The Feast Read online

  ‘H’m,’ said Sir Henry.

  The undisguised contempt in Hebe’s manner had shocked him.

  ‘Is she often like that?’ he asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘So much … so very much with her nose in the air?’

  ‘She’s very reserved. Sensitive children often are.’

  ‘She’s not our child, after all. One wonders …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If she’s all right … with us….’

  ‘My dear Harry! Where could she have got a better home? She has everything a child could want; or would have if we weren’t obliged to live in this God-forgotten country.’

  Perceiving Guernsey once more upon the map he made his escape. Hebe’s expression still disquieted him. It was not right that any child should look so at her mother, or speak so either. Somebody ought to reprove her for it, and the obvious person to do so was himself. He had not wanted to adopt her, or the twins. He had done so merely to please Eirene. But he had signed papers and agreed to act the part of a father to them, and he could not feel that he had ever done very much to fulfil this promise.

  He supposed that they were all bound, as they grew older, to criticize Eirene to a certain extent. He did so himself, and faults which were apparent to him could not be hidden from their sharp young eyes. But they must also learn, as he had, to tolerate and excuse her, or life would become impossible.

  He went downstairs and wandered about the beach for a while, aghast at the discovery that life could really become more impossible than it was already. For nine years he had been resigned to the fact that his marriage was a disaster and had tried to make the best of a bad job. But he had thought of it as a calamity which could only affect Eirene and himself. He had never perceived that it might involve the children. Nor had it, as long as they were babies, tended by nurses on the upper floors of Queen’s Walk.

  And babies they had still been when he saw them all off for the United States in 1940. Caroline had been five, Hebe three and the twins were little more than a year old. He had been a trifle uneasy over the adoption of Luke and Michael, in the Spring of 1939, foreseeing the outbreak of war in a near future and fearing a period of domestic upheavals. But Eirene had been set on it. An obstinate optimism was one of her strongest characteristics. She would never believe that anything unpleasant was going to happen; she condemned anyone who did. Her tranquillity remained unshaken until the fall of France in 1940 threw her into a corresponding panic and sent her scuttling across the Atlantic.

  For five years he had lived his solitary life in the basement of Queen’s Walk, working as best he could, eating when and where he could, through the raids of ’40 and ’41, through the flying bombs and through the rockets. To some extent he had relished it. Release from the constant irritation of listening to Eirene compensated for a great deal of material discomfort. He was active in Civil Defence and enjoyed the grim good fellowship of the Wardens’ Post. In many ways he felt that his life was more satisfactory than it had been for some years past.

  In the early months of 1941 he acquired a mistress, a step which he would never have been allowed to take had Eirene been at home. He was a little surprised at himself but was, at that time, discovering a great many other things at which to be surprised. She was a red-haired girl, one of the women wardens, and neither in the pre-war nor in the post-war world would he have found her attractive. Her name was Billie. She had a slight Cockney accent. He used to patrol the streets with her on noisy nights. Her stock of limericks was inexhaustible, and when a bomb fell she invariably told him a new one. He remembered her best in a tin hat, grasping the business end of a fire hose—a gallant trollop demanding nothing and giving what she had, with careless hospitality. After some months she joined the Wrens and vanished from his life. But in a very short while she taught him several things about women which he had never known before.

  He realized that Eirene could never, at any time, have loved him. This, according to Billie, was probably his own fault. He had not, she said, ‘educated the poor girl up to it.’ She also told him that where the bedroom is wrong the whole house is wrong. She was a coarse creature, but he took some of her maxims to heart. Only he felt that, in his own case, the converse might be true: at Queen’s Walk the whole house was wrong and the bedroom, therefore, would never be right. A submissive husband cannot be a successful lover.

  Gradually his bitterness towards Eirene melted away. He made resolutions for the future, vowing that when she and the babies came home he would make a fresh start. He would rule his wife and she would love him. In the excitement of reunion some tender link might be forged. For he expected them all to come back quite unchanged.

