Poison—poison—poison. The word kept on drumming deeply in her mind, like the beat of the bass in a fugue; or like the pulse, the rhythm of some infernal engine. Poison—poison—poison.
Chapter III
1
John Harrigall, the young cousin of Robert Kewdingham, was a most fortunate man. Without being sentimentally or conventionally handsome he was picturesque and attractive, with a fresh, wholesome and candid appearance not usual among the intelligentsia. John could certainly rank with the intelligentsia, for he was a man of letters with quite a respectable reputation, besides being considered no mean authority on astronomical matters. He had written three successful novels and a monograph on the Einstein Theory.
Whether it is fortunate to be intelligent is perhaps doubtful; but there can be no doubt of the blessings of a comfortable income. John had inherited a comfortable income from his mother and we are, therefore, justified in calling him fortunate. His father, a venerable squire with a weak heart, lived on a small family property in Northumberland.
John himself lived in Chelsea. His rooms were elegant, his library was of enviable proportions, his occupations were delightfully varied. Chelsea parties knew him well. He was acquainted with a whole crowd of painters, authors, critics, and even publishers. He had been intimately acquainted at different times with different women; many of his little affairs would have been severely condemned by the puritanical, to say the least of it. But he was not what you would call, nowadays, a bad young man; that is to say, he had no criminal or depraved or vicious tendencies, though it is true that he never had a cold bath. In his loves, he was not indiscriminate. He chose nice, intelligent women who knew how to manage him. So he came to no great harm, he was the cause of no offensive scandal; though more than once he had been saved from disaster, or marriage, by mere fickleness, mobility or impatience. At the time of this drama he was a little over thirty.
For some time John Harrigall had been thinking a good deal about his cousin’s wife, Bertha Kewdingham. She was older than he was, but not by many years. Undoubtedly she was fond of him.
Poor woman! he thought, she is unhappy, and yet she dares not hoist a signal of distress. He did not see any moral objection to an intrigue with Bertha, because he knew that she had “finished” with his cousin Robert. He saw a geographical objection, of course; for Shufflecester is seventy miles from London.
Well! He was no brutal pursuer. How about a sort of emotional friendship? It might be rather amusing; an agreeable interlude when he was visiting the family at Shufflecester, as he did fairly often. But there was a lurking cynic in John, a dirty elf who occasionally broke up through the undergrowth of his mind. The minor components of a character frequently determine its line of action, and it was the lurking cynical elf who now persuaded John that a friendship, however emotional, was not what he wanted. After all, if she was really fond of him…well—why not?
2
Late in October, John came to spend a few days with Uncle Richard in Shufflecester. It was rather grey and cold. On the first evening, after dinner, he said:
“If we’re going to look at the Tadsley plantations to-morrow, and the Holtons are coming in for bridge in the evening, we shall have rather a long day of it. Do you mind if I just run over now and have a look at the Bobby family?”
“Yes, do,” said the cheery old man, “but come back in time for a drink before we turn in. And, I say—don’t let him bore you with that awful rubbish-heap of his!” He rolled his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and winked at John.
So ten minutes later John stood inside the porch of Number Six Wellington Avenue. Through the blue-glass panels of the door he could see, in wavering gaslight, the black horns and the bare white frontal bones of a sambur, trophies of a sporting uncle who had died in Bombay. He prepared himself for a jovial encounter with his cousin. He might even say, “Hullo, old boy!” or something like that. Good nature, far more than a sense of strategic design, made John particularly anxious to seem cordial to those who bored him; to hurt wantonly the feelings of others appeared to him the most inexcusable outrage.
But on this occasion it was Bertha who came down the staircase. He could see her through the blue glass, looking rather ghostly.
“Why, John!” she said, as they shook hands, “I didn’t know you were here. How jolly of you to come round. I’m all alone. The old man has gone to stay with a friend at Eastbourne. Bobby’s out at a smoking concert; but he’ll be back soon after ten, so I hope you can stay.”
