16
1
She came in to tell us quite radiant. Antoinette and I were in the sitting-room—I at my desk, Antoinette squatting in the middle of the floor, her nearest cover, so to speak, the settee. It was quite easy for Cecilia in almost the same movement of swift entry to scoop her up into a close, delighted embrace.
“Word from the airline at last!” cried Cecilia, over Antoinette’s stiff neck. “Only five days more and we’ll be off!”
By her tone she might have been bringing the good news from Ghent to Aix. (Another poem I had been brought up on: “I sprang to the stirrup and Joris and he;/ We galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three.”) Only I felt no more apt for the part of Joris than did Antoinette, all too obviously, for that of Dirck. She was such a dead weight in Cecilia’s arms, the latter had to drop her almost at once, but still without loss of impetus.
“At last,” went on Cecilia enthusiastically, “at last, after waiting and waiting, at last I’ll have my baby back with me, just the two of us by ourselves! You mustn’t ever think I don’t appreciate all you’ve done for her—but just wait till I get her quite to myself and she’ll be a different child!”
For the matter of that Antoinette was a different child already. She looked a hopeless sort of child, dropped back onto the carpet at Cecilia’s feet and now huddling like a young rabbit bereft of its burrow. It astonished me that Cecilia couldn’t see what she was doing—Antoinette before our eyes retreating back into being a little animal. But of course this was the very thing Cecilia intended to prevent with psychiatry and speech-therapy, once she had Antoinette back with her, just the two of them together, in New York.
—“Remember New York, honey?—Well, I guess not,” cried Cecilia, “but you’re going to just love it!”
She talked happily on. She had the knack, I have described it, of presenting a monologue as a conversation—providing her own responses, covering any silence with fresh chatter, racing on to ever fresh topics before a last fell flat. Anyone simply overhearing (as once Mrs. Gibson across a hedge), might well have been excused for believing it Antoinette or myself who responded, even if by no more than brief interjections of pleasure and gratitude. Of course Cecilia was by now accustomed to Antoinette’s muteness, so it could not disappoint her, especially as there could be no doubt that the child took in every word.—“Look at her great big eyes!” cried Cecilia. “Is it like a dream coming true, baby? But it isn’t a dream, and it’s going to come true!”
All this while, since she’d been dropped and returned to her squatting position, Antoinette hadn’t moved, only listened, and as I believed—I no less than Cecilia seeing her eyes widen—understood. Now she rather clumsily scrambled to her feet and took a tentative step towards the french window, then halted and considered the door to the hall, as though casting about for a way of escape. But what I told Cecilia was that it was time for her nap, which explanation Cecilia readily accepted; she was bound for an auction, a proper auction in the Estate Agent’s rooms, where she had heard there was some quite good silver going.
I did not want her to leave. I had failed in my duty to Antoinette once before, in the bedroom at Woolmers, through sinful pride; had in a way failed her again, during the last half-hour, by an implicit, tacit falling-in with all Cecilia’s plans. But how could I have reasoned or pled in the child’s presence? When any sort of argument or high words so distressed her? I was afraid lest even from her cot (should I be drawn on to speak my mind to Cecilia), she might overhear and be frightened. So before tucking her up I told Cecilia to wait for me; I was going to the auction too.
“Then mind you don’t bid against me!” said Cecilia gaily. “You mustn’t run me up like bad Paul for my caftan!”
2
It wasn’t silver I hoped to bid against Cecilia for. She could have taken back all the Georgian forks in England, so long as she didn’t take back a child; for as we walked down the hill together I suddenly discovered this to be the real crux of the matter. No power on earth could make Cecilia loose hold on her daughter; she had too many plans for Antoinette, a whole future had been built up in Cecilia’s imagination that centered on the child. (Antoinette so to speak taking the place of Bundles for Britain. As this thought occurred I did not even hope I was doing Cecilia an injustice.) But if Cecilia could be induced to remain in England, especially in East Anglia—especially, I admitted it, near myself—surely the worst of the disaster might be prevented? And it was just as this thought crossed my mind that Cecilia herself spontaneously paused, halfway down the hill, at the rusted-together gates of The Chantry.
