Birthday Party

by C. H. B. Kitchin

  Still I had talked to her. I had broken the ice. If ever I felt too wretched, I could talk to her again—straight out, with no beating about the bush. “Joan, dear,” I could have said, “I’m afraid I’m still very worried. You know what about.” And sooner or later she would have taken the lead. I could have forced her into taking it. She’d have dragged the whole story out of me and been bound to forgive me and to help. I could have made her an ally, and I counted on her.

  And then she says she must fly to France to meet Mrs. Benson’s boat. I begged her not to. I was frightened of what might happen to her—for my sake, I’m afraid, more than for hers. She said she’d ask Isabel, and I might have known that Isabel would go against me—and do it, as she always does, by seeming to be ever so sensible and rational. Isabel said “Fly,” and Joan set out for the aerodrome and was killed on the way. Of course, she might have been killed anyhow. There might have been an accident to her taxi on the way to Victoria, if she’d done as I wanted, and gone by train and boat. There might—but there wouldn’t have been. She’d have been alive in England now, and I could have gone over any day to see her at her farm, or asked her to come over here and see me. And sooner or later she’d have found a way out of all my troubles.

  Perhaps it was Claude, taking revenge on me—and sending another warning. Oh, God, how awful! I hadn’t looked at it like that before. This rather stuns me. . . .

  I can’t go on lying here doing nothing but think, think, think. I’ll get up and walk about the room—or go out on the landing and talk to Tan—or go down to the drawing-room and take out the wretched box, and smash it open. That’s a new idea! Quick, before I think about it too much, and find I can’t do it. There’ll be no damp hand if I leave the landing light on all night. I spoke to Flora yesterday about leaving the stillroom light on. Well, I don’t care. Fancy thinking of that now.

  There. I’ll leave my bedroom light burning—and now the switch on the landing. I don’t care if something does touch me. I don’t care. I don’t care. It’ll only be like a smelly sponge, if it does. There you are. There’s the landing a blaze of light for you. Those shades need cleaning. The flies have made them filthy. The maids have been getting slack lately. I suppose it’s really my fault.

  “All right, Tan, dear little doggie. Where have you been, prowling about the house at this hour of the night? Come along then, and pad downstairs with Auntie Dora. Auntie Dora’s going into the drawing-room, and you shall come too and see what Auntie Dora’s going to do. Come, Tan.”

  And now I’ve forgotten the key of the drawer. Fool that I am. I was thinking so much about the landing light. Come, Tan, Auntie Dora must go upstairs again. She’s forgotten her key. No, it isn’t bedtime yet. We’ve lots to do before bedtime. There now, Tan, up we go again. . . . Down we go again, right through the hall—your Aunt Isabel’s hall—she spent the money on having it made historical again—and into the drawing-room, which, as you know, is your Auntie Dora’s room. . . .”

  It isn’t here. It’s gone.

  There’s the piece of embroidery and all that mess of tangled wool. Eight kinds of pink you needed for that big rose to get the proper shading. It was the rose that finished me. I hadn’t the patience to go on with it.

  And the box was here, underneath. I’ve kept it here for nearly ten years. It must be here. No, that’s the box of old photographs from Elmcroft. And that’s more wool which I never unwrapped even. But Claude’s box isn’t here.

  I must be mad. I must have been so excited after showing it to Joan that I put it back in the wrong drawer. Perhaps the drawer above. But it couldn’t be there. I put an old cheque-book in there yesterday. No, of course it isn’t there. It was hardly worth looking to see.

  Oh, what shall I do? Where else shall I look? What shall I do if I never find it? Oh, Tan, tell me what I ought to do now.

  Let me see. Joan looked at the label—she didn’t notice I’d torn the date off—and felt the box to see how heavy it was. Then she gave it back to me, and said, “Put it away now, Auntie Dora. It’s upsetting you too much. Do put it away.” She saw me put it away, underneath the piece of embroidery with the half-finished pink rose. She saw me lock the drawer with this key, and put the key in my bag.

