Ladies of Lyndon

by Margaret Kennedy

  Agatha laughed at the encounter.

  ‘These yew walks are dangerous,’ she said.

  ‘He’s an old horror,’ said Gerald. ‘How can you allow it?’

  ‘I’m not responsible for Cynthia. She isn’t my daughter.’

  ‘No. But this is your house.’

  ‘And you feel that our escutcheon is blotted?’

  Gerald said nothing.

  ‘You mustn’t worry about Cynthia,’ she urged. ‘She’s perfectly able to look after herself.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt of it.’

  ‘You used not to be so censorious.’

  ‘You used not to be so …’

  ‘So what?’ she demanded quickly.

  ‘So tolerant.’

  ‘Well? Do you object to my being tolerant?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ he said politely, ‘I wouldn’t dream of questioning your right to be anything you like.’

  ‘I should hope not! But for all that you are growing rather critical, don’t you think? You’re always making me feel it.’

  He did not deny it, but said:

  ‘We’ve got into different galleys, my dear. We’ve drifted apart, as the sentimental songs say.’

  ‘I know. But I’m sorry. I don’t like it.’

  There was an accent of genuine distress in her voice which touched him. He had not supposed that she could be hurt by anything he said or did.

  ‘I was very sorry myself when first I realized it,’ he told her. ‘But I saw that it was inevitable, so I resigned myself.’

  ‘I don’t resign myself to things so easily,’ she said sombrely.

  ‘Oh, you’d better!’

  He stopped and looked at her in consternation. All his peace of mind was based upon a belief that she was happy, and in harmony with the life she had chosen. He was frightened by the restiveness of her tone.

  ‘You’d better,’ he repeated.

  ‘Oh, Gerald!’

  He wished that she would not look at him so sorrowfully. Too intolerably reminiscent, she was, of the woman he had lost. He must either fly from her or challenge her. If he held his ground an instant longer he must attempt some master word which would bring this ghost to life.

  ‘Agatha! Do you remember Canverley Fair?’

  Rooks, cawing loudly in the elm trees behind the house, seemed to echo his own dismay at what he had said. She was reflecting and he jogged her memory in spite of himself.

  ‘We went on swing-boats … and we saw a fat lady … and you were …’

  ‘Sick! Oh, yes, Gerald! I do remember. Oh, of course! How funny that was! What funny little things we were!’

  ‘We managed to enjoy ourselves.’

  ‘Did we? I suppose so. Fancy my forgetting! But do you know, I believe I made myself forget about it deliberately. I think I used to be very ashamed of it. And now it seems just funny! It’s strange how one outgrows one’s follies! One does at least leave off blushing for them.’

  ‘Thank heaven!’

  ‘But that was a very pretty fair,’ she exclaimed, delving further into the past.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Well, wasn’t it? I seem to remember it as very pretty. All the colours were nice. Bright colours …’

  She stood looking at him: looking beyond him into that resplendent memory. And it seemed to him that she could never have changed at all. Her eyes, innocent and candid, were the eyes of his early love. She had been restored to him, and he knew that his hard-won peace was gone for ever.

  They walked on again. He followed her towards the house, confused and sad. His dislike of her surroundings, their luxury, materialism, and sensuality, deepened to a sharp horror. He was so certain now that she would one day see them with his eyes. It seemed to him that endless suffering was in store for her.

  Lois, observing their lugubrious approach, remarked to Hubert that Agatha and Mr Blair seemed to spend their time in walking about the garden in silence. Considering how old was their friendship, she said, they had uncommonly little to say to each other.

  ‘Not like us,’ exulted Hubert.

  This was very true. Lois and Hubert had an eternity of things to say to each other. It was as if the whole of their united future, now spread so gloriously before them, could scarcely suffice for all the wagging their tongues would have to do. But first of all she wanted to know what he thought of James’s pictures. He was unwilling to tell her, for he believed her to be fond of James.

  ‘Of course, the ones he showed us weren’t his best,’ she said wistfully.

  ‘One would hope not.’

  ‘Oh, Hubert! Were they so very bad?’

