The Pandervils (34 page)

The moving moon went up the sky
And nowhere did abide,
Softly she was going up
. …

at the third line he paused and listened, tasting a pure delight; and, like the tragic lovers of Dante's vision, he read no more that day.

These events, first Tennyson, then the Coleridge of The Ancient Mariner, were among the great events of Nicky's adolescence. And this profoundly private life did not at all conflict with his life at school. He and his fellows of the Sixth experienced every enthusiasm proper to their age except an enthusiasm for learning. In the wake of tired Mr Stagg they ploughed three times through the sixth book of the Aeneid without ever being allowed to suspect that Virgil was anything more than a school text-book designed to exhibit the perversities of Latin syntax. Wim Beddo's having a strong commercial bias, Greek was no part of the curriculum; but Mr Beddo himself would engage to spoil Homer for you as effectually as Mr Stagg
was spoiling Virgil, were your parents so eccentric as to have you take Greek instead of Shorthand or Book-keeping. But these things, at best, were not matters in which the boys themselves took any official interest. Nicky and his friends had more important things to think about: such things as marbles; bullseye-lanterns; conkers; top-spinning tournaments; keeping white mice, unseen but not imperceptible, in their school-desks; and school-magazines. In winter they derived much spiritual satisfaction from home-made hand-warmers: perforated cigarette-tins filled with glowing touchwood; and at seasons the more imaginative spirits, greatly to the scorn of the Farringay Grammar Sops, went daily to and from school bowling iron hoops which they called among themselves their steeds and discussed with high equestrian enthusiasm, strutting up and down the playground with ‘skimmers' pendent from lapels or carried as riding-crops. Of all these epidemics, journalism was the most congenial to Nicky. His serial story, Scalpo the Head-hunter, gave great satisfaction, especially to its author, though it did not get further than the third instalment, which ended in this fashion: ‘“Ye feel hungry doubtless,” said Scalpo, “but we have nought to offer ye I fear me, some of ye must come with me to find something.” A loud murmur of approval greeted the Chief's speech, for he was a man of few words.'

With all these matters to occupy him, Nicky paid little attention to the daily misery of his father's
married life. He was aware of it rather as a pervading atmosphere than as an active poisoner of happiness. He was sorry for his father, but he had never taken the final step in sympathy of getting imaginatively into his father's shoes. From this ultimate pain he was protected by Egg himself, who, for his own sake as well as for the boy's, revealed always his sunniest side to Nicky, being heartily grateful to have someone near him who was not visibly oppressed by the shadow in the house.

Nicky paused on the landing to listen to his mother's voice. He was reluctant to approach her door.

‘Yes, Mother. All right. I'll tell him.'

He went downstairs and entered the little, permanently crowded parlour. Even when it was empty of people it was crowded. The chairs and tables and vases and lustres and even the great cabbage roses on the wall—these were a sufficient host. Nicky stood undismayed in the midst of this lumber.

‘Mother's dying again,' he remarked.

Egg responded with a tut-tutting noise. ‘That's not the way to speak of y'r mother, my boy! I'm surprised at you. Does she want me?'

‘Yes. Told me to tell you,' mumbled Nicky, in confusion.

His confusion was occasioned partly by his father's rebuke, but more by the fact—which he
had only just noticed—that the room contained Harold and a stranger. Worse than that, the stranger was a young woman.

Egg said: ‘Come along, my boy. Come and say how d'ye do to Miss Colebrook. She won't bite you.'

Nicky, covered in blushes, stumbled forward and shook hands with Miss Colebrook, Harold watching the ceremony with an uneasy, half-derisive grin. And Egg, modelling himself for a moment on his brother Algernon, who had a word for every occasion, forced himself to add that Lily was to be one of the family. ‘Sister for you, my boy. … Well, I must go and see what Mother wants.'

So that was it! That was the meaning of this strangely formal gathering in the parlour: Harold had gone and got engaged. And this was what an engaged couple looked like. Nicky's glance, shyly curious, wavered from one face to the other. The girl looked pretty and defiant, and Harold looked sheepish. Now what was the proper thing to say to them? Nicky could think of nothing except his wish to get away.

