by MARY HOCKING
The sitting-room was quiet, perhaps Margaret was also dreaming of a golden childhood; certainly no waves of tension reached me, the atmosphere was peaceful. This was another thing that I remembered, those moments of peace when time was suspended and personality seemed to fall away and one was neither more nor less than the tiny golden particle of dust in a sunbeam. Perhaps we had been sitting here, Margaret and I, at such a moment, mindlessly tired after the morning’s activities. When time reasserted its hold, the members of the family would gather together, drawn as by instinct from the furthermost parts of the house to this room which was always the meeting place. How I had loved this drawing together of the threads, how I had envied the Rouths the joys of family life!
As I thought about this, or rather as I let the thoughts form in my mind, for the effort was scarcely a conscious one, I found myself longing to put the clock back. I looked at Margaret. She was sitting with her arm along the side of the chair, her head turned sideways as she gazed out of the window. As though aware that my attention was now on her she laughed and said:
‘Poor Saul! He can’t make out what has happened. No one is paying any attention to him.’ Saul, who was just outside the window, took up his cue and began to bark. Margaret eased herself back in the chair and closed her eyes.
I looked down at the writing pad. My father would not be expecting a letter. There was no reason to write to him, except that for a long time he had been all that I had in the world and now that this was likely to change I felt sorry for him. He would, of course, be relieved to be rid of the responsibility for me, but he would be left so alone. He had been alone for a long time, he had loved my mother very much and had never recovered from her death. Tears came to my eyes. I pushed the pad away and put down the pen. I would not write just now. But it was not for my father that I was crying; and it was not because of his loneliness that I could not write that letter in which I had meant to introduce Owen. The tears threatened to overwhelm me; I got up quickly and went out of the sitting-room. I went to the bathroom and dashed cold water on my face, then I wandered about, tidying my bedroom, talking to Saul from the window. But it was no use. I was in the grip of panic. I had to get out of the house.
It was nearly twelve o’clock. Nurse McIver was on her way from the surgery to her own house when I came into the street; had she not been coming towards me, I should have hung around waiting for her. As it was, we could meet with every appearance of surprise and pleasure.
‘How did you fare yesterday?’ I asked as we strolled along together.
‘It was rather a trial,’ she said. ‘My brother wanted to know why someone didn’t go out and shoot them all; he gets very worked up about this kind of thing. I try to be tolerant. But I must admit I was grateful to Margaret.’ We had stopped at the gate of her cottage. She said, ‘Do come in and have a cup of coffee, if it isn’t too late for you?’
It was not too late; if she had not suggested it, I should have been forced to make some excuse for getting into the house. As it was, I hesitated decorously and muttered something about her brother.
‘He’s having lunch at the vicarage. He often goes out to lunch. People are very good.’
She opened the door and took me into a small, cluttered sitting- room with cheerful furnishings and a good view of the Downs. I admired the view while she made coffee.
‘How are things at Baileys?’ she asked when we sat down together. The remark was not entirely casual, she sounded as though she wanted to know. I had meant to lead up to it with some subtlety, but this proved to be beyond me.
‘I’m a bit upset,’ I said.
‘I noticed that.’
‘It’s Constance … oh dear… .’ My voice was unsteady and I could not go on.
‘Not just the ballet lessons?’ She gave me a wry smile. Nurse McIver was as sane and well-adjusted to life as Mrs. Routh, but she was not as detached; Mrs. Routh appreciated that other people had difficulties. Nurse McIver sympathized because she had difficulties herself. Her kindly eyes assured me that we all make fools of ourselves at one time or another.
‘You know?’ I asked.
‘I’m friendly with Norah Hunt who runs the riding stables and she is very friendly with Constance.’ She looked at me thoughtfully, she was feeling her way. ‘It’s Dr. Ahmed, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah well, I don’t suppose anything will come of that. He wouldn’t marry an English girl.’
‘Will Constance mind?’
‘I don’t think she will be inconsolable.’
I took a sip of coffee, but it had no effect on the dryness of my throat. I said:
‘He isn’t the first, is he?’
‘I think not.’
I put my cup down. I did not want to talk any more. I wanted to go out into the fields and lie face down on the grass; the desire to press against the earth, shutting out the probing cruelty of light, was very strong. Nurse McIver began to talk about Constance.
‘When she was in her early teens, at a time when she was developing emotionally and physically, she attended a lot of demonstrations, went to camps, met a lot of people. Mrs. Routh has always maintained that this had a broadening effect. Up to that time, she and her husband had always trusted their children implicitly and had believed that if left to themselves they would naturally choose right rather than wrong. What they could not have been expected to foresee was that Constance’s ideas of right and wrong would not be the same as their own.’
‘It all started as long ago as that?’ My despair was distanced and somewhat diminished. ‘At the time when I stayed with them, when we were children …?’
