Hemlock and After Page 8

  This Sunday morning she felt particularly averse to Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the validity of Crabbe Robinson’s witness. Her mind was upon the same freedoms and liberties which had exercised Byron and Shelley; but so deeply had her enthusiasm in life become divorced from her ‘subject’ that it was only under the conviction that the cause for which she was sitting on a platform was a life and death one that she would be willing to quote the revolutionary poets in defence of it, as seemed appropriate to one in her official position. It was in defence of Liberty and Freedom, as they were threatened today, that she sought relief from the dead weight of the past. Today, above all days, was too exciting for work. She was going to bring together her beloved brother, Bernard, and her brilliant new friend, Louie Randall, and bring them together for a very important purpose.

  She put away the neat files of papers, closed the desk and prepared to fill in the time by bustling about the flat. Though her emotions and her energies were wholly given to humane causes, she believed, like her brother, in a comfortable, unostentatious material existence. The grey hair above her long, bony face with its horn-rimmed glasses was well cared for; her black cloth coat and skirt and white blouse were good and not without ‘chic’. She was little and competently made up.

  She prepared the meal herself – a good sherry from Harrods, where they knew her so well, a lobster mayonnaise – she prided herself on the consistency of her mayonnaise – two bottles of a good Sylvaner and an omelette, on which the Kirsch would burn with that cool, blue flame she so delighted in. A tin of Romary Bath Olivers for herself, of course, and for Bernard, who was a child in his indulgences, little hot fluffy French rolls with plenty of butter. Grumbling about rationing, when all that was needed was a little imagination, made her particularly angry. She did not, of course, expect people to have lobster every day, but even on one’s own what could be nicer than Brie, brown bread and a raw onion, or a simple risotto? Poor Isobel! She would have been disturbed to know how many of the stockbrokers’ and barristers’ wives at Little Vardon also prided themselves on their mayonnaises and their risottos, and yet how little it prevented them from grumbling at rationing.

  She did not care for her brother’s works, the earlier satirical ones seeming hard and frivolous – she felt that they did not do justice to the depth and courage of his humanity – the later ones faintly imbued with quietism; not alas! the admirable bustling quietism of so many Quakers with whom she had worked, but an almost unreal religious quality, which she had to admit seemed more and more to colour his personality. She attributed it to the tragedy of Ella’s selfish retreat from life.

  *

  Isobel was deeply distressed at her brother’s tired, grey appearance, his shortness of breath after the upstairs climb to her flat. But she had learnt, when still in her ‘teens, that he could not happily receive her solicitude. He kissed her on the cheek – the mating peck of two bright-eyed, slender cranes.

  Shy of personal rebuff, shy of their diminishing contact in the political field, she characteristically found herself diving immediately off the deep end. ‘You look tired,’ she barked gruffly. ‘The American attitude would make anyone lose sleep. Isn’t it criminal, Bernard? What can we do about it?’

  She was as certain at sixty as she had been at twenty, he at fifty-seven was once more as uncertain as at seventeen. They had come back full cycle, Bernard reflected wearily. Smiling affectionately, he said, ‘Attitude to what Isobel? And who’s “we”?’

  ‘Attitude about almost everything. But I meant, of course, Spain,’ Isobel barked. ‘And we’s you and me and any decent, intelligent person who can still think for himself in this country.’

  Bernard saw, as though on a newsreel, Isobel and himself at meetings and demonstrations, on platforms, on reception committees and collaborating over pamphlets. They had never been so close together as in those ‘Spanish years’. He stroked her arm.

  ‘Naturally, I don’t find it easy to take,’ he said, ‘but it’s only a small part of the whole thing.’

  ‘We’ve got to make a stand somewhere, Bernard, and for once the issue must be absolutely clear to anyone.’ She clung so desperately to her brother. Save for her friendships with younger women lecturers, of whom Louie Randall was the latest, she had made almost no personal contacts in her life.

  ‘I don’t think making stands is quite so easy as you think, Isobel,’ Bernard said. ‘You’ll think I’m against you, darling, but I’m not. In a sort of way I’m even pleased that you’re still so sure of what you think. But I don’t think it’s as easy as all that. And not being easy, I don’t think amateurs should meddle, especially writers and professional people. Oh! and again, I don’t think exactly that. But, for the moment, at any rate, I’ve got to work on quite little things which are basic – myself, for example.’

  Isobel felt tears in her eyes. She almost burst out in anger, but then she reflected how tired her brother looked, really ill. She almost regretted asking Louie, though of course the issue was too big to consider purely personal matters. She could hardly bear to recall Bernard’s wonderful stand over Spain in the years before the War; even Ella had been splendid in those days. She asked fiercely, ‘What does Ella think about it all?’

  Bernard tried hard not to smile at the note of jealousy in her voice. ‘Oh! I think she’s trying to work out these problems in her own terms.’

  Isobel sniffed audibly and began to pour out the sherry.

