As she sat by the broken window in Mrs Truslove's house and saw the curtain move in the draught, Mrs Johnson could not conceal from herself a rising sense that justice was beginning: Hetley was attacking.
Mrs Johnson got up from her chair and went to bed. She did not wait for Mrs Truslove to come home. In the morning when she carried in the sisters' breakfast she did not speak. After breakfast she cleared away the things and Mrs Truslove said to her:
“What happened last night, Mrs Johnson?”
A roar of conversation came from Mrs Johnson. She was, she said, giving her notice. Things were not right. To be left alone in a house, with men breaking into it, tearing up her garden, she was not going to stay.
“It was nojt the same when Mr Beluncle used to come,” she said. It was her final sentence. “When things change,” she said, “it is time to go.”
She had never complained, she said, when Mr Beluncle came, night after night, sitting there till all hours, though people talked. It was not her business why Mr Beluncle came and why he stayed—but she had nothing on her conscience.
Mrs Johnson left the room and the sisters looked in silence at the closed door.
For Mrs Johnson, as Vogg had so often prophesied in his tracts which she had always read, the world had come to an end.
Mrs Johnson went out to a sister's in Hetley, came back for her bags, which were already packed, and went. They saw her only once again in the crowd at the Hetley bus-stop, where the decisive incident happened. There was always a crowd on the five o'clock bus and a rush to get on it.
“Isn't it wonderful?” Miss Dykes was saying to anyone who would listen in the crowd. “This is the first time in my life I have ever been on a bus.”
“Ssh,” whispered Mrs Truslove, “you know you were told not to draw attention. Mrs Johnson is here. I've just seen her.”
“Where?” said Miss Dykes.
But the green bus drew up, they were pushed by the crowd towards the door. Mrs Truslove saw Mrs Johnson's head and shoulders, getting nearer to them in the crowd, and Mrs Truslove looked down to help her sister. As she did so, among the pushing legs of the people, she saw the foot of a large woman step out, hook it for a second upon her sister's shin and immediately Miss Dykes had lost her balance and fell to the ground as the crowd gave to one side. Who had done this, Mrs Truslove could not tell. Mrs Johnson, who had been behind them, was now pushing ahead on the step of the bus.
This was the incident that brought Mrs Truslove to her decision. Her sister was sent away to stay with Lady Roads.
XLV
“How is Miss Dykes?” Mrs Beluncle said to her husband. “I must tell her,” thought Mr Beluncle. “I hope it will not be as bad as I fear.”
“Something very extraordinary has happened,” he said. “In a way wonderful.”
Mr Beluncle saw his wife's solicitude go. It was going to be as bad as he feared; his wife would be unable to tolerate anything good happening to the Truslove household. He said coldly:
“Miss Dykes can walk.”
Mrs Beluncle stepped back and crouched with fear; her husband had gone mad. Mr Beluncle explained to her with wounding simplicity.
“Shut the door,” he said, first of all. “I don't want those boys to hear.” Then he explained. Mrs Beluncle listened and asked no questions, and so encouraged, Mr Beluncle elaborated the story. The day of miracles had not passed. This should convince the sceptical and so on.
“Her poor sister,” murmured Mrs Beluncle. She was being sorry for Mrs Truslove.
“Poor? Why d'you say poor?” And Mr Beluncle, embellishing the subject, drew a picture of Mrs Truslove helpless with gratitude, on the point of conversion, after all these years. Now Mrs Truslove would be less difficult.
Mrs Beluncle continued to listen.
“When did it happen?” she asked.
“Well, just lately, a week or so back.”
“Oh, I thought you meant yesterday,” said Mrs Beluncle.
“I think it must have been, let me see …” began Mr Beluncle.
“When you told me she was ill?” said Mrs Beluncle, sharpening.
“Yes,” said Mr Beluncle. “That's it. Not ill, let me correct you there, I did not say ill, I said she was going through a crisis. …;”
Mrs Beluncle was sitting on the edge of the chair. She picked up a poker from the fireplace and doodled on the tiles of the hearth with it. There was no fire, but this was a habit of hers and Mr Beluncle read it with apprehension.
