Still She Wished for Company

by Margaret Irwin

  When they arrived at the Hilburys, however, he was at his gayest and most delightful. Vesey told George that the fellow behaved like a mountebank, but that may have been because Sophia laughed at his conversation rather too often.

  “Oh, my love!” she exclaimed to Juliana, “I declare Lord Chidleigh is the most infinitely agreeable, diverting man I have ever met! What a world of difference it makes—a little travel, and le bel air, and a je ne sais quoi! I vow I cannot look at a man who has never travelled.”

  Juliana regarded her cousin anxiously. It would be dreadful if Sophia really liked Lucian better than Vesey, particularly as there was no chance that Lucian would ever care seriously for her—a gushing, affected chit, always so ready with the last new words. Then it struck her that she was thinking very unkindly of her cousin; she supposed it was only on poor Vesey’s account. No. Sophia was not, could never be, beautiful and brilliant and bewitching enough for Lucian.

  George called at the Parsonage on the way back and brought Doctor Eden back to a light supper at about nine, followed by heavy drinking. Dr. Eden had been appointed to this parish by his late patron on account of excellent and diverse talents. He could train a setter, make an angling rod, play an admirable hand at whist, and carry an extra bottle or two with a dignity and discretion suitable to a bishop on some great occasion.

  It is true he could not put two words together of his own accord in the pulpit, and very few out of it, but one does not want a man to talk in the hunting field or at cards, and in church—well, what were all the volumes of sermons in the library for? Juliana hated him, his large face and little tight eyes, his tight black clothes over his portly figure, his tight pursed button of a mouth that could open wide enough on Sundays in the pulpit when he bellowed forth the sermon he had borrowed from their library the afternoon before.

  As she sat now with her forehead pressed against the banisters, she could see the four men playing whist in the hall, George plying Dr. Eden with port, for it amused him to witness the parson’s portentous solemnity, which was almost the only sign he gave of drunkenness.

  She wondered whether Lucian had given up his intention of being in the library at quarter to twelve. It would surely be difficult for him to leave the cards and the wine till the others were ready to go. What a noisy game of whist they were having! It was her brothers who were making all the noise, especially Lucian. He kept filling up everybody’s glasses as often as George filled up the Doctor’s.

  It was evident that Vesey at least was getting too drunk to play. His cards kept slipping out of his hands, and he mixed up hearts with diamonds and clubs with spades.

  “Damned rid—iculous,” he announced gravely, “to have only rid—no, red and black. Ought to have four colours— red, black, blue, and—and red.”

  Lucian, who was fumbling with his cards, suddenly threw them down.

  “Curse ’em, slippery rascals. Who cares for cards when there’s wine? Doctor, your glass is empty. George, you’re sober. I say you are. Sober as a Quaker. Where’s your ‘light French wines,’ my boy? Let’s have a toast instead of the game. I’ll give you a toast. I’ll give——”

  “A toast!” mumbled Vesey. “To the finest girl in the county—my pretty cousin.”

  “A toast!” exclaimed George in a sudden roar. “I’ll give you a toast. Here’s to the finest girl in the country—Black Bess, my mare! and damn all women, say I.”

  He fixed Vesey with a challenging eye, but Vesey, after this last drink, had sunk down too far in his chair to notice it. George’s eyes, glazed and staring like those of a bull, removed slowly to his elder brother.

  “A dam’ good toast, Chidleigh,” he said thickly.

  “And I’ll give you a better,” shouted Lucian. “Here’s to the finest girl in the world, the girl I’ve never seen.” He ended this declaration with a flourish that lost him his glass just as the others drained theirs.

  Dr. Eden pursed up his mouth so tight that it seemed impossible another drop of wine should enter it, but the impossible was repeatedly performed. He highly disapproved of the untimely end to the rubber, which only he was sober enough to win. Sitting exceedingly upright and resembling a tightly upholstered black bolster, he made a curious contrast to the splendid and disorderly figures round him.

