A Treasonable Growth

by Dr Ronald Blythe

  Then Bateson and Rube stood up suddenly, gave each other one or two playful punches, Bateson spread an arm in Richard’s direction, a movement that was half-way between a yawn and a valediction, and they went out.

  ‘She’s left her bag,’ Daphne said at once.

  Mildly alarmed, Richard said, ‘Where are they off to?’

  The clothes-peg grew sprightly. ‘That’s telling! What have you been thinking about?’

  ‘You,’ he lied automatically.

  ‘Really!’ She was immensely pleased. ‘I expect you’re wondering about me aren’t you? Well I’ll tell you; I’m waiting for Mr Right.’ She caught her breath suddenly and said, ‘Pardon.’ Her eyes lost their glassiness and assumed a rapt, almost ethereal longing. ‘Fellers are all the same. They only want loving …’

  ‘But won’t Mr Right want that too?’

  ‘’E’ll want me,’ Daphne replied indignantly. She hiccupped. ‘Ooh-er, pardon again.’

  ‘I’ll get you some water, shall I?’

  ‘Ask Mrs R. for water?—Rather you than me.’

  ‘Well I’ll get something. Here, hang on a tick …’ He made his way to the proliferating bar and ordered two beers.

  ‘Your friend’s a nice boy,’ Mrs Rooke said. ‘Beer, dear? If that’s for Daph you’d better go back and make sure. She usually likes her little drop of poison——’

  But Richard insisted on something long and Mrs Rooke said Daph had better have a ‘nip’ then and poured out a small, but expensive beer with a great fog of froth on it and said, ‘Two-and-a-tanner, ducks.’

  ‘I’ll have the same then.’

  ‘That’s right, ducks; you’ve got the same. Two-and-a-tanner. Full of strength, them nips. I lived on them when I had my Charlie.’

  The nips were certainly full of something. They left Daph and Richard mildly aware of an off-key expression in one another’s faces, but quite incapable of changing it. Daphne ceased to hiccup. Her eyes countermanded his, lustrous and blank. A funny feller … she was thinking. Not Mr Right by a long chalk. But she liked him because he was so clean. Too clean in a way for a feller …

  ‘Where do you think Bate—Arthur and Rube have gone?’

  ‘You do get anxious, don’t you!’ She was turning the lamp up a fraction. ‘Does he worry about you like that? I bet he doesn’t! Ooh, my face!’ She held her chin up to the mirror and banged hard at her cheeks with a broad greasy puff. ‘Thin,’ she said; T used to go nine-ten—you’d never believe it would you. But what does it matter if you feel all right!’ She swayed slightly and Richard said, ‘Come on, you had better sit down. Your face is O.K.’

  ‘You like it?’ she enquired.

  ‘Adore it.’

  She regarded him suspiciously.

  ‘B-bloody men,’ she said with feeling.

  ‘Well …!’

  ‘All the same,’ declared Daphne. She retreated to the sofa and threw herself down. ‘Who are you anyway?’

  With his head feeling most peculiar, like a tremendous sunflower about to burst from its bud into flaming petals, and his eyes seeing everything through a bright, though uncertain, nimbus reflected by this dizzy blooming, Richard said, ‘Mr Right … I hope …’

  ‘Ahhhh …’ murmured Daphne, not without tenderness. ‘You’d like to be wouldn’t you. But you’re not, you know!’

  ‘Oh, who am I then?’ he asked, his hand at her breast.

  ‘You’re Dick,’ she answered, ‘and if you ask me, you’re just like the rest! Nice Dick,’ she added inconsistently. ‘No… no …!’

  ‘But, darling …’

  Her breasts were the merest cone-shaped ghosts of the fulness his desires demanded; little, formal budding mounds; the breasts of a Clouet lady, feverishly warm, yet comfortless. His hand considered them, curiously and fearfully. All his actions were now conducted with as much precision as he could muster. He felt fatuous and dizzy and gallant and accomplished all at the same time. Very accomplished. He also was able to regard all these aspects of himself with a peculiar detachment, as though they were the component behaviour of somebody else. Such an attitude had its drawbacks, since he at once began to form judgments which inevitably lead to his being conscience-stricken. When one has successfully scuttled commonsense, it seems only fair that one’s conscience should go under as well. Nothing is as humiliating as to be rather tight and yet to be able to appreciate the extent of one’s shortcomings. Where was the blushful Hippocrene? Certainly not in the half-gallon of sourish bitter he had swallowed. There was no magic in that; no gaiety. He was even wise enough to realise that its sum effect was more or less that of a tripwire. He hoped that Mrs Rooke wasn’t just about to make one of her over-understanding entrances, because his affections had veered strikingly in the last ten minutes and he now decided that he would very much like to make love to Daphne. She should be his Dowson-girl and there was in truth that unhealthy narcotic-smirched, bitter-skinned, transiently-fleshed feeling about her narrow body which invited a comparison with a very special cigarette.

