“You want the top damper out,” said Beluncle.
“I don't understand it,” said Ethel.
“I remember,” said Beluncle, “a wonderful piece of beef I had at the Waverley. Was it the Waverley? When I w'as travelling for Milders and Spoons, just before we started in business; but if you want mutton the Welsh are the best places. I used to know the chef at the Hotspur and he used to say to me, 'We heard you were coming, Mr Beluncle. I've got the nicest piece I've seen in twenty years. Tonight you can be kind to yourself.' “
“What?” said the grandmother.
Leslie sat beside her and acted as her telephone.
“He said you starved him when he was a boy,” said Leslie. “He never got a decent meal until he went to an hotel”
“Eh,” said the grandmother, enjoying this irony. “I fed him on the best. The best Mr Battle ever had. “I want the best, Mr Battle,' I used to say, and he used to say, 'Mrs Beluncle, you know I keep it for you and I know it won't be spoiled in your hands, there are some in this town I wouldn't sell it to.' “
“They wouldn't sell you the best,” Leslie called to his mother. “Look how she's putting it away.”
“Leslie!” said Beluncle.
“If you've got a good range,” said Ethel, with a tact uncommon in her, “that's the whole thing in a nutshell.”
“How much did you burn on that old Cromwell we had at home?” said Beluncle to his mother.
That was another safe subject. They could now go on to soft coal, hard coal, boiler nuts, gas coke and anthracite, with diversions to steam coal, large coal, slow coal and the price of it, which was cheaper in which year. And from there, the question of grates was taken up. Open grates, closed grates, boilers, old kitcheners and new ovens, wicked great things that ate it up like ships, furious small things that roared like engines. And the grandmother recalled older grates and open grates and spits, and “some” she knew (dangerously leaving the subject) had fires in their bedrooms Mr Beluncle supplied prices, tonnages, measurements, figures of consumption and speculated upon them, worked out what a ten-roomed house used, or a house like Lady Roads's which had thirteen bedrooms and four reception rooms, and contrasted this with the consumption of several large hotels, going all over England for examples.
“Grandmamma has got something on her mind,” said Leslie.
Mr Beluncle stopped and the old lady said:
“Your father always sorted the coal into sizes and stacked it in the cellar with his own hands. It looked beautiful, as neat as a brick wall, it was a shame to touch it. And we had to be careful,” she said, with a malicious look at Ethel, “not like some in London that throw it on with a bucket.”
“Wearing a man's life out for a bucket of coal,” said Ethel.
“Mother doesn't look so well,” said Beluncle.
“Did you see what she ate?” said Leslie.
“You said she didn't look well before. I don't feel well,” said Ethel.
“I doubt if she'll last till Christmas. The money's safe,” said Leslie.
“Now then, Leslie,” said Beluncle.
“What did he say?” said the grandmother.
“I said Christmas is coming,” said Leslie.
“Eh, I always do well at Christmas,” said the grandmother.
“You bet you do. You'd raise hell if you didn't,” said Leslie.
“Leslie, I won't have language,” said Beluncle. “And you mustn't say things. It's not kind. …”
” 'It's not necessary, it's not Christian,' “ the boy quoted. “ 'It's not God-protected, God-directed'-but someone has got to find the cash.”
Everyone smiled, even Beluncle smiled, at Leslie. The youngest of them, he seemed much the older, much older than his nervous brothers. Leslie was the privileged one and all listened to him with relief when he brought out the scandals of the family. How Mr Beluncle had already got possession of some of his mother's money and was now preparing to get his sister's share, how Mr Beluncle helped himself to money from everyone he met, and so on. Mr Beluncle was defeated by his son: he laughed uncomfortably. Ethel watched her husband as every dart went home. George grinned vacantly, delighted to see his God destroyed before his eyes. Only Henry sat cold and reserved and unsmiling, angry that shameful things should be publicly said.
“I am an intellectual,” he said to himself. “I must get out of this. To think that no one in this house has read Anatole France.”
