Family Matters

by Anthony Rolls

  Aunt Bella was evidently distressed. These occurrences were becoming too frequent, and people were talking about them.

  “Of course, Bobby, she does seem a little odd at times. I can say this to you because you know how much we love and admire her. Don’t you think she may find it rather dull? I mean…well, after all, she’s young—”

  “Dull!” Kewdingham was dismally jocular. “How can she be dull when you are all so kind to her, asking her out and all that sort of thing? You’ve no idea how she looks forward to her evenings here.”

  “But you said she was not well?”

  Robert Arthur was uneasy. He had no wish to talk about his wife, unless he could air his grievances at the same time. It vexed him when people showed a tendency to sympathise with Bertha, instead of realising the tragedy of his own position.

  “Well,” he said, “she’s not as easy to understand as she used to be. Flares up with no rhyme or reason, you know. At one time I knew her very well, but now, frankly, I am often puzzled by her behaviour.”

  Mrs. Poundle-Quainton, although merely tolerant of Bertha, did not like the idea of anyone being unhappy. Leaning forward and tapping Robert Arthur on the knee, she spoke with a genuine desire to improve matters:

  “Bobby, I’ve known you since the days when you were crawling about on the carpet, and you mustn’t think me interfering if I tell you what’s in my mind. We have noticed that Bertha is not always very cheerful. Of course, we know how fond you are of each other, but we can’t help wondering if you are as—as friendly with her as she would like you to be. Perhaps friendly isn’t the right word, but you know what I mean. We have been talking about this, and we wanted to say—Eh, well! Companionship means so much to a woman, and perhaps she is rather lonely at times, especially with Michael away at school.”

  Kewdingham, although he knew that he could not make a mistake, had a great respect for his aunt’s opinions, which usually resembled his own. Moreover, the remarks of Aunt Bella had implied suggestion rather than criticism, and he smiled amiably as he answered:

  “I am glad to hear you say that, Aunt Bella, for I have been thinking about it myself. I’ve been very busy, for some time, with my League work and my collection and one thing and another. You are quite right.”

  And as he walked homeward he reflected upon the advantages of domestic harmony. If only Bertha would make things easy for him, how much better it would be! They had got on well enough—years ago. Why couldn’t they patch things up again? It would be much pleasanter for both of them; it would save him from the strain of perpetual annoyances, always a source of danger to a man with delicate health. Yes; he would make a final effort.

  Poor Robert looked up at the gable of his little house with a sentimental softening of the heart, a creeping, titillating warmth at the pit of the stomach. It was not his fault that he was so busy and had so many interests, but there was no reason why he should not give his wife an extra half-hour every now and then.

  So after supper, when the old man had retired to his room and Bertha had settled down in silence (as she usually did) with her work-basket, Robert Arthur, instead of playing with his collection or reading his occult authors, pulled his chair towards her and said pleasantly:

  “Look here, Bertha! You and I don’t seem to hit it off as well as we might, somehow. That’s a pity, isn’t it?”

  Bertha pulled herself back in her chair, bolt upright, staring at Robert in sheer amazement. What on earth was the man getting at? She let her work fall in her lap, and a wriggle of grey wool came away from one of the needles. Robert’s tie, she observed, was dirty and crumpled, and this annoyed her.

  “Oh, it’s all right, Bobby—at least, I suppose so.”

  “No, it’s all wrong, Bertha.”

  The doomed, uncouth fellow awkwardly bent forward and took her hand in his. It was a terrible moment. She smiled wryly and drew her hand away.

  Kewdingham leaned back in his chair, frowning, but quickly recovered himself. Incomprehensible woman!—Perhaps she was not worth the trouble, after all; but he would see what could be done with a little patience.

