The Forgotten Story (6 page)

‘You'll get no food out of me today,' Joe said weakly.

There was a footstep outside and Patricia passed the curtain where Anthony was hiding. Following her at a distance came Ned Pawlyn. Patricia's face had completely changed from what it had been three minutes ago. Anthony watched the colour come and go in her cheeks.

Ned Pawlyn was a powerfully made young man with broad shoulders and long legs and a quiet walk, as if he was accustomed to moving along the deck and catching lazy seamen unawares. He had a deep slow voice with an attractive Cornish burr. His black straight eyebrows almost met over a nose nearly as strong as Harris's.

Harris coloured slightly when he saw his wife approaching.

‘How are you, Pat?' he said, ignoring Pawlyn.

‘Well, Tom,' said Patricia.

‘I very much wanted a chat with you,' said her husband.

‘What about?'

‘I'd prefer to tell you that in privacy.'

‘You can say anything you wish to say here.'

Neither of the contesting parties seemed quite as confident or as much at ease in the presence of the other.

‘Why?' said Harris. ‘Are you afraid of giving me a few minutes?'

Ned Pawlyn bulked close behind the girl. ‘Should she have reason to be afraid?'

Harris looked at him for the first time. ‘ Do I know this gentleman?'

‘Mr Pawlyn,' said Patricia. ‘ Mate of
The Grey Cat
.'

‘How d'you do. What was your question?'

‘You heard me the first time,' said Ned.

‘Welly since you ask, I think perhaps Patricia is afraid of having a few minutes' quiet talk with me alone.'

‘What're you getting at?' Joe said, looking as if he regretted not having his carving knife.

‘As Pat persistently refuses me a private interview,' said Harris, ‘it looks to me that she is afraid of being persuaded to return to her gilded cage.'

‘So you admit it was a cage?' said Patricia.

Tom Harris looked at her with his brown eyes.

‘All people live in cages,' he said. ‘Cages of good behaviour and decent manners. A cage is none the worse for being gilded.'

‘See,' said Ned Pawlyn, ‘you talk too much, mister –'

Pat put a hand on his arm. ‘Let me manage this, Ned. Tom, I'm not coming to talk with you – not because I'm afraid, but because there is nothing to discuss. When I left you I told you I was not coming back. I haven't changed my mind and am not likely to. So that's all there is to it.'

‘Not quite,' said Harris.

‘What have you to say to that?' demanded Smoky Joe, plainly pleased with his daughter's attitude.

‘Only that I might petition for a restitution of conjugal rights.'

Anthony saw the girl's bosom begin suddenly to rise and fall.

‘What d'you mean?' demanded Ned Pawlyn. ‘Talk English. Restitu …'

Harris looked at the other man pointedly. There was that flicker in his eyes again.

‘I've stood your interference with very great patience, Mr Pawlyn. May I ask what damned business it is of yours?'

‘Look,' said Ned, ‘if you care to step outside I'll teach you what business it is of mine.' Pat laid her hand on the seaman's arm.

Harris nodded. ‘ I know. Bare fists. The only argument you understand. But today I did not come here to quarrel.' He picked up his silk hat and slowly began to brush it with his long fingers, for all the world, Anthony thought, as if he were reassuring the hat that no harm would come to it. Tell me,' he said. ‘Give me one valid reason among the three of you why I should not so petition. A wife's place is with her husband – unless he should be brutal or diseased or insane. The marriage ceremony was entered into freely – I might even say eagerly. There's no legal reason why I should be summarily deserted.'

‘No legal reason,' said Pat quietly. ‘ That's the whole point. You only deal in legal things. You don't feel things, I believe, until a seal has been put on them. Nothing is yours until it's sworn to before witnesses. Then nothing else matters. Very well, then, go and petition. See what a laughing stock you'll make of yourself!'

She raised her eyes and found his fixed upon her. She turned sharply away with a gesture of impatience.

‘I didn't say I was going to – yet. I came here today to approach the matter in a friendly way, to ask you to return to me like an honourable wife. It
is
a matter of honour, you know.'

Pat had gone white. ‘ You twist everything round to your own way of thinking.' She added: ‘Please go now.'

