Checkmate

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘What’s the matter with ’ee? Anyone would think you’d got a man there.’ She chuckled and phlegm crackled in her throat.

  Catherine and Silas stood back as the old woman prepared to cross the threshold; Richard Oliver saw that Catherine was holding his hand. Then a bent shape came between him and the other two.

  ‘Well! What’s this, then?’ She looked him up and down. She had a strong Cornish accent which lent itself to the relish with which she announced, ‘ ’Tis a man, after all!’

  ‘May I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, me ’an’some. I think you may.’ She leered at the other two. He took her stick and led her into the room. There she pushed him away.

  ‘I’m not sitting down yet, thank ’ee.’

  She was very old, he could see that now. The hair was clawed back from the yellowed face like a bundle of rusty wire; the face itself was reduced to bone, the teeth were gone, the eyes were circled with bruised purple shadows. It was a decaying face, but something still flickered in those burnt-out eyes. Hester Jory had not lost her intelligence.

  ‘Didn’t come just to bid us the time o’ day, did ’ee?’

  Silas intervened. ‘Mother, shall I light the lamp? You know how Catherine hates the twilight.’

  ‘Light it or don’t light it, but don’t fuss!’

  He lit the lamp and Catherine shut the window and drew the curtains. She and Silas stood in the background at opposite sides of the room, he holding the match with which he had lighted the lamp, she still holding the curtain cord. Old Mrs. Jory and Richard Oliver had the centre of the stage.

  It was like this that Rhoda saw them. No one had heard her knock, but as Silas had left the front door open, she came in. She looked at Richard Oliver and Hester Jory standing still as carved ivory, and she thought: Red King facing Black Queen.

  Chapter Five

  ‘I’ve agreed, to see him this afternoon. He is coming to Rhoda’s cottage,’ Catherine told Jonas Harkness. She folded her hands and gazed at him steadfastly, savouring her coming martyrdom.

  ‘Why did you agree to see him at all?’ Jonas Harkness was never impressed by other people’s attitudes. He liked to dominate the scenes in which he played: this was one reason why he had never got on very well with Catherine Jory.

  As they sat facing each other in his study, they presented an interesting contrast. He was a square, ruddy-faced man with close-cropped, grizzled hair and uncompromising grey eyes. He spoke with deliberation and he moved with deliberation; but he was not a ponderous man. One had the feeling that this man lived in a state of siege and that an iron will was needed to keep control of subversive elements. In contrast, Catherine, sitting immovable in front of him, appeared to have the unalterable assurance of a Byzantine saint. Now, she answered in her quiet, composed voice:

  ‘I felt it was important that my aunt should be kept out of this as much as possible. She is very old now.’

  ‘You think the shock might affect her?’

  ‘One never knows at her age.’

  ‘My dear woman, you must face the facts about your aunt. Constitutionally, she is still very strong; and emotionally she is quite invulnerable.’

  Catherine’s face became, if anything, even more serene. Occasionally when she was reading or sewing, she would frown slightly; but never when she was angry. She said in her gentlest voice:

  ‘Nevertheless, I feel it would be better for me to see this man alone.’

  ‘If you want to keep control of the proceedings, you are probably right.’ Having dismissed any suggestion that she might want to protect her aunt, he sat back and waited.

  ‘It is a very delicate situation,’ Catherine said. ‘And it will need to be handled carefully.’

  ‘In what way can I advise you?’

  He closed his hands together on the table, hands with big sharp bones and blunt fingers, not the hands of a healer.

  Catherine said, ‘It is with Silas that I am really concerned.’

  He looked at her thoughtfully, but her face betrayed nothing. She would not have come if she had not been sure that she could withstand his scrutiny. Also, she had her own moves to make.

  ‘Silas,’ she repeated, ‘And, of course, Melita.’

