by Ursula Bloom
Hugo said, ‘Did you ever see his daughter?’ and his voice was excited.
‘What? That one that married the rich Mr. Blair? And never came back? I only saw her once. Miss Marguerite, they called her; ever so pretty, and the apple of his eye. She died when her baby was born, poor thing!’
Hugo said, ‘Yes, she did,’ and felt ashamed. He had meant to tell her who he was, but he couldn’t after that.
He went back to his bicycle and wheeled it towards the rectory. Shyness beset him. It was an unorthodox visit that he was about to pay, and his father had assured him that he would not be welcome. Now he half wished that he had not come. Summoning all his courage, he turned in at the gate, and walked up the untidy drive towards the house. It faced north, which gave it a depressed outlook. A honeysuckle, blue with blight, twined round the ornate porch, and the door was open, revealing a shabby hall beyond.
Hugo stood there, still uncertain. He had been so sure of this visit until now, and after all it was not in the least what he had expected. He hesitated. A door opened, and an old man pottered into the hall, tall, very slender, wearing an absurdly short coat which was hidden in front by a ragged beard. He came out, his head raised a little, as he blinked at the light beyond the door. He was like a very old bull lumbering from some dark stable towards the yard, half blinded by the brightness of the sunshine.
He said, ‘Why, there’s a boy there! Hello, boy, who is it you want to see?’
Hugo felt his colour coming and going. He said, ‘I believe that I’m your grandson, sir.’
‘What’s that? Eh, now, what’s that?’ said the old man; and then in a friendly manner: ‘Come along inside, boy, you can’t stand out there. Come along in.’
He wasn’t unwelcoming, he was rather childlike as he led the way into the room from which he had just emerged. It was a study and very obviously had not been cleaned for years. The tall windows were framed by long shutters, the paint blistered from innumerable springs and summers, and the cords of the blinds frayed. The book-cases were veiled by cobwebs, hanging in loops, and the mantelshelf strewn with old stained pipe-cleaners, a broken pipe or two, and some toothpicks. The clock had stopped. There were papers on the big table, letters half opened, and the inkpot of unpolished brass was full of dead flies and large pieces of dusty fluff.
‘Mind the carpet, boy, mind the carpet,’ said the old man, indicating a great hole just inside the doorway, where it would be only too easy to trip.
Hugo skirted it, and came to the table, standing there, fumbling his cap, and looking at Mr. Hancock. It was so very different from anything that he had imagined.
‘I think I am your grandson, sir.’
The old man had been about to sit down in an easy chair which had once been leather, but which now was so fly-pocked and torn by the sharpening of innumerable cat claws that it was difficult to recognise its original substance.
‘Dear me,’ he said; ‘my grandson! What’s your name?’
‘Hugo Blair. My father was James Blair, and I’m at Dover College.’
‘Oh!’ The old man picked up a feather pen and began fondling it as though it were a whole bird. ‘Blair,’ he repeated to himself; ‘Blair. Why, Blair was the fellow who married Marguerite. When I went up to see her he wouldn’t let me in. He turned me away from the door. She died, you know, in Onslow Square. She died when the baby was born. It was a girl.’
‘Oh no, sir, it was a boy, sir, me, sir.’
Again the old man looked at him in bewilderment. ‘A boy, did you say? Why, let me look at you.’ He leant across the untidy table and put a finger under Hugo’s chin, turning his face to the light, falling but dimly through the grey windows. ‘Yes, you’re right; it was a boy. I’ve got no memory, you know. The lichen of the years gets me. I’m old and worn out and I forget things. Yes, it was a boy, and you’re the boy!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘How did you find me? Why didn’t you come before?’
‘My father never told me of you, sir. I’ve been wanting to find you for a long time. I’d been trying, only I couldn’t because of my father. He’s a very strange man.’
‘Yes, I know.’ The old man began to chuckle like some amused baby. ‘Oh yes, I know. He wouldn’t let me see her when I went all the way to London. My Marguerite, my little daisy, and he wouldn’t let me see her. You’re not like her, you know; you’re not like him, either. Hang me, I don’t know who you are like! But I mustn’t call you boy; what’s your name?’
