THE next day, a Sunday, the judge of assize attended Matins in the Cathedral. Anybody who happened to be there that day is not likely to forget the remarkable and queerly touching little ceremony which marked the visit of Mr Justice Hurlstone as different from any other judicial visits.
More people than usual filled the chancel. A little before eleven the choir filed in; the Doctor honoured the occasion with all five Great Open Diapasons; the Dean and the canons lined up on either side of the choir gates, facing each other in two rows by their stalls. The tenor bell tolled eleven. The group of civic dignitaries assembled by the south door stiffened to attention as a car drew up outside. The Doctor, warmly improvising in B major, and warned by his assistant, who kept running along the loft, that Justice was imminent, enriched the firm prose of the Diapasons with the drama of the Full Swell. Everybody in the chancel turned their eyes to the nave. Only one familiar figure was absent. Constance Lady Hargreaves, for some reason, was not in her customary seat.
Walking up the nave very slowly, the Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, Clerks and Magistrates crossed the dais. The Doctor, his eyes glued to the little mirror which gave him a view of what went on below, made a sudden dramatic modulation to C major. The Dean and the canons pulled themselves up sharply, preparing for their ceremonial bow to the Judge. Finally, at the end of the procession, his lordship himself reached the choir gates. He was a small man with a nut-like, acid countenance that bore even less expression than the wig which fell round his shoulders. A slight, a very slight inclination of his head was his acknowledgment of the homage paid to Justice by the low bows of the Dean and Chapter. The next moment he ascended sharply to his seat in the Residentiary Canon’s stall. The canons and the Dean found their places; the Precentor hurriedly swallowed a lozenge; the Doctor quickly fell to B major and the choir Lieblich Gedacht. Meakins went to close the gates.
At that sacred moment, Lady Hargreaves appeared upon the dais.
Limping across the dais she reached the gates as Meakins was on the point of closing them. She did not hurry, neither did she linger; obviously, it never crossed her mind that Meakins might close the gates upon her, as he had been known to do upon many a bishop’s wife. A thousand eyes that had, a second before, been fixed upon the Judge, now swivelled to her. It was seen that she was carrying a miniature posy of autumn rosebuds, exquisitely woven together with white silk ribbon. ‘Too bad of me–too bad of me!’ we heard her murmur to Meakins. For the first time in his life, and I dare say the last, he admitted a person into the Choir at the precise moment when the wicked man, via the Precentor, was about to turn away from his wickedness and direct his attention to Morning Prayer–and that on a Sunday morning when His Majesty’s Justice was present. Never in the history of Cornford Cathedral had tradition been so gracefully violated.
But what did she do with her posy? What thunderbolt descended upon her as, stopping under the Judge’s stall, she curtsied slightly and reaching up to the desk placed the rosebuds gently upon the embroidered desk-cushion?
No thunderbolt descended. Not one single eyebrow flickered its displeasure. In other words, she got away with it. The lady who had been accused of conspiring with anarchists had made what all silently interpreted as a declaration of her innocence. Almost imperceptibly, Mr Justice Hurlstone was seen to smile; taking the rosebuds he raised them towards his nose, then laid them down a little to one side of the massive Prayer Book before him. Enough. Justice had smiled; openly, the Dean smiled; the Suffragan Bishop of Maidenhead whispered something to the Archdeacon of Wycombe; both smiled and nodded. The lay-clerks grinned; an unfortunate probationer giggled, and was frowned upon by Baker. The Precentor, instead of turning the wicked man away, dared to bid God not to enter into judgment with His servant. Lady Hargreaves, her mission accomplished, walked peacefully to her stall, pausing for a moment to lift a page of an anthem book which had fluttered down upon King John’s tomb. ‘Your anthem, I imagine?’ she murmured to Baker, at the top of Decani. Baker took the page from her, flushing crimson. ‘Thank you, Lady Hargreaves,’ he said, making a gallant attempt to show his juniors that he was accustomed to the society of the great ones of the earth.
The Lord Justice, his sallow face again a mask, sank to his knees. Lady Hargreaves took off her gloves, glanced round her, adjusted her horn spectacles, and opened her white ivory Prayer Book. A thousand knees nested on five hundred hassocks. Matins began.
I watched her, half proudly, half uneasily, during the singing of Stanford’s Te Deum in B flat. ‘We praise thee, O Hargreaves!’ I sang to myself. To-morrow night, after the concert, I proposed to travel to Lusk. Could I hope to do anything? Did I want to do anything? Pride flooded up in me. Who else in the world had been able to create an old lady with the courage to present roses to the Judge on Assize Sunday?
My eyes turned to the wrinkled little Judge. Would he one day apply the black cap for my benefit, supposing that . . .
‘Well, dear,’ said Archie in the vestry afterwards, ‘did she ever offer you posies?’
‘Serve her bloody well right,’ growled Dyack, ‘if they turned out to be full of green-fly.’
‘She seems to have h-lost all interest in you, Huntley,’ said Wadge. ‘I hoped we’d hear the banns h-read out by Christmas.’
‘Why do judges wear all that false hair?’ asked Peaty. ‘Bald, or what?’
‘Black cap sits better on a wig,’ remarked Slesser.
I shivered. ‘Suppose,’ I asked him suddenly, ‘they can’t find the body? Can they prosecute you for murder?’
‘Why, dear? Are you thinking of cutting your countess up?’
I shivered again and hung up my cassock.
‘That chap,’ said Dyack, ‘could hang a spider on his own web. Who put my bloody ’at up there? I’ve got enemies ’ere, I know. Things ain’t what they was. Roses!’
