From a View to a Death, page 18
‘But what are you going to do about Major Fosdick?’
‘What can I do about him? You ask such strange questions.’
‘Someone ought to be told. There is no knowing what he may do next. Something disgraceful. In public.’
‘I don’t see that I can do anything. I don’t really see that it is in any way my business. Except that of course, as you say, I shall certainly tell the children not to go to his house.’
‘Perhaps you are right. It is certainly the sort of thing that we do not want to get mixed up in.’
‘I always disliked that old fellow.’
‘You know I never cared for him myself, Vernon. Nor his wife.’
‘Now one realises how careful one has to be.’
‘One does indeed.’
‘In the circumstances there seems very little to do.’
‘Perhaps you are right.’
‘Then shall we agree to say no more about it?’
Mrs. Passenger nodded her head and taking off her gardening gloves, went on with her writing. Mr. Passenger felt nearer to his wife than he had done for years. He thought for a second what a wonderful thing sympathy was.
9
‘THEY took him away,’ said Mrs. Dadds. ‘Jabbering something awful, he was. Mr. Dawkin was passing. It gave him a rare turn. Might have been one of the Orphans, he said.’
Joanna listened to the story of Major Fosdick’s mental collapse in silence. The narrative had already grown in volume considerably since the Major had been driven quietly away early one morning to a nursing home on the south coast. Mrs. Dadds said:
“Shouldn’t wonder if he spent a year or two in a strait, poor gentleman. Treat him something terrible they will. Fair devils they are.’
‘A strait?’
‘Strait-waistcoat, miss. They’ll give him a padded cell.’
‘But he has only had a nervous break-down. He hasn’t gone to an asylum. He’ll be back soon.’
Mrs. Dadds shook her head and sniffed.
‘Poor gentleman,’ she said. ‘And there goes that Mr. Jasper playing about on the golf course just as if nothing had happened. Hitting about as if nothing in the world was wrong. And all the time his own father in one of them things. You wouldn’t believe it.’
Joanna knelt down and buckled on Spot’s collar. It was time to take the dogs for their walk. Mrs. Dadds, preparing to leave the room, caught one of her feet in Ranger and nearly fell down. Ranger growled and tried to snap at her ankle, missed it, and fell asleep again.
‘Come on, dogs,’ said Joanna.
Mrs. Dadds, aggrieved and rubbing her leg, watched them leave the house. Then she went back to the kitchen, muttering to herself. It was going to be a dull afternoon, because Mrs. Brandon was asleep and there was no one to talk to.
Joanna took the dogs out of the town and across the fields. She was going on one of the several possible walks in the neighbourhood and one which would take her back to the other end of the town, bringing her home at the right time for tea. The ground was hard and there was mist about in the hollow places among the fields. Joanna walked along, planning out her life. On this subject she found it difficult to come to any satisfactory conclusions. As she went through a clump of trees she heard horse’s hoofs coming along the track on the other side and she came out in the open at the same time as Zouch, riding one of the Passengers’ hacks, reached the copse.
She recognised him at once, although he had shaved off his beard. There was something about his appearance that she knew she would never forget. Zouch was not so quick to see who it was standing among the trees. He had thought it wise to go out on a horse once or twice before riding to hounds, and, as Mary was in bed with a cold, he found it a good opportunity for escaping from the rest of the Passenger family.
‘Hullo,’ said Joanna.
Zouch reined in his horse and lifted his hat. For a few seconds they looked at each other. Then Zouch dismounted and said:
‘Hullo, Joanna. How are you?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘You’re looking very pretty.’
‘Am I?’
‘You’re looking charming.’
He slipped his arm through the reins and, going towards her, he took her hands in his. She let him take them but he felt that her arms were hanging quite limply from her shoulders. He said:
‘Aren’t you glad to see me?’
