by MARY HOCKING
Hester sighed and shook her head. ‘And I’ve thought of summat that will make matters worse, Mr. Corder.’
He looked at her sharply, his glass half-way to his lips.
‘It was during the war,’ she said. ‘Do ’ee recall how they sent us food passels? Of all the impertinence, as though we were paupers!’
Mr. Corder and Catherine stared at her.
‘And I got one o’ they passels. Ever heard of anything so silly? Sending food to a farm! No fool would do that, except one of them.’ She shook her head and pondered on this particular piece of foolishness while her audience waited for enlightenment.
‘One of whom?’ Mr. Corder asked, losing patience.
‘One of Joseph’s lot, of course.’
Catherine put her hand to her mouth and held it there like a yashmak beneath her startled eyes.
‘Joseph,’ Mr. Corder repeated. He took a sip of the whisky: it seemed to have lost some of its healing properties.
‘Aye, Joseph Jory.’
‘But he died many years ago. That branch of the family died out . . .’
‘They had one son,’ Hester reminded him. ‘James.’
‘But he was presumed dead after the Scillies ferry went down in that storm in 1938. He’s never been heard of since.’
‘But this food passel came from him. Had his name written on the paper.’ Hester drank a little whisky. ‘Had an address on it, too; but I threw the paper away. Gave the food away, too, took it down to Amy Causer; silly creature nearly cried over it, she was so pleased.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember the address?’ Mr. Corder asked coldly.
‘It was some place in Australia. You know the silly names they have for places, Gum Tree, Rum Creek . . . summat o’ that sort.’
Mr. Corder’s glass was empty; he stared into it with the expression of someone who knows that it will not be refilled. ‘This is going to make things take much longer . . . much longer. You realize that?’
Hester nodded. ‘But it wouldn’t have been right not to tell ’ee would it?’
Mr. Corder gave her a long look.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t have been right.’
He left shortly afterwards. Catherine followed him out of the drawing-room.
‘I hope your aunt knows what she is talking about,’ he said. ‘Is she well? I mean, does she always make sense these days?’
‘My aunt is not wandering,’ Catherine said coldly.
‘Seems a funny time for her to remember this. She never mentioned it to you before?’
‘It would have been typical of her not to have mentioned it. She did not like Joseph’s family.’
‘Yet she’s prepared for one of them to inherit this house?’
‘The truth,’ Catherine rebuked, ‘must always be told, whatever the consequences.’
The whisky had gone to Mr. Corder’s head; it made him truthful, too.
‘I wouldn’t have said that Hester had ever been governed by that particular dictum. She’s playing for time and well you know it.’
‘Mr. Corder!’
‘Don’t be missish with me, Catherine. I’ve come a long way to be told this fairy story; and it’s going to take me a long time searching for James if she sticks to it. Always a nuisance was James. If it had been anyone else, the body would have been washed up somewhere.’
He went out before Catherine could think of a suitable rebuke. She hurried back to the drawing-room to remonstrate with Hester and neglected to shut the front door properly. A few leaves blew across the threshold, then the wind worried the frayed rug and scattered the petals of the marigolds which Anna had placed in a bowl on the hall table, it chased the marigold petals across the floor and then left them behind while it surged up the stairs, it rattled doors and opened a few.
In the drawing-room, Catherine said to Hester, ‘Do you know what you have been saying?’
The old woman belched and put the glass of whisky down. ‘Gone to me chest,’ she complained. ‘Always does.’
‘Do you know . . .?’
‘Aye’. Hester rubbed her chest with one scrawny hand. ‘You’ve got a cousin in Australia, m’dear. A bit of a wanderer, your cousin James.’ She gazed reminiscently out of the window. The sky was blue, daubed with patches of scud which chased across it. ‘Wouldn’t wonder if James ended up in South America, or some such place.’
Catherine could feel a draught; it caught the short hairs at the back of her neck and made her shiver.
