The Pandervils

by Gerald Bullet

  Egg, who sat conspicuous at Mrs Colebrook’s side, smiled mechanically, his mind being occupied by one thought alone. Where’s Nicky? He’d never be late without good reason: something must have happened. A series of pictures flashed across the screen of his mind: train wrecked, hideous confusion, stretchers, illness, hospital wards. Without Nicky, even had these fears been quelled, the party was nothing: a mere noise interrupting his thoughts. He had the greatest difficulty in concealing his irritation. These people would go on chattering and laughing. Like a pack of monkeys, he muttered angrily. Looking up in response to a nudge, he encountered the reproachful gaze of Mrs Colebrook, and was abashed. Had she read his thoughts? Or, worse still, had he in his abstraction spoken them aloud? ‘Beg pardon, Mrs Colebrook? Did you speak?’

  ‘Why Mr Pandervil!’ Mrs Colebrook’s manner was become so girlish, her tone so richly conspiratorial, that he suspected her of being a little tipsy: with the excitement of getting Lily off her hands, he thought; certainly not with this drop of claret cup. ‘Why Mr Pandervil, we’ve bin and forgot the messages.’

  Egg was at a loss. ‘The messages, Mrs Colebrook. I don’t quite …’

  ‘Letters, telegrams, and I don’t know what all!’ cried Mrs Colebrook, her voice rising triumphantly, so that all might hear her. ‘Yes indeed,’ she said, nodding and smiling at the company, ‘there’s messages in galore!’

  Egg began searching, guiltily, in his pockets. ‘Bless my soul, I do believe I’ve left ’em all be’ind.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Colebrook, ‘you never done that, Mr Pandervil.’

  ‘No, ’ere they are!’ Egg sighed with relief, and while with one hand he clutched a bundle of papers, with the other he mopped the perspiration from his brow. ‘Well, I must put me specs on for this little job,’ he said, hoping against hope that he might be able to work up a vein of jocularity. And to reach his spectacle-case, which was in the breast-pocket of his coat—a frock-coat of a somewhat ancient design, and green about the shoulders when seen in an unfriendly light—he must needs replace his handkerchief and allow, in his confusion, the precious messages to flutter out of his grasp. When they were restored to him, by the eager hands of Daise Hopper who cooed maternally in rendering this service, a belated sense of the occasion jerked him to his feet. They think I’m a poor old duffer, that’s what they think. He resolved to put a good face on it. He cleared his throat. ‘Well, ladies first, I suppose. That’s what they taught me at school. What I mean is we’ll first have the messages from the bride’s relations. Now here they are: there’s two of ’em—or is it three? No it’s two. Mrs Crump sends heartiest congratulations and fondest love to my darling niece Lily. That is, Mrs Crump’s darling niece Lily. And; said Egg, gaining time while he fumbled with the next of his documents, ‘Lily’s Uncle Boy—that’s not the Uncle Boy that’s here: seems she’s got two, Lily has—wishes very much he could a bin here to tell the bridegroom what a lucky man he is. And so do we all I’m sure.’ They all applauded this, but there was no pleasing Egg to-day: he liked them none the better for applauding. I’m sick of you and your faces, he said in the secrecy of his mind; but, quickly resuming his public character, he went on in his public voice: ‘And now we come to Harold’s folk. Harold’s Aunty Sarah, eighty last week my boy, don’t forget that! —Harold’s Aunty Sarah Twigg sends a telegram. Loving wishes from Aunty Sarah and may Heavenly Father send rich blessings and long happiness to you and yours. And a tidy sum it must have cost her. Fancy paying a penny for Heavenly Father when she could have sent God for a ha’p’ny.’ Egg noticed with infinite relish that he had made a sensation. ‘That comes of marrying a parson,’ he said, making bad worse. And a freakish turn of memory set him thinking of his late brother-in-law Ernest Twigg, as he had been when he, Egg, was a boy: a hearty fellow Ernest had been then, a back-slapper, very different from the prim ecclesiastic he became in later years. It was little enough that Egg had seen, since their marriage, of this substantial and respectable pair; for he had made up his mind quite early, and for all we know quite mistakenly, that the Twiggs regarded him as a poor relation, and he had sometimes found satisfaction in knowing them to be childless: it would have been a humiliation to think of Sarah’s children being in a higher social grade than his own. It sometimes, but not often, troubled his conscience that he knew so little of his sisters, three of whom, as he was vaguely aware, were still youngish people compared with himself—Felicia, Martha, and Jane were still in their sixties—but growing older I suppose, he said to himself, like the rest of us. There was a letter in his hand from Felicia, the widow of old Sam Reddick the dairyman at Keyborough, and the present temper of his audience, which had discovered in his remark an occasion for giggles frowns and deprecating smiles, according to their several ages and dispositions, made him think that he would do well to read it with no further delay. ‘Now Harold my lad, listen to what y’r Aunty Flisher has to say: My dear brother it is a long time ago since I wrote you a letter always leaving such things to poor Sam and pleased indeed to hear that your Harold has got a good girl and Aunty’s very best love and wishes I’m sure tell him for future happiness. You’ll be pleased to hear as this leaves me my rheumatism’s a good deal better—’ Egg folded the letter and turned to the next. ‘That’s all she says concerning you, Harold. Now what’s this,’ he said briskly, making a great show of interest in the last of his documents. But even while he was reading it the bitterness of not having Nicky there, and fearful conjectures about Nicky’s fate, overwhelmed him. His voice, remaining steady, became toneless and tired. He felt like a cheated child the elaborate edifice of whose plans has at the last moment crashed to ruin before his expectant eyes. For what was the meaning of this wedding if Nicky was away? Why had he fussed and bothered at his time of life, pumping courage into Harold, cajoling Lily, hoodwinking Mabel, and removing Selina, the obstacle, from the path of true love? If Nicky, the reward, were to be withheld after all, he might have spared his pains and saved his labour. The letter in his hand was a garrulous affair, and hard to decipher moreover, so that it took him five minutes or more to communicate its contents; and towards the end, for which he thirsted, he became aware that the attention of his audience was faltering, being divided between him and some reiterated street noise whose significance he did not appreciate. Whispering broke out in the room, and the stirring of restless feet: a disease that, despite the irritated glances he flashed from time to time over the rims of his spectacles, gradually infected everyone in the room but himself. And no sooner had his voice ceased speaking—drattit, he said, ’tisn’t as if I like doing this sort a thing!—than several of his listeners ran to the window without apology and began a chorus of exclamation. Harold, himself conspicuous among these culprits, called out: ‘I say, Dad! I say, Lily! I say, Mrs Colebrook—I mean Ma! Who do you think’s arrived! In a blessed motor-car, Dad. Who do you think it is?’