  She smelt strongly and sweetly of hot art-silk and tepid talcum-powder. If she had had a mind, making love to her could only have been an intellectual delight, an extension of that taste normally directed to fondling small ivories. As it was, she lacked not only the intelligence but the passion requisite for her entire absence of morals. Now and then, when the need to do so occurred to her, she returned Richard’s caresses with a kiss or two. Once she put up her hand and gently squeezed the nape of his neck in her thin, cold, painted fingers. Sometimes she said, ‘pardon’ for no earthly reason at all. Emboldened by the impersonal stillness she manufactured, the brightness of her stare and the fact that she continued to say, ‘Nice Dick’ over and over again, he swept her down in his arms until they were sprawling full length on the slippery sofa.

  The next thing he remembered was a stinging blackness in place of the exciting sunflower in his brain, and they were standing up, one at each end of the mantelpiece, panting slightly and glaring at one another in the foetid half-light. Daphne’s hands flew about her person, patting and tapping it in a brittle frenzy as if a bit of it might have snapped off. Now and then she muttered, ‘men’ in a tone which was a mixture of tolerant indignation, making it quite clear that although she found their behaviour revolting, she did realise is was an infirmity indigenous to their sex and that if one got too near these, otherwise fairly reasonable creatures, then one either had to put up with their quirks, or defend oneself as best one could. She was sure that Mr Right, when he came along, would be an exception and sink his energies in a nice little chicken-farm.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll be good enough to find my friend,’ she said with enormous refinement, and drew a new lipstick mouth. ‘Give ’em an inch and they go a mile,’ she added very generally, making it clear again that Richard wasn’t to feel the blame particularly.

  But he apologised all the same.

  ‘Really,’ Daphne said. ‘Nobody’s asking you to say things you don’t mean, I’m sure!’ You can call it ’uman nature if you like, but ’uman nature has to be checked. Whatever do you think the world would be like if we all gave in to ’uman nature …?’

  Just then Rube returned with Bateson following closely behind her.

  Daphne at once fell back on her earlier rôle of hen-like concern. ‘There you are, Rube,’ she said. ‘Wherever have you been?’ Knotting her orange knitted scarf, she nagged on and on with Rube rather enjoying all this solicitude. Rube’s face glistened; her eyes were starry and daring, and as often as she sought to screw her lips together in some kind of acceptable composure, they parted softly revealing a generous allocation of extremely white and irregular teeth. Daphne fixed a pink felt halo on the back of her head, squeezed her little dead fingers into damp gloves and sniffed.

  Bateson appraised the situation expertly and correctly. He was looking as smooth as a cat after cream; a much-indulged, dearly-beloved cat. His eyelids were half-lowered giving him an expression of sagacious peace. He pr
opelled Rube forward gently, patting her bottom in a small gesture of dismissal which contrived to be proprietary, loving and avuncular all at the same time, so giving her an option on the last should the other attitudes offend her. As it happened, Rube relished all three sensations and was smirking like a calf in a clover field.

  ‘When you two have quite finished …’ Daphne said primly—which gave cause for an unreasonable burst of laughter from Bateson. He stepped forward and gave Daphne a slap as well. She froze with astonishment, then, uttering an extraordinary yelp she flung herself into Rube’s arms. Together they rocked and shrieked. Bateson watched for a second or so, perplexed by the hysteria the most innocent of his actions always seemed to precipitate where women were concerned, never realising that in spite of all the psychologists propound it is the male with the minimum of understanding of the female complexity that delights it most. ‘Come on,’ he said, and that was how Richard and he left them. Daphne steadied herself sufficiently to call out, ‘And I should get back to them searchlights just as soon as you can.’ This convulsed them afresh.