‘Did anybody notice that woman putting something on the Judge’s Prayer Book?’ purred Pussy Coltsfoot.
‘Posy,’ hummed Peaty in his ear.
‘That’s just what I thought,’ said Pussy. ‘Very nosy. It shouldn’t be allowed.’
I walked out into the Close with Archie. By the side door to the Deanery we came upon a little group, chatting amiably. The Dean, Archdeacon Cutler, Lady Hargreaves and Mr Justice Hurlstone.
‘You must positively command it always to be done,’ Lady Hargreaves was saying to the Judge. ‘It should, of course, have been presented to you at the moment of your entry into the Cathedral, but a minor domestic catastrophe delayed me, just as I was leaving my house. I trust, I do indeed trust, that I was not importunate?’
The Judge smiled gravely. ‘Perhaps you will have established a precedent, Lady Hargreaves. Who knows?’
I paused, with Archie, some yards away, and listened. None of them had seen me yet.
‘What’s this–ah–catastrophe?’ the Archdeacon was asking. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘Oh, no! Perhaps you remember that tiresome cockatoo of mine? Yes? I keep him in the kitchen solely to amuse the staff. Well, I am sorry to say that he escaped this morning and, driven by some avian instinct which we are powerless to comprehend, made a quite ferocious attack upon my poor little dog, Sarah.’
‘I hope the dog was not badly hurt?’ said the Dean.
‘On the contrary. Dr Pepusch–that is the fanciful name some stupid friend of mine gave to the bird–perished as a result of the encounter. I cannot say I am at all sorry.’
Here Archie said something to me. Hearing him, Lady Hargreaves turned round, glanced at us for a moment, frowned, and quite deliberately waited until we had passed before she went on with the conversation. As we turned under the Northgate I was able to hear her say, ‘Judge, what particular medicine do you reserve for tiresome young men who pester harmless old ladies like myself? Have you–’
I heard no more.
‘It’s no good worrying, mother. I’ve made up my mind to go away. The Dean said I could.’
‘But if you’re really ill, why don’t you see a doctor?’
‘It’s a change I want. I’m run down.’
‘Well, if doing nothing can run you down, you ought to be dead by now,’ said Jim.
‘Ireland!’ exclaimed mother. ‘What on earth do you want to go to Ireland for? I’m absolutely positive this wretched Lady Hargreaves is behind it all.’
‘No, mother,’ I said. ‘I’m behind her.’
Father was struggling with a skewer in the sirloin.
‘Can’t go till after the concert,’ he said. ‘Nobody understands my tune like you do.’
‘I shan’t miss that. We’re catching the night train to Heysham to-morrow.’
‘We? Who’s “we”?’ asked Jim.
‘Henry. He’s coming too.’
Mother planked a roast potato on my plate. She looked at me searchingly, holding a fork in her hand.
‘Now, just what monkey-trick are you two up to?’ she demanded.
‘Wish you’d see to the gravy,’ mumbled father. ‘I can’t be expected to carve and do the gravy, can I? Wonder whether those roses came out of her own garden?’
‘I’m just sick to death,’ cried mother, ‘of this story of the Judge and the roses! If you’ve told it once you’ve told it a dozen times since you came in. I’m sick to death of everything to do with Lady Hargreaves! As for you, Cornelius, I’m tired of you. You make no attempt to get the truth out of Norman. What am I going to say to everybody? Norman’s gone away Why? they will ask.’
‘Simply say he’s gone dotty,’ said Jim.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’ll do. Pass the horseradish sauce.’
‘I’d give anything to see you settle down,’ sighed mother.
‘Talking about judges,’ remarked father, ‘I once saw, at the Chelsea Flower Show, Mr Justice Dearest. Bending over some peonies, he was; just bending over them like you or me. A fellow came up and said, “Excuse me, but you mustn’t bend over the peonies like that”. Well beans, please–this fellow later came up for murder before Mr Justice What’s-his-name, and in summing up he said to the jury, “In considering this case you must, as an old Spanish saying goes, bend over the peonies”. Jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Wish Janie would skim the gravy more. One day, ’bout a year later, Mr Justice Whatever-he-is meets the fellow on top of a bus, carrying a large bunch of heleniums. They were going down the Tottenham Court Road, just past the Y.M.C.A.—or is it the Y.M.C.A.? Of course, there’s good and bad in these C.A.’s –good and bad. You’d better complain to the butcher, Dorothy; this meat’s like leather.’
‘Monday, October the 31st. Vigil of the Feast of All the Saints. Is C. H. soon to join them?’
My diary recalls a memorable evening.
Father, wearing a velvet dinner-jacket, prowled up and down the room, impatiently twirling his moustaches and fussing his tie.
‘Give me another glass of that claret,’ he said, ‘and a cigarette. Funny thing, I’m nervous. Why the devil can’t we start? I expect Grinling Gibbons used this room to work in. Fine writer!’
‘He didn’t write,’ I said, pouring some claret from a Georgian decanter and straining to hear the chatter of the company from the adjoining room. ‘He carved–pews and things.’
‘I wonder whether this concert’s on the air? I see they’ve got the telephone here. Find the Radio Times.’
‘Of course it’s not on the air.’
‘Everything’s on the air, boy. Wish you wouldn’t wear those made-up bows; anyone can see you didn’t tie it yourself.’
‘I wish you’d shut up, father. I did tie it myself, anyway.’
