LIVIA HAD FIRST HEARD it from Sarah (combined cook, nurse, and housekeeper to the Channing family for half a century); it was the story of three girls who had lived about a hundred years ago in the cottages in the clough. They had been little girls, not more than nine or ten, and in those days children of that age went to work at the Channing Mill (the original one that straddles the stream where the water wheel used to be); and what was more, they had to get up in the dark of early morning to be at their machines by half-past five. Because they were always so sleepy at that hour the three had an arrangement among themselves that while they hurried from their homes they should link arms together, so that only the middle girl need keep awake; the two others could then run with eyes closed, half sleeping for those few extra minutes. They took it in turns, of course, to be the unlucky one. But one winter’s morning the middle girl was so sleepy herself that she couldn’t help closing her eyes too, with the result that all ran over the edge of the path into the river and were drowned. And so (according to legend—the story itself might well have been true) the ghosts of the three are sometimes to be seen after dark in the clough, scampering with linked arms along the path towards the old mill.
Sarah told this to Livia by way of warning to the child never to stray out of the garden into the clough, for it was always dark there under the trees, and also, added Sarah, improving the legend to suit the occasion, the ghosts were really liable to be seen at any time of the day or night. But that made Livia all the more eager to stray. She was an only child, without playmates, and it would surely be breathlessly exciting to meet three possible playmates all at once, even if they were only ghosts. She was not afraid of ghosts. In fact she was not then, or ever, afraid of anything, but she had a precocious aversion to being bored, and it was boring to sit in the Stoneclough drawing room with her nose pressed to the windowpane, staring beyond the shrubs of the garden to that downward distance whence she believed her father, in some mysterious way, would return, since that was the way Sarah said he had gone.
One gray October afternoon she managed to elude Sarah and escape from the house. There was a wet mist over the moorland; the shrubs of the garden dripped noisily as she ran among them and through the gate into the forbidden clough. She ran on, under the drenched trees, keeping watch for the ghosts, and presently the moisture that had been mist higher up turned to heavy rain; then she grew tired and cold, and—though still not in the least afraid—considerably disheartened by not meeting anyone. At last she came to the road to Browdley, though she did not recognize it, never having been walked so far by Sarah or her mother; but as she stared round, a horse and carriage came along which she did recognize. The horse was William, and Watson was driving, and inside the carriage, calling to her from the window, was her mother.
So she was promptly rescued and made to sit on the familiar black cushions through which the ends of hairs stuck out and pricked her legs. It was an unfortunate encounter, for it doubtless meant that her mother would tell Sarah and Sarah would be cross (which Livia did not fear, but it was tiresome to anticipate), and worst of all, she would be watched henceforward more carefully than ever. So she made a quick and, for a child, a rather remarkable decision; she would say she had met the three little girls—the ghostly ones—in the clough, and had run after them because they beckoned her. That could serve, at worst, as an excuse; at best, it might completely divert attention from her own misdeed. Yet as she began, a moment later, she was curiously aware that her mother was showing little interest in the story; nor did she seem angry, or startled, or impressed, or any of the other things that Livia, aged four, had ideas but no words for. Her mother merely said: “Livia, you’re wet through—you must have a bath and change all your clothes as soon as you get home.”
Nor later on was there any crossness even from Sarah, but instead a strange unhappy vagueness, as if she were thinking of something else all the time. When Livia retold her yarn, Sarah answered disappointingly: “It’s only a story, Livia, you mustn’t really believe it. There aren’t any such things as ghosts.”
“Isn’t there the Holy Ghost?” Livia asked, remembering religious instruction imparted by Miss Fortescue, who came to the house every weekday morning, and seemed already to Livia the repository of everything knowable that one did not particularly want to know.
“That’s different…Go to sleep now.”
Not till the following morning was Livia told that her father was dead; and this was not true.
She had been a baby at the time of her father’s trial and sentence, so that the problem of how much to tell her, and how to explain his absence or her mother’s distress, had not immediately arisen. The year had been the last one of the nineteenth century or the first of the twentieth (according to taste and argument); events in South Africa had gone badly, and men were being recruited for the least romantic, though by its supporters and contemporaries the most romanticized, of all England’s wars. Emily Channing, who was a romanticist about that and everything else, had concocted a dream in which her husband obtained his release to enlist, and eventually, on kop or veldt, “made good” by some extraordinary act of gallantry which would earn him the King’s pardon and possibly a V.C. as well. It was an absurd idea, for British justice is unsentimental to the point of irony, preferring to keep the criminal fed, clothed, and housed in perfect safety at the country’s expense, while the noncriminals risk and lose their lives on foreign fields. Channing knew this, and was not in the least surprised when the appeal his wife had persuaded him to make was turned down. But Emily was heartbroken, the more so as she had already told Livia that her father was “at the war.” It was a simple explanation in tune with the spirit of the times; Emily had found no difficulty in giving it, but Livia was really too young to know what or where “the war” was, and only gradually absorbed her father’s absence into a private imagery of her own.
A couple of years later, however, the South African War was history, and there came that gray October day in 1903 when even a prison interview between husband and wife could not avoid discussion of the matter. For John Channing, after several years to think things over, was in a somewhat changed mood. Till then Emily and he had always comforted each other with talk of her waiting for him and the ultimate joys of reunion; but now, during the half hour that was all they were allowed once a month, he suddenly told her they must both face facts. And the facts, he pointed out, were that with the utmost remission of sentence for good conduct he would not be released until 1913, by which time he would be fifty, she would be thirty-eight, and Livia fourteen.
But Emily (as before remarked) was a romanticist, and the interview was distressing in a way that no earlier one had been. Sincerely loving her husband, she could accept only two attitudes as proof of his continued love for her; that he should, as heretofore, expect her to wait for him, or that he should melodramatically beg her to “try to forget” him. And now, in this changed mood, he was doing neither. He was merely advising her that she should live her life realistically, feel free to make any association elsewhere that might at any time promise happiness, and forget him without feeling guilty if that should seem the easiest thing to do. If, on the other hand, this did not happen, and at the end of the long interval they both felt they could resume their lives together, then that would clearly be an experiment to be attempted. As for Livia, the suggestion he made was equally realistic—that the child should be told the plain truth as soon as she was old enough to understand it. “Why not? You certainly won’t be able to carry on with the war story now that there isn’t a war.”
“I could tell her you were abroad,” Emily suggested, “doing some important work. Or I could say you were an explorer…And perhaps there will be another war somewhere soon.”
John Channing smiled—and his smile, Emily felt, was also different from usual. It was a slanting, uncomfortable smile, and it lasted a long time before he answered: “No, Emily—just tell her the truth. Of course you’ll have to be judge of the right moment, but there’s really no way out of telling her, once she begins to have school friends. And it would be far better for her to learn the facts from you than to pick them up in garbled scraps from other children.”
“I shall tell her you’re innocent, of course.”
The smile recurred. “Oh no, no, Emily—don’t ever do that. First, because I’m not, and second, because it would give her a grudge to go through life with—the worst possible thing for a youngster. Say that I’m guilty of what I’m here for, but you can add, if you like, that I’m not personally a vile character…That is, if you agree that I’m not.”
“Wouldn’t that be very hard for her to understand at her age?”
“At any age, Emily. Sometimes even I find it hard to grasp. But I’d rather have her puzzled about me than indignant on my behalf.”
But Emily, distressed as she was, nevertheless declined to accept that alternative herself. To be puzzled was the one thing she abhorred, and to avoid it she could almost always discover a romantic formula. That accounted for her mood when, towards twilight as she returned home after the interview, she saw Livia wandering in the road below the clough; it was why she failed to scold her, or to listen to her prattle about ghosts; and it was why, next morning, after long consultations with Sarah and Miss Fortescue, she told Livia the only possible romantic lie about her father except that he was innocent—and that was, that he was dead. He had been killed, she said, in South Africa, and the war for which he had given his life had ended in victory. Emily found it possible to say all this convincingly, with genuine tears, and without going into awkward details. Doubtless in a few years (she reckoned) the truth would have to come out, but when it did it might even seem relatively good news to a child of maturer intelligence; while for the time being it surely could not upset Livia too much to think that a father whom she did not remember had died a hero. Pride more than grief seemed the likely emotion.
Livia felt neither, however, so much as a queer kind of relief. She wept easily when her mother wept, for much the same reason that she made imitative noises when the dog barked or the cat mewed; but she had stared out of the drawing-room window with such protracted hopes of her father’s return that it was almost pleasanter not to have to expect him any more. Instead, she promptly added a new legend to that of the three little girls whose ghosts were supposed to haunt the neighborhood. She persisted in telling people (the people at Stoneclough, for she never met anyone else) that she often saw her father’s ghost in the clough, smoking and walking slowly and looking at the trees. She was so circumstantial in describing all this that Miss Fortescue grew nervous about driving to Browdley after dark, though there were several flaws in Livia’s story when Miss Fortescue analyzed it. For instance, how could Livia, who did not remember her father, even pretend to recognize his ghost? And then, too, the detail about the smoking. Not only had John Channing been a non-smoker, but Miss Fortescue was also sure that ghosts could not smoke. Livia, however, replied stoutly: “My daddy’s ghost does.”
Which presented a problem that Emily, Miss Fortescue, Sarah, Dr. Whiteside (the family physician), and a few others were wholly unable to evaluate, much less to solve. Could it be that the child, in addition to believing a lie (which was only right and proper, in the circumstances), was also capable of telling one? Miss Fortescue thought not, again adducing the “smoking” detail. If Livia had uttered a falsehood with deliberate intent to deceive, surely she would not have invented such an incongruity; therefore, did it not prove that she was speaking what at least she regarded as the truth?
In fact, it was neither a lie nor the truth, but some half-way vision in a child’s-eye view of the world, a vision that could start as easily from a lie deliberately told, and as easily end by sincerely believing it. Those three children, for instance; Livia had undoubtedly lied in claiming to have seen them, but later her fancy convinced her that she did see them, more than once; and this made her forget that she had lied in the first place. Nor was it ever a conscious lie that she saw her father, for by that time the clough was a place where she could see anything and anybody. The high trees arching over the stream as it tumbled from the moorland, the ruins of the old cottages where grass grew through the cracks of the hearthstones, the winding path leading down from the Stoneclough garden to the road—these were the limits of a world that did not exist elsewhere save in Grimm and Hans Andersen and the Tanglewood Tales—a world as young as the children who lived in it and the belief that alone made it real. And in the other world, meanwhile, she continued to learn mathematics, spelling, geography, history, and “Scripture” from Miss Fortescue, who was everlastingly thrilled by the secret that could not yet be told and by her own forbearance in not telling it; she also understood children just enough to feel quite certain that she understood Livia completely, which she never did. Old Sarah, who professed no subtleties, came much closer when she remarked, leaning over the child’s first attempts at arithmetic—“Queer stuff they put into your head, Livia—no wonder you see ghosts after it.” And it was Sarah who saw nothing queer at all in Livia’s question, when Miss Fortescue had informed her that Ben Nevis was the highest mountain in the United Kingdom: “Please, Miss Fortescue, what’s the lowest?”