  That was, how many days before she went to London and got killed? Monday to Monday, Tuesday, nine days. She was here nine days, knowing all about it. I was hoping she’d speak to me about it again, or persuade me to tell her more. But she didn’t. Except once, and then I felt I couldn’t bear to talk to her. She seemed to forget about it. She was so full of meeting Mrs. Benson again. She thought of nothing but that journey to the South of France, and writing to the aeroplane people. She hardly mentioned Ronnie or her family—or this house. If she’d opened the box and found out what was in it, she couldn’t have been so detached like that. She would have been bound to speak to me, or let me know, somehow, that she’d had a shock. And if, by any chance, contrary to what I’ve always believed, the box contained something quite harmless—something that had no connection with me—love-letters written to Claude by Ronnie’s mother, for instance—Joan would have been bound to tell me, so as to relieve my mind. There was nothing nasty about Joan, poor girl.

  Suppose she took the box, intending to open it later—when she’d come back from her trip to France. Then I should have seen it among her things, when I had to sort them out for the Probate people. I should have found it in her room, just as I first found it in Claude’s and my bedroom. The awful thing! It always seems to be connected with death. But I didn’t find it in Joan’s room, and I went through everything she had—even her locked cupboard. Almost any key fitted that cupboard, just as, I suppose, almost any key would fit my drawer. I ought to have kept the box in a safe, but I never thought anyone would rummage through my writing-desk.

  Suppose Joan took the box and simply destroyed it without opening it—for my sake, and perhaps for Ronnie’s, too, in case there was anything inside it which would hurt him too much. She might have done that. It would have been rather a fine thing to do. But surely she’d have told me. She’d have said, “Auntie Dora, it’s no use your worrying yourself any more about that box. I’ve——” How could she destroy it, though? At one time, in the early days, I used to wonder about that. I could only think of throwing it into the sea. And then it might have floated and been washed ashore, and picked up by some busy-body on the beach. Joan might have found another way. But she’d have told me. She seemed quite distressed to think I was so worried.

  She was a dear kind girl, and she must have liked me more than I thought she did, leaving me her pearls and those two rings of her mother’s. I wonder if I could afford to have the stones reset. If I had the little diamonds clustered round the sapphire it would be very effective.

  “Tan, don’t scratch. The box has gone, Tan, and Auntie Dora doesn’t know what to do.”

  There’s no use staying here. I must go to bed. Somehow, I feel much better. Isn’t it extraordinary how differently you can feel about the same thing at different times? I can’t do anything more, and I’m not responsible any longer. I don’t care where the box is. I don’t care who has it. If I’m blackmailed, I won’t pay one single penny. I’ve done what I could to carry out Claude’s wishes. He must see to it now. It’s no use his bothering me any more about it.

  (But when Ronnie is twenty-one, oughtn’t I to say, “Ronnie, there was a box——” and he would ask me if I had any idea what was in it, and without lying I couldn’t say I hadn’t any idea. And so I shall start the whole thing over again.)

  But not to-night. I’m too tired to worry any more to-night.

  “Come, Tan, your Auntie Dora’s going to bed again. And doggie should be sleeping in his basket, or he’ll be too tired to go rabbiting with Auntie Dora to-morrow. There’s a rabbit among the phloxes you’ve got to find. Come, doggie, upstairs. That’s right. Now go to your basket. It�
��ll be daylight very soon, but Auntie Dora is going to have a nice long sleep, with breakfast in bed to-morrow morning. Good-night, Tan. . . .”

  I turned out the landing light without a thought of the damp hand. That’s better. Much better. And soon I shall be away on a nice long cruise. I’ll learn all the modern dances. . . .

  Chapter VIII: STEPHEN PAYNE

  1

  LEAVING Thurlow-on-Sea, even though on a pleasant errand, reminded me somehow of leaving home for the front. My last days at Thurlow were like my last days of leave. My war-neurosis increased formidably. I began to relive the twenty-one-year-old past with new vividness. Twenty-one years ago to-day, I kept thinking, we left those horrid little huts at Merville, and moved to the line near Laventie. Twenty-one years ago to-day, I was first machine-gunned by an aeroplane. Twenty-one years ago to-morrow will be the day when I ought to have been shot—when I skulked, trembling and sweating in a big shell-hole, and left my platoon to look after itself for an hour. And Sergeant Ledward had his head blown off.

