Radcliffe

by David Storey

  Elizabeth was evidently saying good-bye to Tolson, who now began to move off down the road at a brisk pace, calling cheerfully to Leonard and giving a loud, ‘Come on, slowcoach,’ to Blakeley, who immediately hurried after him.

  For a moment it looked as though Leonard would follow too. He called out wildly, ‘Vic!… Vic!’ but Tolson only spun round, waved, and increased his pace down the estate.

  After a moment’s reflection Leonard turned up the rise towards the Place. Elizabeth walked beside him. She was still excited from her recent encounter.

  ‘What made you go inside the church? How did you know I was there?’ Leonard asked as they neared the Place.

  ‘That man. He stopped me. What’s his name? He said you and Vic were in there. The funny thing was, he told me a wedding was taking place!’ She laughed. ‘It was that that made me go in.’ Her laughter seemed to be flung out at the hedges, the road, the houses as some sort of challenge. ‘And there you were. The two of you!’

  After a while Leonard said, ‘What do you think to Tolson?’

  ‘He’s very charming.’ She glanced at Leonard’s sultry face. ‘He’s a kind of heavy-handed knight. It makes a change.’

  ‘Yes!’ he said, surprised, as though suddenly he had realised she was waiting for some sort of response.

  ‘He seems to respect and admire you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She continued to smile at his moody expression.

  ‘You’ll keep away from him, won’t you?’ he added.

  ‘Away? And why?’

  But Leonard didn’t answer. His face burned, his eyes frowning as though resisting the temptation to cry.

  Elizabeth laughed at his bewildered looks. Then she glanced round, slightly flushed. But Tolson was out of sight. The other man, however, who had followed him, was limping heavily round the furthest corner.

  ‘But he’s married, isn’t he?’ she said uncertainly. ‘What’s his wife like?’

  Yet when she turned to repeat the question, she saw that Leonard had already disappeared into the grounds of the Place.

  21

  In the passage children crashed by and further on a second group ran screaming down the main stairs. Leonard stood at his window, looking down into the yard. Groups of people stood talking in the sunshine, waiters moving aimlessly between them with trays of drinks. The secluded square was resonant with sound and colour, the interlacing of sunlight and shade, although, since it was set against the northern flank of the Place, even in midsummer the building’s shadow never quite left it. In the trees which formed the eastern side of the square, mellowing now prematurely with autumn, two blackbirds were calling in agitation.

  Several heads had turned towards the kitchen door. Then, like flowers, more hats and dark crowns of hair slowly rotated in the light. Almost immediately below him Elizabeth had appeared.

  Dressed in a dark blue, flared dress, she wore her black hair swept tightly back from the pale shell of her face. She seemed, in this vertical perspective, like some component of the building itself. There was a slight inclination of her head and a faint flushing of the forehead and high cheek-bones, as though she sensed herself the object of the aching curiosity of these people. She moved from group to group, only finally coming to rest in the furthest corner of the yard, by the outbuildings, where her uncles, Isabel and the Provost, a small and extremely ugly man, were talking.

  It was towards this spot that his father, by a series of introductions to his guests, was gradually making his way. Having reached the group he shook hands with Thomas, then the Provost, and finally asked some question of Elizabeth. He immediately turned towards the building and, glancing up at the shadowed façade, walked quickly over towards the kitchen door.

  Assuming that his father was searching for him, Leonard turned from the window and crossed slowly to his bed. He sat down, moodily waiting. Yet when some time later there was a knock on his door, he looked up in complete dismay. The voice which called out to him was not his father’s but Elizabeth’s.

  As he stood up he glanced hastily around the room and, after a certain hesitation, picked up an object which had been lying beside him on the bed. It was Tolson’s hammer. Staring distractedly about him for a moment he suddenly thrust it into the drawer by his bed and, glancing at himself in a mirror, went to the door and drew back the bolt.

  Elizabeth gazed in at him with an enquiring expression, as if her sudden appearance were due to some remark about her brother which she had now taken the trouble to confirm. She shook her head meditatively.

  ‘Well, they’re all waiting for you.’ Then, recognising something of Leonard’s expression she came into the room. ‘Austen’s sent me up to fetch you. He insists that you come down.’ She added something which was drowned by the sound of children running past the room. She closed the door suddenly. ‘Or don’t you intend to make an appearance? Though you must let them see you. You look tremendous.’

  Leonard was dressed in a dark suit, almost black, and a white shirt. A slim red tie ran down from his throat. He was extremely pale.

  He stood peering at her intently, as though he had in fact asked her a question. When she smiled at him with some curiosity he turned to the window. He glanced back suddenly at the bed, then down at the yard. ‘I feel frightened,’ he said. ‘No, I honestly don’t know why,’ he added, turning round to her as though she had interrupted.

  ‘But I feel nervous. We all do,’ she said, familiar with and undiscouraged by the suddenly childish tone of his voice. ‘My father especially. There are nearly thirty people here. It’s such a big thing.’