  ‘Oh, no! The boy can paint all right. But they weren’t the kind of thing that appeals to me. My taste isn’t infallible, you know. Now, Lois. What am I to say to your mother? And when and where?’

  Lois considered and then decided:

  ‘You will have to be careful. She will think, you see, that you should have spoken to her first. Not that she objects to you. I don’t see how she can do that. But she will pretend to at first, just to show how careful she is. And you must get her leave to speak to me, and then allow her to arrange an opportunity for you. She won’t do that for a day or two, but eventually she will. Then, when we’ve been shut up in the drawing-room, or sent out in the punt, or whatever it is, for a suitable length of time, we will emerge and say we are engaged. She will think about it for a week and then put it in the Morning Post. It honestly will save trouble for her to think she has managed it all. I used to fight over things, but it isn’t worth while, really. Now I use guile, as Agatha does, or did, with her mother, and life is much calmer.’

  ‘Well, it all seems rather complicated to me, but you know her best. I’ll follow any plan you recommend. Shall I go now?’

  ‘Yes, you’d better. She’ll be with Miss Barrington in her sitting-room. You know where it is? Opening out of the long gallery. Ask to see her alone for a moment. Rather mysteriously. She loves being asked to see people alone.’

  ‘Right, my angel.’

  Hubert went, and she decided that she could not spend the palpitating interval better than in scolding James. It would relieve her spirits, and he needed it. Mounting again to the loft she discovered the artist plunged in contemplation before the portrait of Jellybelly.

  ‘James, I’m furious with you,’ she began.

  ‘Why?’ he asked mildly.

  ‘Why on earth did you show those pictures to Hu—to Mr Ervine? Why couldn’t you have shown him the portrait you did of me, or that thing you got the prize for in Brussels?’

  ‘These are better.’

  ‘You think so? Nobody else does. I was so ashamed, seeing you make such a fool of yourself in front of Mr Ervine. Anyone could see what he thought. I’ll never praise your work again.’

  ‘No. I expect you’d better not.’

  ‘I was never so humiliated in my life.’

  ‘Yes. I expect you felt a pretty good fool,’ said James in an interested voice.

  ‘I don’t believe you are one bit sorry.’

  ‘Not a bit. Why should I be?’

  ‘When I’ve always backed you up, I really do think … however, you suffer for it. I don’t.’

  He thought this over and then asked:

  ‘Where does it hit me?’

  ‘Only that everyone laughs at you. You could have impressed him if you’d tried. As it is, it’s easy to see that he thinks your work isn’t worth his attention.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, that’s your loss. You really are very dense, James. He is a thoroughly artistic person. He could be a lot of use to you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Let me tell you that you are getting altogether too conceited. Since you came back from Paris you seem to think you know everything. Other people have been to Paris. Mr Ervine has. He’s a more experienced man than you are. He’s been everywhere and knows everyone. You might profit considerably by his advice.’

  ‘I don’t want his advice. I�
�ve no doubt he talks. You all do. Like a lot of rooks cawing.’ He stared at the elm trees beyond the stable roof. ‘Worse than any rooks. I’d sooner hear rooks any day. What’s he done? Show me that. These talking people make me sick.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do you any harm to listen to us occasionally. You only make us all laugh at you, giving yourself such airs. I can assure you that your pictures were not admired this morning.’

  James turned round suddenly and, angry as she was, she quailed before the whiteness of his face. She recognized the onset of one of those rare but terrific rages which had been a legendary terror in the Lyndon nurseries. It had always been accepted that, when James did lose his temper, he might do anything.

  ‘Get out!’ he muttered, advancing towards her. ‘Get out! Or I’ll throw you out of the window.’

  ‘Nonsense, James,’ she scolded. ‘Don’t dare to talk like that.’

  But her voice shook a little and she took a step back.

  ‘I will,’ he said, coming quite close to her. ‘And I’ll throw out the next of you that comes up here without being asked.’

  He picked her up and carried her towards the window. She screamed loudly and tugged at his hair, but the grip of his long arms never slackened. She experienced, for the only time in her life, all the humiliations of weakness before violence. Her sharp heels drummed against his shins. She told Hubert afterwards that it was like being carried off by a gorilla. He steadied himself with one knee against the low sash, held her out over the void, and spoke:

  ‘Will you keep out of here after this?’

