Hemlock and After

by Angus Wilson

  Bill was quick to defend his new association. ‘You’ve got no sense of the country, Ella,’ he said. ‘The English countryside is still basically pagan. That was something poor old Father never understood: he thought – God bless him – that a rowing blue, an East End settlement, and a spot of Paley brought up to date by Gore would save the farm labourer’s soul. He hadn’t the faintest conception of the forces he was up against. The English countryside is still a matriarchy and a very old matriarchy. It’s still committed to the worship of Dea Mater, Isis, Cybele, the fruitful Virgin, the Witch of Edmonton. Call her what you will, she remains the most powerful force that primitive man knows. Here in Little Vardon you’ve got her perfect symbol, and all you can say is “she’s perfectly foul”. Of course she is, so were the rites of Cybele and Isis and the messing around with goats and bits of wax, but she’s with life’s stream and not against it, and so I say thank God for her.’ Bill’s loose red face shook with excitement as he composed the chapter of his book on the Great Mother which in the last days had been ousting Rhodes from his head.

  Ella paid no attention to what he said. Her normal self had never had any truck with irrationalism, even with D. H. Lawrence – although, of course, it was the decriers of Lawrence who were ‘perfectly foul’. Her neurotic self had no need for generalized irrationalisms; on such a plane she believed in her ‘own system’. ‘If half of what they say is true,’ she pronounced, ‘she ought to be prosecuted.’

  ‘And no doubt will be, as the Lancashire witches were, or the Kentish lady who produced rabbits for George III, or anyone else who’s in touch with Life in this dead land. Only I rather fancy Mrs Curry’s a bit too smart for them. She’s a very wise old woman, you know. One or two of the little games she plays hit against some of the tabus of that great Christian classical upbringing I’ve been burdened with. But the older I grow, you know, Ella, the less satisfied I am with the compound of Christ and Cicero which Father instilled into us.’ It was improbable that Bill was in any way influenced by the tenets of his father’s teaching, or indeed had been for thirty or forty years, but the theme was useful to his present discourse, and he excused the invention to himself by considering the family link it made with his sister. ‘Tully, no doubt,’ he went on, ‘was an excellent gentleman and certainly a very desirable check on gentle Jesus….’

  Ella soon felt that she could decently abstract herself from the discourse. She had been reminded by Bill’s reference to her father of a long session with an analyst – that Bavarian, Dr Wengl, who made you draw pictures – in which they had got stuck at her father’s deathbed. Dr Wengl had insisted on her visualizing the scene – the noises, her father’s pallor, his incontinence – but they had got nowhere; all she could recall vividly was the intricate square of iron work at the bedhead. As Bill talked, she began to rearrange these iron tubes into fresh patterns. Every now and again Bill’s phrases came to her as though through pads of cotton wool. He was aware by now of her abstraction, but in his total absorption with his new interest he allowed his thoughts to wander, clothing them as he went along in that historically allusive, pseudo-encyclopedic language which he considered literary. He had indeed constructed a very penetrating analysis of Mrs Curry’s milieu in these few days of growing intimacy, so that he had found even his deadened, ego-bound moral sense jabbed and torn by what he uncovered. But he had set out from the pub that afternoon to find the Wife of Bath and he usually ended where he had begun. Through the anaesthetizing filter of his stupefying mass of words he passed all that he had learnt, and felt the wounds of outraged conscience slowly numbing; healing no doubt. When a man had seen as much of the seamy side, you know, as Bill, it could hardly be expected that he was going to get upset at the diverse ways by which those curious beings, men and women, burned out their brief candles. So the phrases rolled out, passing here and there into Ella’s iron designs – ‘roguery, that is an admirable expression, an errand boy’s cocked snook at all this highminded superior sort of Pecksniffery by which our rulers try to persuade us that a lot of damned bad food is all for our own good’; ‘wonderful gift of cant – as old as Jonathan Wilde – throwing the stinking, creeping-Jesus talk of the age back in its own throat’; ‘perfect subject for Joyce Cary’; ‘healthy morality of Moll Flanders’; ‘minor, perhaps, but curious how the old sacrifice of the virgin goes on, atoning for the burden of sin …’; ‘look at little St Hugh of Lincoln’; ‘And who’s to blame? Those fools who think the dark gods can be kept down?’; ‘lid of the Kettle’; ‘very few sins that aren’t as old as time’; ‘D. H. Lawrence, though he could never break through the prison of D. H. Lawrence, at least saw that, when he defied the loins’. Across and through the complicated iron patterns which Ella was busily rearranging, letters and words began to weave themselves – Minors, Lincoln, loins, and then again minors, minors.

