Cordelia

by Winston Graham

  And Brook? Could she make him happy and in so doing be happy herself? Before they left he had come across and touched her elbow and said:

  ‘I’ll wait for Sunday. I’ll – I’ll hope you’ll choose right – the way I want you to choose. It would make me very happy.’

  It was the nearest he had yet come to speaking of his own feelings. She felt warmer, comforted by remembering it.

  ‘Essie,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Esther indistinctly, being nearly asleep.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

  She lay quiet until she heard her sister’s regular breathing, and then slipped quietly out of bed and went to the window. She stood in her long nightdress against the glass with the curtain parted by her outstretched hands.

  There was a moon somewhere, but the night was heavily overcast. She stood there and thought: All the selfish things, pride, position; all the unselfish little things, compassion and liking for Brook, wanting to please and help my family; if they are all piled up one on top of another …

  She would be able to help her family, that was certain. They were always hard up. Much of Mr Blake’s work was visiting the big houses of the countryside to attend to their clocks, and for this work he seldom got paid more than once in three years; some had even run on for seven. To found a family of her own, surely found it in comfort and security and position. Wrong to feel pride and excitement in that? Her children would not need to be brought up anyhow – they could go to fine schools, perhaps be trained for things even above dye works and Grove Hall. To throw all that away … She thought: The first I shall call John James and the second Edward Blake and the third, if there is a third, Brook. But what of this Brook? I felt more for that boy Teddy brought home when I was thirteen. Yet I like Brook. We get on well. He’s clever, plays the piano much better than I shall ever be able to, he writes poetry, is a gentleman. Mrs Brook Ferguson of Grove Hall. Get thee behind me, Satan.

  Heavens, I’m excited. I shall never, never sleep!

  Talk to Father tomorrow. He’s the only one who’s keeping a level head. But what can I tell him? I can’t shift the decision to him. It must be mine, mine.

  She turned from the window and came slowly back to the bed. The sound of quiet regular breathing met her in the darkness. Three of them there, peacefully asleep. I wish it were Esther, she thought. (Do I, truly, honestly?) I wish I could put off deciding for three months. I wish … I wish …

  She climbed slowly up into the bed, and Esther turned over restlessly as the bed creaked. Cordelia looked at the figure beside her and thought: Esther … Brook, Esther … Brook.

  A little shiver went through her limbs, and she pulled the bedclothes up to her chin.

  Chapter Five

  Seven months and three days after the death of Margaret Ferguson, Brook signed the register in St James’s Church a second time.

  There had been a good deal of argument over the wedding arrangements and Mr Ferguson had wondered once or twice whether he had been wise to choose a girl with such an obstructive and independent father. It was not at all what he had expected.

  Mr Blake had insisted on all his rights, and the marriage had almost foundered on Mr Ferguson’s suggestion that the wedding breakfast should be held at Grove Hall. Mrs Blake, now nursing her fifteenth, had needed all her hysterics to persuade John James that the reception need not be in the tiny parlour over the shop; and eventually they compromised by holding it in the Albion Hotel. There in superb dignity only offset by his slight build and roomy collar, Mr Blake followed Mr Ferguson’s speech with one of equal length, though far fewer words, in which he likened life to the building of a great clock and the partnership of marriage to the fitting together of two cogwheels which turned ever afterwards in precision and harmony.

  She had gone through it calmly, detached, and a little surprised at her own detachment. A few days before she had been terribly excited, wound up, but on the day this strange calm.

