AGNES’S death synchronised with John’s arrival at the Manor. Neither James nor Caroline was upset at her death, but both had a deep respect for a death, to whomever it occurred. Although the morning was hot, they spent it sitting in the drawing-room with all the curtains drawn. The very fact of James being in the drawing-room at such an hour marked the day as funereal. He had not sat in it during the morning since his father died. The similarity of the two occasions took his mind back. The silences which both he and Caroline considered fitting, he punctuated with ‘My poor old father had a very movin’ funeral.’ ‘Beautiful wreaths when my poor old father went.’ Caroline felt there was injustice in remembering her grandfather on this occasion; the day was Agnes’s, and should be treated as such. She recalled James firmly to the subject of their grief: ‘Poor dear Aunt Agnes would have loved that bowl of roses,’ or ‘Poor dear Aunt Agnes, so sad to die in such beautiful weather.’ At mid-day James ordered a decanter of port and some ginger biscuits which, swallowed at such an unlikely hour, seemed to him suitable funeral meats. In spite of the heat the port cheered them both enormously. James at once sent up to the schoolroom for ‘Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints,’ and on its arrival jovially removed its back, and took out the cardboard, holding the portraits, in order to write ‘Numbered July 3rd, 1902,’ under ‘Agnes.’
John arrived during the port-drinking. He had driven up from the station torn with confused feelings. A few years ago he would have been the boy at the lodge who touched his hat. Half of him wanted to say, ‘Hi, you, don’t touch your hat at me,’ and the other half was snobbishly pleased. Fun to be one of a family who had a livery for their coachman, and a coat of arms to paint on their carriage door. But as that same coachman and carriage drove round to the back, he looked after them regretfully. “I wish,” he thought, laughing at himself, as he climbed the terrace steps, “I felt more like a son-in-law and less like a tourist paying a shilling to see round the place.”
Mary opened the door to him. The coachman had already told him of Agnes’s departure, so her lugubrious air and in-the-presence-of-death whisper were no surprise. “If you will please to step this way, Mr. Torrys and Mrs. England are in the drawing-room.”
John looked at the drawn curtains of the hall and shuddered.
“I expect they’d rather be alone.” He succeeded in surpassing the gravity of her tone. “I’ll walk round the garden until luncheon.”
Helen and James had been put to sleep in the nursery. Elizabeth was left to play by herself in the garden. She walked proudly amongst the coronation oaks.
“Hullo, George the Fourth. I’m Betsy, and I don’t care a bit about any of you.” She made a face down the line of trees. “Not even you.” She poked the tree that had been planted for Queen Victoria’s crowning.
John came upon Elizabeth without her seeing him.
He watched her in amusement.
“You may think you’re very grand,” Elizabeth went on proudly, “but I like it better where I live, and so I don’t mind a bit about you.”
“Quite right,” John broke in. “Who are oaks, anyway, to put on airs and graces?” Betsy looked surprised.
“Hullo! Daddy. These are the coronation oaks. You ought to know that.”
John slapped the nearest oak affectionately.
“Every oak planted by the heir.” He looked down at his daughter. “For a Torrys you weren’t showing much respect, were you?”
Elizabeth flushed.
“I’m not a Torrys. I’m an England.”
John was amused at the fierceness of her tone. “That’s a most disrespectful way to speak. The Englands are nobody and your Torrys relations are very much somebody.”
“You’re somebody, and you’re an England.”
“That all depends on what constitutes a somebody.” He took her by the hand. “Come for a walk. Are you having fun here?”
“I don’t like it much.” Elizabeth gave two skips to catch up with John, whose strides were too big for her. “You know, Daddy, it’s all terribly old. It smells old. There are some books in the schoolroom that Grandfather had when he was a little boy. I like things new.”
He looked down at her with a twinkle in his eye.
“It will be a, grave mistake, my dear daughter, if you take after your father.” Then he added more seriously: “You ought to try and be fond of the place for your mother’s sake.”
