The Heart of the Family

“I hope you had a nice time, Sir,” said Ben shyly.

  “Excellent,” said Sebastian. “And you?”

  Ben smiled and said nothing. Sebastian was aware of distress as well as exaltation in him. He had not forgotten how swelling and immense were the emotions of youth. They came riding in like huge breakers, climbing the sky, and as they curved and broke in thunder and beauty, they seemed the whole ocean to the breathless swimmer. It was only when he looked back from the deep water far ahead, the arch of the sky revealed again, that he saw them as ripples creaming on the sand. They said youth was always obsessed by the importance of its own affairs. No wonder, when they filled the sky like that.

  “You’ve not been here before, have you, Sir?” asked Ben. “I’d like to show it to you. I can show you the hall and the drawing-room while tea is coming in. And the Chapel after tea, for it’s upstairs.”

  Sebastian smiled at the naïveté. David, too, would have thought of a session upon a chair between a period of activity and a journey upstairs, but he did these things so adroitly that Sebastian had only just discovered that he did do them. Ben’s consideration as a host was less practised, but it had the same intuition, and was the more delightful in him in that the waves were even now breaking over his head. In another twenty years, Sebastian thought, he would have become an extremely unselfish man, even more so than his cousin. Sebastian was beginning to admit that side by side with David’s egotism there existed a certain selflessness. Or perhaps that was putting it too strongly. Perhaps it would be truer to say that David had headed his egotism for the loss of it, as a man shooting the rapids deliberately steers his boat for the sickening fall that is just ahead of him.

  “You are very like your cousin,” he said, as they walked up the paved path to the front door.

  “Like David?”

  “Yes.”

  Ben flushed with pleasure. “I only wish I were,” he said. “He’s a great chap. And he’s succeeded.”

  “Is that so important?” asked Sebastian dryly.

  “I don’t mean in that sort of way,” said Ben hastily. “I mean, he’s done the job he wanted to do as well as he could do it.”

  Sebastian noted the sudden hardening in Ben’s voice, but he only said, “Now I can see the old signboard. What are the blue flowers?”

  “Rue, the Herb of Grace,” said Ben. “The garden rue is yellow, but the wild rue is blue. It used to grow in these parts, but you hardly ever find it now. It’s an astringent herb that’s supposed to be good for clearing the sight—both sorts. Country people used to apply it for rheum and drink it to foresee the future. In our family we say it’s the symbol of single-mindedness.”

  “A very good symbol,” said Sebastian. “But I don’t think I care for these hyphenated words of your complicated language. I prefer the single word integrity. The meaning, I think, is much the same?” He felt Ben stiffen beside him and went on easily, “But you’ve already expressed my meaning in describing your cousin. He’s done the job he wanted to do as well as he could do it. You couldn’t describe the integrity of the artist better. To others, perhaps, there seems a certain ruthlessness (or astringency) about the clear sight of the artist who has got rid of the rheum and foreseen the future. He sees his job and his goal of perfection, and to hell with what gets in the light.”

  There was a sudden quiet but steely anger in his tone that astounded Ben. Sebastian had impressed him enormously, but, troubled as he was about his own affairs, he had not analyzed the respect he felt for him. He had vaguely thought it the shamed admiration which the fortunate feel for those who have suffered ordeals which they are not at all sure they could have survived themselves. But now the sudden flash of the steel was so fierce that he felt transfixed by it. And in anger, too. He had thought the man liked him, but Sebastian’s anger was hot in his body. He had thought of the poor chap as a broken man, but there was nothing broken about this steel, or the anger either. You can’t break steel, nor fire. He opened the door, and as he waited courteously to let Sebastian pass in first, he dropped his eyes, that he might not see the contempt in Sebastian’s. Then he was ashamed. He had accepted the thrust of the steel with an instant sense that this was justice. He must accept the contempt, too. Flushing to the roots of his hair, he forced himself to look at Sebastian. But there was nothing in the man’s sombre lightless eyes but great kindness, and the gentleness of his face seemed almost to belie the anger. Yet the anger had been there, for the steel was still in Ben, stiffening him.

