Birthday Party

by C. H. B. Kitchin

I thought for a few moments before I spoke next, while Joan herself was silent, as if her talk with Dora had been a shock and she were feeling the shock of it again. There were so many things I wanted to know—things which Joan didn’t know and probably had never thought of.

  “In the first place,” I said, “is there anything to show that this box was in any way connected with your father’s death? He might have done it up years before, as a kind of joke. It may contain a present—the remains of a stamp-collection, or some sovereigns——”

  “In that case, he was cheating the Estate Duty people.”

  “Nonsense. He never thought he was going to die, like that.”

  She looked at me indignantly, and said, “You must remember, Aunt Isabel, I was old enough to know. I wasn’t like Ronnie.”

  “Oh!” I said, “I know you heard what the Coroner’s verdict was. I meant that when your father tied and labelled this box, there’s no need to suppose that he had anything—like that—in his mind. Was there a date on the label?”

  “No.”

  “You see, you jumped to poor Dora’s conclusion. She found the box just after your father had died, and assumed that it must be connected with his death. I don’t see that at all.”

  “But if it were connected with his death—and Auntie Dora seemed quite sure that it was——”

  “Why?”

  “I—I don’t know. I didn’t ask her. I suppose I was a bit upset myself.”

  “That’s very natural,” I said soothingly. “I feel rather upset too. And you must remember that poor Auntie Dora was still more upset when she saw the box for the first time. The inquest only just over. It was quite natural that she should connect the box with your father’s death. But she should have taken a more sensible view later. I wish you had told her that. Poor thing, the idea has probably become a mania with her. These secret worries can.”

  “I wish you had been there, Aunt Isabel.”

  “If I had, I don’t think she would have told me.”

  Again I pondered, this time deciding what I intended not to say to Joan. Then she interrupted my thoughts by saying suddenly:

  “Aunt Isabel, what do you really think is inside that box?”

  “Quite probably, some sovereigns.”

  “It didn’t rattle, and wasn’t at all heavy.”

  “Or some stamps. Or perhaps a family heirloom. I believe we once had a letter from Queen Anne to some ancestor of ours, which seems to have disappeared.”

  “If it was something valuable, it ought to have been kept in a safe. Would Daddy have left it about like that—if he had been in his right mind?”

  “I know what you’re thinking of,” I said. “You’re going back to the Coroner’s silly verdict. You must remember it was ten years ago and they didn’t know then what the after-effects of influenza could be. It isn’t a happy subject, but I think we ought to face it for a minute or two. There have been three famous suicides last year, all put down to ’flu. There was an opera singer, you may remember, a barrister and—who was the other one?—oh, a Bishop. In each case no known worry. I’m perfectly sure that if the inquest on your father were held now, the verdict would be ‘suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed by the after-effects of influenza.’”

  “But he had such a slight attack.”

  “You mean he only had a slight temperature. It may, in other ways, have been a very severe attack. I’m sure it was.”

  “I know you’re thinking that I’m worried in case there’s insanity in the family. I’m not at all—so far as I’m concerned. And it isn’t really what we were talking about. The point is, was it a sane action on Daddy’s part to put something valuable into a flimsy little tin box and leave it about?”

  “Not if it was something really valuable,” I was forced to agree.

  “Was it a sane action to put anything in a box and tie it up and address it like that?”

  I admitted that it seemed rather fantastic, and she went on: “What I’m frightened of, and what I think Aunt Dora is frightened of, is that there’s something in that box which is going to upset Ronnie. I’m quite prepared to believe with you that Daddy was perfectly sane till the balance of his mind was upset by influenza—but we can’t get away from the fact that the balance of his mind was upset. And as the cash-box business is fantastic, to say the least of it, it seems almost a certainty that it dates from the ‘unbalanced’ period in Daddy’s life—those two or three days before he died, when we were all at Leamington seeing Ronnie.”