  *

  ‘It’s quite simple, Nicholas. You tried to make toffee in the kitchen, when you were told not to, and you burned your arm.’ Sonia’s voice was as cool and deliberate as the quick despatch with which she wound the bandage round the little boy’s arm. ‘That, of course, was why we told you not to do it. You must learn to obey.’ She cut the ends of the bandage and tied them dexterously. She turned to the French girl, who was still shaking slightly from the sight of the accident. ‘Et maintenant, Berthe, vous pouvez passer chez Mile Snagg lui payer les comptes. Nicholas vous accompagnera. C’est la meilleure chose, oui, je crois quec’ est la meilleure chose.’ There were moments when talking in French to Berthe almost broke Sonia’s patience, but it was a discipline she had set herself, and she was determined to keep it.

  James was at home preparing a difficult brief; but no difficulty under heaven could stand in the way of that moment he and Sonia so valued, when they took a glass of very dry sherry before luncheon. It was the one thing that they missed on those many days when James was away in court. Starting with a few words on general topics of politics, current books, or theatre, they usually passed to some aspect of James’s career, and then dealt coolly and expertly with some worry or anxiety, that in another household might have fretted or fussed its way through the business of the whole day. It was Sonia’s recipe and, like her excellent cuisine, James felt he could never repay her for its healthy effect after the muddle of his childhood.

  ‘What had Hubert to say?’ asked Sonia. She sat, as usual at this hour, on the arm of James’s chair. The restraint needed to deal with Nicholas’s accident unemotionally had tired her. She allowed herself the refreshment of running the side of her little finger down her husband’s cheek.

  ‘Oh! only Saturday’s council meeting,’ said James. ‘He’s very much against our using financial grounds to oppose the Bradley scheme. I quite agree with him. Labour’ll only make use of it. Besides there are plenty of other grounds. He hated Ghosts. “Reminiscent of a Sunday-school treat”, you know the usual Hubert stuff.’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Sonia, ‘I know. He probably didn’t see very much of it. He’s always too busy thinking of what he’s going to say. Your father will know if it’s any good. Not that I should want to go.’ She thought of the emotional excess which most people seemed to prefer in their conduct of life. ‘I admire Ibsen’s stagecraft, but I find it more and more difficult to sit through hours of life in the raw.’

  ‘Yes,’ said James, ‘like those documentary films. We’ll go to the new Anouilh, darling. It’s period 1913, so we can have a real wallow. Not,’ he added, ‘that Ibsen doesn’t hit the moral nail on the head every time. Far too often for Hubert’s liking.’

  ‘I don’t think,’ Sonia said, she spoke slowly, drawing little lines with the tip of her finger just above James’s ear, ‘that Hubert’s brilliance has got enough stamina, do you, James? I was amused how quickly Lord Howlett dismissed that speech of his the other day. “I suppose, Mrs Sands”,’ Sonia turned down the corners of her mouth in imitation, ‘“that that fellow Rose will tell us the point of it all in his continuation”. You know how the old
man speaks. As though he’d just heard that he’d only another week to live.’ Sonia twisted a strand of her husband’s hair round her finger. ‘He liked your speech, darling.’

  James did not answer this point, though his dark eyes flashed up at his wife for a second. ‘Hubert’s extraordinarily valuable,’ he said with judicial fairness. ‘He’s the F. E. Smith type really. They’ve done wonderful things for the party, of course, men like that, but they’re not the mainstay, and they can be a great embarrassment at elections or anything of that kind.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sonia replied. ‘I shouldn’t think really that was the sort of thing Central Office wanted in a near dormitory constituency. But so much depends …’ She and James were great Edenites.