Another war did begin, as Emily had envisaged (but it was between Russia and Japan, and so not one in which an English household had to take sides); meanwhile Livia passed her sixth birthday; meanwhile also the cotton trade boomed and then slumped. This would have mattered more at Stoneclough had not Emily possessed a little money of her own; indeed, it was a subject of bitter comment throughout Browdley, where hundreds had been ruined as a result of the Channing crash, that the family responsible for it seemed to be flourishing just as formerly. But this was not quite accurate. Browdley did not realize how much had been abandoned—the town house in London, the holidays at Marienbad, the platoon of servants; and while to Browdley life at Stoneclough was itself a luxury, to Emily it was an economy enforced by the fact that the house was of a size and style that made it practically unsalable, and thus cheaper to stay in than to give up. So they stayed—she and Livia and Miss Fortescue and Watson the gardener-coachman-handyman (a truly skeleton staff for such an establishment); and the blacker the looks of Browdley people, as trade worsened and times became harder, the more advantageous it seemed that Stoneclough was so remote although so close—a moorland fastness that no one from the town need approach save in the mood and on the occasions of holidays. All of which, in its own way, conditioned Livia’s childhood. Sundays in summertime were the days when she must, above all things, remain within the half-mile of garden fence; weekdays in wintertime permitted her the greatest amount of freedom. It was easy, by this means, to keep her ignorant of everything except Miss Fortescue’s teachings and a general impression that all nature was kind and all humanity to be avoided.
And Emily, who liked to put things off anyway, kept putting off the time for correcting all this. “Next year perhaps,” she would say, whenever Dr. Whiteside mentioned the matter. He was an old man who had brought both Livia and Livia’s father into the world; he did not greatly care for Emily and doubted the wisdom of most things that she did. “It’s time the child went to school and mixed with people,” he kept urging. “Why don’t you tell her the truth and get it over? You’ll have her self-centered and neurotic if she stays here seeing nobody but you and Sarah and Miss Fortescue…What does John think about it?”
“He left it to me to tell her when I think the moment is right,” replied Emily, with strained accuracy. “She’s only eight, remember.”
But it was just the same when Emily was able to say “She’s only nine” and “She’s only ten.” And by that time also another thing had happened. John had been transferred to a prison in the South of England, and Emily no longer saw him every month. After all, it was a long journey just for the sake of one short interview, and it was possible also to wonder what good it did, either to him or to her; letters were much easier.
Not that Emily was a hardhearted woman—far from it. She had no bitterness against her husband for either the crash or the crime, or even against the country for having jailed him; she had no conviction that he deserved his punishment—nor, on the other hand, that he had been monstrously overpunished. The whole situation was one she could no longer come to terms with at all, since it had passed the stage of romantic interpretation. She was still able to weep whenever she thought of him, but equally able to do without thinking of him for long periods, and the idea of raking the whole thing up by telling Livia was not only distasteful, but something she was a little scared of. Already she was aware of something in Livia—character or personality or whatever one called it—that outclassed her own. For one thing, Livia had no fear—of ghosts, or being alone, or anything else. And also she would sometimes make scenes—curious, nerve-racking scenes that made Emily feel peculiarly helpless. Perhaps Dr. Whiteside was right and the child was neurotic—but would the knowledge that her father was in prison make her any less so? It was easy to think not.
Nor was it clear that Livia would be made happier by school, for in addition to hating the idea of it, the child also seemed perfectly happy at Stoneclough. She had far more freedom than children have in many homes; she could play with dogs, cats, chickens, tame rabbits, and William the horse; she liked and was permitted to make cooking experiments in the kitchen and planting experiments in the garden; she could walk endlessly over nearby moorland and through the clough on weekdays; she could read library books sent up from Mudie’s in London, and there was that new invention, the phonograph, to amuse her. And on Sundays, to brighten the one day of restriction, old Mr. Felsby usually called. But it did not brighten things so much for Livia, who early formed the opinion that Mr. Felsby was a bore.
Richard Felsby was seventy-eight, oaken in physique, the last of a generation destined to glower (within gilt frames) from above thousands of mantelpieces upon dwindling families. Both the Channings and the Felsbys were, in this matter, typical; once so prolific, they seemed now in danger of reaching a complete full stop, for only the surviving Richard, the absent John, and the infant Livia could claim direct descent from the original Channing and Felsby who had built up the firm. The last of the Felsbys could not forgive the last of the John Channings—not so much on personal grounds (for Richard, disliking John’s newfangled business ideas long before the crash came, had dissolved partnership and retired a rich man), but because of the disgrace to the Channing name in a world that still associated a Channing with a Felsby. It was said that the trial and the scandal connected with it had aged Richard considerably, and if so, there were many in Browdley who wished it had done more, for the old man was generally disliked. When younger he had been against drinking, smoking, gambling, dancing, and theatergoing (anything, indeed, that might lessen the weekday efficiency of his employees); but of later years he had mellowed to the extent that he only scowled wordlessly if he came across Livia sewing or reading a novel during one of his Sunday visits. He did not much care for Emily, though he felt he ought to keep an eye on her; he was disappointed in Livia, because she was not a boy to carry on and rehabilitate the Channing name; and, as before remarked, he could not forgive John. But he was old enough both to remember and to revere the memory of John’s father, who had died some years before the turn of the century. Friend, partner, and contemporary, this earlier John had been, in Richard’s opinion, the last of the “good” Channings; and it was for his sake, chiefly, that the old man now visited Stoneclough.
Besides being thus a tribute to the dead, the weekly visits were an undoubted trial to the living, for Richard honestly believed he conferred great benefits by patting Livia on the head and by discussing the state of the cotton trade in a loud voice with Emily. He discussed this because, with Livia hovering about, and in his usual mood by the time he arrived at the house, it was practically the only thing he dared discuss; for Dr. Whiteside had warned him against undue excitement, however caused. If he had anything to say about John he would therefore take Emily into a corner for a session of mysterious sibilant whispering, and sometimes in the middle of this Livia would burst into the room, whereupon Richard would boom out again about the state of the cotton trade. After this sort of thing had happened a few times Livia grew convinced that there was a “mystery” about her mother and old Mr. Felsby, and once the idea got into her head she was quick to notice other evidences of mystery—certain occasions, for instance, just before and just after her mother went away for a few days, when a curious air of tension filled the entire house, when even Sarah and Miss Fortescue seemed to rush from room to room with secrets as well as pins filling their mouths. Livia noted too the almost guilty look they had if she interrupted them at such times; it made her determined to discover what everything was all about, like the detective in some of her favorite stories. Actually “the Mystery of Stoneclough” (as she privately decided to call it) gave her an added interest in life, since it was clearly more exciting to live in a detective story than merely to read one, especially when the detective was herself. For that matter, she sometimes imagined she was the criminal also, or the suspected person who was really innocent, or the stupid policeman who made all the mistakes, or any other of the familiar characters…it was so easy, and so fascinating, to climb on the moors and lie down and imagine things.
On the afternoon of Christmas Day, 1910, Livia entered the drawing room just in time to catch Mr. Felsby inveighing against “any man who makes a proposal of that kind.” In truth, there was nothing particularly mysterious about the words, since they referred to the wickedness of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Lloyd George, who was still bent on increasing taxes), but from force of habit Emily shot the old man a warning look, whereat Richard assumed his glassiest Christmas smile and reached out his less arthritic hand. Livia then allowed herself to be patted on the head as usual; but later, while Mr. Felsby enjoyed his usual nap, she pondered alone in the downstairs room which was her own whenever Miss Fortescue was away, since it was there that she received lessons, played quiet games, and felt entrenched in extra-special privacy. She was still pondering, with a book on her knee, when she overheard something else—her mother telephoning from the hall outside. Without any intention to eaves-drop at first, she gathered it was a long-distance call from London, and after that she listened deliberately. The talk continued, with long pauses and a lowering of her mother’s voice in short staccato replies; at last she heard her end up—“I can’t hear you—yes—no—I still can’t hear you—I’ll write…yes, I’ll think about it…yes, dear, happy Christmas to you too….Good-bye….” Livia then put aside her book and abandoned herself to wondering who “dear” was and what “it” was that her mother had promised to think about; and suddenly, as she speculated, an idea came that she instantly labeled as absurd, yet instantly allowed to take possession of her; supposing “it” had been a proposal of marriage? Doubtless the remark of Mr. Felsby’s she had overheard was really responsible; anyhow, during the next few minutes the idea became a perfectly tenable theory, and by the time her mother called her to tea the theory had developed into a near-certainty, strengthened by the absence of any comment about the telephone call. It would have been natural, Livia thought, for her mother to say, “Guess who rang up just now?”—and because this did not happen Livia stifled her own natural impulse, which was to ask.
Presently, however, the near-certainty slipped back into a mere theory again, and then into its proper place as an absurd idea; a few guests began to arrive for the Christmas dinner, and the whole thing passed out of mind till it was revived hours later by a remark of Mr. Felsby’s about something else altogether—he was discussing the state of the cotton trade and trying to be seasonably cheerful about it. “There’s only one thing I can say, Whiteside—booms come after slumps just as slumps come after booms.”
Dr. Whiteside, who wasn’t particularly interested in the cotton trade, though indirectly, like any other Browdley professional man, he depended on it for the quality of his living, responded absently: “That’s about it, Richard. It’s always been the same.”
“How do you know it always will be the same?” Livia asked, with an air of casualness. “How do you know that this time it isn’t different?”
Every eye was turned on a girl of eleven who could put such a question; Dr. Whiteside blinked quizzically, and after a rather awkward pause Mr. Felsby cleared his throat and snorted: “Never you mind. You’ll know what we mean when you grow up.”
All at once Livia became really interested, but with a faraway rapt look that drew even more curious stares around the table. “But I know what you mean now,” she said quietly. “And I don’t think it’s right.”
Richard Felsby snorted again, then gave a cross look to Emily, as if this were all her fault for not bringing up the child to have better manners; while Emily, with her own typical gesture of helplessness, began to expostulate: “Now, Livia dear, how can you contradict Mr. Felsby?”
“Nothing’s ever just the same,” Livia repeated, cryptically and with the utmost adult solemnity. She had an odd feeling of being actually adult at that moment, of being carried along by an emotion that grew with its own momentum—as if she were dramatizing something in a rather marvelous extempore way. The drama she had constructed that afternoon was now an even bigger one in which she heard herself speaking lines as if they were being dictated by some inner yet half-random compulsion.
“Livia dear—what on earth do you mean?”
“Nothing can be just the same, even if it does happen again. It can’t, Mother.” Gradually, inexorably, the words moved to the vital point of attack, and her eyes flashed as she challenged the other eyes across the table—no, across the footlights that she had read about and imagined, but so far never seen. She knew she was acting, yet she could have vowed that her emotion was not wholly counterfeit.
“But—Livia—whatever’s the matter? Has anything upset you?”
“Nothing, Mother, except that…Oh, how could you even think of such a thing?…After being married to Father…”
And at that moment she really meant it; the man whom she did not remember was now more than a ghost, he was at last a holy ghost, in his daughter’s imagination.
A short time afterwards Livia, weeping and exhausted in her bedroom, gave way to equally sincere remorse. She knew that the strange scene had spoilt the evening, that it had distressed her mother, embarrassed Dr. Whiteside, infuriated Mr. Felsby, and caused the party to break up early; she knew she had in some way been rather wicked. “Oh Mother, I’m so terribly sorry. I don’t know what could have possessed me. I’ll never, never say such things again…It all sprang out of nothing—I just heard you talking on the telephone to someone, and the idea got hold of me that it was a man proposing to you.…”
Livia felt her mother’s hand tighten over her own. “But—darling…”
“Yes, I know, Mother, I know it’s silly.”
But Emily didn’t think it was silly so much as uncanny. There was, of course, no question of her marrying; that was impossible under the existing conditions of British law. But she had fallen in love, and it was that man who had telephoned, begging her to come to London again as early as possible in the New Year. His name was Standon, and he had met Emily by chance in a London restaurant on her return north from one of those no longer monthly visits. He was several years her junior, and lived in a studio in Baron’s Court, painting portraits when he could get commissions, and idling when he could not. He liked Emily because she was easygoing and had money; she loved him because he was attractive and also (though she did not realize this) because she was starved for the kind of attention he was always most happy to provide. It was not a bad bargain, in the circumstances.
