For a moment Justin was inclined to protest that it was a job for a policeman or a fireman, but reminding himself that he was no longer a novelist and that his life was henceforward valueless to posterity, he put his glass down, got up heavily from his comfortable chair and without saying a word, went out on to the landing.
He thought even the little staircase bad enough. There were only six steps, but they were both narrow and steep and there was no kind of threshold by the door at the top, which opened awkwardly outwards and nearly knocked him down. Inside the room, he was still more disconcerted by the eight-runged ladder set against the wall at an angle that was formidably acute. Besides, the ladder was extremely dusty, except where Hugo’s hands and feet had touched it, and Justin was wearing his newest suit that afternoon.
The skylight was open, as far as it would go. Very gingerly he climbed the three lowest rungs, put his head out and called, ‘Is anyone there?’ Somewhere in the darkness a voice answered, ‘Help! Come quickly.’ Justin gritted his teeth, completed the ascent and somehow wriggled himself on to the sill, where he found that to turn himself round and get his legs through was a tricky and most exhausting manœuvre. When this feat, too, was accomplished, he had to rest for two minutes till his breathing became more normal.
In front of him rose reassuringly the western gable, but to the right, at the end of the gulley, there was a sickening void. He remembered how, when many years before he had read in Thomas Hardy’s A Pair of Blue Eyes the scene that took place on the ‘Cliff without a name’, he had almost fainted, and the thought of the distress into which that literary peril had plunged him, made his position seem doubly vertiginous.
‘Help! Hurry, or I shall fall!’ Justin’s eyes were now accustomed to the darkness. He looked in the direction of the sound, which came from the open end of the gulley, and saw a white heap in the space between the gables. Forcing himself forward from the sill, he stretched out his long legs till they found a footing on the lead of the gulley, stood upright and walked towards the gap. When he was about two yards away, he trod on Hugo’s torch, lost his balance and fell heavily on to Hugo’s legs. Hugo gave another cry, but the physical contact seemed in some way to revive him; for he stirred, raised himself on his elbow and sat up, bumping Justin’s nose with his head. ‘Oh, it’s Mr Bray! I had cramp in my leg and got dizzy and fell down and daren’t move in case I fell over the edge. Are you all right, Mr Bray?’ Justin said vaguely, ‘I suppose I am,’ then disentangling himself from the folds of Mrs Muller’s table-cloth, he struggled to his feet and put a hand on the slates to steady himself. Then he added, ‘I don’t think I can get you in by myself. I must go for help. Perhaps Mr Fawley is in. He’d find it quite easy. Can you move at all? I don’t like leaving you so near the edge.’
By way of answer, Hugo flexed his leg and got up without any apparent difficulty. ‘The pain’s quite gone. Shall I see what it’s like getting in?’ Without waiting for an answer, he brushed past Justin and hurried to the skylight. He was so short that he couldn’t get his foot on the rung below the sill, till Justin gave him a shove from behind, but from there he climbed quite easily through the skylight and down the ladder inside. A moment later, he saw Justin’s head and shoulders silhouetted against the sky.
Justin found getting in even more laborious than it had been to get out. His muscles trembled and didn’t respond to the instructions given them by the brain. However, as if by a happy accident, he did at last put himself in such a position that he could use the ladder, while Hugo looked on, half anxious and half impatient. As soon as Justin touched the floor with his feet, he made straight for an old-fashioned trunk in a corner of the room, sat down on it and rested the top of his back against the match-boarded wall. Hugo said suddenly, ‘Oh, my torch! I’ve left it behind. I’ll go and get it. I shall be quite all right.’ But Justin said wearily, ‘Don’t be a silly boy. You can go and look for it in daylight to-morrow, if you must, but don’t expect me to come and rescue you, if you get cramp. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a roof before, and I’m certainly never going on one again.’
The effort of speaking seemed to cost him something. Hugo looked with alarm at his greyish face and asked, ‘Shall I get you some water?’, but Justin replied ungraciously, ‘No, go away. Don’t look at me like that. I shall be all right after I’ve had a short rest. Tell Miss Tredennick everything’s all right, and that I’ll be down in a moment.’