  “Well—if it does?”

  “If it does, there’s no knowing what Daddy may have put into the cash-box. Suppose he told Ronnie that he had some hereditary disease——”

  “But he hadn’t anything of the sort.”

  “He may have thought he had. Or there may be something in the family which has been kept from you, Aunt Isabel.”

  There was nothing for me to do but to smile with grim incredulity at this. I was a little surprised to find how pertinacious Joan was, now that she was aroused. I had never thought her a fool, but she was revealing herself in a new light to me. My assumed scepticism had clearly provoked her, but I didn’t want her to do anything dramatic—at all events, before I had evolved my own theory. For this reason I adopted a more conciliatory tone.

  “I must admit,” I said after a pause, “that it is puzzling and disturbing. What’s the position now? Where is the box? Did Dora put it back in the drawer?”

  “Yes. I told her to, and said I’d think what we ought to do. I suggested asking your advice, but——”

  “But what?”

  “It seemed to frighten her.”

  “And what did you say to her the next day—or when you’d thought things over?”

  “I said she ought to open the box herself.”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She didn’t want to talk about it at all. I couldn’t even get the subject going. I think she regretted confiding in me. I suppose the attack of nerves, or whatever it was, had passed and she saw things differently. In the end, she said that there was plenty of time and that she’d probably speak to you about it, next time you came to Carlice. We just left it at that—on the understanding that I should do nothing and say nothing to you. I shouldn’t have, perhaps, but I’m worried about Ronnie and the shock he may get, if she suddenly produces the box on his twenty-first birthday. I’m afraid Auntie Dora doesn’t count, compared with him.”

  “But Ronnie is such a very modern young man. Even if it is a guilty secret of your father’s, Ronnie isn’t likely to be upset much.”

  “You think he knows——”

  “He must, by now.”

  “I don’t see why. You did everything you could to prevent his knowing. You were splendid. And he’s never given the smallest sign to me.”

  “Probably because he thinks you don’t know.”

  “You know, he’s really terribly highly strung.”

  “Still? I thought his new political creed forbade that luxury.”

  She looked at me with anger, and then, thinking better of it, she got up and kissed me inoffensively on the forehead.

  “Good-night!” I said. “Sweet dreams, and a safe journey to-morrow.”

  Yes, to-morrow she is flying across Europe. That ought to seem a great achievement to me, who have never flown at all. But it seems nothing. It would have been absurd for her to listen to Dora. I was quite right to urge her to fly.

  But this mysterious box is another matter. I’ll think that out to-morrow. When Joan comes back, she’ll be so busy with Mrs. Benson and the poultry farm that it’ll be left to me to decide what ought to be done. Perhaps the farm is a wise move after all. Poor girl. We need never try her out at the Opera again. But if she likes farming and finds peace that way. . . .


  Chapter VI: RONALD CARLICE

  1

  THE cemetery. I would notice that to-day. I remember when I was coming up to Oxford to try for the scholarship which I didn’t get, my house-master said, “The first thing you’ll see of Oxford, as you arrive by train, will be the cemetery.” What a paradox that seemed, as one entered the City of Dreaming Spires. The first thing—and the last thing as you leave the town.

  I once had thoughts of being buried there. But we can’t tell where we shall fall—least of all in these days—and they mayn’t be able to bring one back, as they’re bringing Joan back.

  Poor Joan.

  That’s the bridge over the railway, leading up to Boar’s Hill. Now Kennington with its villas. Perhaps we shall stop at Radley. What’s the matter with me? It might be my last journey from Oxford to Didcot. I’m not even going down yet. There’ll be time for all this attitudinising in another three weeks when I’ve taken Schools. And then I shall have to come up again for my viva. And my degree. I suppose I must have a degree. It’ll be a nuisance paying for it. By the way, I’m now five hundred a year better off.