‘Well, if you'll excuse me … promised to meet a chap down Coppice this evening.'

But still he lingered, and at this moment a queer thought entered his mind and would not be expelled; and, as if in answer to that queer thought, Selina, the subject of it, abruptly entered the room.

‘I expect the lady ud like a cup of tea, wouldn't she, 'Arold?'

A cup of tea at half past six o'clock—why?
Harold, staring, gaping, managed to say: ‘Thanks very much. Spect she would.'

The moment he had spoken, by the curl of Selina's lip and the blazing of her eyes Harold knew, Nicky knew, perhaps the astonished Lily half-knew, that he had fallen into the crudest trap. Selina waited, her eyes fixed on Harold, making the most of this her last moment. ‘Would she reely now, Harold darling! Then she can jest set about getting it 'erself. See? And not in my kitchen neither. See?'

Selina was gone, leaving havoc behind her; and at the same moment Egg returned from his visit upstairs. ‘Nicky, you run off to the doctor. Your mother's not so well to-night. Say Mr Pandervil's compliments and will he please come round soon's he can.'

Egg's voice was calm and unhurried. He had lived through too many of these crises to have credulity to spare for this one. His wife in a weary sighing voice had said: ‘I think I'm going to die, Eggie!' And he had answered patiently: ‘Very well, my dear. I'll send for the doctor.' An answer quite innocent of irony, as of unkindness, and one he had made, on like occasions, a score of times before. True, he was anxious; but anxiety had become his normal state, and he was not too much preoccupied to say civil things to Lily, who now, eager and agitated, rose to say she must go.

She went, and Harold with her. Egg was left alone with his thoughts. But he preferred his newspaper, which he had been too busy to read
properly during the day. It was not the exciting reading it had been a year or two before, during the Boer War; but, what with this and that and the other, there was always some odd little thing happening. Egg took pleasure in the odd little things, preferring them to murders and divorces and what Mr Balfour said about Tariff Reform. ‘That plaintiff's dog had eaten his artificial teeth was the allegation made by John Tweed, warehouseman, 37, of 229B Maiden Avenue, Camber-well, yesterday at the Old Bailey when charged with alleged assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Henry Westerman, bank clerk, 29 …' This was the sort of thing that took a man's mind off his troubles; it was better than the serial story, because it set you thinking and making up ridiculous stories of your own, and better far than the pompous leading articles which could not in less than a column contrive to call the other side an ass.

‘Doctor's out, Dad.' It was Nicky come back.

‘Leave a message?' asked Egg.

‘Yes. Expect him any minute, they said.'

‘Good boy,' said Egg. ‘Done your homework?' Nicky shook his head. ‘Cut along and do it then. What is it to-night?'

‘Algebra and Latin. Oh, and French.'

Egg stared his admiration. ‘AH that! Ah, you know a deal too much for me, Nicky. Capes of Europe and nine square feet one square yard was as far as ever
I
got. Off you go now, or it'll be bedtime before you start.'

Egg returned to his newspaper. He wished the doctor would come, and so relieve him of this carefully suppressed uneasiness, this little aching sense of responsibility. He was not really alarmed: by this time he knew better than to take his wife's melodrama seriously; but he wished the doctor would come. Not alarmed, because if there was one thing certain in this world it was that Carrie would outlast him, just as her mother had outlasted the old man. Tough as pig iron these Noom women were, in spite of what they told you! Old Mother Noom, who at Carrie's age should have been dead three times over according to her own account, went on till well past eighty, and would be going strong still, thought Egg, if she hadn't chanced to fall downstairs. One of his clearest memories was of Mrs Noom's first deathbed scene, when she had frightened everyone in the house, her poor little husband most of all, by declaring that her end was at hand, and Egg himself, not much more than a boy at the time, he thought, had had to read a bit of the Bible to her. Carrie, thank heaven, had never played tricks like that; but Carrie was her mother's daughter all the same, and knew well, none better, how to make the most of such pains as she had. Carrie was ill now: not a doubt of that. But had she been as well as well, you'd a never got her to admit it, she was that stubborn, like as if she was afraid of losing the advantage of you. Tearing her insides about with those dratted pills didn't do her any good if you ask me, muttered Egg, conducting an argument in
his mind with some second self. But she
would
take 'em, he insisted, disclaiming responsibility; again and again, no matter what
I
said. Might jest as well have talked to a post, I might. If I'd a had
my
way there'd never have been any need for sech things; but there it is, no use grumbling. … He wished the doctor would come. He looked at his watch, which told him that more than an hour had passed since his visit to Carrie. Better go and have a look, he thought; and with the thought came a picture of the bedroom in which Carrie was now lying, the very bedroom and the very bed in which her mother had feigned death and her father had died, containing the same yellow wardrobe, the same ottoman, the same ugly and everlasting chest of drawers so placed as to exclude such little light as the window admitted. Egg let fall his newspaper. Better go and cheer her up a bit till the doctor comes.