After the scene at the Stoneclough Christmas dinner table of which Dr. Whiteside had been a witness, he pressed his argument that Livia should be told the truth and then allowed to mix with children of her own age; and even Emily (thinking of Mr. Standon) realized that something had to be done. However, a solution occurred to her of a kind that she delighted in—one that really solved nothing, but merely delayed the issue. Why not send Livia to a good boarding school in another part of the country? In such surroundings could she not mix with children of her own age as well as remain in happy ignorance about her father? If the headmistress were let into the secret beforehand, surely there was no reason why the plan should not work out perfectly?
So Livia went to Cheldean, in Sussex, where for the first time in her life she was thoroughly unhappy. She had tried to look forward to meeting other girls, imagining that they would all be eager to know her; but the facts of school life, and even more the fictions, brought quick disillusionment. She could not fit herself easily into the patterns of school-girl right and wrong, of not doing things that were “not done,” of avoiding taboos. And questions that Miss Fortescue would have tried to answer even though they were unanswerable were thought merely exhibitionist or absurd at Cheldean; so after a few unwelcome experiences Livia ceased to ask them. That helped to lessen her initial unpopularity, the more so as she was growing up rather personably; she was a girl one would look at twice, even if one did not agree that she was beautiful.
Meanwhile the cotton trade in and around Browdley slumped further, giving Mr. Felsby more to shout about during family dinners that took place at least once during every school vacation. And also during one of these vacations Livia was introduced to this man called Standon, who spent a week end at Stoneclough for the ostensible purpose of advising Emily about a color scheme for the drawing room. The visit was not an entire success, for Sarah thought it nonsense that a man should travel all the way from London to tell anyone how to paint a house, while Miss Fortescue could not believe that a youth with such exquisite manners was not somehow a deceiver. Livia simply did not like him. All this was a rather poor reward for Mr. Standon’s efforts to be agreeable to everybody, as well as for Emily’s carefully planned scheme to introduce him to the family without causing too much comment. But it was impossible for Mr. Standon not to cause comment, and though Mr. Felsby did not meet him, rumors of his visit got through to the old man and gave him material for unlimited banter afterwards. “And how’s your painter friend?” he would ask, nudging Emily in the ribs. “Still sleeping with nothing on?” (This was according to a horrified report made by Sarah after taking a cup of tea up to Mr. Standon’s bedroom early one morning.) Of course Mr. Felsby did not for a moment suspect that Emily was privileged to know how Mr. Standon slept.
Standon, on his side, also realized that the visit had not worked out as well as had been hoped, but he was less disappointed than Emily because he had found the entire week end rather a bore—awful house, undistinguished food, uncouth servants, wet days, bleak scenery, and a precocious brat of a girl on holiday from a boarding school who (he could see) continually got on her mother’s nerves. Altogether he thought Emily much more fun in Baron’s Court, and hoped that all their subsequent meetings would be on his own ground. He really did like her, and forbore to sponge more than a poor artist must on a better-off woman. (For instance, she was going to buy him a motorcar, but in return he had promised to teach her to drive.) Knowing all about her past, having investigated it from newspaper files long before she told him, he could feel with some justification that he was being as good to her as to himself.
As for Livia, she immediately connected Mr. Standon in her mind with the secret, or the mystery, or whatever it was; the more so as he was always whispering privately to her mother—more secrets, more mystery. And Emily, who had romantically set store on Livia liking him, was chagrined that the girl didn’t, and told her (truthfully but far too outspokenly on one occasion) that of course she wasn’t going to marry Mr. Standon. Whereupon Livia, surprised at the denial of something that had not been suggested, could feel only extra certainty that there was something between them—something, at any rate. A few terms of Cheldean had even given her a vague idea of what, and because she did not like Mr. Standon, she did not like the idea of that either. Whereupon a rift opened between mother and daughter, more insidious because neither would tackle it frankly; it was as if they understood each other too well, but also not enough. Anyhow, Livia went back to Cheldean with thoughts that cast a shadow over a term that happened to be her last. The shadow made it hard for her to write home, and once, when she had composed a letter in which she tried to be affectionate, a feeling of guilt, almost of shame, made her tear it up.
It was Livia’s last term at Cheldean because of another unpleasant thing that happened.
For some time there had been an epidemic of minor thieving on the school premises—money and small articles missing from dormitories, coats left in the locker room, and so on; the sort of thing that, if it for long goes undetected, can poison the relationships of all concerned—pupils, teaching staff, and school servants. Miss Williams, the Cheldean headmistress, had done all she could to probe and investigate, yet the thefts continued, culminating in the disappearance of a wrist watch belonging to Livia’s best friend. When news of this reached Miss Williams she summoned the whole school into the main hall—an event which, from its rarity, evoked an atmosphere of heightened tension.
Miss Williams began by saying that, being convinced the thefts had been perpetrated by one of the girls, she had decided to call in a detective who would doubtless discover the culprit, whoever she was, without delay. She (Miss Williams) therefore appealed to this culprit (again whoever she was) to come forward and confess, thus avoiding the need for distasteful outside publicity, and also—here Miss Williams began to glare round the room—earning perhaps some remission of penalty.
This appeal was followed by a long and, to Livia, terribly dramatic silence during which the word “detective,” as spoken by Miss Williams, turned somersaults in her mind.
Then: “Well, girls? How long is one of you going to keep me waiting?”
Still silence.
Miss Williams glared round again before raising her voice a notch higher. “Girls…girls…I simply cannot believe this. Surely I am to get an answer?…Remember—I am particularly addressing myself to one of you—to one of you who is a Thief—here—now—in this hall! Some of you must be so close that you could touch her….”
Suddenly Livia felt herself melting into a warmth that seemed to run liquid in her limbs; she could not check it, and in excitement let go a book she was carrying; everyone near her turned to stare, and she knew that her face was already brick-red.
“Come now, girls…I will wait for sixty seconds and no longer…” Miss Williams then pulled an old-fashioned gold watch on a long chain from some pocket of her mannish attire and held it conspicuously in the palm of her hand. “Ten seconds already…twenty…thirty…” And then, in a quite different voice: “Dear me…will somebody go after Olivia?”
Somebody did, and presently Livia was sitting, limp and still, on the couch in Miss Williams’s study, while Miss Williams, stiff and fidgety, drummed her bony fingers on the desk top.
“But, Olivia…why do you keep on saying you didn’t do it?”
“I didn’t, Miss Williams. You can punish me if you like—I’m not afraid. But I really didn’t do it.”
“But nobody’s even accusing you—nobody ever has accused you!”
“They thought it was me—they all saw how I looked—and then when I dropped the book—”
“My dear child, if they did think you behaved suspiciously, whom have you to blame but yourself? What made you run out of the hall like that? Surely, if you knew you weren’t guilty—”
“I knew, Miss Williams, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t guilty, and yet—and yet—”
“Yes, Olivia?”
“I felt guilty.”
Miss Williams’s eyes and voice, till then sympathetic, now chilled over. “I cannot understand how you could feel guilty unless you were guilty,” she said after a pause.
“But I did, Miss Williams. I feel guilty—often—like that…Punish me if you like, though. I don’t care.”
After another pause Miss Williams replied: “Suppose we say no more about it for the time being.”
And there the matter had to remain, for the plain fact was that Miss Williams did not know whether Livia was guilty or not. She rather liked the girl, who had never been in any serious trouble before; yet there was something odd about her, something unpredictable; yet also something stoic—which was another thing Miss Williams rather liked. She could not avoid thinking of the secret that Livia did not know, and perhaps ought to know, at her age…or did she know already…partly…in the half-guessing way that was the worst way to get to know anything? That feeling of guilt, for instance (assuming there had been no grounds for it at Cheldean)—could it be that Livia suspected something in her own family to which guilt attached, and (by a curious psychological twist) was becoming herself infected by it? Miss Williams had not received a very good impression of Mrs. Channing from the correspondence they had had; she seemed a weak, dilatory person, incapable of facing her own or her daughter’s problems with any land of fortitude. Whereas fortitude, and problems, were Miss Williams’s specialties—whether, for instance, a headmistress should tell one of her girls something she had promised not to tell, if she believed it was in the girl’s best interest? For several weeks Miss Williams debated this problem with herself, while she continued to find things likeable in Livia; she even admired the girl for the way she faced up to the deepening mistrust with which the school as a whole regarded her; she admired the girl’s proud yet stricken eyes as she continued to take part in games and lessons; but she had had enough experience as a schoolmistress to know that nothing but absolute proof of someone else’s guilt could ever put things right, and if this did not soon appear, then there would arise a final problem—could Livia remain at Cheldean without harm to herself and to the morale of the school?
One day towards the end of term Miss Williams reached a decision. She called the girl into her room and very simply told her the plain truth about her father. There was no scene, but after a long pause Livia said: “Can I go home now, Miss Williams?”
“Home? You mean—to your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you want to go home?”
“I—I must go. Everything’s different. I said it would be. Nothing can ever be the same again.”
Miss Williams did not ask when Livia had made this cryptic prophecy; she merely remarked: “I hope you’re not angry with your mother—she did what she thought was for the best.”
“I’m not angry with anybody. Not even with Mr. Standon any more.”
“And who’s Mr. Standon?”
“The man my mother goes with.”
“Oh come now…” And Miss Williams, coloring a little, felt the ice getting thin even under her own experienced feet. (But not, perhaps, so experienced in certain directions.) She added hastily: “Livia…I think we had better not discuss this any further for the present. And I’m not sure whether you ought to go home now or wait till the end of term. I’ll think it over and let you know in a few days.”
Miss Williams planned to write Mrs. Channing a long letter of explanation which would arrive ahead of Livia; but this intention was frustrated by a much simpler act by the girl herself. She ran away from the school that same evening, taking nobody into her confidence, but leaving for Miss Williams a note in which there was, perhaps, just a whiff of histrionics:—
DEAR MISS WILLIAMS—I am going home, and since you think I am a thief, I have stolen money for the fare from Joan Martin’s locker. I took a pound. Please give it back to her out of my bank money.
Olivia
The note was not discovered till the next morning, by which time Livia would have reached home. All Miss Williams could do, and with great luck, was to replace the pound before the loss of that was discovered also. She knew that Joan was Livia’s best friend and would willingly have lent the money had she been asked…A strange girl, Livia—perhaps not a bad girl; but still, it was just as well not to have her back at Cheldean.
Livia reached Browdley before six o’clock on a windy March morning. Throughout the night-long train journey she had thought out the things she would immediately ask her mother; she wanted to know all the secrets, all the details that Miss Williams had not told because she probably had not known them herself. The list of these was mountainous by the time the cab came within sight of Stoneclough, gray and ghostly in the first light of dawn. In the yard beside the stables she was startled to see a new motorcar, with her mother in the driver’s seat and Mr. Standon hastily stowing bags into the back.
“Livia! Livia! What on earth are you doing here?”
As her mother spoke Livia noted the exchange of glances between her and Mr. Standon. The latter dropped the bags and came over with a smile of rather weary astonishment. He was a very elegant young man, but he did not look his best at six in the morning; and he had, indeed, received so many astonishments during the past twelve hours that he felt incapable of responding to any more. “Hello, Livia,” he remarked; it was all he could think of to say.
Livia ignored him. “Mother—I’ve left Cheldean—I’ve run away—I’m never going back there—and I want to talk to you—I’ve got things to ask you—”
“But Livia…not now…Oh, not now…” And a look of panic came over Emily’s face as she turned again to Mr. Standon. “Lawrence, do make haste…we can’t stop because of—because of anything…” Then: “We’ve—that is, dear—your mother’s in a hurry—”
Livia knew from experience that Emily always called herself “your mother” to put distance between herself and the facing of any issue; it was like a shield behind which she could retire from a battlefield before the battle had begun.