  We left Thurlow early in the morning—the Hicksons wanted to be in London well before lunch. It was a bright day, like to-day. A heat-haze was preparing to steam up from the asphalt promenade, and there was a slight mist over the sea. We turned inland, and the fishy smell of the narrow streets, through which one has to go to reach the London road, filled me with nostalgia. I wished I were not going, and had refused the Hicksons’ offer of transport. Cornwall, I thought, could never be so lovely, or mean so much to me as Thurlow. The chauffeur, beside me on the front seat, said that it looked like being a fine day, and would be very hot in London. He’d be glad to get into the West Country the next day. Mrs. Temperley, behind, tapped on the glass partition and pointed to our last view of the harbour from the top of the hill. I nodded and smiled. We left Thurlow, and began the crowded, characterless main road. Then Digby V. Hickson tapped on the glass partition and indicated that Mrs. Digby V. Hickson didn’t like to go so fast, with so much traffic about. The chauffeur slowed down a little. In my mood of nervous apprehension, I should have liked him to drive as fast as he could.

  I hadn’t had time to read a paper before we started—in fact, I doubt if the papers had arrived—and as we approached the outer suburbs of London, I craned my neck to read the posters outside the dreary little newsagents’ shops as we passed them. The first poster I saw seemed to bear the words, SPECIAL BOMBING REPORT, and the second, THREAT BY something DICTATOR. We had to go about two miles before I discovered that, for BOMBING, I should have read BOXING, and for something DICTATOR, COMPANY DIRECTOR. Even when I realised that my alarm was founded on a Boxing Report and a Company Director’s threat, I was still shaken, and the mood persisted when I reached my cheap little hotel near Earl’s Court—having said a temporary good-bye to Mrs. Temperley and the Hicksons at the Hyde Park Hotel—and unpacked my bag. Then, to my horror, I saw that my sponge-bag was wrapped in a sheet of newspaper which bore the headline GRAVEST HOUR SINCE 1914. I looked at the date, wondering if I had missed some terrible news the day before, and saw that the paper was issued ten months ago in October, 1935, and remembered that I had asked the maid to bring me some newspaper for my packing. While I had luncheon, I felt exasperated with myself, and with the world as a consequence.

  The idea of visiting Rusper had occurred to me as soon as I knew that the Hicksons’ programme was going to give me an afternoon and evening to myself in London. I decided that I would make no plans, but would go to South Mersley or not, as I felt inclined, when the time came. If I felt fairly serene, I would go. Otherwise, I wouldn’t. I should do more harm than good if I saw Rusper and was unable to make a good show at the interview. Naturally, I went through a number of imaginary interviews with my enemy, and planned the opening conversation several times. The night before I left Thurlow, and during the drive to London, I felt that a meeting with him was out of the question. But by the end of my lunch—perhaps by way of a reaction from my absurd timidity of the morning—I felt bolder and resolved to go and see him. It was too ridiculous, I thought, to be afraid of facing a suburban doctor, when we might so soon have to face a European war. Even if our meeting ended in vulgar abuse, it couldn’t make matters any worse than they were. And it might not end in vulgar abuse. Rusper might have recovered some of his sanity, so far as I was concerned. We might compromise. I might let him examine me—though it was odious to think even of his touching me, let alone that he might want me to strip. I would not go to Dr. Ebermann’s clinic to be experimented on and run the risk of having my self disintegrated—that self of mine which, except on a few bad days when it lost control, was an instrument of such peculiar satisfaction to me. On the other hand, if Dr. Duparc’s successor were an agreeable man, I might be willing to submit myself to him for a fortnight’s observation, when my Cornish holiday was over.