  Egg, stumbling towards the window and heedlessly knocking over one of Mrs Colebrook’s best claret glasses in his course, found no words for reply. His mind held but one thought.

  ‘Just you look here, Mr Pandervil,’ cried Lily, seconding her husband’s endeavours and seizing her father-in-law by the arm.

  Harold took up the tale once more. ‘Blest if it isn’t Uncle Algy! Let’s go and fetch him in,’ cried Harold, plunging for the door. Perhaps he felt that he, with his Lily, had been in the centre of the picture long enough: it was good to escape. He was followed by the younger members of the party, with Egg hot-foot at their heels.

  They crowded round the car. And such a car! A large rich glittering snorting exuberant and self-satisfied air, with a fellow in livery at the wheel and Uncle Algy magnificent and venerable at his side, his eyes shining, his face rosy and wrinkled, his plump hands clasped round his noble belly as though he were congratulating himself on its possession.

  Uncle Algy, genially ignoring the youngsters, addressed himself over their heads to his brother: ‘Well, Egg old son, here I am as large as life, and
it’s good to see y’r dear old dial again, pon my word it is!’

  Egg said, his voice quavering: ‘Seen anything of Nicky?’ He had been quick to notice, in one agonized glance, that the back of the car held nothing human.

  ‘Thought I’d run down in the little bus,’ said Uncle Algy. ‘Capital little scooter, though we did have a bit of a mishap a hundred miles out of Mercester. But accidents will happen, old boy, even in the best regulated motor-cars. You know that.’

  ‘Where’s Nicky?’ said Egg, unsmiling.

  So sharp was the accent of appeal that it at last reached the understanding even of Uncle Algy, who, with a grin that was half sheepish, half sympathetic, replied: ‘I’ve got him safe and sound for you. Trust me, boy!’ And a voice from heaven, as it seemed, called out eagerly: ‘Here I am, Dad.’

  Nicky, shooting up amid the baggage in the back of the car, leaped out, falling lightly on his two hands. He picked himself up with a nervous laugh and strode forward to greet his father. He saw the sunshine breaking, as after a night of storm, over his father’s face. Bloody silly joke that, he thought; and I as good as told him so, he pleaded in self-justification. ‘Hullo, Dad! Think I was never coming?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Egg, and for a moment could say no more; and a trembling came over Nicky as he met the glance, the half-incredulous glance, of those old, grave, glistening eyes. Dad’s older than he was, there’s no doubt of it.