‘May I call again?' She shook her head.

Harris rose and picked up his stick. There was a momentary quirk in one eyebrow. ‘No wife. No turbot. A disappointing afternoon.' He went to the door. ‘I wish you all good day. Including the small boy peering through the curtain.'

He went swiftly out. Mrs Veal had come from the kitchen at this moment and was standing with short, fat arms akimbo in the doorway. Although she had several times openly favoured his suit, he went past her without a glance. In fact he seemed to withdraw his arm as if to avoid contact.

Clearly, thought Anthony, he did not consider any of them good enough for him.

Two days passed before Anthony had an opportunity of saying anything to his cousin. She had been rather moody since the visit and only brightened each evening when Ned Pawlyn called to take her out.

Patricia was taking some flowers to her mother's grave, as she did every Wednesday, and he offered to accompany her. They set off up the hill, at first through working-class streets, then down a hill past some fine residential houses to the cemetery, which was situated upon the hillside overlooking a lake. The lake was in the hollow of the hills and was surrounded by trees; at one end thick rushes grew and at the other a narrow bar of shingle separated it from the sea.

‘What a lovely place!' Anthony exclaimed. ‘I shouldn't mind being buried here.'

Patricia laughed. ‘I'd rather be alive at Smoky Joe's.'

The grave was just inside the gate. When the old flowers were removed and the new ones arranged she said soberly:

‘Let's go down and feed the swans. I always bring something with me.'

So they clambered down to the lake and sat on its edge throwing bread and kitchen scraps to the big white birds, which knew Pat and came over to her at once.

An older and wiser person would not have mentioned the fracas of Sunday afternoon; but Anthony's was a nature which could not rest in peace while there was the possibility of misunderstanding with someone he liked.

‘Look, Pat,' he said. I'm awfully sorry about – about Sunday. I mean about me peeping through the curtain. I didn't intend – it was …' As she did not speak he went on, ‘I'd only just come out of the kitchen, and I heard the noise and …' He was astonished with himself for telling this lie but was somehow forced into it by her silence and by his desire that she should think well of him. The words had come from him unawares.

She shrugged. ‘Oh, it doesn't matter. My affairs are free for all anyway.'

‘Oh, no,' he contradicted. ‘ They shouldn't be.'

‘Why?' she said after a moment. ‘ Do you think I should have seen him alone?'

Thus questioned, he drew back quickly within himself like a snail which has touched something foreign and perhaps dangerous.

‘I – I don't know. How can I tell? I don't know anything about it.'

‘No,' she agreed moodily. ‘How
can
you tell?'

There was silence, while the swans ducked their heads in the water and drank and waited for more food.

‘It's funny,' said Anthony. ‘I never even
saw
your ring, you know. I just didn't notice it until it was mentioned last Saturday …'

‘Where d'you think I met him?' she said, taking off her picture hat and letting the wind and the sun play with her curls.

‘… Don't know,' said the boy.

‘In the police court.'

He screwed up his cap. ‘ In …'

‘And who do you think introduced us?'

‘Don't know.'

‘Dad himself.'

Patricia emptied her bag into the lake.

Anthony's mind was struggling in deeper waters than any the pond could offer. I thought Uncle didn't like him.'

‘Not as a
son-in-law
. Women aren't the only contrary ones, are they?'

The sun went behind a cloud and a breeze ruffled the waters of the pool.

‘Of course, I was chiefly to blame,' she went on after a pause, more brightly, as if she found some cause for self-congratulation in being in the wrong. ‘ You see; it all began like this. There was trouble in our restaurant one Saturday night; there sometimes is; but this was worse than usual; a Dutchman got a knife stuck in him. I've always told Joe; I've told him and told him not to let
anybody
in. On a Friday and Saturday a lot of men spend part of their time in a public house and then come into our restaurant half drunk. I'd refuse them admittance. But Joe says, no, they're all customers and have a right to buy what they can pay for – and
he'll
keep them in order. That's all very well most times, but if bad trouble ever starts it's too far gone before he can stop it. And Uncle Perry shouts a lot of terrible oaths but he doesn't do much. Fridays and Saturdays are usually the nights; you may have noticed the last two evenings have been quieter.'