  When I had got into the train for South Mersley, I made an effort of will and refused to think of what might be in store, so as to be as calm as I could. I told myself that I was not committed to anything till I had rung the bell at Rusper’s house—and even then I could run away before the servant had time to reach the front door. I concentrated my mind on the landmarks of the journey—those landmarks which I had created for myself at the time when I used to go up to London quite often. As I saw them, they came back to me—the house with the little conservatory on a balcony, the glass grimier than ever—the poplar tree growing out of the pavement by the chapel porch—the eight arches, each one slightly bigger than the last (or smaller, if you were going the other way), which carried the road over the adjoining railway—the extraordinary black little early Victorian house standing in a garden of about an acre, containing three enormous horse-chestnuts and a grotto of gigantic stones, and flanked by rows of five-hundred-pound villas. How I have loved certain aspects of the material world! That, I suppose, is why I fear Dr. Ebermann—in case he should make me hate or despise these passions—my identification of my self with a sunset over Thurlow Harbour, with the smells of the harbour and the sound of the little waves scrunching against the barnacles on the pier. But it wouldn’t be I who hated or despised them. A new person would have come into the world, more useful, they might say, to society. But I should have lived, and I doubt whether the new person would ever really live at all.

  The train reached South Mersley station and I got out, recovering from my reverie just in time. I remember the days when South Mersley was the terminus, and you couldn’t inadvertently be carried any further. I took a bus from the station to the corner of York Road, and then walked slowly down Penelope Avenue. I had an impulse to make a detour and pass Elmcroft, but resisted it. Elmcroft was part of my past, and as such I must respect it. But its memories were not too happy. It was before I learnt the secret of happiness that I lived there.

  Rusper’s house—his second, since he had been practising on his own—was not unlike Elmcroft. Though he was a generation younger, he had been brought up in the Elmcroft tradition. He had the same little front garden, and the same honeysuckle sprawling over the fence by the road. The grass was better kept than ours used to be, despite the hours my father made me spend spudding out plantains. The paintwork of the house was an aggressive blue. There were blue curtains, of not quite the same shade, in the front windows.

  For a moment I hovered by the gate, sniffing the honeysuckle—again I remarked what a long flowering season it has—and reading the brass plate, DR. DONALD RUSPER, M.D. It was magnificently polished. I wondered how often Catherine had been told to see to it. Then I opened the gate and walked slowly up the stone path. It had a little kink to the left, about halfway, just as ours had at Elmcroft.

  Before I had reached the porch, I heard the click of the gate behind me and heavy footsteps. I turned my head and saw that it was Rusper himself, top-hatted and morning-coated, carrying the usual little bag.

  I said “Good afternoon,” and at the same time he said, “Good God, man, what are you
doing here?”

  I began to explain nervously, but he cut me short and hustled me, almost physically, through the hall into his consulting-room—a room in much the same position as my father’s, but larger and more expensively decorated. As he smoothed his hat irritably before putting it down on a chair, I caught him murmuring, “Anyone might have seen you!”

  I sat down in the inevitable chair facing the light, and hoped that, as I did so, my muscles didn’t betray any unfortunate symptoms. “I wanted to have a talk with you, Rusper,” I said, “and as I found myself in London this afternoon, rather unexpectedly, I thought I’d run down here on the chance of finding you in.”

  He looked at me suspiciously, and said, “I’m rather surprised you didn’t telephone. I suppose it didn’t occur to you that I should probably be away in August.”

  “I’m afraid it didn’t.”

  “As you know,” he said pompously, “we always do go away in August, but this year it happens that I have three important cases on hand—important, I mean, from the medical as well as the social point of view—and I was disappointed in my locum. So Mrs. Rusper and I have arranged to postpone our holiday till the middle of September, when we shall probably go abroad. And now, what can I do for you, please? I’m afraid I can’t allow this unexpected visit to last too long. Mrs. Carlice, in her last letter to me, told me that you were still at Thurlow-on-Sea.”

  I could see from the way he talked that he hadn’t decided what line to take with me. He was more shocked at my arrival than I was by his running into me so suddenly. The thought gave me courage.