Heritage

by Vita Sackville-West

  ‘There was apparently no reason why this should not go on for ever. It did, indeed, let me tell you at once, go on for nearly ten years. They were quite tolerably happy; their children grew; their farm prospered; they were able to keep a servant. And then she saw a change coming over her husband.

  ‘This is the thing which I do not expect you to believe.

  ‘It began with his suggestion that Ruth should occupy the larger bedroom with the younger children, while he himself moved up to an attic at the top of the house, next to the boys’ attic. She was astonished at this suggestion, and naturally asked him for his reasons. He could give none, except that it would be “more convenient.” He shuffled uneasily as he said it. For the sake of peace, she agreed.

  ‘But, suspicious now, she watched him closely, and he, realising that she was watching him, tried to writhe away from her vigilance. He would invent excuses to absent himself all day from the farm – a distant market, a local show – and would return late at night, creeping unheard up to his attic, there to slip off his clothes in the dark, or with the moonlight streaming in through his little latticed, dormer window. So for days he would contrive to meet his wife only at breakfast. His excuses were always convincing, and in them she could find no flaw. She might not have noticed his strange behaviour, but for the incident of the re-arranged bedrooms, and perhaps some feminine instinct which had stirred in her. She dared not question him, fearing a scene, but gradually she came to the not unnatural conclusion that he was keeping a second establishment where he spent most of his time.

  ‘This left her indifferent; she had long since made her life independent of his, and the possible gossip of neighbours did not touch her as it would have touched a woman of commoner fibre. She had quite made up her mind that Rawdon spent all his nights away from home, returning shortly before she awoke in the morning. She did not resent this, especially as he had shown himself much gentler towards her of late. She was even vaguely sorry for him, that he should take so much trouble to conceal his movements. It must be very wet, walking through the long dewy grass of the fields so early in the morning.

  ‘She was surprised to notice that his boots were never soaked through, as she logically expected to find them.

  ‘One night she lay awake, thinking over all these things, when an impulse came to her, to go and look in his room. She got up quietly, slipping on her shoes and dressing gown, and stole out on to the landing. The house was dark and silent. She crept upstairs, and turned the handle of his door, confident that she would find the room empty. By the light of the moon, which poured down unimpeded by any curtain through the little oblong window in the sloping roof, she saw her husband’s dark, beautiful head on the white pillow. He was sleeping profoundly. His clothes lay scattered about the floor, as he had thrown them off.

  ‘So surprised was she – a surprise amounting, not to relief, but almost to dismay – that she stood gazing at him, holding the door open with her hand. Sensitive people and children will often wake under the influence of a prolonged gaze. Westmacott, who was a sensitive man beneath his brutality, and who further was living just then, I imagine, in a state of considerable nerve tension, woke abruptly with an involuntary cry as from a nightmare. He sat up in bed, flinging back the clothes – sat up, Ruth says, with staring eyes and the signs of terror stamped on all his features.

  ‘“You! you!” he said wildly, “what do you want with me? in God’s name what do you want?”

  ‘She thought him still half-asleep, and replied in a soothing voice,—

  ‘“It’s all right, Rawdon; I don’t want anything; I couldn’t sleep, that’s all; I’m going away now.”

  ‘But he continued to stare at her as though she had been an apparition, muttering incomprehensibly, and passing his hand with a wild gesture over his hair.

  ‘“What’s the matter, Rawdon?” she said, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘At that he cried out,—

  ‘“Oh, go away, leave me alone, for God’s sake leave me alone!” and he began to sob hysterically, hiding his face in his sheets.

  ‘Afraid that he would wake the children, she backed hastily out, shutting the door, and flying downstairs to her own room.

  ‘He did not come to breakfast, but at midday he appeared, white and hollow-eyed, and climbed to his room, where he spent an hour screwing a bolt on to the inside of his door. When he came down again, he tried to slip furtively out of the house, but she stopped him in the passage.

  ‘“Look here, Rawdon,” she said, taking him by the shoulders, “what’s the matter with you?”

  ‘He shrank miserably under her touch.

  ‘“There’s nothing the matter,” he mumbled.

  ‘Then he spoke in a tone she had never heard since the days before their marriage, a cringing, whining tone.

  ‘“Let me be, Ruth, my pretty little Ruth; I’m up to no wrong, I promise you. Be kind to your poor Rawdon, darling,” and he tried to kiss her.

  ‘But instantly with his servility she regained her disdain of him. She pushed him roughly from her.