Beyond them, the unpruned roses riotously enfiladed a shaggy lawn, beyond which, behind the balustrade of a crumbling terrace, the arches of three tall windows still displayed a cool Georgian assurance …
“What a lovely, wasted place! Can’t even you, darling, remember when it was lived in?” asked Cecilia.
I told her no, I’d always known it empty: but believed there was a music room.
“The silver won’t come up till four; let’s get in and see,” proposed Cecilia.
With such thoughts in mind as I entertained, I readily agreed. Between gate and post was a sagging gap we could both squeeze through quite easily; though each tall window stood stout to its hinge a lesser entry-door leaned ajar, and within, actually opening off the triple-windowed saloon we found the music room indeed—its frescoes to be sure rather peeling, but still identifiably of harps and violins moulded in what once had been gilt on what had once been white plaster. Under our feet, as we adventured in, what had once been parquet sagged to the point of splintering, and I think we saw a rat, but Cecilia had eyes only for the harps and violins, and as I looked at her upturned face, for once completely unselfconscious, I glimpsed a last chance, suddenly put in my hand by the accident of our trespass.
Cecilia gave me the opening herself.
“But it’s perfectly beautiful,” she said slowly. She turned and walked to look out through one of the long windows, across the garden. “The whole place could be made perfectly lovely. Why for heaven’s sake doesn’t someone with money take it and live in it?”
“Why don’t you?” I asked. “You’ve money. Why don’t you take it yourself and live in it with Antoinette?”
She had had her back to me. When she turned, her expression was completely changed.
“Here?” she said coldly. “Live here? Why did I ever marry an old man, except to get away from here?—Not that I wasn’t utterly devoted to Rab,” she added quickly. “I gave up my whole life to him. But sooner than come back and live here, I’d honestly, darling, rather die.”
I believed her; for what she told me was what I’d sometimes suspected. I saw that she wouldn’t have married the Admiral even if he’d offered. She had got away once, and now meant to get away again, and no eloquence of mine had any chance of swaying her.
“Of course it’s understandable,” said I weakly.
“Yes, darling; I thought you’d understand,” said Cecilia. “You never got away at all, did you?”
In the event I let Cecilia go on to the Auction by herself. So much scrambling about had tired me; moreover there was nothing, on my part, left to say, as I think Cecilia realized; she helped me back through the hedge with a sort of ironic kindness, and even suggested (my forces so obviously spent), sending Alfred with his taxi to pick me up and take me the quarter of a mile home. This offer I refused; but still, after Cecilia had swung on downhill with her light borzoi-stride, needed to rest more than once on my way home.
I wanted also a little time to consider how I had best, now that her fate seemed finally inescapable, talk to Antoinette. Thinking back, I was happy to remember that never once had I implied any criticism of Cecilia; even such a false phrase as “Your pretty mummy” now returned rather comfortingly—for might I not have been oversensitive, imagining that the child too detected its falsity? “Here’s your pretty mummy,” I repeated to myself. “Now you’re going to stay with
your pretty mummy …”
“Now you’re going to live with your pretty mummy,” I heard myself rehearse—as so too did Jessie, on her way to set the Woolmers tea-tables.
“Goodness me, if you start talking to yourself we’ll soon be for the loony bin the lot of us!” remarked Jessie cheerfully. “Bain’t it a shame I can’t get to the Sale?”
By the time I reached my gate half-a-dozen such phrases were ready on my tongue: “Now you’re going to live with your pretty mummy who’s come all the way from America for you!”—But what did Antoinette know of America?—“From all across the sea,” I substituted, “just to take you back to live with her, she’s so fond of you!”
