Crescendo

by Phyllis Bentley

  He simply could not bring himself to lay the money in Mrs. Eastwood’s hand, so he threw it down on the table beside her. Mrs. Eastwood laid down her bag and counted it carefully. The spectacle of her thick fingers smoothing out the notes and telling the silver coins aroused in Freeman a furious impatience amounting to physical nausea. She finished and put the money carefully away in her bag. She rose.

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Freeman,” she said in a tone of satisfaction. “I’m glad we’re on a straight edge again. It’s always better, isn’t it? Of course it’ll be May in a couple of weeks and the rent will be due again, but meanwhile we’re on a straight edge, aren’t we.”

  Freeman in silence flung open the door which led into the little garden. Mrs. Eastwood sailed cheerfully through.

  “Well, good evening,” she said, triumphant.

  “Goodbye, madam,” said Freeman, bowing.

  3

  Freeman slammed the door behind Mrs, Eastwood and stood there motionless.

  For a moment rage seemed to course furiously through his whole body, setting it ablaze. Then the rage sank, succeeded by a searing humiliation. Everything in his life that made him particularly vulnerable—his mother’s lack of love for him in childhood, Freda’s rejection, his loss of Fiammetta, Gay’s marriage, the failure of his last set of designs, his loneliness, the physical oncoming of old age—everything he had tried to forget or to anaesthetize by courage—had been excoriated by the rough fingers of Mrs. Eastwood; every sensitive spot in his mind had been pricked into quivering pain. As a man he was no longer wanted: he was no longer a husband or a lover, his protective function as father had been superseded by Gay’s husband; his physical frame was beginning to decay. As an artist, though not in full activity he had hoped still to maintain himself honourably, but if he was so utterly rejected by the people—by the people of his own county—if what he had regarded as one of his best achievements on their behalf was coarsely laughed at by the West Riding—then it was useless to work any more. Perhaps even his lectures at the Hudley Technical College, it struck him in a scorching flash, had been a failure too; he had not been invited to give a second course. His financial embarrassment was not temporary and superficial, but deep and permanent. He was useless. Despised, rejected, totally unwanted; a bore, a nuisance, a liability; a drag on Gay.

  If that was the case, he was far too proud a man—had always been too proud a man—to remain in such a position. He would remove himself immediately, as he had often done before.

  He stepped through the room to the foot of the staircase, and shouted:

  “Gay! Gay!”

  His daughter appeared at the door of her bedroom. Her sweet plain face in its frame of dusky hair looked a trifle pale and weary; and no wonder, Freeman chided himself fiercely, since she had all the housework to do, two men to feed and care for—one quite useless—and a baby only a few weeks away.

  “I’m going to put a wash on a sketch—don’t disturb me, Gay,” said Freeman.

  “No, father,” said Gay dutifully.

  She was familiar, as Freeman well knew, with the tyranny of the washing-in of a background, and was not surprised by his request. She blew him a kiss and withdrew.

  Freeman went into the kitchen. Never in his life had he been slow in action, and he was not slow now. He slammed about the little room, closing the small hinged windows, throwing out the shelves and grids from the gas oven, tearing down the blue towel from its roller and stuffing it along the foot of the door. (If he had been in any doubt—but he was not—this strip of rough fabric, reminding him of the day Gay and Peter fell in love, would have confirmed him in his resolution.) He looked around for a cushion, but finding none tore off his brown coat, folded it and threw it into the oven.

  He lay down prone, crossed his arms over the coat and bowed his great head sideways. Yes, that would do nicely. He stretched up one hand and turned the gas on at full.

  Part Three

  Counter-Impulse

  Gay

  Every hour of the day had its own beauty, thought Gay, lowering herself carefully to the broad window-seat, but this evening hour, this hour of soft twilight, of crépuscule, was perhaps the one she loved the best.

  Soon dark would fall, and the long ropes of lights which marked the roads, the modest knots of the hillside townships, the great clusters of Hudley and Ashworth far below, would become diamonds on black velvet, bold and coruscating, exciting and somehow restless, calling to gaiety and action. The dark would bring her husband. The homely one-decker bus, which was now standing at the Blackstalls terminus and would soon pass down the road towards Blackstalls Bridge, would presently return; she would see it from afar, a tiny jewelled insect in the dark, laboriously but staunchly tackling the ascent of the long steep hill, vanishing and reappearing along the winding curves, growing larger with every turn, till suddenly it roared into sight at the foot of the High Royd bank, full size, panting but triumphant. Peter would come springing up this bank, and one’s own personal life, with all its tumultuous demands, would resume its thrilling, headlong course.

  But now, in this hour, half day, half dusk, there was a pause. Her body, so heavy with child, was at rest after the toils and fatigues of the day; her spirit likewise rested. In this soft twilight the man-made lights were all still a lovely calm pale yellow, wistful, ethereal; one felt that by their utterly clear, pure light one saw the whole of life in all its depth, its richness and its complexity.

  Gay had often been amused in the past by her own understanding of life in general and other people’s problems in particular. She thought it came perhaps because her own life was so simple, so devoid of any personal participation in the feverish whirl.