‘When she was fifteen. Do you remember the Crusaders who used to spend summer holidays preaching and singing on the beaches in Brighton?’
‘I remember very well. They had a camp at Cuckmere.’
All those choruses, ‘Wide, wide as the ocean… .’
‘His grace is sufficient for me… .’ Our cheerful voices carrying over deserted beaches in the evening.
‘Constance became friendly with a member of the party. Her parents never suspected anything, at least they never admitted to it, although I have often wondered why Mrs. Routh took that stand about ballet which seemed so out of character.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Don’t look so dismayed.’
‘You didn’t know her as I knew her. To me, she is still the tomboy who dropped our sandwiches in a cow-pat.’
‘Well, there it is. She has had a succession of lovers since then. Love comes easily to Constance. Too easily. I’m old-fashioned enough to be sad about it. She will be the loser. For all our talk about the permissive society, there are still men who do not like a woman to take her relationships quite so casually.’
She had chosen her moment with some delicacy. I responded:
‘Some men are … more fastidious than others?’
‘Yes.’
So. I sat quietly while reason reasserted itself and a little fitful sunlight blinked through cloud and made a brief inconstant shadow play of leaves across the window. I had been in danger of making an issue of something which was best left undisturbed. It is better not to know too much about events which cannot be altered. Constance herself had said that Owen loved me as he had never loved before. The future was mine: who dares ask for more? Apparently, Flora Brett dared ask more, for although it would be nice to recount that I was grateful, in fact I was jealous and resentful of the fact that I was inheriting another’s joy. This grudging reaction betrayed my insecurity and I was mortified. I looked up and saw that Nurse McIver was smiling at me, as though she had always known that I was a very sensible person. I arranged my stiff features in a smile and tried to look sensible. She said:
‘Now, another coffee? No? Then you must let me show you my garden.’
We walked for a while in the garden which had that rambling, unplanned quality which is the charm of an English cottage garden and which takes a good deal of love and hard work to a
chieve.
I walked back to Baileys. It was a sad day; the Downs humped disconsolately into a leaden sky, the air was dank and smelt of mud and rotting leaves, the sunlight was too frail to be relied on. I passed Owen’s house but did not go in because I was not ready for that yet. I imagined him sitting alone, eating his lunch, cheerful and pleased with himself as he had been when I last saw him. This picture aroused a surprising tenderness in me; I wanted to put my arms around him and tell him that he was not to worry. But as he was not aware of any need to worry, this could only have the effect of disturbing his peace of mind. I continued on my way to Baileys, aware that, in spite of the universal sadness, my feelings for Owen Lander were stronger than ever.
Lunch was not an easy meal. The Rouths had had a lot of trials recently, and it was beginning to tell on them. Mrs. Routh looked tired, the skin puckered beneath her eyes, querulous lines etched around her mouth. Mr. Routh was angry because he had heard on his way back to the village that the police had made charges against one or two of the hippies.
‘I feel a personal responsibility for this,’ he began what threatened to be another of his long tirades.
‘My dear, if you feel very strongly about it you must go and talk to the police,’ Mrs. Routh intervened. He looked startled, not used to being cut short so abruptly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I really don’t want to listen to it all through lunch.’
This is the kind of interchange that is common between tired men and women and is of no significance at all; but between the Rouths, who enjoyed sharing each other’s dramas, it was phenomenal. Mr. Routh was disconcerted as a trapeze artist whose partner has lost interest in mid-air.
‘I met Nurse McIver,’ I said, feeling that this was the time for the guest to come to the aid of the party with a little light conversation. ‘She showed me her cottage. It’s charming, isn’t it?’
‘And she’s such a joy,’ Constance backed up. ‘Life hasn’t been too good for her in recent years, and yet she manages wonderfully well.’
Mrs. Routh gave her pork chop a right angle-turn. ‘The poor woman is starved, of course,’ she said, separating meat from bone. ‘But she has it well under control; I don’t think there will be any explosion there.’
One minute we had been admiring a gallant human being, the next we were discussing a case history. Across the table, Margaret met my eyes and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. No one bothered about conversation after that, it was the quietest meal I had ever had in the Routh household. After lunch, Mr. Routh said that he thought he would go to the police station.
‘Wait until I’ve cleared away the lunch things, then,’ Constance said.
‘I’ll walk,’ he said. ‘A long walk will do me good.’
Constance went into the kitchen with a pile of dishes and Mrs. Routh busied herself removing the cloth from the table. He hung around, his eyes on her face.
‘You’re not happy about this,’ he accused her.
‘If you feel you must go, you must go.’ She walked past him into the hall, carrying the table cloth. He followed her.
‘But of course I must go, my dear! We can’t allow these young people to suffer as a result …’
‘Then go, Oliver, go!’
She went into the kitchen, opened the back door and shook out the cloth. He turned to me as I went past him carrying the remainder of the dishes.
