For some reason the sad fate of Cattermole’s bitch seems to affect Denton deeply. His chin sinks against his chest; his eyes glaze. As his cronies leap in with other similar stories of Romany outrage, Denton seems not to hear them. He shakes his head, mumbles to himself, grasps the neck of the port decanter, and slops more port into his glass.
His third glass, Shawcross notes from the far end of the table. Drunkard. Sot. Philistine. Denton the cuckold was already drunk by the time they sat down to table; now he is well and truly soused.
Shawcross takes a small and ladylike sip of the port, which happens to be excellent, and then pats at his small neat mouth, his beautifully pomaded beard, with a snowy napkin. The sight of the cleanly napkin, his own small cleanly hands with their carefully buffed and manicured nails, pleases him. His nostrils quiver; the smell of carnation soap, of his own fine cologne, generously applied, reassures him. With a tight supercilious smile he averts his eyes from Denton’s end of the table and surveys the guests closer to him. To his left, receding into the distance, are a senile earl, a prim bishop, his acquaintance Jarvis (who has cornered some Cavendish neighbor with a fine collection of Landseers). Nothing very promising there.
To his right sits the prominent financier Sir Montague Stern, in conversation with George Heyward-West (percentage points again, no doubt of it). Beyond them, a group of younger male guests, including Hector Arlington, whose father’s land adjoins that of the Conyngham family. Arlington, an earnest and studious young man, is rumored to be an amateur botanist of some distinction. Shawcross permits himself a small sneer—a botanist! Nothing there.
Beyond Arlington, a group of elegant young Etonians with braying accents and, beyond them, interspersed with a number of unnervingly prominent men, sit Gwen’s trio of elder sons: Boy, who is looking flushed and anxious; Frederic, who has contrived to become slightly drunk; and Acland, who has been silent and preoccupied for most of the evening.
Shawcross sees Acland stifle a yawn, and notes that Acland seems to be drinking only water. He notes, too, that Acland appears to be listening to the man next to him, but in fact is not; he sees that Acland’s gaze moves from face to face, and he has the impression that that gaze misses very little.
Acland’s regard is always unsettling to Shawcross, and he turns away now lest he should be forced to meet Acland’s eyes. Shawcross has the feeling—it has intensified these last months—that Acland does not merely dislike him, Acland knows. He knows of the affair with Gwen; he knows, or senses, the contempt Shawcross feels for Gwen—a contempt Shawcross had always believed well hidden. That question, earlier, tossed by Acland across the tea table: Shawcross, you never told us. How did you divert yourself this afternoon? No accident, that question, Shawcross feels, and carefully calculated to cause him unease. God, how he loathes that boy…. Shawcross makes a small ceremony of lighting a cheroot, conscious that Acland’s eyes are upon him now. He shifts in his seat. Apart from anything else, he hates that Acland should see him as he is now, socially disadvantaged, speaking to no one, yet again left out. Clearing his throat, Shawcross leans forward and interrupts the monetary murmurs to his immediate right.
George Heyward-West breaks off with a look of surprise. The financier, Sir Montague Stern, is more urbane. He takes Shawcross’s interjection in his stride, admits him to their conversation, turns it to include him. Within seconds they have passed from equities to opera; Shawcross is mollified.
Montague Stern is known as a prominent patron of Covent Garden; Shawcross, who is unmusical, knows nothing of opera and cares less, but at least it counts as one of the arts; at least it is a subject of some sophistication, preferable to belchings and grumblings about gypsies and hounds.
He manages a quite passable witticism (he feels) on the subject of Wagner, and eyes Sir Montague’s waistcoat, an unconventional affair of embroidered crimson silk. Shawcross relaxes, and Sir Montague, a generous man, does not correct him when he confuses Rossini and Donizetti.
Shawcross sips his port more heartily, aware that he is becoming slightly, pleasurably, indulgently drunk. A couple of swallows and he feels ready to dazzle. Opera into theater, theater into books …
Conscious, at the back of his mind, that Acland’s eyes are still watching him, Shawcross grows more expansive still. Let Acland watch; let him try to find fault if he can! Shawcross is not the outsider now; he is in full metropolitan flood, and the names of fashionable deities (all friends, all such close close friends, Wells, Shaw, Barrie—such a charming little man, Barrie) pour from his lips like rosewater, nectar, balm.