“Mother, you can’t go away yet. I’ve got most important things to talk to you about…alone.”
“No, no, dear…Lawrence, put those bags in and let’s be off…If you’ve got into any trouble at Cheldean, don’t worry…Mother will write to Miss Williams and have it all put right.”
“It isn’t that, Mother…Mother, please—please will you come into the house and let me talk to you for a while.”
“Darling, I can’t—I just can’t—”
But this was too much even for Mr. Standon. “Perhaps you’d better, Emily,” he advised. “You can’t let her go in without—without—” And the look between them was exchanged again.
Emily slowly climbed out of the car, her face pale and distraught. She walked with Livia a few paces towards the side door leading through the kitchen into the house. They did not speak, but from the doorstep Emily gave one despairing look over her shoulder towards Mr. Standon, as if scared of going out of his sight. Then suddenly and hysterically she cried out: “Lawrence, I can’t tell her—I can’t, I can’t…You’ll have to.” Whereupon she ran back to the car and with almost absurd alacrity jumped in and drove off, leaving him to shout after her in vain and to turn to Livia with the faintest possible shrug.
“Your mother’s upset,” he remarked mildly; and then, detaining her as she stepped towards the house: “I wouldn’t go in yet if I were you. Let’s have a little chat first.”
Livia shook her head. “It’s cold here. And it’s my mother I wanted to talk to, not you.”
“I know…but there’s something I can tell you, perhaps.”
“You don’t have to. I know. And I don’t think it’s any of my business.”
Mr. Standon looked nonplused for a moment, then shifted uncomfortably. “That isn’t what I…er…well, what I do mean is your business. It’s about your father.”
He draped his hand over her shoulder at that word, as if to lessen the shock, but the fact that there was none made him so uncomfortable that he took away his hand before Livia could reply: “I know about that too. Miss Williams told me. He’s not dead as my mother always said. He’s in a prison.”
Mr. Standon gulped hard. “No…Not any more.”
This time there was a shock, perceptible but well-controlled; the girl looked up at him inquiringly. “You mean he is dead now? He’s died?”
“No, Livia. He’s—he’s been released. And—he’s here—now—in the house. He got here a few hours ago.”
“But…but…my mother…why…”
“I can’t explain all that.”
She stared at him, incredulously, and while she did, the sound of a motor horn echoed from the road down below.
He said hastily: “I’m sorry, Livia, but you see…well, that’s how it is.”
The horn sounded again, peremptorily. Mr. Standon fidgeted as he went on: “Perhaps you’d like to come along…”
“Come along? Where? With you?”
“Not with me, exactly—with your mother. I’m sure that would be all right—”
“But with you?”
“Well…only in case…in case you wanted to be with her.”
“But where’s she going? When is she coming back? Why must she go away at all?”
“Livia, it’s no use asking me these questions. If you want to walk down the road and talk to her about it, come with me now.”
“With you?”
And the horn sounded a third time, causing Standon to exclaim, under his breath: “Damnation, she shouldn’t have run off like this…”
Livia added quietly: “I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”
“Well, then…I’m afraid that settles it.” He walked a few steps away, then turned again for a last appeal. “But what are you going to do?”
“Stay here.”
“But—but your father’s here.”
“That’s all right.”
“You mean you don’t mind?”
“I mind my mother going away, but if she goes away I don’t mind anything else.”
“Livia…I wish there were something I could…” She was moving towards the door. He continued, for he was not an entirely insensitive young man: “Livia, you want to see him? You’re sure of that?”
“Where is he? Is he in bed?”
“No…he’s been up all night. That’s why, if you’d like to think things over first…”
“What is there to think over? Anything else?”
The question was so direct, yet so free from irony, that he could only reply: “Maybe I’d better come in with you and—and—er—” It sounded idiotic to say “introduce you,” but for the life of him he could not think of another way to finish the sentence.
“No, I’ll know where to go.”
“In the drawing room, I think. That’s where he was.” Livia then went in without another word, while Mr. Standon, after staring at her retreating figure for a moment, slowly lit a cigarette and began to walk down the driveway towards the road, quickening his pace when he heard the horn a fourth time. He still felt extremely uncomfortable.
The lights throughout the house were unlit, but a flickering glow, as of firelight, showed beneath the drawing-room door where the carpet had worn; everything else was dark, except the high window at the end of the corridor, which showed the dawn in a gray oblong. Livia turned the door handle and entered. Her eyes were dazzled at first by the firelight, but she was somehow aware of a person in the room.
“I can’t see you,” she said—the first words she ever spoke to him.
She saw then a tall shape striding across the floor to the light switch; next she saw his shoulders, a little stooping; then, when he turned, all such details as his gray thinning hair, wide forehead, and odd smile merged into a general first impression that he was tired.
“Livia, isn’t it?”
“Hello,” she answered; and they shook hands.
When one is young, everything has a stereoscopic clarity, even if it is not properly understood; no hoard of experience both makes and compensates for a blurred background. To Livia as she shook hands with the stranger who was her father, it seemed that her life hinged in a new direction, terrifyingly new, puzzling, even shattering, yet somehow not to be feared. But for the moment she thought her mind would break with such a mixture of emotions as she began to feel: angry love for her mother, cold dislike for Mr. Standon, and a growing shock over the entire situation, as if her physical existence were coming out of numbness. I shall never be the same again, because nothing can ever be the same again, and I am not nothing—she reflected suddenly, remembering the first lesson in logic that had been almost the last thing she learned at Cheldean. But the frantic syllogism comforted her, all the more because it had not occurred to her till just that moment; and as she stared from the firelight to the tired face of the man standing before her, she repeated it to herself: Whatever happens, whatever they do to me, however much I am torn apart, I am not nothing.
She saw that he was still smiling, waiting perhaps for her to speak. She wondered how long she had been silent—minutes or only seconds? But the words could come now; she began abruptly: “Are you hungry? I am.”
He answered: “Not very. But don’t let me stop you—”
“Wouldn’t you even like a cup of tea?”
“Well…er…hadn’t we better wait till Sarah—”
“Oh, I’ll make it. Let’s go into the kitchen.”
“All right.”
She made not only a cup of tea, but a substantial meal of eggs and bacon, which they both ate, talking of nothing in particular meanwhile—just the weather, and the sharp frost that morning, and how they liked their eggs done. It was beginning to be easier now—like the first morning of term when you go into a new class with a new teacher and you do not exactly expect to get on with her at first—in fact you pine for the old one all the time, though you would not, if the choice were given, stay down in the lower class just to escape the trials of newness.
When he lit a pipe she commented: “They said you never used to smoke.”
He did not ask who “they” were, or why the matter should ever have been mentioned. He answered lightly: “Oh yes, I have most bad habits.”
“You mean you drink too?”
“Well… I have been known to touch a drop.”
She laughed, because the phrase “touch a drop” had amused her when she was a child; it was so funny to touch a drop, if you ever went to the trouble of doing it, and she had often in those days puzzled over why old Mr. Felsby should boast so much about never having done it in his life.
“I don’t suppose there’s anything here,” she went on. “I think Watson takes whisky, though—on the sly. Perhaps he keeps a bottle somewhere—I can ask him—”
He smiled again. “Don’t worry—I never did drink at breakfast. For that matter, I never drank much at any time. Not to excess, that is.”
“Then it’s not a bad habit.”
“All right—so long as you don’t think too well of me.”
They talked on, as unimportantly as that. She did not ask him any direct questions, nor he her, but by the time the first rays of sunshine poured in through the kitchen window they knew a few things about each other—such as, for instance, that they had both arrived at Stoneclough before their time; she from school, having run away, he from prison, having been released a few months earlier than he had counted on, owing to a technicality in the reckoning. She gathered also that his arrival had led to other events in which her mother and Mr. Standon were involved. He did not tell her much about that, but said it was an odd coincidence that she should have come that morning, an odd and perhaps an awkward one, but not so awkward as if she had come a few hours sooner.
“I don’t know why she didn’t tell me everything before,” he added, as if thinking aloud. “It would have been all right I wouldn’t have blamed her…I don’t blame her now, for that matter. She just couldn’t face facts—never could…
Oh well, give me another cup of tea.”
While Livia did so he puffed at his pipe and went on: “Things never turn out quite how you expect, do they?”
She knew that he was addressing her as an adult, either deliberately or absent-mindedly, and in order not to break the spell she said nothing in reply. But he relapsed into silence, and presently, still under the spell herself, she said brightly: “Don’t I make good tea?”
He seemed to wake himself up. “You certainly do.” Then he yawned. “Very good.”
“I expect you’re tired.”
“Yes. Dead tired. I was up all night.”
“So was I—in the train.”
“Perhaps we’d both better get some sleep.”
She nodded. “Sarah knows you’re here, of course?”
“Oh yes. And Miss Fortescue and Watson. We’ll meet at dinner, then.”
He walked out of the kitchen and a few seconds later she heard him climbing the stairs. It was odd to reflect that he knew his way about the house.
She slept soundly most of the day and was wakened during the afternoon by the sound of commotion in the yard. When she ran to the window, with almost every possibility in mind, she saw it was only Miss Fortescue driving off in a cab. Somehow it did not seem to matter what Miss Fortescue did, but it gave her something to begin the conversation with when she went down to the dinner table that evening.
“She left,” he said, “because the whole situation was revolting to her sensibilities.”
Again he was talking to her as to an adult; and she knew what he meant, if not all the individual words. Throughout the rest of the meal he veered between more trivial gossip and silence, but when Sarah had left the room for good he said: “I don’t know what your plans are, Livia….”
“Plans? I haven’t any.”
“I mean—what are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to go back to Cheldean.”
“Well…” And he began to light his pipe. “Some other school, perhaps?”
“You mean you don’t want me here?”
“Livia…it isn’t that. It hasn’t much to do with what I want. Let’s not discuss it yet, though. All kinds of things can happen.”
Which was the kind of world that Livia dreamed of—one in which all kinds of things could happen.
She said cheerfully: “The school holidays begin next week,
so I’d have been here soon anyway.”
He smiled. “Naturally…and—er—while you are here, there’s another thing…you mustn’t feel you have to entertain me. I don’t want to interrupt any of your habits…What do you usually do after dinner?”
“Sometimes I take a walk in the garden, but I think it’s already begun to rain. Sometimes I read, or play records.”
“Then please do just what you like—as usual.”
Without another word she went to the phonograph and put on Mozart; after it finished she closed the instrument and called from the doorway: “Good night.” When he gave no answer she went back to his chair and saw that he was asleep, so she took the warm pipe out of his hand in case it set fire to something; then she laid another cob of coal on the reddened embers in the grate.
It was all very easy the next morning, so far as Livia was concerned. But as the day proceeded it became clear that other people were bent on making difficulties. First there arrived Richard Felsby, and a somewhat stormy scene took place from which Livia was excluded, though she tried to listen at the door and gathered that the old man was just as shocked as Miss Fortescue. She was also vaguely aware that matters of importance were being arranged over her head, and decided there and then to insert her own personal clause into whatever plans were being concocted. And that was simply that she would not, in any circumstances, go back to Cheldean. As soon as the chance came she reiterated this. “And if you send me,” she added, “I’ll run away again.” Neither she nor her father knew that Miss Williams would not have had
her back in any event; it would have saved them an argument. “Very well,” he said at length, “I’ll see about somewhere else.” But it was already too late for the girl to begin the new term at any other school.
And the sensation of John Channing’s return, combined with the scandal of Emily Channing’s departure, raged like a hurricane through Browdley and neighborhood for several weeks, then slowly sank to the dimensions of a zephyr.