Then, heaven knows for what reason, they laughed—as if they were children making up their minds to be naughty.
John followed Bertha up the stairs and into the little drawing-room.
“I have been stitching away, making things for Michael,” she said, folding up her sewing and putting it in the basket, “but your arrival gives me an excuse for idleness. It is very pleasant to see you here.”
John could not have said why he felt so curiously excited. In spite of his calculations, his prepared attitude, he felt that something had taken him unawares. This encounter—a very ordinary social encounter on the face of it—was new, adventurous and puzzling. It was the first time he had been alone with Bertha. He looked at her without speaking. She, too, was excited. It seemed as if a screen had fallen and left them facing each other. In a subtle yet decisive way they felt the imminence of complete familiarity, of intimate association. What was happening? John was uneasy. He was not accustomed to any sensation that he could not explain. Besides, he was really conventional; he believed in approaches, preludes and preparations, advance in accordance with plan, all the nicely considered moves of a gambit. Women are less mental in these affairs, less concerned with mere matters of procedure; they do not try to manipulate affection, as men do. Bertha was quite content to know that she was feeling unusually happy.
She began to talk to John about his work, about plays and books and the joy (as it seemed to her) of living in London.
“Ah, John! You are a lucky man.”
“Am I?” said John. “Why?”
“Because you know people who can talk intelligently, people whose minds are alive, people who can do things worth doing.”
“Is anything worth doing?” he daftly answered.
“Don’t be silly!—And then, do you know how nice it is for me to meet someone who does not discuss me to my face, and correct me, as though I was a child or an imbecile? But there was a time when I used to be horribly afraid of you—yes; really afraid!”
She leant forward, pressing the end of her cigarette on the ash-tray.
“That was very unreasonable,” said John.
“Perhaps it was. At any rate I seem to know you better—better in the last ten minutes than I have since I first met you, twelve years ago. Is it really as much as twelve years? Good heavens! Of course, you were very young then. So was I. Probably you didn’t think about me at all. We are dull people, Bobby and I. But, you see, I was afraid of you because—”
“Because?”
“Well, you are one of the family—”
“And is the family as hopeless as all that?”
“Stupid!” She tapped the fender-rail petulantly with her foot. “You know what I mean. Naturally they did not want me. Why should they?”
“Bobby wanted you, I suppose.”
“He thought he did. Perhaps he has repented.”
“My dear Bertha—”
“Oh, yes, I know. A really nice woman could not say a thing like that, could she? A really nice woman is always blind and speechless, isn’t she?—No matter what she may see or what she may suffer. Do you think me ungrateful—treacherous?”
She looked at him squarely.
“I think—” John began. “Well, of course—”
He sounded forbiddingly formal. He was conscious of a moral vertigo, the ordinary predicament of a man who is afraid of bei
ng too sincere. He knew that he would have to choose and pronounce his words very carefully, as though he was drunk. There was a tinkling in his ears and a drumming in his breast.
“I think it is always possible—”
But she interrupted him with a little cry, and yet a cry so reverberant that he started, like a man who is called to simple action by an appeal for help.
“Oh, John! I am not a very happy woman. I feel all alone in this confounded place. Will you be my friend?”
“Why, yes; of course,” said John, swinging back to his balance, and telling himself that he must take care not to go too far all at once. After all, Bobby might return.
Bertha had rested her elbows on the table, and the clenched fingers of one hand were pressed into her cheek. He could not say if she was miserable or angry. Her head was turned away from him and she was looking in the fire.
“Yes, Bertha. Haven’t I always been your friend?”
Without changing her position, and speaking very quietly, she said:
“It’s all pretence here. That’s what makes it so awful, John. Nothing is real. He and I—we pretend that nothing is wrong. Daddy pretends that his son is the best man in the world. Those old women shut their eyes if there is a chance of seeing anything ugly. Is it my fault? Sometimes I am sorry for him. And then again I am angry, and we have frightful scenes. No doubt I am exceedingly unpleasant. But he is such a difficult man, such a difficult man; he does not give me a chance. I have tried, but I cannot give him what he wants. It’s no good. We don’t understand each other. The worst of it is, we don’t care.”