  He was not prepared for this. He got up and went to the window to draw the curtains against the strong midday sun. It was not a subtle move, but then he was not a subtle man. While he was at the window Catherine looked round the room, as though surveying territory on which a deadly game was to be played. The curtains were dark brown, rimmed with a line of gold brocade, the nap on the velvet was worn giving it a rough, fuzzy appearance. The chairs were leather, cracked, the stuffing protruding from the arms; the cushions were hard and knobbly. Books ranged the walls from floor to ceiling and the room smelt of old, dusty paper. But it was not a peaceful, meditative room. It was a room which vibrated with conflict. Catherine looked at the one picture which hung above the chimney where Jonas Harkness would see it whenever he raised his eyes from his desk. She supposed he had it there instead of a cross.

  He turned away from the window, wiping his hands absently on his trousers because the curtains were dusty. He returned to his desk and sat opposite her again, looking more fiercely inquisitorial than ever, an angry man without pity. But pity was not what Catherine wanted, so she went on calmly:

  ‘Silas comes to see you often. You, more than any other person, must know his state of mind.’

  ‘You can’t imagine that I would talk to you about that?’

  ‘Or that I would want it. Other people’s confessions are of no interest to me.’ She spoke with evident repulsion; one could see that in this she was sincere. ‘I only want to know how you think he would react to the present situation.’

  ‘What do you mean by situation? You must speak frankly of whatever it is that disturbs you. You have always been less than frank with yourself, you realize that?’

  ‘I have very little use for that kind of frankness.’ She gave him a gently reproving smile. ‘It is a kind of self-indulgence.’

  He looked thunderously angry and the brutal hands knotted on the table. As she did not want to alienate him completely at this stage, she decided to play things his way a little.

  ‘But you are right. I must be more . . . explicit . . . about this.’ She paused and the heavy lids covered the eyes; for a moment the whole face became oblique, dreamlike. She said, ‘I have felt for some time that the loss of Melita had a more serious effect on Silas than we at first suspected. Perhaps it was the uncertainty, the feeling that she might return one day, that made it particularly difficult for him to bear. And now this . . . this preposterous stranger with his absurd questions may awaken all Silas’s fears . . .’

  ‘You think he is afraid of Melita’s return?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  Jonas Harkness thumped the table triumphantly. ‘He longs for her to return.’

  Catherine flinched at the violence done to the table. ‘I assure you . . .’

  ‘She has become an obsession with him. There is an enemy in all of us, a betrayer waiting to open the gates at night to the forces that will storm the citadel.’

  She said evenly, ‘How understanding you are of these things!’

  In the dim light his face had a wine dark flush of anger. He said, ‘I have more knowledge of men than you.’

  Catherine looked round the room and found the picture of the silly unstable creature who would end her days in a mental home. She gazed at Emily Harkness sadly as she said:

  ‘Frustration must indeed be a torment for some men. But I doubt whether it is really a problem with Silas. He is not a passionate person.’

  ‘But his mother is.’

  Her eyes came back to him, no longer sad, but very watchful.

  ‘His mother?’

  ‘His mother had nothing but contempt for her puny son.’

  ‘That is a wicked thing to say!’

  ‘It is indeed. I am quoting her. He has lived beneath the
scourge of her contempt all his life and he longs to escape.’

  ‘And that creature would provide an escape?’

  He looked down at his big, raw-boned hands and seemed to speak to them rather than to her. ‘Whatever else she may have been, she was not unkind.’ It was a small thing to say, but he uttered the words as though each was torn out of him. He was more at her mercy at this moment than at any other time, but the unexpectedness of his reaction unnerved her.

  ‘You!’ she whispered. ‘You can speak like that of her. You, a man of God!’

  The knuckles thrust against the tight-stretched skin. He bowed his head.

  She got up. She had wanted to defeat him, but now that she had done so, she found herself more alone than before. She turned and went out of the room, her hands fumbling with the door handle in her agitation to be free of the atmosphere which suddenly nauseated her.