“What's the matter with Henry?” Beluncle said.
“Nothing,” said Henry.
“I thought,” said Beluncle, “there was. You looked a$ though you were thinking. As though you had thoughts. Great thoughts, I have no doubt. Tell us the thought for today. From Shakespeare or something. Don't keep it to yourself. Be sociable.”
George was delighted to see his elder brother attacked.
“I never have a great thought,” said Henry coldly.
“A pity. I thought you could enlighten us,” said Beluncle.
The sunlight made tall triangles on the porridge-coloured wallpaper close to the windows and caught the corners of the oak mantelpiece, picking out the brown ornaments with the Scottish proverbs upon them. The dining-room of the Beluncles was used by Mr Beluncle alone during the week, but on Sundays the family moved there. Some of the furniture in this room was too large and each piece represented a crisis in the early financial life of the family. There was a piano which had been the subject of a writ. Pressing calls, angry letters, a solicitor's threat, had pressed around the sideboard. For a year or two the carpet lay like a lawsuit: Beluncle had said it was “on trial” or “on approval”. The dining-table of black oak had been unsaleable in one of Mr Beluncle's misfortunes, and had remained like a black sheep in the family, almost sacred because it had turned out not to be an asset. Other pieces of furniture came from Mr Beluncle's furniture factory, and it was understood that, technically, the chairs-he made chairs-were not part of the home, but were on loan from the directors of the business, who, he conveyed, were always enquiring about them. To Mr Beluncle the furniture of the house was, in a poetical sense, stock and his most common remark was “Be careful with it. It may have to go back.” This gave the Beluncles the sensation that their home was a warehouse and the furniture insubstantial-it might vanish or land them in the courts-and, on the other hand, that Mr Beluncle was their real furniture, his conversation their carpet, his anger their utensils, his person their armchairs. They were sitting, treading, reclining on him and this was an emotional experience. He himself regarded his home indifferently. The happiest years of his life had been spent in large commercial hotels, and when he bought furniture, he bought it unconsciously for one of them. His highest praise for any object was that it was “too large”.
Henry ate little and kept his eyes on the things in the room. Half-way through every Sunday meal, doubt appeared in his mind. If God did not make Evil, where did Evil come from? Ever since he had openly declared his belief in the Purification he had begun to doubt it. Lady Roads had opened her large eyes upon him, Colonel Johnson had asked him to tea, Mr Phibbs had told him Evil was all in the class system, Mary Phibbs had said her father knew. In vain: Henry was still dogged by the sense of evil, by the reality of pain, the conviction of sin.
“Henry,” said Ethel, now that her husband had stopped questioning him. “Henry. Eat up. What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” said Henry.
“If Henry thinks he's being superior by not eating, that is where he is wrong,” said Beluncle. “Digs at thirty shillings a week will make him thin. He'll soon come running back.”
“Have you been at him?” said Ethel, who was out for justice for her sons.
“No,” Henry answered quickly, seeing that his father, refreshed by food, was ready for dispute.
“Prig,” said George, under his breath.
“I may have been giving Henry advice, but he doesn't want his father's advice. Oh, no. His father's an old fool. When I was nineteen I thought my father a fool.”
“Well,” said Beluncle, “we needn't be vulgar.”
“Henry wants to go out,” said George, not wishing a quarrel to be lost in his mother's reminiscences.
“I thought you settled that,” said Ethel. “You Beluncles are worse than dogs at a bone. Thank God we were not brought up like that. Let him go out. You were young once.”
“Yes, and I should like to be young again,” said Belunclq earnestly. “I would appreciate my father as I didn't do; no, I didn't appreciate my father enough. And now he's dead I regret it. A thousand times I regret it.” And Mr. Beluncle with emotion raised the corner of his table napkin to his eye. “Henry knows as well as I do that if his love of his father means nothing to him, there's nothing to stop him going out, And, by the by, youth and age: I'll give you a thought there. It's in your own consciousness, as a man thinketh in his heart so he will be, if he thinks he's old then he will be old. A man believes he is young and he is young. Your grandmother-take your grandmother …”
The old lady, having eaten, was now asleep. They had sat long at the table and she looked, under her glasses, like a pale, little stuffed frog.
