‘What’s that?’
‘We could do it to you all in turn and mark you if you like. It’s quite easy, you show the subject an ordinary blot of ink on white paper, and, according to the picture it makes for each individual (you understand what I mean, does it look like a spider, or the Himalayas, everybody sees something different), a practised questioner can immediately assess his intelligence level.’
‘Are you practised questioners?’
‘Well, we’ve practised on each other and all the Joshes and Mrs Aster. And we’ve noted the results in our scientific notebook, so come on.’
Uncle Matthew gazed at the blot for a while and then said that it looked to him very much like an ordinary ink blot, and reminded him of nothing so much as Stephens’ Blue-Black.
‘It’s just as I had feared,’ said Jassy, ‘and shows a positively sub-human level – even Baby Josh did better than that. Oh, dear, sub–human, that’s bad –’
Jassy had now overstepped the boundary in the perpetual game of Tom Tiddler’s Ground that she played with her father. He roared at her in a sudden rage and sent her to bed. She went off chanting ‘paranoid and schizoid, paranoid and schizoid’ which had taken the place of ‘Man’s long agony’. She said to me afterwards, ‘Of course, it’s rather grave for all of us because, whether you believe in heredity or environment, either way we are boiled, shut up here with this old sub-human of a father.’
Davey now decided that it would be only kind to go over and see his old friend Lady Montdore, so he rang her up and was invited to luncheon. He stayed until after tea, and by good luck when he got back Polly was lying down in her bedroom, so he was able to tell all.
‘She is in a rage,’ he said, ‘a rage. Simply frightening. She has taken what the French call a coup de vieux; she looks a hundred. I wouldn’t care to be hated by anyone as much as she hates Boy. After all, you never know, there may be something in Christian Science; evil thoughts and so on, directed at us with great intensity, may affect the body. How she hates him. Just imagine, she has cut out the tapestry he made for that fire-screen, quite roughly, with a pair of scissors, and the screen is still there in front of the fire with an enormous hole in it. It gave me quite a shock.’
‘Poor Sonia, how like her, somehow. And what does she feel about Polly?’
‘She mourns her, and she’s pretty cross with her, too, for being so underhand and keeping it a secret all these years. I said, “You really couldn’t expect that she would tell you?” but she didn’t agree. She asked me a lot of questions about Polly and her state of mind. I was obliged to say that her state of mind is not revealed to me, but that she is looking twice as pretty as before, if possible, so it can therefore be presumed that she is happy.’
‘Yes, you can always tell by that, with girls,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t have thought she cared a bit, one way or the other. What a strange character she must have, after all.’
‘Not so strange,’ said Davey. ‘Many women are rather enigmatic, and very few laugh when they are happy and cry when they are sad to the extent that your children do, my dear Sadie, nor do we all see everything in black and white, life is over-simplified at Alconleigh, it’s part of the charm and I’m not complaining, but you mustn’t suppose that all human beings are exactly like Radletts, because it is not so.’
‘You stayed very late.’
‘Poor Sonia, she’s lonely. She must be, dreadfully, if you come to think of it. We talked about nothing else, too, round and round the subject, every aspect of it. She asked me to go over and see Boy to find out if there’s any hope of his giving up the idea and going abroad for a bit. She says Montdore’s lawyer has written and told him that the day Polly marries him she will be completely cut out of her father’s will and also Montdore will stop Patricia’s allowance, which he was intending to give Boy for his life. Even so, she fears they will have enough to live on, but it might shake him, I suppose. I didn’t promise to go, but I think perhaps I will, all the same.’
‘Oh, but you must,’ said Jassy. ‘There’s us to consider.’
‘Children, do stop interrupting,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘If you can’t hold your tongues you will have to leave the room when we are having serious conversations – in fact,’ she said, becoming strict all of a sudden, just as she used to be when Linda and I were little, ‘I think you’d better go now. Go on, off with you.’
They went. As they reached the door Jassy said in a loud aside,
‘This labile and indeterminate attitude to discipline may do permanent damage to our young psychology. I really think Sadie should be more careful.’