Anthony nodded. ‘Uncle Joe said there was a Greek ship in this afternoon,' he volunteered.

‘Well, this night in March a lot of men wanted to come in together, and there were two or three among them who were pretty drunk, and I happened to be standing at the counter and I said to Dad, “ Say we're full up,” but of course he wouldn't. Joe can't bear to turn away a penny. So in they came. They were a lively lot in the lower restaurant even then. Well, somebody started a quarrel, and before you knew where you were everyone was fighting everyone else – and by the time the police came someone had stuck a table knife into a Dutchman who had nothing to do with it at all. Two or three others had to be treated for broken ribs and things.'

‘Did he die?'

‘The Dutchman? No. But he accused a man called Fossett of having stabbed him. Mr Fossett was a shipbroker and practically Dad's oldest friend. But sometimes he would drink heavily and he was a bit hot-tempered. Dad didn't like the idea of him being accused: he's funny that way when he makes up his mind about a thing, and he tried to get all the blame put upon the Dutchman himself. Two or three witnesses went into the box and testified that the whole place had been sweetness and light until the Dutchman came in and that it was he who was the only drunk one, and that he'd started an argument about the Transvaal and then things went wrong. But that wasn't true at all.'

‘What happened?'

‘Mr Fossett got six months in the second division. Of course, I never thought of getting him as much as that when I did it.'

Anthony looked at the girl. ‘Did what?'

She pulled down a piece of stick and stirred the lake gently while the swans nosed about it expecting more food.

‘You see, I was called as a witness, as I was in the restaurant at the time of the quarrel; but instead of testifying that it was all the Dutchman's fault as Dad expected, I supported the Dutchman's story, because he was telling the truth. He hadn't even been drunk at the time; he'd just come in for a quiet meal and was eating away when the quarrel broke all around him. It was Joe's fault for letting any rag-tag come in and be served; it was Joe's fault for being so grasping for every penny that it hurt him to turn a single one away. You know … he wouldn't shut the restaurant the day Mother died. He even begrudged her having a doctor until near the end … I thought this would teach him a lesson. At least … I didn't reason it out as plainly as that at the time. I went into court feeling a lot and not quite knowing what to say, and then before I properly knew, I was telling the whole truth. I'd just got to.'

Anthony spent some minutes wondering if even at nineteen he would have the moral courage to speak against his father in a court of law.

‘And that was where you met – your …'

She shook her head. ‘No. That was later. You see, other things happened then that I didn't expect. No sooner was that case settled than the police brought a charge against Joe for keeping a disorderly house. Of course, Joe was
furious
.'

‘Yes, I suppose he would be,' agreed the boy.

‘He quarrelled with almost everybody at that time. Even Uncle Perry had a job to stay on.' She smiled wryly at this. ‘He turned me out of the house the night after I'd given evidence favourable to the Dutchman.'

‘What did you do?'

‘Slept with Aunt Louisa in Arwenack Street. That was easily arranged because I lived with her during holidays while Mother and Dad were abroad. But it made things worse in a way because Dad can't stand his sister nowadays. Well, he quarrelled with his solicitors too about their conduct of the case, and when the police summons came along he put it in the hands of Harvey & Harris of Penryn.' She was silent a moment, pondering her own strange feminine thoughts. ‘Tom … Tom Harris did very well for him in that: he was only fined ten guineas and costs. But he wasn't a bit grateful; he quarrelled with Tom because he hadn't got him off altogether.'

The swans had become aware that this stirring of the water was a trumpery deception; one by one with slow imperceptible strokes they moved away, breasting the water square and smooth like a convoy of white East Indiamen.

‘We ought to go,' said Patricia rising. ‘ They'll wonder what has happened to us.' She picked up her hat and parasol. ‘Come on: I'll race you to the top of the hill.'

Womanlike, she started off before he could even get to his feet. He rushed after her, but she was half-way up before he overtook her, laughing his triumph. Whereupon with the same curious lack of logic she at once abandoned the race and sat on the hedge careless of her frock and breathless and smiling.