“She thinks she is seventy-seven. The world thinks she is seventy-seven. That belief is pinned on to her. But what is seventy-seven? Just an expression. Two figures. Seven and seven. It might just as well be six and six. That's all there is to it. I met a man yesterday who was eighty-four,” said Beluncle genially.
“Well, come to the point,” said Ethel. “Remember I'm stupid. I never had any education.”
“Henry,” said Beluncle, pushing his chair back, stretching out. his legs and tenting his fingers, “Henry is young. Henry is sentimental. Henry, I have no doubt, thinks he's ii” love. He may think he can deceive me, but he can't deceive me. I am not a fool. I keep my ears and eyes open. Does he tell his father? Does he make his father his friend? Does he try to be close to his father? Does he ask his father to share his thoughts, his secrets? No! Henry doesn't want to be close. Isn't that so?” He paused.
.”Henry deceives. It is not his father's business.”
“I'll never forget the row when you told your father you was in love,” said Ethel, “with that silly girl in the chemist's shop. And what about me?”
Beluncle wagged his head patiendy, waiting for her to end.
“My father did not have the understanding.”
The blood made a dark cloud on Henry's face and anger dried his mouth.
“I'm not in love, I'm not in love,” shouted Henry. “I tell you I am not.
“I wish I were,” he cried out.
“I wish I could be in love,” he said. “You do not love mother, you told us this morning….” But tears filled Henry's eyes, he was choking with sobs he could not govern. To his astonishment no quarrel started. The rest of the family were silent, watching him with fear, with curiosity and with a peculiar pride. His mother looked sternly at him with the ironical amusement of a young girl, and even tidied her hair at the back as she did so.
“Grandmamma doesn't give a …” said Leslie.
“Leslie!” said Ethel, stopping him.
Beluncle gazed at Leslie and forgave him.
“That is not,” he said (but he was not referring to anything in particular), “what we are taught by the Science of Purification.”
And being launched on this, enlarged upon it, his pleasant deep voice rumbling on like a bluebottle in the room, going round and round. Love was Divine, he said. Love was getting up when you are called, not making a mess in the bathroom, coming when you are sent for, being prompt, punctual, tidy; not shutting yourself up unsociably with books, keeping the garden tidy, doing your job properly, getting to know nice people, seeking first the kingdom of Heaven, respecting the home, not kicking the furniture….
The tears dried and burned on Henry's face. “Burned dry the wandering Beduin,” he was thinking, “with gazing eyes”: only words came to his mind. “Wandering”, “gazing” -were those the best words? He gave in before the warm waves of Beluncle's voice and was carried listlessly to the centre of his father's affairs.
“It is no use saying we cannot love, for love is God and we are all like Him. When I go to my factory and make furniture, to mortal sense I seem to be making wardrobes, armchairs, and so on, but really I am spreading love.” Mr Beluncle raised his short heavy arms and was himself struck by the luxuriousness of his soft pink hands which seemed to smooth the very air. “And the more I spread love, the more orders I get, and it's right for me to have orders because orders are giving love. It is not money we want, it is love.”
“What I can't understand,” Ethel said, “is why you had such a bad year last year.”
“That is where you show your lack of understanding, if you will allow me to say so,” said Beluncle. “If you had more understanding you would not speak of last year as a bad year. We live in an eternal now.”
“Ah, now, now, now,” the word drummed on Henry's brain. “Now the wandering Beduin …”
“Oh, talk English. You mean I'm ignorant,” said Ethel. “I am. An ordinary school, St. Mary's, Church of England, till I was thirteen and then I was apprenticed. I can't talk, but I know the difference between sixpence and a shilling.”
“It's sixpence,” said Leslie, and Ethel looked frightened when he said this.