  They returned in the summer of 1945, changed beyond recognition. The babies had become people—they asked questions, they had points of view. And Eirene was an invalid, feeble, emaciated, unfit for any normal life. She needed a nurse rather than a husband, and he was obliged to postpone his plans for a better life. There was some talk of her ultimate recovery, though nobody seemed to be able to tell him what ailed her.

  On his way back from the beach at lunch time he encountered Hebe again. She was sitting on the terrace parapet, her cat on her shoulder. If she was to be reprimanded, now was the time.

  ‘Hebe,’ he said severely. ‘I want a word with you.’

  She lifted her lovely eyes to him and waited.

  He took her to task for her manner to her mother. Eirene, he reminded her, was very ill and suffered a great deal.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ asked Hebe.

  ‘She … we aren’t quite sure. Unluckily they can’t find out.’

  Hebe gave him a searching look and her expression changed. He could have sworn there was at last a touch of compassion in it, but he had the oddest impression that this pity was not for Eirene.

  ‘She’s loved you,’ he said, ‘ever since you were a little baby. She’s done everything for you.’

  ‘Who was my real mother?’ interrupted Hebe, with some urgency.

  ‘Eh … er … I don’t know her name, my dear.’

  ‘Don’t you know anything about her?’

  ‘I …we know some of the circumstances. You’ll know them some day … when you’re older.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘We think you’re still too young.’

  ‘A child’s questions ought always to be answered honestly and sincerely or else it gets a compress.’

  ‘Complex. I am answering you honestly.’

  ‘Am I a bastard?’

  Sir Henry was startled, but after a moment’s thought said:

  ‘Yes. But that’s not a word you should use. Where did you learn it?’

  ‘Shakespeare. Are Luke and Michael …?’

  ‘What they are is none of your business.’

  ‘Just tell me one thing. Did I belong to poor people? Working people?’

  ‘No.’

  Her face fell.

  ‘I wish I had,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think they’re nicer.’

  ‘Often they are,’ he agreed.

  ‘But if I belonged to rich people, how did I come to be adopted?’

  ‘They didn’t want you. We did.’

  ‘Why didn’t they want me?’

  He hesitated again, but decided she had better have it.

  ‘You’d have been in their way.’

  ‘Oh!’

  She looked down at the flagstones and kicked her bare heels against the wall. He felt sorry for her. And he remembered that when they had taken her as a baby he had raised this point with Eirene: how would the child feel when she learnt, as she must learn some day, that her own mother did not want her? That it had been no case of necessity or hardship which had thrown her on the chance kindness of strangers? To learn this, at any age, might, he suggested, be a shock. But Eirene had assured him that she would never ask.

  And now he had dealt the blow; dealt it carelessly, without any
tender preparation. She had asked for it, but she was only ten, and he should have put her off. It was not to do this that he had sought her, but to act the part of a good father.

  ‘Was my mother a virgin?’ asked Hebe suddenly.

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Are you sure? How can you be sure?’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. A virgin can’t have children.’

  ‘One did,’ said Hebe darkly, jumping off the parapet.

  He could think of no reply to that and let her run off. He felt that she could give as many shocks as she got, and ceased to reproach himself quite so bitterly.

  5. Love’s a Man-of-War

  Evangeline Wraxton was coming on nicely. Her improvement was not apparent at meal times; huddled into a chair opposite her father she twitched and muttered as before. But she no longer sat in her room all day. She bathed with the Giffords and played rounders with them on the sands. She ran well and her laugh, heard for the first time at Pendizack, was pretty.

  After tea she walked with Mrs. Paley up to the post office to buy stamps. They had scarcely left the house before she burst suddenly into all those confidences which had been left unspoken the night before. She poured out the whole story of her life with many exclamations and repetitions. When, for the tenth time, she announced that nobody would ever know how awful it all was Mrs. Paley cut it short.