Elizabeth was trotting to keep up with him.
“You know,” she panted, “I think it’s as odd as odd Mummy doesn’t hate it. She was miserable when she was a little girl, she had a cruel nurse and,” she lowered her voice, “she didn’t really like Aunt Agnes, who’s dead.”
There was a pause, then John spoke slowly, thinking out his words:
“What your mother feels about this place has nothing to do with people. It’s as though the house and all this were part of her. She has the same feeling about it as she has about you children.”
“So has Laurie. Of course, he hasn’t got any children, but he feels just like Mummy does.” She held her father’s hand tighter. “Daddy, do you think I could go to school? I’ve been meaning and meaning to ask you, only I never see you.”
John stood still and stared at her.
“Why ask me? Ask your mother. Don’t you do any lessons?”
“Of course!” There was a wealth of scorn at his ignorance in her tone. “I do lessons every day with Mummy. Sums and reading and everything. But she says when I’m ten she’s going to get me a governess. I don’t want one. I want to go away to school like Laurie. Will you ask Mummy if I may?”
John moved on again.
“I shouldn’t dream of doing anything of the sort. I believe in bringing children up in the way you intend them to go on. I shall never at any time do anything for you, not if it meant any effort, for I shall always put my own interests first. It would be a pity if you grew up with that sort of faith in me.”
Elizabeth had not followed a word.
“You went to school. Why shouldn’t I?”
They had reached the terrace steps. John stopped and looked down at her.
“Do you know where I went to school?”
“You were a Blue-coat boy.” He nodded.
“But before that I went to the village school. The sort of one they’ve got here. If your mother were to go in there now, all the children would stand up.” He had forgotten Elizabeth. He was seeing again the small ambitious boy he had been. “I got a scholarship and I found a new world. Then I went up to Oxford. That was a newer world still. Everything I got I fought for.” He broke off suddenly, noticing Elizabeth’s puzzled face. “Just a fairy-tale Betsy. Don’t remember it. But, believe me, you value the things you fight for. So if you want to go to school that’s what you’ve got to do. I shan’t help. I’ve no particular views, and not much interest in the education of girls.”
Elizabeth shook her head at him. “I don’t know what you mean.” John grinned at her.
“Come on, let’s go and find your mother. You get round her. Never bother about your father, he’s a wretched fellow.”
James and John liked each other. James met his son-in-law convinced in his mind that he must ‘make the poor fellow feel at home. Not used to our ways,’forgetful of the fact that, whatever his history, John was an accepted member of society when he married Caroline. John came to the meeting determined not to be snubbed, and ready at the slightest hint of snubbing to use his wit to slash his father-in-law, but his first sight of him disarmed him. James had just put the last nail back into ‘Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints,’ he looked up apologetically as John was ushered into the shrouded drawing-room.
“Bit depressing, I’m afraid. My sister died last night. Mad as a hatter, poor girl, but must show proper respect.” He turned over ‘Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints,’ and pointed to Agnes’s photograph. “Let’s hope she’s numbered all right. Been calling herself ‘The bride of Heaven’ for quite a time.” He lowered his voice. “Thought she had a child by Him. Bit upsettin’, if she didn’t get a halo after believin’ a thing like that.”
John, forgetting all about the drawn curtains and the death in the house, laughed. With his laugh, the last remnant of the pretended gloom of the morning faded. “I’m sorry, sir,” he apologised. “That’s really very funny.”
James laid his hand on his arm.
“Come and have a wash. Glad to see you, my boy. Glad to hear you laugh. Matter of fact, now I come to think of it, it is funny. ‘Bride of Heaven!’” Still chuckling he ushered John into the lavatory.