‘Well, tie it more carelessly next time. You don’t understand these things, my boy. Give me A.’ He drew his bow over the A string. ‘Suppose that’s in tune. Do you think they’d like my story about the spinach? When will that archdeacon stop talking? I’ve never found an archdeacon yet who could stop talking. Give me one of those cream-cheese things. What have you done with my mute, you devil?’
For some time we had been waiting in a small parlour which Lady Hargreaves used as a writing-room. It had a small upright piano in it. The grand, a Bechstein, was in the adjoining room, the drawing-room. Through the open double doors I could see the guests, some standing, some seated, far at the other end. The Dean, Canon and Mrs Auty, Archdeacon and Mrs Cutler, Colonel Temperley and Miss Linkinghorne. Austen and the Irish maid were offering round drinks and refreshments. A little apart from the others in a high, episcopal-looking oak chair, sat the hostess, her two sticks resting on either arm. Wearing a black silk dress with a high white lace collar and one green-stoned ring on her left hand, it seemed to me that she was at the height of her glory. All the appendages, such as whistle, pencil-on-chain, lorgnettes, with which I had first endowed her, had long ago been discarded. There was something sweetly ascetic about her; I could no longer feel she was my creation. It made me sad.
The Archdeacon was trumpeting on foreign policy. What we needed, according to him, was a firm hand. He declared it was essential.
‘No doubt about it, Lady Hargreaves. We English were born to govern. What did Blake say? Build Jerusalem here. Well, there’s still time.’
‘I trust it will not be jerry-built,’ said Lady Hargreaves rather sharply. Then she smiled at him graciously, with an air of patronage that completely escaped him. ‘But, no doubt,’ she said, ‘if the archidiaconal trowel is applied to the mortar, we need not fear the city will collapse. Canon–you are not eating anything. Take one of these Strasbourg pâtés, I beg you.’
‘This is so nice,’ murmured Miss Linkinghorne. She was wearing white in honour of the saints. ‘So nice. So much more interesting than a mere dinner.’
‘Time and place for everything,’ remarked the Colonel, doggedly engaging himself with a recalcitrant siphon in a corner by the fire. ‘No armchairs in Persia. They sit on the floor.’
‘This delightful informality,’ continued Miss Linkinghorne, ‘puts me in mind of the East, somehow. The Archdeacon mentioning the Holy City brought it all so vividly before me. Have you ever been there, Lady Hargreaves?’
‘Probably. I have been almost everywhere. Mrs Auty, I can see you are positively stifling. Take this little rush seat here. It comes from Norway and was once the property of Grieg.’
‘And you really composed all these verses yourself! Well!’ Mrs Auty, moving to the Grieg chair, had pounced on a copy of Wayside Bundle lying conveniently at hand on an occasional table.
‘Oh, dear!’ cried Lady Hargreaves. ‘How did you come by that? Where did you find it? These stupid servants! They will not put things away.’
‘Oh, let me look at it! Do let me look at it. I think poetry is so important.’
Miss Linkinghorne reached out for the volume, but Mrs Auty had already claimed it. She was a very large woman, Mrs Auty, whose great ambition in life was to run Cornford. Mrs Cutler had always been her Waterloo. Canon Auty, it was said, had first met his wife on a mountain in Switzerland, where he found her presiding over an impending avalanche. The choristers called her Excelsior.
But she was not to be allowed to preside over poetry. Firmly, yet gently, Lady Hargreaves took the book from her.
‘It should never have been left lying about.’ She spoke almost angrily. Then, idly, she opened it. ‘Tch-tch!’ she murmured. ‘“Cleft in the narrow gulf of gusty grief . . . ” What a line!’ She snapped the book to contemptuously and threw it aside on the table, well within Mrs Auty’s reach.
‘For pure beauty, take Shelley,’ said the Colonel. ‘Eh, Dean?’
Mrs Cutler, a thin female with eyes that could have drawn the past life out of a paper-weight, snatched the volume a second before Mrs Auty could again take it. Lady Hargreaves, murmuring something to Austen, did not notice.
‘Archer–Archer?’ Mrs Cutler screwed up her eyes, boring her gimlet nose deep into the pages. ‘Archdeacon, didn’t we know a clergyman called Archer–Philip Archer?’
‘Archer? H’m. Yes. I was up at Cambridge with a Philip Archer. He rowed in the Cambridge boat in ’81. Fine athlete.’
Lady Hargreaves, the moment she heard the name, rose and walked slowly towards the Archdeacon.
‘You knew Archer?’ she cried.
‘Think it must be the same man. Years since I saw him, of course. I heard he was married and had five daughters–’
‘The same–the same!’ Lady Hargreaves returned to her chair, closed her eyes and bent her head into her hands as a person does suddenly overcome by memories of the past. A respectful and slightly embarrassed silence fell over the company. The Archdeacon cocked his head towards the Dean inquiringly. Meanwhile, Mrs Cutler was rushing through Wayside Bundle in search of plums from the Archer tree.
‘When the hell are we going to start this music?’ said father, brutally breaking the silence.
All eyes turned on us. Lady Hargreaves, rousing herself from her reverie, sighed deeply and smiled a sad, far-away, reminiscent smile.
‘Forgive me, my friends,’ she murmured, ‘I trust that I am usually in control of my feelings. But I admit that the name Archer still has power to affect me.’
‘No good trying to hide feelings,’ mumbled the Colonel. ‘Never could myself. Don’t believe in it.’