‘Hugo Blair.’
‘Hugo? Who chose that name? He did, I suppose. She wouldn’t think of a name like that; besides, she died. You ought to have found me out before.’
‘I couldn’t, sir.’ He stood, still fumbling his cap, and then said: ‘Have you a picture of her? I would so like to see something, and there isn’t anything at home.’
‘A picture? Why, of course!’ He began to laugh again. ‘I’ll show you pictures; only they change and look a bit funny now. Queer, but pictures are like that! The hats and dresses. So queer. See, what did you say your name was?’
‘Hugo Blair.’
‘Of course. I forgot. My memory’s slipping ‒ it’s the lichen of the years. Now, I never forget about her, though I can’t remember other things. That fellow she married ‒ a sinister sort of chap. I didn’t care about him, and I forget his name at times. Funny, that! Lichen, you know, all lichen!’
He stood there laughing to himself, like a child with some little private joke who finds it irresistible. The boy watched him, and the old man, conscious of the brown eyes, stopped tittering, and said: ‘I know what you want. You want something to eat. All boys want something to eat. Let’s go and see Mrs. Morse; she’ll have something for us.’
He had apparently forgotten all about the picture.
Old Mr. Hancock laid his hand on the young shoulder like a blind man who lets the other pair of eyes see for him. They went into the hall again, greyly shady, with the elusive scent of must in it, and Hugo could see a patch of moisture greening a corner of the wall. It was probably this which caused the unpleasant smell. The distemper was cracked and peeling in a disturbing pattern, and a corner of a big oil painting hung down in a three-cornered flap, coming right out of its frame. They went into another room, a gaunt dining-room, and here there was a certain friendliness. The long table was set for a meal; an epergne, like pewter with its heavy tarnish, was in the centre, but there were black holes where ferns had once spread their green fronds, and one bowl had been broken off so that only the unfinished branch spread from it. There was corned beef, three thin slices, and a tomato. The bread was on a wooden platter and a slab of butter was stuck beside it. Everything was crude.
As they stood looking at it, the old man surveying it as though it were a feast, a further door opened and a woman came in. Hugo knew that she must be Mrs. Morse. She was very thin, but carrying herself erect, and wearing a black frock very much in at the waist and out about the feet. The neck-band was white. Her hair, greased down on either side of the central parting, was smoothed back behind her ears, from which globes of brass swung. She had a sallow face and bird-bright eyes, a long aquiline nose coming closely to her thin lips.
‘A boy,’ said Mr. Hancock; ‘just a boy. I can’t remember his name.’
Hugo explained. ‘I’m his grandson. I’m Hugo Blair,’ and he was immediately aware that she resented his presence as being an intrusion. Unflinchingly she looked at him.
‘Oh, that child!’ she said.
Light suddenly illuminated the old jaded brain. ‘Hugo, that’s it. Little Hugo. Marguerite’s child. Only the best for little Hugo,’ and he ushered him towards the table where the paltry food was set in readiness.
Mrs. Morse brought knives and forks and laid them for another place, but the boy knew that she was angry and that she did not like his being there, though she said nothing. The old man babbled all the time and she just watched him. The boy dared not eat much, because already there had not been sufficient to
go round. Presently Mrs. Morse removed the plates and brought back a sago pudding, an ugly shade of grey, with the ‘blanket’ burnt. The old man hailed it as though it were ambrosia, and helped it out on to the plates.
‘A big helping for the boy. Boys can always eat. Children and chickens are always a’pickin’, they say. Funny the things they say! Boys can always fancy a good pudding.’
After the meal was over he insisted on taking Hugo round the garden and the house, babbling all the time. The whole place was untidy. The garden was long and ragged, with the broken cucumber-frame through which the sow thistles stuck their tasselled heads, and the damaged plum trees, blown down in a gale, and the shrubberies so definitely overgrown. The trees had staghead, and their crowns were only of dead branches, but the old man was highly delighted with it all. To him it was a palace, and the grounds had velvet lawns, and borders splashed with colour, and tall majestic trees.