‘Oh, no, Jassy,’ Victoria said, ‘after all, it’s our complexes that make us so fascinating and unusual.’
When they had shut the door Davey said rather seriously,
‘You know, Sadie, you do spoil them.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘I’m afraid so. It comes of having so many children. One can force oneself to be strict for a few years, but after that it becomes too much of an effort. But Davey, do you honestly imagine it makes the smallest difference when they are grown-up?’
‘Probably not to your children, demons one and all. But look how well we brought up Fanny.’
‘Davey! You were never strict,’ I said, ‘not the least bit. You spoilt me quite completely.’
‘Yes, now that’s true,’ said Aunt Sadie. Tanny was allowed to do all sorts of dreadful things – especially after she came out. Powder her nose, travel alone, go in cabs with young men – didn’t she once go to a night-club? Fortunately for you, she seems to have been born good, though why she should have been, with such parents, is beyond me.’
Davey told Polly that he had seen her mother but she merely said,
‘How was Daddy?’
‘In London, House of Lords, something about India. Your mother doesn’t look at all well, Polly.’
‘Temper,’ said Polly, and left the room.
Davey,’s next visit was to Silkin. ‘Frankly, I can’t resist It.’ He bustled off in his little motor car on the chance of finding the Lecturer at home. He still refused to come to the telephone, giving out that he was away for a few weeks, but all other evidence pointed to the fact that he was living in his house, and indeed this now proved to be the case.
‘Puzzled and lonely, and gloomy, poor old boy, and he’s still got an awful cold he can’t get rid of. Sonia’s evil thoughts, perhaps. He has aged, too. Says he has seen nobody since his engagement to Polly – of course, he has cut himself off at Silkin but he seems to think that the people he has run into, at the London Library and so on, have been avoiding him as if they already knew about it. I expect it’s really because he’s in mourning – or perhaps they don’t want to catch his cold – anyway, he’s fearfully sensitive on the subject. Then he didn’t say so, bat you can see how much he is missing Sonia – naturally, after seeing her every day all these years. Missing Patrick too, I expect.’
‘Did you talk quite openly about Polly?’ I asked.
‘Oh, quite. He says the whole thing originated with her, wasn’t his idea at all.’
‘Yes, that’s true. She told me that herself.’
‘And if you ask me, it shocks him dreadfully. He can’t resist it, of course, but it shocks him, and he fully expects to be a social outcast as the result. Now that would have been the card for Sonia to have played, if she had been clever enough to foresee it all. Too late once the words were spoken, of course, but if she could have warned Boy what was likely to happen and then rubbed in about how that would finish him for ever in the eyes of society, I think she might have stopped it. After all he’s frightfully social, poor chap. He would hate to be ostracized. As a matter of fact, though I didn’t say so to him, people will come round in no time once they are married.’
‘But you don’t really think they will marry?’ said Aunt Sadie.
‘My dear Sadie, after ten days in the same house with Polly, I don’t doubt it for one sing
le instant. What’s more, Boy knows he’s in for it all right whether he likes it or not – and of course he half likes it very much indeed. But he dreads the consequences, not that there’ll be any. People have no memory about that sort of thing, and after all, there’s nothing to forget except bad taste.’
‘Détournement de jeunesse?’
‘It won’t occur to the ordinary person that Boy could have made a pass at Polly when she was little, we would never have thought of it except for what he did to Linda. In a couple of years nobody outside the family will even remember what all the fuss was about.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ said my aunt. ‘Look at the Bolter! Ghastly scandal after ghastly scandal, elopements, horse-whippings, puts herself up as a prize in a lottery, cannibal kings – I don’t know what all – headlines in the papers, libel actions, and yet she only has to appear in London and her friends queue up to give parties for her. But don’t encourage Boy by telling him. Did you suggest he might chuck it and go abroad?’
‘Yes, I did, but it’s no good. He misses Sonia, he is horrified in a way by the whole thing, hates the idea of his money being stopped, though he’s not penniless himself, you know, he’s got an awful cold and is down in the dumps, but at the same time you can see that the prospect dazzles him, and as long as Polly makes all the running, I bet you he’ll play. Oh, dear, fancy taking on a new young wife at our age – how exhausting. Boy, too, who is cut out to be a widower, I do pity him.’
