had invited Mr Lennox, and to this end would she feed him richly. Then, at the ripe moment, she would approach him; and he, unguarded, indulgent, gently stimulated, must surely be amenable to that approach.