‘Mr Archer,’ continued Lady Hargreaves, ‘many years ago–oh, so many years ago!–was my dearest friend. I still treasure a hip-bath that he once gave me–Oh, no!’ Her hand shot up imperiously as though to check at once any possibility of innuendo. Mrs Cutler worried Wayside Bundle from page to page. ‘Oh, no! It is not a story I can repeat except to the very, very closest friend.’
She glanced at the Dean.
‘Oh, quite, quite!’ he murmured.
‘I knew him,’ she went on, ‘at the University. Mad young things–wild young things! What days! Do the young people of to-day have so good a time, I wonder!’
‘There’s a lot of looseness about,’ said Mrs Cutler. ‘A terrible lot of looseness. Eh, Archdeacon?’
The Archdeacon tightened himself up, worried his coat buttons and nodded irritably.
‘Oh, I don’t agree,’ said Mrs Auty, who would rather die than agree with Mrs Cutler. ‘Let young people have a good time, that’s what I say. I always had a good time. People ought to have a good time. The Canon agrees, don’t you, Edward?’
Canon Auty, who had sat silent most of the evening, stroked his beard reflectively as though there, and only there, could a good time be found. ‘A good time,’ he said. ‘Yes. A good time. Let people enjoy themselves provided there is no–horseplay.’
‘Archer and I,’ remarked Lady Hargreaves, ‘were precisely of that opinion. As for horseplay, I have never favoured it and I never will. Is not that light a little trying for your eyes, Mrs Cutler? Take this seat, I beg you. My poor little book seems to entertain you. Yes,’ she continued in a reminiscent tone, ‘they were halcyon days–“halcyon days, wrapped in high summer’s indigenous haze . . . ” I quote from one of those youthful and yet perhaps spirited indiscretions in Wayside Bundle. No, my good Miss Linkinghorne, put the book down — I positively insist! Yes, dear–Archer was my afflatus in those happy days.’
‘Really?’ said the Colonel, peering over his glass. ‘Afflatus, eh?’ He suddenly winked at the Dean.
‘Halcyon days–!’ echoed Miss Linkinghorne. ‘How lovely! But how unusually lovely! There is something of the eternal abandon of the East in those words.’
‘Too much abandon about, eh, Archdeacon?’
‘I do think,’ remarked the Dean sleepily, ‘that our hostess ought to read us some of her verses. We all know she is a far more accomplished poet than her modesty allows her to admit. Come now, Lady Hargreaves!’
‘Oh, but I could not I could not! Oh, no! Do not tempt me. I abominate fuss!’
(Did I imagine it, or was something of the old Miss Hargreaves creeping into her voice?)
‘Please–please, Lady Hargreaves,’ purred the Linkinghorne. ‘I am so very fond of poetry.’
‘But this is mere versifying.’
‘I shouldn’t bother about it —’ began the Colonel. Lady Hargreaves broke in on him quickly.
‘Well, well–since you all insist. But you must not laugh at me. Thank you, Mrs Cutler’ (for Mrs Cutler had again got hold of the book, preferring to read than to be read to) ‘Oh, you have spilt a little wine over it! Oh, no, it does not matter at all ! Wine and poetry are old lovers, are they not? I was merely thinking of your loss. Austen, fill Mrs Cutler’s glass–’
‘Nice thing if we’re on the air,’ said father, ‘and everybody waiting everywhere.’
‘What shall I give you?’ Lady Hargreaves turned over the pages, running the ends of her spectacles along the lines. ‘Well,’ she announced, ‘I will give you “Halcyon Days”.’
She paused a moment, put on her spectacles, moved a lamp a little closer to her, cleared her throat and began:
‘Halcyon days, halcyon days, wrapped in high–’
The Colonel’s siphon chose that moment to start working. Lady Hargreaves stopped reading, frowned at him over her spectacles, and waited. The Archdeacon nudged him. There was silence. Lady Hargreaves proceeded:
‘Halcyon days!
Halcyon days!
Wrapped in high summer’s indigenous haze!
Peacocks and muscovy; jellies and jam;
Flannelled young athletes patrolling the Cam;
Hearts beating high, the barometer up–
Did we know then that there’s many a cup
’Twixt the slip and the lip and the tangerine pip?
In those far-away days when a crank was a quip
And never a handle for turning a car–
When Collects on Sunday were read by Papa
And spice could be found in a parish bazaar–
Oh, where have they gone to, those comfortable, far-away
Halcyon, halcyon days?’
‘Look here,’ said father, ‘if she doesn’t give the order for this music soon, I shall go out and start on my own. Come on, Norman. Let’s get going on my tune.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ I snapped. ‘Can’t you let her enjoy herself?’ (I wanted the evening never to end for her.)
‘Ilove that piece about the tangerine,’ Miss Linkinghorne was saying.
‘Quite charming,’ said the Dean. ‘Full of youth’s impulse. You must read us another.’
‘Yes–another–another!’
‘Well, what shall I choose? Remember, these are all trifles, seeds thrown out at random, ships that have, long ago, passed into my night. Perhaps you will find a thought here and there; no more. Christina Rossetti was good enough to say this one contained beauty. A strange thing. I wrote it at night on some tower–I cannot now remember where. It is very brief.’
Again she read:
‘I came, I go, I breathe, I move, I sleep,
I talk, I eat, I drink, I laugh, I weep,
I sing, I dance, I think, I dream, I see,
I fear, I love, I hate, I plot, I be.
And yet–
And yet–
I sometimes feel that I am but a thought,
A piece of thistledown, a thing of naught,
Rocked in the cradle of a craftsman’s story,
And destined not for high angelic glory.