The horse, bored at the sudden lack of supervision, butted him unexpectedly in the small of the back and made him stumble. Joanna laughed. She said:
‘Yes, I am rather, as a matter of fact.’
‘Tell me what you have been doing.’
As she did not speak, Zouch said: ‘Well. What has been happening?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, surely something must have happened.’
‘Major Fosdick has had a nervous breakdown. Some people say he has gone of? his head. Nothing else.’
‘I heard about that. But what have you been doing? Haven’t you had any proposals or anything like that?’
‘Oh, yes, Jasper proposed to me again yesterday.’
‘Did you accept him?’
‘No.’
Zouch said: ‘You know, Joanna, I’m not sure that you are not making a mistake. You see I am very fond of you and I have thought a good deal about it and really, you know, Jasper is not such a bad chap. I know he has his faults. After all most of us have. He is not any too bright. I mean he doesn’t appreciate things as we do and all that, but there are far worse-hearted fellows than Jasper about. And after all, whatever one may think about him, he is a gentleman. You can’t help seeing that as soon as you meet him. I’m not a snob. I hate that sort of thing and I have to be specially careful because as soon as an artist becomes a snob, well he’s done for. He just can’t go on. But you’re not the sort of girl who can marry anybody. You want someone who can understand you and I’m not sure you haven’t found the right man in Jasper. Anyway think it over. It never does any harm to get one’s ideas into order.’
‘You mean you think I ought to marry him?’
‘You know, Joanna, I believe I do.’
‘Well, perhaps I will.’
‘I think you might do much worse.’
‘And how is your engagement going?’
‘My engagement?’
‘Yes. Aren’t you engaged to Mary Passenger?’
‘Well, yes, I am.’
‘Then how is it going?’
‘It’s going quite satisfactorily.’
‘Good.’
‘You sound very bitter, Joanna. Are you cross with me?’
‘Why should I be?’
‘I thought you sounded cross.’
‘Not in the least.’
‘From the way you spoke I thought that you were. You must come and see us when we are married. I expect you will come to London one of these days. You always wanted to, didn’t you? We shall probably live most of the time in London. Of course I expect we shall come down here occasionally.’
‘Well, good-bye.’
‘Are you going?’
‘Yes.’
‘Aren’t you going to give me a kiss before you go?’
‘Do you want me to?’
He took her hands again and kissed her on the cheek. She felt quite lifeless to him. It was like kissing a block of wood. He was disappointed and said:
‘You know, Joanna, I shall always be very fond of you.’
‘Will you?’
‘Always.’
‘That’s splendid.’
He turned to get on his horse and had one foot in the stirrup when Spot and Ranger began to quarrel under the animal’s hoofs, so that Zouch was compelled to hop quickly for several yards while he tried to steady his mount, and he was already some way away from Joanna by the time he reached the saddle. He waved his hand to her and began to trot. Joanna called to the dogs and continued to walk along the track which led by a semicircular route back to the town.
The library at Passenger was a white panelled room with book-shelves along the walls and a bust of Pallas-Athene over the mantelpiece. The Passengers had all gone to bed and Zouch remained there reading The Economic Consequences of the Peace, because he did not feel in the mood for sleep that evening and there was something matter-of-fact about this book which appealed to the overwhelmingly practical side of his nature. He had been reading for some time when he heard the loud tramping of someone coming along the corridor. It was the weary, heavy tread of someone who carried a weight that he wanted to get rid of as soon as possible. Zouch sat forward in his chair, wondering who it could be. The steps came nearer. He heard the person, whoever he was, pause at the far end of the library and put something down before he opened the door. Zouch watched across the shadows of the dimly lighted room and saw Marshall, the butler, advancing towards him, holding an oil-lamp in one hand and in the other a pair of highly polished top-boots. Zouch put down his book as the butler came across the carpet. For a few seconds they looked at each other in silence and then Marshall, without any warning, said with terrifying intensity:
‘The master’s boots.’
‘Are they?’
