Crooked Wreath

by Christianna Brand

  That evening they sat on the terrace looking down to the river and away from the lodges, tenderly nursing their sunburn and all very silent after the rather hysterical unease of the day. Only Ellen kept up a cheerful insouciance, half maddening, half heartbreaking. Bella fed biscuits to her dog, a small white whiskery animal called Bobbin which sat up with a rocklike steadiness, holding its mouth wide open to receive the fragments which, from a really astonishing distance, she threw to it. Edward created a diversion by eating one of the biscuits. “Rather nice, though a bit hard. Is this what the poor troops have, called iron rations?”

  “Edward, don’t be so awful, how can you eat it? It’s full of all sorts of strange animals, unfit for human consumption.”

  Peta began to neigh horribly; Edward went rather green. “You don’t really think there’s horse and guts and things in it, do you?”

  “Yes, of course there is,” said Claire. “It says so on the packet.”

  “Horrible squirmy entrails, Teddy, all minced up!”

  Edward clapped his hand to his stomach and abruptly rushed off indoors. “There now, Peta, you’ve gone and upset him again!” said Bella; but she was too hot and weary to do more than look anxiously towards the house from the depths of her deck chair. “I hope he’ll remember to bring the little wireless out for the news; what time is it?–about twenty past eight?” For the next twenty minutes she fretted and lectured without, however, doing anything constructive, and was then rewarded by the sight of her grandson reappearing, apparently quite well and cheerful, from the house, and carrying the portable with him. He put it on the edge of the balustrade and, as nobody questioned him, said proudly to Peta: “I was frightfully sick!”

  “I don’t believe you were at all,” said Peta.

  “Well, what do you think I’ve been doing all this time?”

  “Having a fugue, I expect,” said Claire.

  Edward turned slightly pale, but after a moment his face cleared. “Well, I haven’t actually because now I come to think of it I can remember perfectly well. I’ve been putting a film in my camera. I noticed it on the front terrace and it reminded me about taking some photographs of the baby tomorrow, Ellen.”

  “Well, there–so you weren’t being sick!”

  “Not all the time,” said Edward. “Naturally.”

  Ellen’s interest in the B.B.C. news bulletins was earnest, trustful and unflagging. She prided herself a little upon taking an intelligent interest (for a woman) in the progress of the war. When, therefore, at this moment Antonia’s voice was uplifted in sorrow from her cot, she looked in despair at the rest of the family. “She would! Miles before her time! Now I shall miss the news.”

  Claire scrambled to her feet. “I’ll go for you, Ellen.”

  Ellen would much rather that Claire did nothing for Antonia; but she would not permit herself to indulge in silly “feelings” and she said, as graciously as possible: “Well, all right–thanks very much. I’m afraid this means that you’ll have to change her though. Anyway, the potty’s under the cot, the little pink one with the teddy bear on it.”

  Stephen Garde, walking with his quick, short steps through the open front door and across the hall to the terrace on the far side of the house, paused at the door of the drawing-room. “Hallo, Claire–what goes on?”

  She was standing before the high white mantelpiece, staring down with dismay at a mass of broken glass, spilt water and scattered flowers. “Oh, Stephen–look at this!”

  He glanced up at the wreath over Serafita’s portrait. “Not Edward again?”

  She looked at him helplessly. “I suppose it must have been. He did come in a little while ago. Peta’s been teasing him; he was a little bit agitated …” She dropped her hands to her sides. “I do feel worried, Stephen; this is the second time today!”

  “It’s all an act,” said Stephen. “He’s upset, like everyone else, over this wretched will business, and he just deliberately brings on these attacks. I don’t say it’s conscious, exactly, and I suppose he really is a bit out of hand when he’s in the middle of them; but he does it on purpose–there’s nothing he can’t control if he tries.”

  Claire shrugged, standing looking down at the mess. “Well, I wish he would try a bit more, that’s all. It’s terribly disconcerting having this sort of thing happen all the time; and Bella’s favourite vase, too; not even a Serafita left-over. I suppose I shall have to clear it up, but I must go and tend to the baby first.” She came out with him and shut the door. “Don’t say anything to Bella; there’s fuss enough for one day. Did you see Grandfather?”