  Her parents were the most wonderful people in the world: famous, brilliant, loving, strong. Above all strong. Gay knew well the terribly severe, the almost savage discipline of study and practice which her mother had to impose on herself in order that her gorgeous voice should glow through every corner of a huge opera house, or soften to a dropping cadence of single grief-stricken notes, every one of which wrung the listener’s heart. Gay knew well too the fierce rush of ideas which sometimes filled her father’s mind, and the meticulous accuracy of execution which had to be employed to translate these ideas into reality. Yes, her mother and father were strong, powerful people, forceful in their passions as in their art. She loved them deeply and they loved her deeply, but they did not need her help to live.

  Gay herself had no artistic talent of any kind: neither voice, nor design, nor beauty, as she often thought. But it was not this which troubled her. She had coursed about all over the world in her parents’ entourage: she knew all the glitter, all the excitement, all the famous people, she had watched terrific back-stage scenes, she had listened to confidences from highly placed personages in at least four languages; she knew how little all that mattered compared with the feelings of the heart, compared with love.

  So what she wanted above all was someone who needed her. When her mother returned, a physical wreck, from the concentration camp, Gay had joyously offered her fresh young strength to support, her; but though Fiammetta accepted her daughter’s ministrations with a kindly smile, she did not really need them; broken in body, she was to the last firm, strong, resolved and reserved, in mind. When the bombs fell, when Freeman’s career began to dwindle, Gay was at his side, yearning to help, to reassure. But again, her father did not seem to need her. He had disregarded the bombs, and when failure struck him he seemed equally unconcerned; he left London, he came to Hudley, he rented High Royd, in his usual strong decided fashion. Only when he occasionally wrote for the press did he seem to need his daughter, and these were the happiest, most fulfilled moments of Gay’s life—until she met Peter.

  As soon as she saw Peter she loved him. Of course there was a strong physical attraction between them—Gay had listened to the love-stories of too many despairing tenors and weeping corps-de-ballet girls not to be very familiar with the facts of physical love.
Peter was good-looking, one might say comely, in his way: tallish, with very clean fair skin, bright eyes and a winning smile. But it was more than these physical graces—she had seen many handsomer men—which made Gay’s heart turn over when she looked at Peter. He won her love because he was weak, because he needed her. He did not know it consciously, but his need of her showed in every action, every word he spoke, every turn of the head. Beneath his brash assurance, his fluency and argumentativeness, lay a soul afraid, timid and loving, quivering with pain.

  Vain as thou wert, and weak as vain,

  The slave of falsehood, pride and pain …

  Yes, thought Gay, all her heart rushing out to her husband, that was Peter. He railed against the world, despised almost everybody, used long words about economics, discussed biology, history and philosophy in a knowing fashion, but was capable of secret anguish over the smallest personal failure: some fancied slight, a sharp retort on him in debate, even a word accidentally mispronounced. Any kind of rebuff almost killed him, he sank to the ground, he suffered agonies, before on some slight reassurance he resiliently bounded up again to his usual apparently conceited self-assertion. Well! Gay would be at his side through life; she would soothe and calm and support and if possible steer; she loved him, he needed her, she was his wife.

  And now this wonderful fruition, this supreme fulfilment, was to be granted to her. She was to bear a child. A child of her very own, who would depend on her for every necessary of life for many years. Of course when the child grows up I must be careful not to chain her to me, thought Gay soberly; I mustn’t be too protective, too maternal; one must serve the mind as well as the body; it is the last and greatest duty of mothers to set their children free. But even so, at the thought of this long service, this long devotion, her whole being glowed with love and joy.

  “I shall be a mother,” thought Gay with a happy smile.

  Now it was almost dusk. A little wind rose and blew about the house, waving the branches of the ash-tree in the corner of the garden, and suddenly a spatter of rain rattled sharply on the windows.

  “Poor Peter,” thought Gay with concern, stretching out a hand to close the tiny window: “He didn’t take his coat.”

  Down in the garden she saw Simon the cat running rapidly for shelter. The angle of his tail, held stiff and low, seemed to express an angry disgust at the change of weather. Gay smiled; the cat’s fierce pride, its independent personality, its air of taking life on its own terms or not at all, always reminded her of her father. She watched the rain strengthen into a heavy shower, wondered whether it would be over before Peter left the Technical College, peered at her watch, looked out again and judged that the rain was not a mere shower but had come to stay; the fine summer’s day had sunk into a wet evening. Simon was now standing in the middle of the garden with one paw uplifted, gazing up at her and mewing crossly.

  “Father will let you in, Simon,” she said, shaking her head at him.

  She waited a moment or two to see this happen. No sound came from the house, and Simon remained poised as before; the wind was ruffling up his fur, the rain poured on his sleek head, his angry gaze at her had become piteous, reproachful. Evidently for some reason Freeman had not noticed the cat or did not mean to admit him. Gay was surprised. A lack of observation or of consideration was equally unlike her father.

  “Surely he must have finished the wash on his sketch by now? However—all right, Simon,” said Gay with a sigh, nodding down to the cat. “I’m coming.”

