Venus Over Lannery (26 page)

“Do you think,” he asked feebly, before Bob could speak, “that Cynthia would misunderstand if I didn't go, if I stayed here during the ... the . . .” He groped for some other word than funeral.

“Of course she wouldn't, George.” It was Ida's voice. “I'll just go and speak to her.” She went to the door and Bob sat down in the chair beside his. Neither of them spoke and soon the door opened again and Ida returned with Cynthia.

Cynthia went up to his chair. “Stay here, Uncle George,” she said. “I would much rather you did.
There's not the smallest need for you to come.”

He nodded his thanks and the three of them went out, leaving him alone. He leaned back in his chair, immensely relieved. A bee buzzed on the window. From outside came the sound of wheels on the gravel. Shuffling footsteps passed the smoking-room door. And gradually, as if by some sixth sense, he felt the house empty itself and silence flow in until the whole house was full of it. Ah, how much better to sit here alone! Here he need no longer cower away from reality. The house became real. He could recognise and accept now the familiar room in which he had so often sat with her; and he could think of her, recall the warm tones of her voice, varying perpetually like an old Italian tune, and the mocking gleam in her eyes when she teased him. He remembered how she had spoken of Daphne's death. “It's so incongruous,” she had said, and she had gone on to say that there was no incongruity between Frank and death or Joan and death, that their natures were deep enough to include it. He was glad he had remembered that. It was as if she herself had reconciled him to her death. He could accept it now. It was as inevitable and harmonious as the final verse of a poem or the closing bars of a piece of music. His thoughts dropped back to old days at Lannery, to visits over thirty years ago, not long after Arthur Dryden's death and Naomi's flight, when he and the Buxteds would spend a week with Emily and her two children. When Maurice, who had died twenty years ago, was a little chap of ten or twelve and Cynthia
four years younger. And those other visits, years and years later, when the house seemed to be full of young people, those creatures that had seemed to him so restless and unbalanced. They were no longer such very young people now; a new generation was following on their heels, and in one way or another they had, it seemed, solved their problems or had a solution forced upon them. That poor little wretch Daphne had solved hers violently and unlawfully and selfishly. There was a logical justice in Daphne's end: she had extorted from life what her nature demanded, sacrificing that splendid young animal Roy to her own exorbitant needs. But Roy, poor chap, had demanded no such solution; there was no logic and no justice about his end. Life had inflicted a horrible wrong on him, and his name, which one had seen for a time plastered about under the portico of the Lyceum, displayed in huge capitals along the sides of London buses and extolled in the cheap Press over the names of earlier idols such as Lewis Waller and Fred Terry, had blazed up for a few days into a new and horrible significance and then vanished for ever. His dead rivals had superseded him long since in the popular memory. And Norman? Norman was no doubt still pursuing his charming, ineffectual way. His solution was that of the rolling stone, to roll on till he stopped. He and his rather magnificent new wife, whom he had once, at Emily's invitation, brought down to Lannery, had separated. Probably he had found a third, and in the end he would doubtless settle down as poor
Naomi had done, from lack of momentum. Norman and Naomi! It had never before occurred to him how alike they were—alike in their charm, which they used as the angler-fish uses its filaments to lure and devour other fishes; alike in their rapacity and in their inability to give. They were parasites. Some fatal influence of parents or circumstance had warped them and turned them out into the world—poor creatures—ravening after what they were incapable of receiving, fatally following, like Daphne, the law of their unlucky natures. The Pennants had been luckier: they had quite evidently found happiness. Roger had grasped and then Edna had grasped, but both had been willing to give more than they claimed, and now, as Emily had predicted, they had struck a balance and were satisfied. Most lucky of all were Joan and Eric and Frank and Cynthia. They were givers by nature and each had found a partner who could receive what they offered. “Give and you shall receive: grasp and you shall lose”—that seemed to be the law of human relationships. And yet it was not quite that, for that left out those who, like himself, had offered and had their offering refused. He had tried to give everything to Emily, but she would accept only a part. Well, even so, he had had more happiness than most people. Yes, during the last thirty years, in a quiet, uneventful way, he had been happy. A sob caught his breath, but he swallowed it down. Even though he was alone he preferred to keep control of himself.

A muffled sound like a very distant train disturbed
the silence, then the same sound again and yet again. The servants were pulling up the blinds of the front windows... .

He had wondered, after hearing of Emily's death, what would become of the house. It was strange that Emily had never mentioned the subject and that he had never thought of asking her. He hated the thought of it passing into other hands, and yet would Cynthia and Frank abandon their work in London and settle here? He feared not. And now, as he walked for a few minutes with Cynthia on the lawn before starting for the train with the Buxteds, he asked her about it.

“You won't sell it, I hope?” he said.

“O, no,” said Cynthia. “We shall carry out the plan, of course.”

“The plan?”

“Yes, build three new hostels and start our community.”

“A community?” he said, aghast. “I hadn't heard ... I didn't know ...”

“I'm so sorry, Uncle George,” she said. “I forgot we'd never told you. Mother thought it might pain you.”

“Then your mother knew about it, Cynthia?”

“It was Mother's great scheme. She did most of the planning. That makes it all right, doesn't it, Uncle George?”

He nodded. “It would have been all right anyhow, but you must allow me my irrational moments.”

He glanced round at the trees, the lawn, the flower-beds and the beautiful old house that looked on to them. Their day was over. The old, leisurely, cultured life for which they were designed had already almost passed away. The new order—the order which, in defiance of his ineradicable instincts, he had approved and supported—was already at the gate. Soon it would overrun these secluded lawns and paths, troop up the stone steps and crowd into the quiet, dignified rooms, outraging what was for him the most sacred thing in life. It was only right and just. He pulled himself together. “But, from the financial point of view,” he asked, “how are you going to manage it?”

“We've got people, who are interested in the experiment, to help. There's enough money now to start the thing and run it on a fairly modest scale for ten years. It's not an amateur affair, Uncle George. Mother roped in all sorts of people. We've got a council of experts to run the thing, and if it's a success the funds will eventually be vested in the community. We must show you the scheme. And, when the building is finished and the thing running, you must come down and see it, won't you?”

The car was at the door: the Buxteds were getting into it. He kissed Cynthia and shook her hand. “Good-bye, my dear. We must meet in London and you and Frank must tell me all about the scheme. It's a wonderful idea.”

“And when everything's complete,” she said again, “you'll come down, won't you, and see it running?”

He glanced up at the calm, wide front of the house. “No, my dear child,” he said, “I shall never come here again.” And it seemed to Cynthia, as the gaunt, black figure turned from her and got into the car, that she had said good-bye to a ghost.

THE END

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © 1936 by Martin Armstrong
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ISBN: 9781448207398
eISBN: 9781448207084
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