“Liar,” said Mrs Beluncle suddenly, putting the poker down. “I don't believe you. Saying she's ill, when she's walking, saying she's walking! That's what you've been doing the past fortnight. Having it all over, all nice and sweet and cosy with dear Mrs Truslove all to yourself and don't tell your wife, you liar.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Mrs Beluncle. “Miracles! Walking! Don't tell me. Down there helping Miss Dykes to walk, holding her hand—whose hand? I wonder. I don't wonder. I know. Why didn't you tell me?”
“I …” began Mr Beluncle.
“You fool, telling me that woman walks. Walks! Lies down, I bet. What a religion.”
Mrs Beluncle had not made one of her larger scenes for two months. She now gathered together all the costumes, dialogues and properties of her temper and was presently going over vivid incidents in her married life, accusing her husband of adultery, sometimes with Mrs Truslove, sometimes with Mrs Parkinson. Mr Beluncle sat, occasionally saying a word, but Mrs Beluncle snatched the word away like a hurricane and shouted on. Very soon her hair became loose; then tears were pouring down her face; after that she began to pull her blouse off saying that she was going to run naked from the house and call the police. Mr Beluncle got up and she threw the poker.
Henry and George and Leslie were listening outside the room. The grandmother had gone to bed. When they heard the poker hit the sideboard, Henry opened the door and went into the room.
“Shut up!” he said. “I can't read.”
Mr and Mrs Beluncle both rounded on Henry.
“How dare you say 'Shut up' to your mother,” said Mr Beluncle.
“You encourage your own children to insult me,” screamed Mrs Beluncle.
George listened admiringly for more items of rage. Leslie smiled in his elderly way.
“I am going to bed if anyone wants me,” he said.
The two parents continued the attack on George and Henry and then returned to the attack upon each other. The holes of daylight closed up between the trees outside the window and the quarrel went on into the night.
Mrs Beluncle went to bed at last, locking herself in her room. Slowly she calmed down. She had, she felt, expressed important truths: that she was not going to have God on Mrs Truslove's side against her; it was bad enough to have Him on her husband's side. One more miracle and they would be penniless, begging on the streets, in the bankruptcy court, in prison.
“I shall leave in the morning and take my children with me,” she sobbed. She had been saying this for years and had not noticed that the cry was now meaningless. Her children were almost grown up.
Mr Beluncle was appalled by this scene. Large portions of it were not new and he had them by heart, and once or twice with a kind of exhilaration he had spoken some of her well-known lines for her, to remind her, in one of her pauses. He was used to being appalled; what disturbed him was that he had not, perhaps, correctly judged the consequences of the miracle. Some of the things his wife had said seemed dangerously right.
The large scene was followed by smaller ones in the next few days and these gradually became reasonable conversa, tions. Having injured her husband as much as she knew how to do, Mrs Beluncle softened and took his side, treating him as an invalid.
“Your poor father,” she said to George, “must not be worried. He has a lot on his mind. You are not to ask him about a job. He'll be lucky if he has a job himself.”
XLVI
Henry Beluncle had not seen Mary Phibbs for twa weeks.
He fe
lt when his father came into the room totally pos-sessed by him, physically and spiritually, so that what he intended to say he could no longer find words for; his very thoughts were forgotten and he found himself saying what his father wanted him to say.
One day at the office Mr Chilly asked Henry to dine in his rooms near Connaught Square.
Mr Beluncle said lightly:
“I am sure I have been misinformed, Chilly. My son tells me that you have asked him to have lunch with you.”
“Oh yes, sir, you have, sir, didn't I make it clear, sir— dinner, sir.”
“The evening!” exclaimed Mr Beluncle.
“At half past seven, sir,” said Mr Chilly.
“You surprise me,” said Mr Beluncle.
“Do I, sir? I like your son, very promising boy,” said Mr Chilly. “Full of ideas.”