And yet–
And yet–
I came, I go, I move, I breathe, I sleep,
I talk, I eat, I drink, I laugh, I weep.’
There was a long silence. She had read it slowly, with great feeling. I saw her touch her handkerchief to her eyes and I was terribly moved. Did she understand what she was? One line rang in my ears–‘destined not for high angelic glory’. Not with the saints, then! Oh, Connie–where?
‘Oh, profound!’ murmured the Dean at last. ‘You have obviously read your Donne.’
Again I detected the old Miss Hargreaves breaking through the later personality. Slamming the book down on the table, she rose and took off her spectacles.
‘I never read a page of Donne in my life!’ she snapped.
Father, weary of waiting, suddenly stepped out into the drawing-room and walked up to the party.
‘Evening, all,’ he said genially. ‘Bit chilly, isn’t it? Hullo, Miss Linkinghorne. How’s Jerusalem looking? Ah, Colonel–wondered where the whisky was. Hey there, bring me a glass, will you?’
I watched Lady Hargreaves anxiously. To my astonishment she showed no signs of annoyance; on the contrary, she was obviously amused by father.
‘Nice of you all to come and hear my tune,’ he said. He took a cigarette from a silver box. ‘Got a match on you, Mr Archdeacon? No? I’ll make a spill then–’
He took up Wayside Bundle as though to tear a page from it. It was a shop habit that he could never get out of.
Miss Linkinghorne let out a horrified scream.
‘The poems! The poems!’
‘What poems?’ said father, pausing rather irritably, the book still in his hands.
I expected Lady Hargreaves to pounce on him. But again she astonished me. Saying nothing, making no effort to rise from her chair, she smiled slowly, shaking her head from side to side. She seemed terribly tired suddenly. And when I realized that, I realized too, with a shock of understanding, that the lassitude of the last few days had gone from me and that I felt full of energy and power.
The Archdeacon had taken the book from father. ‘An odd way of lighting a cigarette,’ he said.
‘Oh, sorry,’ murmured father. ‘Never can remember. So many books about in the shop, y’know; sort of get used to tearing pages out. I suppose nobody’s seen my mute, have they? Some books are much too long, anyhow. Take The Bible in Spain. If that were written to-day he’d reduce it to a middle for the Manchester Guardian. By th’way ever tell you the story about Addison?’
I turned away, back into the parlour, and drew the curtains to the window which looked out to the front garden. I felt tense, on edge, full of frightening energy. At ten-fifteen Henry was calling for me in the car and we were driving to London to catch the night train for Heysham; my bag was packed, ready for Henry to collect. If the music didn’t start soon, we might miss the train. And if I missed the train I knew with absolute certainty that I should never again be able to bring myself to make that journey to Lusk. Why? Because she was changing–changing back to the Miss Hargreaves I had loved–to the Miss Hargreaves I had flung aside. The day of her independence was spent. I knew it. She was coming back to father and me, back to the people who truly understood what she was, back to the will who had made her and who would be able, yet again, to direct the path that her feet should take. Yes, I wanted her back, under my power. And yet–and yet–could I spend the rest of my life controlling her? It was a whole-time job; many years would have to pass before I could hope to do it perfectly.
‘Hurry up,’ I moaned. ‘Hurry up. Let’s get the music over. To Lusk–to Lusk–’
I heard father talking in the drawing-room. He’d quite forgotten about the music now; as usual, he was in the middle of a story.
‘–and there he was, this fellow on the bus, and Mr Justice Sweetheart said to him, “You mustn’t bend over the salvias like that, you know”. Of course, he’d done the murder and Avory knew it.’
Lady Hargreaves rose very slowly, took her sticks and touched father’s arm.
‘Come, Mr Huntley,’ she said, ‘let us start the music. Give me your arm to the piano.’
‘Take the other arm, Lady Hurley. That arm’s never quite the same since I had that accident in the National Gallery. Did I ever tell you about that?’
I came out from the parlour and started arranging music on the piano in a fever of impatience. Lady Hargreaves directed Austen to move her harp nearer to the lamp. She was still resting on father’s left arm.
‘Come come, Austen,’ she said, ‘a little this way. That will do.’ She reached the piano and rested one arm upon it, turning and facing the guests. ‘Thank you, Mr Huntley. Austen, see to Mr Huntley’s violin stand.’ While Austen fixed it up, she addressed the others. ‘We have planned a quite informal little concert. I had hoped that Schnabel would be able–’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Naturally, he has many engagements. However, let that not worry you. We have excellent talent in Cornford. Mr Cornelius Huntley assisted by Mr Norman Huntley and–myself, hope, for a brief space to–’
The siphon hissed again from the Colonel’s corner.
Lady Hargreaves glanced sharply over.
‘Austen,’ she snapped, ‘get the Colonel a quieter siphon.’
‘By the way,’ asked father, ‘are we on the air?’
‘Air, Mr Huntley?’
‘Yes. Air.’
‘I do not quite understand, Mr Huntley.’
‘Oh, well, never mind. Don’t suppose we are, in that case. Pity. Told Mrs Paton at the Happy Union to listen. Hand me my tune, Norman.’
‘We are opening our little concert,’ announced Lady Hargreaves, ‘with an original composition of my own. A slender link between the human consciousness and the untamed voice of nature. It is entitled a Canzona and I think I am betraying no secrets of composition when I tell you that it was inspired by the song of a willow-wren–’
‘Give me A, Norman, you devil. Here, what’s this? I said my tune.’
‘But she’s announced the Canzona.’