Here was Marguerite’s swing, still dangling by one cord in a drunken fashion from an arm of the old cedar of Lebanon; here was the little arbour where she had done her lessons; and here indoors, atop the stairs which curled round like a half-closed fan, and an oriel window reached in curving grace to the floor, was her room.
‘Just the same,’ said the old man, and laughed again to himself. ‘Just the same. Oh, you’ll like it!’
Hugo peered inside curiously. It was small; a faded pink paper peeled from the mouldering walls. The bed was covered with a pink net coverlet, but the dust had changed the crudeness of that pink to a lovely mushroom shade, which had artistic qualities never there in her lifetime. There was a picture of the Madonna over the mantel, the blueness of her hood in startling contrast to the tender, faded pink of the walls.
On the dirty dressing-table was a little wooden hairpin box, with a picture stamped upon it, and ‘From Anne Hathaway’s Cottage’ written under it.
Hugo put out a hand. ‘Was that hers?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes. She had no need for hairpins, she was so young, you see, only eighteen,’ and he laughed; then the mood passed, and he recognised the inquiry in Hugo’s eyes. ‘You have it, boy. You could keep your studs in it.’
‘Yes, I could. Thank you very much.’ He slipped it into his pocket and knew that it would be his proudest possession, but his heart was too full to express his gratitude in any suitable words.
The old man said, ‘You must come again, you know. You must come again. I like having a boy here. I’m very old, and things get muddled at times, but you must excuse me, and bear with me. One day you’ll be old too. It’ll be the same lichen. Funny thing, lichen!’
‘I’d like to come again, but will Mrs. Morse mind?’
‘Oh no,’ and then, as though inviting Hugo to share a secret: ‘She’s queer at times; she reminds me of a school marm; but I’m not really frightened of her. I do things and she never finds out. We’ll do things together, boy, and she’ll never find out. That’ll be fun.’
‘Yes, grandfather, great fun.’
The bland eyes twinkled. ‘Grandfather! That’s me. Lichen and all that, but grandfather. What a time we’re going to have together, boy!’
They went downstairs into the hall, and looking up, for no reason save that he had the impression that he was being watched, Hugo saw Mrs. Morse standing on the curve of the stairs. Her hands were folded neatly before her, and she was surveying him with that furtive stare of hostility.
There was a little car outside the door by the shrubberies, and coming across the threshold a shortish, thick-set man, with a round face, in which the eyes were rimmed by glasses with gold frames. He was swinging a stethoscope.
He said, ‘Well, and how are we to-day?’ and Hugo knew that he must be a doctor, because only doctors talk of people as ‘we’ in that particular way.
The old man beamed. ‘I’m fine. I’ve got a grandson, and here he is. Tell Dr. Thompson your name, boy; I keep on forgetting it. The lichen, you know.’
‘I’m Hugo Blair, sir, and I cycled over from Dover College.’
‘Not Marguerite’s child?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good heavens!’ The doctor stopped short to stare. ‘Why, I remember your mother, and your father too. Is he still as reserved?’
‘He’s a bit difficult, sir.’
‘Ah!’ The doctor changed the subject. ‘Well, you’ve done your grandfather a power of good. He talks like a new man. It isn’t every day of the week that you find a grandson, is it now? And one after your own heart too.’ Then, ‘You’re not like your mother, Hugo.’
‘No, they tell me that.’
‘Nor like Blair. There’s something of your grandfather in you, though. The twinkles!’ and he laughed.
They marched into the porch again, and Hugo took up his bicycle, which had been stood against a syringa tree, thick with waxy buds. He felt relieved to be out here, away from the baneful eyes of Mrs. Morse, who had come to stand at the stairhead, without moving. The doctor was an Old Dovorian himself and made inquiries about the school. ‘A great school,’ said he. He’d known Canon Bell, and the ‘Nut’ too, but had never seen so much of Piggy Lee. He talked of them all as though they were fell women and not gods! Then he spoke of the Blairs, and it struck Hugo that he was being very understanding.
Old Mr. Hancock was shuffling about, inspecting the bicycle. ‘You’ll come back, boy? I don’t want you to disappear just as we’ve found one another. You’ll come back?’
‘Yes, grandfather, I’ll come back, though I don’t yet know when.’
‘Don’t make it too long,’ said the doctor; ‘time, you know, waits for no man.’
The old clergyman suddenly said, ‘Wait a minute, boy,’ and went back to his study. They could hear him rummaging in the papers there, and whilst he was away the doctor spoke in a lowered voice. Mr. Hancock was very old and frail. He had had a difficult life, and could not be expected to last very long. His span was almost over, and the boy must come back soon if he were to see him again. Hugo nodded. Then the old man came out again, holding in his hand a photograph.
He said, ‘My little daisy! I’ve got two of this one, and I’ll share them. You have this, boy; take it away with you. I’ve put a piece of paper round it, so you’ll be able to carry it. It’s for you.’
Then he waved him away.
A mile from Sandingford, whilst still in the green lane, Hugo dismounted by a low thicket, where the birds sang gaily and there was the hot, sweet smell of grass. He propped the bicycle against a pile of flints and opened the parcel. It was a photograph of a girl, not more than sixteen, very little older than he was. Her hair was parted primly in the middle, and worn in two long pigtails over either shoulder. The eyes, set wide apart in the small oval face, stared out at him seriously, and the little mouth refuted that seriousness by laughing. She had a dimple. Life to Marguerite was a joke, it was a laughing joy; even the boy was struck by the simple directness of that gaze, by her charm and childishness. Yet he had always known it, he told himself; he had always guessed that about the lovely shadow was a youthfulness that even the grave could not destroy. She wasn’t anybody’s mother; she was a very young, sweet girl, asking him to play with her. He could not think of her as mother, only as Marguerite.
During the rest of the term he could not get over to Sandingford again, much as he wished it, and next term the afternoons were too short to enable him to get there and back in daylight. He wrote to his grandfather, explaining, but no answer came, and he had an idea that Mrs. Morse might have intercepted the letter.
The subsequent holidays were irksome, because his father was tied to the home more than usual, as he had been ill again. On occasions Mr. Minch brought the papers down to Lynton Lodge to be signed, and Hugo, for no reason at all, hated the very sight of Mr. Minch, although Ebenezer was always very affable ‒ too much so, if anything, he was so smirkingly respectful.
‘Well, Mr. Hugo, and how goes the world with Mr. Hugo? A nice day, Mr. Hugo; but then all days are nice when you
are young.’ And so on.
Once Hugo heard his father screaming in a temper at Mr. Minch, and felt almost sorry for the little man when he came back into the hall, with its superfluity of white paint and the stained glass.
The boy said, ‘I’m afraid my father isn’t in a very good mood.’
‘Good mood? Your father is a very strong man, Mr. Hugo, a very great man. It is a pleasure to work for such a master.’ And all the time the thin mouth smirked in a smile which was more of a sneer, and had no real kindliness behind it at all.
Hugo knew that Mr. Minch did not know that he was lying, and, what was more, was even lying to himself.
‘And you’ll be coming into the office, Mr. Hugo,’ he said. ‘That’ll be a proud day, a very proud day. “And Son,” you know, Mr. Hugo, “and Son”.’
Ebenezer Minch was recalling the ‘and Son’ being freshly painted on the discreet board, and James Blair’s face when he had gone out to look at it, on a cold February day ‒ that very sharp 1915 February, with the City in a silver hold, and James Blair’s nose magenta red, and his eyes harder than ever. Hugo realised that Mr. Minch was only keeping in with him because he anticipated that one day he would be the master. Mr. Minch didn’t like him really. He liked nobody save himself.
Hugo sent a Christmas card to his grandfather, and later a photograph of himself in a school group, with X over his head, and, in the margin, ‘This is me’, so that no mistake should be made. He had had difficulties with his mother’s photograph, which he was sure would not meet with his father’s approval and would probably be taken from him. Finally he had unpicked the tick lining to his school trunk, and had slipped the photograph inside it, to his own immense satisfaction. Like this, he could take it out at night surreptitiously, and feel that Marguerite was a beloved creature, a girl he could love in a different way even from his mother. He knew her face by heart: oval, and youthfully plump, the sweet, serious eyes which obviously believed good of all men, the mouth with its young upward curve.