“Very few right ideas, Chilly. Peculiar ideas about his father, Chilly. Imagines he knows better than his father. No sense of gratitude. …;”
“Oh surely, sir …”
“Do I know my son, or do you?” said Mr Beluncle. “Imagines himself in love.”
“Rather!” said Mr Chilly cheerfully. “It's the age. When isn't it?”
“What!” said Mr Beluncle. “You take it as natural a boy that age, hoping to make a position in the world, always telling his family what a brain he has got, what a mind— though he knows or ought to know, there is only One Mind —should have time to go out to dinner in the evening and to be in love. You, I am sure, were not in love.”
“I am a queer case, sir,” said Mr Chilly austerely.
Mr Chilly had moments of austerity.
“No, I never heard of such a thing. But why do you ask me?” said Mr Beluncle.
“Henry seemed to suggest that it might be polite,” said Mr Chilly.
“The first I heard of that boy being polite,” said Mr Beluncle. “Gratitude is what he lacks. A sense of obligation. Did he mention obligations to you?”
“No, sir, I'm afraid we didn't get on to that, I mean …” said Mr Chilly.
“I thought not,” said Mr Beluncle. “It's the last thing he thinks of.”
Mr Beluncle sent for his son.
“I hear you have been pushing yourself on to Mr Chilly,” said Mr Beluncle coldly. “Mr Chilly is here to learn the business. He pays me a considerable sum to learn it. It will have to be very considerable before I finish teaching him; he has a long way to go. I do not know whether he realises it, but I consider the distance very great. While you waste his time discussing social engagements with him (and when I say his time I mean mine), though time is an erroneous concept as you know: tide and time wait for no man, not even for Mr Chilly. Why did you ask Mr Chilly to ask you to dinner?”
“I didn't.”
“But you must have. Why on earth should he ask you? Mr Chilly has his own life. It is different from our life. Where does he live? Near Connaught Square, you say, well, what is fine about that? I lived near Connaught Square once, there's no point in going there. If you want to see Connaught Square, surely the natural thing is to ask your father. I never hear of you asking me to dinner.”
Mr Beluncle smiled waggishly. Henry laughed.
“I could not afford it,” he laughed.
Mr Beluncle became stern.
“Afford it? Of course you can't. I can't. I can't afford to go to dine with Mr Chilly. I just can't afford the time, the thought. I am too busy when I finish my work here thinking of what Mrs Parkinson has taught us. You have heard of this wonderful thing that has happened to Miss Dykes and you talk of dining with Mr Chilly! There are things in you past my comprehension, Henry. You don't feel that the teachings of Mrs Parkinson are the most important things in life. You don't feel you have a debt to your mother, that your place is with her in the evenings. And to your brothers. To your home. Oh no, your home is not good enough for you. You take it for granted.”
“Can I go to Mr Chilly's tonight?”
“I thought I had made it clear,” snapped Mr Beluncle, who was going down to Mrs Truslove's house that evening. “You do what you like. You are free. Free as the air.”
“In that case I shall go,” said Henry coldly.
Father and son glared at each other.
“What? In those clothes? In that suit?” enquired Mr Beluncle. “Don't you know what society is like?”
“It isn't society.”
Mr Chilly came gaily in.
“Well, is that settled?” he said cheerfully.
“We should like to come and dine with you one evening,” said Mr Beluncle amiably. “Not tonight. I have an engagement. I think this boy feels …;”
“Yes, I am coming tonight,” said Henry.
Mr Beluncle became pale. When Mr Chilly had gone Mr Beluncle said:
“I don't want to speak to you. You have deliberately gone against my wishes. You have made your bed, you lie on it. You will probably break your mother's heart. You know how ill and tired she has been.”
At half past seven Henry arrived at Mr Chilly's rooms. He stood in a pleasant ground-floor front room gazing at Mr Chilly's books and at an incomprehensible modern picture.
“My dear!” said Mr Chilly, taking both his hands. “I am so glad. You don't know what you have done for me. You have saved me.”
Mr Beluncle had saved Mr Chilly earlier.