  ‘What on earth …’ Richard began, but his voice was drowned in the bedlam of the public bar, through which they had to pass. Mrs Rooke, balancing on a chair, was ringing a handbell and bawling ‘Time!’ Her vast satin-covered bosom shone with fecund promise. Behind her the silver doilies and upturned gin bottles winked. ‘Cheerio, ducks,’ she yelled. Her bell wanged merrily.

  ‘Oh God!’ breathed Richard when the icy night cut him off from all this, ‘so that was “The Case …”.’

  ‘That certainly was,’ Bateson said, who was drunker than he knew. He stepped out, determined but unsteady, both conditions increasing as he strode along. He praised the English inn. He repeated the Belloc-Chesterton arguments for it as his own. Now and then he sang in a light, gay voice which carried for miles over the frozen beet fields. Richard was able to walk perfectly, but his head rang with an unpleasant coming and going reverberation, like a gong being sounded behind a busy swing door. He remembered that the last food he had eaten was in the gun-room at Sheldon, which caused him in turn to think of that other part of the day, so oddly divorced from the present, when Sir Paul had probed in the gentlest possible manner into those aspects of his personality which hadn’t been obvious to that penetrating mind. What would Sir Paul think now, Richard wondered, to see Bateson and himself rolling along the dear old English road …? But Bateson was in a gossipy mood.

  ‘You know all about the Belle and the Winner, I suppose?’

  ‘About their once being in love do you mean? I think so. Wasn’t it you who first told me?’

  ‘I might have: I’m not quite sure,’ said Bateson cautiously. ‘Abelard and Helloish—that’s what they were known as. It must have been all the blackboards and eashels.’

  ‘How could you know?’ laughed Richard. ‘You weren’t even born!’

  Bateson became mildly belligerent. ‘How do I know? I’ll tell you how I know, Dick you old T-Thomas. The Belle told me.’ He began to sing loudly, ‘Ding-dong bell, Pussy’s in the well …’ and a country youth, escorting his girl home, thrust a protective arm in front of her as they passed. ‘Goodnight,’ Bateson called, but got no reply.

  This silent criticism sobered him up a bit, because when Richard, dragging the subject back to Miss Bellingham, said, ‘But I thought you and she weren’t getting on so well …’ Bateson answered simply:

  ‘We aren’t; you’re absolutely right. But we did. I tell you, when I first showed up at Copdock I was the b-bloody blue-eyed boy! She doted on me—she’s doting a bit on you at the moment I notice—Might have gone on if I hadn’t suddenly got the hang of her little game. Anyway, I couldn’t stand her hours.’

  ‘But the Winner,’ insisted Richard; ‘how does he come into it?’

  Bateson was about to make an ordinary statement here, when an exciting hypothesis explaining the entire relationship between Miss Bellingham and her staff suddenly presented itself to him. So exciting, in fact, was it, that he grew vague and incoherent once more in the telling of it.

  ‘Don’t you see,’ he said, speaking loudly, but none the more distinctly because of that, ‘the Winner was the forerunner—no, that’s not what I mean—he’s the thingummy—the prototype,’ he all but shouted, dragging the word up from the fuddled ponds of his vocabulary. ‘That’s what he is, the prototype. Don’t you see, it explains everything! It explains why all the masters taken on by the Belle have one thing in common and why she’s always been so willing to let other considerations than mere academic qualifications sway her judgment. And why, if it comes to that, why she never employs a woman or two about the place. We could really do with a homely body for some of those younger kids. No, I’ll tell you why not. It’s because the greatest, most important testimonial for a job at Copdock is to have a nice fresh face. A gentlemanly face, mind you; that’s essential. Why, I bet if you could see all the staff the Belle’s had in her clutches since she started the place in the year dot, you’d have one of the fanciest collections of darlin’ bhoys you could meet anywhere!’

  This was so preposterous and yet such an ‘un-Bateson’ statement for Bateson to make that Richard stifled his objections to hear what would fallow. ‘Including poor old M’Tooley and poor old Canon Ribbs?’ he asked sceptically.

  ‘What do you know about M’Tooley?’ demanded Bateson. ‘You don’t know anything. He came to Copdock when he was twenty-five—which was just half of what he is now. There happens to be a photograph of him among all that muck in the Belle’s study. He wasn’t a bad type. Gingery and merry.’