  ‘Yes, James. Oh, you are a brute!’

  ‘You’d better be careful. Will you leave off telling me whose advice I’m to take?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you keep your opinions to yourself? And your friends’ opinions, too, if you can?’

  ‘Yes. Do you call yourself a gentleman?’

  ‘No. But if you’ll promise you may come in again.’

  He spoke too late. Before he could lift her back into safety she had slipped from his arms. She fell six feet on to a sloping roof and slithered down the slates. A leaden gutter-pipe at the extreme end of the roof checked her descent. She lay still on the slope, too frightened to move, while below her there was a clear drop of three storeys into the paved kitchen yard. James, his passion evaporated, leant out of the studio window and looked at her. His eyes were popping out of his head with horror.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he called.

  ‘No. But I shall fall if I move. Oh, you shall pay for this, James!’

  ‘Could you get along a little that way and jump into that tree, do you think?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t. I shall fall if I move, I tell you.’

  ‘I’ll get a ladder. I won’t be long.’

  He ran down and met Marian and Hubert emerging into the long gallery from Marian’s sitting-room.

  ‘Lois is on the roof,’ he announced. ‘She can’t get down.’

  ‘On the roof,’ cried Marian. ‘How did she get there?’

  ‘From my studio window. I dropped her out. She is on the sloping bit. She says she will fall if she moves.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ Marian turned pale. ‘But how dangerous!’

  Hubert bounded up to the studio and looked out of the window at his love on the slates below. She lay there sobbing to herself.

  ‘Lois!’ he called. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘How can I be all right?’ she replied with some irritation. ‘Look at me!’

  ‘Don’t look downwards whatever you do. You might get giddy.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘They are getting a ladder. I can see them bringing it through the kitchen garden.’

  ‘I do hope, after this, you’ll have James shut up in a lunatic asylum.’

  ‘Is it his fault?’

  ‘Of course it is. He put me here.’

  ‘But not on purpose?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He simply picked me up and threw me out.’

  ‘Good God! The brute! It’s incredible. He must be mad.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘But what did he do it for?’

  ‘Oh, … he was annoyed.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, it was something I said.’

  ‘But what did you say?’

  Lois felt suddenly very reluctant to tell Hubert what she had said. It did not lend itself to repetition in cold blood.

  ‘What were you quarrelling about?’ he asked again.

  ‘Well, … you, for one thing.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll tell you after.’

  A crowd had now collected in the kitchen yard. Marian and Miss Barrington, Agatha and Gerald, Cynthia and Sir Thomas, James and John, all the gardeners and most of the servants stood gazing up at Lois on the roof much as they had gazed at the airship earlier in the morning. Ladders were collected and tied together but still fell short of the required height. Hubert, at the window, swore at the general stupidity and encouraged Lois in such endearing terms as should have left no doubt, in the mind of a less preoccupied audience, as so the relations between them.

  ‘They are sending into Oxford for the man who cleans the gutters,’ he told her. ‘His ladder is longer.’

  Lois burst into fresh sobs.

  ‘I can’t possibly wait here till then,’ she wailed. ‘I shall move, and then I shall fall off.’

  James, John, and Gerald consulted together in the yard; they shouted to the gardeners for a strong rope and ran into the house. Joining Hubert in the studio, shortly afterwards, they explained that James was going down after her.

  ‘It’s his idea,’ explained John. ‘He thinks he can take the rope with him and tie it round her waist. Then we can pull her up. When we’ve got her safe we can send it down again for him.’

  ‘Doesn’t look too safe,’ said Hubert frowning.

  ‘It isn’t. But that gutter isn’t strong and I’m uncommonly afraid of it breaking under her. That’s why I don’t want to wait for this man from Oxford. I don’t think the thing will hold; you can see it bulging from the yard, and if it broke she would shoot straight off the roof.’

  ‘Look! Let me go!’ said the gallant Hubert, a little uncertainly.

