The Feast

by Margaret Kennedy

  Better than his mother, she was going to say. But she checked herself and substituted:

  ‘Better than you think.’

  ‘Then I wonder you didn’t break away before. Oh yes … your promise to your mother. I forgot.’

  Gerry mused awhile and then said:

  ‘But what about your promise to your mother?’

  Evangeline thought this rather tactless. She said hastily:

  ‘I haven’t left him. It’s he who won’t keep me any longer.’

  ‘I know. But you’d have married me and left him whatever he said, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘Then aren’t you a little inconsistent?’

  ‘No!’ said Evangeline, sharply.

  He should have observed a danger signal, but he knew very little about women. He persisted:

  ‘Yesterday you said you couldn’t marry. To-day you say you can.’

  ‘I never said I couldn’t marry.’

  ‘You said you couldn’t leave your father. That implied you couldn’t marry.’

  ‘I don’t see. I think it’s you who are inconsistent. Last night you begged me to marry you. Now you are discouraging me.’

  ‘I? Discouraging you? Oh Angie!’

  ‘You’re saying I shall be inconsistent if I do. You’re making out I’m wrong. Of course, if you think I’m wrong to marry you, we’d better …’

  ‘I don’t! I don’t! I don’t! I only think you were wrong before. I think you were wrong to make that promise.’

  ‘Oh I see. I’ve got to be made out wrong somewhere.’

  ‘Angie, my sweetest, don’t be so angry.’

  ‘Well, why are you so anxious to make me say I was wrong? I don’t insist on making you say you were wrong when you changed your mind about whether you could marry.’

  ‘But I have been wrong,’ said Gerry. ‘Not when I changed my mind. But before. I see that now. Half my troubles were my own fault. I liked being a martyr. Duff and Robin have been so decent … they’d have been decent before if they’d had the chance. I never gave them the chance. I preferred to be self-sacrificing and superior.’

  ‘Christians,’ said Evangeline, huffily, ‘are supposed to be self-sacrificing.’

  ‘Yes. But it isn’t right to encourage people to behave badly, just in order to be a noble victim. That’s not returning good for evil. It’s merely helping them to go to hell.’

  ‘Well, I can’t see what good it does you, sitting about and saying you were wrong. Surely we’ve enough difficulties in front of us, without fussing about that.’

  ‘I’m not fussing. Oh darling! Don’t let’s quarrel.’

  He looked so doleful that she relented and smiled at him. The subject was dropped. But the first edge had been taken off his happiness, for he realized that there were some things which she would never understand. She was a woman, he thought; and women are curiously limited.

  So that he was surprised when she said abruptly, on their way back to Pendizack:

  ‘Of course I was wrong before.’

  He had been talking about Kenya, and he did not for a moment grasp her meaning.

  ‘My promise to mother was all humbug. I oughtn’t to have made it or kept it. I stayed with father out of … out of cowardice and morbidness … like a sort of illness…. I wanted the worst to happen … I was wicked. I was awful.’

  ‘Then why were you so annoyed when I …’

  ‘I couldn’t see any point in talking about it.’

  ‘I wanted to know how you felt,’ he explained. ‘Don’t you think it’s nice to know everything about each other?’

  ‘Not a bit. If you knew everything about me you wouldn’t want to marry me.’

  Gerry protested vehemently. This confession had lifted the shadow on his spirits.

  ‘Every new thing I learn about you,’ he assured her, ‘makes you more sweet and more dear.’

  Evangeline smiled. But she decided to hold her tongue about the powdered glass in the pillbox, rightly believing that Gerry would find it neither sweet nor dear. Whatever she had been, she knew that she was now a very nice woman and exactly the right wife for him.

  ‘So we will always tell each other everything,’ decided Gerry happily.

  ‘Darling Gerry! I do love you.’

  ‘If only my mother would take it better!’

  ‘Let’s go and find her,’ suggested Angie, ‘and see if there is anything we can do for her.’

  They marched cheerfully back to the hotel and into the kitchen where they found Miss Ellis, Nancibel and Fred gathered round Mrs. Siddal, who was lying on the floor with an ashen face and closed eyes.