  ‘Yes.’ His look returned repeatedly to the window. ‘I noticed all your admirers down there.’

  ‘Are you coming, or do you intend to hide yourself up here?’

  There were shouts from downstairs. Several people strolled past the room. As Elizabeth turned to the door Leonard suddenly caught hold of her arm.

  ‘Liz. Shall I tell you what happened this morning? Just before you got up. The tables and chairs were brought up in a lorry.’ He had begun to smile at her nervously, and to guide her away from the door. ‘Austen had ordered them, of course. I counted them as the men carried them up. Thirty chairs and five trestle tables. And would you believe it? He’d ordered them from Ewbank’s!’

  He was now escorting her round the room as though they were casually strolling round a vast arena. ‘Their famous red lorry was parked at the end of the drive. And there they were. Arguing with my father because he refused to let them dig back the drive so that they could open the gates and bring the lorry all the way up.’

  He had become quite excited, releasing her arm so that he could move more hurriedly about the room.

  ‘But there’s no reason to get so worked up about that.’

  ‘Ah, but you should have seen Tolson. Standing there. Tolson! He’d come with them of course. Quite by chance! Standing there and looking up at the building. It’s amazing. Amazing!’ He laughed suddenly, nodding his head. ‘I’ve seen that look before.’ He glanced wildly at her while still continuing his frantic pacing of the room. ‘You can just imagine how it all seemed. No, of course, I’m forgetting. You won’t see anything suspicious in that. Tolson is simply a benevolent and misunderstood giant.’

  He was now hurrying about the room as though searching for something and yet, by numerous smiling expressions and gestures, at the same time attempting to conceal his intentions from his visitor. He seemed to visit the opposite corners of the room alternately, yet although Elizabeth had never witnessed behaviour such as this before she appeared unperturbed, almost amused.

  ‘You’ve promised, of course, never to see him. God. All these people. They make me nervous.’ He paused to smile at her, and yet perhaps disappointed not to see his eccentricity reflected in surprise on her face. He added hastily, ‘I was watching them all earlier on. From the window, as they came up the drive. Matthew, and that blonde hostess wife. It’s terrible. There he is, all impersonal and digni
fied. Then his wife appears. Crash! He’s naked. Do you realise why the Provost is so ugly? It’s because, by some unfortunate oversight, his face has been provided with sufficient skin to cover one twice its own area. That’s what gives him that importuning look, like someone struggling ineffectually against the onslaught of their own flesh. And there’s Thomas. All the time like someone planted in the very core of hell and yet trying to assure you by his looks that it’s really quite congenial after all. And Alex …’

  ‘Alex is a tornado. Are you coming down?’ Elizabeth had turned to the door. ‘He insists you come down and meet him.’

  ‘But I must tell you the last thing. It’s very remarkable. About Austen.’ Leonard waved his arms as though clearing an imaginary space around him. ‘He was the very first to arrive. He came up the drive like this. Then he paused as he reached the terrace, took off his Homburg, inspected it a moment, then returned it to his head with that little complacent nod, a sweep of his hand which included a casual caress, a brushing of his coat; then, with an expression which suggested indulgence of any sort was somehow displeasing he turned and approached the building, bowed gravely towards it, and using his cane to hold back the branches disappeared round the side.…’

  ‘But what on earth …’

  ‘Then as I stepped back from the window I saw an incredible sight. I thought at first it must have been my imagination. About a dozen of the mill and factory chimneys sticking up out of the valley had more or less simultaneously grown huge black bulbs of smoke. They shot up into the sky and almost immediately disappeared.’

  ‘Oh, Leonard!’ Elizabeth had been about to open the door but a rush of children and people outside made her hesitate, her fingers on the handle. She was laughing.

  ‘I know, it could have a reasonable explanation.…’

  ‘Now come on, you must come down.’

  Leonard was looking at her with a reconciled, perhaps even a bored expression.

  ‘Shall I tell you why we get on so well together?’ he said quietly. ‘I mean, why it is that whatever we say and do together it’s of no importance whatsoever?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘It’s because, unlike everybody else – Austen and my father for instance – you treat me openly and sincerely as a fool. As a simpleton. The odd thing is, if I’m treated like that, as an imbecile, I can understand perfectly what’s going on, what everything means, all the nuances and subtleties of a situation, however sophisticated it may be. Don’t you think that that’s a very strange thing?’

  ‘Perhaps you are a fool, then. A wise fool,’ Elizabeth said, smiling still, yet increasingly impatient.

  ‘No. The strangest thing of all is that I’m not an imbecile at all. I’m not a simpleton. It’s like some perverse disguise I can’t help taking on. And I mean I can’t help it. The moment somebody starts casually talking to me about ideas and abstractions, or the moment somebody makes a direct physical demand which any normal person would respond to in a minute, I immediately become a simpleton. It’s as though I wished it on myself. For example, the other day in the York Room, Austen … You’re looking incredibly beautiful, Elizabeth!’