  “No, I cheated. My clerk brought the will up on his way home this evening, and handed it in to your grandfather, and I skipped over the lawn so that Sir Richard shouldn’t see me and make me go in and discuss it with him. That’ll give him a night to sleep on it; he may have changed his mind by the morning. The trouble is that if he goes and signs it, I shan’t be here to talk him out of it again; I shall be marching about being a soldier boy and meanwhile with his heart like this, anything might happen.”

  He went on through the hall to the back terrace. Claire ran upstairs and, sitting impatiently holding the baby on the pink potty with the Teddy Bear on it, watched, from Ellen’s balcony window, Brough come away from the lodge wheeling his barrow with an assortment of rakes and brooms in it. He disappeared behind the hedge surrounding his own little house, and after a minute or two reappeared with his bicycle, mounted, and rode off out of the gates. Brough was on fire watch duty that night at The Swan, down in the village, and sundown or no sundown, fire watch for Brough began an hour before closing time.

  And so the hot day came to a close and in the cool of the evening hot tempers also were a little cooled, strained wartime nerves relaxed and hearts that were essentially affectionate and kind, recoiled at the recollection of their own unkindliness and vowed for the future contrition and amendment and all sweet charity. The next day they would all go to Grandfather … The next day they would all say sorry to Grandfather … The next day they would acknowledge to Grandfather that they had all been beastly pigs …

  But the next day it was too late. The next day Claire, walking carefully up the sanded path to the French window of the lodge, carrying Sir Richard’s breakfast tray, stopped suddenly and stared; put down the tray in the middle of the path and, running up close to the window, rattled at the lock and peered in through the glass; and a moment later was running as fast as her legs would carry her, back down the path and across the wide green lawns towards the house.

  5

  ELLEN WAS standing on the balcony outside her room. “Good Lord, Claire–what on earth’s the matter?”

  Claire stopped short, her hand to her aching side. “Oh, Ellen–it’s Grandfather! He’s–I think he’s … He’s sitting at his desk and he–he looks terribly peculiar. Is Philip there? Do tell him.”

  Ellen turned back and a moment later Philip appeared from the bedroom, settling his collar down over his tie as he came. “What’s all this, Claire?”

  “Oh, Philip, do come quickly! I’m sure something’s wrong with Grandfather!” She ran back across the lawn, not waiting for him. He disappeared and a minute later was leaping, three at a time, down the front steps; recollecting something, he turned back, making a little circle, hardly altering his pace, and reappeared from the house carrying his medical bag. Ahead of him, Claire swerved across the gravel drive and up the path to the French window; he followed her, avoiding the tray which still lay in the middle of the path, and they both paused, breathless at the window, staring in. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn back and just inside Sir Richard sat at his desk, quite motionless, very strange and stiff; his lips were blue and in the crumpled fingers of one thin hand he held a bright green fountain pen.

  Philip rattled at the window. When closed, it automatically locked, and he wasted no time; he kicked in a pane, thrust his arm through the hole, and pushed up the latch from inside. He slung his bag on to the desk, and bending
over his grandfather, put his fingers on the still hand, then to the shoulder. “He’s dead, of course … He’s been dead for hours.”

  Claire recoiled, wide-eyed. “Oh, Philip!”

  “He must have had an attack and passed out straight away; no time to do anything. It’s too frightful,” said Philip, turning aside his head, giving it a little shake as though to rid his brain of the realization slowly being forced in upon it. “We ought never to have let him come down here at all. He ought not to have been here alone. It’s my fault, Claire, that is; I should have made more fuss. But good God, who would have thought he’d pip off like this so soon? And on this one night of all nights, when he was alone! I–I thought–well, I mean, with ordinary care he ought to have lasted for years.”

  “It’s all of our faults, Philip, not only yours. I suppose after the commotion yesterday …?”