  ‘Fainted,’ explained Miss Ellis.

  ‘Went down like a sack of coals,’ said Fred. ‘I was in the scullery and I heard a peculiar noise, but I never thought to go and see. Sounded more like a sack of coals.’

  ‘She was laying there when I came in,’ said Nancibel, who was splashing water on Mrs. Siddal’s face. ‘Don’t know how long she’d been there. Why should sacks of coal start falling about? You might have looked, Fred.’

  ‘Heart most likely,’ said Miss Ellis. ‘I’m not surprised. I always thought she was a bad colour.’

  Mrs. Siddal opened her eyes and looked at them all with dislike.

  ‘I have fainted,’ she informed them, with a certain triumph.

  While restoratives were applied she pondered upon this achievement with satisfaction. For it was a proof that Gerry’s engagement had really been the last straw. It had broken her down and finished her, so that all of a sudden, while she was rolling pastry, the floor rose up and hit her.

  ‘I shall go to bed,’ she told them.

  ‘You’ll certainly go to bed,’ said Gerry, who was feeling her pulse, ‘for the rest of the day.’

  ‘There will be no lunch, and no tea and no dinner,’ she continued. ‘Nobody will get anything to eat. What you will all do, I don’t know. You’d better get Miss Wraxton to cook for you.’

  This was meant to spread alarm and dismay. It should bring home to them their utter dependence on her. But Gerry did not seem to understand. He was nodding in a reassuring way.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Angie shall cook.’

  ‘And I can show her where everything is,’ put in Nancibel.

  Gerry put an arm round his mother and helped her to her feet, urging her not to worry about anything.

  ‘I don’t worry,’ she said coldly. ‘I’ve worried enough. I’ve decided to leave off worrying. It’s everybody else who will have to worry now.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Gerry heartily. ‘If only you’ll really do that.’

  He propelled her upstairs to her bedroom. She sat down upon her bed and delivered a broadside.

  ‘I’m going to give up the Hotel. It’s too much for me. I can’t go on. I did it for Duff and Robin. But I can’t educate them without help. So, if you want to get married it’s no use my going on. They talk very cheerfully about getting on without you. But they take me for granted … that I’ll go on working for them. It’s me they’ll have to do without. Somebody will have to keep me and your father. I’ve kept you all long enough.’

  ‘You take a good long rest,’ Gerry assured her, ‘and you’ll feel quite different. Angie will stay as long as you like and do all the cooking. And I believe Mrs. Paley will lend a hand, and so will the boys. We’ll manage beautifully.’

  She said no more but went to bed, determined to stay there until they had learnt their lesson.

  4. Miss Ellis to Miss Hill

  … Well Gertie, four days gone by and I have not finished this epistle—but I must hurry up and finish it now because I am leaving here as soon as I can. I would go to-day only I have no place to go, only my sister, and I do not want to go there if I can find anywhere else. She keeps writing and writing pretending she wants to make it up. Says would I like a nice holiday at Frinton! I see myself there doing all the washing-up most probably.

  Gertie I found a letter.
They threw it on the boiler stove but it was not burnt. It quite upset me till I had thought it over. Somebody writing from the Government or something to say this house is not safe, because the cliff might collapse any time especially if it is a dry Summer. Well, this is a dry Summer. I was so upset I went up and packed my boxes. But then I thought you can’t trust anything the Government says, always interfering, you can’t put up a bicycle shed without a permit. And if it is true, they would have done something. She would not keep her darling boys in a house that was not safe.

  But I should laugh if it turned out to be true. Fancy all these people paying six guineas a week for the chance of having half Cornwall fall on top of them one fine day! If some of the guests could have seen that letter I bet there would be a few rooms vacant. For two pins I would tell them just to see their faces. But some people are funny because I did just drop a hint to one woman staying here, it is a big party—4 children—they have all the best rooms. I would have thought she was the sort that could not get out quick enough after what I told her. But no! All she asked was please would I say nothing to her husband. More than asked. Gave me a pair of nylons. Because she thought the said husband might get the wind up and take them all away, so she would have to get out of bed which she has decided not to do, due to some funny business with the police. I suppose she just can’t imagine anything unpleasant happening to her! Well, I said, it is your look out not mine. For I am going. I only spoke because I thought it was my duty.