‘Pity him indeed! All he had to do was to leave little girls alone.’
‘You’re so implacable, Sadie. It’s a heavy price to pay for a bit of cuddling – I wish you could see the poor chap –!’
‘Whatever does he do with himself all the time?’
‘He’s embroidering a counterpane,’ said Davey, ‘it’s his wedding present for Polly. He calls it a bedspread.’
‘Oh, really!’ Aunt Sadie shuddered. ‘He is the most dreadful man! Better not tell Matthew – in fact, I wouldn’t tell him you’ve been over at all. He nearly has a fit every time he thinks of Boy now, and I don’t blame him. Bedspread indeed!’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SOON after this Polly announced to Aunt Sadie that she would like to go to London the following day, as she had an appointment there with Boy. We were sitting alone with Aunt Sadie in her little room. Although it was the first time that Polly had mentioned her uncle’s name to anybody at Alconleigh, except me, she brought it out not only without a tremor of self-consciousness but as though she spoke of him all and every day. It was an admirable performance. There was a pause. Aunt Sadie was the one who blushed and found it difficult to control her voice, and when at last she replied it did not sound natural at all, but hard and anxious.
‘Would you care to tell me what your plans are, Polly?’
‘Please – to catch the 9.30 if it’s convenient.’
‘No, I don’t mean your plans for tomorrow, but for your life.’
‘You see, that’s what I must talk about, with Boy. Last time I saw him we made no plans, we simply became engaged to be married.’
‘And this marriage, Polly dear – your mind is made up?’
‘Yes, quite. So I don’t see any point in all this waiting. As we are going to be married whatever happens, what can it matter when? In fact, there is every reason why it should be very soon now. It’s out of the question for me to go and live with my mother again and I can’t foist myself on you indefinitely. You’ve been much too kind as it is.’
‘Oh, my darling child, don’t give that a thought. It never matters having people here so long as Matthew likes them. Look at Davey and Fanny, they’re in no hurry to go, they know quite well we love having them.’
‘Oh, yes, I know, but they are family.’
‘So are you, almost, and quite as welcome as if you were. I have got to go to London in a few weeks, as you know, for Linda’s baby, but that needn’t make any difference to you, and you must stay on for as long as ever you like. There’ll be Fanny, and when Fanny goes there are the children – they worship you, you are their heroine, it’s wonderful for them having you here. So don’t think about that again. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, rush into marriage because you think you have nowhere to live, because for one thing it’s not the case at all, since you can live here, and anyhow, it could never be a sufficient reason for taking such a grave step.’
‘I’m not rushing,’ said Polly. ‘It’s the only marriage I could ever have made, and if it had continued to be impossible I should have lived and died a spinster.’
‘Oh, no you wouldn’t,’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘you’ve no idea how long life goes on and how many many changes it brings. Young people seem to imagine that it’s over in a flash, that they do this thing, or that thing, and then die, but I can assure you they are quite wrong. I suppose it’s no good saying this to you, Polly, as I can see your mind is made up, but since you have the whole of your life before you as a married woman why not make the most of being a girl? You’ll never be one again. You’re only twenty. Why be in such a hurry to change?’
‘I hate being a girl, I’ve hated it ever since I grew up,’ said Polly, ‘and besides, do you really think a life-time is too long for perfect happiness? I don’t.’
Aunt Sadie gave a profound sigh.
‘I wonder why it is that all girls suppose the married state to be one of perfect happiness? Is it just clever old Dame Nature’s way of hurrying them into the trap?’
‘Dear Lady Alconleigh, don’t be so cynical.’
‘No no, you are quite right, I mustn’t be. You’ve settled upon your future and nothing anybody can say will stop you, I’m sure, but I must tell you that I think you are making a terrible mistake. There, I won’t say another word about it. I’ll order the car for the 9.30, and will you be catching the 4.45 back or the 6.10?’
‘Four forty-five please. I told Boy to meet me at the Rite at one – I sent him a postcard yesterday.’