  ‘He saw Father at the theatre. He said he looked very ill.’ James sipped his sherry. ‘He had some young poet with him. Hubert was very quick to say that he imagined it was one of Vardon Hall’s new tenants. Corduroys and sandals, he said.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Sonia. She had her own ideas about Bernard’s young friends, but it was not one of the anxieties that she intended to straighten out at sherry time.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said James hopefully, ‘Father won’t feel up to this awful opening ceremony. If the scheme has to go through, the more quietly it does so, the better.’

  ‘Oh I don’t agree, darling.’ Sonia removed her caressing hand. ‘It’s most interesting how everybody’s coming round to it, now that it’s inevitable. And, of course, it is a very remarkable achievement of your father’s. All sorts of people have congratulated me. I don’t think it’s glory to be sneezed at, you know,’ she gave the little giggle with which she always attempted to palliate any cynicism, ‘even if it is reflected.’

  James said nothing. It took him longer to work round to new points of view than his wife: after all she had not the same personal jealousy to contend with.

  ‘I think I shall take Nicholas, at any rate,’ mused Sonia. ‘It’ll please your father and it really is something Nicholas ought to be able to look back to.’ Fearing, perhaps, that she was woundirg James’s pride, she added, ‘We’ll have to work very hard, darling. It’s so important on a public occasion like that to see that the right people meet the right people. And I will say for Bernard that he knows how to get hold of people that one wants to meet. I’m not terribly good at all that unfortunately, but you can make all the difference if you want to.’

  ‘I shall do what I can, of course,’ said James, ‘if only for Mother’s sake. She’ll hate it so much.’

  ‘I think it’s quite silly for her to come,’ said Sonia. ‘She’ll only make herself ill.’ She spoke as though Ella would eat too many meringues.

  James needed a little revenge for his wife’s praise of Bernard, so he said, ‘Well, that’s not really in our hands, is it?’

  ‘Lunch! darling,’ cried Sonia, jumping to her feet. She preferred to reserve her opinion.

  It was with the greatest impatience that she received Bill’s telephone call half an hour later. He called, he said, to tell them that Bernard had come home ill, a heart attack, but no occasion for anxiety. James, of course, could not leave his brief, but Sonia decided to drive over. ‘Somebody must see that the poor man isn’t worried into a real heart attack by Elizabeth and Ella. You know how they fuss, James. Of course, it’s nothing to do with the heart, really, just over-excitement about the ceremony.’ She set off determined to see that Bernard had a nice rest and a wash so that he didn’t get overheated before the party, and as for Ella, well, really it wouldn’t do her any harm to be put to bed, she’d only over-eat herself if she did go.

  *

  Ella was clearly not at all ready to be put to bed. She had a bustle in her movements and a flush on her ravaged, sunburnt cheeks that would have suggested a dangerous elation in anyone else. In her, it merely seemed as though she had at last come to life, a zombie with its soul restored.

  Bill had gone down to the village, after being rebuked by the two women for bringing Sonia on their heads. Sonia, left alone with her own sex, could only comment on the situation by drawing Elizabeth aside. She disliked her sister-in-law very little less than her mother-in-law, but she had to say something to someone. ‘Do you think she ought to be rushing about like this? She looks as though she’s working up for trouble,’ she said. Sonia’s references to Ella’s illness always implied some directly purposeful misbehaviour.

  Elizabeth, who was going back to London by the next train, said, ‘Leave the poor sweetie alone. She’s as happy as a sandgirl, dear. It’s years since she’s been able to wash the nappies out like this.’

  Sonia thought, with satisfaction, how old maids always used phrases like that. ‘Bernard’s the last person to be fussed over,’ she decreed.

  ‘Oh,’ replied Elizabeth, ‘Bernard isn’t taking any notice. But he likes it. They both do. It’s rather touching, and it’s definitely, dear, where you and me make our little exit noiselessly from the left.’

