Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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Meanwhile, in the drawing-room, the Queen Mother had responded to Mr. Tendring’s accent exactly as her granddaughter had feared and expected. To his polite enquiries after her health she responded merely by asking him to spell his name; and when he had done so, she said, ‘How very odd!’ and repeated the word ‘Tendring’ two or three times in a tone of extreme distaste, as though she were being forced against her will to speak of skunks or excrement. Then she turned to Daisy and, in a harsh stage-whisper, asked her why on earth she had brought such a dreadfully common little man with her. Fortunately, Mrs. Ockham was able to cover up the old lady’s words by the first sentence of her own loud and enthusiastic account of her previous meeting with Sebastian.
‘Oh, he’s like Frankie, is he?’ said the Queen Mother, after listening for a little while in silence. ‘Then he must look very young for his age, very babyish.’
‘He looks sweet!’ cried Mrs. Ockham, with a sentimental unction which Sebastian found almost as humiliating as her grandmother’s offensive.
‘I don’t like it when boys look sweet,’ Mrs. Gamble went on. ‘Not with men like Tom Pewsey prowling around.’ She lowered her voice. ‘What about that little man of yours, Daisy — is he all right?’
‘Granny!’ Mrs. Ockham exclaimed in horror.
She looked round apprehensively, and was relieved to see that Mr. Tendring had gone over to the other side of the room and was cataloguing the Capo di Monte figures in the cabinet between the windows.
‘Thank goodness,’ she breathed, ‘he didn’t hear you.’
‘I wouldn’t mind if he had,’ said the Queen Mother emphatically. ‘Penal servitude — that’s what those people deserve.’
‘But he isn’t one of those people,’ Mrs. Ockham protested in an agitated and indignant whisper.
‘That’s what you think,’ the Queen Mother retorted. ‘But if you imagine you know anything about the subject, you’re very much mistaken.’
‘I don’t want to know anything,’ said Mrs. Ockham with a shudder. ‘It’s a horrible subject!’
‘Then why bring it up? Particularly in front of Veronica. Veronica!’ she called. ‘Have you been listening?’
‘In snatches,’ Mrs. Thwale demurely admitted.
‘You see!’ said the Queen Mother in a tone of reproachful triumph to Mrs. Ockham. ‘But luckily she’s a married woman. Which is more than can be said of that boy. Boy,’ she went on, speaking imperiously into the darkness, ‘tell me what you think of all this.’
Sebastian blushed. ‘You mean, the … penal servitude?’
‘Penal servitude?’ repeated the Queen Mother irritably. ‘I’m asking you what you think of meeting my granddaughter again.’
‘Oh, that! Well, of course, it’s most extraordinary. I mean, it’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it?’
Impulsively, Mrs. Ockham put an arm round Sebastian’s shoulders and drew him towards her.
‘Not exactly funny,’ she said. ‘Joyful, if you like — the happiest kind of Godsend. Yes, a real Godsend,’ she repeated, and her eyes filled with the tears that came to her so easily, her voice took on a vibrancy of emotion.
‘God here, God there,’ rasped the Queen Mother. ‘You talk too much about God.’
‘But how can one talk and think enough?’
‘It’s blasphemous.’
‘But God did send him to me.’
And to lend emphasis to what she had said, Mrs. Ockham tightened her embrace. Inertly, Sebastian suffered himself to be hugged. He felt horribly embarrassed. She was making a fool of him in public — just how much of a fool he divined from the expression on Mrs. Thwale’s face. It was the same expression as he had seen on it that afternoon when she tormented him with her talk of giving Mrs. Gamble a demonstration of outrage — the amused, impersonal expression of the spectator who looks on at a delightfully heartless little comedy of manners.
‘And not only blasphemous,’ the Queen Mother continued. ‘It’s bad taste to be always talking about God. Like wearing all one’s pearls all day long, instead of only in the evening when one’s dressed for dinner.’
‘Apropos of dressing for dinner,’ said Mrs. Ockham, trying to shift the conversation on to safer ground. ‘Sebastian and I have agreed that we’re going to a lot of plays and concerts together when we get back to London. Haven’t we, Sebastian?’