John teased Caroline. He said, “It’s all very grand, but what’s the good of being a Torrys? What have they ever done but sit on their bottoms on the same bit of earth?” Inside he was admiring. He liked his father-inlaw’s manners, his belief that to be a Torrys was an honour, but an honour which had to be repaid. He liked his sense of duty to his land and everything on it. He was, too, envious. How superb to have either the lack of imagination or the innate courage to face a dreadful future without a sign of fear. Here he was handed a single ticket. He had no qualities of mind to help him on his way. When he used that ticket he was stepping away from a bit of earth that he loved so well that no Heaven could atone. Did he believe in another world? Had he made up his mind to where that ticket took him? If there was a platform at which to get off at the other end?”
On the last night of his two-day visit, John took a turn with James before they went to bed.
“Glad you came, my boy,” said James. “Won’t be so easy after this. My mother’s comin’. Wonderful woman, my mother, but difficult. You’ll come in August for the Coronation? Want you to meet Ellison. He’ll be comin’ into this soon.” John nodded.
“So I hear. I’m sorry.”
“No need to be.” James straightened his shoulders. “Bit soon, perhaps. But I’ve not done so bad. This terrace is mine, and I’ve planted some new trees up in the wood, and all the cottages are in nice order. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
In their bedroom John repeated to Caroline this conversation.
“Wonderful fellow your father. That terrace and a few re-thatchings and he’s going out quite pleased.”
Caroline shook her head.
“He isn’t pleased really. He would be if he thought Ellison would be all right.”
John fidgeted with the things on the dressing-table.
“Whether it’s Ellison or a few trees planted, or some books in a shelf, you’re leaving them. How can anything help you when it comes to dying?”
Caroline sat on the chair at her dressing-table. She appeared to be taking off her rings, but she held one so tight that her first finger was white from the pressure. “It’s knowing you’ve not wasted your time.” She steadied her voice. “That although the things you wanted most you didn’t have, you’ve not failed altogether.” John raised her chin.
“What is it? Your eyes are full of tears. I’m sorry darling. I’m a fool to talk about your father.”
She drew her head away and fumbled blindly with the fastening of a brooch.
“How silly I am.”
John strode up the embankment. It was a blustering November day with occasional splutters of rain. The viciousness of the weather fitted exactly with his mood. He had not been able to work for days. Other people’s thoughts and troubles had been pressed so closely to him that he had to take notice and he resented it. It was intolerable to be bothered just when his book was shaping so well. Of course, Caroline’s father dying need not have affected him, but it had. She had not been herself ever since she had stayed at the Manor last June. It was aggravating. He liked his household to be so normal he never had to think about them. If they were ill or had moods it upset him, put him off his work. Then on top of that, Lilias had been tiresome. He had told her he was worried about Caroline. Instead of being interested and using her intelligence, thinking perhaps of some way in which he could cheer Caroline up, she had sulked. He had always placed Lilias as an unmitigated fool, but never until that moment had he supposed she was idiot enough to be jealous of Caroline. Her niche in his life was clearly defined and she was perfect for what she was. That she should suppose that she had any place in his thoughts, or any share in his love, was lunacy. He loved Caroline and always would. Surely any fool could see that. Lilias had been made to behave, of course. Two could play at her game. He made no effort to see her for a week or so and when he had reappeared she was so relieved she forgot to sulk. But it seemed it had got to be a disturbed autumn, for now the old man had died. Caroline had been very good about it, tried not to show she cared, had just gone quietly off to the funeral. But to look at her hurt him. Ever since she had stayed at the Manor her eyes had shown she cried a lot, and there were lines at the ends of her mouth, like strings holding up the corners for fear they would droop. It seemed to him incredible that she could suffer to that extent for a father she had not seen for fifteen years, and who, from her own account, had done little for her when she had been with him. But there it was, she plainly was suffering, and there was nothing else to suffer about. That was what got between him and his work. He hated to think of her at the Manor. Those unpleasant sisters of hers and that wretched brother and the bad-tempered dragon of a grandmother. His poor Caroline being so brave in front of them all, but longing to sneak off and cry. His pity for her was mixed with resentment. How could he be so lily-livered as to let her troubles dominate him.