  “I have many occupations, and they are by no means unimportant. My work in the League takes up a good deal of my time; and then I have my collection to arrange. We can’t afford a gardener, as you know, and that means an hour or two…But I naturally wish to study your happiness—eh—before anything else in the world. And—eh—Michael—” It was a sort of dull compunction, a sense of the hollowness of the entire performance, which brought him to a stop. He glanced uneasily at Bertha. He felt himself crumbling before her steady though astonished eyes.

  Bertha understood, or guessed, the reason for this disconcerting, unprecedented behaviour. Those damned old women, she thought, had been interfering again.

  “Why do you talk like this, Bobby? I don’t want to take you away from the things that really interest you. Why should I? After all, I think I carry out my duties moderately well. Let us go on as we are.”

  “Yes, of course.” Robert Arthur did not want her to think that he was going to suggest a radical change in their relations. Good Lord, no!

  “But I may have been thoughtless,” he said, gently rubbing his waistcoat, and getting his voice on a high, plaintive edge that was peculiarly irritating. “All I meant to say was that we might have a bit of a talk in the evenings, and go about occasionally, and so forth.” His magnanimity pleased him; a residue of honest emotion began to warm his residue of a heart.

  “My dear Bobby, I have not reproached you—”

  She was trying so hard to be patient. But her affection for Robert had perished long ago, and there could be no miraculous revival. A compromise there might be, but it was not in her nature to accept a compromise.

  “Reproached me? Why, of course not. What should you reproach me about? I never thought of such a thing.”

  He was aware of her resistance, he felt the imminence of collision. Still, he would not retire. He was piqued. His expression was not that of a happy man or a confident man, and Bertha was almost sorry for him. Yet she looked at him with an involuntary frown. If only he would face reality!

  “No, Bobby. There is no need to—to rake it all up, is there? It’s rather painful.”

  “Painful? I am not quite sure what you mean, my dear. I will admit that I devote a good deal of time to the arrangement of my specimens—”

  “And why shouldn’t you?”

  “True. I am adding to knowledge. Professor Jennings was decidedly complimentary…After all, we know each other pretty well, don’t we?”

  “We ought to by this time, Bobby.”

  “If I seem—what shall I say?—preoccupied?” The wretched woman was becoming desperate. She told herself that she must not on any account lose her temper. Bobby was trying to compromise with his muddled conscience, and it would be just as well to leave him alone. A muddled conscience is presumably better than no conscience at all.

  “I dare say that I too am often preoccupied, if it comes to that,” she said. “And I expect I am terribly annoying.”

  “You need more companionship.” What was it Aunt Bella had said? “Companionship means so much to a woman, and perhaps you are lonely at times, when Michael is away at school. We might, for example, read a book together.” It sounded perfectly ridiculous, but he lumbered on doggedly, turning a rather wild eye on the bookcase. “Eh? There’s The Voyage of the Beagle. Darwin, I believe—yes, Darwin. I remember trying to read it some years ago, and thinking how remarkable it was. One of our great English explorers, you know. Good book for Michael as well.”

  “That’s very nice of you, Bobby. Only I would much rather you didn’t worry about me. I would rather we went on just as we are—indeed I would.” Robert Arthur was getting uneasy and cross, and feeling that he had been ill-advised after all. Things were not coming out according to plan. Bertha was being very difficul
t. She did not seem to recognise the magnificence of his gesture, nor did she respond suitably to the deep affection which alone could make such a gesture possible. Seeking for a timely reinforcement he blundered fatally:

  “I may as well tell you that Aunt Bella concurs entirely in this opinion. She was talking about you in the kindest way, dear old thing—”

  Robert Arthur pulled himself up abruptly, as a man pulls himself up when he sees danger on the road. All Bertha’s good and wise resolutions were carried away by a hot blast of uncontrollable anger.