For a moment Zouch thought that Marshall was about to spit, such a look of distaste passed over his face, but instead of this he put the boots down on the floor and simply said:
‘Not half.’
It was clear that Marshall was in an unbending mood. He still held the lamp in one hand in a statuesque attitude, a male caryatid, reminding Zouch of the day when first he had seen him on his arrival at Passenger Court several months before. But now Marshall managed to show that underneath the plastic formality of his exterior he longed for conversation. Communion with another human being.
‘Bright as silver, aren’t they?’
‘They are,’ Zouch said.
‘That’s how he must have them. Nothing else will do. If there was so much as a speck on them he’d bite your head off.’
‘I suppose so.’
Marshall put down the lamp on an ormolu table and looked at Zouch as if he were wondering whether or not it would be safe to speak his mind. To encourage him to speak ill of his host and father-in-law designate, Zouch said:
‘I expect he is rather short-tempered at times.’
Marshall glanced round the room and then came a little closer to Zouch. Huskily, he said:
‘He’s the rummest old blighter I ever met and as for the missus, she doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going. And that Miss Betty is a proper chip of the old block. Miss Mary is the only one of the whole lot who hasn’t got bats in the belfry.’
All this was in such accord with what he himself thought that for the moment Zouch was at a loss for words with which to express his agreement and before he could reply Marshall had begun to speak again.
‘And then there’s that little Bianca,’ he said. ‘Who ever heard of a child brought up like that child is? Dragged up. That’s all it is. She’ll come into my pantry and say things you wouldn’t believe. And then when you ask her where she heard words like that, she says she heard her mother say them. She’s a proper little madam, that child is.’
‘She is very spoilt, certainly.’
Marshall nodded his head.
‘A proper little madam,’ he said again.
‘Has Mr. Passenger always been like he is now?’
‘He’s been like it,’ said Marshall, ‘ever since I’ve been here and that’s close on thirty-five years. But I don’t stand too much of his talk. The master knows that. He knows just the amount I’ll stand. He has to be careful. I don’t expect I shall stay more than another eight years.’
There was a pause. Marshall’s manner suddenly changed. He said:
‘They’re difficult, the whole lot of them, sir. Very difficult.’
He took the lamp from the table and, picking up the boots with his free hand, he went off down the length of the library. When he reached the farther door, he turned and said:
‘You never know where you are.’
‘You are quite right.’
‘Good night, sir.’
‘Good night.’
Marshall disappeared and Zouch could hear his footsteps echoing all over the house as he went up the stairs. Zouch turned back to the section on Immediately Transferable Wealth and read for a few minutes more, but Marshall had disturbed him and after a while he decided to go to bed.
Mary continued to stay in bed with her cold. Dr. Smith said that it was a touch of ‘flu and advised her to take care about it, so that Zouch found himself without an ally in the house, and, as it was now more difficult to avoid the other occupants than it had been during the summer, he spent a good deal of his time alone in the schoolroom, playing about with various half-finished pictures, which he had brought with him. Mr. Passenger, who, although he would not have admitted it to himself, was curious to see Zouch in the hunting-field, had suggested once or twice that he should come out, but Zouch, hoping to make his debut backed up by Mary, had always found some excuse. He was aware that every time he refused, it scored a point to Mr. Passenger’s hand and so, after a day or two, when it became clear that Mary, who had a slight temperature, would not be riding again for a week or more, he agreed to hunt on the following day. He hoped that his clothes, which he had bought at a well-known second-hand shop, would prove to be all right.
‘I’m putting you on Creditor,’ said Mr. Passenger at breakfast. ‘I think you will like him. Mary rode him a bit last season and found him quite satisfactory, although of course he isn’t up to her own horse, The Carmelite. Still I think you’ll like Creditor all right. He pulls a bit sometimes but he should be fairly steady under your weight and I haven’t any doubt about your being able to handle him.’
