He said: ‘I’m sorry now. I know we’d agreed that other was to be the last.’
‘Yes,’ she said as he took her in his arms.
He said: ‘ I’m always breaking my agreements, though I try so hard to keep them.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
There was silence for some moments.
‘You don’t want to talk,’ he said. ‘Well, let it be. Let us not talk.’
The dance went on. He knew that there was some change in her, in her silence and acquiescence of mind. They were dancing as one person again: there was no stiffness in her body now, it was relaxed, pliant, defeated. They swung in absolute harmony to the slow throb of the waltz, unthinking, the music and the rhythm inside them, a pulse in their blood.
On my oath and soul, he thought suddenly: I’ve won. It came on him like a great flash of light, like a beacon flaring in the darkness. I’ve won.
Chapter Twelve
She changed the household arrangements so that she could visit her family on different days. When she went she took the carriage and left an hour earlier. That way she avoided seeing him. She could find no genuine interest, not in listening to Brook reading his poems, not in managing the house, not in Uncle Pridey’s mice, not in Ferguson’s dye works, which she visited again. Nor in the many books on dyeing Mr Ferguson gave her to read.
In the end she resorted to Margaret’s diary – as to a vice which had been tempting her for a long time.
She couldn’t bring herself to read much at a time. It was not only prying into a dead woman’s thoughts, it was prying into her husband’s past.
On February 20, came this:
Dan here today. He’s the only one I can really talk to freely and frankly. Dear Dan, how I love him! though I know it is wrong to condone his way of life. If he would only abandon his loose living he could yet become a brilliant success in some suitable profession. He feels about the Fergusons just what I do. Today he comes with a new discovery. His Lawyer friend, Mr Fry, tells him that when Grandfather Ferguson died he left the dye works and all his other possessions equally among his three children, and that Frederick Ferguson, my father-in-law, has cheated the other two of their fair portion! It’s a pretty story, and one I confess I believe, God forgive me for my uncharitableness. It just fits in with his character. And they, the simpletons, now live on his charity, and he puts on the smile of benevolence to dole out a little of what is rightly theirs!
For a time Cordelia could not read on. She sat there idly flipping the pages, trying to reject this thing as a great calumny.
February 27: Insomnia so bad that I asked Dr Birch for more sleeping tablets. He asked me if I were worrying over anything. I said no, for what is the good of telling outsiders of these things? And they are so little when told, so big when experienced. My Bible is my great consolation. The prayers downstairs are nothing, little better than an empty sham.
March 22: Mother and Maud came. They are worried about Dan, who is spending above his income. They talk nearly all the time about their petty troubles, as if thinking I have none. Just before going Mother says I am losing weight and she shouldn’t have expected it in a house where so much is spent on food!
April 6: A big fuss last evening because B. gave a reading of his poems. I wish I could think more of them. To many of these people the very faculty of being able to compose verse at all is quite a matter for wonder, but to me, brought up on Milton and Wordsworth …
April 12: That hateful creature S.-S. has been here laying down the law and making fantastic statements. It is queer what pride, what wicked intellectual pride there is in this house. It goeth before a fall. Last night Brook’s uncle was at loggerheads with the others because S.-S. made some disparaging remark about a horrible dead rat he had stuffed. They are like children, children, pretending to play at some adult scientific game. They have a little trumpery knowledge, but no wisdom. I should pray for them, it is a confession of failure that I cannot.
That was as much as Cordelia could face in one day. She felt as if she were getting to know Margaret, as if she had met her and was becoming intimate. She didn’t think she would have liked Margaret if they had really met, but the diary, although it did not show the writer up in a nice light, showed up the Fergusons in a worse one.
It was dismal sitting up in the attic amid the dust and the old books, but she could not bring herself to carry the diary downstairs.
The second day it was raining and the light from the dormer windows, coming through the dirt and dust, was very poor.