  Sonia sat down and wrote some names on a piece of paper.

  When Ella came into the room, she smiled at her daughter-in-law. ‘You shouldn’t have interrupted your shopping, dear,’ she said, looking at Sonia’s list; ‘Bernard’s quite all right really. It was very kind of you though,’ she added, smiling again.

  ‘This,’ said Sonia, ignoring her mother-in-law’s foolishness, ‘is a list of some of the people that I know to be coming on Thursday. I expect Father’s worrying about it all.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Ella; ‘he’s reading a book about Sickert. We used to know him, you know. And I’ve given him a rug and a hot-water bottle. He doesn’t want them really. But we’re both such comfort-lovers. No, dear, I’ll take your list up to him,’ she added, intercepting Sonia at the door. ‘He’ll be very interested.’ A few minutes later, she called down the stairs, ‘He’s very pleased to have the list, dear, though he did know it all already.’

  Sonia stood for a moment, fingering a spray of syringa in a vase on the hall table. Elizabeth looked up from the paper, and said, ‘All already, dear, that’s what she said.’ Sonia turned and walked out of the door. She knew that she was never at her best off her home ground, especially if the opposing team consisted of other women, but she was determined not to lose her temper. She stood for a moment in the porch and watched a nuthatch – Ella’s most boasted visitor – peck at the coconut shell hanging above the bird table on the lawn. Picking up a pebble from the drive, she threw it. The bird’s alarmed flight, however, did not appease her mood. She remembered Nicholas’s infuriating tears in front of Berthe. Anger at the selfishness and irresponsibility of her family welled up in her. She put her head round the front door and almost shouted at Elizabeth, ‘If you stop Bernard from being at the opening, you’ll ruin the rest of his life. I hope you realize that.’ Then she turned away and walked rapidly down the drive, her trim little figure still shaking slightly despite her cool, determined carriage.

  Elizabeth merely called up the stairs to her mother, ‘She’s gone, darling. Is there anything I can do before I leave?’ Ella came and leaned over the banisters. There was a natural downrightness in her mother’s behaviour that reminded Elizabeth of her childhood days. It had, then, spelt an apparent insensitivity which added as much to the smoke screen of shyness that cut the children off from their parents as did Bernard’s inept artificiality. Elizabeth remembered this all too clearly, but nevertheless it cheered her as a symptom of real recovery in her mother.

  ‘Heavens, no,’ said Ella, ‘he’s not ill, you know, just tired. Come down early on Thursday, dear, we’re counting on you quite a lot.’ She had taken charge of affairs on Bernard’s arrival, partly because she wished to banish the well-meaning fussing of others, partly because it relieved her nagging conscience of its endless charges of neglect of her husband. She was, however, most anxious to return to her own life, not least because the successive effects of forced contact with Bill and forced concern over Bernard had driven into her a stronger, more total realiza
tion of the objective world than she had known for years. She could not but feel that this new vision would alter radically her approach to her inner problems, though she was too aware of past false starts and failures to be other than agnostic of what that change might prove to be.

  Bernard sat in a deep armchair in his study, looking at the Sickert reproductions, and musing. He had left the rug over his knees where Ella had placed it, although the day was sultry. He did not wish to check her attention. The hot-water bottle, however, he had discarded. He was, for once, sufficiently confident of his wife’s restoration to believe that she would view her ministrations comically enough to permit at least that excess to be ridiculed. Ella, indeed, immediately showed herself open to this degree of his confidence. Nothing could have been more like her old behaviour than her half-conscious continuance of the joke in picking up the hot-water bottle by its burning steel top and at once dropping it again with a loud, ‘Blast!’

  ‘I shall go and cope with that damned clematis Mrs Rankine gave us,’ she said. ‘The thing was almost certainly diseased when she sent it.’

  ‘I’m not really surprised,’ said Bernard, ‘but is it worth saving?’

  ‘Once the wretched thing’s here, one’s rather committed,’ replied Ella.

  ‘I see,’ said Bernard; ‘you don’t feel like giving it a further push on its way to the rubbish heap?’