  Someone was marrying Brook Ferguson. O God, who by Thy mighty power hast made all things of nothing who also did appoint that out of man woman should take her beginning; and, knitting them together, didst teach that it should never be lawful to put asunder those whom Thou by Matrimony hast made one, O God, who has consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery … She saw it all with extraordinary clearness: the nervous perspiration round the corners of Brook’s nose; the thick rimless eyeglasses and swinging black cord of Tom Griffin, the best man; that other tall young man with the friendly smile who seemed so taken with Esther’s vivid bridesmaid beauty; the slightly common effect of Aunt Higginbottom’s coral beads of which she was so proud; the new clergyman, Mr Shrike, with his new Dundreary whiskers. And later Mr Ferguson’s dominance of the whole scene, his beautiful white waistcoat and shiny silk hat, her mother’s tears – which might have been of regret at losing a daughter or relief that the wedding had come off after all; Mr Ferguson’s friend, Mr Slaney-Smith, who made a dryly witty speech but really rather took too much on himself by seeming to claim credit for the whole affair; Brook’s shabby out-of-date aunt, whom everyone seemed so unkindly to ignore, and Brook’s eccentric uncle; the fashionable breakfast Mr Blake had ordered, beginning with a sardine and ending with some sort of cheese no one had ever tasted before. If there was one thing that disturbed her during the early part of the day, it was not any of the ordinary embarrassments of a bride but the thought of how much her father was spending on her, how little he could afford it, what her family might now have to do without during the coming winter.

  Brook, she could see, felt it more than she did, even though this was his second adventure. Curious how little she thought of his first wife; but she’d never known her, not yet even seen a photo of her; she had no twinges of jealousy, no curiosity to know more; Margaret belonged to Brook’s past and she did not yet try to visualize it.

  After the breakfast Mr Slaney-Smith sang ‘ Tell Me Mary How to Woo Thee’ in a thin clear tenor, and then a male quartet with quiffs as shiny as their shirt-fronts came in and gave ‘Thy Voice O Harmony’and ‘ Glorious Apollo’, while the bride and bridegroom were upstairs changing.

  At the door, after she had taken leave of the whole family, she turned back for a moment and looked at all the people who had been at the breakfast. They were smiling at her and crowding together, and some of the younger ones had got rice ready to throw. She thought: This is really happening to me. And the circumstance which suddenly pulled aside the veil which had been separating her from life all through the day was the expression on her father’s face as he shut the door of the carriage – of sudden pain and doubt – and then she had touched his hand for what seemed the last time and someone shouting and laughing had come between.

  The carriage began to draw away. I am Mrs Brook Ferguson. My home is at Grove Hall. The shop, the kitchen, the garden, the little parlour, the upright piano; I shall come to them as a stranger revisiting old places. The familiar routine, the easy jokes, the homely smells. And all the clocks chattering and chiming, something which has been with me ever since my first memories of warmth, of the rocking-chair, of the singing kettle.

  ‘Phew!’ Brook said. ‘I’m glad it’s over, dear, aren’t you? I got so hot in the church, and then it was cold in the dining-room. I hope I haven’t caught a chill. What time did Father say we get to Blackpool?’

  ‘Half-past four,’ she said. ‘ Will there be a lot of people on the train?’

  ‘Not in the first class.’

  She stared out at the passing traffic, at the big black bulk of the Infirmary and the stone drinking-fountain with the three beggars sitting beside it, at the bus with its brown horses and the street barrows and the horse-drawn drays, at the old ladies in their black velvet cloaks and black bonnets and the urchins in ragged coats and bare feet. She glanced at her husband, who had drawn the cloak around him, at the fine silk hat overshadowing his sensitive, nervous petulant face. And she thought: We are strangers. Polite words, touche
d hands, a nervous kiss. Little spun silk threads of contact; you could crush them and blow them away.

  But it’s not fair to doubt now, to think sentimentally of the things left behind. Sympathy and affection were his due. Already, merely by his proposal, he had given her so much. Somehow true feeling had not been possible while the two families had been there. All day she had been dried up, unattached. Now that would change.

  She said: ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I wish it wasn’t October. It goes dark so soon.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘No. No, I suppose not.’

  One hand was on his knee and she put hers over it.

  His pale face instantly flushed with pleasure.