April 19: Not seen Dan for two months until today. Had a quarrel with him which much upset me. I taxed him with what Mr F. had told me: that he was throwing all his money away on the Porteus woman. He denied it, but I don’t know which of them to believe. A pretty confession, that I don’t know whether to believe my own brother or this man who has ruined my life. Before he left we made it up, and to save me getting up I asked him to pass me my iron pills, which I had hidden in the corner cupboard. He called me ‘Old Jackdaw’, and the old familiar name struck strange echoes in my memory. Those happy times!
May 12: All this undercooked meat that Dr Birch prescribes revolts me. Besides, I can’t digest it. Think I shall demand my own doctor. Dr Vernon is so different.
May 20: Mr Ferguson and Brook both away. Made great effort and went downstairs. Think I was better for it, only at the end …
As Cordelia turned the page she heard a light footstep in the shadows behind her.
Before she could stir a voice said:
‘Pretty pastime for a young woman!’
She turned and stared up into the face of Uncle Pridey.
… Her heart began to beat again, her circulation to move. She swallowed something in her throat but could not speak. She groped on the floor for the book she had dropped.
He grinned. ‘D’you think it was one of those ghosts we raised at the séance?’
The best defence. ‘What are you doing here, Uncle Pridey? It’s horrible to creep around like that!’
He squatted beside her. ‘Didn’t really frighten you, did I? Sorry. It seemed a good joke when I saw you creeping up the stairs.’
She picked up one or two books, contrived to hide the tell-tale diary among the others. It could only be a clumsy movement, but it might serve with Pridey.
‘ ’S a matter of fact I’ve just finished my book,’ he said. ‘I was coming to tell you when I saw you moving this way. Care to see it?’
‘Yes, I should.’
Shyly, a grey old man producing the toy he had fumbled over for years, he took a manuscript from under his arm. It was a thick wad of paper neatly but amateurishly bound. On the front was written in fine script, Habits and Heredity in Mice, with Some Observations on the Anatomy and Behaviour of the Common Shrew, by Thomas Pride Ferguson.
‘May I open it?’
‘Yes, yes, of course, go on, go on.’
She opened the manuscript at random, trying to read a paragraph here and there. It was finely written, and there were diagrams. As her mind unfroze, allowing normal thought, there came a sensation of pity for this queer old man who had been deprived of his true place in the world and had turned his attention, his time, and all his thoughts to the study of vermin. Perhaps he, too, in his youth had been an idealist like his brother, dreaming of social progress and reform but lacking his brother’s domineering spirit. So he had allowed himself to be pushed out of his true place, and his idealism had turned inward and become eccentricity.
Now was to come this last test in which all his mind’s wandering speculations were to come out into the open and be measured against the standards of ordinary men. She wished he had never completed it, so that it could remain for his private happiness and could never be ignored or derided.
‘Have the others seen it?’
‘Heavens, no!’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘You’ve no need to be. Would you show it to Aunt Tish?’
‘Well, perhaps not
to her.’
‘Unless it was a book on corns. Or to Brook unless it was on Shelley or Chopin?’
‘I think he’d be interested.’
‘Or to Frederick unless it was about the religious practices of the lost tribes of Israel? Or to Slaney-Smith unless it had ‘‘Evolution’’ written on every page?’
‘What are you going to do with it, then?’
He was cracking his knuckles. ‘Biology’s in the news, thanks to this Huxley fellow. Might do worse than get it published, make a bit of money. It won’t be fashionable, mind, but I haven’t watched the little beggars for nothing. Oh, that reminds me; hope I haven’t squashed ’em …’
He felt in his coat pocket and produced three tiny wriggling baby shrews between his fingers. They were revoltingly small and hairless and scrawny. He put them on the floor and took out another handful. As he put these down Cordelia drew back her skirts with a gasp.