Hugo nodded gravely, murmured, ‘Yes, Sir,—and thank you very much for your kindness to me,’ and went down the short stairway. When he reached the landing, he met Magda who was coming up from below. She gave him her automatic glance of fear and dislike, and then, noticing the dust and dirt on his hands, face and clothes, she said, ‘What on earth have you been doing? In any case what are you doing up here?’ He said sullenly, ‘I’ve a message for you to give to Miss Tredennick. Tell her Mr Bray will be down in a moment and that everything’s all right.’ Before she could make further inquiries or protest, he hurried past her down the next flight of stairs. By the time he had reached the basement, all he thought of was Bert’s broken promise.
Justin sat on the trunk in the corner of the box-room, swaying slightly, with his left hand on his chest. He said to himself, ‘I shall be all right very soon. It isn’t as bad as when I chased that woman with the dog. It’s nerves,—only nerves. Dr Jamieson said it was nerves. Too much adrenalin getting into the blood,—or something like that.’
But the pain increased, and he began to realise that he was passing through an experience unlike any other he had had in his whole life. It was terrifying; yet such a rift had developed in his consciousness, that while one half of it struggled with pain and fear, the other half dreamt irrelevantly of being at Cambridge again, as a young man, communing with Frances Cornford, Rupert Brooke, Gray and Horace Walpole in one of the college gardens leading down to the river. The air was warm and moist, and all the birds of early summer were singing in the trees. Why not? Why shouldn’t he go there again as an undergraduate, and read some leisurely subject for a pass degree? How much happier he would be—and how much less lonely—than in Ten Pollitt Place! If only the new novel he was going to write turned out a success,—if only he could make one supreme effort——
His cry, like Hugo’s reached the room below, and this time there was no chatter to drown it. Miss Tredennick and her two friends were talking in apprehensive whispers, while Magda was uneasily clearing away the tea. Miss Tredennick called her as she was carrying a tray into the kitchen, and said softly, ‘Magda, I can’t help fearing Mr Bray has been taken unwell. Will you go to the box-room and see?’
[5]
They found this half-finished letter on Justin’s desk:
New Year’s Eve 10, Pollitt Place, S.W.
I am so grieved and distressed, my dear Lady Victoria, to learn of your abominable accident. I know how brave and uncomplaining you will be, but the pain must be dreadful, and the prospect of three months’ captivity in a room with two unchosen companions is more than I can bear to think of for you. This at least it is in my power to remedy, if only you will let me. I do beg you—if not for your own sake and not for mine—for the sake of my mother, whose memory I know is still precious to you after all these years, to accept the cheque which I enclose. She would never forgive me if I didn’t send it nor should I forgive myself,—despite the rebuffs with which, as you must confess, any little attempts of mine to make life easier for you have met hitherto.
My wants are now very few and will soon be fewer. I have more than enough to see me out, unless some government, resolved on the utter destruction of the rentier, introduces a punitive form of capital levy. And in that case, it will give me great satisfaction to think that before I was ruined, I did at least try to do something for someone else.
I have done so very little for other people in the course of my pampered and self-indulgent life. I used to think that ‘my art’—this sounds as if I were a diseuse or a film-star—justi
fied all my selfishness. I had to enjoy every comfort and be surrounded by beautiful things, if I was to give of my best. In a lazy way, so far as I could, I kept my side of the bargain. I gave of my best,—but it wasn’t good enough.
I had luncheon to-day with George de Lacey. As you know, he has long been both one of my dearest friends and one of my kindest and most encouraging critics. I talked to him of a new book I have been writing for the last few weeks, and asked him for his advice on one or two points. Alas, his advice,—when it came—(I had to drag it out of him, to begin with)—was that I should give up any idea of ever writing another novel. He tried to soften the blow as much as he could. He instanced George Moore (both in his opinion and mine a greater writer than any now living), who is in almost total eclipse, perhaps because he regards his characters not as units in the social organism, but as ends in themselves. I admit, de Lacey suggested other aspects of literature with which I might occupy my declining years. But novels, no! He said, ‘Nowadays, a readable novel has to be an intellectualised strip-cartoon, and that’s a technique which, however hard you try, you will never master.’