I could think of no better way to approach, and handle, and try to alleviate. I even prepared a new version of the Cinderella story, in which the pumpkin turned not into a coach but an aeroplane; and the key-phrase your pretty mummy I decided to begin harping on at once, as soon as I got back to Antoinette.
Only I couldn’t find her.
3
Her cot was empty. The quilt was still so smooth, just a top corner pushed back, I guessed she must have slipped out and up almost as soon as I’d left her. But where was she?
I searched in all her usual retreats—within doors, under the cot itself, without, under the artichokes; explored the exit from the old coal cellar—no track of Antoinette nor any answer to my call.—I explored the terrace, and every part of the garden, still calling and still without result. Then the second time I went through the house I noticed, as but for my increasing distress I should surely have done sooner, that the trunk on the landing had its coracle-lid on.
Somehow or other Antoinette had managed to climb inside and pull it on after her.
For there she was, curled with her knees against her chin and her hands over her eyes, drawing still a few shallow breaths.
All children like to hide so, Antoinette had often curled up there; but it must have taken much deliberate effort for her to tug up the heavy lid, and maneuver it into place, before she put her hands over her eyes; perhaps as much effort as it took Bobby Parrish to load his pockets with stones before he slid feet-first into a dyke.
She was soon quite recovered, after I lifted her to an open window, and rubbed her hands and blew my own breath into her mouth; and appeared to have no memory of what she had done. However before I went up to London next morning I made sure Mrs. Brewer could spend the whole day in the house, and asked her especially not to leave Antoinette at all alone. Mrs. Brewer didn’t ask why.
I made no mention of the incident to Cecilia; but as I say went up to London, to see Mr. Hancock.
17
1
I had no appointment with him; I simply took the bus to Ipswich, then a cheap day return, and then a taxi to Gray’s Inn. I was there soon after half-past ten and (as I wrote on the back of my card) could wait seven hours. But to my pleased surprise it was only noon before a clerk showed me in. (The clerk I remember seemed equally surprised.) On his own ground, behind his own desk, Mr. Hancock was a good deal more imposing than across my tea-table; he stood up, we shook hands, we sat down, with formal precision. Then he did something I shall always remember with gratitude. There was on the desk a little folding leather clock, so placed—I am not unobservant—that he could keep an eye on the time without looking at his watch. Now he leaned forward and shut it.
“I still shan’t keep you long,” I promised. “I simply want a legal opinion. Of course on the usual terms.”
“Of course,” agreed Mr. Hancock.
“You remember Antoinette Guthrie?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Hancock. “How is the bairn?”
“Very well,” said I. “That is, physically very well indeed, and mentally out of danger.” (I do not know why I used that particular, clinical-sounding term; it just came to my tongue, and indeed, when I considered, precisely described Antoinette’s situation; so long as left undisturbed, subject to no mental strain, she was off the danger list.) “She still can’t read or write,” I added honestly, “but she understands far better, and can ride a pony.”
“I should like to see her,” said Mr. Hancock.
I refrained from telling him Cecilia had put a stop to it. I equally said nothing of Antoinette’s having been left alone at night in a strange place, and her running back through the dark to my doorstep. I had no intention of abusing Mr. Hancock’s great kindness in shutting that clock, by embarking on a tale of woe. I said simply that in spite of all these improvements, Antoinette’s mother, now that she had returned, still felt that more could be done for the child.
Mr. Hancock considered a moment.
“Without any breach of confidence,” he then said, “I think I may mention that Mrs. Guthrie too has paid me a visit.”
I was foolishly surprised. What indeed could be more likely, even necessary? And if Cecilia hadn’t mentioned it, why should she—thinking it no doubt none of my business?
“Then you know,” said I, “she plans to take Antoinette back to New York for special teaching and analysis and speech-therapy?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Hancock.
His face, like his voice, was quite expressionless. I put the question I had come to ask.