And by a miracle the said postcard had lain about all day on the hall table without either Jassy or Victoria spotting it. Hunting had begun again, and although they were only allowed out three times a fortnight the sheer physical exhaustion which it induced did a great deal towards keeping their high spirits within bounds. As for Uncle Matthew, who went out four days a week, he hardly opened an eye after tea-time, but nodded away standing up in his business-room, with the gramophone blaring his favourite tunes. Every few minutes he gave a great jump and rushed to change the needle and the disc.
That evening, before dinner, Boy rang up. We were all in the business-room listening to Lakmé on the gramophone, new records which had just arrived from the Army and Navy Stores. My uncle ground his teeth when the temple bells were interrupted by a more penetrating peal, and gnashed them with anger when he heard Boy’s voice asking for Polly, but he handed her the receiver and pushed up a chair for her with the old-fashioned courtesy which he used towards those he liked. He never treated Polly as if she were a very young person and I believe he was really rather in awe of her.
Polly said ‘Yes? Oh? Very well. Good-bye’ and hung up the receiver. Even this ordeal had done nothing to shake her serenity.
She told us that Boy had changed the rendezvous, saying he thought it was pointless to go all the way to London, and suggesting the Mitre in Oxford as a more convenient meeting-place.
‘So perhaps we could go in together, Fanny darling.’
I was going, anyhow, to visit my house.
‘Ashamed of himself,’ said Davey, when Polly had gone upstairs. ‘Doesn’t want to be seen. People are beginning to talk. You know how Sonia can never keep a secret, and once the Kensington Palace set gets hold of something it is all round London in a jiffy.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘but if they are seen at the Mitre it will look far worse. I feel rather worried, I only promised Sonia they shouldn’t meet here, but ought I to tell her? What do you think?’
‘Shall I go over to Silkin and shoot the sewer?
’ said Uncle Matthew, half asleep.
‘Oh, no, darling, please don’t. What do you think, Davey?’
‘Don’t you worry about the old she-wolf – good Lord, who cares a brass button for her?’
If Uncle Matthew had not hated Boy so much he would have been quite as eager as his daughters were to aid and abet Polly in any enterprise that would fly in the face of Lady Montdore.
Davey said, ‘I wouldn’t give it a thought. It so happens that Polly has been perfectly open and above-board about the whole thing – but suppose she hadn’t told you? She’s always going into Oxford with Fanny, isn’t she? I should turn the blind eye.’
So in the morning Polly and I motored to Oxford together, and I lunched, as I often did, with Alfred at the George. (If I never mention Alfred in this story it is because he is so totally uninterested in other human beings and their lives that I think he was hardly aware of what was going on. He certainly did not enter into it with fascination like the rest of us. I suppose that I and his children and perhaps an occasional clever pupil seem real to him, but otherwise he lives in a world of shadows and abstract thought.)
After luncheon I spent a freezing, exhausting, and discouraging hour in my little house, which seemed hopelessly haunted by builders. I noted, with something like despair, that they had now made one of the rooms cosy, a regular home from home, with blazing fire, stewing tea, and filmstars on the walls. As far as I could see they never left it at all to ply their trade, and indeed, I could hardly blame them for that, so terrible were the damp and cold in the rest of the house. After a detailed inspection with the foreman which merely revealed more exposed pipes and fewer floor-boards than last time I had been there, I went to the window of what was supposed to be my drawing-room to fortify myself with the view of Christ Church, so beautiful against the black clouds. One day, I thought (it was an act of faith), I would sit by that very window, open wide, and there would be green trees and a blue sky behind the college. I gazed on, through glass which was almost opaque with dirt and whitewash, forcing myself to imagine that summer season, when, battling their way down the street, the east wind in their faces, Polly and the Lecturer appeared to view. It was not a happy picture, but that may have been the fault of the climate. No aimless dalliance hand in hand beneath warm skies for poor English lovers who, if circumstances drive them to making love out-of-doors, are obliged to choose between the sharp brisk walk and the stupefying stuffiness of the cinema. They stumped on out of my sight, hands in pockets, heads bowed, and plunged, one would have said, in gloom.