He nodded his head and smiled uncomfortably. Then, to his vast relief, Mrs. Ockham dropped her hand from his shoulder, and he was able to move away.
From between the curtains of her spiritual private box, Mrs. Thwale observed it all and was delighted with the play. The Holy Woman was fairly itching with unsatisfied motherhood. But the boy, not unnaturally, didn’t much relish being made the victim of that particular brand of concupiscence. So poor old Holy-Poly had to offer bribes. Theatres and concerts to induce him to become her gigolo-baby, to submit to being the instrument of her maternal lust. But, after all, there were other forms of the essential shamelessness — forms that an adolescent would find more attractive than mother-craving; there were magnets, she flattered herself, considerably more powerful than Daisy’s pug-like face, Daisy’s chaste but abundant bosom. It might be amusing perhaps, it might be an interesting scientific experiment…. She smiled to herself. Yes, doubly amusing just because of what had happened this evening on Lord Worplesden’s tower, scientific to the point of outrage and enormity.
At the mention of concerts, the Queen Mother, who could never bear to feel that she was being left out of anything, had insisted that she should also be of the party whenever they went to one. But, of course, she drew the line at modern music. And Bach always made her go to sleep. And as for string quartets — she couldn’t abide that tiresome scraping and squeaking….
Suddenly Mr. Tendring reappeared upon the scene.
‘Pardon me,’ he said, when the Queen Mother had come to the end of her musical dislikes; and he handed Mrs. Ockham a slip of paper.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘A discrepancy,’ Mr. Tendring answered, with all the gravity due to a four-syllabled word used by chartered accountants.
Foxy, who had the rich dog’s infallible ear and eye and nose for members of the lower orders, started to growl.
‘There, there,’ said the Queen Mother soothingly. Then, turning to Mrs. Ockham, ‘What’s the man talking about?’ she barked.
‘A discrepancy,’ Mr. Tendring explained, ‘between this receipt, delivered to the late owner on the day of his … ah … demise, and the number of articles actually contained in the package. He bought two: but now there’s only one.’
‘One what?’ asked Mrs. Ockham.
Mr. Tendring smiled almost archly.
‘Well, I suppose you’d say it was a work of art,’ he said.
Sebastian suddenly felt rather sick.
‘If you’ll step over here,’ Mr. Tendring went on.
They all followed him to the table by the window. Mrs. Ockham examined the one remaining Degas and then the slip of paper upon which M. Weyl had acknowledged payment for two.
‘Let me have them,’ said the Queen Mother, when the situation had been explained to her.
In silence she fingered the drawing’s cardboard mount and the flimsy receipt, then handed them back to Mrs. Ockham. The old face lit up.
‘The other one must have been stolen,’ she said with relish.
Stolen! Sebastian repeated to himself. That was it; they’d think he’d stolen it. And of course, it now occurred to him for the first time, he had no way of proving that Uncle Eustace had given him the drawing. Even that little joke between them at the séance wasn’t really evidence. ‘Bucks and pendulums’ — it had been obvious to him. But would it be obvious if he tried to explain it to anyone else?
Meanwhile Mrs. Ockham had protested against her grandmother’s uncharitable suggestion. But the old lady was not to be put off.
‘It’s one of the servants, of course,’ she insisted almost gleefully.
And
she went on to tell them about that butler of hers who had drunk at least three dozen bottles of her best brandy, about the housemaid who had been caught with Amy’s ruby brooch, about the chauffeur who used to cheat on the petrol and repairs, about the under-gardener who …
And the fact that he had immediately gone and sold the thing — that would look bad, of course. If only he’d mentioned the matter the very day they found the body! Or else at the séance; that would have been a golden opportunity. Or this morning to Mrs. Thwale. Or even this evening, when Mrs. Ockham had offered to give him the dinner jacket — even then, at the risk of looking as if he’d been asking for sympathy on false pretences. If only, if only … Because now it was too late. If he told them now, it would look as though he were doing it because he’d been caught. And the story of Uncle Eustace’s generosity would sound like something invented on the spur of the moment to cover up his guilt — a particularly stupid and unconvincing lie. And yet, if he didn’t tell them, goodness only knew what mightn’t happen.
