A handful of dust (3 page)

until tomorrow?" "Quite sure." The church bells were ringing across the park. "Well I'm just off to church. I don't suppose you'd care to come." Beaver always did what was expected of him when he was staying away, even on a visit as unsatisfactory as the present one. "Oh yes. I should like to very much." "No, really I shouldn't, if I were you. You wouldn't enjoy it. I only go because I more or less have to. You stay here. Brenda will be down directly. Ring for a drink when you feel like it." "Oh, all right." "See you later then." Tony took his hat and stick from the lobby and let himself out. 'Now I've behaved inhospitably to that young man again,' he reflected. The bells were clear and clamorous in the drive and Tony walked briskly towards them. Presently they ceased and gave place to a single note, warning the village that there was only five minutes to go before the organist started the first hymn. He caught up nanny and John also on their way to church. John was in one of his rare confidential moods; he put his small gloved hand into Tony's and, without introduction, embarked upon a story which lasted them all the way to the church door; it dealt with the mule Peppermint who had drunk the company's rum ration, near Wipers in 1917; it was told breathlessly, as John trotted to keep pace with his father. At the end, Tony said, "How very sad." "Well I thought it was sad too, but it isn't. Ben said it made him laugh fit to bust his pants." The bell had stopped and the organist was watching from behind his curtain for Tony's arrival. He walked ahead up the aisle, nanny and John following. In the pew he occupied one of the armchairs; they sat on the bench at his back. He leant forward for half a minute with his forehead on his hand, and as he sat back, the organist played the first bars of the hymn. "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord...." The service followed its course. As Tony inhaled the agreeable, slightly musty atmosphere and performed the familiar motions of sitting, standing, and leaning forward, his thoughts drifted from subject to subject, among the events of the past week and his plans for the future. Occasionally some arresting phrase in the liturgy would recall him to his surroundings, but for the most part that morning he occupied himself with the question of bathrooms and lavatories, and of how more of them could best be introduced without disturbing the character of his house. The village postmaster took round the collection bag. Tony put in his half-crown; John and nanny their pennies. The vicar climbed, with some effort, into the pulpit. He was an elderly man who had served in India most of his life. Tony's father had given him the living at the instance of his dentist. He had a noble and sonorous voice and was reckoned the best preacher for many miles around. His sermons had been composed in his more active days for delivery at the garrison chapel; he had done nothing to adapt them to the changed conditions of his ministry and they mostly concluded with some reference to homes and dear ones far away. The villagers did not find this in any way surprising. Few of the things said in church seemed to have any particular reference to themselves. They enjoyed their vicar's sermons very much and they knew that when he began about their distant homes, it was time to be dusting their knees and feeling for their umbrellas. "... And so as we stand here bareheaded at this solemn hour of the week," he read, his powerful old voice swelling up for the peroration, "let us remember our Gracious Queen Empress in whose services we are here and pray that she may long be spared to send us at her bidding to do our duty in the uttermost parts of the earth; and let us think of our dear ones far away and the homes we have left in her name, and remember that though miles of barren continent and leagues of ocean divide us, we are never so near to them as on these Sunday mornings, united with them across dune and mountain in our loyalty to our sovereign and thanksgiving for her welfare; one with them as proud subjects of her sceptre and crown." ("The Reverend Tendril 'e do speak uncommon high of the Queen," a gardener's wife had once remarked to Tony.) After the choir had filed out, during the last hymn, the congregation crouched silently for a few seconds and then made for the door. There was no sign of recognition until they were outside among the graves; then there was an ex-change of greetings, solicitous, cordial, garrulous. Tony spoke to the vet's wife and Mr. Partridge from the shop; then he was joined by the vicar. "Lady Brenda is not ill I hope?" "No, nothing serious." This