“Is there any possible, legal way of preventing it?”
“No,” said Mr. Hancock.
2
He was still extraordinarily kind to me. He even detailed one of his clerks to give me lunch—at least I somehow found myself, without recollection of any transit, instead of opposite Mr. Hancock across a desk, opposite a very young man across a table with a white cloth. It was proper damask, properly laundered, as were the napkins; evidently we were in some very old-fashioned, very expensive City chop-house. My young cicerone proffered the wine list; but when I asked for milk—shades of my poor father, what an opportunity for him, amongst the ports!—settled on his own account for a light ale. However I was glad to see that though my own order, from a menu broad as one of the napkins, was just an omelette, his was for oysters and turbot followed by treacle sponge, all of which he consumed with such dispatch, he easily saw me onto the 2:15 home.
“One of these days you must come and let me give you tea!” said I in farewell.
“I still think you should have a brandy,” replied he, rather oddly, “but I’ve told the guard where you get off …”
What he hadn’t told me, and what I hadn’t immediately noticed, was that the carriage he’d put me into was First Class. Fortunately for my conscience and purse no ticket-collector disturbed what I think must have been a slight nap.—“I don’t blame you!” Mrs. Brewer would have said; it being universally acknowledged in the village that a day trip to London is as wearisome to the flesh as exhausting to the spirit.
Antoinette appeared neither glad nor sorry to see me back; certainly perfectly incurious as to where I had been. It was as though she had made a final retreat into passivity. Mrs. Brewer reported her good as gold all day, just curled up on her cot so quiet as a carrot. I had often thought that Mrs. Brewer’s similes seemed to spring from quite deep, if unconscious perception. With too much to bear, her last desperate and final escape frustrated, Antoinette was retreating from being a little animal into becoming a vegetable.
3
It struck me forcibly at this juncture how essentially friendless I was. Which may sound absurd: on the face of it I had many, lifelong friends; besides new friends. But my way of life with Antoinette had for the last five years rather cut me off from the old, and my new had their own preoccupations.
The Gibsons were my friends; and had often praised my devotion to Antoinette—so often, indeed, the phrases had become as meaningless (in reverse) as the liturgical recognition of themselves as miserable sinners. Old Mr. Pyke was my friend, and Major Cochran; Cecilia reminded the one of his mother and the other of his first love. There was in fact no one I could look to to take my and Antoinette’s part with any staunchness; and it would be no exaggeration to say that scarcely an h
our passed without my thinking of Doctor Alice.
It so happened that the day after I saw Mr. Hancock was the day a small memorial tablet to her was unveiled in the south aisle. She had been buried, almost anonymously, somewhere in London; but the whole village agreed (and even backed the opinion by subscriptions of not over five shillings), that she deserved proper commemoration. Even Old Age Pensioners—in fact, all Old Age Pensioners—contributed their mites; and as mites made up the majority of contributions, the result was not a brass but a very nicely lettered piece of slate, recording her many years of service to a grateful community. I was of course invited into a front pew for the dedication, and behind me the aisle was quite packed. The entire Mothers’ Union was there, and the Women’s Institute, and the Darby and Joan Club, and even the British Legion Old Comrades Association; but not a soul, I am convinced, mourned Doctor Alice as sincerely as I.
“You know what?” remarked Mrs. Brewer, as we parted in the porch. “You know what I liked about her particularly? She was never one to be bamboozled. Properly sick, she’d get you to hospital in her own car, never mind waiting for the ambulance: but she was never one to be bamboozled by such as that son-in-law of mine faking sheer idleness into arthritis.”
I had always known Mrs. Brewer to hold a perhaps unfairly poor opinion of her son-in-law, but in general I agreed; Doctor Alice had never been one to be bamboozled.
As I say, this was on the day after I saw Mr. Hancock; there were only three left, before Cecilia took Antoinette back with her to New York where there’d be just the two of them together.
18
The Innocents Page 12