As soon as he entered the room he knew himself alone in it. Something, some queer difference, told him that what the bed contained was no longer Carrie. He moved forward on his toes with the sensation of treading in a void. The silence of the room deafened him. He knew; and yet when, as he stared into that face, the words formed in his mind she is dead she is dead, it was as if he had not known until this dread revealing moment. She can't be dead, not Carrie … not dead! This was Carrie, and deep-rooted habit would not let him think of her as dead. In a moment that glassy look would fade from the staring eyes, and Carrie
would say something to him, something tart no doubt, but what did that matter? Anything was better than nothing; anything was better than this violent wrench at the mind, this cruel sudden assault on a habit that had grown into him and become part of himself. He put out a trembling hand and touched her. But it was useless to fight; the new habit was gaining strength; he resisted it no longer, but prayed that he might be given courage to close the eyes before young Nicky had a chance of seeing them and reading in them the universal doom … and when this had been accomplished it was as if Carrie lay sleeping, a younger Carrie utterly and coldly at peace. Egg, awe-struck by this specious dignity, turned his face away, remembering the young girl she had once been, and how, downstairs in the kitchen, he had kissed her for the first time. Memories crowded in upon him, but though as he moved to the door his lips were saying soundlessly Poor Carrie poor Carrie, the grief that surged in him was not for Carrie, not for himself, but for something he knew not what.

He tiptoed downstairs calling softly: ‘Nicky! Nicky my boy.'

An irrational agitation seized him. He must call someone, he must get help, he must give the alarm. What foolishness, he thought the next instant. There's no help now, and no hurry. And at the realization that never again would there be any hurry on Carrie's account, an immense burden was lifted from his life; yet at this moment he would
have given anything to have that burden back in exchange for the new one he had just acquired.

Nicky met him at the foot of the stairs. ‘Yes, Dad?'

‘It's your mother,' said Egg. He put a hand on Nicky's shoulder to steady himself, and sat down on the lowest stair, bowing his head.

‘What's the matter, Dad? Mother bad?'

‘She's dead, my boy. I feel … a little poorly.'

Nicky stared at the bald patch on his father's head, and tried to understand what he had heard. It meant that there was a dead body in the house. He shuddered, and tears welled into his eyes. A big fellow now, close on fifteen; but he was frightened, and the sight of his father stricken and bowed thrust sharply at his heart. To comfort and be comforted he fell on his knees and put his arms round Egg's neck, and in the warmth of that embrace the same thought came to each: What if it had been you! For a few moments they remained so, clinging desperately to all they possessed.

The doctor appointed by the City and Provinces Bank to examine candidates for their service was a tall, lantern-jawed gentleman of forty. When he had finished with Nicky he cleared his throat, shook his head, and remarked: ‘I'm afraid … I'm rather afraid … not very robust … open-air life.' So saying he seized each of the two Pandervils by an arm and marched them towards the door. At the door he warmly shook hands with them both. ‘Good day! Good day!'

Nicky and Egg walked down the street. Egg was bewildered. ‘What's the meaning of that, Nicky? It's beyond me.'

‘It means,' said Nicky, ‘that I'm not brawny enough to be a bank clerk, Dad. Did you notice how upset he was when he took my chest measurement?'