‘You’ve left the front door open,’ Hester said querulously.
‘I don’t remember that food parcel,’ Catherine persisted.
‘Don’t ’ee?’ Hester looked at her sharply. ‘Think I’m a fool, do ’ee? Well, go and ask Amy Causer, she’ll remember.’
‘But did it come from James?’
‘Aye.’ The old woman’s eyes did not waver. ‘Of course it came from James if I say so.’
The front door shut with a decided click. There was silence, an end to the wind’s assault. The two women looked at each other, Hester puzzled, Catherine uneasy.
‘Come back for another drink, mebbe,’ Hester said.
Catherine went into the hall and found Richard Oliver there.
‘I think you had better go,’ she said.
‘On the contrary, I have come to stay.’
He walked past her into the drawing-room. Catherine whirled after him.
‘This has gone on long enough.’ She spoke in a high, dramatic voice and shut the door, standing with her back to it, her arms at her sides, the palms resting against the door.
‘Ask him what he wants,’ Hester advised. ‘Quickest way of getting rid of him.’
‘Please, Aunt; leave this to me.’
The old woman shrugged her shoulders and hunched back in her chair; her eyes closed. It was difficult to tell whether she was listening or not.
Richard Oliver sat in the winged armchair which creaked beneath his weight. He took out a cigarette, lit it, and flicked the match at the fireplace. Catherine, finding herself up-staged by the door, moved to the centre of the room.
‘I’m sorry, I quite forgot.’ He rose and offered her a cigarette.
‘I do not smoke.’
‘You’re very wise.’
He collected a brass ash-tray from the top of the cabinet and sat down again, stretching his legs comfortably in front of him. It seemed unlikely that he would find it embarrassing to talk to a woman who was standing up. Nevertheless, Catherine remained where she was. Hester’s head began to nod and soon her chin sank on to her chest. To all intents and purposes, Catherine and Richard Oliver were alone. She said softly:
‘I know one or two things about you.’
He half-turned to her, lolling back in the chair, one arm dangling over the side; there was something insolently familiar in the attitude.
‘Tell me,’ he invited.
‘You are an impostor, for one thing.’
He laughed. ‘Have you been playing the detective?’
‘I have made a few obvious enquiries.’
‘And you have found out . . .?
‘That you did get in touch with Mr. Corder, telling him that you represented a firm of solicitors in London. He hedged about the name of the firm, probably because he realized that he had been extremely lax; but I remembered seeing the name on the card you brought here. You left the card behind and I managed to find it. The firm was Chapman and Easey. I wrote to them. They had never heard of you.’
A column of ash hung on the end of his cigarette. Catherine watched it, fascinated.
‘Perhaps they had forgotten?’ he said. Just when Catherine expected the ash to fall on the carpet he flicked it adroitly into the ash-tray. ‘They were only a contact. My own firm is in Greece.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
He sat for a moment looking at the glowing end of the cigarette tip.
‘Then tell me what it is that you believe.’
Catherine’s cheeks hollowe
d and her lips pressed together; her whole face seemed to draw inwards. She turned away. He watched her, she could feel his eyes between her shoulder blades. She sat in her high-backed chair and placed her hands on the arms, feeling the wood for reassurance as a blind person might. Her control was restored, but she had no answer to his question. He said softly:
‘You don’t know, do you? You never look too carefully into anything in case you discover something really unpleasant. There is a poem written especially to frighten people like you. Shall I say it to you?
‘ “When the green field comes off like a lid,
Revealing what was much better hid—Unpleasant.
And look, behind you without a sound
The woods have come up and are standing round
In deadly crescent.
‘ “The bolt is sliding in its groove;
Outside the window is the black remover’s van:
And now with sudden swift emergence
Come the hooded women, the hump-backed surgeons,
And the Scissor Man” ’
His eyes were bright with laughter. Laughter was the root of his strength, Catherine decided, the hidden source of his appalling vigour and zest.