  ‘“Get out then; don’t bother me.”

  ‘He went, swiftly, thankfully.

  ‘The furtiveness which she had already noticed clung to him; he slunk about like a Jew, watching her covertly, answering her, when she spoke, in his low, propitiatory voice. She had lost all fear of him now. She ordered him about in a peremptory way, and he obeyed her, sulkily, surlily, when she was not looking, but with obsequious alacrity when her eyes were on him. His chief desire seemed to be to get out of her sight, out of her company. He moved noiselessly about the house, seeking to conceal his presence; “pussy-footed,” was the word she used. Their relations were entirely reversed. With the acquiescent philosophy of the poor, she had almost ceased to wonder at the new state of affairs thus mysteriously come about. She dated it from the day he had first taken to the attic, realising also that a great leap forward had been made from the hour of her midnight visit to his bedroom. He was an altered being. From time to time he tried to defy her, to reassert himself, but she held firm, and he slid back again to his cowed manner. She became aware that he was afraid of her, though the knowledge neither surprised nor startled her overmuch. She merely accepted it into her scheme of life. She was also perfectly prepared that one day he should break out, beat her, and reassume his authority as master of the house and of her person.

  ‘This, then, was the position at Westmacotts’ while I toiled at Ephesus and received with such wide-spaced regularity little packets of seed from Ruth. The situation developed rapidly at a date corresponding to the time when MacPherson fell ill with cholera. It was then three months since Westmacott, by going to the attic, had made the first concession to his creeping cowardice. He was looking ill, Ruth told me; his eyes were bright, and she thought he slept badly at night. Her questioning him on this subject precipitated the crisis.

  ‘“Rawdon, you’re looking feverish.”

  ‘“Oh, no,” he said nervously. They were at breakfast.

  ‘“Ay, dad,” said the eldest boy, “I heard you tossing about last night.”

  ‘Ruth turned on him with that bullying instinct that she could not control, and asked roughly,—

  ‘“What do you mean by keeping the children awake?” ‘He cowered away, and she went on, her voice rising,—

  ‘“I won’t have it, do you hear? If you can’t sleep quietly here, you can go and sleep elsewhere – in the stable, for all I care.”

  ‘He didn’t answer, he only watched her, huddled in his chair – yes, huddled, that tall, lithe figure – watched her with a sidelong glance of his almond eyes.

  ‘She went on storming at him; she says she felt like a person speaking the words dictated to her by somebody else, and indeed you know Ruth well enough to know that this description doesn’t tally with your impression of her.

 
‘He was fingering a tea-spoon all the while, now looking down at it, now stealing that oblique glance at his wife, but never saying a word. She cried to him,—

  ‘“Let that spoon alone, can’t you?” and as she spoke she stretched out her hand to take it from him. He bent swiftly forward and snapped at her hand like a hungry wolf.

  ‘The children screamed, and Ruth sprang to her feet. Rawdon was already on his feet, over in the corner, holding a chair, reversed, in front of him.

  ‘“Don’t you come near me,” he gibbered, “don’t you dare to come near me. You said you nearly stopped me once” — oh little seed sown ten years ago! ––“but by Hell you shan’t do it again. I’ll kill you first, ay, and all your children with you, cursed brats! how am I to know they’re mine?” and a stream of foul language followed.

  ‘Ruth had recovered herself, she stood on the other side of the room, with all her frightened children clinging round her.

  ‘“I think you must be mad, Rawdon,” she said, as coldly as she could.

  ‘“And if I am,” he cried, “who’s driven me to it? Isn’t it you? making my life a hell, spying on me, chasing me even to my bed at night, ready to pounce on me the moment you get a chance? Oh, you hate me, I know; it’s that other man you want, you’ve had your fill of me. Oh, you false, lying vixen, you’re just waiting till you can get me – catch me asleep, likely; what was you doing in my room that night? The woman who can shoot at a man once can shoot at him twice. Mad, you say I am? No, I’m not mad, but ‘tis not your fault that I wasn’t mad long ago.”

  ‘The eldest boy darted across the room at his father, but Rawdon warded him off with the chair.

  ‘“Keep the brat off me!” he cried to Ruth. “I won’t be answerable, I’ll do him a mischief.”

  ‘He cried suddenly,—

  ‘“This is what I’ll do if you try to lay hands on me, you and all your brood.”

  ‘He was near the window, he took the pots of geranium one by one off the sill, crying, “This! and this! and this!” and flung them with all possible violence on the tiled floor, where the brittle terracotta smashed into fragments, and the plants rolled with a scattering of earth under the furniture.