  There isn’t any conscious purpose in things. If there were, I should have gone, not Joan. She was always worth three of me. I couldn’t release a bird from the strawberry nets. She used to do that. I couldn’t climb a ladder. When Mildon cut his hand with a pruning-knife, I fainted. She bound it up and telephoned for the doctor.

  Do these things count, or not?

  I should have got her on my side, too, in the end. No, not really. I’m thinking about her differently because I shan’t see her again.

  A stupid accident on the way to the aerodrome. A collision with a lorry—not even an accident in the air. Two passengers slightly injured and only one killed—the head crushed by a heavy piece of metal. And that passenger was Joan.

  I hope to God it was as quick as they say. But there are worse deaths—there are many worse deaths than that. We don’t very often think that we’ve got to die. Quite right too. It’s waste of time and makes us feel too important. How they loved death in the eighteenth century, with its urns and wreaths and cracked marble. It’s all rather like one aspect of Carlice. Carlice must go. Somehow this business makes that more definite. I might almost tell them my decision after the funeral service, instead of letting them wait for my precious twenty-first birthday.

  “This is the last funeral,” I might say, “that’ll be staged by our family from this house.” They’d think me utterly heartless, and it wouldn’t do any good. I suppose one may as well be kind rather than unkind, if unkindness doesn’t serve any social purpose. There are times, of course, when one has to be unkind. It doesn’t come easily. That’s perhaps why we go about practising it—forging the social weapon. I must put that to Dan Cruttley. He’d laugh.

  What I’m dreading, of course, is the thought of meeting them all.

  I wonder if Aunt Isabel will arrive to-day or to-morrow. I hope to-morrow, though it means I shall have a night alone with Dora. Whenever Isabel arrives, she’ll do the correct thing. Perhaps she’ll escort a party. Is she conscious of being one stage nearer the ownership of Carlice? Probably. It’s funny to think of myself as the one person in her way—till I’m twenty-one. After that, she’s out of it, unless I forget to make a will. But I shan’t forget.

  Sir Thomas Hill will be there—not till to-morrow, I hope—and he’ll bring his sister. And we shall have the pleasure of Gwen Rashdall’s company, and the Callitons, those friends of father’s whom we’ve never been able to shake off. And about two dozen “county” friends—Heaven preserve me from them. One or two of Joan’s friends may have heard and want to come. Dora and I seem rather left out of it. Perhaps she’ll have someone along, her co-trustee, Rusper, or the half-brother who’s gone to the bad, or some of her “dreadfully common” London friends. Poor thing, I dare say she’ll be nervous of standing alone. I shall be nervous too, and that won’t help.

  And now the train’s stopping at Didcot, where I must change.

  In the days when I was frightened of the world, and wanted to get home, home seemed to begin at Didcot. This was our own line, marking a safety-zone. Beyond it, by those other platforms which we’re leaving, began the perilous unknown, containing everything that appalled me—school, my career, my death. What a thorough little egotist I was! No wonder I wasn’t “converted” without tears. And still I backslide, and shall go on backsliding as people will, until we’ve remodelled the nursery and education. “Master Ronnie, won’t you be glad to have a bedroom of your own?” It was my nurse, when she was moved out of my room. At the time, I didn’t want her to go, and was frightened of sleeping alone. But I soon got over that and became proud of my own bedroom, already full of a jealous possessiveness, which, instead of eradicating, they rubbed in at every turn. “This little plot of garden shall be yours. I wonder what flowers you will grow, dear Ronnie.” My stamp-album, my kitten, my cupboard which I could lock with my own key. And soon, perhaps, my house, in Gothic letters on the map, my garden, my fields and cottages. No, it won’t do.

  I think I can say I’ve nearly outgrown all that. But there are other pitfalls, and temptations which may be stronger than I bargain for. A tendency to have love-affairs—for instance last Tuesday afternoon. It hurts me to rationalise it like that, which shows my danger. I should like to go on mooning over Tuesday afternoon, as I mooned over it in bed on Tuesday night—till I found myself on my knees beside the bed and praying, “O God, grant I may never let Rose down.” What a story that would be to tell to Brench—the most convincing atheist I know.