  She made her way quickly to Rhoda’s cottage. It was two o’clock when she reached it. In half an hour Richard Oliver would be here. She waited.

  Shortly after two o’clock, Richard Oliver arrived at the Jory farm. He knocked at the door, but there was no answer. After a minute or two he walked round the side of the house; the back gate was open and he went into the garden.

  It was Anna who was sitting on the wicker seat this afternoon. She had a sheet spread out around her and she was sewing. She looked different from the last occasion when they met, her hair was tied back from her face and she wore a plain brown dress with a Peter Pan collar which did not suit her. As he came across the grass she looked up, but did not move or greet him.

  ‘I have an appointment with your cousin,’ he said. ‘Or have I got the relationship wrong? Second cousin, would it be?’

  ‘It’s the meeting-place that you’ve got wrong.’ She bent her head over her work and he saw that a few tendrils of hair had escaped the ribbon and curled softly at the nape of her neck. ‘You were supposed to meet Catherine at Rhoda’s cottage.’

  ‘I believe you’re right. But how did you know? You weren’t there when I made the arrangement. Don’t tell me you listen at doors, Anna Jory!’

  She pinched the hem of the sheet tightly between her fingers, her face flushed. She looked, he thought, more annoyed at being discovered than ashamed. Nevertheless, he said:

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Whenever we meet I seem to behave badly. In fact, that was really why I came here. I wanted to apologize to you.’

  She gave him a bewildered look as though he spoke a language with which she was not familiar.

  ‘Am I forgiven?’ he asked.

  ‘Please go away.’ She spoke gruffly and the needle made sharp jabs into the cotton. He picked up a fold of the sheet and examined it. The material was frayed and she was rehemming it; the stitching was remarkably neat.

  ‘If you can sew as well as this you should work on something more rewarding. A dress, for example. Don’t tell me you made the one you’re wearing.’

  ‘Catherine makes all our dresses.’

  ‘And you repair the sheets?’

  ‘Someone has to mend them.’

  ‘You could buy new ones.’

  ‘We can’t afford them.’

  ‘And you can’t afford gas or electricity either. Is that right?’

  ‘We were going to have electricity, but Grandmother wouldn’t allow the electricity company to lay cables on our land.’

  ‘How did she think they were going to install it?’

  ‘I think she thought it came by magic.’ She let the sheet rest on her lap and sat back, recollecting the scene. For the first time she smiled: the scene was one that she had enjoyed.

  ‘The man from the electricity company was very condescending; I think he thought he was dealing with an ignorant old country woman and this suited Grandmother. She raised the most fantastic objections. When he talked about digging a shallow trench she screamed that the foundations of the house would be undermined and we should be buried alive. Then she said it would affect the sewage. She said she didn’t care about modern comforts like lighting, but she did care about necessities and she talked about our sewage as though it was the only thing that mattered to her. She said that if he installed electricity the cables would block the drains and we should all have typhoid. She behaved so badly that Catherine and my father couldn’t stand it. I think they would have given up the sewers as well as the electricity to get the man out of the house.’

  But her granddaughter had not been embarrassed. Richard Oliver, watching her, was aware that she was much more intelligent than he had at first realized. He looked at the high forehead, he noted the clarity of the dark eyes beneath the strongly marked brows, and he thought: how absurd it is to imagine that intelligence is not important in a woman! She is bright and clear as the finest glass and every note rings true.

  ‘How old are you, Anna?’

  He asked the question naturally, without trying to provoke her, and she answered just as easily:

  ‘I’m nearly twenty-one. Why?’

  ‘At first, I thought you were a good deal younger.’

  He wanted to ask why she had not tried to get away from the farm; but he was afraid of disturbing this new harmony. Harmony was not something he usually valued. He sat on the grass at her feet while she went on with her work. He looked at the house, cold, grey and joyless, and he wondered how she had managed to emerge with such a strong personality of her own. He could imagine her moving about the house, observing all that happened and probably reacting in a way that would have shocked her elders could they have read her mind. But she would not draw attention to herself; as yet other people were not important and their function in relation to herself was not understood.