‘I don’t care what she’s announced. Give me my tune. And give me A, too.’
‘–I shall not easily forget that evening in a valley in my native Rutlandshire when from this elfin bird there poured forth notes which, in the words of a poet I cannot remember whom “plunged th’ incredulous universe to silence”. Much of it was written in my diary on the actual spot. Sir Henry Cowen was kind enough to commend it; it had imagery, he said. A Canzona, inspired–in F sharp major–by a willow-wren.’
She sat down, not far from the piano, and smiled at father. ‘We are ready,’ she said. ‘Give it legato, Mr Huntley. I beg you not to overlook the repeats.’
Father overlooked the whole thing. Without a word he started to play his tune for the G string.
Lady Hargreaves seized her sticks, rose, and made as if she were about to walk towards us. ‘Sit down!’ I muttered suddenly. She looked at me speechlessly, it was almost an appealing look, and slowly returned to her chair. I went on playing uneasily. I could not understand what was happening, except that I knew power was returning to me, slipping from her into me. I watched her. She was deathly still, her head low on her bosom, as she had been that day in the Cathedral when I had turned upon her. I was in anguish. Could I ever find the heart to destroy her?
Meanwhile, father soared away, suddenly beginning to improvise a cadenza which I was totally unprepared for. Holding a vague chord I waited, knowing that when he felt like it, he would return again to the original theme. So, after a few bars, he did. I don’t think I have ever heard him play so well. I felt proud of him. Every now and again I glanced over to Lady Hargreaves; although her eyes were covered by her hands, I knew she was watching father through the slits between her fingers. I wondered what she would say at the end of the piece, what words she would choose in which to tell the guests that we had not been playing her Canzona.
Richly, father approached the last bar, drawing, it seemed to me, much more than mere music out of the piece of wood held to his shoulder. Bending low, with his ear near to the strings, he sounded the last, long note. It was like a new sound in the world, as though father himself had discovered it and was loath to leave it. When he finally drew his bow from the violin, still holding it just above the strings, there was a long silence in the room, broken finally by the Dean, who murmured, ‘Bravo, bravo!’
And still Lady Hargreaves sat inert in her chair.
‘Reminded me of Beethoven,’ said the Colonel.
‘Thanks,’ said father. ‘Shall we do it again?’
‘Again–again!’ cried Miss Linkinghorne.
This stirred Lady Hargreaves. ‘No. It would be–a great mistake to repeat it.’ Every word now seemed an effort to her. I heard her murmur, ‘Beautiful, beautiful!’
The Archdeacon laughed. ‘You composers are too modest, Lady Hargreaves.’
‘You could hear the willow-wren in every bar, couldn’t you, Canon?’ said Mrs Auty.
‘Yes,’ he boomed. ‘One could certainly detect the voice of nature.’
‘When Carless next gives a recital,’ said the Dean, ‘I shall ask him to get Mr Huntley to play it in the Cathedral. This is a light, Lady Hargreaves, that must not any longer be hidden under a bushel.’
Lady Hargreaves looked at father, smiling almost sadly.
‘Here,’ I whispered to father, ‘do you realize they all think we were playing her Canzona?’
‘Oh? Well, what does it matter? They seemed to like it, that’s all that matters. What’re we doing next?’
‘You must tell them it wasn’t her Canzona. You–’
But Lady Hargreaves came towards us and interrupted me.
‘Thank you, Mr Huntley,’ she said, ‘for the most moving performance that I have ever heard.’
‘But–’ I began. She quickly silenced me, putting her finger on her lips. Turning to the guests, she announced, ‘And now, my friends, another original composition. This time by Mr Cornelius Huntley.’ She whispered to father and me. ‘You will now play my Canzona. Yes, yes–I know I have announced it as your composition. No matter. I am interested to see how it will be received. Norman dear, find the music.’
She had called me ‘Norman’; she had smiled; I was again dear. I put the Canzona on the music-stand while father tuned his violin. ‘All right, ready,’ he said. He closed his eyes dreamily.
Lady Hargreaves, with great deliberation, announced it. ‘Mr Huntley, accompanied by his son, will play an original air on the G string.’
‘H’m,’ muttered the Colonel loudly, ‘always fancied that was by Bach.’
‘Fool!’ I said, half aloud. ‘Fool!’
And, at the same moment, Lady Hargreaves uttered aloud, with remarkable vehemence, what I should like to have said. ‘Bach, my dear Colonel, did not invent the G string.’ She beckoned to Austen. ‘Austen, take the Colonel another bottle of whisky.’
A deathly silence fell amongst the guests. Nobody looked at anything except the carpet. Even the Cutler eyes could find no other field for investigation.
‘Proceed,’ commanded Lady Hargreaves, with a wave of her hand. ‘Proceed with your air, Mr Huntley.’
For the second time that evening father played his air on the G string. I often wonder whether he ever intended to do anything else.
‘No–no–’ I muttered at him.
‘Shut up!’ he hissed. ‘What’s the matter with you? She told me to play it again. Get on, you devil!’
Lady Hargreaves was beaten; there was almost a startled look in her eyes. Nothing short of an earthquake would have stopped him; and I’m not sure that he would have taken much notice of that. Already we were six bars into the composition.
I heard the Archdeacon whisper something about ‘this modern stuff’. The Colonel struck three matches over his cigar. The Dean jingled money in his pocket. Canon Auty searched in his beard. Mrs Cutler yawned very loudly.
When we had finished there was a chilly silence. Presently the Dean said, ‘Very nice. Perhaps a little beyond me.’