  ‘Cordelia,’ he said. ‘We’re away from all those confounded people at last. I hate staring people wondering what you’re thinking and feeling. It’s nice to be alone. I’m very fond of you, Cordelia. I hope we’ll get on all right. I want to give you things and make you happy.’

  ‘You don’t need to give me things, Brook. I’m happy now.’

  They reached Blackpool in sunshine and drove straight to their hotel, with a strong westerly breeze pushing and thrusting at the hansom. The season was over and there were few people in the hotel. At her suggestion they went out again almost immediately to make the most of the daylight, and strolled along the front, stopping now and again to sit on one of the big black stones which stood in ridges overlooking the pebbly bar sloping down to the sea. They came back through the centre of the village, where a few people were finding amusement in the vulgar peep-show machines, and where a few of the shacks were still open and loud-voiced men invited you to buy cheap jewellery or an indigestion cure. They stopped among the shops, and Brook bought her chocolates and a stick of rock and a new handbag. He wanted to buy her more things but she would not let him. Then he got some cheroots for himself and they strolled back past the little cottages to their hotel.

  They watched the afterglow fade and then went in. A few more people were about, two elderly gentlemen and some silked and velveted old ladies. A porter was just lighting the oil lamps. Brook had taken a private sitting-room, and for the first evening they decided to have a meal up there to avoid the interested inspection of the other people.

  She had tasted champagne only once before but liked it instantly in spite of the way it made bubbles burst in your nose. It was strange, this liking, she explained to Brook, for she didn’t care much for beer or port or brandy. Champagne had a sort of clean taste like cold water gone sour.

  They both laughed at this. Brook began to tell her about his poetry. She knew he liked talking of it, and she liked to hear him. The little hesitations slipped out of his speech. During the cotton famine the Courier had published two of his poems, and occasionally he got an essay in one of the weekly papers. There was a suggestion that he might some time give a reading of his poems at the Athenaeum. If he had had his way, he said, he would have taken up literature as a career.

  Time passed quickly while he talked, and she encouraged him to go on.

  At length he said: ‘ Well, I’m tired. Are you? I expect you are. I think I’ll just go downstairs and smoke a cigar before I turn in. Would you like anything more?’

  ‘No, thank you, Brook. I shall be all right.’

  ‘Very well.’ He got up and rang for the maid and put on his cloak and hat and went down.

  In the hall he stopped to light a cheroot, feeling master of the situation. He was not drunk but had taken just enough to feel for once that he had a firm grip on life instead of being at the mercy of every eddy that came. He knew he had talked well and had interested her. None of Margaret’s condescension. She was young and untutored and poorly off and fond of him and desirable. He was knowledgeable and rich and mature. He had all the advantages. Life was good.

  Only, in a way, he wished she were not so beautiful. In living reality, and at close quarters, her loveliness unnerved him. It was always the way: the life of his imagination was subtler and easier than reality.

  There was a balcony leading off the smoking-room which looked across the road to the sands and the sea, and he went there and leaned against the rail looking out. A single lantern hung over the entrance from the french windows. Another man was at the other end of the balcony, and Brook nodded a brief good evening.

  He was glad of the prospect that for a fortnight he would be free from his father. On this fortnight they should do everything, go everywhere they possibly could. He looked forward to showing her all the things she had not seen and teaching her all the things she did not know. With Margaret it had never been possible. Apart from the difference in age, she came from a family which had inevitably seen more and knew more than he ever had. He remembered how Margaret had looked that first wedding night. Ever so slightly superior and passionless – and ever so slightly resentful. It had given him a sense of inferiority, of amateurism, though he knew in truth she was as innocent as he.

  ‘Right unseasonable weather we’re having, sir,’ said the man in the other corner.

  ‘Yes,’ said Brook.

  ‘We’ve seen naught of the October gales yet. It’s been a strange autumn, has this. Why, I was walking along the South Shore this morning and watching the people shuttering up their windows and sealing them with clay, and all the time the sun was shining and it was as warm as August.’