  “Good God! Why haven’t you got the sense to leave me and my affairs alone? Things are bad enough as they are, and now you go making them a hundred times worse. Tittle-tattle—you are like an old woman yourself. Damn your precious aunt! What does she know about life? And what do you know, if it comes to that? Can’t you leave me alone? You will drive me mad, I tell you, with your paltry tea-table confabulations, your family conferences and all the rest of it. Do you understand? I have not interfered with you, have I? I have not talked to you about your laziness, and your silly make-believe of a collection, and your asinine League which everyone is laughing at, your Atlantis twaddle, and your deplorable rudeness. Then why can’t you leave me to myself? Must I be spied upon and criticised by—by a lot of old mummies? I won’t endure it. I tell you I won’t endure it. Oh, leave me alone, can’t you? Run off to Pamela Chaddlewick and ask her to console you. But leave me alone. What do you want me to do, anyhow? In what way have I failed in my duty? Oh!—if I had not been such a fool—”

  She ended with a jerk in her voice, almost a sob. She had risen from her chair and was looking down on him like a white cloud of wrath, but already she was beginning to tremble, she was twining her fingers nervously together, waiting for the usual counter-attack, the attack which beat her down into silence or brooding desperation.

  Kewdingham was not angry. He knew that he was greatly superior to an hysterical woman, and he possessed the grim and proud advantage of having been repulsed in the performance of his duty.

  “Very well, my dear; very well. I shall not say the hard things which I might say in the circumstances. Fortunately for you, I have a conciliatory disposition. Any other man would have kicked you out of the house long ago—and I wouldn’t have blamed him. Is father in? I hope he didn’t hear you. Really, you were making an awful noise. Of course I understand you. I know! You have to be treated like a child.”

  Meaning to crush her with mournful dignity and with an overwhelming display of patience—the patience of a sadly injured man—he brayed through his nose in the most exasperating manner. His wife, bitterly regretting her lack of control, sat down again.

  For some minutes they were silent.

  Robert Arthur was profoundly shaken; he felt as though a cold fluid was running through his entrails. He was confused. For some inexplicable reason he could not find the energy for a quarrel.

  “I feel rather unwell, my dear. Will you bring me the bottle of old Bagge’s mixture—the yellow one—and a wineglass and some water.”

  Without looking at her husband, and with the indifferent air of a servant obeying orders, Bertha went out of the room. She presently returned with a medicine-bottle, a wineglass and a jug of water on a small tray.

  Kewdingham poured out a dose, and then, with a tightening of the lips and a wrinkling of the brow, he sniffed at the bottle. It could be seen that he was now angry. He put the bottle roughly on the tray, making a sharp tinkle of glass and metal, and looked up at his wife. She stared back at him placidly, perhaps with too much indifference.

  “Well, Bobby—what’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? Yes; that’s just what I want to know.”

  “I don’t understand. Is it the medicine?”

  “This is not the medicine. Do you mean to say you don’t know the difference between one bottle and another? This is the stuff I made up for mosquito-bites. It is highly poisonous. What the devil are you thinking about? Do you want to poison me—eh? It’s not quite as easy as you seem to think, if that’s the idea. Of course, I could see at once by the smell—”

  Very quietly, very steadily, she took the bottle off the tray and read the label.

  “Evidently I was mistaken,” she said.

  “And is that all you have to say?” He was furious.

  “My dear Bobby, why are you working yourself up in this ridiculous fashion? The two bottles are very much alike. It was dark in the cupboard. I am sorry.”

  Why did she look so tired, so dull, so indifferent? Robert Arthur was trembling. He took up the jug and poured some water into the wineglass. The lip of the jug clicked unsteadily on the rim of the glass, and he splashed the knee of his trousers. Let me be sensible, he thought; and he drank a little of the water. He was appalled by the dreadful notion which he himself had invoked. A monstrous absurdity!

  “I don’t say that you really wanted to poison me. It hasn’t come to that, has it?” He grinned unpleasantly. “But you are so infernally careless. One thing is as good as another. It’s all one to you, I suppose, whether it’s the right bottle or the wrong bottle. Some day you will get a shock. You are making me feel positively ill.”

  And, indeed, he looked ill; the flush on his face was fading to a chalky whiteness.