was the invariable formula when he appeared at church without her. "A most interesting sermon vicar." "My dear boy, I'm delighted to hear you say so. It is one of my favourites. But have you never heard it before?" "No, I assure you." "I haven't used it here lately. When I am asked to supply elsewhere it is the one I invariably choose. Let me see now, I always make a note of the times I use it." The old clergyman opened the manuscript book he was carrying. It had a limp black cover and the pages were yellow with age. "Ah yes, here we are. I preached it first in Jelalabad when the Coldstream Guards were there; then I used it in the Red Sea coming home from my fourth leave; then at Sidmouth... Mentone... Winchester... to the Girl Guides at their summer rally in 1921... the Church Stage Guild at Leicester... twice at Bournemouth during the winter of 1926 when poor Ada was so ill... No, I don't seem to have used it here since 1911 when you would have been too young to enjoy it...." The vicar's sister had engaged John in conversation. He was telling her the story of Peppermint "... he'd have been all right, Ben says, if he had been able to cat the rum up, but mules can't cat, neither can horses..." Nanny grasped him firmly and hurried him towards home. "How many times have I told you not to go repeating whatever Ben Hacket tells you? Miss Tendril didn't want to heart about Peppermint. And don't ever use that rude word 'cat' again." "It only means to be sick." "Well Miss Tendril isn't interested in being sick..." As the gathering between porch and lych gate began to disperse, Tony set off towards the gardens. There was a good choice of button-hole in the hot houses; he picked lemon carnations with crinkled, crimson edges for himself and Beaver and a camellia for his wife. Shafts of November sunshine streamed down from lancet and oriel, tinctured in green and gold, gales and azure by the emblazoned coats, broken by the leaded devices into countless points and patches of coloured light. Brenda descended the great staircase step by step through alternations of dusk and rainbow. Both hands were occupied, holding to her breast a bag, a small hat, a half finished panel of petit-point embroidery and a vast disordered sheaf of Sunday newspapers, above which only her eyes and forehead appeared as though over a yashmak. Beaver emerged from the shadows below and stood at the foot of the stairs looking up at her. "I say can't I carry something?" "No, thanks, I've got everything safe. How did you sleep?" "Beautifully." "I bet you didn't." "Well I'm not a very good sleeper." "Next time you come you shall have a different room. But I daresay you won't ever come again. People so seldom do. It is very sad because it's such fun for us having them and we never make any new friends living down here." "Tony's gone to church." "Yes, he likes that. He'll be back soon. Let's go out for a minute or two, it looks lovely." When Tony came back they mere sitting in the library. Beaver was telling Brenda's fortune with cards. "... Now cut to me again," he was saying, "and I'll see if it's any clearer.... Oh yes... there is going to be a sudden death which. will cause you great pleasure and profit. In fact you are going to kill someone. I can't tell if it's a man or a woman... yes, a woman... then you are going to go on a long journey across the sea, marry six dark men and have eleven children, grow a beard and die." "Beast. And all this time I've been thinking it was serious. Hullo, Tony, jolly church?" "Most enjoyable; how about some sherry?" When they were alone together, just before luncheon, he said. "Darling, you're being heroic with Beaver." "Oh, I quite enjoy coping-in fact I'm bitching him rather." "So I saw. Well I'll look after him this afternoon and he's going this evening." "Is he, I'll be quite sorry. You know that's a difference between us, that when someone's awful you just run away and hide, while I actually enjoy it-making up to them and showing off to myself how well I can do it. Besides Beaver isn't so bad. He's quite like us in some ways." "He's not like me," said Tony. After luncheon Tony said, "Well if it would really amuse you, we might go over the house. I know it isn't fashionable to like this sort of architecture now-my Aunt Frances says it is an authentic Pecksniff-but I think it's good of its kind." It took them two hours. Beaver was well practised in the art of being shown over houses; he had been brought up to it in fact, ever since he had begun to accompany his mother, whose hobby it had always been, and later, with changing circumstances, the profession. He made apt and appreciative comments and greatly enhanced the