  She rose reluctantly; she was decidedly tired and her body felt most decidedly heavy. But of course she could not leave poor Simon out in the rain. She went carefully down the stairs and opened the front door and took a few steps into the garden beyond the gables, and called Simon. As the cat darted past her she saw that there was no light in her father’s painting-room. There was no light, indeed, anywhere in the house.

  Gay was surprised, again. It was much too dark by now to work on a sketch, so what was Freeman about? She opened the door of the big room, the former house-body, downstairs, but her father was not there. She climbed slowly to Freeman’s painting-room and stood at the door listening. There was no sound from within. After a moment she turned the knob and pushed open the door—very quietly; if her father were thinking out some design, he did not like to be intruded upon. The room was empty.

  “Father!” called Gay. “Father!”

  There was no reply.

  Suddenly Gay felt uneasy. She remembered now that it was Mrs. Eastwood whom she had seen a few moments ago leaving High Royd—the landlady must have entered the house and had an interview with Freeman, while Gay was in the kitchen, washing up. Freeman disliked Mrs. Eastwood. Why had she come? Where was her father now? Gay hurried into all the rooms in Freeman’s part of the house, one by one, throwing open the doors in sharp gestures, unlike her usual placid movements, which reflected her growing fear. Her father was not to be found.

  “He must have finished the sketch and gone out,” thought Gay. “But it’s strange he didn’t tell me. It’s strange I didn’t hear the door.”

  She paused, irresolute, then entered in turn the two rooms which belonged to herself and Peter. As was to be expected, her father was not in either of these.

  The only room unvisited was now the kitchen, so with a sigh Gay went carefully down the stairs again and along the back passage which led to the little room. Simon, who was lying at the foot of the stairs in an involved attitude, vigorously cleaning his damp fur, rolled to his feet and followed her with an air of expectancy, and this encouraged her to think that her father was within.

  She opened the kitchen door; it seemed to move heavily as though encountering some impediment. She gave it an impatient push and the smell of gas struck her like a blow. In the half-darkness she gazed around, bewildered, while Simon fled over her feet. Then she saw her father lying prone on the floor.

  “Oh, no! No!” cried Gay.

  She ran to the gas oven, turned off the tap and tried to pull Freeman away, but his heavy, burly body defeated her. She ran to the windows and opened them, to the outer door and pulled it wide, then back to Freeman. Kneeling beside him, she seized the clothes at his waist and tugged with all her strength, but could not stir him; pain stabbed her body as she strained. She gave up the attempt and, sobbing now, managed to clasp her arms about his broad shoulders. She heaved and struggled; suddenly the body yielded; there was vomit in the oven and her father’s grey hair dragged through it; the sight was sickening and a wave of nausea almost overcame her, but now at last his head lay heavily in her lap. One of his elbows was wedged within the corner of the oven; she struggled to bend it down to his side. It was a great triumph when she succeeded. Now he was clear of the oven; she rose to her feet and turned him on his back and tried to raise him, but the pain in her own body was too great, was not to be borne; she crouched down again, and clasping her father beneath the armpits, she dragged herself and him together towards the door.

  Once they were out in the blessed fresh air of the passage, and the kitchen door closed, she rested, and putting her face down to her father’s, listened for his breath. It was so soft, so shallow, so infrequent, that she could not be sure she heard it at all. She remembered what she had read of artificial respiration; with infinite difficulty she released herself from beneath Freeman’s body and turned him on his face, then raised herself to her knees and tried to apply the necessary pressures. Instantly pain struck fiercely through her womb, so that she clasped her arms about herself and rocked in agony.

  When the spasm had passed she knew that she could not save her father alone; she must get help or he would die. She must get help. Peter too must be summoned; he would feel slighted and guilty if he were absent during this disaster. Yes, she must get help at once. Her own pain counted for nothing in this emergency.

  Clambering to her feet by the aid of the handle of the kitchen door, she staggered along the passage, supporting herself against the wall; then jerked open the
front door and ran headlong down the flagged pathway towards the road.

  Part Four

  Diminuendo

  I

  Ethel Eastwood

  1

  Twenty minutes she had waited already, and there was a good five more to go before that bus would condescend to arrive, thought Ethel crossly, peering at her watch in the half-light. And here she was getting drenched in this wretched rain, which seemed to get colder and heavier every drop that fell. Fancy that nice summer day turning out like this! But it was only what you could expect, it was never safe to trust anything or anybody; they always let you down.

  Thinking she had heard a sound, she poked her head out beyond the stile in the wall where she had taken shelter, but nothing was coming down the road, and raindrops splashed her face. She drew in her head sharply and crouched down on the step. Her best coat, too! Trailing on the ground! She gathered it about her knees—but what was the use? She would only crease it. For a moment she considered returning to High Royd, but decided against it as she had decided before. She dare not go back, and that was the truth of it. Old Freeman’s eyes as he gave her the money had been terrifying, almost mad. Yes, mad; that was it, mad. All those artists and people like that were mad, when you really got down to it, reflected Ethel virtuously; they were not safe to be about, really. It was best to have nothing to do with them. She wished she’d never let the place to Freeman.