  4

  ‘Not sleepy are you?’ said Egg.

  At last they were back at home sitting comfortably together round the kitchen grate, in which Egg, deceitfully pretending to have noticed a nip in the air, had with his own hands laid and lit a small fire.

  Nicky smothered a yawn. ‘Sleepy? Not a bit!’

  ‘Well you haven’t got to get up early to-morrow, that’s one good thing.’

  ‘No fear,’ said Nicky.

  ‘No five o’clock for you to-morrow, my boy.’

  ‘I should jolly well think not,’ said Nicky.

  His father observed him shrewdly. ‘I believe you are sleepy, whatever you may say. Want to go to bed?’

  Nicky, lacking heart to answer with an unqualified yes, glanced at the clock defensively. ‘Let’s go at half past one,’ he said. ‘That gives us another twenty-five minutes.’

  ‘There’ll be time for a cup of tea,’ said Egg, and leaning forward in his chair he lifted the kettle on to the red coals. ‘Soon be boiling.’

  Nicky jumped up. ‘I’ll go and get the crocks.’

  ‘That’s the style,’ said Egg. He was excited. ‘I expect you know where to find ’em, eh Nicky?’

  ‘I expect,’ said Nicky.

  Father and son exchanged a grin of satisfaction. Having tea at one o’clock in the morning struck them both as being a good joke.

  ‘So Mr Crabbe thinks you’ll make a farmer, does he?’ remarked Egg for the twentieth time. Unable to wait for Nicky’s return he had followed him as far as the scullery door.

  ‘That’s what he said,’ admitted Nicky, picking saucers out of the rack.

  ‘I thought he would,’ said Egg. ‘I rather thought he would. That’s good news that is.’

  But the commendation in his voice was rather perhaps for Mr Crabbe than for Nicky: it was pleasant to know that they had not been deceived in the man.

  A cup of strong tea woke Nicky up, and the intimacy of the hour encouraged unprecedented confidences. Nevertheless he cleared his throat several times, and several times, when the words were almost out of his mouth, substituted others at the last moment. ‘Got something to shew you, Dad.’

  Noting his shyness, Egg pricked up his ears. Some girl, I suppose, he thought: you’re starting early, young man. ‘Something to shew, have you?’

  ‘Oh nothing so much,’ said Nicky, striving (too late) to be casual. ‘It’s in my bag. Shall I get it?’ He was already out of his chair again, his fingers on the catch of the bag. ‘It’s only a sort of poem. Oh, and I brought a pipe along.’ In a shamefaced fashion he pushed a new briar pipe across the deal table towards his father, and then, trying to look as though the gift were not there, unfolded a weekly journal, found a particular page and a particular column, and thrust it under Egg’s nose.

  Egg was fondling the new pipe and staring brightly at distance and stammering, precisely as Nicky himself would have done in his place. The interruption came as a relief to him.

  ‘A poem, d’ye say? Ah, my boy, I never did have much of a head for poetry.’ But as he took the paper from his son’s hand, and followed a pointing finger, some moment of unremembered yet unforgotten past made brief and poignant music in him. ‘Lemme get my other specs.’ For his eyes were suddenly dimmed, he didn’t know why.

  The poem was not a long one, but it took Egg some little while to get the hang of it. After the second reading, however, he gave up worrying about the difficulties, being content to enjoy the sensation of warm sunlit woods, and birds singing, and the sound of running water not far away. Yes, he liked the poem. Some parts of it he liked so much that he repeated them over and over again in his mind before venturing a word of comment. But nothing pleased him so much, nor if the poem had been a hundred times better could it have pleased him so much, as the sight of the author’s name clearly printed underneath, printed in a real paper that was bought and sold and read by the great and clever people who understood such things, men among whose names must some day, he could not doubt, be numbered this new name: Nicholas Pandervil.

  Chapter the Third

  The Lovers

  1

  Mr Crabbe had been not easily won to the belief that Nicky would make a good farmer. He had seemed, at first, suspicious of the boy. ‘Well, young man, I hope you mean to work. Whatsoever thy ‘and findeth to do, eh? You know your Bible, I ’ope?’

  ‘I shall certainly do my best,’ said Nicky in confusion. He was eighteen and profoundly sceptical of all the religion that had been offered him.