‘Just born,’ he said. ‘Just born. Don’t be scared of them. They’re quite blind. They can’t run after you, so you won’t need a carving knife.’ He drew out an odd couple he had found in the corners of his pockets. ‘They’ll snap soon enough but they can’t snap yet. Notice anything peculiar? No, you wouldn’t. Two of’em are normal: five have only got four toes on each foot. Interesting, isn’t it? Their father and mother have each only got four toes: very rare: I’ve inbred it for seven generations from one freak. Curious thing is I can’t get a complete four-toed litter: this is the most freaks I’ve got; very encouraging; but the normal keeps pushing its way up. Drat the normal, I say. What’s the good of the normal even in human beings? There’s too much normality. We should get away from it.’
‘They look as if they all need overcoats,’ said Cordelia.
‘You sound disgusted: is it the shrews or the theory? Don’t you believe in inbreeding? What’s wrong with it except that it breeds peculiarity? What’s wrong with peculiarity? Look at our family. A bit out of the ordinary but the better for that. Two good brains and one bad one: it’s a fair average, better than three nonentities. Have a sweet. No: you’d better not; Mr Gladstone’s been at ’em.’
‘Our family?’ she said.
‘Yes, in a small way. My father and mother were first cousins, didn’t you know? Both Fergusons. I’m all in favour of it. If I’d married I should have tried to find a cousin too. It doubles the pluses in your children – and the minuses as well, but it’s a fair risk. Look at Frederick. Look at me. Don’t you think it’s worth the risk of an occasional Tish?’
‘… Did Mr Ferguson marry a cousin too?’
‘Frederick? Heavens, no. Married a Miss Potter from Stretford. A dull little woman, but she suited him.’ Uncle Pridey began to pick up his shrews. ‘Don’t worry, there’s small risk of four-toed freaks in your children.’
She moved away from him, moved to the window and stared up at the rain. She heard Pridey pick up his manuscript and flip lovingly through the pages. Two good brains and one bad one, she thought. Or should it be one good brain and two bad? … Or three bad? Where did brain and character overlap?
‘Have you always been interested in mice, Uncle Pridey?’
‘I kept them as a lad. But not scientifically. One time I wanted to be a doctor, but it didn’t work out. They began to breed, but not in cages, so they had to be destroyed.’
‘I think I’ll go downstairs.’
‘Always had a liking for cutting up,’ he said, chewing. ‘Might have made a surgeon. Couldn’t be, so I cut up mice. When they’re dead, of course. What? Oh, yes, I’ll come with you.’
‘Thank you for showing me your book.’
‘Oh, tut. I’ll give you a copy when it’s printed. More than Slaney-Smith will get. Or Frederick unless he recants his heresies.’
Chapter Thirteen
Brook was away for a week in Oldham. She had suggested going with him, but Mr Ferguson had not wanted it. She was afraid of being left alone, but the old man’s objections had their way.
While Brook was absent, in fact, she was more occupied than usual, for Mr Ferguson took her down three times to the dye works and showed her everything in great detail. Against Brook’s wishes, and with no formal consenting decision from her, Mr Ferguson was pushing ahead with his plans.
It was a fine June, and the only real balm to her turbulent loneliness was the garden. Beyond the lawns and the lilacs was a walled garden with roses and peaches on the walls and raspberries and blackberries in cages. Used to the restricted untidiness of the long strip behind the shop, she found all this a delight. As often as possible she worked in it herself, specially during the long evenings after supper when Farrow and Bollard had finished for the day and she could potter about undisturbed. It was a peaceful loneliness, then, to be borne without too much discomfort.
The sun set over the wall just before eight and she was cutting some Gloire de Dijon roses, glad of the long shadows and the cooling air, sniffing each rose as she picked it and regretting they would soon be over, when she heard the crack of a twig at the other side of the garden and saw that a man had just come into the garden through the arched doorway at the far end. It was Stephen.
She stood quite still, roses in hand, not breathing until he came up with her. He looked severe, and desperate.