‘Why do you think I came here?’ he said. ‘What is there for me in this place?’
Laughter was the root of evil. Catherine wondered why she had not realized this before. She said triumphantly:
‘You came to destroy us.’
‘Destroy you!’
And as though she had brought it on herself, the laughter exploded around her, coarse, barbaric, tearing her apart. She drummed her fists on the arms of the chair and cried out, ‘I must not be laughed at! I must not be laughed at! Do you hear me?’
Something black moved on the periphery of their struggle. They had roused Hester.
‘Hear you?’ she said. ‘You’d waken the dead!’
She got slowly to her feet. They watched her, wary of her intrusion. She picked up her stick and hobbled forward a few feet; then she stopped, looking down at Richard Oliver.
‘I’m going upstairs to get a bit of peace. And when I come down, you’ll be gone. I don’t know why you came and I’m not troubling myself about it. But I don’t want you here any more.’
He rose to his feet. ‘That’s a pity,’ he sounded quite civilized and courteous now. ‘Because I came to stay. I’ve got my suitcase in the hall.’
The old woman looked at him, rubbing her lips over the bare gums, chewing on his words.
‘You’ve got the cheek of the devil, I’ll grant you that,’ she said grudgingly.
‘I have a stronger claim on your hospitality than that.’
‘And what might that be?’
‘Won’t you sit down while we talk about it?’
She put her stick in front of her and rested both gnarled hands on it; the hands fitted the stick like an ivory handle.
‘Who are you?’
He smiled. ‘I understand they call me a gypsy hereabouts.’
Her eyes closed. He put one hand out, as though afraid she might fall, but she was quite steady. Her face was so scored with lines that once the eyes were hooded it betrayed no emotion; it was simply a tapestry of all that the years had given and taken away. Richard Oliver looked down at her unhappily, while in the background Catherine intoned, ‘How dare you set foot in this house! How dare you!’ The two stood quietly, taking no notice, until eventually Hester muttered:
‘We’d better talk about this.’
She turned and shuffled back to her chair. She lowered herself slowly and sat panting with exertion for a few minutes. Then she spread her hands on her lap and said to Richard Oliver:
‘So you were the man who ran away with Melita. That’s what you’re saying?’
‘Yes.’
Catherine intervened, calmer by this time: ‘You got what you wanted. You can’t have it twice. There is nothing left for you here.’
‘This is what you might call a sentimental journey.’
‘Sentimental?’ She was icily composed now.
‘Melita died a long time ago. I have been occupied in many ways since then; my life is an active one and takes me to strange places. It is only recently that I have had time to think about the past. This is always unsettling. I became sentimental about Melita and about the place where we met.’ He smiled at the two women. ‘And so I came here.’
Hester said: ‘And you reckon to stay?’
‘For a while.’
‘You ran away with Silas’s wife, and you think that that gives you a claim on our hospitality?’ Catherine had recovered her frosty assurance.
‘I shan’t be demanding. I’ll eat out, if you like.’
‘You’ll sleep out, too!’
‘No. I mean to stay here. And I don’t think you can refuse me. After all, the farm isn’t yours.’
‘Until such time as the law proves otherwise, it most certainly is!’ Catherine retorted.
‘That’s one of the things I hoped we could settle. In time. There’s no hurry.’
‘Settle?’ Hester picked up the word.
‘I forgot to mention that Melita was pregnant when she ran away.’
‘I don’t think we want to hear about that,’ Catherine cut in sharply. ‘That is your affair.’
‘On the contrary, it was Silas’s affair.’
Catherine drew in her breath and Hester said: ‘You think you can prove that?’
‘No more than you can disprove it. But don’t let’s talk of proof at the moment. The boy is at school, teaching in Athens. He is settled there and I’m not at all sure that I want to interfere with his way of life. Give me a week or so here to decide how I feel about things. It’s all I ask. That’s reasonable in the circumstances, surely?’