  This last remark was stated as if it were the only natural conclusion to such a rambling series of thoughts. At the same moment Leonard had started his erratic pacing of the room again, and even began to look up at Elizabeth furtively, as though suddenly suspicious. ‘Tolson, you know, is an absolute monster,’ he said, then a moment later he added in a reluctant voice, ‘There’s a kind of secrecy about me which is completely innocent, a kind of shyness, which nevertheless gives me all the appearances of a cunning and even mischievous man.’

  ‘My God, but don’t you go on! And don’t you see things in yourself? I can assure you, it’s far more than anybody else ever does.’ His sister regarded him with not a little irritation.

  ‘I’m so damned nervous, that’s the trouble today.’

  ‘Nervous. But aren’t we all nervous? After all, this isn’t an everyday occurrence for any of us.’

  ‘I feel frightened.’

  ‘Frightened what about?’

  ‘I feel that Austen and my father expect something from me. But it’s not that I feel frightened for myself. I feel afraid for them.’

  ‘What is it they see … expect in you?’ Yet Elizabeth’s attention seemed to be on a conversation that was now taking place outside the door.

  ‘But who on earth is the old man?’ a voice said.

  ‘But that’s not the most disturbing part,’ Leonard said. ‘The worst thing is that they don’t really understand what it is in me that attracts them.’

  Elizabeth was now opening the door, and beginning to smile as if she were being mocked. ‘And what is it?’

  ‘That they’re all concerned with their own consciences whereas I have no conscience at all. That’s what attracts them so passionately.’

  She burst out laughing, opening the door and even turning her head as if to include in her amusement those who were standing there, and who now momentarily stared directly into the room at Leonard, then began to move uneasily away. One of them was the Provost, who glanced quickly away and blushed before moving down the landing.

  ‘All right, then,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Promise what?’

  ‘I promise. I’ll treat you as a simpleton. Then you won’t feel so uncomfortable down there. Now, are you coming?’

  There was a momentary harshness in her voice which in some way coincided with a particularly clumsy movement of Leonard’s as he came out of his room. It was as if he were emerging yet at the same time determined to go back in. Elizabeth, however, closed the door quickly behind him and they went through into the main part of the building.

  They joined a general movement of people down the main stairs to the hall where a strong light and the sound of excited voices streamed in from the front entrance.

  ‘And where does Victor fit into all this?’ she said as though to fulfil her promise; Leonard was lagging behind.

  ‘It’s very simple. He has a conscience. But all his actions are directed against admitting it. That’s why he can’t forgive me. Why he torments himself. I insist on him having a conscience. The whole time. It’s the one thing that can save him.’

  ‘You sound like a tyrant,’ Elizabeth said without interest. She had been attracted by the sight that now greeted them through the open front doors of the Place.

  A mass of people was assembling in a loose group in front of the portico. A large, red-faced man in a brown check suit, a camera suspended from his neck, was trying to arrange the crowd into two groups on either side of the pillared entrance. Already mounted on the steps between them were the members of the family, including the uncles and the aunts. They were staring suspiciously at the stranger who slowly retreated to the edge of the drive as he peered into the top of the camera. Eventually he hoisted himself onto a block of stone and began to shout at the people at the extreme fringes to move closer in to the steps. There was now a great deal of laughter and shouting, from amongst which Elizabeth’s and Leonard’s names were called several times.

  Elizabeth had in fact emerged into the sunshine at the back of her parents’ group just as Isabel succeeded in encouraging the Provost to join her from the anonymity of one of the flanks, when at the same moment a cry went up for another name which at first was not quite discernible. An elderly figure was being helped slowly up the steps to join the family party. An extremely old man, with a mass of white hair that came forward in a limp shield as far as his eyebrows and whose face was remarkably elongated by a pointed white beard, he seemed scarcely aware either of the surroundings or of what was about to take place. For a while he stood facing the wrong way, gazing into the hallway where Leonard was standing motionless in the shadows, before being turned round to the sunlight and the desperate commands of the stranger with the camera. Although no one amongst the family appeared to recognise the old man, they parted in the middle and allowed him
to stand to one side of John. Stooped forward and trembling slightly he peered round incomprehensibly at the excited crowd below.

  Elizabeth’s appearance had as yet gone unnoticed. She had come to stand several paces to the rear of the old man and was staring out, as though in confirmation of that elderly figure’s gaze, towards the trees that faced this southern façade of the Place. Here, between the gnarled trunks and apparently unnoticed by the crowd, were several people from the estate. Even as Elizabeth watched, more were emerging from the trees to stand silently within the shadows and a moment later to spread out in the space afforded by the drive. Then she recognised Tolson.

  At the same moment Austen and Isabel saw her simultaneously.

  ‘Elizabeth!’

  She was eagerly brought forward into the group and given a place to the left of the old man. He was smiling and gazing out at the trees as though he recognized there something with which at last he was familiar.

  ‘Well, have you brought the hero?’ Alex said, leaning forward from the confusion below. The photographer had come up to the group on their left and was attempting, despite several protests, to push people into place.