  Vesey had slipped down so far in his chair by now that only a pair of broad white satin shoulders remained visible above the table; George, on the contrary (whose worst enemy could not now have accused him of sobriety), had gradually slid forward as his chair slid back so that his head and arms rested on the table. As the line of his crimson coat became more and more horizontal it seemed a miracle it should still remain suspended between table and chair. Lucian, his grey suit turned to pearl-colour by the candle-light, staggered restlessly from the table to the side-table where most of the bottles were put.

  He could not be going to the library—it was already half-past eleven by the great clock in the hall, and in any case he was far too drunk now to conduct the smallest “experiment.” Juliana heaved a sigh of relief that was not unmixed with disappointment. She was startled by the sudden booming of Dr. Eden’s voice, as loud as when he was in the pulpit.

  “I deplore,” he announced, “the weak and tremulous spirit of this age.”

  Lucian appeared much offended by this reflection. He was leaning against the wall with his hands outstretched on either side as if to balance it the better, and it struck Juliana that he looked like a great grey and silver moth confronting a fat black slug. He suddenly began to talk very fast in defence of the spirit of the age, so fast that one could not well distinguish what he said. Dr. Eden, evidently somewhat confused, declared that he had meant no offence to his Lordship, he had on the contrary been about to point out that his Lordship and his noble brothers were the only firm and steadfast exceptions in a weak and tremulous age. Here the horizontal line of George’s back startlingly collapsed.

  But this only seemed to annoy Lucian the more. He declared that nobody and nothing was weakanjemulous but the doctor himself, though the accusing finger he tried to point at the doctor with this, proved a staggering denial of his statement.

  Juliana wished she had not stayed to see Lucian get so drunk. George’s and Vesey’s monumental oblivion did not seem so shocking nor so absurd as this foolish quarrelsomeness. It was certainly quite unnecessary now to stay any longer, and she rose and turned away just as Lucian was shouting, “You’re an infidel, sir, a damned infidel. I’ll not stay in the same room with an infidel,” and reeled off. But it suddenly struck her that she did not hear him coming towards the staircase. She turned quickly back and looked over the banisters. Lucian was going down the passage that led to the library.

  She stood still a moment in astonishment. What could Lucian be going to do in that condition? Experiments in chemistry, she knew, could be dangerous. She must go, if only to see that he would do nothing dangerous. But curiosity, wonder and a sudden strange doubt also urged her to go. She ran along the corridor to the narrow side staircase that led direct into the library by a door of its own. She had no candle and had to feel her way very cautiously. At the door she listened for a moment but could hear no sound but her own heart which was thumping in an odd, irregular fashion. She opened the door and stood still in amazement on the threshold.

  Lucian sat at the table, on which was a single lighted candle in a tall silver candlestick. He was doing nothing, his fine hands lay on the table, the finger-tips just touching, in steady immobility.

  In the huge darkness of the room, he seemed so singularly isolated, motionless, that Juliana could scarcely believe it was her brother who sat there, or that it was indeed a living man.

  The candlelight gleamed on his silken shoulders, and seemed to make a faint powdery halo round the dead whiteness of his hair. A silvery reflection of him shone on the polished table, and behind him an enormous shadow was heavily spread, as still as if it had been painted on the wall and ceiling.

  But now he looked u
p and nodded as in welcome. His eyes were brilliant, and an amused smile twinkled into them as he saw her half-fearful astonishment.

  “Wh-what!” gasped Juliana, “you are not drunk at all?”

  He flung back his head in a sudden cracking roar of laughter.

  “Oh, don’t, brother!” she whispered, glancing in alarm at the other door of the library.

  “Why, who do you think can hear us? Our worthy relatives above us in their bedrooms, safe and snug on their feather mattresses, with the bed curtains drawn tight round them? Or the servants above them in their attics? Or our brothers in the hall at the end of this long passage, lying drunk asleep, the one on the top of the table and the other underneath it? Or Dr. Eden who still sits between them, bolt upright, and fixes the wall with a glassy stare, but knows no more than they what he’s about? Oh, no, we’re safe, very safe—safer than we have ever been.”