pleasure Tony always took in exposing his treasures. It was a huge building conceived in the late generation of the Gothic revival, when the movement had lost its fantasy and become structurally logical and stodgy. They saw it all: the shuttered drawing room, like a school speech-hall, the cloistral passages, the dark inner courtyard, the chapel where, until Tony's succession, family prayers had been daily read to the assembled household, the plate room and estate office, the bedrooms and attics, the watertank concealed among the battlements; they climbed the spiral staircase into the works of the clock and waited to see it strike half past three. Thence they descended with ringing ears to the collections-enamel, ivories, seals, snuff boxes, china, ormolu, cloisonné; they paused before each picture in the oak gallery and discussed its associations; they took out the more remarkable folios in the library and examined prints of the original buildings, manuscript account books of the old abbey, travel journals of Tony's ancestors. At intervals Beaver would say, "The So-and-sos have got one rather like that at Such-and-such a place," and Tony would say, "Yes, I've seen it but I think mine is the earlier." Eventually they came back to the smoking room and Tony left Beaver to Brenda. She was stitching away at the petit-point, hunched in an armchair. "Well," she asked, without looking up from her needlework, "what did you think of it?" "Magnificent." "You don't have to say that to me, you know." "Well, a lot of the things are very fine." "Yes, the things are all right I suppose." "But don't you like the house?" "Me? I detest it... at least I don't mean that really, but I do wish sometimes that it wasn't all, every bit of it, so appallingly ugly. Only I'd die rather than say that to Tony. We could never live anywhere else, of course. He's crazy about the place... It's funny. None of us minded very much when my brother Reggie sold our house-and that was built by Vanburgh, you know... I suppose we're lucky to be able to afford to keep it up at all. Do you know how much it costs just to live here? We should be quite rich if it wasn't for that. As it is we support fifteen servants indoors, besides gardeners and carpenters and a night watchman and all the people at the farm and odd little men constantly popping in to wind the clocks and cook the accounts and clean the moat, while Tony and I have to fuss about whether it's cheaper to take a car up to London for the night or buy an excursion ticket... I shouldn't feel so badly about it if it were a really lively house-like my home for instance... but of course Tony's been brought up here and sees it all differently..." Tony joined them for tea. "I don't want to seem inhospitable, but if you're going to catch that train, you ought really to be getting ready." "That's all right. I've persuaded him to stay on till tomorrow." "If you're sure you don't..." "Splendid. I am glad. It's beastly going up at this time, particularly by that train." When John came in he said, "I thought Mr. Beaver was going." "Not till tomorrow." "Oh." After dinner Tony sat and read the papers. Brenda and Beaver were on the sofa playing games together. They did a cross word. Beaver said, "I've thought of something" and Brenda asked him questions to find what it was. He was thinking of the rum Peppermint drank. John had told him the story at tea. Brenda guessed it quite soon. Then they played 'Analogies' about their friends and finally about each other. They said goodbye that night because Beaver was catching the 9. 10. Do let me know when you come to London." "I may be up this week." Next morning Beaver tipped both butler and footman ten shillings each. Tony, still feeling rather guilty in spite of Brenda's heroic coping, came down to breakfast to see his guest off. Afterwards he went back to Guinevere. "Well, that's the last of him. You were superb, darling. I'm sure he's gone back thinking that you're mad about him." "Oh, he wasn't too awful." "No. I must say he took a very intelligent interest when we went round the house." Mrs. Beaver was eating her yoghort when Beaver reached home. "Who was there?" "No one." "No one? My poor boy." "They weren't expecting me. It was awful at first but got better. They were just as you said. She's very charming. He scarcely spoke." "I wish I saw her sometimes." "She talked of taking a flat in London." "Did she?" The conversation of stables and garages was an important part of Mrs. Beaver's business. "What does she want?" "Something quite simple. Two rooms and a bath. But it's all quite vague. She hasn't said anything to Tony yet." "I'm sure I shall be able to find her something."