They became good friends. It was not that Livia liked him instantly, still less was she aware of any submerged filial emotions, nor was there any conscious effort to like him; but a moment came, quite a casual one, when she realized that she had already been liking him a good deal for some time.
She did not call him “Father.” It was hard to begin, and since she did not begin soon enough, it became impossible to begin. Eventually, since she had to call him something, she asked if he would mind “Martin.”
“Martin? Why Martin?”
“I like the name. I used to have a friend at school called Martin…Joan Martin.”
“Used to have? It’s not so long ago.” He was rather relieved to find she had had a friend, after what Dr. Whiteside had said when they met a few days before. “Don’t you keep in touch with her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she thinks I stole her watch.”
The answer was devastating, and out of it came the story of the Cheldean incident. After she had given him the somewhat curious details he said quizzically: “And did you?”
“Good heavens, no—what do you think I am?”
“Well, what do you think I am?”
She pondered gravely for a moment, whereupon he laughed, not because there was anything to laugh at, but because he had at last found a way of introducing a matter which he wanted to clear up once and for all. “You see, Livia, I don’t wish you to get any false ideas. Don’t think up excuses for me. Don’t dramatize me innocent, for instance, as you dramatized yourself guilty…On the other hand—don’t believe everything you read about me in the papers…Know what I mean?”
She nodded and he knew she did.
She added hastily: “I must tell you something else though…I didn’t steal her watch, but I did steal her money afterwards.”
“What?”
Then more explanations. He finally laughed again and said: “That’s all right. Perhaps we’re neither of us quite as bad as we’re painted—or as good as we ought to be. And I still think you ought to keep in touch with Joan. Mustn’t center yourself on Stoneclough altogether…Get out more. Meet people. What did you think of doing this afternoon, for instance?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“There’s a farm sale I’m going to. Watson said he wanted more tools for the garden and I thought I might pick up a few bargains…Come with me if you like.”
“Oh yes, Martin…I can call you that? You don’t mind?”
“Not a bit…On the contrary, you’ve settled what name I give if I bid for anything.”
It wasn’t only his name, however, so far as Browdley itself was concerned. He was recognized by many in the town, despite the long interval, and one day, after he had called on Dr. Whiteside at his house in Shawgate, a stranger accosted him in the street and made offensive remarks. After that he never visited Browdley again, but in the other direction, at a somewhat greater distance, lay country towns and villages where no one knew him by sight; and here he liked to take Livia with him on casual expeditions—to that farm sale, for instance (at which he bought some spades and hoes, and quietly said “Martin” to the auctioneer); or on other occasions to an agricultural show, or a cricket match, or a local fair. He liked outdoor scenes and functions—the smell of moist, well-trodden earth, the hum of rural voices blown full and then faint on a veering wind, the pageantry of flags and bunting against low-scudding clouds. Frankly he did not much care whether Livia enjoyed every moment of these occasions or not; she took the chance when she agreed to accompany him, and if she were bored, that was her lookout. Sometimes she admitted afterwards that she had been. “But I don’t mind being bored, with you, Martin.” To which she added quickly: “I mean I don’t mind being bored when I’m with you…no, no, not even that exactly—what I really mean is, I don’t mind being bored provided I’m with you.”
Of the schools to which he wrote, all declared they had no vacancies. Whether they had received unsatisfactory reports from Miss Williams, or whether the newspaper scandal had scared them off, was hard to determine; they gave no such reasons, of course, but after the same kind of letter had arrived from half a dozen headmistresses he felt there was not much use continuing. Perhaps there were schools in France or Switzerland; he would have to look the matter up. He did not tell Livia of his lack of success so far, preferring her to think he had merely dropped the matter; which she did, without much delay and with great satisfaction.
For it was very pleasant to be at Stoneclough as the seasons rounded and another spring brought new green to the trees. After the battles and scandals of the previous year, peace seemed to have descended on the house and its occupants; even Sarah, shrill-voiced as she shared the domestic work with Livia, nagged less if only for the prosaic reason that she was getting deaf and could hear less. She too had made her truce, whether of God or of the Devil; without giving up one jot of her religious scruples, which were of the strictest kind, she nevertheless contrived to mate them with an old conviction that a Channing could do no wrong. He could, and had done, obviously; and yet, in another sense, it was not so. Surely that was no harder to believe than some of the things she heard, and with relish, from her favorite pulpit every Sunday? She was a devout attender at one of the Browdley Methodist chapels, where, as deafness slowly gained on unobtrusiveness over a period of years, she had worked her way up to the front pew immediately beneath the preacher’s oratory. She liked the preacher in a grim, prim way—the same way that she liked Mr. Felsby. She had never liked Emily, or Miss Fortescue, or Watson, or anyone at Stoneclough who was not a Channing. And she only half-liked Livia, who was only half a Channing. Livia wrangled with her, tolerated her, and thought her at times insufferable—which she was. She was also stupid, hard-working, not very clean, and intensely loyal.
Whereas Watson was not so loyal, rather lazy, and occasionally drunk. But he had a knack with plants and machines, and an affection for the place he worked at rather than for the people he worked for. He liked his employer well enough, did not much care for Livia, whom he thought arrogant, and hated Sarah, who had once floored him with a saucepan when he came into her kitchen tipsy.
And yet, out of these strains and stresses, a queer equilibrium emerged—a fadeless sea in which all the storms were in teacups. It was Browdley, that almost foreign land five miles away, where rancors increased as trade worsened and mill after mill closed down. Even Mr. Felsby was rumored to be losing a small part of his fortune; one could not be sure, however, since he forbore to come up the hill and grumble about it. And Dr. Whiteside, his closest friend, gradually absented himself also, though he was cordial enough with Livia when they met, as they sometimes did, in the streets of the town.
Livia shopped, kept house, and helped with the cooking; while Martin (since he may as well be called that) spent hours in the garden, turning wasteland into vegetable patches, thinning trees, repairing terraces and fences. There was much to be done after so many years of Watson’s neglect and Emily’s indifference.
One day he told her she was to go to a school in Switzerland, and that she would like it very much because Geneva was a very beautiful city. Livia was surprised and disappointed; she had hoped that the whole idea of school might be dropped, but of course it was quite exciting to be going abroad for the first time, and doubtless a Swiss school would be nothing like Cheldean. So there followed a great scurry of preparation—travel tickets had to be obtained, clothes to be bought, and the old Cheldean trunk taken down from the attic over the stables. Martin, who had visited Geneva in his youth, told her what she would see and what she must on no account miss, and that part of the value of being at a foreign school was merely to be living in a foreign country.
Livia was to leave by a night train on the Wednesday after Easter week. During the afternoon she had some last-minute shopping in Browdley, and returned towards dusk in the rather shabby old car that Martin had picked up at a bargain price and that only Watson’s constant attention kept in going order. The trunk was in the hall, roped and labeled; it was understood that there would be early dinner while Watson loaded up the car for the drive to the station. Livia, excited in a way she could not exactly diagnose, walked into the drawing room where she found Martin standing in front of the fireplace reading the paper. There was nothing odd in that, but when he put the paper aside to talk to her, Livia was transfixed by the sight of tears in his eyes.
The conclusion she reached was inescapable. “Oh Martin, Martin—what’s the matter? If you don’t want me to go, I won’t. I don’t really care about Geneva or Switzerland or any place except here! I’d rather stay with you, Martin—”
“Come here—” he interrupted. And then he stepped towards the girl and took her arm with a curious nervous pressure. “It isn’t that….”
“Martin—what’s happened?”
He picked up the paper, folded it to a certain place, and handed it to her. But she did not look at it; she kept staring at him till he had to say: “I’m afraid it’s bad news …Or would you rather have me tell you?”
She looked at the paper then. It was a small paragraph on an inside page, reporting that Mrs. John Channing had been killed instantly when the car she was driving overturned on the road between Chartres and Orléans, and that a Mr. Standon, who was a passenger, had been severely injured. The reading public was further reminded that Mrs. John Channing was the wife of the same John Channing who, etc., etc.
Livia did not speak. She read the paragraph over and over, trying to grasp not only what it meant, but what it signified in her own life; and then, because of the tears in Martin’s eyes, she began to weep herself. “Oh Mother…Mother…” she sobbed. But even while she did so a thought came to her in such a guise that she felt dreadful for having the kind of mind in which it could even exist—the thought that in his distress, which was also hers, Martin might now want her to stay at Stoneclough for company’s sake. Yet how could one help one’s thoughts, whatever they were? And she was distressed; her tears, imitative at first, were perfectly genuine as they proceeded. But she knew now, for certain, how much she wanted not to leave Stoneclough, and that all the excitement of packing to go abroad would be nothing to the quiet relief, even the sad relief, of unpacking.
But it was not to be. As soon as she hinted at it, he said no; if the news had upset her very much she could postpone departure for a day or two, but that was all; and really, he thought it best for her to go; the change of scene and new companions would prove a great help, he assured her.
“And it wouldn’t help you, Martin, if I stayed?”
He half-smiled. “That’s very kind of you, my dear, but I really don’t think it would.”
After that she was proud enough to leave that night, as had been planned, and not accept the short delay that was so pitiable a substitute for what she had hoped.
But she was not long away from Stoneclough. The time was April 1914; she had one term at the Geneva school, then returned to England for the summer holidays just before the war broke out. And when the next term began, in September, the Germans were on the Marne and it was thought inadvisable to send English girls across France, even to the best Swiss finishing schools.
One day, to escape a heavy shower, Livia entered the Browdley Public Library, and by sheer chance as she wandered in and out of the alcoves came upon a section dealing with law cases and jurisprudence; one of the books, conspicuous by its worn condition, proved to be a verbatim report of the Channing case. The name was a shock that set her heart beating, but a greater one came when she opened the book and found, against the title page, a photograph of her father as he had been at the time of the trial all those years before. So young, so handsome, so dashing; she could hardly believe it was the same man…and against the photograph, scrawled in pencil, was a word unknown to her, but which she guessed to be foul. It brought a flush to her face that she thought everyone in the library must notice, but no one did, and with a curious hypnotized fascination she took the book to a secluded table and began to read carefully. Later, when she had to leave, she hid it behind some other books, so that nobody should borrow it before she continued reading the next day. Not being a library member she could not borrow it herself, nor did she want to order a copy from a bookseller. But every afternoon for a week she spent an hour or two in the library alcove, trying to understand the crime that her father had committed. And for the most part she was mystified. It was all to do with another world—a world of complicated details and strange jargon—false estimates of reserves, duplicated stock certificates, and so on. What puzzled her was the intention behind it all, and to this she found no positive clue until she came to the defending counsel’s speech, in which her father was portrayed as a brilliant visionary who had wished to amalgamate a large group of cotton mills with a view to preventing their eventual bankruptcies as separate competitors. But then, when she came to the judge’s summing-up, the whole picture was different—that of an ambitious, unscrupulous adventurer, greedy for power, employing deliberate deceit to tempt unwary investors…The two pictures made the problem harder than ever, the more so as neither bore the slightest resemblance to the man she herself knew. She then reread the examinations and cross-examinations, seeking to disentangle some corroboration of one or other viewpoint out of the mass of opposite and bewildering evidence. The main thing she gathered was that her father had once been in a position to deal with vast sums of money, whereas now he could hardly afford the extra hundred pounds by which the taxes on Stoneclough had lately been increased.
Some day, she thought, he would tell her all about it; and then he would be surprised to find out how much she knew already. But what did she know? The chief clue was missing…why had he done whatever it was that he had done? Not only why had he defrauded people, for that question had already been given two conflicting answers, but why had he been either the adventurer greedy for power, or the visionary with dreams of reorganizing an industry? Why? For it had been stated over and over again during the trial, as if it were against him, that the Channing Mill itself was sound until his own course of action ruined it; everything would have been all right, therefore, if he had let things alone. Only he hadn’t let things alone.