  ‘And the Canon?’

  ‘They had high hopes for the Canon,’ Bateson said. ‘Deaneries and things—until she put a stop to them.’

  ‘How?’

  Bateson made a fancy kick at a puff of loose snow before answering, missed it, and slithered ignominiously to a foolish sitting position at the side of the road. He accepted this as evidence of his abnormal state and tramped on with a rather crestfallen air. He grew lugubrious.

  ‘The same way she stopped the rest of them from getting on,’ he said. ‘She sucked his blood. The Belle wasn’t interested in seeing how far these protégés of hers could go. She wanted them by her all the time. I suppose that was the truth of the matter—still is. The best way to keep a car at home is to empty its tank. You can then sit in it and have a nice cosy chat without having to worry about the view going by. She’s been siphoning all the go out of the poor devils she employs for years. She’s a lady spider, that smart old woman! She’s a naughty old vampire; a leech. Why do you think the Winner never cleared off years ago? M’Tooley as well? M’Tooley’s pretty hot stuff, you know—it’s all there, boy.’ Bateson tapped his temple. ‘People used to come after M’Tooley and beg him to take things. They wanted him badly at Oriel. I’m told he used to contribute to Symposium and was offered the editorship when Danvers—was that the name? You’ll know more about that sort of stuff than I do—anyway, when the last editor died. But do you think he could move? Of course not. Stuck, boy, that’s what he was. Drained by the Reverend Mother MacCree. All passion spent and not even a spot of loose change left to jingle in his pocket. So what is he now? C-classics c-cum scripture at Copdock! And not even any more little confidences behind the door of the sherry-cupboard!’

  ‘Is it true that she wanted to marry the Winner?’

  ‘There’s nothing very complimentary about the idea which ever way you look at it if it isn’t.’

  ‘They … they were lovers, do you think?’ Richard asked, his curiosity overcoming the enormity of such a question.

  ‘Did they go to bed together—is that what you mean? Well, according to all accounts, and I see no reason to disbelieve them, they did. Then the future Mrs W. came along and rescued the poor old Winner—young Winner then, sorry—from a fate worse than death.’

  ‘He’d have married Miss Bellingham?’

  ‘I suppose so, the poor bloody necrophilist.’

  Mildl
y ashamed of himself for wishing to dig down and uncover even more of the mouldering fragments of such antique affections, Richard then asked about Mrs Winsley. He had always been able to see what fascination had once existed in that Royal Doulton little figure, the white skin covered by the lilac silk, the excessively pretty colours of her mouth and eyes and hair, the obedience inherent in all her dolly-dolly movements, which, in spite of their insistence on pastel shades, hinted at warmer, darker tones at a deeper level, like hyacinth flowers. It was women like Mrs Winsley who made young men feel good. Later, it was their experience and not their innocence which went en travestie. In middle age, of course, they were inclined to make their husbands feel sick. The same flatteringly malleable feminity which had proved to be so complimentary to the male ego when both were young, was apt to persist as a reproach when it dragged on into middle age. This was exactly what had happened to the Winsleys. Their married life had been more lover-like than most of their friends were willing to admit, and it had only been during the last few years that what Winsley described as ‘Minna’s girlishness’ had turned him against her. That shrill spinster excitement rising up so uncontrollably whenever she enthused—how could she? he marvelled irritably—after all that their life together had been! ‘You silly bitch!’ he bawled after her one day, for no apparent reason that she could put a name to. And that had marked the beginning of their next stage; his bullying. Now there wasn’t a thing that she could do right, nor any part of all that fragile armoury of love of hers which he did not hurl back with repulsion. Richard could see that she might, at times, be irritating. It was beyond his powers of uncharitableness to appreciate how entirely she could be hated. Fortunately, the truly sensitive are rarely soppy. She suffered, of course, from her husband’s spleenish onslaughts, but not nearly to such a degree as her swimming china-bright eyes might suggest. She was puzzled rather than grieved. ‘Cadman’s getting so peculiar,’ she confessed to Miss Ribbs and added that it really was ‘rather a foxer’—her Daddy’s term. Miss Ribbs, for whom life was better than the cinema every time, absorbed this latest reel of it glassily.