The Archdeacon said, ‘A little too advanced for us, eh, Mr Dean?’
Miss Linkinghorne said, ‘One would need to hear it several times, of course.’
The Colonel said, ‘I like tunes, myself.’
Mrs Auty said, ‘Funny stuff, wasn’t it, Edward?’
Canon Auty said, ‘It was certainly very well played.’
Mrs Cutler, who at least was honest, said, ‘I seem to have heard it before somewhere.’
Suddenly Lady Hargreaves, who all this time had said not a word, rose from her chair, tottered weakly into the little parlour without the use of her sticks, and slammed the double doors upon us all.
Panic seized me. Suppose she had a stroke and suddenly passed out? The thought was too awful.
I didn’t care a damn now about anything except her. Connie Hargreaves, my creation, was in that room, perhaps suffering, perhaps at the point of death.
Rushing to the parlour, I hurled open the doors. Austen was striding across the room towards me. I heard the Dean’s angry voice:
‘Huntley, stop! Come back!’
Rage seized me; a burning sense of the truth possessed me. With my back to the doors I turned and faced them all, the people who would never believe.
‘You go to hell!’ I cried. ‘Yes–you, Mr Dean–and all of you. She’s mine–mine ! She wants me. She doesn’t want any of you. You’ve –’
Austen took hold of my arm and tried to swing me away from the door.
‘Father!’ I screamed. ‘Help me with this brute. Help!’
Suddenly Lady Hargreaves cried out from the parlour.
‘How dare you, Austen! How dare you! Norman, come to me. Austen, show them all out–at once. I abominate–’ Her voice broke; she could not finish her sentence.
I ran in. She was half lying on a sofa, her head buried in cushions, her voice choked with sobs. It simply tore my heart out. Oh, yes, call me a hypocrite! Tell me that I’d planned to get rid of her and altogether been unmercifully cruel to her. But I tell you, seeing her there like that simply tore my heart out.
I fell down on my knees beside the sofa.
‘Dear Miss Hargreaves Oh, Miss Hargreaves Connie, dear don’t cry, please don’t cry. I can’t bear you to be unhappy.’
Her hand fell and clutched mine. ‘Norman Norman,’ she whispered.
‘What’s the matter? Tell me. Please. I’m your real friend.’
‘Oh, I know I know! That is why I am so unhappy. I realized it suddenly, during your father’s beautiful music all those stupid, stupid people–only applauding your father’s music because they thought it was by me. I am so tired. Call your father–I want him–I want you both. I have been unkind, so very unkind. How will you ever forgive me?’
The Dean was standing in the doorway; in a whispering group behind him, the other guests.
‘We must send for a doctor at once.’ The Dean stepped forward. ‘Huntley, you are doing no good here. Leave us.’
‘It’s you who have upset her,’ I said. ‘You and all your gang. Go away all of you!’
‘Monstrous impertinence!’ snapped the Dean.
‘Away! Away!’ screamed Lady Hargreaves with amazing venom. ‘Out of my house–all of you! Yes, you too, Dean! Away! Away!’ She fell back again, exhausted.
Father pushed his way through the others and came in.
‘Air!’ he cried. ‘Give her air! What you want is anodyne. You want anodyne in a case like this. And cotton-wool. Norman, get some cotton-wool. She’ll be all right. Cousin Terence went off like this–cotton-wool and anodyne and in five minutes he was cycling home fit as a fiddle.’
The Dean had backed away almost nervously. Outside I could hear the impatient tooting of a motor-horn; I went to the window and looked out. Over the other side of the road I could see the lights of Henry’s car. I went to the doors and closed them deliberately on the bewildered guests.
Lady Hargreaves sat very still on the sofa, looking before her into space, as though she saw something we couldn’t see. Her lips moved; I heard her muttering something.
‘A joke. He told me once–I am only a–joke–’
Nobody said anything. Father shook his head and looked at me significantly. The front door closed and the house was silent.
‘Give her a glass of wine, Norman,’ said father presently.
I offered her some claret. She smiled, but refused it. ‘Thank you. Thank you. But–no. Mr Huntley, take some wine yourself, I beg you. And you, Norman.’
She rose in a valiant attempt to fill our glasses. But she could not manage to walk far without her sticks.
‘You sit down now,’ said father. He took her arm, helped her back to the sofa while I arranged cushions behind her. ‘Might as well be comfortable,’ said father, returning to the claret.
‘My dear, dear friends,’ she said. ‘I have treated you so badly. Can you set it down to this detestable title? I do not know how I came by it; I never asked for it and I feel it was not meant for me. I am no aristocrat. I belong to no class.’
‘You know,’ said father, his hand on the decanter, ‘on the District Railway they used to have four classes. Extraordinary!’
‘Oh, Cornelius!’ She smiled affectionately at him. ‘You must let me call you by your first name–’
‘Anything you like. Got three Christian names, but never use them nowadays.’
‘Cornelius, how I love your drollery! I sometimes think you understand me better than anybody except, of course, Norman. No one can understand me as Norman does. And now he sees me for what I really am: a lonely old woman who–’
‘Oh, don’t!’ I muttered. ‘Don’t!’
Outside, Henry’s motor-horn tooted again. The clocks struck ten-fifteen. In an agony of uncertainty I walked to the window, then back to the centre of the room.
‘Yes, a lonely old woman,’ she went on, ‘who broke beyond the bounds prescribed for her by her maker.’ She paused and looked at me. I knew then that she knew; I knew, too, that it could never be mentioned openly between us.