  I keep writing and writing for jobs but I cannot get anything. I read in the paper about 6 months ago that they could not get enough wardresses for the prisons. So I wrote in about it. The pay is not so good but I felt it was a job I would not mind somehow. Any way it would be me pushing other people about and not others pushing me. But if you will believe me they sent a form for me to fill and one of the things was I had to have reached Matriculation standard at school. Fact! What does anybody want with matric in that job?

  This is a rotten world Gertie and that is the conclusion I have come to. I do not mind how soon this house falls down once I am out of it but I expect it is only the Government making a fuss. Will send you my next address when I know what it is….

  5. Symposium

  The plans for the Feast matured rapidly under the belated but vehement patronage of Hebe. Her suggestion of Fancy Dress, discouraged at first by Mrs. Paley and Angie, was received with so much enthusiasm by the Coves that the adults had to give way. She had also lent her paint-box and her Indian ink to the Coves, offering them much advice about the wording and decoration of their invitation cards. She devised costumes for everybody and was much put out when she learnt that Nancibel and Fred intended to appear as Carmen and a Toreador, because she had planned that all the grown-up people were to be characters from Edward Lear. She drew up a programme, a copy of which was to be handed to every guest when he received his invitation card. And she founded a new Society.

  During dinner she informed Sir Henry that he was to be dressed as My Aged Uncle Arly.

  ‘I’ll make a cricket,’ she said, ‘to stick on your nose. And a ticket to stick in your hat. Your boots ought to be too tight; it says at the end of every verse: And his boots were far too tight. But you needn’t. It would be so awkward, climbing the cliff. You must just pretend they’re too tight. Walk lame.’

  ‘But what are you talking about?’ complained Sir Henry. ‘Who is Uncle Arly?’

  ‘A Lear character. Everyone has to be a Lear character. All the grown-ups. Mrs. Paley is going as the Quangle Wangle. Angie has made her a marvellous hat, perfectly huge, with a lot of little animals dancing on top. Nobody knows what the rest of the Quangle Wangle looked like, because the picture only shows his hat. But we think sort of green and skinny, so she’s going to wear an old mackintosh of Duff’s. Gerry and Angie are Mr. and Mrs. Discobolos. Duff is the Pobble who had No Toes. Robin has made himself a lovely nose with an electric torch in it. He’s the Dong with the Luminous Nose.’

  Sir Henry learnt all this with growing dismay. He had heard the children discussing the Feast at every meal but he had been so much preoccupied with his own troubles that he had not paid much attention, and had failed to realize that a personal appearance was expected of him. His contribution to the funds had been generous and he felt that no more should be required.

  Many people at Pendizack thought this, and were now regretting their impetuous benevolence. When first told of it they had offered money or sweet points, supposing that such a plan could only concern the children. Fred and Nancibel might be included, since the lower orders are believed to have a childish turn of mind, but no adult patron of the Feast intended to sit on damp grass, drinking lemonade, in the middle of the night.

  Mrs. Paley had been the first convert. She had realized that she must go to the Feast—that patronage was not enough. She must participate as a guest. For the whole scheme was intended to give pleasure to the Coves, and they wanted guests rather than sweet points. To refuse their hospitality would be insensitive and ungracious. She said as much to Gerry and Angie, who had hoped to cry off. She said it to Duff, who was flatly refusing to dress up as a pobble. She convinced them all that they must turn up, just as the little Giffords were now endeavouring to convince Sir Henry.

  ‘But you must come,’ cried Hebe. ‘Everybody has got to come.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Caroline.

  ‘What don’t I understand?’

  Caroline glanced across the room at the table where the Cove family was silently eating stewed plums. She leaned towards her father and said in a whisper:

  ‘It’s a forgiveness party. To show we haven’t quarrelled with the Coves, in spite of yesterday. Hebe is trying to make up for what she did.’