  ‘No. James must go. He’s the lightest of us. And I don’t want to put any extra strain on that gutter. You’re too heavy.’

  ‘Clewer thinks he can manage it?’ asked Hubert sourly.

  ‘He’s got a good head for heights. Are you ready, James?’

  James dropped over the edge of the window, fell heavily on to the slates, and slipped down to Lois’s side. Leaning upon one elbow he knotted the rope round her waist. As they writhed distressfully together upon the sloping roof they reminded the distracted Hubert of the figures on the Medici tomb. James gave the signal to the men above to pull, and the gutter cracked.

  ‘Hurry up!’ commanded John. ‘The thing’s going.’

  Lois was hoisted into safety as the gutter broke and fell into the yard below. James saved himself by wriggling along the roof to where a drain-pipe gave him a little extra purchase. But he was now out of reach of the window and the rope. Beneath him a large chestnut tree shaded the kitchen court. He eyed it meditatively for a second or two, balanced himself, sprang, and landed in the branches.

  ‘He really is like a monkey,’ cried Lois, struck by the resemblance for the second time in half an hour.

  But his agility failed him at the critical moment. He crashed through the leaves and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. John and Gerald silently hastened from the studio.

  ‘The branches broke his fall,’ said Hubert reassuringly, as the group in the yard closed round the motionless figure at the foot of the tree.

  He and Lois stood alone together at the window. Both were rather pale.

  ‘I hope he isn’t much hurt,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I was so angry with him.’

  ‘But what was it all about?’

  She reflected ho
w best she could narrate to him this rather discreditable affair.

  ‘Poor James,’ she began, ‘… you know we used to be great friends. And it’s naturally rather a shock to him now to find that I think more of your opinion than his.’

  Hubert remembered a hint that Marian had just given him and saw light.

  ‘You mean he doesn’t like being cut out?’

  Lois had not quite meant that, but she left it uncontradicted. It was, on the whole, a nicer explanation than the real one. And it might have some truth, when she came to think of it. Such fury does not arise from ordinary pique, but a disappointed lover will do anything. A roar of pain, as Gerald stooped to examine James, caused the pair at the window to exclaim in relief:

  ‘Then he isn’t dead!’

  Hubert began to be indignant again.

  ‘All the same, you know, it’s no excuse for throwing you out of the window.’

  ‘No, I know. With anyone else it wouldn’t be. But he, you know … well, he can’t be judged quite like other people.’

  ‘I suppose not, poor chap. Anyhow, he took some risk getting you up again.’

  ‘Don’t tell anyone. I think we’ll say it was an accident.’

  ‘Oh! All right! Perhaps it would be best.’

  Gerald put both his hands to his mouth and shouted up to them:

  ‘A broken collar-bone!’

  ‘But that isn’t at all serious!’ said Lois in some disappointment.

  2.

  Immediately after breakfast it was generally a cardinal object with Gerald and Hubert to escape from Sir Thomas Bragge. At this time of day he was most dangerous, for the ladies were seldom on the scene so early. But the young men considered that it was John’s duty to entertain him since John had, presumably, invited him. They did not like hearing about his successful business career, and the constant recital of the glories of the house he meant to build disgusted them both, though on different grounds. Gerald thought it stank of money. Hubert, who did not on principle object to dividends, jibbed at the implied scheme of decoration. They shared a hearty sympathy for the unfortunate architect, who was regarded by Sir Thomas as a kind of stone-mason and bullied abominably.

  Gerald thought the garden a safer place than the house and fled to a concealed walk, under a rose-covered pergola, in which to smoke a morning pipe. From this shelter he observed with immense satisfaction the buttonholing of Hubert. Sir Thomas got his victim on the terrace and began to tell him funny stories. Up and down they walked and Hubert seemed to get sadder and sadder. Gerald could not help being a little compassionate, for Sir Thomas’s stories, though almost always improper, were so long and punctuated by so many guffaws that people generally forgot the beginning before he reached the end. It was not quite as bad for Hubert, however, as it would have been for Gerald, since he was studying Sir Thomas and needed to collect more copy. He had already ‘Bragged’ a little for Lois’s entertainment.