  “Who told you?” he asked.

  “I don’t think anyone in particular,” said Sebastian. “Just a word here and there. The way in which you have all so generously made me one of the family has made me know more about you all than perhaps I ought to know.” He paused a moment, passing his hand across his eyes, wondering if that was quite the truth, for living now as he was in the shadow of death, any slightest dishonesty revolted him. Though why did the Psalmist talk of the shadow of death? To him it was all light; a terrible light. Even now, coming towards him like the rays of a rising sun, it showed him sin where he had not known there was sin. He wondered how the soul endured it when the last of the dark places had been searched out and shown to her. Possibly adoration of the unspeakable beauty of the light helped one to endure the shame. But he must let that ambiguous statement pass, for he could not talk to this very young man about the clairvoyance of death. He took his hand from his eyes and saw the hall of The Herb of Grace, into which they had passed. “This is—this is—no one told me,” he said.

  Ben was thankful for the astonishment that had made Sebastian suddenly forget all about him. He could stand beside him in the shadows and recover himself. The conversation had been of the briefest; and he supposed it had taken them only a few minutes to walk up the path and in at the door, yet it had seemed years. And nothing that John Adair, or Heloise, had said to him had shaken him like this. No, not shaken him, stiffened him, for he knew now what he had to do.

  Sebastian stood still, and was royally welcomed by the great glowing personality that informed the house. Almost he could have said the man shouted aloud, only there was no sound in the stillness except the ticking of the clock. The welcome was so personal that they might have been old friends. It seemed to come from two places at once: from the fullness of light beyond the horizon and from the house, too. What a giant you must have been upon this earth, thought Sebastian, and what a giant you are now beyond it. To leave your mark upon this house so strongly, and to shout to me like that among the stars. Velvety shadows filled the dark oak-paneled hall, and the staircase rose up steeply and then divided, sweeping to right and left, so that it was cruciform in shape. It seemed to Sebastian that the giant stood there “with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly.” Aware of Ben’s waiting presence, he struggled for speech. “This place is dedicated,” he said. “Damerosehay is a great house, but this is greater.”

  “It was a Pilgrims’ Inn for the Abbey,” said Ben. “ ‘Maison Dieu.’ Perhaps you didn’t notice, but that’s written on the old signboard. ‘Herb of Grace’ above the flowers and ‘Maison Dieu’ below.”

  Details were slowly revealing themselves to Sebastian. An alcove in the panelling above the branching of the staircase with a small stone figure of a deer enshrined in it. Old oak posts beautifully carved with birds and beasts. A wide fireplace and deep windows. Splashes of bright color in the shadows, made by curtains and cushions, pictures and china and gleams of brass. And over there to the left, the bar. He turned hastily to Ben. “You said you’d show me the drawing-room,” he said. He did not want to have ashtrays and glasses and brass spittoons; sporting prints and spotted china dogs brought to his notice. He did not want to watch the debris of the picnic of man’s mortality spreading itself like a scum upon the surface of what he had seen and obscuring it. More and more in these days the paraphernalia required by bodies irritated him. Especially that required by well-to-do bodies. All those
glasses of every sort and shape, that would soon be stained with the disgusting dregs of every sort and kind of drink. And all those ashtrays that would soon be loaded with the revolting remains of so many cigarettes. What did they want with it all? Just one of those drinks, just the stub end of one cigarette, would have been like bread to the starving to men he had known. Anger flared in him, and then hatred, and he was caught in the toils again, the chaff boiling up around him. He had exhausted himself, steeling the boy with his own strength, and it was always when he was most tired that the evil of his hatred attacked most savagely. Struggling with himself, he turned his back on the debris and looked at the clear face of the young man who was still so much more of a child than he had any idea of, so much more at the beginning of it all than he could possibly know, and pity purged him of some of the hatred.

  “There’s the integrity of Everyman, as well as of the artist, though inclusive of his,” he said gently to Ben. “One can express it in fewer words. Perfection of soul. What’s in the way is hell.”