  ‘Don’t keep saying the same thing over and over again, Angie. It’s a bad habit. And plenty of people can guess how awful it is. You’re not the only person with an odious father. Gerry Siddal, as far as I can see, has a stiff row to hoe.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so. Er … have you spoken to him yet?’

  ‘No. I’ve not seen him to-day. But I will. Now tell me: how on earth did your father ever get to be a Canon? What do you suppose induced anyone to ordain him at all?’

  Evangeline had no ideas about this. But from her vague reminiscences it emerged that the Canon had not always been so impossible. His ill-temper had grown on him. He had been a notable preacher and successful in any kind of controversy. The Low Church party had hoped to make use of him and the old Bishop, the Bishop who gave him the living of Great Mossbury, had admired him.

  ‘But he quarrelled with everyone,’ she said. ‘And at last nobody came to church. Nobody at all. For a whole year he read the services just to our family. You can’t think how awful … sorry!’

  ‘How many were there in your family?’

  ‘Oh, there were six of us; I’ve three brothers and two sisters. But he’s broken with all of them so I never see them. Well, so the parishioners asked the Bishop—the new Bishop—to get them another Rector. But Father wouldn’t resign, though they broke his windows and all sorts of things. You can’t think … You see I stayed at home, when the others went, because of Mother. I couldn’t bear to leave her alone. Well, so the Bishop sent for Father one day to the Palace, and Father found he had resigned. He’d flown into such a rage he didn’t know what he was saying till he heard the Bishop accepting his resignation. He said it was a trap and he wouldn’t go, and he barricaded the Rectory. And none of the tradesmen would sell us anything. It was in all the papers; the reporters stayed at the inn. They called it the Seige of Mossbury. I was twelve. You can’t think … well, so he gave in at last; I don’t know why. And he never got another living. Only luckily he had some money of his own, and he does locum sometimes in a parish. But we’ve never had a home since Mossbury. And he was forbidden to preach after one sermon he preached … that was all in the papers. Everywhere it’s been awful. You can’t … Mother died three years ago. She was ill for a long time. Always in pain. You can’t think … Mrs. Paley, it was awful and I must say so. And when she was dying she asked me to promise never to leave Father. I couldn’t refuse. It was the last thing she said. She was worried over what would happen to him. So you see!’

  ‘How could she condemn you to such a life?’

  ‘Well, you see, she had rather a gloomy idea of life. She thought we are all born to suffer, and the more we suffer now the less we shall hereafter. She thought it was wrong to be happy. I expect she worked all that out because she was married to Father.’

  ‘And you feel you must keep your promise?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes, I do.’

  ‘Even if you end by going crazy or murdering him?’

  ‘Mother said God would give me grace to endure it.’

  ‘And does He?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought He didn’t. Here’s the post office. Go in and ask for your stamps, just once, not several times. But try to be audible. The postmistress does not eat human flesh. Say: four twopenny halfpenny stamps, please.’

  Evangeline obeyed and returned in triumph. On the walk home she told the whole story over again, in fuller detail, while Mrs. Paley let her talk and pondered upon schemes for freeing the girl from her rash vow. The most obvious would be that of the astute Bishop. Canon Wraxton, if sufficiently enraged, might be manœuvred into dismissing his daughter of his own accord. He might cut her off with a shilling and turn her out into the snow. But he must not do this until some refuge had been found for the girl. Some friend must be waiting in the snow who would snatch Evangeline away before the Canon changed his mind. And she has no friends, reflected Mrs. Paley, except me. She must have other friends. I must see to it, and I must do something about Blanche Cove’s back.

  She had been worrying about Blanche Cove’s back ever since the forenoon. Yesterday she would have sighed and dismissed the matter as being none of her business. But to-day she was convinced that such pain must not be permitted, if anyone could do anything to relieve it. To-day she was a new woman, changed in the twinkling of an eye, between the fall of two waves. So far as her own problems were concerned she was still a helpless, hopeless being: the deadlock with Paul continued. But, in the case of Evangeline and Blanche, who were equally oppressed, her natural energy—frustrated for years—gushed out in a torrent.