  ‘Do it with all thy might,’ said Mr Crabbe, finishing his quotation with a smack of the lips. ‘You come from a godly ’ome, I believe, young Pandervil?’ Nicky’s reply, though unintelligible, was taken to be affirmative. ‘Fambly prayers and all, eh?’ said Mr Crabbe. He was a short, thickset man between forty and fifty, with reddish eyes, a clipped red moustache, prominent fox-red nostrils, and bushing red eyebrows; no Mershireman he, as his speech made evident, but a foreigner, as the natives say, from one of the more northern counties. Brisk, and brimming with self-complacency, yet not unwilling to be friendly, he stood with arms akimbo and head cocked appraisingly, awaiting Nicky’s answer.

  Nicky all but hung his head. ‘Now and again,’ he said indistinctly. He was as shy and ashamed as Egg would have been in like circumstances. And he was compelled by his truthful habit to add: ‘Not so often. In fact, hardly ever. But we have had them.’

  ‘Ah!’ Mr Crabbe emitted a brief bark of satisfaction. ‘We’ll mebbe teach you a thing or two more than farming here, eh Mother!’ He rubbed his hands together in unctuous glee, and the next morning made haste to begin his good work. For Family Prayers he assumed an accent of quite astonishing refinement, which did not, however, obliterate the impression that even from God himself he would stand no nonsense. The effort to sound humble hurt Mr Crabbe; and he was further hampered in these public devotions by the erratic behaviour of his two young daughters, Gladys and Lottie, and the failure of their haggard, thin-lipped mother to control them. ‘O greecious Gard and Heavenly Fawther,’ cried Mr Crabbe, with the air of a man in a hurry giving instructions to a liftboy, ‘we would ’umbly ask and crave thy greecious blessing, O Lard, upon this ’ousehold one and all gathered ’ere together at thy footstool. And especially would we ask thee—stop scraping them feet, Lottie!—would we ask thee, at this junction and at this season and at this time, to drop a blessing or two on young Pandervil, the stranger within our gates. There’s no call for you to giggle, Gladys: I’ll teach you giggle—with a slipper, girl! Vouchsafe him to do his duty like a man, and wo
rk hard, and keep straight, and be a credit. Givvim strength, Gard. Givvim persewerance. Givvim religion. Givvim a sense of duty. And givvim,’ said Mr. Crabbe, briskly completing his order, ’thy ’oly spirit.’ And when he had finished the prayer, in order to mark the occasion he read with flashing eyes a passage from the Old Testament, spat vigorously into the fireplace, and filled his mouth with a rasher of bacon wound round and round his fork. So, Father having begun his breakfast, Mother and family and Nicky himself timidly followed his example. This was Nicky’s first experience of the Crabbes’ bacon and the Crabbes’ Family Prayers. He had no second taste of either until six days were past and another Sunday was come.

  The household included John James, a young man—five years older than Nicky—who was working for his keep and gathering experience against the day when his father would ‘set him up’. James was remarkable chiefly for his taciturnity. Such remarks as he made were all most dismally to the point, the point being farming and stock-breeding. At night, when Nicky entered the shared bedroom, he would wake to say ‘You’re back then,’ and instantly fall asleep again. By day, on social occasions such as a bread-and-cheese lunch shared in the fields, he would utter a few pithy sentences, as though trying over his knowledge like a schoolboy preparing for examination. ‘Hurdle tegs on turnips—best way,’ he would say, staring mournfully at the crust in his hand. And, half an hour later: ‘Clover first like, then wheat—gets ground ready for wheat, clover does.’ This was perhaps James’s idea of keeping the conversation lively. The rest was silence. Nicky sometimes made mild fun of him, but the industrious fellow was proof against that. Nothing moved him; much never reached him. When Charlie Bly, the cowman, made obscene jokes about Flo Petula, a blameless and attractive young kitchen-maid at a neighbouring farmstead, James grinned and grunted and uttered an aphorism or two about crops and the weather and the price of pigs. Nor did the changing seasons change his demeanour. In summer he sweated, sowing turnips, loading hay-wains, cleaning hedges, swilling out stables and cowsheds, and knocking the small blind heads of unwanted puppies against the stable wall; and in winter, rising in pitch-dark mornings and lighting a candle and shaking Nicky from sleep, he would growl in a sibilant undertone as he wiped his face with a damp flannel, that growl, suggestive of a man trying to smother himself, being his tribute to the winter coldness. But otherwise it made—so far as Nicky could observe—no difference to him whether the sky was blue or grey, the birds singing or silent. By day or by night, in summer or winter, whether drunk or sober, James remained the same neutral-coloured creature, a born drudge, a mechanical farmer, a clockwork man. One day, in the harvest field, he was persuaded to take too much cider, which indulgence, though it made him more talkative, did not in the least affect the quality of his talk: his maxims that morning covered the whole farming year from seed-time to harvest.