Sir Montague listens quietly. Occasionally he nods; once or twice (Shawcross does not notice) he shakes his head. Shawcross feels elation take its hold, even risks a small triumphant glance in Acland’s direction. Safe, safe on his gracious and bountiful home territory, literature in general, in particular those works of literature penned by himself. Here, on these heights, no one can snub him and no one can sneer—no one present at this table anyway. Sir Montague? A cultured man, certainly; an intelligent and sophisticated man, yes, but Sir Montague’s attention only adds to the sense of security Shawcross now feels.
For Sir Montague, alone of the men present, is in no position to patronize and look down. He cannot despise Shawcross for his breeding, his schooling, his manners, his way of dress. And why not? Why, on the contrary, can Shawcross feel that sweetest sensation of all: that it is he who can condescend, he who can patronize?
Simple: Sir Montague is a Jew. He came—or so rumor says—from the very humblest origins, and though he may have risen high, very high, he cannot leave those origins, racial and social, behind. They are marked in his features, recognizable in his waistcoat, traceable, just occasionally, in his voice, which has a richness, a cadence that sings of Central Europe, not the English shires.
Splendid, as far as Shawcross is concerned, for of course he despises Jews, just as he despises women or the working classes, the Irish, any person with a dark skin…. To ally himself with Sir Montague against the philistines, yet to be sure at the same time that he, Shawcross, is innately superior—oh, the pleasure is exquisite. His witticisms spiral to new heights. He feels acute disappointment when the port drinking ends and his performance is curtailed.
“My dear fellow,” he says, and rests his hand on Sir Montague’s arm. “You haven’t read it? But you must. You would appreciate my finer points, I feel sure. Once I return to London—no, please, I insist! I shall send ’round a copy—signed, naturally. Just let me have your address. It shall be with you first thing.” Sir Montague inclines his head; he gives a small (foreign) half-bow.
“My dear fellow,” he says—his tone is gracious; Shawcross sniffs no irony at all—“My dear fellow. Please do.”
Later the same evening. The party now is in full swing, and Gwen’s drawing room glitters with laughter, warms with conversation. Later the same evening, as spirits mount and the advent of the comet draws near, Boy Cavendish takes Jane Conyngham to the gun room.
The visit is prompted by Jane, and it springs from desperation. Hours before, over dinner, when they were paired yet again, Boy exhausted the only subject—photography—that ever animates him. Valiantly, as course succeeded course, he and Jane tacked back and forth on the choppy seas of polite conversation. Boy’s replies were distracted, often monosyllabic. By the time Jane was toying with cabinet pudding, they had finally foundered on the sandbanks of travel. There they discovered that while Jane (who loves museums, who never moves a step without her Baedeker guide) has been to Florence, Rome, Venice, and Paris, Boy’s expeditions abroad have been more limited. He spends his summers at Winterscombe, his autumns at Denton’s Scottish estates, his winters in London. Prompted by Jane, Boy recalls that he did, once, make an expedition to Normandy with his aunt Maud, but that was when he was very young, and the food made him sick.
“Papa,” Boy says, blushing painfully, “Papa doesn’t really approve of ‘abroad.’”
Once the men join the women i
n the drawing room after dinner, things improve, for Acland draws Boy to one side and Jane is left—to her relief—with Freddie. Freddie is less pleased by this situation; he does not wish to be trapped with Jane. He frowns in the direction of his elder brothers, who both look pale and appear to be arguing. He turns back to Jane and, mustering his training, compliments her on her dress.
In fact, Freddie does not like this dress—a particularly gloomy green—but he manages to inject some sincerity into his remark, for Jane does look well. Her thin face is flushed with faint color; her hair is attractively arranged in soft waves, which emphasize the height of her forehead and her wide-spaced hazel eyes. Acland has contended in the past that Jane is not plain, that her intelligence shines through her face, lending her a kind of beauty. Freddie would not agree with this (Acland being perverse) but he does manage the remark about the frock. Jane frowns.