  Ben smiled politely, if a little anxiously, and opened the drawing-room door. Deeply though he reverenced Sebastian, he did think he was a little odd. And he was looking very peculiar just now, a queer grey color, and completely crackers. He suddenly found the idea of family tea in the kitchen most attractive.

  Sebastian, with his demon still not quite subdued, tried to be only dimly aware of the beautiful drawing-room, furnished with that expensive austerity of only a few things, but those the loveliest and the best. He did not want to think how much Nadine Eliot had paid for those curtains of old brocade, nor the old glass upon the mantelpiece. Nor the beautiful Chippendale chair upon which he had most thankfully sat down. He suspected her of being a most extravagant woman, but he did not want to hate. Such a short while ago the emotion of hate had seemed such a source of strength. The first night at Damerosehay he had wondered if, when a man became incapable of love, he must hate or dry up altogether. What utter nonsense! He had panicked, he remembered, and refused to face the meaning of his panic. Hilary had said all fear had its roots in the fear of damnation. No wonder he had panicked. His hatred a source of strength? What an infamous lie! It was not the source of his strength, but the particular demon who had been appointed at this particular moment by the father of lies in a last effort to drag his soul into the pit. And he was not incapable of love. He loved. He loved Meg and her mother. He loved Lucilla. He loved the old house of Damerosehay, the marshes and the sea. He loved, already, this house and the spirit of it, and the young man who was pulling the curtains farther back from the window that faced the sunlit river, so that the light might flood in and show him the beauty of the room more clearly. He loved the beauty of it. The curtains were pale green, lined with peach color. He and his wife had chosen curtains much like them for their house in the mountains. Lately he had been trying to follow Lucilla’s advice in the matter of memory, and now he deliberately tried to remember those curtains.

  Suddenly subterranean laughter filled his soul and he smiled, for he had remembered that they had been extremely expensive. He wondered how many of the poor devils of struggling musicians, whom he and Christiana had delighted to entertain in their house when they could, had hated him for the luxury of it? How irrational were men in their sin, and how often the tongues of demons must be in their cheeks. Though perhaps not, for evil was irrational, too. His own demon, for instance, had suddenly let go, unable to reason that now was the time to hold on. He had choked and fallen into Sebastian’s subterranean laughter. He’d return, for demons, though irrational, had a perseverance that men would do well to imitate. But meanwhile, his arms laid along the arms of his chair, Sebastian relaxed in a sudden blessed peace, and a happiness such as he had never expected to feel again. It was never too late for a new upspringing of that fountain of freshness that Hilary had called the grace of God. The miracle had happened. He could love.

  “This is one of the loveliest rooms I have ever seen,” he said. “And I mean that in the literal sense of the word. It is a room to be loved.”

  Ben, who had been perturbed by the long silence and stillness of the man in the chair, looked round at him and smiled. The old chap was looking more normal now, a better color and not so crackers. In fact not crackers at all. He had never seen a man look so at peace.

  “Mother is an expert on old furniture and antiques and so on,” said Ben. “She’s got a flair for picking up beautiful things for next to nothing. She made the curtains, and the chair-covers.”

  “Madame, my apologies,” murmured Sebastian to himself, and his penitent glance moved round the room, paying homage to Nadine’s bargains. It was halted by the picture that hung over the mantelpiece, a water-color of a herd of red deer galloping through a village street in the moonlight, with one white deer leading them. “You painted that,” he said quickly.

  “Years ago,” said Ben apologetically. “Before I’d learned anything. Not what could be called one of Mother’s bargains.”

  “I have not much knowledge of painting,” said Sebastian humbly and gently, as he put on his glasses to look at the picture, “only of music. But I recognize the same quality that I noticed in your water-color of Lady Eliot’s cottage and garden at sunset. You know the one I mean, in the hall at Damerosehay. It is a painting of stillness, as this of movement. I don’t know how to describe the quality, but I think I should just call it the quality of awareness. ‘A running that could not be seen of skipping beasts.’ In this, the running of the red deer, and the white, is seen, and you make me aware of the other.”