  There was some minutes’ silence. Bernard’s sympathy for his sister was mixed with a certain impatience at her self-centredness. I live in a world of never-grow-ups, he reflected, no wonder we are no use in the spheres to which Isobel herself attaches such importance.

  ‘If I’m looking tired,’ he said, ‘it’s probably because the last three months have been very strenuous. But I do really feel that getting Vardon Hall is one of my few achievements, you know. Of course, there’s to be three years’ trial, but I think we shall weather it. You don’t know, Isobel, how desperately it’s needed if writing’s to survive in this country. Not only somewhere quiet where the younger writers – God help them – can go to work, but somewhere comfortable and really well run. And then, although there’s certainly to be no community-centre atmosphere, it will be a help to have some meeting ground that isn’t overlaid with clique snobberies. Getting the backing was about the thing I’ve least liked doing in my life, but if I’m tired, I’m rather happy too, my dear.’ Rather happy was about it, he thought, so much seemed to have happened since last week.

  Isobel stood like a gawky schoolgirl, her cheeks scarlet, ‘Oh Lord! What a selfish pig I’ve been,’ she walked over and kissed her brother’s forehead. ‘I’m so very pleased, Bernard, it’s been the only good news I’ve heard for years.’

  Lunch with Louie Randall was rather strained. Both women determinedly talked commonplaces in a way that puzzled Bernard. It was true that Isobel was always having these crushes, but there seemed to be something more in his introduction to this little, bright woman than Isobel’s desire for her brother to meet her new friend.

  Louie was younger than most of Isobel’s recent friends-about twenty-eight, Bernard judged. With her garçon hair, her bon copain handshake, striped sailor shirt, black cloth skirt, and jade green crêpe de chine scarf, she looked like a Saint-Germain American girl of a few years earlier. She spoke clearly, if a little loudly, with a slight North-country accent. If what she said was totally unaffected, it was also curiously dull. It was not, surely, Bernard thought, to hear estimates of recent programmes at the Academy and Studio One cinemas that he had been asked to meet her. Not even to deplore with her the reactionary atmosphere of L.S.E., nor to agree that Harold Laski was probably turning in his grave. In her capacity as a social science lecturer, Bernard felt prepared to bow to her superior knowledge on such a point.

  Louie was slightly puzzled as to how to talk to the old man. She had looked at his books without pleasure; they seemed to her to be soft where they were not just clever f
or the sake of being clever. Social democratic wobbling. She had expected Isobel to open the subject, but she was unreliable too. Of course, they were both very old. All the same he appeared from all that was said to have done excellent work; surely he must have some feelings left. Certainly his name would still be a great draw for bourgeois audiences, and the question of peace called for a wider platform. Confronted by strong black coffee ground by Isobel’s own mill, she felt that the moment had come to speak.

  ‘We need your help, Mr Sands,’ she said in a disarmingly straightforward manner. ‘You must be feeling as desperately worried as the rest of us. This business of Spain is just an example of the way things are going – Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, De Gaulle, the Japanese war lords, they’ll all be back with us any time now. People everywhere are worried to death, but of course you won’t see that in the great free Press and you certainly won’t hear about it from our Socialist government.’ She wondered slightly if she was addressing him too much as though he was a child, but he gave no sign of impatience, only listened with his head slightly bowed. ‘Some of us who feel strongly enough about it are trying to organize a meeting or meetings, if possible, to canalize middle-class feeling. The workers have their voice in the Trade Unions,’ Louie almost smiled as she said this, ‘but the middle classes are just as worried and they have every reason; but they’ve no solidarity, no means of expression. Their whole ethos prevents it. They’ll come if there are people big enough, respectable enough, if you like, who have the courage to give them the lead. Will you take the chair at our first meeting?’

  Isobel contented herself with saying gruffly, ‘I think you should, Bernard.’

  Bernard raised his head wearily. ‘I’m honoured that you should ask me,’ he said, ‘but, of course, I should want to know a little more about the background of your movement.’

  Louie was ready with figures and names. The figures Bernard could not understand. Of the names, however, he felt more certain – one or two scientists, a well-known actress, a Professor of History, two journalists, a former general, some clergymen – some of them gave him a glow of affection, some a slight sense of distaste, none a feeling of respect. His first thought was: They ought to have done better than this. Pushing his coffee cup away, he said, ‘I see.’ Then he went on, ‘I should like to have appeared with so many old friends, but I’m afraid it’s impossible. It would be as though I were to help officiate at a Roman Catholic Mass. The others know so much to be true which I’m fairly certain isn’t. I’m sure all the things they want are exactly what I want – peace, social justice, freedom to create, full use of material benefits in safe surroundings – but there the agreement ends. It sounds quite enough, I know, but it isn’t.’

  Louie smiled. ‘You prefer to wait until the atom bombs drop,’ she said, ‘and they certainly will, you know, on this tight little right little aircraft carrier.’

  ‘I prefer nothing,’ said Bernard. ‘I only hope, like the rest of us. Hope that good sense, or fear, or better still compassion will prevail.’ He felt angry with himself for his embarrassment at speaking so morally.