“Your mother is talking,” Beluncle said. “Let her finish what she has to say.”
“Oh, it's of no importance what I have to say,” said Ethel, looking sideways, and speaking to the top of the curtain pole. “I thought you had a bad year last year, but perhaps my hearing is going wrong. Gran suffered from her ears too. You had to have that money from grandmamma here because it was bad. It's all right as long as it's straight.”
“It's all right. Carry on,” Leslie said. “Grandmamma's well away.”
“It looks to me that Divine Love means someone puts up the money,” Ethel said.
Beluncle's rosy face became pale in patches and he looked stern.
“You've finished, I hope,” said Beluncle. “You have told us what is on your mind.”
“No, I haven't,” said Ethel. “I've never finished. I never shall.”
“Well, women have to have the last word,” said Beluncle amiably. “My father used to say, I can see him saying it, in our kitchen, he must have been my age-that's funny when you think of it-he used to say a man's betrayers are in his own home, those you think love you are the ones who wound you, strangle you, it seems that where you'd think there would be gratitude, the carnal mind tries hardest to put most hate. He used to say to mother there 'May God forgive you, you wicked woman.' I have heard him, after they'd been having words.”
No one answered this, but all gazed at grandmamma. They could see the small stone house where she used to live, with a monkey puzzle in front of it like a moustache. The smell of the house came back to them. To Ethel the smell of soap from a scrubbed table, to the boys the smell of country bacon and the deep, hanging odours of fruit and of damp in the parlour; there was a smell that seemed to come from the tropical leafage and flowers of the country carpet. However far back they went, from father to grandfather, from grandfather to great-grandfather, there was God in their family, sitting obdurate in one room of the house and saying to their guilty minds: Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.
Henry gazed across to the window and to the short lime trees. The wind was playing on the leaves, turning them from shade to sun, from pale to dark; brushed like a bird's breast. In places he could see small changing tears of sky. Gone three o'clock, how long they sat! He imagined himself on some country common and fitfully his imagination tried to bring Mary with him, but she was always dropping back on the road and vanishing while he, consuming his freedom, went on. There was only himself. After his shout and hi
s tears, his body seemed to be bruised and his throat ached.
George was thinking: now he has done, he has finished everything, he has reduced them all. There is only himself and myself left, we can go away and forget them all. I don't mind what he says to me, what he does to me. He looked appealingly at his father and Beluncle frowned and parted his lips in rebuke. George smiled a little, looking forward softly to the attack.
But it did not come. Leslie straightened lazily in his chair.
“Listen,” he said.
“What?” said Ethel.
“Someone at the gate,” said Leslie.
“Silence,” said Beluncle. “Listen.”
They heard the heavy green wooden gate being shaken.
“Someone trying to get in,” said Ethel.
“Lady Roads,” said George.
“Did you bolt that gate as I asked you?” Beluncle asked. “A quarter past three, what an hour to call.”
“We sit and sit,” said Ethel.
“They're still shaking it,” said Leslie.
Beluncle got up and gave quick orders.
“Is the front door shut? What about the kitchen door? No one is to go to the windows. Sit still.”
All were now standing except the grandmother. They were stopped by Beluncle's contradictory orders.
“Talk quietly,” said Beluncle. “Now, quickly, quietly, clear these things away.”
Each one took plates or glasses from the table and hurried from the room with them.
“What about her?” said Leslie, pointing to the grandmother.
“Let mother sleep,” said Beluncle. “Confound you. Can't you move quietly?”
A madness had seized the Beluncle family. Each, as he dashed with a plate to the kitchen, was astonished by the frenzy of the other. Why is he rushing about like a lunatic? So their eyes taunted one another. A half laugh of hysteria was on their lips. Any moment we may be caught, we may be exposed, the whole pack of cards will come down. In the room, giving orders, estimating the sleep of his mother, peeping through the curtains to see if the gates were still shaking, Mr Beluncle said, as each member of the family came back into the hot room:
Mr. Beluncle: A Novel (Modern Library Classics) Page 11