  Ben could find nothing to say. His gratitude for the steeling strength, and now for this gentleness of understanding, choked him.

  Sebastian went on with a cheerful change of tone, “Is it landscape that chiefly holds you captive now?”

  “Just now, portraits,” said Ben.

  “Oils?” asked Sebastian.

  “For men and women, yes,” said Ben. “Developed character is a tough sort of thing, and you get the strength of it in oils. For children, miniatures. Not that I’m very good at them yet, but they suit children. You get the delicacy, the littleness, and color is so fresh and clear on ivory.”

  “Did you paint Mrs. Eliot’s miniature of Meg and Robin?” ejaculated Sebastian.

  “Yes,” said Ben humbly. “It’s rotten, I know, but David wanted it for Sally.”

  “I might have known,” said Sebastian. “The awareness is there. It is a painting of eternal youth as well as of those particular children. But—forgive me—it is so extraordinarily good.”

  “I stayed with David in town one vac. and had lessons,” said Ben. “He arranged it for me. John Adair, who taught me all I know otherwise, would have nothing to do with it.” He grinned as he remembered John Adair’s rage. “He asked me why I didn’t go to a pastry-cook’s and learn how to stick cherries on iced queen cakes.”

  Sebastian remembered how the thought of the extravagant sum David had paid to some fashionable miniature painter had infuriated him. “Sir, my apologies,” he murmured to himself.

  A second door opened, and Caroline stood shyly smiling at them. “I do hate to interrupt,” she said, “but we’ve been waiting tea for ages, and now we’ve just started.”

  Sebastian hurried towards her, his hands conveying a distress that was momentarily too deep for adequate verbal expression. “My apologies!” was all he could say.

  Until now Caroline had felt scared by Sebastian, for his shabbiness and breathlessness had seemed to cast a shadow across her bright world, but now she suddenly liked him. Such concern over meal-time punctuality touched her. Though her patience gave no sign, a leathery fluffy omelette and cold scones tore her very heart. No one knew what she suffered when her works of art were kept waiting and turned cold and deflated.

  “It’s all right,” she said hastily, slipping her hand in Sebastian’s arm. It was not her habit to take the arm of more or less st
range men, and she did it quite unconsciously, to reassure him. “There’s nothing to sit down. I mean, I didn’t make scones today, only biscuits. But Grandmother said if Ben had been talking about himself all this time you’d need your tea by now.”

  She flashed a sisterly glance at Ben as she tenderly piloted Sebastian towards sustenance, but Ben only grinned, and Sebastian saw with relief that in spite of his native humility he had not yet outgrown his youthful conviction that the topic of himself was interesting. That was good. The young needed to hold themselves and others to that belief until they were well established in the following of vocation. Then the sooner they were disillusioned the better.

  They had passed from the drawing-room into a small passage-room paneled in dark oak. It seemed full of books and bones. A most unpleasing skeleton hung from a hook on the wall. Its skull had dropped a little sideways, as though it hung on a gallows. It was a sight so unexpected that a tremor went through Sebastian’s body. After all that he had seen, such things had no power to shock his mind, but his body knew how soon he would abandon it, and, quite independently of Sebastian himself, it shivered a little. The two young things, not understanding how detached the spirit of a man can be from his body, were full of contrition. Caroline gave a motherly cry of distress and tightened her hold upon Sebastian’s arm.

  “Confound Tommy!” ejaculated Ben. “He always leaves Horace about.”

  Sebastian noticed that below the dominant note of Tommy’s occupation the little room kept a memory of the activities of others. Horace’s toe-bones appeared to be executing some sort of ghoulish dance upon the cover of a sewing-machine, and odd bones were piled on top of an overturned work-basket in the corner of the room. The canvas cover of a painter’s camp-stool had given way beneath a pile of surgical textbooks, and a beautiful water-color of Brockis Island was obliterated behind Horace’s back. Observing it, anger flamed in Ben’s face.

  “Simply takes Horace,” he growled. “Never asks.”