  She turned down the last piece of the hem and stitched it; then, as she began to fold the sheet, she said:

  ‘How old are you?’

  He did not answer and she looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Why, you’re embarrassed! But you asked me.’

  ‘I’m in my thirties.’

  ‘That’s not too old. Catherine is thirty-seven.’

  ‘That is a great comfort.’

  She dropped the folded sheet on the ground and continued her interrogation.

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I like my freedom.’

  She could accept that: she knew more about the necessity of preserving one’s freedom than he did. But it was not of herself that she spoke.

  ‘Rhoda didn’t like being married. But now that she’s teaching she says she has exchanged one kind of slavery for another.’

  ‘Which does she prefer?’

  ‘She says teaching pays better.’

  He noticed that she spoke about Rhoda’s affairs with candid assurance, as though they were sisters.

  ‘You like Rhoda?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She did not elaborate; she and Rhoda were too close for this to be necessary. He wondered how well Rhoda had known her mother and whether this was important in her relationship with Anna. But again he was reluctant to disturb the harmony between them, so he did not mention Melita.

  The breeze blew across the lawn bringing with it the smell of the sea mingled with the brackish tangle of the moorland. It was peaceful in the walled garden.

  ‘Why don’t you sit on the grass?’ he said to Anna. ‘You look like a governess perched up there so primly.’

  She hesitated a moment and then sat down beside him. She looked stiff and a little self-conscious, so he stretched out in the shade of the cedar and closed his eyes. After a while she settled herself more comfortably.

  ‘Do you like it here?’ he asked.

  ‘I like the moors.’

  ‘Have you ever been away from Polwithian?’

  ‘I went to school in Truro.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘No. I hate towns. I feel imprisoned in them.’

  ‘Did you make many friends?
’

  ‘No. Most of the girls lived in Truro.’

  ‘Didn’t you have any of them out here?’

  ‘One girl came. It was winter and the house frightened her because there was no lighting in the evening. She wouldn’t come again.’

  ‘You’re a solitary lass, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Haven’t you any friends in the village?’

  ‘Only Gabriel.’

  ‘Gabriel! What do you and Gabriel do?’

  ‘We walk on the moors.’

  ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘He knows a lot about birds.’

  Gabriel worshipped her, but she was indifferent. He was useful because he knew a lot about birds, but apart from that he did not matter. Poor Gabriel! Richard Oliver looked into the green shade of the cedar and hummed a tune. Anna said:

  ‘What is that tune?’

  ‘Barbara Allen.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘A girl who was beautiful and quite heartless.’

  ‘It must be nice to be beautiful.’

  He laughed. ‘I don’t think you’re a very moral person, Anna Jory.’

  She did not answer and he opened his eyes to find that she was looking down at him. She turned her head away quickly. He put his hand out and held her wrist. She remained quite still.

  Hester Jory came up the hill slowly. The sun glittered on the sea and light sparked from the rocks: the road was dusty, there was grit in her eyes, in her nostrils, on her lips. She stopped, her hand knotted on the stick. She did not want to stop because this would mean that she would have to talk to Amy Causer who was just leaving her sister’s cottage. But the hill was steep and Hester stopped.

  ‘Oh, Mrs. Jory! You shouldn’t be out here alone,’ Amy called out.

  Hester looked at the benign face with its wispy halo of white curls. Age had dealt kindly with Amy Causer, scoring her face with amiable lines which did not cut deep into the flesh so that anyone who had known her as long as Hester would have no difficulty in remembering her as a girl. She had been a sweet girl, and now she was a sweet old woman. Hester did not value sweetness: even less did she value solicitude. She was a year younger than Amy Causer and she bitterly resented seeing Amy crossing the road with brisk steps.