“Freddie, please don’t be polite. The dress is … a mistake.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It had good intentions, this dress….” Jane pauses. “They have not been fulfilled.”
Jane glances toward the figure of Acland as she says this. Freddie finds the remark incomprehensible, possibly a joke—and he never understands Jane’s jokes.
An awkward silence falls. Freddie scans the drawing room for assistance and finds none. He manages to catch the eye of Hector Arlington, but Arlington, seeing Jane, moves rapidly away.
Freddie knows why this is: Arlington was once expected to marry Jane—expected to do so by her family, anyway. The match was promoted with great energy by her aunt. Arlington—a confirmed bachelor, according to Acland—managed to extricate himself before gossip compromised him. Freddie doubts Boy will have such an easy escape. Not if his father has anything to do with it.
What a fate, to end up with a bluestocking! Freddie gives Jane a sideways glance. According to Acland (again) Jane was offered a place to study literature at Cambridge and refused it when her elderly father fell ill. Freddie squirms in his chair and wonders how he may decently leave. He cannot decide whether the idea of university women is appalling or funny.
“Is Boy unwell?” Jane asks, with a suddenness that startles Freddie.
“Unwell?”
“He looks so pale. I thought at dinner he seemed a little distracted….”
Probably worrying about the proposal, Freddie thinks to himself, and hides a smile.
“It’s the weather, I think. He said earlier that he had a headache. Oh—and he’d lost one of the bits of his camera tripod. You know how he fusses about that camera! It won’t stand up without it. I expect he’s fretting about that.”
“I don’t think so. He must have found it. He was taking photographs earlier, by the lake. The swans, you know. I was with him. It was just before dinner.”
Again Freddie suppresses a smile. So: clearly Boy has had an opportunity to propose and has funked it.
“Yes, well, I can’t think of a reason then,” he says politely. “Anyway, he’s coming back now,” Freddie adds with relief as Boy leaves Acland’s side. “Perhaps you’ll excuse me?”
He makes a speedy exit. Boy sits by Jane, and—to her increasing despair—the appalling stilted conversation begins again. Nothing, it seems, can animate Boy, not music, books, the other guests, the advent of the comet—nothing. Somehow the conversation comes around to shoots, from there to guns, from guns to the famous Purdeys. Jane remarks that they must be very fine. She remembers her brother, Roland, settling for Holland guns, which he said were good, but not quite as—
“I’ll show you them, if you like. I’ll show you them now.” To Jane’s astonishment, Boy interrupts her. He rises to his feet. He holds out his arm. He sets off at a fast pace, Jane in tow. He appears not to notice the knowing smiles and indulgent glances as they leave the room, but Jane sees them. So, people think the proposal is imminent—and they are wrong.
Hastening along corridors and down stairs, Jane believes she knows the reason for Boy’s alacrity. There are many places in which a conventional man may be expected to propose: by a lake, for instance, overlooking some charming vista; on a terrace by moonlight; perhaps in a conservatory—yes, that would suit Boy. Any of those places, but a gun room? Never. In the gun room, safe from proposals, they discover something astonishing: The matched pair of Purdeys is missing.
This discovery—which takes some time to confirm, for Denton’s gun room is a veritable arsenal of weapons—seems to make Boy very nervous indeed. In a testy and abstracted way, he explains: His father has organized this gun room with fetishistic care. There are only four keys to the room: His father has a key, he has a key, Acland has recently been granted one, and the last is in Cattermole’s safekeeping. Other keepers are occasionally admitted to the room to clean guns, but only when his father or Cattermole is there to supervise them.
Despite the fact that the glass-fronted case containing the Purdeys is unlocked, and the guns clearly not there, Boy refuses to accept that they are missing. He hunts high and low, in corners, behind cupboards, his manner becoming more and more agitated.
“Papa will be furious, absolutely furious! Please”—he takes Jane’s arm in a pleading way—“please don’t mention this, will you, to anyone?”