  ‘Well,’ said Louie, ‘I hope you’ll feel satisfied when you see the results of your hoping. Or perhaps like other escapists you think you’ll go with the first bang.’ She tried to control her anger; ‘I’m sorry if I’m getting heated,’ she said, ‘but surely you, who know what our civilization has achieved far better than I do, can’t see the whole thing go up in smoke and just shrug your shoulders.’

  ‘I should see it go down in grief and agony,’ said Bernard, ‘but I doubt – I wish I could be sure, God knows – but at any rate, I doubt whether things necessarily happen in so millenary a fashion.’

  ‘Well, I’m grateful at least for knowing exactly where you stand,’ said Louie.

  Bernard reflected with amusement that he too was grateful for her revelation of where she stood. She held out her hand in bon copain manner, with an ironical smile. ‘May I congratulate you on all you did in the past?’ she said. Bernard disliked the histrionic gesture, but he took her small, cool hand and said with equal irony, ‘You have my full permission to liquidate me on the great day.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Louie, ‘that isn’t needed. If it were necessary, I should do so without your permission.’

  ‘And what would you be afterwards?’

  ‘Exactly the same,’ she answered, laughing, then she looked more serious. ‘As a matter of fact, if I had to do such things – and actually I don’t think there will be much bloodshed when the time comes, the ruling classes only need a push to cave in now – but if I had to, I should naturally do what was required, but I should not regard myself as fit to do anything more of value.’

  Bernard was at once repelled by the psychopathic background of this remark and impressed by its individual note of unorthodoxy. He was about to cry facetiously, ‘Heretic!’ when he suddenly felt an attraction towards this young woman. Mustering every charm at his command, he said, ‘I don’t know whether you could bear anything so escapist, but I should be very pleased to see you at the opening of Vardon Hall next week.’ He regretted the emotional impulse as soon as he had spoken, but the bliss on Isobel’s face quietened his fears.

  Louie was clearly very pleased. ‘Oh, I’m not the great Red beast, you know, tearing culture to bits, as I raven my way across the world, ‘she said.’ I admire your work there very much. The whole scheme has great potentialities. Thank you, I should like to come. And if your hopes should be replaced by something a little more positive, we’d still like to have you on our platform.’

  Bernard thought that the moment had come to make a stand. ‘I’m afraid that’s quite unlikely,’ he said.

  All the same, Isobel felt very pleased that the meeting had not ended in anger. ‘We’ll go down to Vardon together,’ she said to Louie, as she went with her to the door.

  Isobel had her moment of intimacy with Bernard, too, as he left. ‘How is your young friend, Bernard?’ she said rather solemnly.

  ‘He’s getting on very well, thank you, Isobel,’ he replied.

  Looking at Bernard’s tired features, she said, ‘Remember, dear, youth can be rather thoughtless. I know,’ she squeezed his arm, ‘that you would never hurt any young man, but you mustn’t hurt yourself, either.’ She smiled at once warmly and sophisticatedly.

  It was back in 1944, Bernard reflected, not long after the beginning of his affaire with Terence, that, one evening when he was still in conflict with himself about his duty to Ella, he had confided in his sister. She had taken his feelings for his ‘young friend’ very seriously and calmly. If, he thought, she were to see Terence how surprised she would be, and if she knew that Eric was now his ‘young friend’ how shocked. In this Bernard was quite wrong. Her brother’s revelation had touched an unorthodoxy in Isobel that she did not realize herself, and, more important still, it gave her a special, private link with him. She had been most definite in her advice that he should not tell Ella.

  *

  ‘Eric! Eric darling! Where have you put Aunt Helen’s jug?’ Celia Craddock’s silvery voice had a faintly plaintive note, as she stepped down from the little conservatory, where she ‘did’ the flowers, into the living-room. ‘Mr Sands! I had no idea you were here yet. Why didn’t you tell me, Eric?’ And she stood statuesquely with the crimson roses held against the white of her graceful neck.

  Bernard saw that she wanted to be drunk in, and, as usual, felt inadequate to the task. ‘What heavenly roses!’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Craddock, ‘or rather they will be, when I’ve smashed their stems and put them into water.’ Beauty, she always believed, was more allied to breeding when wedded to everyday good sense. She saw quite enough genteelness in Esher never to allow a note of false delicacy to mar her manner. She wouldn’t, of course, have been in Esher at all but for ‘the house’, such a strange, wonderful, yet unpretentious old house to find in the neighbourhood. A colonial-style white building with a veranda and a long conservatory
, it stood in a large rambling garden, full of sudden surprises – magnolias, camellias, peach trees, even some agapanthus lilies. Perhaps it was something of her childhood Virginia, of which she retained the prettiest little Southern drawl after thirty years’ absence, which so endeared it to Mrs Craddock, and there certainly hung about it, so low-lying was it, a perpetual hot, damp mist. Even in winter it seemed close, and in summer Mrs Craddock lay on a chaise longue on the veranda fanning herself, until after the glow-worms were shedding their pale light.