Thinking these things he had turned from the embankment. His way took him up Swan Walk. Swan Walk had always charmed him, but he knew no one in the houses and had see little more than the closed garden gates. But to-day one of the gates was ajar. He paused, his thoughts switched from his troubles, and peeped in. There was an apple-tree. As he watched four or five finished leaves dropped from it. There was a battered circular seat round the trunk. Two rows of frost-bitten chrysanthemums led up to the front door. He had only seen the Manor for a couple of days in July, but he was at once struck by a likeness. This little house was the more beautiful. It was not disturbed by excrescences. It was the work of one architect and he, dominated by a feeling for dignity. It was reminiscent of one wing of the Manor, and shared with the whole of the Manor its air of permanency. As he considered it a board creaked overhead. He looked up and read “For Sale.”
John drove Caroline to see the house he had bought for her. He watched her like a child who has worked at a surprise. He opened the garden gate as if it was part of a fairy-tale, and if moved too roughly the house and garden would vanish.
“Do you like it?” he asked anxiously as she finished her tour of inspection.
“It’s beautiful.”
He slipped his arm through hers.
“Will it make up a bit?”
She looked consideringly at the really charming Georgian entrance. “Make up for what?”
John squeezed her arm.
“Well, you can’t go much to the Manor now, to be insulted by your old horror of a grandmother, so I thought perhaps it would help if you had a lovely house of your own. Besides, there’s the garden. I know you love a garden.”
Caroline glanced at the frost-bitten patches of earth that would be beds of flowers in the spring. A look of surprise came into her eyes.
“It does look rather comforting.”
The house in Swan Walk was in a way a comforter. Caroline refused to have a gardener. They moved in the early summer, but long before they were in she went there daily with gardening tools and bulbs. Just the manual labour of digging holes in hard earth she found a help. Quite a lot of bitterness that she had buried in herself, she left in the ground with her bulbs. At Christmas, when Laurence came home, the house took its share in consoling. There was such a lot to be done to it and so many ways in which it could be done. She had refused to make up her mind about the decorations for any of the rooms until he came home to take his share in the discussions. She was delighted to have him, because John and Elizabeth had been disappointingly uninterested.
John, having given Caroline a house, had done he felt a nice thing, had stopped worrying about her, and gone back to his book. At meals he did not want to be worried about colour schemes, but wanted to tell her how well this or that character was shaping. She succeeded in getting from him that he wanted his new study as like his present one as possible, and had always thought red nice in a dressing-room and, with a sigh, she asked no more. Elizabeth was equally difficult. She did not like her governess. Miss Brown was charming and did all she could, but Elizabeth, still longing for school, was determined to hate all governesses. Caroline thought the school idea merely a childish whim.
“You wouldn’t like being away from home, darling. Just think if you had no mummy to come and tuck you up and say ‘good night.’”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, Mummy would. She’d miss her little girl dreadfully. You wouldn’t like poor Mummy to miss you?”
“I’d come home in the holidays, like Laurie does.”
“Laurie has to go to school, but little girls needn’t, and they are much, much happier having fun at home.”Although Caroline was convinced that Elizabeth did not really want to go to school, and would hate it if she found herself at one, she was forced to accept that she believed she was being unfairly treated.
“I can’t make friends with her,” said Miss Brown. “She looks at me as the enemy who’s keeping her from school.”
“Funny little person.” Caroline smiled. “So extraordinary! When I was a child I should have thought her life quite perfect. You’ve no idea how I loved any time I spent with my mother. That’s why I am so careful to have the children with me almost all the time.”
Miss Brown hesitated.
“She’s an aloof little girl. She hates being interfered with.”
Caroline opened her eyes.
“A mother can’t interfere! I just want the children to feel that I share everything with them. All the things they think, and any little troubles. I remember my own childhood so well, and what a difference it would have made if my mother had lived, and been strong enough to be a companion to us.”