  “Yes, it may have affected him. I don’t know,” said Philip doubtfully. He took his hand from the old man’s shoulder, and the stiff figure tipped gently forward and remained propped up, rigid as a wax dummy, against the desk; the arms spread themselves, brittle and angular, across the polished surface, one blue hand still clutching the gay green fountain pen. Claire closed her eyes against the gruesome pathos of it. “Oughtn’t we to–to do something, Philip? He looks so–so dreadful.” She added: “The others’ll be down any minute.”

  “No, I told Ellen not to say anything. I thought you were just telling us that Grandfather was ill, and I didn’t want Bella rushing down, fussing. Still, we’ll have to go and tell them, I suppose, so we’d better just–just lay him down and–and cover him up …” He took hold of the dead man by the shoulders. “Claire, could you bear it …?”

  Claire could hardly bear it, but she helped him carry the poor, grotesque, stiff figure, set into a sitting position, infinitely pathetic, and to arrange it with some semblance of decency on the divan bed. “If only he didn’t look so–well, rather funny, Philip.”

  Philip opened his medical bag and taking out cotton wool and a bottle of ether, began to wipe away the dried froth and spittle from the set blue lips. Claire shuddered away from it, and he said, as though to distract her thoughts from his distressing task: “I wonder if he’d signed his blessed new will?”

  She glanced at the desk. There was nothing on it now but a glass, empty except for a few drops of what looked like water; and a half-full bottle of ink. She pulled open the three drawers and closed them again. “It isn’t anywhere here.”

  The lodge consisted of two rooms and a tiny kitchen and bathroom. The smaller of the rooms was locked and bare. The little tiled hall, empty of furniture, led from the sitting-room to the front door, facing across the gateway to the opposite lodge where dwelt Brough and his wife. The kitchen was empty also, uncurtained and without crockery or utensils, and in the bathroom there was none of the usual clutter of bottles and pots, though a cake of soap and clean towels lay beside the basin. The place was used only for the one night in the year when Sir Richard slept there and, except for the sitting-room, was entirely bare. In there the windows were curtained, and there was an exquisite carpet to set off the portrait; a corner cupboard with a few pieces of china Serafita had loved; and the beautiful Sheraton desk, and chairs, and the divan bed. Claire opened doors and glanced into each of the rooms and into the little hall, its tiled floor thick with dust. “There’s no will here.”

  “How odd!” Philip looked up from the body for a moment, glancing vaguely about the room. “What on earth can he have done with it?” As though impelled by curiosity, he left the body for a moment, and went over and opened the drawers of the desk again. “No, it isn’t there!” He crossed to the corner cupboard and felt foolishly in the china bowls and jugs, thrusting two fingers into the vases and feeling about. “There’s nowhere it could be. How extraordinary, Claire!”

  “He’s not …? It’s not …?”

  Philip moved the body a little, on the bed. “No, it’s nowhere here. Where on earth can it be?”

  “Perhaps he saw Stephen coming down the drive last night away from the house, and gave it to him then.”

  “No, because I walked to the gates with Stephen and saw him off.” He turned his attention back to the corpse; but evidently his mind was still upon the problem, for he burst out after a minute: “Perhaps he tore it up!”

  “Then where are the bits?”

  There was no fireplace in the little house, and no fire. “He put it down the huh-ha.”

  “But why? Why not just tear it across and leave the bits? We all knew all about it–there was nothing to hide.” She stood beside the bed looking down at the huddled corpse, the eyes now mercifully closed by Philip’s hand. “Oh, God, this is awful! Poor Grandfather dead, and already mystery and fuss about the will!”

  “Well, there’s not actually a mystery, yet, is there?” said Philip. “I mean, there’s probably some perfectly simple explanation, which we haven’t thought of, that’s all. What’s really dreadful, is the old boy dying all alone by himself like this; and I can’t help a feeling that it’s rather my fault.”