  I know exactly what I was thinking of. I had raced ahead in my mind to my marriage with Rose—I was twenty-one and no one could stop me—and Rose was with me at Carlice settling things up and turning the place into a centre for social service. I became full of what we could do there together, then suddenly I wondered if she would see eye to eye with me about it all. Would she want her own drawing-room, for instance, or a bit of garden railed off, to sit in alone? And I pictured myself riding the high horse and telling her that that sort of thing had no place in our programme—educating her and correcting the faults of her upbringing, and perhaps smiling over them to some of my clever friends. I saw in myself the failure of a husband. It hurt—exquisitely. I can use that overworked adverb, because there was a sort of recherché pleasure in my pain.

  So I prayed, and got back to bed and felt happy again, and fell asleep dreaming about the afternoon. It was Dan Cruttley who had proposed the expedition. “I know a farm where we can get a decent tea,” he said. “There are three streams round it, with willows. It’s such a fine day, would you like to come if I can borrow Tony’s car?” And later, as we drove through the flat fields north of Oxford, he told me that the farmer—a man named Cleetham—had two pretty daughters. The elder one, Marjorie, was just twenty, and the younger one, whose name he’d forgotten—yet what an easy name it is to remember!—was two years younger. He confessed that Marjorie interested him a good deal. He’d been to see her three times already that term, but there was nothing doing. He wasn’t the first undergraduate she’d met. Last time she’d produced some poems by Day Lewis. She wouldn’t say who had given them to her, but it would hardly be one of the locals. So the soil was already prepared for the planting of good seed.

  We arrived, said how-do-you-do to Mrs. Cleetham, and Marjorie brought in tea. Had we heard of Auden? Yes, we told her, we had. And who’d been telling her, Cruttley asked, about Auden’s work? She wouldn’t say, but promised to walk in the woods with us after tea. Rose was in, if anyone else turned up.

  Then Rose came into the room and bowled me over.

  “You two go out for your walk,” I said. “I’ll stay here and look at the farm. Perhaps Rose will show me round, if she has time.”

  My boldness amazed me and exhilarated me. They seemed to notice nothing and went away gratefully, w
hile I sat, looking down at my jammy plate, feeling all of a sudden as if the Infinite had stretched down a finger towards me, saying, “All this has been specially planned for you, Ronald Carlice.”

  And, for those hours, I did believe that it had been. Rose came and stood in the doorway smiling. I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt that smile. “What would you like to see?” she asked. “The hens or the pigs? They’re mowing in one of the fields, and I ought to take them some beer.”

  “Let me help with the hay,” I said. “I know what you do.”

  “Have you lived on a farm?” she asked.

  I told her that my home was surrounded by fields, and suddenly she seemed to become a part of Carlice, bringing new life to it and a new joy. I longed desperately to know if I should ever see her there.

  We saw the hens and the pigs and joined in the haymaking. All that Rose said seemed natural and inevitable—neither too simple nor sophisticated. The leaves of the willows by the stream were greener for her presence, the hay was more golden and smelt sweeter. The men kept their distance, allowing us to do as we liked. Of one of them she said, “That’s my brother over there.” He was a huge fellow with a sunburnt chest. He made me feel puny and lamentably out of training. For the most part they were still mowing, and there was only one small field of hay ready to be stacked. That was why, perhaps, they didn’t think us in the way. I asked if she had to do much work on the farm. She said she hadn’t, except to help with the fowls. Teas paid better than farming. I asked if I could help her to wash up the tea-things, and she laughed and said, “Don’t you think it’s nicer out here?” So we stayed out, talking of nothing for a long time, till Cruttley and Marjorie waved to us from a bend in the stream and joined us.