Caroline felt sure that the trouble with Elizabeth was only a passing phase and felt that a mother’s job was to show that she understood a passing phase, however obscure. To all Elizabeth’s moods she turned a smiling face.
“Mummy understands, darling. She felt just like you do when she was a little girl.”
The new house she hoped would be a help. From the beginning she said:
“You and I must plan it all, darling. That’s a lovely bit of fun we can have together.”
The combination of the words ‘lovely’ and ‘fun,’ spoken in Caroline’s mother-love voice, put up Elizabeth’s back. She proceeded to be annoying each time the house was mentioned. She made futile suggestions, and every excuse not to go near the place, and when she was there yawned and grumbled. Caroline, although hurt and puzzled, refused to show any sign of what she felt.
“All these rooms are not very interesting, are they? What is fun are rooms that are really truly your own. I remember feeling just like that when I was a little girl. Now what colour shall we have the schoolroom?”
It was no good. The mere mention of a schoolroom reopened the school argument. Miss Brown, disgusted with Elizabeth, scolded her for her unpleasantness to her mother, but she had to see reason when the child burst out:
“Why should I be pleased? If the schoolroom looks lovely, Mummy’ll think I’ll want to stay in it always. I don’t want a schoolroom. I want to go to school.”
How comforting it was to Caroline to have Laurence home. Laurence, who was charmed with the house. He wanted to spend his days there helping the workmen to strip the old papers, and remove paint from the walls and doors. He had been left various bits of furniture by his grandfather and was terribly eager to have them in a room of his own. He and Caroline spent a whole day measuring the walls and planning how best to fit his things in. He and she pored in the evenings over patterns for curtains and books of wall-papers. She was happy quite a lot that Christmas.
When Laurence had gone back to school, Caroline still spent half her days at Swan Walk. Whenever it could be managed without too much argument she got Miss Brown to bring Elizabeth to join her. Otherwise she was there alone. There was little to keep her at home. John was having trouble with the end of his book and was blaming it on the life he led.
“It’s impossible not to write in a cramped way in London. Never free of people. Never able to get away alone.”
Caroline did not suggest: ‘Then why not let’s move to the country. I’d love it.’ She had suggested that before and had only heard that ‘It would be suicidal. I must meet people or I go dead on myself.’ Instead she said: “Why not go away for a bit? When you come back I’ll have Swan ready. You’ll like that.”
For two or three days John was going away. He half-booked a passage to Egypt, he enquired about trains to Spain, he got a list of sailings to South Africa. In the end he went nowhere, but wrestled with his book at home, emerging from his study tired, nervous, and totally uninterested in the outside world.
Caroline, seeing him in this mood, was convinced that the right thing to do was to take his mind off work. With this aim she chattered about Swan, and the amusing things Helen had said, and baby James’s first teeth, and darling Laurie’s last letter, until he could have screamed. The one relaxation he had in those weeks was Lilias. She was exactly the sedative he needed. Caroline refused to let her conscious mind wonder where he went when he had finished writing for the day. But her sub-conscious mind wondered, and when she was sure John was sleeping, she let herself go and cried.
Beyond her troubles at home Caroline was troubled about Ellison. She had done what she could. At the funeral she had begged him to count her house a second home, and told him she would never be too busy to spend a few days with him if he wanted her. But he had neither come nor had he answered her letters. She tried to ask advice of John, but he found Ellison a bore as a subject of conversation.
“My dear Caroline, why worry about him? If you start worrying about that brother of yours, you’ll never be able to stop. We’ve told him we’ll have him here whenever he likes, and he hasn’t liked, and you’ve offered to go to him, and he hasn’t asked you. You can’t do anymore.”
Caroline felt this to be true, but she worried all the same. She had promised her father she would do what she could, and she was doing nothing. She wrote to her sisters for news, but they had none, and either ignored her questions or replied they supposed he was all right, and went on to news of their own families. Once or twice she thought of going down to the Manor for the day, but she stopped herself. Her grandmother was in the house, and at the funeral had made it more than clear that she had no wish to see anything of Caroline. A quarrel with his grandmother would not help Ellison.