  ‘We – only came tonight. I shall be glad if the fine weather holds a day or two more.’

  ‘Eh, but the gales are healthy, lad.’ The stub of a cigar showed up a fierce brick-coloured old face, whiskered and alert. ‘Always come for ’em. Have been coming for ’em for near on forty years. Blows the cobwebs away for the winter.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He had to be grateful to his father; without him it would not have been possible. One resented so often the things that he did, so reasonable, so ruthless. One resented having things decided for one, and yet … The girl in the grey churchyard had become his.

  ‘Only missed one year, and that was when the wife died. She’d been a diabetic for some years, but in the end it was a stroke that took her …’

  There was a strong salty smell coming in from the sea; it filled one’s lungs and enriched one’s blood. That champagne …

  ‘From Manchester,’ said Brook, wishing now he had not chosen this place for his cigar.

  ‘I was there three months ago. In hospital for an operation. Stone in the bladder, it was. You wouldn’t think you’d come through it at my time of life, would you? How old d’you think I am? Nearly seventy-eight. The surgeons were right surprised when I told them. They said: ‘‘He’s got a strong heart, has Mr Wainwright.”’

  On that other honeymoon his father had come over to Filey at the end of the second week; Margaret had resented it. It had been the first of many clashes … There’d never been any real peace between Margaret and his father all the years, only a sort of armistice between quarrels.

  ‘The things they can do nowadays. They wanted me to have an anaesthetic, but I said no.’ The old man moved nearer and stared into Brook’s face, searching it for expression and interest. ‘Never lost my wits in seventy-eight years and not going to start now. D’ye see? It’s not really an operation, lad, not a cutting, that is …’

  ‘Yes,’ said Brook suddenly, feeling a bit sick as the story came home to him. Up to now he had kept the old man’s nonsense at bay. The words had fallen on his ears and meant nothing. ‘ I see. Well, I think–’

  ‘They crush the stone. With an instrument. Like a thin pair of pliers almost.’

  How would you like this to happen to you? The nightmare of his life was fear of pain.

  ‘Look, I’ll tell you. It’s really a matter of making up one’s mind to it. They say the Greeks …’ He went into details.

  God, shut up! Leave me alone. Go away, old man. I want to think of youth and health and pleasure, not age and disease and pain. I’ve always got something the matter with me, some trivial thin
g that might not be trivial. Do I want to think of such things tonight?

  ‘What went wrong with me was that they cracked it in two but only one piece was crushed. So they said to me, ‘‘Will you go through with it now, Mr Wainwright, or have you had enough?”’

  Brook sat down and took a deep breath. The sea air was sweet.

  ‘They said many a man half my age …’ The old fellow put the tip of his cigar back among his whiskers. ‘They said it surprised them. What’s to do, lad? Reckon that cheroot’s a bit strong, eh? They’re always a tidy mouthful, are those long thin ones.’ His fierce old face was peering, questing. ‘Got something wrong with you, eh? I had a nephew once–’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ Brook said, standing up. And that queer distaste for offending people made him add: ‘ Thank you. I think it’s time I turned in. Good night.’

  He went in through the darkened smoke-room, knocking into a table in his haste, and hurried through the hall. He went up the stairs and fortunately there was a chair on the landing. There was a plant on a wicker table beside it and he crushed out the cheroot and dropped it in the pot. Angry and humiliated, he sat quiet for a few moments and began to feel better.

  He got up and went into the sitting-room. The table had been cleared and Cordelia was not there. He pottered about a few moments. He had brought a few books with him, and she had arranged them on the top of the display cabinet. He took one down and stared at it, then replaced it and went to the bedroom door.

  The bedroom was ornate, with a faded red carpet and a crimson and gilt Fleur de Lys patterned paper. The furniture was of heavy polished walnut, with lace antimacassars, and there were two improving texts on the walls: ‘The memory of the just is blessed’ and ‘I sleep but my heart waketh.’