‘I’m afraid she’s not very well.’
‘She’s just tired,’ I suggested.
He stood irresolute in the middle of the hall, a ringmaster without a circus. Constance said, in passing, ‘Are you waiting for coffee?’
He said, ‘No, I’m going.’
‘Well, go then, Daddy, go! Otherwise you’ll miss tea as well as coffee.’
‘There are other things besides tea and coffee.’ But by this time she had gone into the kitchen.
Margaret and I put cups and saucers on the trolley ready for tea. While we were doing this the front door slammed. Constance came into the hall and said, ‘Oh dear, I shouldn’t have let him go like that.’
Mrs. Routh joined her in the hall. ‘He really won’t mind the walk. But I suppose we shouldn’t have been so unsympathetic. It’s just that we have enough to think about at present without working ourselves up about anything else.’
Constance said, ‘Darling, Daddy will always be fighting the good fight about something. You should know that by now.’ They went back to the kitchen.
Margaret shut the sideboard door and said to me, ‘Which is another way of saying that he will always be tilting at windmills.’
‘Can’t you love him for that?’
She stared at me.
‘You had a childhood picture of your father as a kind of Galahad, and he isn’t that,’ I persisted. ‘Can’t you love him for what he is?’
‘Love has to be earned.’
‘God help us all then!’ It seemed to me so sad to see them disunited in this way. There is a lot of talk nowadays about the importance of escaping from the bonds of family life, but to me it seems important to maintain these ties, repair the breaches, strengthen the weak supports.
The afternoon passed rather drearily. By teatime Mr. Routh had not yet returned and Constance wondered if she should take the car to meet him.
‘He may have caught the bus back and you will miss him,’ her mother said. ‘I shouldn’t worry, darling. He will feel much better when he has spoken his mind to the police. It will be a kind of catharsis for him.’
We were half-way through tea when he came back. The key turned in the lock and then the door opened and shut, not so noisily as usual; it sounded as though he had taken trouble closing the door. Constance called out, ‘In here, darling. Your tea is poured out.’
He spoke to someone. ‘You must come and join us.’
We looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Mr. Routh came in slowly, followed by Owen. They were a subdued pair. Mr. Routh looked very tired and Owen was as strained as I had seen him. Mr. Routh said, ‘Our good friend here passed me on the way and like the Good Samaritan he is, turned back for me.’
Constance handed them cups of tea.
‘Well, how did you get on?’ Mrs. Routh was briskly interested.
‘Not very well. I think they will charge them.’ He sipped his tea, the usual element of rancour was missing from his voice.
‘Not for anything that happened here, I hope? They didn’t do any actual damage.’
‘No.’ He put his cup down. ‘They asked me a lot of questions.’
‘Questions?’
He looked at his wife. ‘About Timothy.’
‘Timothy!’
‘Oh darling,’ his voice shook. ‘I’m so glad to be back here with you. I can’t understand it… .’
Mrs. Routh gathered her resources together; the weariness, the dull lack of interest, the strain, were ironed out. She was as sharp and alert as ever.
‘Now exactly what happened?’ she asked. ‘What were the questions that they asked you?’
‘They wanted to know where he was.’
‘I see.’ She thought about it. ‘Yes, of course; it was Timothy who came upon the man in the graveyard, wasn’t it? They want him as a witness, I suppose.’
He shook his head. ‘It was more than that. They asked questions about his job in Holland, when he left it, where he went afterwards… . ‘
There was a moment’s silence while we took this in. Constance said indignantly:
‘What cheek! It’s nothing to do with them.’
Mrs. Routh was watching her husband closely. She said, ‘Did they tell you why they were asking this?’
‘All about his sailing …’ his voice shook with anger which this time seemed strangely simulated, as though he was trying to put power into a flagging machine, ‘as if a young man can’t have any innocent pleasures!’
‘Oliver! What did they actually say?’
‘They wouldn’t say much,’ he muttered, his gaze averted.
/> ‘But they must have said something.’
‘Something about following up links… .’ He was vague, it was plain that he had deliberately failed to understand what was said to him at the police station. I felt myself going cold. Constance’s face was white. Only Margaret, sitting looking down at her quietly folded hands, appeared to be unaffected by the situation. Mrs. Routh looked at Owen. She could not press her husband any further and for once she appealed for Owen’s help. He took up the cross-examination.
‘You mean they tried to link him with this smuggling racket?’ It was brutal, but at least it had results.
Mr. Routh made a movement of his head which could have been affirmation or denial. He began to speak with genuine anger, ‘Just because a young man wears his hair long and leads a vagabond existence, because he belongs to the younger generation, the off-beat generation, the generation that has refused to accept values and established standards, that refuses to conform to out-dated codes of behaviour, and that is, therefore, open to all kinds of abuse and calumny … simply because of the existence of such a young man in this village, it must be assumed that he …’