Ellison was far from all right. Rose (owing to the constant deaths in the family, always in mourning) had settled like some scraggy old black bird on the Manor. She filled Ellison with distaste and fright but he was unable to summon up the courage to turn her out. As the weeks went by he had not the courage for anything. All his life he had spent in the shadow of terror. If he was understood and liked, and saw nothing and heard nothing to upset him, he could ward off depression; but given the wrong people, the wrong surroundings, and lack of understanding, it swooped down on him and buried him. So desperate was his fear of his depressions, that it was almost as bad as the depressions themselves. Of his own stamina, he was quite incapable of warding them off and had to resort to some sort of stimulant. In Paris Timothy Foldes had provided it. The feel of his arm tucked into his gave Ellison courage and he needed little outside support. Foldes was not a man who believed in swallowing your stimulants; he got them from what he saw and the air he breathed. He had incredible vitality and plenty to spare to bolster up another. For years the dread of coming into the Manor had hung over Ellison. He hated the house. The rooms creaked. The windows rattled. Depression fell on him the moment he was inside the doors. Yet he was sufficiently of a Torrys to know his duty. He had been bred to the fact that his was the kingdom, the power and the glory, and he saw no means of avoiding his fate. The question of an heir he never quite looked in the face. He knew he was expected to marry, he knew he must have a son, but the idea was so distasteful that he pushed it into the shadows and left it. He had been cheered when he had come over to plant the coronation oak to find Caroline and her husband in the house. They had something of that quality which was a feature of Timothy Foldes. They were bulwark people. Caroline, with her strongly developed maternal instincts, was definitely comforting. He had needed comforting. He had scarcely spoken to his father since the ghastly conversation when he had left Oxford. Perhaps his father could not see how it had happened there. It was true he had found an hysterical way of living, but it had at least blasted the terrors. He had come unwillingly to the Manor for the Coronation, stipulating that he would only stay for the day itself and then return to Paris. It was Caroline who had told him about his father. Cancer! The mere word added another shadow to the thousands around him. If his father could die of cancer, might not he? Caroline spoke of a lump. Even while she was telling him, his fingers were surreptitiously fumbling through his shirt. Was there a lump? Had he not got a queer pain now and then? The complete naturalness with which Caroline accepted her father’s illness helped him; it slightly eased his mind for the future. If there were Caroline, and that odd husband of hers, and all those children to come down and stay, perhaps it would not be so frightful. Even after his father died he need not be at the Manor altogether; he would have money, could dash away. He could get to Timothy when he could bear things no longer.
He had under-estimated what he might be called upon to overcome. He had forgotten that the moment the funeral was over Caroline and all the others would disappear and he would be left alone with his grandmother. He had not reckoned on the violence of the attack of nervous depression which must descend on him when he was left alone. He had not realised that some things were custom and would be carried out without his consent. He had forgotten that all the owners of the Manor had slept in the enormous best bedroom. He did not realise when he saw the mattress being aired on which James had died, the bed hangings shaken, and the carpet beaten that these things were being prepared for him.
The lonely days were horrible to Ellison but the nights were torture. To him the bed oozed with disease. Ghostly fingers tapped on the old north wall. There were scurries of feet in the wainscoting. Fear, ordinary childish fear, kept him awake until the first glimmer of daylight. When, in the early light, the furniture turned to grey lumps, his fears left, but were followed by self-loathing and terror. His overwrought nerves exaggerated and embroidered, they made him hear whispers of the horrors of living and the worse horror of dying. For all the tears at births and deaths that room had seen, it must have extended its greatest pity to Ellison. Afraid to lie down, crouched back against his pillows, perspiration standing on his forehead, his teeth chattering, as he sobbed “I can’t bear it. I can’t.”