And then, too, she realized with a sense of discovery, though it was obvious by simple arithmetic, that he had spent many years in the industrial and financial world before the crash. His career was referred to at the trial as having been an “honorable” one; distinguished connections were cited with a number of companies besides his own. Why, then, had he suddenly broken whatever were the rules of the game?
There was yet a third character reading, scattered throughout the book in sundry penciled remarks. “Liar,” “Thief,” “Swindler,” were among the mildest of them; but on the last page was a clue, if not to her father’s motives, at any rate to his anonymous accuser’s. For in the margin alongside the judge’s pronouncement of sentence was the scribbled comment: “And not half of what the —deserved for ruining me and hundreds more.”
Long after she had finished the book and had learned all she could learn from it she found that even passing the library gave her an itch of curiosity—was it still being read, was some other unknown borrower adding new penciled insults to the printed lines? She would sometimes dash into the building just to see, and one day she reflected how simple it would be to put the book under her coat and take it away as she walked out. But she could not make up her mind to do this. It was no question of the morals of stealing, or of risk in being discovered, but rather of her personal attitude towards Browdley: to remove the book would somehow be accepting defeat, whereas to leave it was—if not victory—at least a challenge and a defiance. So she left it, and the library took on a curious significance in her mind: the place where the book was, and where people went who hated Martin.
He never spoke to her about the past, or gave her any opening to ask him direct questions about it; but sometimes, apropos of other things, he made remarks that connected themselves with it in her mind—remarks that did not so much reveal the light as illumine the darkness. Once he said: “The hardest thing in the world is to understand how you were once interested in something that no longer interests you at all.” And another time, standing with her in the garden on one of those rare clear days when all Browdley could be seen in the distance, he said: “The factories look big, don’t they? They dominate the town like the cathedrals at Cologne or Amiens…perhaps they are cathedrals, in a way, if enough people believe in them.” And then he mentioned a lecture by a young fellow named Boswell who was trying to get on the Browdley Council—a lecture Richard Felsby had told him about in great indignation because it had blamed the Channing and Felsby families for much that was wrong about the state of Browdley. “There’s some truth in it, though. Whenever I think of those rows and rows of drab streets huddling under the cathedrals I have the feeling that if somebody were to send me to jail for that, I’d consider it a just sentence…We’re all guilty, Livia, of everything that happens. Read the papers and see how.” (It was the autumn of 1917, the blackest time of the war.) “And if guilt had to be paid for by punishment, then the earth would be one vast prison. Perhaps that’s what it is.”
“The animals would have a good time if everybody was in prison,” Livia commented cheerfully. “They aren’t guilty, anyhow. In fact they don’t know anything about our wars and peaces—how can they? What does it matter to a worm whether he gets cut in half by a garden spade or by a shell bursting?”
He smiled. “It would certainly be hard to convince him of the difference. Probably about as hard as to explain to Man the mind of God.” He turned with her into the clough. “By the way, I’m going to London for a few days. Anything you’d like me to get for you there?”
“Can’t I come with you?”
“Wouldn’t be much fun for you. It’s—it’s mostly a business trip.”
“You mean—you’re going to—to start doing financial things again?” That was the nearest she ever came to a direct question.
“Good God, no. Don’t you think I had enough?”
That was the nearest he ever came to a direct answer.
While he was gone she realized she was enjoying even the loneliness, because of the image of his return. That image hovered over the edge of every page of every book she turned to, was called to life by every loved phonograph record. Her eighteenth birthday came during his absence, and somehow she was not even disappointed that he had chosen to be away at such a time; maybe he had had no choice; there were still many things in his life of which she knew nothing. The long interval of the prison years, for instance. He never even hinted at them, yet—she argued—what else could have caused the disconnection between the kind of person he had been and the kind he now was? Some day, perhaps, he would tell her about that also. Some day, when she was old enough, he would think of her as a complete adult, within range of every possible adult confidence. She already felt she was, however little it might have occurred to him so far. She was also beginning to appraise herself physically, though without vanity, for she considered her body too small and her mouth too big; but in being thus ruthless she was merely, of course, denying herself what she did not want. She knew no boys or young men, and when sometimes in Browdley they would stare at her as if she attracted them, she herself was aware only of disinterest. She did not want—was sure she would never want—to attract anyone that way. There were other ways for which she felt herself far better equipped; she liked to think there was something rare and talismanic about her that could appeal to an older man.
Yet she must not dramatize; he had once cautioned her about that, and ever afterwards she had known she had better not act before him; and this, by a subtle transition, meant that she need not act before him, thus (if she chose to look at it that way) relieving her of a burden rather than imposing on her a restriction. It was pleasant, anyhow, to think of the future that stretched ahead; she and Martin at Stoneclough, pottering about the garden, taking walks in the clough and on the moorland, visiting places together—the eventless days, the long firelit evenings. And, of course, to complete such felicity, the war would end sometime.
Sarah, growing deafer and more asthmatic in her old age, seized the chance of Martin’s absence to urge her to “get out” oftener, to make friends with young people, to enjoy herself more. And this, from Sarah, who had always connected “enjoyment” with the Devil, was an amazing suggestion if Livia had been interested enough to think about it.
But she merely replied, offhandedly as she always did to Sarah: “I do enjoy myself. I’m perfectly happy.”
“It’s a pity you gave up school,” said Sarah.
“Well, I never enjoyed myself much there, anyhow. And besides, I didn’t give it up—the school gave me up. Didn’t you know that? I was practically expelled, and then other schools wouldn’t have me—Martin didn’t tell me that, but I once saw some letters on his desk saying they couldn’t take me…I knew why even if he didn’t…You see, I’m a bad lot—like father, like daughter—isn’t that rather natural?”
She knew, of course, that she was acting then; she was always ready to do so in order to shock old Sarah.
When Martin came back she had been waiting for him for hours, but without urgency. Snow had fallen during the day, and this presumably had made his train late. It had also covered the drive as far as the road so thickly that Watson could not clear it in time to take the car to the station; so Martin would doubtless arrive by taxi. Earlier in the evening she had put on galoshes to enjoy the garden, where the snow lay piled in knee-high drifts—a rare enough sight to be novel, and so were the white slopes of the clough, through which the path ran untraceably except to one as familiar with it as she. The sky was blue-black and full of stars; they and the snow made a paleness bright enough to read by. And all around, especially when she listened for any car noise, there was a great blanket of silence that seemed to follow her into the house when she re-entered.
He arrived about ten o’clock, having walked the last mile along the road because the taxi couldn’t get any further.
“And with those thin shoes, Martin? You must be soaking wet…And carrying that bag all the way…”
“It’s not heavy. I’ll go up and change immediately.”
“Let me carry it for you.”
“No, no…I’m all right. If I want anything I’ll ring for Sarah.”
“She’s got a bad cough and went to bed hours ago.”
“All right…I won’t want anything.”
By the time he came down she had the drawing-room fire roaring high, and a tray of refreshments by the side of his favorite armchair—hot soup, sandwiches, whisky and soda.
“Nice of you, Livia, but really and truly I don’t want anything—except the fire.”
“But I’m sure you didn’t have any dinner—”
“I managed all right. Don’t worry about me. Please don’t worry about me.”
The way he said that made her instantly begin to do so. She noticed how more than usually tired he looked, his whole face drawn a little, hands trembling as he held them to the fire.
“When you were so late I wondered if perhaps you weren’t coming back
till tomorrow.”
“No…it was just the weather.”
“I thought perhaps your business had taken longer than you expected.”
“No…there wasn’t much business.” His face lightened as he added: “I didn’t forget your birthday, but—I have an awful confession—I left what I bought you in the train. They were some special records—of Mozart. I knew you’d like them. I don’t know how I could have been so stupid, but it’s quite possible they’ll be turned in by the finder. Unless he’s so disappointed when he unwraps the parcel that he smashes them in disgust.”
“Oh no—nobody could deliberately smash Mozart records!”
He smiled. “Maybe not. Anyhow, I left word about it—and if we don’t get them back I’ll buy you some more.”
“Martin…I’m so sorry…don’t worry about it.”
“Who said I was worrying about it?”
“Well, you’re worrying about something—I can see from your face.”
“I told you not to worry.”
Suddenly, leaning forward to warm his hands, he slipped and fell to his knees. Only her nearness and quickness saved him; another few inches, another second, and he would have been burned. As it was, she managed to pull him back and saw then that it had been more than a slip, more than just tiredness. She was calm, yet uncertain what to do—call Sarah?—call a doctor?—but first, anyhow, there was the whisky. She forced a stiff drink between his lips, then began loosening his collar. While she was doing this his eyes refocused themselves.
“I think you fainted, Martin.”
He nodded, gulping over the taste of the whisky.
“Seems so…and by the way, I shouldn’t have had that.”
“Why not? It pulled you round.”
“Maybe…only I’m not supposed to have it—now.”
“Why now?”
“Well, any time for that matter.”
“You said now! Martin, what’s wrong? What’s happened? Are you ill?…Shall I call a doctor?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ve had a doctor. That’s really what I went to London for. It’s nothing you need worry about…But perhaps I’d better go to bed now—and rest. I assure you it’s nothing you need worry about.…It’s—er—to do with my eyes. I’ve known for some time they weren’t quite as they should be. Old Whiteside diagnosed it wrong, of course…Well, anyhow, let’s hope those records turn up. At least I can hear properly.”
He got up and walked to the door, while she ran past him to open it.
“Martin…”
“I’m really all right, Livia—I didn’t even intend to tell you but for—”
“Martin, I’ll look after you. You know that?”
“Why, yes, but—”
“Even if you were to go blind—”
“Oh come now, there’s no question of that…” And then a laugh. “You do like to dramatize, don’t you?…But you’re very kind. I sometimes wonder why. I never did anything for you—except bring you into the world, and God knows whether you thank me for that, in the end…Yes, it puzzles me sometimes—why you are so kind to me.”
“Because I love you,” she answered simply, and then she laughed too, as if to join him in any joke there was. “Good night, Martin.”
“Good night.”
Back in the drawing room she listened to his footsteps creaking on the floor above. Then she ate a sandwich and walked to the window, opened it, and breathed the cold air. The blanket of silence was still covering the world.
The next morning he asked her not to tell Sarah anything about his fainting, or the trouble he had mentioned, because Sarah would fuss, and fussing was just as bad as worrying. And it was useless to tell Sarah not to fuss, because she would do so anyway; whereas if he told Livia not to worry, then he was sure of her compliance. Livia said she was far too happy to worry about anything, which was the truth, and it puzzled her. Perhaps it was because he looked so much better after his night’s sleep. Or perhaps it was just that he was home again. Or perhaps it was her own penchant for having the oddest emotions at the oddest times.
Anyhow, she was so happy she decided to put the old work horse between the shafts of the garden cart and drive over the hill to fetch eggs and butter from one of the farms; Watson usually did this in the car, but he was afraid the snow might be too deep in places, though the horse would manage all right. So she sat on the plank seat, surrounded by the rich smells of the empty cart, and jogged down the road as far as the side turning that climbed again steeply to the moorland. The sky over the snow was an incredible deep blue, and when she had gone a little way and looked back, there was Stoneclough, a huddle of white roofs against the black-and-white trees. And above her now, the mountain lifted up. In that strange snow-blue light it seemed to her that she had never been so near it before, though actually she had climbed to the summit many times; she felt a sudden wild ecstasy that made her lie down on the floor of the cart amidst the smells of hay and manure, to exult in the whole matchless beauty of that moment. The horse jogged on, presently stopping before a closed gate. She jumped down to open it, laughing aloud. Then the lane narrowed to a stony track, and there were other gates. At last she reached a farmhouse and saw a fat woman standing at the doorway wiping her arms on an apron and smiling. “Laws amussy,” she cried, as Livia approached, “I didn’t expect anybody’d come up this morning. Are you from Stoneclough?”