Two

If Brenda had to go to London for a day's shopping, hair-cutting, or bone-setting (a recreation she particularly enjoyed), she went on Wednesday, because the tickets on that day were half the usual price. She left at eight in the morning and got home soon after ten at night. She travelled third class and the carriages were often full, because other wives on the line took advantage of the cheap fare. She usually spent the day with her younger sister Marjorie who was married to the prospective conservative candidate for a South London constituency of strong Labour sympathies. She was more solid than Brenda. The newspapers used always to refer to them as 'the lovely Rex sisters.' Marjorie and Allan were hard up and smart; they could not afford a baby; they lived in a little house in the neighbourhood of Portman Square, very convenient for Paddington Station. They had a Pekingese dog named Djinn. Brenda had come on impulse, leaving the butler to ring up and tell Marjorie of her arrival. She emerged from the train, after two hours and a quarter in a carriage crowded five a side, looking as fresh and fragile as if she had that moment left a circle of masseuses, chiropodists, manicurists and coiffeuses in an hotel suite. It was an aptitude she had, never to look half finished; when she was really exhausted, as she often was on her return to Hetton after these days in London, she went completely to pieces quite suddenly and became a waif; then she would sit over the fire with a cup of bread and milk, hardly alive, until Tony took her up to bed. Marjorie had her hat on and was sitting at her writing table puzzling over her cheque book and a sheaf of bills. "Darling, what does the country do to you? You look like a thousand pounds. Where did you get that suit?" "I don't know. Some shop." "What's the news at Hetton?" "All the same. Tony madly feudal. John Andrew cursing like a stable boy." "And you?" "Me? Oh, I'm all right." "Who's been to stay?" "No one. We had a friend of Tony's called Mr. Beaver last week-end." "John Beaver?... How very odd. "I shouldn't have thought he was at all Tony's tea." "He wasn't... What's he like?" "I hardly know him. I see him at Margot's sometimes. He's a great one for going everywhere." "I thought he was rather pathetic." "Oh, he's pathetic all right. D'you fancy him?" "Heavens, no." They took Djinn for a walk in the Park. He was a very unrepaying dog who never looked about him and had to be dragged along by his harness; they took him to Watt's Physical Energy; when loosed he stood perfectly still, gazing moodily at the asphalt until they turned towards home; only once did he show any sign of emotion, when he snapped at a small child who attempted to stroke him; later he got lost and was found a few yards away, sitting under a chair and staring at a shred of waste paper. He was quite colourless with pink nose and lips and pink circles of bald flesh round his eyes. "I don't believe he has a spark of human feeling," said Marjorie. They talked about Mr. Cruttwell, their bone setter, and Marjorie's new treatment. "He's never done that to me," said Brenda enviously; presently, "What do you suppose is Mr. Beaver's sex-life?" I shouldn't know. Pretty dim I imagine... You do fancy him?" "Oh well," said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young men..." They left the dog at home and did some shopping-towels for the nursery, pickled peaches, a clock for one of the lodge-keepers who was celebrating his sixtieth year of service at Hetton, a pot of Morecambe Bay shrimps as a surprise for Tony; they made an appointment with Mr. Cruttwell for that afternoon. They talked about Polly Cockpurse's party. "Do come up for it. It's certain to be amusing." I might... if I can find someone to take me. Tony doesn't like her... I can't go to parties alone at my age." They went out to luncheon, to a new restaurant in Albemarle Street which a friend of theirs named Daisy had recently opened. "You're in luck," said Marjorie, as soon as they got inside the door, "there's your Mr. Beaver's mother." She was entertaining a party of eight at a large round table in the centre of the room; she was being paid to do so by Daisy, whose restaurant was not doing all she expected of it-that is to say the luncheon was free and Mrs. Beaver was getting the order, should the restaurant still be open, for its spring redecorations. It was, transparently, a made-up party, the guests being chosen for no mutual bond-least of all affection for Mrs. Beaver or for each other-except that their names were in current use-an accessible but not wholly renegade Duke, an unmarried girl of experience, a dancer and a novelist and a scene designer, a shamefaced junior minister who had not realised what he was in for until too late, and Lady Cockpurse; "God, what a party," said Marjorie, waving brightly to them all. "You're both coming to my party, darlings?" Polly Cockpurse's strident tones rang across the restaurant. "Only don't tell anyone about it. It's just a very small, secret party. The house will only hold a few people-just old