  Claire moved away and stood at the French window, looking out. Against the sunshine, her hair gleamed in great golden waves, coiled close and smooth at the nape of her neck. The dead man had loved her least of his grandchildren; she was intelligent, much cleverer than Peta, and quite as pretty, though her beauty was more controlled than her cousin’s wild rose grace; but Sir Richard had had no use for “braininess” in women, he had pooh-poohed her aspirations to intellectuality, and had ridden roughshod over many tender spots in her sensitive heart. She knew now that she had always resented it; that in her breast there was no real sorrow for his death or for the manner of it. Since this was so, she would not pretend to a grief she did not feel; and she said, ignoring Philip’s last remark: “It’s so terribly important that the will should not have been signed: to all of us, Philip, but especially to you and me.”

  For if she and Philip had money, Philip could provide for Ellen and the baby; and she knew that he would never consent to leave his wife without support, without very adequate, comfortable support; he would feel that he must do everything in the world to make up to her for his own defection. “If we get ten or twelve thousand between us, Philip, we can let Ellen have most of that; after all, you can start up in practice again somewhere else.”

  Philip looked uneasy. “Yes, well … Darling, we can’t talk about that now. Never mind about the will; in any event it was only a draft. He wouldn’t have signed it, and he’d have to have witnesses and things.”

  “Well, then, where is it?”

  “I daresay he gave it to Stephen, after all; perhaps Stephen turned back.”

  Claire looked out of the window again. “He can’t have; you can see that nobody’s been up to the lodge since Brough did the paths last night.”

  Philip, his work completed, pulled the quilt up over his grandfather’s face. He stood for a moment looking down at the bed, and then, giving himself a little shake, came over to his cousin at the window. “No, so they haven’t. How observant of you!”

  Between the rose bushes, the path ran narrow and golden up to the window. “Brough sanded it just before nine o’clock last night,” said Claire. “I saw him when I went up to tend the baby. You can see my footsteps quite clearly, the ones I made this morning coming up the path with the tray and then turning round and running back again; and then, look, there are yours and mine running up the path, you after me, sort of swishing round the corner from the drive and keeping to that side of the path, dodging the tray.”

  Philip shrugged. “Well, it’s very odd. However, we must go up to the house and break the news.” He went slowly back to put his things into his bag–anything to postpone for a little while the task ahead … As “Dr. March” he had “broken the news” so often; to so many sorrowing families he had stood as a rock in the midst of a storm of his own creating, and each time he dreaded it anew. Reactions of people bereaved were painfully simila
r; the words of consolation and support came so glibly to one after a while, that each time he was ashamed to find what comfort they gave, each time he could not believe that the mourners would not catch him out, would not say to him: “That’s what you said to Mrs. So-and-so and to Mrs. So-and-so before her, and to a hundred weeping women before them both. He could imagine Ellen standing mockingly by while Bella sobbed on his shoulder (“Sheer Doctor Kildare!”) and knew that she would have penetrated the defence of his conventional sorrow, would know just how real was his grief and how unreal; would know the depth of his sincerity more clearly than he knew it himself. He screwed up the soiled cotton wool in a twist of paper and opened his bag to replace the bottle of ether and stood, suddenly thunderstruck, staring down.

  Ellen sat uneasily at the breakfast table, wondering what was happening down at the lodge, knowing that Bella would upbraid her for not saying that Philip had been called down there; but he had barked out a, “Don’t say anything to Bella!” as he ran off out of their room, and she loyally obeyed. Bella sipped fretfully at her coffee. “Where on earth are Philip and Claire? It’s too bad of them to be late. And imagine, Peta, imagine, Ellen, that Turtle not turning up till eight o’clock this morning! She’s done nothing yet but just dust in here and lay the breakfast things …”

  And suddenly Claire and Philip were there, standing in the doorway with white faces and shaking hands. Bella, gaping at them, cried, terrified: “Philip–what’s the matter? Claire, what is it? What’s happened?” And then: “It’s your grandfather!”

  The Turtle appeared at the door leading from the kitchen. Philip took Bella’s arm. “Come into the drawing-room; we can talk there. I’ll tell you there.” As he led her across the hall, he said: “Bella, did you take the box of coramine out of my bag? The one I showed you, the six ampoules, you know?”