That he stayed puzzled him. Every night he promised himself he would leave the next day. But with the daylight a modicum of courage returned. He was a Torrys, the place was his, he must give orders and see the men. Tragically well he knew himself. If he went it would be the end. Self-loathing would not keep him from what he was. By degrees he helped himself with drink. A few were a real assistance. Then the few became the many, and he ceased to think even as clearly as his poor ability allowed him. The Manor was his and he was its master. Everybody thought him a rotter, did they? Well, they should see. Thought he’d leave the place, did they? Well they were wrong.
From a few extra drinks to enough to become drunk was only a step. To be quite drunk was better for him than to be slightly muzzy. Quite drunk he slept heavily. In this way the worst of the night passed; and though the early mornings were, in ratio, the more unbearable, he had a weak stomach for drink and they often found him too ill to think of anything, but how soon he would be sick again.
Rose turned a blind eye towards Ellison. He was the heir. There was nobody else to put in his place. However wretched a creature, he must be spoken of as if he were the pride of her heart. In a way he was better for her purpose drunk than sober. Sober, he had made an ass of himself; riding round the place (and what an atrocious seat he had), making futile suggestions, asking feeble questions. Drunk, she took his place. Every day, either on foot or in the carriage, she was about the estate. She made calls on the work people and tenant farmers. She found little to complain of as warning of her corning generally went ahead of her, and much tidying and pushing out of sight were done before she arrived. But if she did find anything of which she could disapprove, her tongue was like a streak of lightning, not for herself but for Ellison.
“Mr. Torrys has had to go out to-day, Mrs. Bellman, but you tell Bellman that if that fence is not mended by mid-day to-morrow, I shall get Mr. Torrys to call here himself, and you know what that will mean.”
It was the same over business with the bailiff. Together they planned the week’s work, but at the slightest hint of exceptional expenditure Rose would draw herself up. “Mr. Torrys is naturally very busy at present and I am trying to relieve him. But unless we can arrange this quietly between ourselves, I shall be forced to bring him with me to-morrow.”
No one on the estate was fooled by Rose, but she represented a tighter grip than James had ever held and if she intended to respect her grandson, some sort of respect would have to be given him, or there would be trouble.
Ellison was not left to sink without anyone making an effort to help him. Thomas Felton and Frederick Sykes tried to come to his rescue.
“Boy’s not a bit of good,” Thomas told Frederick. “Best thing for him is to cut him up and feed him to the hounds. Nearest he’ll ever come to being useful.”
Such talk, however, did not mean that Thomas did not try. He urged Ellison to come out riding. He dug him in the ribs and told him where he could find a bit of cock-fighting on the quiet. He even went to the length of news of nice little girls to be found in inns and shops. The whole of these suggestions made Ellison retch, the offer of blonde barmaids being the most repulsive of the three. Thomas went to Frederick again.
“The boy drinks. Not a doubt of it. Wouldn’t mind if he got roaring drunk with a lot of friends. They’d like that all right down in the village. It’s this drinking by himself I can’t stand.” He scratched his ear and made a dismissing gesture. “Can’t get him to exercise. I’ve offered him most of what’s tasty round here. He don’t seem to care for the flesh. You’d better see what you can do for his soul.”
Frederick often dropped in in a casual way. He had not taught Ellison for nothing. It was very easy for him to be around the place. He had, after all, known the boy all his life. But he made no headway with him. He came near to realising Ellison’s spiritual disabilities, and conceived an immense pity for him. He tried to soften old Rose about Caroline, but failed utterly. He tried to let Ellison feel that he was there when he was needed, but he knew he had done no good. He took his troubles to the church and prayed for the boy twice a day, but even as he did so he threw, as it were, a mental apology to Heaven. He thought that Ellison Torrys was a difficult problem to hand over to a busy God, and gave it to be understood that if Heaven could manage nothing in the matter he would not complain.