I had to agree with everything he said. So, instead of being Justin Bray the novelist, I am now Justin Bray, the elderly man-about-town,—a period-piece, a quaint, pathetic survival.
But how very much too seriously we take ourselves, we would-be ‘serious writers’. Our egotism may not be as gross, uncritical and full-blooded as that of the successful tennis-player or boxer, but in its insidious, introspective way, it is no less poisonous. I read a passage in Hawthorne the other night,—it comes from the introductory chapter to The Scarlet Letter—which impressed me very deeply.
‘It is a good lesson—though it may often be a hard one—for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognised, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.’
The letter broke off at this point, and the cheque, which was to accompany it, was still unwritten.
XVIII
TWELFTH NIGHT
‘Magda,—just one moment. We can talk in here.’
Robert, who was setting out for his work, had met her in the hall. The door of Justin’s sitting-room was wide open, and he went in while Magda followed nervously. The room was already half stripped. The more precious ornaments had been stowed in packing-cases, and the furniture was stacked ready for removal. The rugs had been rolled up and the floor was covered by dust-sheets littered with paper and straw. The pelmets, the thick curtains and the net curtains had all been taken down, and inquisitive passers-by had a clear view of the half empty room. To Magda, who had kept it clean for so long, with all the pride of an old-fashioned servant, its bleakness and disarray seemed strange and inexpressibly sad. But Robert who had only once had the privilege of seeing the room in its glory, noticed no change. Besides, he was far too preoccupied with other matters to feel any sentimental regrets for the breaking-up of a gentleman’s establishment.
He shut the door and said almost peremptorily, ‘Magda, I’ve got to see you this afternoon. I can get off a bit early. Can you be at South Kensington station at half-past five?’
She answered, ‘Yes, I could go there as soon as I’ve cleared away Miss Tredennick’s tea. But I could only be with you till a quarter past six—unless I can arrange with Mother to——’
He shook his head and said, ‘Oh no, I’m afraid Twickenham is out of the question to-night. I’ll try not to keep you more than half an hour.’
Something odd in his voice and odder still in his manner alarmed her, and she longed to ask him for some hint of what he wanted to talk to her about. But he said, ‘Well, I suppose I must be off. Goodbye, my dear.’ He gave her a pat on the arm and she looked apprehensively at the uncurtained window, as if to warn him that anyone outside could see them embracing. But he went straight out. As she watched him walking briskly towards the Crescent, it occurred to her that he might have taken her into Justin’s bedroom at the back, where they could have kissed one another in safety. But perhaps, being unfamiliar with the ground-floor flat, he didn’t know that the bedroom windows faced a blank wall.
Then the front-door bell rang, recalling her to her duties, and she admitted two swarthy black-coated gentlemen who said they had come to appraise Justin’s pictures, which were still hanging in their usual positions. As she hadn’t been told to expect these visitors, she decided she ought to stay and watch them at their task, though there were now very few small objects about such as they could have made away with. Their professional talk jarred on her nerves. ‘My word, the old man wasn’t a fool. . . . It’s funny what a nose these literary blokes have for buying the right stuff. . . . Pity though, he didn’t invest in Klee or Picasso, but I suppose he was too much of a back-number for that. . . . Can’t say I feel very happy about this one. Look at that bright yellow. . . . I should say twelve hundred. I’d give nine, myself. . . .’
At last they put away their lenses, shut their note-books and nodded a curt goodbye. When they had gone, Magda found to her surprise that her eyes were wet, and she realised for the first time how much she had become attached to Justin, in a dull, unadventurous way. His solicitors had told her that by his Will he had left her and her mother a hundred pounds each and twenty-five to Hugo—towards whom her feelings had now grown so bitter that she would have been quite willing to forfeit her own legacy if by so doing she could have deprived him of his.
Since Justin’s death, Mrs Muller, whose superstitious terrors were now finally routed, had never ceased to sing Hugo’s praises and to vaunt his uncanny gift. ‘He sees into a world that is hidden from us. How right my darling boy was! He said—I remember it now—he said in this house—those were the words he used—someone would die in this house before the end of the year. When that woman killed herself on Christmas Eve, I thought he had been just a little mistaken. I hoped and prayed so. It was too terrible to think that it might be one of us. But he was quite right. In this house it was. I’m very sorry, of course, about poor Mr Bray, but the relief—oh, Magda, the relief!’