John could not help wishing that she did not take things quite so seriously. But then, he reflected, she is half French, and therefore highly emotional.
She looked at him with a curious, whimsical tilt of the eyebrows, as if she understood his bewilderment.
“Now I have said to you what I have never said to anyone else, and perhaps I ought to be ashamed of myself. Do you think so? Do you grudge me the luxury of confession? But I want your friendship, if you can give it to such a poor, discontented creature. I want to get away from all this damnable pretence. It is choking me. I do want something real.”
“Well,” said John, “I had been hoping, ever since our last meeting, that—that we might get to know each other somehow. But it didn’t seem so easy. You say you were afraid of me: God knows why. Now, I always thought you rather a formidable woman. I did, really. I think I do still.”
“Formidable!” She laughed. She was beginning to feel happy again. “Formidable!—Well, what an idea!”
“It was a positive conviction.”
“Oh, nonsense, John!—Don’t be such an idiot. How can you expect me to believe you, if you talk like that? Let’s have another cigarette, shall we? I want you to tell me about all sorts of things, if you really think it worth while to talk to me. As for these commonplace grievances of mine, please forget them. Most women have to make the best of a bad job in one way or another. It’s a bad job being a woman, anyhow. I tell you again, you’re a lucky man, and lucky to be a man. Now I want to hear about this new book of yours. What did you say the title was?”
“Brave Old Earthquake.”
“Is it a satire? Do tell me…”
And so, without reflecting upon the strangeness of their sudden intimacy, or upon the greater strangeness of the fact that they were now taking that intimacy for granted, they began one of those delightful conversations which can only occur in the early stages of a real friendship. John was enjoying himself thoroughly, but he did not feel at all wicked. Perhaps the deep springs of our thoughts and actions bubble on muddy levels for ever unknown to the conscious mind.
Robert Arthur had not returned by a quarter past ten. John, who had no wish to meet Robert Arthur, even if he was not positively anxious to avoid him, decided that it was time to go.
“I must go now,” he said. “Uncle Richard expects me to have a drink with him before turning in.”
“I mustn’t keep you,” said Bertha. She, too, felt that the arrival of her husband before John had left would be awkward, inappropriate; it would destroy the unity of a pleasant episode.
“Bobby will be so vexed—”
“But I can run round in the morning before we start for Tadsley.”
“Yes, do. He is sure to be here.”
To-morrow would be all right. She was hoping, now, that John would manage to leave without meeting Robert; as though he was a venturesome lover, stealing away from the house at dawn. It may be that she was already thinking of him as a lover, for women are terribly definite in their conclusions, terribly honest in facing every sort of possibility.
“And shall I see you?”
“I hope so. I don’t go out before twelve. Let me come down and open the door for you.”
“No, no. I can let myself out, thanks.”
He glanced at the ugly cabinets, the drawers and tins and boxes, all the various containers of the great collection. In that confusion of rubbish it seemed as if Kewdingham himself was present in a piecemeal sort of way. Boxes, bags, packages, lumber, confusion of lumber, methodical yet mad accumulation of trifles, dreadfully symbolic.
“Hullo!” he said, “What’s this?”
Three bottles, two containing fluid and one containing a greenish powder, were standing on the top of a cabinet near the door. By the side of them was a medicine-glass.
“Some of Bobby’s awful decoctions, waiting for him. I do wish he didn’t dabble about with drugs like this, you know. Some day he’ll poison himself, and then I shall get the blame—as I do for everything.”
“He was always fond of doping himself. But he can’t get hold of real poisons, can he?”
“I’m not so sure. He gets mysterious little packets from Vienna and New York, and, I think, from London, too. Doctor Bagge has been talking to him very seriously, but Bobby doesn’t give himself away. I’m sure I don’t know what he’s got in that cupboard of his.”