  He laughed again with an extraordinary exhilaration and freshness that struck Juliana as unnatural to him.

  He motioned her to one of the large armchairs that had been placed by the table on the side nearest the windows. There she sat and faced her brother, whose eyes never left hers.

  “Very safe,” he repeated. “And now that we are safe here together, what company would you like to amuse you?”

  “What company?” she repeated dully.

  She saw herself, a tiny white figure, in the pupils of Lucian’s eyes, and as she looked, the white figure seemed to grow in size and to approach her. She was afraid, as once when she had dreamed that she had seen herself, sitting, as now, in the library armchair.

  The figure receded until it was no more than a white dot again in the pupils of Lucian’s eyes. When it had done so, she shook herself, shut her eyes, then opened them, staring, and said suddenly, “I do not wish for company.”

  She remembered Mr. Daintree’s face when he had bidden farewell to her that morning in the park. She had told Lucian that she would not come to the library to-night. Why, then, was she here, sitting by him at the table? She half rose, confusedly, clumsily.

  He laid a hand on her arm.

  “Stay,” he said quietly. “You do not wish for company, you do not wish for experiments, is it so? But are you certain there is no way in which I can entertain you? Not by tales of my travels, of the odd characters I have encountered on them? Yet you have often expressed a wish to hear.”

  Juliana felt most stupidly confused. It was certainly absurd and unnecessary to come down to the library after she had gone to bed, in order to hear Lucian tell tales of his travels. But she found it difficult to say so to him in words that should not sound pert. He was already speaking again, and she now for the first time noticed that a peculiar perfume had stolen upon her senses. It proceeded from a minute spiral of blue vapour which was rising from a small dish placed on the floor. As before, the incense was making her feel drowsy, and it was not until she looked away from it, and looked again at her brother’s oddly bright eyes, that she noticed what he was saying. He was speaking low and persuasively. He was not telling her of his travels, he was telling her to do something—what was it?

  “You will find her for me,” he said. “Juliana, you will find her for me. Whoever she may be, wherever she may be, you will be able to find her. If she has ceased to exist, if she has not yet existed, she exists for me. She exists somewhere beyond my dreams. Go and find her.”

  He rose, and with his eyes still fixed on her, he moved her chair round so that it faced the windows, which were unshuttered and uncurtained, open to the summer night. She saw the stars, and the trees on the lawn.

  She watched the windows so intently that the grey and silver darkness of the sky seemed to enter the room and press upon her eyeballs. The stars and trees became hidden and there was the sudden sound of violent rain, like the rattle of kettledrums. This at first alarmed her, for she remembered something that Lucian had once read to her about “an exceeding great rain” and “the beating of drums” before the appearance of spirits of the past and future. But nothing appeared, and presently it diminished and then ceased altogether. She then wondered what Lucian was doing behind her and why he kept so very still, not speaking any more.

  But now she began to dream in earnest, so that she no longer knew that she was sitting in the library armchair. She dreamed that she was walking down the drive to take some flowers to Nurse’s cottage. The drive was untidy and overgrown and did not appear to have been used by carriages or horses for a very long time. She dreamed that as she passed she touched the beech trees one by one, and whispered, “You were here before, were you not?”

  She walked on, but she did not come to Nurse’s cottage. She reached the end of the drive and thought she must have passed it without noticing. She turned to walk back, touching the beech trees one by one so that she should not fail to notice when she came to it. But Nurse’s cottage was not in the drive.

  At last she felt so terrified and so much alone that she tried to cry out, but no sound would come from her. And then she noticed that her steps made no sound as she walked over the dry twigs and withered leaves and beech nuts that strewed the drive.