This theme had become so wearisome that Magda found it intolerable. To hear Hugo, whom she both despised and feared, thus elevated above the common run of humanity, extolled as a saint, a prophet divinely inspired, made her long to speak her mind about him and tell her mother what a little monster she was cherishing. So far she had kept glumly, if prudently, silent. But when the three of them were having their midday meal in the kitchen that day, and her mother turned yet again to the nauseating subject, Magda’s pent up exasperation broke out at last.
She stood up suddenly, with blazing cheeks, and said, ‘For goodness sake, stop it, Mother. Has it never occurred to you, that if Hugo hadn’t disobeyed you and gone upstairs without being sent for by Miss Tredennick, Mr Bray wouldn’t have died? No, I’m going to speak. It’s quite time you knew the truth. Hugo killed Mr Bray—I don’t mean on purpose, of course—but have you ever asked him why he went on the roof?’
Mrs Muller was so dazed by the unexpected attack, that she could hardly answer, but under the compulsion of her daughter’s eyes, she gasped, ‘To look at the view—and see the lights. That was it—wasn’t it, Hugo? You told me that.’
Hugo who had gone very white, said, ‘Yes, I went there to look at the view and see the lights.’
‘That wasn’t all!’ Magda spat out the words, and went on, ‘I’m going to tell you the whole story, whether you like it or not. You didn’t know, I suppose, that he’s got a morbid mania for the dustman—the red-headed one. He can’t leave him alone. He pesters him whenever he comes to the house. He even asked Mr Bray for some cigarettes so that he could pass them on to his precious friend. Or so Mr Bray said. I think myself Hugo stole them.’
‘Magda, how dare you!’
Magda made an angry gesture with her hand and continued, ‘I
think Mr Bray was simply trying to shield him. It would have been far better if he hadn’t. If only he’d sent for the police and charged Hugo with theft and had him imprisoned or put in a reformatory, poor Mr Bray would have been alive to-day—and there wouldn’t have been all this talk of Hugo’s wonderful powers. No, Mother, I’m going on, and you can’t stop me. As for why he went on the roof, it wasn’t to see the lights or the view,—it was to signal to his dustman-friend.’
She paused for a moment, breathless, and her mother said feebly, ‘Magda, what do you mean? I think you must have gone mad.’ But Magda shouted, ‘No, I’m not mad. If anyone’s mad in the family, it’s Hugo. Would you like to know what I happened to hear yesterday, when I was taking down the curtains in Mr Bray’s room? Hugo was waiting in the area, pretending to look at those bulbs he keeps in a box near the coal-cellar door. (He only keeps them there as an excuse for hanging about there. I told him they’d do better in the backyard, but of course he didn’t take any notice of me.) Well, the dustman said, “What’s up with you to-day? Anything wrong?” Hugo didn’t speak and turned away, but the dustman put his hand on the back of Hugo’s head and turned his face round, so that Hugo had to look at him. Hugo said, “I went up to our roof on New Year’s Eve, and waved my torch at you for a long time, but you didn’t take any notice. Then I got cramp and nearly fell over the edge and killed myself.” The dustman said he was a silly boy, and that he’d told him to wave from the box-room window, and not to go on the roof. Hugo said, “Anyway, you wouldn’t have cared if I had killed myself. You didn’t bother to wave back at me. I suppose you were out somewhere enjoying yourself and had forgotten all about your promise.” The dustman said he hadn’t forgotten at all, and waited for Hugo for a quarter of an hour, from eight to a quarter-past. Then Hugo said, “But we said six, not eight,” and began to cry and went indoors to his room. Then I saw the dustman go to Hugo’s window and look in through the bars. I think he was talking to Hugo inside, but I couldn’t hear what he said. But I’d heard quite enough to make me feel sick and disgusted,—just as I feel sick and disgusted when I hear you saying how wonderful Hugo is to have known Mr Bray was going to die. Poor old man! I’d far rather Hugo had fallen off the roof—he’s abnormal, I tell you, abnormal——’
Ten Pollitt Place Page 22