  “I am very sorry, Bobby. Truly I am.”

  “Take this away and bring me the mixture, will you?”

  Still with an air of dull subservience, Bertha took the bottle and went out of the room.

  Kewdingham sank in the chair with his arms dangling over the sides of it. He appeared to be staring at the toe of his boot, and with his toe he traced the outline of an acanthus, worked in pink wool on the hearthrug.

  3

  The episode of the wrong bottle, in whatever way it might be explained, made a very curious impression upon the mind of Bertha Kewdingham. Something new—something harsh and formidable—was controlling her. It was not a pleasant discovery; it never is a pleasant discovery when you find in yourself a contest between your ordinary, familiar thoughts and a sudden rush of invaders.

  Suppose that she had really given him a dose of poison?

  It was hardly possible, was it? He would have noticed the bottle.

  Yes; but suppose, for the sake of argument or speculation—suppose that he had not noticed the bottle. How very awkward it would have been if he had died. If he had died…There would have been a dreadful enquiry, and people would have said—what would they have said? He would have been dead, anyhow. Could anyone have proved that she wanted to kill him? Kill him? Murder him? What an appalling thought!—it could not be admitted, not for a moment! Still, it was there.

  The wrong bottle, the wrong dose. Poison. What a sinister word it is! There is hardly another word which gives you such a feeling of unqualified horror. Poison is unequivocally bad, in whatever sense you choose to think of it. The stealthy coiling of a serpent; the hidden cause of agony; the smell of death; or the cowardly shadow of a crime. The wrong bottle—poison-—death.

  Then she thought of her marriage.

  At the start it all appeared so happy and promising. But the later voyage of the matrimonial ship had been nearly disastrous: either in flat Sargasso calm, or in the black tumult of hurricanes; either at large on a vast unfriendly deep, or driving, ungovernable, towards the leeward rock. Then the old man had settled upon them, strengthening the hostile family group, and keeping up within the house itself an atmosphere of harsh disapproval.

  Kewdingham, disappointed, uncomprehending, had become stupid or careless. And yet he believed himself to be incontrovertibly superior. He clung to the uncertain privileges of his uncertain position. He tried to keep himself in countenance by mystery and invention, by what he would have called scientific and political activities. In given circumstances he could be perfectly amiable, and even entertaining.

  But Athu-na-Shulah, in his Kewdingham i
ncarnation, had a darker side. The fatal downwash of adversity had worn away his earlier charm, denuded him of original candour, and left exposed a core of hard, impenetrable egoism. Perhaps he did nothing wrong—indeed, that is very probable, for in one sense he did nothing at all. There was really no provision for the child, unless the benevolent Uncle Richard would help them. The situation was becoming desperate. And in recent years there had been some dreadful scenes of brawling and bullying. There were times when the whole domestic menagerie was completely disordered. Bertha did not often lose her temper, but when she did lose her temper—poor woman!—she was loud and horrible.

  Well!—She had taken the wrong bottle from the cupboard, and had nearly given Robert a dose of mosquito-bite lotion. It was a mistake; it must have been a mistake, of course.

  Looked at from one point of view, it was a funny mistake. She could not help thinking of Robert’s face when he sniffed the bottle. It would have served him right if he had drunk some of the stuff. It would have served him right if—well, if he had been just a little bit sick. Running away and talking about her with those old women!

  After all, was the lotion poisonous? How could she tell what it was made of? And the bottle was one which had originally contained Dr. Bagge’s mixture. No one could say it was not an excusable mistake. Robert ought to have marked the bottle in some conspicuous way. His tiny addition to the label—“Mosquito”—could hardly be seen. He himself could not possibly have read it without his glasses, He had been warned—and immediately warned—by the smell alone. He had “seen at once”. Nothing like having a keen eye for a smell. But he ought to be more careful; he was far too fond of playing about with drugs. It was a dangerous pastime, and one that might lead to a shocking disaster. A man with so many ailments, real or imaginary…