Livia said she was, and had the impression she was being taken for a servant girl; and that, somehow, added to the pleasantness of the occasion. Smiling also, she handed over the note on which Sarah had written out so much butter, so many eggs, and so on; but then another strange and pleasant thing happened. The fat woman pushed back the note with a loud chuckle. “Nay, that’s no use to me, girl—ye’ll have to tell me what it says. I never was a scholar.”
“You mean you can’t read?” queried Livia.
“That’s so—and I don’t know as I’ll ever bother to learn, now I’ve let it go so long.”
Livia then told her what she wanted, whereupon the woman disappeared
into the farmhouse, returning after a few minutes with the various items, a handful of carrots for the horse, and a jug containing a pale frothing liquid. “Nettle drink,” she cried, triumphantly, “and it’ll be the best ye’ve ever tasted.”
That could be easy, thought Livia, who had never tasted any before. But it was delicious, whether because of the woman’s special brew, or for some curious extra congeniality of time and place…but the truth was, everything that morning was to Livia miraculously right—the drive, the sky, the sunshine, the mountain, the nettle drink, and the fact that the woman could not read. Never again, as long as she lived, was she quite so happy.
She would hold his arm firmly (for he was apt to stumble a little), and walk with him up and down the level paths along the terraces, sometimes as far as the fence, but not much beyond, because there might be strangers in the clough, and he did not want to be seen. All at once a secret between them was removed, so far as this was concerned; he made no more effort to conceal from her certain things that he still wished to conceal from others. She was a co-conspirator in a small but necessary deception. For some reason he did not want outsiders to know that his eyes were bad; he seemed not to realize that few would care, or even think that a man walking slowly along with a girl holding his arm was behaving in any abnormal way for father with daughter. But she did not mind the pretense, if it satisfied him. And inside the garden, with no one to see or hear, with the empty moorland above and the dark clough below, she learned the special trick of sharing whatever mood he was in, even to extremes; if he wanted to laugh, she would laugh too, and if he had wanted to cry she believed she could have done that also. Sometimes she would tell him the only funny stories she knew, which were about Cheldean or the Geneva school; they were mostly rather silly yarns, even if they were funny at all, and it was odd to feel their schoolgirl importance dwindling in retrospect while she narrated them, so that she could tick them off afterwards as things never to be told again. He seemed interested, however, and often asked about her school friend, Joan Martin, suggesting again that she should write and try to re-establish the friendship. But Livia said it was no use now; she was sure they wouldn’t have a thing in common, even apart from the doubtful incident of the watch.
“But you ought to have friends, Livia—young friends. I know it would be hard for you to make them in Browdley—for various reasons…but you ought to have them—there ought to be people of your own age whom you could spend holidays with at their homes.”
“Or they could come here to spend holidays with me—how would you like that?”
The point was taken. He replied: “I wouldn’t mind it so much. I wouldn’t have to see a great deal of them, and if they were your friends, I’d do my best to make them feel at home.”
She smiled. “But they wouldn’t be, they couldn’t be, and I’d mind them here, anyway. Martin, don’t you worry about me, either.” And then sharply: “Who’s been talking to you? Sarah? She had no business to…Why should she interfere?”
He did not deny that Sarah had talked to him.
“All right,” he said temporizingly, “but don’t go and nag Sarah about it. She means well.”
“That’s not always a good defense,” she said, thinking of it suddenly, “when people do the wrong thing.”
She often gave him cues like that, as they occurred to her on the spur of the moment, hoping they might lead him into talk of the past. But they never did, and she wondered if he ever guessed that they were deliberately put out, and if he just as deliberately ignored them. One evening, however, without any cue at all, he began to talk of his years in prison. They were walking in the garden, with the stars especially bright in the frosty air, and that drew him to remark that the books he had read in prison were mostly about astronomy and philosophy. “You see, in prison after the first period of getting used to it, which is rather dreadful, you slip into a mood of timelessness that isn’t either happy or unhappy, and in that mood—for me, at any rate—the things to think about were the tuneless ones—the mysteries of life and existence that have sent many men into cells not very different from mine…the cells of monasteries, or the other kind where mad people are put. Not that I invented any special philosophy or had any special vision to match those I read about. I don’t have the right quality of mind.”
“Neither do I,” she answered. “You liked that kind of book because you were in prison, but I’d feel in prison if I had to read that kind of book.”
“I know,” he smiled. “But a very kind and gentle prison. A prison within the other prison. It wasn’t so bad—although, as I said, my mind wasn’t exactly equal to it—because, after all, I’d only been a smart business man most of my life.”
“And not even so smart,” she said softly, taking his arm.
“That’s so. Well, let’s say just a businessman. Perhaps that’s why I think now of the end of a man’s life as a sort of taking over by a junior partner—some cheeky young fellow whom at first you thought of no account, but he grows and grows inside your affairs till he begins to touch them all—you’d like to get rid of him but you can’t, he’s the fellow you try to forget when you go to sleep, but he wakes you in the morning with his nagging and needling…the first step you take you know he’s still there, at your elbow, jogging and shoving and hurting like the devil…you’re at his mercy—his strength grows all the time at the expense of yours—he knows he’s going to have his own way in the end—it’s only a matter of time, and a horrible time at that…and from his point of view, of course, everything’s going exactly as it should—he is healthy, striving, spreading—you are just an old decaying out-of-date thing he feeds on.” He checked himself. “Am I talking too much?”
“No,” she answered, transfixed.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Not altogether.” She added quickly: “But I don’t mind not knowing altogether. You remember once I said I didn’t mind being bored. When you don’t mind being bored, it isn’t boredom, really. And it’s like that when you don’t mind not understanding—perhaps it means that you do understand—a little.”
“I hope so,” he said, holding closely to her as they reached an uphill part of the path. “Now tell me some more about Cheldean.”
She racked her brains to think of a story because she knew that in some obscure way those yarns about school life took his mind in a pleasant direction, even if he did not always listen carefully; but she had already told him most that had happened, and now she could only think of something that had not happened. It was an incident she had once invented during a rather dull service in the Cheldean School chapel. The preacher was a local divine who came regularly and always devoted a large part of his extempore prayer to the weather; he was never satisfied with it and always wanted God to change it to something else, so that the slightest sign of floods, drought, a cold wave or a heat wave, gave him an excuse. One sunny Sunday after a week of consecutive fine days, he prayed most eloquently for rain—which the girls definitely did not want, since there was a school holiday the next day; and Livia, sharing this resentment, suddenly noticed a sort of trap door in the roof of the chapel just over the pulpit.
What fun, she thought, if one had climbed up there with a bucket of water and, at the moment of the appeal, had poured it down over the preacher’s head! The thought was so beguiling that she had giggled quietly in the pew; but now, telling the story to Martin as a true one, she had him laughing aloud.
“What really made you do it?” he asked. “Just for a lark?”
“I wanted to see his face when he looked up,” she said, still using her imagination. “I thought he might think I was God.”
She had to invent the sequel of her own discovery and punishment, at which he kept on laughing. In doing so he half stumbled to his knees; and while she was helping him up Watson entered the garden from the yard. He gave them both a rather long and curious stare, and a few hours afterwards, catching Livia alone, asked how her father was. She answered “All right,” as she always did to that question.
Watson grinned. “Just a little drop too much sometimes, eh?”
“What do you mean?” Then Livia realized what he did mean and was immensely relieved. She had been afraid for a moment that he might have deduced some real illness, and his mistake seemed the happiest and simplest alibi, not only for past but possibly future events also.
She therefore smiled and retorted: “You ought to know the symptoms, Watson, if anyone does.”
From then on, Livia cared less about what was seen and heard, even though Watson’s knowing impertinences increased.
One evening Martin called her attention to a white dog walking along the path towards them, but she saw it was not a dog, but a piece of newspaper blown in the wind; but he still insisted it was a dog and stopped to touch it, then said it had run away. That made her realize how bad his sight was becoming, and she begged him to see some other eye doctor; perhaps a special kind of glasses or treatment would help; even if Dr. Whiteside were no use, surely there must be someone in Mulcaster or London…But he said no; it had all been diagnosed and prescribed for before; there was really nothing anyone could do about it—perhaps it would not get any worse. And he could still see many things perfectly well—colors, for instance. The red geraniums, the blue lobelias, the yellow sunflowers; he welcomed them all each day. That gave her the idea to put on a scarlet dress the next time she walked with him, and he was delighted. From which she promptly derived another idea, and that evening, though she was poor at sewing, she worked hard after he had gone to bed, cutting up an old patchwork quilt and making it into a multicolored dress to wear the following day. And he was delighted again.
She then thought he might like a real white dog, and asked Watson to get one; but when the dog appeared and was duly presented to his master in the garden, he wriggled loose and scampered into the the clough. “There you are,” Martin laughed, when she fetched the animal back. “That’s what happened before. The white dog will have nothing to do with me.”
“Then I must be a white cat,” she answered, breathlessly. She had noticed before that the silliest repartee of this kind seemed to lift his mood; it was strange, indeed, how much of their talk had recently been either silly or abstruse, seeming to skip the ordinary world in between. And as usual, the silliness worked; he was lifted. “Come along, little white cat,” he laughed again.
“Yes—and the white cat won’t run away,” she answered.
She could see that he was recalling something. “But a holiday, though…that would be all right. Why don’t you take one?”
“A holiday?”
“Yes, why not?”
“Away…from you?”
“Well, only for a time…”
Suspicion filled her mind. “One of Sarah’s ideas?”
“Now, now, don’t get cross with Sarah. She’s not the only one who thinks you need a holiday.”
“Who else, then?”
“Oh…several people…”
“Who? Who?”
He wouldn’t tell her, but it was easy to worm the truth out of Sarah, and the full truth proved even darker than her suspicion. For it seemed that old Richard Felsby (he of all people) had visited Stoneclough recently and talked to Martin not merely about her taking a holiday, but about her leaving Stoneclough altogether. Some friends of Richard’s who lived on the coast of North Wales had been approached and had agreed to have her stay with them indefinitely; Richard had offered to pay all expenses, and Martin had actually approved the idea. This was the biggest blow of all; yet after a wild scene with Sarah she could only reproach him somberly. How could he have even considered such a thing? And that awful old man, Richard Felsby—how dared he interfere with her and her affairs? “Oh, Martin, I thought he never visited you any more. I thought you’d quarreled. I hoped you were enemies forever.”
“Livia, he just called on business the other day—while you were out. Something about a new mortgage on the house.”
“But he talked about me—you both did—planning to have me sent away—and Sarah already getting my clothes ready—all of you—behind my back—against me—plotting—and then pretending it was just a holiday—”
“Livia, please—it wasn’t like that at all—”
“Do you know what I’ll do? I’ll hate them both as long as I live—I’ll never forgive them—either of them—”
“They were only thinking of what might be your own best interests—”
“To send me away from you? Is that what you think too? You don’t want me here?”
“Livia, please…You know how much I like you—”
“I like you too. I love you. I’ve told you that before. And I wouldn’t go, even for a holiday. I’ll never leave you. They’d have to drag me out of the house and if they took me anywhere else I’d run away and I’d fight them all the time. I’d kill anybody who tried to send me away from you.”
“Now, Livia, Livia…why should you talk like that?”
“Because I’m so happy here. What on earth would I do alone in a strange place?”