“You have saved me from a girl. My cousin, Miss Roads,” he said.
“Yes,” said Mr Chilly, still holding his hands and leaning back to gaze at Henry distantly, as if getting him into perspective, and then dropping into his offensive third-person address.
“It understands girls, I am sure, better than I. Now sit down and I will give it a glass of sherry and I will tell it all about the beautifiil bitch who is coming in a minute. Will it like her, I wonder? Will it fall? No, it is innocent.”
Henry was unable to speak.
“It has resisted Miss Vanner,” Mr Chilly said. “But for how long?”
“I can't bear her,” said Henry.
“No more can I,” said Mr Chilly. “But how nearly, how dreadfully nearly one slithers, Henry. You are not calling me Everard. I asked you to.”
“Yes? Everard,” Henry murmured.
“Now I want to ask you a lot of questions,” said Mr Chilly very briskly. “Miss Roads—well, she's for you if you like. Will you like? One can't tell. But, Henry—something much more important. Your Aunt Constance. My dear, there's a woman. You see I speak frankly. I mean I'm hiding nothing. Handsome, voluptuous—horrifying really, Henry, you don't mind my talking about your Aunt Constance like that?”
“I haven't seen her since I was seven. She lives abroad.”
“Oh no, you're wrong, Henry. She lives here. In London I mean. Oh yes, how curious you don't know her. She likes you. She spoke of you. I took her home the other evening.”
“She's my wicked aunt,” said Henry.
“Oh, but you ought to see her,” said Mr Chilly. “She's full of interesting information. Now, you mustn't tell anyone I said so, but I am just a little bit put out by you.”
“By me?”
“By all of you. The Beluncles. Aunt Constance has the idea that I am going to lose all my money. What d'you think?”
The feather-headed Mr Chilly looked suddenly severe and dangerous.
Henry thought: Good heavens, how I have misjudged Mr Chilly. What is he up to?
“I mean,” said Mr Chilly, “Aunt Constance says that Beluncles are going up the spout.”
Henry could not answer, and in any case, before he could Mr Chilly said:
“There now. I don't think it loves its father very much and I have made it worse, I oughtn't to have mentioned it. Let us forget about it. Let us think about Miss Roads. She would do for you. D'you know, I believe I'm shocking you.”
“No you are not.”
“Charming, that sulky expression. I am shocking. I'm behaving badly. You will hate me in a moment. No one loves me. I don't believe your father does any more. The way he speaks
now. I notice it. I mean,” said Mr Chilly suddenly, “it would be a mistake to become a director, don't you think, if the firm is rocky?”
“I didn't know the firm was rocky,” said Henry. “It's always been a worry. Father is extravagant. I …”
“Rocky, I'm afraid, is the word,” said Mr Chilly, with a touch of annoyance in his smile. And then his austere manner went and he said, “My dear, I'm awful. I knew it was rocky when I came in. I always fall for rockiness—and then your father's personality. I wonder if you are going to have personality? Aunt Constance has got it, too, you know. There's something terrible about Aunt Constance that gets me.”
“We're always told she's a bad lot. I expect she's better than we are.”
“Oh no!” exclaimed Mr Chilly. “She's as black as she's painted; that's the fascinating thing.”
Henry was alarmed by Mr Chilly.
“Now let me tell you about Celia Roads,” he said. But he did not have time to tell Henry very much. The bell was rung and presently Miss Roads was shown into the room. She was a straight, dark girl of twenty-five, with thin bare arms, a little hairy, and cold weak hands and a hard educated voice in her throat. She lifted her upper lip and her eyes had a brilliant moment of anger when she saw Henry.
“I thought,” she said coldly to Mr Chilly, “we were going to be alone. How nice.”
“Henry works with me. He is almost my boss,” said Mr Chilly, taking her coat. “And, my dear, you'll have everything to talk about: Mrs Parkinson, my dear.” And Mr Chilly wagged a finger.
The girl looked ironically at Henry.
Mr. Beluncle: A Novel (Modern Library Classics) Page 30