  Sir Henry could not hear very well, and her whispering tickled his ear, but he got the gist of it and nodded.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I don’t promise to stay very long, but I’ll show up for a bit. Are these brooches you’re wearing anything to do with it?’

  Every Gifford wore a brooch consisting of a safety-pin, a sprig of lavender and a round label with the letters C.C. And he remembered that Fred had worn the same mystic badge on the lapel of his white waiter’s coat.

  There was a short silence and the twins giggled.

  ‘It’s a Society,’ said Michael.

  ‘Not another?’

  The Spartans had been forcibly dissolved after the catastrophe at Dead Man’s Rock.

  ‘You can belong to it if you like,’ said Hebe. ‘Fred and Nancibel and Robin have been enrolled. The emblem is a sprig of lavender. And the object is something you would approve of. But we can’t tell you about that now.’

  She rolled her eyes towards the Coves’ corner.

  ‘Anyone who is interested in the liberation of oppressed persons can join,’ she added.

  Caroline whispered once more:

  ‘C.C. is Cave Cove.’

  ‘Cav-ee,’ admonished Sir Henry. ‘Latin. Two syllables.’

  ‘But that would spoil it,’ objected Hebe. ‘Unless we give two syllables to both words.’

  She muttered cavee covee under her breath, disliked it, and said, with decision:

  ‘We shall say cave.’

  He smiled at her dictatorial air, and then he frowned uneasily. Hebe’s character was coming to be a matter of serious concern to him. He thought that she might be going to give a lot of trouble, both to herself and to other people. She needed skilful management. And from whom was she to get it? From Eirene, to whom he should presumably abandon her if their home was really to be broken up?

  Why should the children be obliged to live with Eirene when he could not? This question had nagged at him all day, when he was not fuming over the evaporation of the dollar loan, or reading a verbatim report of last night’s broadcast in four different newspapers. Neither preoccupation alleviated the other. No dollar resources could have solved his domestic problem. And after reading a fourth adjuration to be strong and very
courageous he felt tempted to fly with Eirene to Guernsey.

  He had had no chance to discuss the national news with anyone else, but when he went into the lounge after dinner he found that an animated conversation had broken out, in which even Mr. Paley and Mrs. Cove were taking part. His wife, bored with her bed, had come down in a decorative house-coat to lament the fate of her country. Miss Ellis occupied her customary sofa. Mr. Siddal had shuffled in from his boot-hole. Only Mrs. Paley and Miss Wraxton were absent; they were busy in the kitchen.

  An indignant lament was in progress. Everybody seemed to be very angry. They were saying many things which Sir Henry himself had thought during the course of the day, but with which he now began to disagree. For he was a Liberal—the kind of Liberal which turns pink in blue surroundings and lilac at any murmur from Moscow.

  In Pendizack lounge he inclined to pink.

  He sat down beside Miss Ellis who was looking happier than usual as though she, alone, had found something to please her in the news. She said, with a sort of repressed glee:

  ‘They’ll have to go short now!’

  ‘Who will?’ he asked.

  ‘Everybody,’ said Miss Ellis.

  ‘Including you,’ snapped Mrs. Cove, who had overheard.

  ‘Oh, I’ve always had to go short,’ said Miss Ellis.

  ‘You’ll go shorter now,’ prophesied Mrs. Cove.

  ‘That bit,’ Mr. Siddal was saying, ‘about enjoying ourselves in the sunshine was particularly rich.’

  ‘Perhaps now … perhaps now …’ breathed Lady Gifford.

  ‘Not a hope of it,’ mourned Mr. Paley. ‘They’ve never lost a by-election.’

  ‘Why should they?’ asked Mrs. Cove. ‘Most of the voters belong to the so-called working class to whom they are handing out our money. They’ll stay in till it’s all been spent on nylons and perms and peaches and pineapples. And when it’s all gone it won’t matter what party gets in.’

  ‘This country will starve,’ boomed the Canon, ‘and serve it right.’

  There was a sigh of assent from the entire room. Sir Henry felt himself slithering leftwards.