“You wouldn’t be alone—”
“I’d be alone if I left you alone. I won’t go anywhere unless you go with me. Then I’ll go—wherever it is. Even if you went out of your mind I’d go out of mine too. That’s a bargain…So don’t try to get rid of me.” She put her hands up to his face and clawed him gently with her fingernails, suddenly and rather hysterically laughing. “The little white cat will scratch you to death if you even think of it.”
***
Dr. Whiteside happened to meet Livia in Browdley one afternoon. She did not mention her father, until asked, and then she said he was “all right.” The doctor was an old man now, long retired from practice, and for that reason even readier to think out the problems of the families he had once attended. He well remembered advising Emily to tell Livia the truth and send her to school lest the life at Stoneclough, without playmates of her own age, should make her grow up neurotic and self-centered; he had not seen the girl often since then, but now, even to his dimmed perceptions, she looked as if everything had happened just as he had feared. There was the peculiar rapt expression, the angular tension of her whole body as she stopped to speak to him in the street. And he made up his mind there and then to visit Stoneclough unasked; he did not care how John received him, it was the girl he was thinking about. She ought to be sent away, and he would tell John this and be damned to the fellow.
So a few days later, amidst pouring rain that had already flooded the low-lying districts of Browdley, Dr. Whiteside had his old coachman-chauffeur drive him up to Stoneclough. Admitted by Watson, he was glad to find Livia out, and made his own way across the hall to the drawing room. He walked in without ceremony, being both in the mood and at an age when such things were possible. John Channing sat alone by the fireside, with a white wire-haired terrier on his lap. It was one of the almost lucid intervals, less frequent now and more fragmentary; the younger man shook hands, invited the doctor to sit down, remarked on the weather, and in all ways but one seemed perfectly normal. The exception lay in the fact that though he clearly did not recognize Dr. Whiteside, he showed no surprise that a stranger should walk in unannounced.
It would have puzzled a man less subject to freaks of behavior than Dr. Whiteside himself. “Good God, man, don’t you remember me?” was all he exclaimed. “Whiteside…Doctor Whiteside. I’ve been meaning to look you up for a long while…How are you getting on?”
“Oh not so badly, thanks. Yes, of course I remember you now. It’s—it’s just that I don’t see very well.”
“Still the same trouble?”
“No. It never was what you diagnosed.”
“You don’t say?” Dr. Whiteside was somewhat discomfited. “Well, of course, I’m not a specialist. I hope you consulted one.”
“I did.”
“And what did he say?”
“That’s my business, if you don’t mind.”
“Why…certainly. I beg your pardon.” But by this time Dr. Whiteside’s interest, both private and professional, was thoroughly aroused. He was not really a stupid doctor, only a rather perfunctory one when people came to him with vague complaints, such as “a little trouble with my eyes.” On the occasion of that visit several years before, he had discovered a few symptoms of strain and had recommended a local oculist who would make a more detailed examination. As he never heard that Channing visited the oculist, he had concluded that whatever was wrong had got right of its own accord, as so many ailments do; but now, staring closely, he detected other symptoms—much more serious ones. Of course he couldn’t be sure, but if what he instantly thought of were possible, then it was rather appalling…
He continued, automatically turning on the jaunty air that he always adopted at such moments, yet at the same time reflecting that the real object of his visit was now more necessary than ever: “Matter of fact, I didn’t come to talk about you at all.”
“Good—because it’s the one subject I try not to be interested in. What did you come to talk about?”
Dr. Whiteside answered bluntly: “Livia.”
“Livia? Fine—go ahead. Too bad she’s out shopping now, or you could talk to her yourself…What about her, though?” Then with sudden darkening urgency: “She’s not ill, is she? There’s nothing happened to her?”
Dr. Whiteside saw a loophole into the argument which he knew had to come. “If she were ill, John, or if anything were to happen to her…and I’m telling you this frankly, mind…it would be nobody’s fault but yours.”
“But she’s not ill…tell me…tell me…”
“No, she’s not exactly ill. She’s just in a rather nervous state…”
“I know—she ought to go away. Matter of fact it was all arranged—”
“Yes, Richard told me, but he didn’t tell me she hadn’t gone.”
“He doesn’t know that yet…But she’s not ill?…You’re not keeping something from me?”
“I’ve said she’s in a rather nervous state. That describes it pretty well. A very nervous state…as apparently you are yourself.”
“Oh never mind me. Leave me out of it.”
“But I can’t entirely—in what I have to say.”
“Then for God’s sake get on with saying it!”
After a pause Dr. Whiteside resumed: “She’s very fond of you, isn’t she?”
The question seemed to bring instant calm to the discussion.
“I daresay. I am of her too. She’s kind to me. You’d never believe how kind to me she is. I often wonder why, because—as I’ve told her—I never did anything for her except bring her into the world, and that’s a doubtful privilege…but she’s so kind—so wonderfully kind.”
Dr. Whiteside cleared his throat; he would soon be on delicate ground. “Has it ever occurred to you…” He hesitated, then leaned forward to pat the head of the terrier and was disconcerted when the animal growled at him. “A faithful dog, I can see.”
“Livia gave him to me. Becky, his name is. She gave me this pipe too—though I can’t smoke any more—it hurts my head to have a pipe in my mouth. She doesn’t know that—please don’t tell her. She’s always giving me things. I give her things too, but I can afford so little nowadays…and those records were never returned. The railway people never found them. They were Mozart records—she loves Mozart.”
Dr. Whiteside nodded grimly. Presently he said, beginning afresh: “Has it ever occurred to you that she never remembered you as a child…so that when she saw you a few years ago it was like meeting a stranger for the first time?”
“Why, of course. That’s what makes it so remarkable. Two strangers. And very much at odds with the world—both of us. We’ve managed to get along pretty well. But I agree with you—that is, if the point you’re making is about her health…a long holiday…Richard’s right…she needs it. Sarah says so too…” Then suddenly, in a changed voice: “Dr. Whiteside, I’m not well—I have to admit that. In fact, there are times when I’m very far from well. Will you please tell me—quickly, please—because there’s not a great deal of time…exactly what are you driving at?”
Half an hour later Dr. Whiteside left the house, having discovered a great deal more than he had allowed the other to realize, and having said perhaps more than he himself had intended.
Livia’s shopping was considerably delayed that afternoon. She was not temperamentally a very good driver of a car, and after such rain as had fallen during several consecutive days there were extra hazards in traveling to and from Stoneclough. It was quite a phenomenal rain; all the streets near the river were under water, with basements engulfed and families living in upper floors; the Advertiser and the Guardian both reported it as the worst flood within living memory. This would have been enough for Browdley to gossip about, yet when Livia entered shops to make her purchases she could feel she was changing the subject of scores of conversations. For the town was already full of rumors about Stoneclough. A few words from Watson had been sufficient; their very fewness gave larger scope to theory, interpretation, pure invention. The whole history of the Channing family, their crimes, scandals, and downfall, was revived under a new spotlight. It was impossible not to wonder what secrets lay behind the eyes of a girl who looked and talked as if she were half a child and half an adult, but nothing at all of an eighteen-year-old.
She shopped at the butcher’s, the grocer’s, the pastry cook’s. It was remembered afterwards (by individuals) that she had bought some pipe tobacco at the tobacconist’s, and some lengths of colored ribbon in the drapery department of the Co-operative shop. She was quick-spoken, as always; knew exactly what she wanted, what it should cost, and if it were of good quality. A true Channing in that respect, at least.
After dusk she set out on the return journey. The old Citroen spluttered slowly uphill with water leaking under the hood; it was a car that did not take the hill too easily at the best of times, but now both wind and rain were beating against its progress, and every cross street sent rivers of muddy flood waters swirling against the wheels. It was all she could do to hold the road, and no more easily as she climbed, because the stream through the clough had become a torrent breaking bounds in places. She hoped Martin would be asleep by the time she reached the house, because if not, he might be worrying about her safe arrival. He usually dozed off about dusk and would often wake again past midnight, when it was her habit to cook a small meal which they would eat in the kitchen; after which they would talk until he felt like dozing again, or sometimes, in fine weather, they would pace upland down the garden in the darkness.
The strain of the drive had tired her, and when she finally slewed the car into the garage she saw with relief that there was no chink of light at the drawing-room window. That meant he had already gone to bed and might well be asleep. Suddenly as she closed the garage door she noticed tire marks in the yard that were not from the car, or from Watson’s motorcycle; and a moment later, seeing Watson wheeling his machine out of the shed where he kept it, she asked if anyone had called during the day.
“Only Dr. Whiteside.”
“He called? Why?”
“Oh, for a chat, I suppose. He didn’t stay long.”
She remembered then that when she had recently met the doctor in Browdley he had said something about calling round to see her father; though she hadn’t expected him to do so with such promptness, especially during the rain. “You’d better be careful,” she warned Watson. “The road’s nearly washed out down the hill.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right, miss.”
He jumped on his machine and was off. She idly wondered where he could think of going on such a night; she was as far as ever from guessing that Stoneclough’s inhabitants were beginning to get on his nerves.
She entered the house through the kitchen. As she passed Sarah’s room, near by, she heard a voice and listened; but it was only Sarah herself, praying aloud in a curious wheezy whine. The whine was based on jumbled recollections of Methodist local preachers whom Sarah, in the past, had admired; the wheeze was merely asthmatic. Sarah had always prayed aloud before going to bed, and it brought back to Livia memories of a thousand childhood nights when she herself (at Sarah’s command) had done the same, kneeling and shivering in a nightdress, and how the nightdress popping over her head just before she began had become a symbol of prayer, so that the words “Night is drawing nigh” in the hymn had meant “Nighties drawing nigh” to her until long after she began to read.
She went upstairs to her own bedroom and was asleep within minutes. She did not pray; somehow the act of prayer seemed more fitting before a whole night’s sleep, not just a few hours until midnight. And besides, she was apt to pray harder during the day, while she was doing other things as well.
But that night, had she known, she might have said an extra prayer, for when she awoke it was almost dawn; from utter exhaustion she had slept eight hours. Immediately—and perhaps it had wakened her—she heard the bark of a dog in the distance, the little white dog whom Martin had called Becky, because (they had both noticed) it never seemed to follow them when they walked, but liked to run on ahead and then turn round, as if beckoning.
The bark continued, giving her a sudden premonition of tragedy. She hurried through the dark house and across the garden, following the sound, and Becky came running forward to meet her at the top of the clough.
Martin’s body was wedged between rocks where the river poured in spate; she made the discovery quickly because Becky jumped into the torrent near the exact spot. She tried to drag the body out of the water, but lacked the strength. She noticed later that where the path came nearest to the rocks there had been a small landslide.
It was full dawn as she returned to Stoneclough. Sarah was still asleep, Watson had been out all night; the house was cold and gray and silent. Entering it she knew she could not tell anyone yet; she felt herself spinning into unconsciousness as she flung herself on a couch in the drawing room. Just a little while to gain control, and then hold it for a lifetime—just half an hour, maybe, until the sun was up, until Sarah, taking tea to his room, would herself discover the absence. Presently she noticed that Becky was wet and shivering, and the dog’s simple need roused her to equally simple action. But a moment later, while she was in the kitchen rubbing him with a towel, some men appeared in the yard outside. They were Browdley Council workmen, in charge of an engineer; they had walked up the clough to see if the flood water was abating; and in so doing they had found Martin’s body.
One of the workmen claimed afterwards that when Livia was given the news she said in a low voice “Yes, I know—” but she denied this later in the morning to Dr. Whiteside, and under his tactful handling the matter was not raised at the inquest, though it was freely gossiped about in the town. She was so distracted, anyhow, that (as all the men agreed) she might not have known what she was saying even if she had said it. But it was still a little odd, as were a great many other things.