In the October of the year after James died, Timothy Foldes came to England. He came in part to arrange about an exhibition of pictures, but more because he was worried about Ellison. He had only been in the country a day when he went down to the Manor. He swept possessively up to the front door, and to Mary who opened it in answer to his rings, he pointed to the village fly which he had hired.
“Bring my luggage in and tell Mr. Torrys that Mr. Foldes has come to stay.” He giggled. “Be careful how you break the news, or he might swoon from excitement.” He gave her a nod and, moving her gently to one side, walked into the hall. He turned into the library. “This room looks atrocious from the outside. I must see if it’s quite as bad inside.” Ellison was lying on the library sofa. Mary, gasping, heard Timothy say:
“Isn’t this fun? But, dear boy, I can’t sit in here. The proportions are disgusting. Let me see the rest of the mansion, and we’ll decide which rooms I’ll use.”
Timothy was completely unmoved by Rose’s dislike.
He returned it internally to the full, but externally he was exaggeratedly courteous, leaping up at her slightest need, opening doors, and bowing whenever opportunity offered. Her icy voice, whenever she threw him a word, he treated as if she spoke like a dove. But she knew, and he knew, that they were fighting to the death. Timothy, in the first days of his visit, would have been prepared to have met her half-way. He conceived it impossible at first that anybody could be fool enough to let Ellison go on as he was. It was obvious that, left to himself, either drink or nerves or both would land him in a nursing home. But by degrees he grasped that he was dealing with a mind whose angle he was unable to understand. It seemed incredible that a woman, however old, could believe that Ellison would suddenly become the country squire that he was expected to be, yet that did seem to be what she expected, and she made it clear in the very few short conversations he had with her, that she thought it was a mistake to notice any little failings he might have. He would live them down, and ‘those sort of things’ were much better not put into words. It took Timothy a week before he quite grasped the net that was holding Ellison. He had always heard of the Manor and Ellison’s dislike of it. He knew Ellison felt he would have to put in a certain amount of time there. He had privately thought him a fool. Places like his, he considered, were intended to provide the wherewithal for enjoying yourself somewhere else. But staying in the Manor he began to grasp the hold of tradition even on a weakling like Ellison. If Ellison had shown any sign of being able to live in the place, or take up some career, and come down to it, he would have tried to leave him alone. As it was he thought his duty clear. He must dig him out and take him away.
It took some time to make Ellison grasp that there was a ladder at the window. It was true he had often told himself he would go away for a visit, but that was a very different thing from what Timothy suggested. Timothy wanted the house closed. Timothy wanted every inch of the land turned to money. Timothy wanted a really sharp bailiff employed.
“We’ve never closed the Manor,” he explained feebly, “except while it was being rebuilt.”
Timothy giggled.
“I do like the royal touch. But suppose ‘we’ make an exception. Life was meant to be enjoyed, old boy, not rotted away.”
“But my grandmother!”
A glint came into Timothy’s eyes.
“If you do what I tell you she’ll go of her own accord.” Timothy, when he did dislike anyone, took it to great lengths. The manner by which he got rid of Rose was callous, unrelieved by a hint of anything graceful. He collected various of the least pleasant of his friends and carefully staged what he called ‘an ’orrible orgy.’ It was so timed that not only she, but most of the household must come down to see if anything was wrong. Much of what was meant to disgust Rose in the exhibition passed clean over her head, but there was more than sufficient that she could not tolerate. She stood silently in the doorway, looking with loathing from one man to the other, then she fastened her eyes on Ellison.
“Have these creatures turned out.”
Ellison had been taught the rough drift of what he was to say, and had been made sufficiently drunk to say it. Even then his voice squeaked with fear.
“Get out. I’ll do what I like in my own house.”
Rose opened her mouth. All the scorn that burned in her longed to flow out, but she knew none of them would listen. They might even laugh. She turned to the group of whispering servants.
“Mary, pack a bag. I shall leave here to-night.”