friends." "It would be wonderful to see what Polly's real old friends were like," said Marjorie. "She hasn't known anyone more than five years." "I wish Tony could see her point." (Although Polly's fortune was derived from men, her popularity was chiefly among women, who admired her clothes and bought them from her second hand at bargain prices; her first steps to eminence had been in circles so obscure that they had made her no enemies in the world to which she aspired; some time ago she had married a good-natured Earl, whom nobody else happened to want at the time, since then she had scaled all but the highest peaks of every social mountain.) After luncheon Mrs. Beaver came across to their table. "I must just come and speak to you though I'm in a great hurry. It's so long since we met and John has been telling me about a delightful week-end he had with you." "It was very quiet." "That's just what he loves. Poor boy he gets rushed off his feet in London. Tell me, Lady Brenda, is it true you are looking for a flat, because I think I've got just the place for you? It's being done up now and will be ready well before Christmas." She looked at her watch. "Oh dear, I' must fly. You couldn't possibly come in for a cocktail, this evening? Then you could hear all about it." "I could... " said Brenda doubtfully. "Then do. I'll expect you about six. I daresay you don't know where I live." She told her and left the table. "What's all this about a flat?" Marjorie asked. "Oh just something I thought of..." That afternoon, as she lay luxuriously on the osteopath's table, and her vertebrae, under his strong fingers, snapped like patent fasteners, Brenda wondered whether Beaver would be at home that evening. "Probably not, if he's so keen on going about," she thought; '"and, anyhow, what's the sense?..." But he was there, in spite of two other invitations. She heard all about the maisonette. Mrs. Beaver knew her job. What people wanted, she said, was somewhere to dress and telephone. She was subdividing a small house in Belgravia into six flats at three pounds a week, of one room each and a bath; the bathrooms were going to be slap-up, with limitless hot water and every transatlantic refinement; the other room would have a large built-in wardrobe with electric light inside, and space for a bed. It would fill a long felt need, Mrs. Beaver said. "I'll ask my husband and let you know." "You will let me know soon, won't you, because everyone will be wanting one." "I'll let you know very soon." When she had to go, Beaver came with her to the station. She usually ate some chocolate and buns in her carriage; they bought them together at the buffet. There was plenty of time before the train left and the carriage was not yet full. Beaver came in and sat with her. "I'm sure you want to go away." "No, really." "I've got lots to read." "I want to stay." "It's very sweet of you." Presently she said, rather timidly, for she was not used to asking for that sort of thing, "I suppose you wouldn't like to take me to Polly's party, would you?" Beaver hesitated. There would be several dinner parties that evening and he was almost certain to be invited to one or other of them... if he took Brenda out it would mean the Embassy or some smart restaurant... three pounds at least... and he would be responsible for her and have to see her home... and if, as she said, she really did not know many people nowadays (why indeed should she have asked him if that were not true?) it might mean tying himself up for the whole evening... "I wish I could," he said, "but I've promised to dine out for it." Brenda had observed his hesitation. "I was afraid you would have." "But we'll meet there." "Yes, if I go." "I wish I could have taken you." "It's quite all right... I just wondered." The gaiety with which they had bought the buns was all gone now. They were silent for a minute. Then Beaver said, "Well, I think perhaps I'll leave you now." "Yes, run along. Thank you for coming." He went off down the platform. There were still eight minutes to go. The carriage suddenly filled up and Brenda felt tired out. "Why should he want to take me, poor boy?" she thought, "only he might have done it better." "Barnardo case?" Brenda nodded. "Down and out," she said, "sunk, right under." She sat nursing her bread and milk, stirring it listlessly. Every bit of her felt good for nothing. "Good day?" She nodded. "Saw Marjorie and her filthy dog. Bought some things. Lunched at Daisy's new joint. Bone setter. That's all." "You know I wish you'd give up these day trips to London. They're far too much for you." "Me? Oh, I'm all right. Wish I was dead, that's all... and please, please, darling Tony, don't say anything about bed, because I can't move." Next day a telegram came from Beaver. Have got out of dinner 16th. Are you still free. She replied: Delighted. Second thoughts always best. Brenda. Up till then they had avoided Christian names. "You seem in wonderful spirits today," Tony remarked. "I feel big. I think it's Mr. Cruttwell. He puts all one's nerves right and one's circulation and everything."