“Ah! He ought to be careful. He may be doing himself a lot of harm. I wonder what’s in those bottles—they are not labelled.”
“It’s no use talking to him. Anyhow, don’t let us think of unpleasant things. We have had such a delightful evening. And we are friends now, aren’t we? Good night.”
He took her hand and held it in his own. Then, bending suddenly, he pressed his lips for one moment on her wrist. She did not oppose his movement, and as their hands unclasped gently with a lingering touch of the fingers, she said:
“I am so glad.”
Then she stood by the fire, watching him as he left the room.
John Harrigall, already trying to account for his uncalculated and romantic gesture, let himself out of the house and walked rapidly up Wellington Avenue.
An easterly wind was blustering sharply, embittered by showers of sleet. As John reached the end of the Avenue he turned and looked back at Number Six. He could perceive dimly, in the scattered radiance of the street lamp, a strenuous lanky figure, with a long waterproof clip-clapping against his legs. It was Kewdingham returning. John laughed, rubbing his chin from side to side on the upturned collar of his coat. Then he strode quickly round the corner.
3
Mr. Kewdingham was delighted to find out how well Mrs. Chaddlewick understood him. Far from laughing at his Atlantis fantasy, as most people did, she treated it in the most serious and enthusiastic manner. He went in the bus to Sykeham-le-Barrow and called on the Chaddlewicks, at a time when it so happened that Mr. Chaddlewick had gone to see the new herd of Jerseys at Tiddleswade Castle. No doubt his call had the appearance of eccentricity, for Robert Arthur was generally considered a formal and retiring person, but Pamela had received him with entrancing flutters of coyness. The truth is that Pamela (who had no children and did not care for dogs) was rather bored.
Then, on the very day after John’s interview with
Bertha, Mrs. Chaddlewick’s elegant car pulled up in Wellington Avenue and Mrs. Chaddlewick rang the bell at Number Six. She was not surprised to hear that Bertha was out, for she had caught a glimpse of her in town. But Robert Arthur, lured by the cooing voice, came tripping down the stairs.
“Ah, Mr. Kewdingham! What a lahvly day it’s turned out, after all, hasn’t it? I was wondering if you could both…George was so frightfully sorry to miss you the other afternoon; he was quite jealous!—No; I simply can’t stay. I promised George to be back to tea. Why not come to Sykeham with me? Or would Mrs.—would Bertha think me too horribly rude?” She giggled invitingly.
“I should be delighted,” said Robert Arthur, “if you are quite sure—”
“Of course! George is dying to show you that wonderful lawn of his. Oh, do come, Mr. Kewdingham.” And she lightly touched him on the arm with her little grey glove. She could not foresee—poor flighty lady!—the part she would be called on to play in the Kewdingham drama. She did not think of such a thing as drama. All she wanted was a bit of amusement.
“Really, that’s very kind of you. I’ll get my hat and coat.” Middle-aged men are peculiarly susceptible to these advances.
So in less than two minutes Mr. Kewdingham was sitting beside Mrs. Chaddlewick in the car. She proposed to drive round by the Tadsley plantations, where, so she said, there was a simply too heavenly view. Mrs. Chaddlewick drove her own car—an Upton-Ryder saloon—and she drove it as well as the average woman does drive a car; that is to say, she made it go from one place to another.
At the edge of the plantation Mrs. Chaddlewick swung off the road and pulled up on a soft grassy stretch below the trees.
“Now just look at it!” she said. “I always think it’s the most gorgeous view I know anywhere.”
She made a silky, sidling movement towards Mr. Kewdingham.
“Yes; those tints are very beautiful,” said Robert Arthur, to whom a landscape was merely an expanse of earth. Instead of looking at the hills and the woods he looked at the melting fluffiness of Mrs. Chaddlewick.
Family Matters Page 5