‘I don’t think I have ever heard of anything less reasonable,’ Catherine replied.
He looked at Hester. She was staring into the garden. Anna had gone; there was only the wind thrashing the trees, shadows slanting across the lawn.
‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had any sleep this afternoon. You can both go out and leave me.’
‘But what am I to do?’ Catherine asked.
‘You’d better make up the spare room bed.’
‘Aunt Hester . . .’
‘And close the door. I don’t want any more visitors.’
She shut her eyes and buttoned her mouth tight. Catherine and Richard Oliver went into the hall.
‘I’ll carry my case if you’ll tell me where to put it,’ he said.
‘You will make your bed, too,’ she said, one foot on the stairs. Beneath the stained glass window, she hesitated, then gripping the banister rail tightly, she led him up past the turn of the stairs.
Chapter Thirteen
At supper no one acknowledged that there was anything unusual in the fact that an outsider was present, although this was something that had not occurred for nearly twenty years. Anna could hardly remember a time when another person had joined the family at supper. She did not ask any questions but she had made her own contribution to the unusual nature of the evening by letting her hair down so that it hung like two dark drapes screening her face. ‘Like an owl peeping through an ivy bush!’ Hester had commented.
Catherine’s hair was knotted back so tightly that the bones in her skull showed as she sat with her head bent over her plate. She looked throughout the meal as though she was saying a prolonged grace. As a young child she had pretended that she could not eat in order to attract attention and it had become a habit with her so that food now genuinely revolted her. Opposite to her, Hester avidly soaked up gravy with a piece of bread.
Richard Oliver sat on a small wooden stool; the table was too low for him and he did not know where to put his legs. Every time he moved the others were uncomfortably aware of his presence, his masculinity was ridiculously assertive in this confined space; whenever he reached for the salt, or stretched out to take a piece of bread, it was as though a giant threatened them.
He rested his elbows on the table and the candlelight flickered, casting monstrous shadows on the wall. Beyond the window, insects drawn by the candle’s flame beat their wings unavailingly against the glass pane. A pot of coffee left to warm on the kitchen range simmered and gave off a thick, heavy smell, which mingled with the smell of the rice pudding which was beginning to burn. The tap over the sink dripped relentlessly. The group round the table were silent; but the candlelight drew them together as figures in a painting are related to one another by light and shade. In this chiaroscuro drama, the central players were undoubtedly Hester and Richard Oliver.
When Hester had finished polishing her plate with bread, Catherine and Anna cleared the table. While Catherine stacked the plates in the sink, Anna rescued the rice pudding from the oven. The dish was enamel, chipped and blackened; as the pudding was burnt, it was difficult to tell where the rice began and the dish left off. Nutmeg had been sprinkled on the top and this smelt strongly. Catherine put a jug of skimmed milk on the table.
‘It’s a long time since we had cream,’ Hester said.
Catherine took a spoon and began to put dollops of rice pudding in the bowls in front of her. Anna passed a bowl to Richard Oliver without looking at him; the curtain of hair fell across her face so that only her nose was visible. Catherine delicately lifted the burnt skin on her fork and put it to one side of the bowl. She took a token mouthful of rice and pushed the bowl aside. The business of eating completed, she sat silently regarding her companions. Anna was not eating much either, although her head was lowered. In the candlelight her hair shone like dark silk threaded here and there with bronze. Catherine said:
‘I find myself utterly confused by young people today.’
She stared at Anna and kept her hands clenched in front of her as though afraid that otherwise they might reach out and claw back the offending hair. Hester took the jug of skimmed milk and held it over her pudding, stirring all the while.
‘It will be coffee bars and drug-taking next, I suppose,’ Catherine said.
Anna said, ‘Not coffee bars. Everyone knows the police have the coffee bars taped. It’s the respectable dreary places, Seaview and the Grand Hotel, now. The police are always a move behind.’