  Chapter XIII

  Juliana looked up from the armchair to see a cold light in J the windows in front of her. Lucian knelt beside her, rubbing her hands. His face looked drawn and grey in the raw early morning, and his eyes were as dull as pebbles. There was a little sharp frown between them that she had never seen there before. But it disappeared as she looked at him, and he gave a deep sigh as if in relief.

  “My sweet,” he said, “your hands are so cold. You have been asleep a long time.”

  “Yes,” said Juliana.

  It was odd how tired she felt in spite of having slept; she supposed it was because she had been sitting upright in a chair. After a time she said, “I have been dreaming.” She passed her hand over her forehead with a perplexed gesture. “I cannot remember, but it was something very disturbing.”

  “Then do not try to remember,” said Lucian. “In any case it was only a dream.”

  “Was it all a dream? I remember that someone said ’ Time is. Time was. Time will be.’ That was what Roger Bacon said, in my old copy book. Then someone else, or the same, said ’ There is no Time.’” As she looked at him she added sharply, “You heard that too.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “Then— was it a dream?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But which of us dreamt it—you or I?”

  “Perhaps both. If it were you, my sister, may I not be permitted to enter your dreams? And if it were I, I assure you I should have made you welcome. In any case it appears to have been a highly obvious statement contradicted by a remarkably untruthful one.”

  “It did not seem so at the time,” sighed Juliana, “it seemed —oh, the most important thing in the world.” Suddenly she opened her eyes on him, wide in horror—” Lucian, I remember now—I dreamed that Nurse’s cottage was not in the drive.”

  “And does that frighten you? But it is not strange that you should dream it. You must have remembered the story I had told you of Charnacé and his obstinate tailor. Do you not remember? Charnacé was a whimsical fellow. He had a long and beautiful avenue which was spoilt by a peasant’s cottage plump in the middle of it. Charnacé offered the peasant enormous bribes if he would allow a cottage and garden to be built for him in another part of the grounds, but the man refused, and such is the position of the down-trodden peasant in France (as you will hear all the philosophers call it) that Charnacé was unable to enforce his commands.

  “He tried guile. He told the man, who was a tailor, that he required a new Court suit in a few weeks, that he was to come to the Castle to make it and have his meals and sleep there so as to finish his work the quicker. And while he was at the Castle, Charnacé had his house and garden exactly copied, and even the position of every piece of furniture carefully marked, and all was set up in another part of the grounds, and the old cottage pulled down.


  “Then when all was done and the tailor had finished embroidering the fine new suit at the Castle, he was sent off at dusk to go home to his cottage. He went down the drive, and it was not there; he went back up the drive and it was not there; he wandered up and down all night and could not find it. When the morning came he saw his cottage in a field behind the drive, not half a mile from its original place. He ran up to it, he found all exactly as he had left it, the vegetables in the garden, the pots and pans on his hearth, the tiny windows winking at him under the low roof as he ran outside to stare at it again.

  “He rushed and called all his neighbours to come and look at it, he called ‘Sorcery! Sorcery! Some powerful magician has picked up my cottage and garden and popped them down here instead.’

  “And they all laughed at him, Pierre, and Jacques, and Susanne, and old Mère Madeleine, running up with their sabots going click, clack on his cobble-stoned path—all held their sides and roared with laughter as they told him how finely he had been tricked while he was working at the Castle at the grand new suit for his master to wear at Court!”

  “Oh,” cried Juliana, “and what then? I hope he did not mind, as he found it all just the same?”

  “Mind? He was mad with fury at having been fooled. He tramped all the way to Paris to demand justice, he went to all the chief judges, he even gained admittance to the King. But they all laughed, too, when they heard the story, and he was advised to swallow the affront.

  “The late Due de Saint Simon tells it in those memoirs that have been published privately in Paris—you would find them entertaining. And now you will go to bed and get some proper sleep and dream no more of Charnacé’s tailor and his lost cottage.

  “Remember also what the wisest of physicians has told us concerning visions—that ’Pythagoras might have had calmer sleeps, if he had totally abstained from beans.’”