‘I have no friends,’ she said, ‘no friends except Norman and you, Cornelius. And–there is somebody else. Another friend–a young man–a friend of yours, Norman. I cannot quite remember.’
‘You mean’ I looked at her ‘Henry Beddow?’
‘Yes. Henry Beddow. He, too, understands me understands something of my terrible limitations.’
– I had a sudden idea. ‘Father,’ I whispered, ‘look after her for a minute.’
I ran out and went to the door; down the drive I saw Henry’s car. ‘Henry!’ I called. ‘Henry!’
I ran to the car.
‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘Don’t say you’ve changed your mind now.’
‘No. We must see it through. But–it may be the last time, Henry. I want you to come in. I can’t–’ I couldn’t speak.
‘Do you know,’ said Henry, getting out of the car. ‘I wanted to come in.’
Slowly we returned to the house.
As we came into the room, she looked up, smiled, and rose, walking towards us on father’s arm.
‘Henry!’ she murmured. ‘Dear Henry!’
We all three stood silently looking at her, smiling, unable to find a word to say.
‘Oh, my friends!’ she cried suddenly. ‘Can you believe will you ever believe in spite of my unkindness to you recently–that I cannot exist without your friendship–I might almost say, without your co-operation?’
‘We know that,’ muttered Henry thickly.
‘You mustn’t rely on Norman,’ warned father.
She clasped her hands before her and a strange, far-away light came into her eyes. ‘Can I see,’ she cried, ‘a future stretching away for us? Away! Away somewhere! How weary I am of this Cathedral society! Sometimes I pine for the open country for a caravan, a donkey, the benison of friends. The world is so dull. Could not we four polish up the tarnished armour of life and make it glow again? We four on some far-off horizon where sunward floats the gull? My friends, my friends! Life, if we choose it to be so, lies in the hollow of our hands!’
Father poured himself a second glass of claret and thoughtfully examined the palms of his hands.
‘Never again,’ she cried, with a burst of old energy, flinging out her arms, then clutching to the sofa for support, ‘never again must we four be parted! Never! Our fate–yours too, Cornelius–for, in some way I know not, you are truly one of us –’
‘That’s right,’ said father. ‘Blame me.’
‘Our fates are intertwined,’ she said. ‘I feel as close to you as the mistletoe to the oak.’
‘Remarkable stuff, mistletoe,’ observed father. ‘Ever tell you how my Uncle Arly found some growing in an old horseshoe that used to hang over the place where he shaved every morning? Well, really extraordinary he took that shoe, see? And shod his mare with it horse called Sorrel it was, and–’
‘Father stop!’ I cried. I couldn’t bear his talking.
‘Sorry,’ he said. He really looked hurt.
‘Do not stop him,’ murmured Lady Hargreaves. ‘Never stop him. He must never be stopped.’
I knew I must say something.
‘Miss Hargreaves’ I went closer to her.
‘Yes, dear?’
‘Connie, I–’
‘Yes, dear? What do you require of me? What do you both require of me?’
‘I–I–’I struggled for words. Never had I so hated myself; never had I so loved her. But she had said she felt as close to us as the mistletoe to the oak. It was too close.
‘Norman,’ groaned old Henry. He was sweating. ‘We can’t do it. We–’
‘We can,’ I muttered. I turned again to Miss Hargreaves. ‘We’re going away,’ I said slowly.
‘Away?’ Disappointment, fear, clouded her face.
‘For a few days. To Ireland.’
She said nothing. She only looked at me in a long searching gaze which I could not bear to interpret.
‘To–Lusk,’ I whispered.
‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Yes?’ I could barely hear her.
When I could bring myself to look at her I saw there were tears in her eyes. For what seemed a long time we stood there looking at each other, saying nothing. Then she came forward and took both my hands in hers. I knew what had passed in her mind; I knew she had been tempted to make a last stand for her existence.
‘Listen.’ She spoke to us all. ‘Let it be said. I am not as other people.’ She stood in the centre of the room, all three of us gathered round her as though we feared she would collapse. ‘For a little while,’ she went on, ‘I broke into a life which I was never intended to lead. But now–I know what I am. “ . . . a thought, a piece of thistledown, a thing of naught, rocked in the cradle of a craftsman’s story . . . ” Yes. When I read those lines, I remembered–what I was.’ She paused. Then. ‘Come! It grows late. I am tired. But before you go–oh, I am so very tired!–I want to play you one of my dear Irish airs.’
Slowly we moved to the doors. Stopping for a moment, she laid her hand on Henry’s shoulder and smiled at him. ‘I did not get to know you well enough,’ she said. ‘But perhaps there may yet be time. I do not know.’
We all three went into the drawing-room. Sitting on a little stool, she drew her fingers across the strings of her harp. Very slowly and lingeringly she played ‘Over the sea to Skye’.
When she had finished, nobody spoke. She walked with us to the door, wrapping a silk shawl round her shoulders. There was a hint of frost. As we opened the door the Cathedral clock chimed the half-hour.
Father coughed. ‘Well, sorry we never played your piece, Miss Hargreaves; must do it–another time. Good-bye. Like your cotoneaster here.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Henry.
‘Good-bye,’ I said. For a moment I held her hand.
‘I have–enjoyed it all, so much,’ she said.
We went down the drive. I stopped at the gate and waved. Faint in the misty air, I saw her waving back.
I ran across the road and leapt into Henry’s car.
‘Quick!’ I muttered. ‘For God’s sake, drive quickly!’