‘Why have you been avoiding me?’ he said.
She didn’t reply.
‘Why have you not been meeting me?’ he said.
‘Does anyone – know you’re here?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘ I came over the wall.’
She led him into a corner made by the wall and the larger greenhouse. None of this garden was overlooked by the house, but here they were not so plain to be seen if someone came to the gate.
He looked at her closely, at her young face lowered, at the fine rich hair, the white muslin frock. Her brown lashes hid the quick vitality of her eyes.
‘Why haven’t you met me, now?’
‘Isn’t it plain?’
‘That you’ve no heart at all?’
‘No.’
‘That it’s all ended between us?’
‘… Yes.’
‘Because you don’t care?’
‘Do you think that?’
‘Is your feeling for Brook what you feel for me?’
‘Oh, Stephen, don’t ask me …’
‘Cordelia.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been crazy for you so long. I’m tired and – hungry.’
She looked up at him again. And she didn’t say anything. He put his arms about her and drew her to him. He looked down closely into her face.
‘Cordelia.’
‘Yes?’
‘You love me, don’t you?’
‘I …’
‘Tell me.’
‘… Yes, Stephen.’
He kissed her – at first hesitantly and then more surely. The salmon-yellow roses twisted and turned in her hand, fell to the ground, lay in a trickle of water which had run from the plants in the greenhouse. She took a step back and his foot crushed one of the roses, soiling its fine petals in the mud. He put his hands to her temples, raised her face and stared into it, kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her mouth.
At first she was quiescent, yielding defeated in his grasp, but after a time she put her arms round his neck, the rough gloves still on, and then she clung to him so that he could kiss her no more.
He pushed open the door of the greenhouse and they were inside, he found a wooden seat for her, knelt and wiped her eyes.
‘Don’t cry. There’s nothing to fret about, my sweetheart.’
‘I’m not crying. Just leave me a minute. I’ll be all right.’
‘I can’t leave you now – when I’ve just found you.’
They stayed quiet for a while. About them there was the smell of grape vines and heliotrope and the damp earth.
She looked at him with glittering eyes, dabbed them and half laughed. ‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have come on me so suddenly. It was the shock.�
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‘Did you think you would keep me out for ever?’
‘I didn’t think that far.’
‘Do you often come in this garden?’
‘Most evenings when it’s fine.’
‘What a fool I’ve been! Night after night I’ve waited outside, for some chance – and all the time there was this. We must meet here often.’
‘No …’
‘Why not?’
‘We’re sure to be seen, for one thing.’
‘Not after dark. People can’t see in the dark. Can’t you slip away?’
‘Only while Brook’s not here.’
‘Well, while Brook’s not here. And we can meet in other places. If you’ll promise to play fair and not keep avoiding me, we can soon fix something up.’
‘… Why hadn’t you the courage to keep away?’
‘If that’s courage,’ he said, ‘then I’d not be wanting it. Why are you always fretting yourself? Tell me now at this moment: aren’t you happy? Be quite honest and tell me.’
Happy? She didn’t know. She was shaken, transported; her heart was thumping.
‘Ah, well, if you won’t say it,’ he said, ‘ I will. I’m happy. There’s nobody got the advantage of me in the British Isles. You’ve told me you love me. You can’t get away from that. Whatever fences you raise or walls you build, you can’t escape from that.’
‘I haven’t raised the fences,’ she said. ‘They were there when we met.’
‘Then I’ll trample them down. By all the Saints, I’ll trample them down!’
He kissed her again, till she broke from him and groped a way down the darkening greenhouse. Then he followed her and caught at her arm and asked her pardon, and she gave it and they sat together on the stone wall under the vine.
They talked in whispers. She was glad of the chance to talk, though at the back of her mind a voice cried that it was asking for trouble staying so long, and her white frock would be stained with tell-tale marks and her roses were lost.
Cordelia Page 17