‘But we have no right even to think that it’s been stolen,’ said Mrs. Ockham, as the Queen Mother’s recollections of dishonest menials temporarily ran dry. ‘Poor Eustace probably took it out of the package and put it somewhere.’
‘He couldn’t have put it somewhere,’ the Queen Mother retorted, ‘because he didn’t go anywhere. Eustace was in this room with the boy until he went to the W.C. and passed on. All the time — isn’t that so, boy?’
Sebastian nodded without speaking.
‘Can’t you answer?’ the ghostly sergeant-major exploded.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot…. I mean, yes, he was here. All the time.’
‘Listen to that, Veronica,’ said the Queen Mother. ‘He mumbles worse than ever.’
Mrs. Ockham turned to Sebastian.
‘Did you see him doing anything with the drawing that evening?’ she asked.
For a second, Sebastian hesitated; then, in a kind of unreasoning panic, he shook his head.
‘No, Mrs. Ockham.’
Feeling that he was violently blushing, he turned away and, to hide his tell-tale face, bent down to look more closely at the drawing on the table.
‘I told you it was stolen,’ he heard the Queen Mother saying triumphantly.
‘Oh, Mr. Tendring, why did you have to find it out?’ Mrs. Ockham wailed.
He began to say something dignified about his professional duty, when the Queen Mother interrupted him.
‘Now listen, Daisy,’ she said. ‘I won’t have you behaving like a sentimental imbecile, slobbering over a pack of good-for-nothing servants! Why, they’re probably robbing you right and left at this very moment.’
‘No, they aren’t,’ cried Mrs. Ockham. ‘I simply refuse to believe it. And anyhow, why should we bother about this wretched drawing? If it’s as ugly as the other one …’
‘Why should we bother?’ Mr. Tendring repeated in the tone of one whose most sacred feelings have been outraged. ‘But do you realize what the late owner paid for this object?’ He picked up the receipt and handed it again to Mrs. Ockham. ‘Seven thousand lire, madam. Seven thousand lire.’
Sebastian started and looked up at him; his eyes widened, his mouth fell open. Seven thousand lire? And that stinker had offered him a thousand and congratulated him on his business ability for having screwed the price up to two thousand two hundred. Anger and humiliation brought the blood rushing up into his face. What a fool he’d been, what an unutterable idiot!
‘You see, Daisy, you see?’ The Queen Mother’s expression was gleeful. ‘They could sell the thing for the equivalent of a year’s wages.’
There was a little silence; and then, from behind him, Sebastian heard Mrs. Thwale’s low musical voice.
‘I don’t think it was one of the s-servants,’ she said, lingering with delicate affectation over the sibilant. ‘I think it was somebody els-se.’
Sebastian’s heart started to beat very fast and hard, as though he had been playing football. Yes, she must have seen him through the door, while he was putting the drawing into his dispatch-case. And when, an instant later, she spoke his name, he felt absolutely certain of it.
‘Sebastian,’ Mrs. Thwale repeated softly, when he failed to answer.
Reluctantly he straightened himself up and looked at her. Mrs. Thwale was smiling again as she might smile if she were watching a comedy.
‘I expect you know as well as I do,’ she said.
He swallowed hard and looked away.
‘Don’t you?’ Mrs. Thwale insisted softly.
‘Well,’ he began almost inaudibly, ‘I suppose you mean …’
‘Of course,’ she broke in. ‘Of course! That little girl who was out there on the terrace.’ And she pointed at the darkness beyond the window.
Startled, Sebastian looked up at her again. The dark eyes were dancing with a kind of exultant light; the smiling lips looked as though they might part at any moment to give passage to a peal of laughter.
‘Little girl?’ echoed the Queen Mother. ‘What little girl?’
Mrs. Thwale started to explain. And suddenly, with an overpowering sense of relief, Sebastian realized that he had been reprieved.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SEBASTIAN’S SENSE OF relief gave place very soon to bewilderment and uneasiness. Alone in his room, as he undressed and brushed his teeth, he kept wondering why the reprieve had come. Did she really think that the child had done it? Obviously, he tried to assure himself, she must have thought so. But there was a part of his mind which obstinately refused to accept that simple explanation. If it were true, then why should she have looked at him like that? What was it she had found so exquisitely amusing? And if she hadn’t thought that it was the little girl, what on earth had induced her to say so? The obvious answer was that she had seen him take the drawing, believed he had no right to it, and tried to shield him. But again, in the light of that queer smile of hers, that almost irrepressible amusement, the obvious answer made no sense. Nothing she had done made any sense. And meanwhile there was that wretched little girl to think of. The child would be questioned and bullied; and then the parents would come under suspicion; and finally, of course, Mrs. Gamble would insist on sending for the police….
He turned out all the lights but the reading-lamp on the night table, and climbed into the enormous bed. Lying there, open-eyed, he fabricated for the thousandth time a series of scenes in which he casually mentioned Uncle Eustace’s bequest to Mrs. Thwale and the Queen Mother, told Mrs. Ockham that he had already bought an evening suit with the money he had got for the drawing, smilingly scotched Mr. Tendring’s suspicions before they were well hatched. How simple it all was, and how creditably he emerged from the proceedings! But the reality was as painfully and humiliatingly different from these consoling fancies as the blue tart had been from Mary Esdaile. And now it was too late to tell them what had really happened. He imagined the Queen Mother’s comments on his behaviour — like sandpaper for uncharitableness. And Mrs. Thwale’s faint smile and ironic silence. And the excuses which Mrs. Ockham would make for him with such an effusive sentimentality that her grandmother would become doubly censorious. No, it was impossible to tell them now. There was only one thing to do — buy the drawing back from M. Weyl and then ‘find’ it somewhere in the house. But the tailor had insisted upon being paid in advance; that meant that ten out of his twenty-two precious banknotes had gone within an hour of his receiving them. And he had spent another hundred lire on books, and sixty for a tortoise-shell cigarette-case. So now he had little more than a thousand in hand. Would Weyl give him credit for the balance? Despondently Sebastian shook his head. He’d have to borrow the money. But from whom? And with what excuse?
Suddenly there was a little tap at the door.
‘Come in,’ he called.
Mrs. Ockham walked into the room.
‘It’s me,’ she said; and crossing over to the bed, she laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s rather late, I’m afraid,’
she went on apologetically. ‘Granny kept me up interminably. But I just couldn’t resist coming to say good-night to you.’
Politely, Sebastian propped himself up on one elbow. But she shook her head and, without speaking, gently pushed him back on to the pillow.
There was a long silence while she looked down at him — looked down at little Frankie and her murdered happiness, looked down at the living present, at this other curly-headed incarnation of divine reality. Rosy and golden, a childish head upon a pillow. As she looked, love mounted within her, overwhelming, like a tide rushing up from the depths of that great ocean from which for so long she had been cut off by the siltings of a hopeless aridity.
‘Frankie used to wear pink pyjamas too,’ she said in a voice which, in spite of her effort to speak lightly, trembled with the intensity of her emotion.
‘Did he?’
Sebastian gave her one of those enchanting smiles of his — not consciously this time, or deliberately, but because he felt himself touched into an answering affection for this absurd woman. And suddenly he knew that this was the moment to tell her about the drawing.
‘Mrs. Ockham …’ he began.
But at the same instant, and moved by a yearning so intense as to make her unaware that he was trying to say something, Mrs. Ockham also spoke.
‘Would you mind very much,’ she whispered, ‘if I gave you a kiss?’
And before he could answer, she had bent down and touched his forehead with her lips. Drawing back a little, she ran her fingers through his hair — and it was Frankie’s hair. Her eyes filled with tears. Once more she bent down and kissed him.
Suddenly, startlingly, there was an interruption.
‘Oh, excuse me …’
Mrs. Ockham straightened herself up and they both turned in the direction from which the voice had come. In the open doorway stood Veronica Thwale. Her dark hair hung down in two plaits over her shoulders, and she was buttoned up in a long white satin dressing-gown that made her look like a nun.