  She hobbled briskly down the hill, for sleeping in the heather had given her a touch of rheumatism, and went in search of Blanche’s mother.

  Mrs. Cove was sitting, as usual, upon the terrace, knitting for dear life. But she looked a little less grim than usual, and almost smiled when Mrs. Paley came to sit beside her. It was not quite a smile, but the small straight line of her mouth relaxed a little and she said that it had been a beautiful day. Something must have happened to please her.

  She made short work, however, of enquiries about Blanche and intimated plainly that she thought them impertinent. The pains, she said, were growing pains such as all children had. Blanche was tall for her age. She was not in the least disturbed, and she thought it a mistake to encourage complaints.

  Mrs. Paley accepted the rebuff and spoke of Dorsetshire. Her father had known a Cove, Sir Adrian Cove, of Swan Court. Was he, by any chance, a connection?

  ‘My husband’s uncle,’ said Mrs. Cove.

  ‘Was he really? He’s dead now, isn’t he? Who has the place now?’

  ‘Another nephew. Gerald Cove.’

  ‘And he’s able to live there? So many people nowadays …’

  ‘I believe so,’ said Mrs. Cove. ‘But I really don’t know.’

  The fate of landed proprietors was mourned for a while by Mrs. Paley before she hobbled away to look up Sir Gerald Cove in Burke’s Landed Gentry, which she had noticed on the bottom shelf of the lounge bookcase. She discovered that he had succeeded Sir Adrian five years ago, and that his wife had been a Miss Evelyn Chadwick, elder daughter of Guy Chadwick, Esq., of Grainsbridge. This was unhelpful, for she knew nothing of the Chad-wicks. But she could, at least, find out from the little Coves the Christian name of their father, and then, when next in London, she could go to Somerset House and look up any wills that might be relevant—his will and Sir Adrian’s will. She wanted very much to know how much money Mrs. Cove had got, and from whom she had got it. If she had none, and she presented every appearance of having none, an allowance from her husband
’s relatives might be inferred. They might not, perhaps, give her enough to cure Blanche’s back. But if they paid the piper they could call the tune, and it would do no harm if they should come to know about Blanche’s back. The world is full of busybodies, of gossiping old ladies. It was not impossible that the tale of Blanche, groaning on the cliffs of Pendizack, might some day find its way to Swan Court.

  If, on the other hand, it should appear that Mrs. Cove possessed an independent income the problem would be greater. Nobody can force a mother to cherish her children. Unless, thought Mrs. Paley, with rising spirits, it should turn out that the children themselves had been beneficiaries. Pressure might be brought to bear on their mother if she was mismanaging an allowance intended for their maintenance. There might be trustees or other guardians. She would find out. She would poke her nose into other people’s business and she would make an intolerable nuisance of herself, and she would go on and on doing this until a doctor had looked at Blanche’s back.

  Her next task must be to tackle Gerry Siddal, while she was in this deedy mood. She had promised that she would, and he was nearly always to be found pumping water, between tea and dinner, since Pendizack depended on a well.

  The pump was close to the drive, hidden in a clump of rhododendrons. She went to the front door and listened. She could hear it creaking, but not so steadily as usual. There were pauses, as though Gerry’s mind was not entirely on his work. And as she took the narrow path between the bushes she heard a burst of laughter. Two people seemed to be pumping; two young voices, a tenor and a treble, were raised in song as the creaking was resumed:

  There was meat … meat … never fit to eat,

  In the stores! In the stores!

  There were eggs … eggs … nearly growing legs,

  In the quar … ter … mast … er’s stores!

  Peeping through the branches she saw Nancibel, who had just gone off duty, with a strange young man—a very handsome young man. They were enjoying themselves enormously, and Mrs. Paley would have retreated if Nancibel had not turned and caught sight of her. She explained her errand, and Nancibel said: