There and not there.
I have long reached the age of wanting to settle down. I have settled down all my life. Even when I was traipsing about Europe with my father I was always asking myself, “What on earth are we doing here? Why do we waste our time seeing all these tedious people? We could manage without the money.” Then, mercifully, my father had to retire, without any great success, despite Lubinsky, Prince Osric, the Duchess of Malfi and the Emperor’s telegram. Indeed, I suspect he rather muffed the Emperor’s telegram, or they surely would have given him something more than a simple knighthood. It’s amazing how our family has contrived to avoid titles. Perhaps they were all too like me—not public-spirited enough. There is no possible chance of my ever being made a Dame. Dame Dora Carlice even is more likely than Dame Isabel Carlice, and that’s saying a good deal.
The happy idea that I might be able to buy Carlice from Ronnie, even if it ruined me and the funds all went to the Communist party, filled me with excitement as soon as I conceived it. I couldn’t think of going to bed, or sleeping. I felt furious that the silly boy was still away—returning sadly from Russia. I should have liked to telephone to him, or to hire a car and visit him, and, late though it was, burst into his bedroom, shake him by the shoulder, and say, “Ronnie, how much will you take? Can you telegraph Stalin to-morrow?”
I began to work out ways and means. Suppose Ronnie asked so much. That would leave me—so much. I could live in three rooms. I could shut the east wing, and Dora’s idiotic drawing-room. If Eames wanted to stay, he would have to accept smaller wages. Simmonds would stick to me. I reckon myself as equal to one and a half gardeners. It could be done. What matter even if the place does fall into rack and ruin—if I can’t afford to have the roof repaired, or the wall of the coach-house cracks as it did last year? I shall be there, enjoying a bedroom which faces a line of copper beeches, a morning-room with a view of the salpiglossis beds, and the high vaulted hall which, in the days of my riches, I created out of what used to be the crypt of the Abbey. I shall be there. And when they come with their knives, or bombs, or gas, to drive me away, I shall be found—or not found—gibbering by the Elizabethan bed-posts in my bedroom—gibbering, but happy, one eye on the door, and the other on the window and the copper beeches at sunset—a real person, with every access to the wide door of immortality.
I awoke the next morning, full of a dream I had during the night.
The Communist party were holding a grand adjudication. They wore dresses like those seen in pictures of Spanish inquisitors. Ronnie was there, but occupied a rather humble place. I could tell this, because his chair creaked, like one of the stairs at Carlice. The Dictator said, “Tell me about this woman.”
Ronnie got up very nervously, as if ashamed of having me for a relation. “Of course, Sir, she is pleasure-loving and very worthless,” he said.
The Dictator said, “We authorise you to accept eight million roubles.”
I couldn’t help shouting “Done,” and opened my bag to pay. But, search as I would, I could only find one ten-shilling note. The Dictator ordered an instrument of torture to be brought in. I dropped my bag, and thought, “There is a purpose in this dropping of my bag.”
2
I wonder if Ronnie, when he makes this journey from London, feels, as I do, that home begins after Basingstoke. Or perhaps Newbury, or Didcot, if he’s travelling by the other line from Oxford. I can’t believe that, despite all his new social theories, he can utterly root out that feeling of relief, which he used to have as a small boy on coming home. I remember meeting him once, the day after he had arrived for the Christmas holidays, walking through the leafless orchard, with his hands in his pockets and whistling loudly. I said, “You seem pleased with life to-day, Ronnie,” and he said, “Oh, Auntie Isabel, I am glad to be here.”
That reminds me, I haven’t done anything about his birthday present. Dora is sure to have spent too much on something he won’t want. But he’ll manage to pretend he likes it, as it comes from her. If I gave him a gold watch or a gold pencil, he’d simply despise me, or suspect I was trying to insult him. If I give him anything at all, it had better be a cheque. Whatever his theories may be now, he always used to like postal-orders and cheques from me. Well, we shall see. Perhaps he’ll drive so hard a bargain that I shan’t even be able to spare him half a crown.
As the train neared Whitchurch, I thought, “I’m coming home. I must have this place as my home, even if I have to lose it soon after I get it. At least I shall have had it, and that will be an immortal fact in the history of the universe. Isabel Carlice once owned and lived at Carlice Abbey. That can’t be abolished. The past is our own and untouchable. That’s why it’s worth fifty of the future.”
Poor stunted gas-masked little ants who shall succeed us! . . .
But when I got home to Carlice there was no Ronnie to bargain with. He had telegraphed to say he wouldn’t be back till Sunday the sixth—only two days before his birthday. The wire ended, “Bringing no one. Please have no party.”
Dora said, “No doubt that’s because of Joan,” but I knew it wasn’t.
“Very well,” I thought, “we won’t have a birthday party for you. We want the money for other things. But Thomas Hill will be here, and by Tuesday night everything should be settled. You’ll go on the Wednesday, if you’ve any sense, and Dora will go too. And I shall stay.”
Dora had only come back from her cruise a week before. She looked very well indeed and less like a blonde suet pudding than usual. I found her mood rather strange, almost as if she were expected to do something desperate and had decided to do it. She told me, under a little pressure, that Ronnie had given her notice. I said, “I think you’re glad, really,” and she said, “I shall be glad when I’ve gone. It’s the going that’s awkward”—a reply which showed a spirit I shouldn’t have expected to find in her. I was on the verge of telling her my plan for a deal with Ronnie, but thought better of it. I was on the verge, too, of telling her that I knew her little secret—how easy it had been to find a key to fit that drawer—but an instinct warned me against it. I asked her about her plans, and she spoke of a flatlet in London. “And how will you get on there?” I asked. She tossed her head a little and said, “Oh, I shall just live and try to have a good time. At any rate, I shall be on my own.”
3
On the Saturday, the day before Ronnie was to arrive, heir to Carlice and straight from the feet of Stalin, I sent Dora to the races. She has a suburban love of a gamble, which I, who play nothing for money, have always encouraged. “What matter if we are in mourning?” I had to say. “You’re leaving here so soon—as I suppose I am. Major Inchley would love to take you. Do go with him, and enjoy yourself while you can.” She let me fix it all up, and was glad to go.
That afternoon, Saturday, the fifth of September, when the Major had called in his noisy little sports car and relieved me of Dora, I sat down at the big marquetry desk in the morning-room—it’s absurd that marquetry should be so out of fashion—and wrote to Thomas Hill, telling him my plan. “You’ll take the view,” I wrote, “that it’s only a phase of Ronnie’s. But it isn’t a phase. Ronnie has been born too late to enjoy life. That’s why I despise all young people. They’re all miserable, and they doom themselves to misery. And every day, charming old people are dying, and horrible young ones are being born. Don’t you feel this yourself? At all events, prepare a legal contract and bring it with you. The boy, in his present mood, is set upon making the place over to the Communist party. He’ll probably regret it, but that’ll be too late. I’m going to buy it from him and save him from such idiocy. I can always leave it back to him in my will—in case he gets older and wiser. (I’ve got to leave it to someone, I suppose.) So bring a contract with you, ready made out. There’s something dramatic about a twenty-first birthday, and I should like the stage-properties to be at hand. The car will meet you at 12.5
0 on Tuesday at Whitchurch. I know lawyers take ages to prepare things, but you’ve got to get this job done by Monday. Anything to bind him. I can’t leave it to chance. Of course, he may be obstinate. Then I shall have failed. . . .”
It was too important a letter to leave to a servant to post, and I walked myself down the lane to the post-box in the wall by Noakes’ cottage. How many hundreds of letters had I posted there? Each step I took, every tree-trunk I passed—already the leaves were turning a faint brown—rooted me more firmly to that sacred soil. The letter fell in the box with a little “plop,” reminding me of the “plops” of all the letters which I thought so important when I posted them there secretly as a girl. Perhaps Dora too had posted secret letters there.
I turned away from the post-box almost sadly, and the suspense caused by Ronnie’s uncertain attitude came back to me, and made the intervening hours seem too long. It was an age since I had been so excited about anything. But this was more than an excitement. It was a climax.
As I walked slowly home, I passed a line of beeches under which I had once seen the tramp sitting. My feeling of kinship for that shabby unknown increased—despite the fact that I was hoping to buy one of the stately homes of England, and he was probably wondering if he had cheese enough for his bread. Our aspirations were the same. I was only doing what he would have wanted to do, if he had been in my shoes.
As I turned the corner before reaching the lodge, I heard footsteps behind me. I looked round and saw a little man carrying an old-fashioned leather suitcase with something of an effort. He had a straggly fair moustache and wore a misshapen Homburg hat. His shoes were covered with dust, as if he had walked a long way. He looked very vaguely familiar to me. Usually I feel a mild dislike of strangers who walk in our lane, but this little man reminded me so much of my tramp that I couldn’t but wish him well.
I went in by the lodge gates, and walked up the drive still more slowly; for I was examining the collection of rhododendrons which my grandfather planted there, the year he died. As I feared, the seeds had not been picked off, and the buds for next year were fewer than they ought to have been. Some of the bushes were altogether overgrown by the trees behind. It wasn’t a good place, really, in which to plant them, I thought, all in a row like that and so near the trees. Nowadays one would have them in big clumps in a special garden to themselves. I was beginning to wonder if any of them could be transplanted when, once more, I heard footsteps behind me. It was the dingy little man with the fair moustache and the suitcase. I turned towards him.
He stopped three feet from me, put down his suitcase, raised his hat and said, “I am right in thinking this is Carlice Abbey, and that you’re Miss Carlice?”
I said, “Yes,” and he went on:
“I’m paying a surprise visit to my sister, Mrs. Carlice. Can you tell me if she’s at home? My name is Stephen Payne.”
I became effusive at once.
“Why, of course. We have met two or three times, haven’t we? But it seems so long ago. Dora is at the races this afternoon, but she ought to be home in an hour’s time. Won’t you leave that heavy case in the drive, and let me send someone to fetch it?”
He said he could manage quite well, and picked it up. I asked him if he had walked far. “From Busley station,” he said.
“Good Heavens, that’s nearly five miles. What a pity you didn’t ring up from there. We could have sent for you.”
He paused for a moment in his stride, and said, “I wasn’t very sure that I should be welcome. It’s only fair I should tell you that. I’ve come to talk business, family business—with Dora, and I don’t think she wants to talk it. That’s why I’ve made this dramatic, if undistinguished, entrance.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be delighted to see you,” I said, walking towards the house. “I am, even if she isn’t. But we’ll talk about that while you have some tea. Or perhaps you’d prefer a drink? I had my tea about half an hour ago. You must be thirsty after walking all the way from Busley with that heavy bag. We generally use Whitchurch station. The trains to Busley are so very slow.”
I chatted till we reached the house, where I rang the front door bell. It was answered by Charles. “This is Mr. Stephen Payne,” I said to him. “Will you take his bag to the room next the grey room? And tell Mrs. Sowerby that we shall be three for dinner.”
As Stephen Payne followed me into the morning-room, he said, “But I can’t stay the night. I can’t even dine here. I haven’t any evening things with me.”
“We can send to Busley station in no time. I suppose you left your other luggage there?”
“I did leave one bag there,” he replied, “but I’m afraid I haven’t any evening things in that either. I’ve just come from Cornwall, where I didn’t want them. Besides, I live in places where people don’t dress. I had thought of spending to-night in the local pub. Isn’t there one called the Carlice Arms?”
I laughed.
“They say it used to be called that, but now it’s the Queen Adelaide. But we can’t let you stay there. It’s too uncomfortable. No, you must spend the night here, and it doesn’t in the least matter about your evening clothes. Now here’s the whisky and there’s the syphon. Would you like some biscuits? They’re in this box, if you would.”
It was not till he had begun to sip his drink and look round the room, that I realised how impulsive I had been, and wondered why. I recalled the fragments I had heard about my visitor—the family ne’er-do-well, as Dora had described him in the early days, when she was trying to “keep her end up” with us. Earlier in the summer she had mentioned to me that there was trouble between her brother and his trustee. I hadn’t been interested enough to ask what it was. I supposed it was that trouble which had brought him to Carlice. It was amusing to put a finger into the Paynes’ pie—to dabble in Dora’s family affairs. So far all the dabbling had been done by her. Perhaps this was why I enjoyed taking charge of the new arrival, and making myself his champion. He seemed to need one. Despite his nimbleness of tongue, there was something woe-begone about him which claimed my sympathy. He looked well but frail, with the frailty of my father and Claude. I might have added, with the frailty of Ronnie, but Ronnie had now become simply an adversary with whom I must fight. Perhaps Stephen Payne would prove an ally against him. As the crisis approached I was prepared to regard all events as full of meaning.
He broke the long lull in our conversation by saying: “How you must love living here.”
“But I don’t live here,” I answered. “I kept house for my father, and for my brother, between his marriages. I live in London, or rather, I used to live in London, because I’ve broken the lease of my house there. So you see I’m not living anywhere at present.”
“That’s how I feel,” he said. “I should like to live in Cornwall.”
“You’ve come here at rather an interesting time,” I went on, feeling that I ought to get my explanations in before he began his. “Perhaps Dora told you in a letter. My nephew, Ronnie—that’s her stepson—comes of age on Tuesday, and this place becomes his outright. We don’t quite know what he intends to do with us then. I say us, because Dora has very kindly allowed me to spend a good deal of my time here, and I feel rather closely associated with this house. But my nephew, like so many Oxford undergraduates, is a Communist, and I believe he intends to turn this place into a kind of Communist school. If he does that, neither Dora nor I would fit in. If you’re in touch with the young—which I’m not—perhaps you can understand him, and have a talk with him. He’ll be here to-morrow for luncheon. Oh, look——”
I had suddenly seen, through the window, a huge rabbit calmly nibbling the leaves of a bed of salpiglossis.
“What?”
“That rabbit in the flower bed. The brute. And we spend pounds wiring the garden in. Do you shoot?”
“Hardly. I went out with a Cornish f
armer last week and shot a couple of rats.”
“Then shoot this rabbit. You can get it through the window. Quick, before it eats up the whole bed. This is the gunroom. Do you understand guns like this?”
I showed him an old-fashioned 12-bore gun which Claude had used as a boy—but only as a boy.
While I hustled him, he said, “I oughtn’t to, really. I’m sure to miss.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’ll frighten it away.”
He loaded nervously.
“Come along,” I urged him, “it’s still there, eating.
“Now.”
He crept up to the window-ledge, and rested the barrel on it, as if he were using a rifle. As he aimed, his left wrist trembled a little. Then he fired, and the rabbit tumbled head over heels.
“Well done. You’ve saved the salpiglossis and provided a fine supper for someone. Put the gun away and I’ll get you another drink. Then we’ll go out and look at the damage. Perhaps to-morrow you’ll take the gun out with you and do some more shooting. They come from that little copse of birches over there on the right. We’ve put wire behind that hedge a foot into the ground, but they keep getting through somehow. Oh, I forgot, to-morrow’s Sunday. You must try on Monday.”
“But I shan’t be here on Monday, or to-morrow.”
Birthday Party Page 19