  ‘“I’ll do that with your heads,” he said savagely.

  ‘His eye fell on the cage of mice, left standing exposed on the window-sill. At the sight of these his rage redoubled.

  ‘“He gave you these,” he shouted, and hurled the cage from him into the farthest corner of the room.

  ’He was left quivering in the midst of his devastation, quivering, panting, like some slim, wild animal at bay.

  ‘The storm that had swept across him was too much for his nerves; the expression on his face changed; he sank down in the corner, letting the chair fall, and hiding his face in his hands.

  ‘“There, it’s over,” he wailed, “don’t be afraid, Ruth, I won’t touch you. Only let me go away now; it’s this life has done for me. I can’t live with you. You can keep the children, you can keep the farm; I’m going away, right away, where you’ll never hear of me again. Only let me go.”

  ‘It seemed to be his dominating idea.

  ‘She moved across to him, but he leaped up and to one side before she could touch him.

  ‘“Keep away!” he cried warningly.

  ‘He reached the door; paused there one brief, intense moment.

  ‘“You’ll hear from me from London,” he uttered.

  ‘He seemed to her exactly like a swift animal, scared and untamed, checked for one instant in its flight.

  ‘“I’ll never trouble you more.”

  ‘Then he was gone; had he bounded away? had he flown? she could not have said, she could only remain pressed against the wall, the children crying, and her hands clasped over her heart.

  ‘There, what do you think of that for the story of a Kentish farm-house? What a train of dynamite, isn’t it, laid in the arena of Cadiz? What a heritage to transmit even to the third generation! You don’t believe it? I thought you wouldn’t. But it is true.

  ‘Ruth told me the whole of this amazing story in a low voice, playing all the while with her two faded roses. She showed me a lawyer’s letter which she had received next day, formalising the agreement about the farm, stipulating that she should pay rent; all couched in cold, business-like terms. “Our client, Rawdon Westmacott, Esq.,” that savage, half-crazed, screaming creature that had smashed the flower-pots only a week before . . .

  ‘“I see you’ve replaced the geraniums,” I said rather irrelevantly.

  ‘‘‘Yes.’’

  ‘“What about the mice?”

  ‘“They all died.”

  ‘So that chapter was closed?

  ‘“At any rate, Ruth, you need not worry now about your children.”

  ‘She looked puzzled.

  ‘“Never mind, I was only joking.”

  ‘Then we were quite silent, faced with the future. I said slowly.

  ‘“And you brought me down here to tell me all this?”

  ‘“Yes. I am sorry if you are annoyed.”

  ‘“I am not annoyed, but it is late and I must go back to London tonight.”

  ‘She came a little closer to me, and my pulses began to race.

  ‘“Well, my dear, I can’t stop here, can I?”

  ‘She whispered,—

  ‘“Why not?”

  ‘“Because you’re here alone, even the children are away.”

  ‘“Does that matter?” she said.

  ‘A ray from the setting sun slanted in at the window, firing the red geraniums, and the canary incontinently began to sing.

  ‘“You came here once,” said Ruth, “and you asked me to go away and live with you. Do you remember?”

  ‘“My dear,” I said, “I have lived on that remembrance for the last ten years.” ’I waited for her to speak again, but she remained silent, yet her meaning was clearer to me than the spoken word. We stood silent in the presence of her invitation and of my acquiescence. We stood in the warm, quiet kitchen, where all things glowed as in the splendour of a mellow sunset: the crimson flowers, the sinking fire, the rounded copper of utensils, the tiled floor rosy as a pippin. In the distance I heard the lowing of cattle, rich and melodious as the tones within the room. I saw and heard these English things, but, as a man who, looking into a mirror, beholds his own expected image in an unexpected setting, I had a sudden vision of ourselves, standing side by side on the deck of a ship that, to the music of many oars, glided majestically towards the land. We were in a broad gulf, fairer and more fruitful than the Gulf of Smyrna. The water lay serenely around us, heaving slightly, broken only by the passage of our vessel, and the voices of the rowers on the lower deck rose up in a cadenced volume of song as we came slowly into port.

  ‘Ever yours,

  ‘CHRISTOPHER MALORY.’

  First published in 1919 by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd

  This edition published 2011 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-1432-8 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-1431-1 POD

  Copyright © Vita Sackville-West, 1919

  The right of Vita Sackville-West to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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