‘It’s kind of you to mount me at all,’ Zouch said. ‘But I hope he won’t take a lot of managing because I haven’t been on a horse for some time, until the other day, when I went out here.’
This was not, strictly speaking, true, because he had taken the precaution of attending a riding-chool in the suburbs of London for some little time, in preparation for the new life that he was about to lead. Still he thought it better to be on the safe side about such matters. He did not trust Mr. Passenger, who in this matter had the whip hand of him. Mr. Passenger said:
‘Oh, old Creditor is all right. You won’t have any trouble with him. I thought we might hack over to the meet. It is a very short way from here. Judd can bring the hounds along. We mustn’t be late. You’re more or less ready now, aren’t you?’
Zouch said that he had only to put a few finishing touches to his stock and Mr. Passenger left the room, having mentioned the hour when they ought to start for the meet. To fill in the time Zouch helped himself to a whisky-and-soda, which he hoped would also steady his nerves which were unaccountably on edge that morning. He sat for a while reading the paper and then decided that he would go round to the stables to take a look at his mount. He had passed Creditor’s loose box two or three days before but no impression of the horse remained in his mind.
In the yard he found the groom, a sombre man with a fearful cast in one eye, walking up and down a sixteen-hand chestnut with white stockings. The groom touched his cap when he saw Zouch and said:
‘Morning, sir.’
‘Good morning.’
‘Believe you’re riding this ‘oss today, sir.’
‘Is he Creditor?’
‘’E is, sir.’
‘What’s he like?’ said Zouch, patting Creditor’s neck.
‘A nice little ‘oss, sir,’ said the groom, implying by his tone that Zouch was going to be allowed to ride something very special in the way of a hunter, and adding as an afterthought: ‘’E pulls a bit.’
‘Does he?’
‘Just a bit, sir.’
‘I’ll look out for it.’
Creditor turned round his head and bared his teeth in Zouch’s direction. The groom put his hand on the horse’s nose and worked it up and down as if he were pumping water.
‘Ah, ’e’s a playful little rogue, ’e is,’ he said.
‘I bet he is,’ said Zouch, thinking that he wasn’t so little neither, and he went back into the house to have another spot of whisky. He had two while he was about it and then he went into the morning-room and read the paper again and smoked his pipe until it was time to start.
Mr. Passenger came into the morning-room after a time. He seemed to be in a better mood than was usual with him, and after looking out of the window for a few minutes, he said:
‘How are you looking forward to it?’
‘A great deal.’
‘I’m afraid there was a bit of a frost this morning but the ground should be all right by now.’
Zouch glanced out through the window at the garden. The trees there were swaying about in the wind. It would be cold out of the house.
‘I went and had a look at Creditor,’ he said.
‘What did you think of him?’
‘A very nice animal.’
‘He’s not a bad little horse,’ said Mr. Passenger. ‘Not bad at all. I think you will like him.’
A few minutes later they heard the sound of horses’ hoofs on the gravel of the drive. Clop-clop, clop-clop, clop-clop. Zouch was conscious of a feeling inside himself of internal tightening. An inward contraction of the muscles that was not altogether pleasant. He was glad that he had taken the precaution of having a drink before starting.
‘There they are,’ said Mr. Passenger, and stood up.
Zouch followed him out of the front door where the horses were waiting for them at the foot of the steps. The sudden cold of the winter air on top of the whisky made him feel all at once a little muzzy, but he walked quickly towards Creditor and, putting his foot in the stirrup, he hoisted himself up. He was relieved to find on arrival that he was facing the conventional direction. Now that he was in the saddle it was not so bad. He gathered up the reins.
‘How about the leathers, sir?’ said the diabolical-looking groom, slanting both his eyes upwards and at the same time swivelling round the left one so that it appeared as if it might be about to fly out of his head at a tangent.
‘They seem all right,’ Zouch said.
‘Not too short, sir?’