“Of course not, Boy,” Jane replies, and she keeps her word. The incident will be recorded in her journals, but it will never be discussed, just as Boy’s announcement that the guns have been found after all (two days later) will never be discussed. Boy will never mention the matter again—not even when he is called upon to give evidence to an inquest intended to examine all the events of this night in fine detail.
In the gun room Jane sees on Boy’s face a look of childish dismay. Poor Boy, she thinks. Boy, who is unmanned by his father, is not really worrying about his father and the Purdeys; he is worrying about his father and a proposal.
She feels a spurt of pity for Boy, trapped in this farce every bit as much as she is. She will tell him, she thinks, and tell him now: she does not want him to propose, and if he does, she will certainly refuse him. All the sentences are there, stacked waiting in her mind. They are there, but they are never spoken.
At that moment a gong is struck. It echoes, reverberates, through halls and passageways: a ghostly sound. Boy jumps. But that gong is only a signal: a signal for the comet, a signal for the guests that it is time to gather outside.
Boy seems to greet it as another reprieve.
“Better hurry,” he says, and Jane, knowing her moment of honesty has been lost, looks around at weapons, then follows him.
So many people, outside on the terrace at Winterscombe, gazing up at the night sky. A breeze blowing; a calm night; expectation. “Over there!”
It is Acland who glimpses it first, and points. All around him people mill and push, crane their necks, fill in the waiting minutes by trying to identify the constellations.
The polestar, Orion, Cassiopeia, the twins Castor and Pollux, the Great Bear, the Little Bear. Tonight the sky is clear of cloud; the stars are glorious. They look (Acland thinks) like bright seeds scattered across the heavens by the hand of a generous, a profligate God; their profusion dazzles his mind. He moves away from the others so that the buzz of their conversation will not intrude on him, so that he can be—as he prefers it—alone.
He looks up at the sky and feels exultant. On such a night all things are possible; all the shabby things of life, all nuance and subterfuge and compromise and untruth are banished. For a moment, just before he sees the comet, he experiences a great soaring of the spirit, as if he left the dull gravitational pull of the earth far behind him and was swept up among the stars.
The sensation does not last. It is already fading when he glimpses the comet first, and the comet sobers him. He had expected it to be a disappointment, this comet, this much-heralded phenomenon. Random particles, gases, and dust. He had been sure it would be less than spectacular.
As soon as he sees it, he knows he was wrong. The comet awes him; it awe
s his companions. As he shouts, and points, the conversation dies away; the people on the terrace are silent.
One long curvature of light. The comet arcs; the stars pale; the darkness flares; the great trajectory is silent.
It is this, Acland thinks, that makes the apparition so unearthly and so fearsome. Volition, blaze, and silence. With such speed and conflagration, he expects noise, the crackle of flame, the burst of an explosion, even the roar of an engine (like a motorcar or a steam train, like an aeroplane—Acland has seen an aeroplane, once).
But the comet is as silent as a star, and it is this (Acland decides) that is so awesome. This, and—just for an instant—a perception of the future. For this comet will return, of course, some seventy-six years from now; that much is certain.
Acland looks and calculates (as perhaps, just then, each person looks and calculates). The comet will next be seen in the year 1986. The digits sound foreign, unimaginable, bizarre. By then, he will be … ninety-three.
He will not live that long—of that fact Acland is at once sure. It is too ancient, too unlikely, too far beyond the allotted span of three-score years and ten. He keeps his eyes on the comet, watches light curl. He knows: once only in a lifetime; he will never see it again.
Acland watches and (briefly) understands his own mortality. It saddens and angers him. So few years, Acland thinks; before it is over, he would like to do one thing daring, one thing extreme, one thing glorious.
He turns impatiently, furiously, away. He must be with Jenna; he must be with her now—and he does not care who sees him leaving. Life is so short, Acland thinks, and turns in the direction of the stables; there, Jenna has promised to meet him. He quickens his pace. No one sees him leave except Jane Conyngham (who always watches him).
The air is sweet in Acland’s lungs. The exultancy has returned. Tonight, I could do anything, Acland says to himself, begins to run, and glances back, once, over his shoulder.