Giant's Bread

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

‘Don’t be an ass, Vernon. Don’t you know that I can look after myself?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose so.’

  ‘I’m not one of those silly girls who know nothing about anything.’

  ‘I don’t see, though, where I come in.’

  ‘Well, you see,’ Joe displayed a trace of anxiety. ‘You’re to go to the concert.’

  ‘No, I won’t do anything of the kind. You know I hate music.’

  ‘Oh, you must, Vernon. It’s the only way. If I say I can’t go, she’ll ring up Aunt Ethel and suggest one of the girls coming instead, and then the fat will be in the fire. But if you just turn up instead of me – I’m to meet her at the Albert Hall – and give some weak excuse, everything will be all right. She’s very fond of you – she likes you heaps better than me.’

  ‘But I loathe music.’

  ‘I know, but you can just bear it for one afternoon. An hour and a half. That’s all it will be.’

  ‘Oh, damn it all, Joe, I don’t want to.’

  His hand shook with irritation. Joe stared at him.

  ‘You are funny about music, Vernon! I’ve never known anyone who sort of – well, hates it like you. Most people just don’t care for it. But I do think you might go – you know I always do things for you.’

  ‘All right,’ said Vernon abruptly.

  It was no good. It had got to be. Joe and he always stood together. After all, as she had said, it would only be an hour and a half. Why should he feel that he had taken a momentous decision? His heart felt like lead – right down in his boots. He didn’t want to go – oh! he didn’t want to go …

  Like a visit to the dentist – best not to think about it. He forced his mind away to other things. Joe looked up sharply as she heard him give vent to a chuckle.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I was thinking of you as a kid – so grand about saying you were never going to have anything to do with men. And now it’s always men with you, one after the other. You fall in and out of love about once a month.’

  ‘Don’t be so horrid, Vernon. Those were just silly girls’ fancies. La Marre says if you have any temperament, that always happens – but the real grand passion is quite different when it comes.’

  ‘Well, don’t go and have a grand passion for La Marre.’

  Joe did not answer. Presently she said:

  ‘I’m not like Mother. Mother was – was so soft about men. She gave in to them – would do anything for anyone she was fond of. I’m not like that.’

  ‘No,’ said Vernon, after thinking for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think you are. You won’t make a mess of your life in the same way she did. But you might make a mess of it in a different way.’

  ‘What sort of a way?’

  ‘I don’t quite know. Going and marrying someone you thought you had a grand passion for, just because everyone else disliked him, and then spending your life fighting him. Or deciding to go and live with someone just because you thought Free Love was a fine idea.’

  ‘So it is.’

  ‘Oh, I am not saying it isn’t – though as a matter of fact, I really think it is anti-social myself. But you’re always the same. If anyone forbids you anything you always want to do it – quite irrespective of whether you really want to. I haven’t put that well, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘What I really want is to do something! To be a great sculptor –’

  ‘That’s because you’ve got a pash for La Marre –’

  ‘It isn’t. Oh! Vernon, why will you be so trying? I’ve always wanted to do something – always – always! I used to say so at Abbots Puissants.’

  ‘It’s odd,’ said Vernon thoughtfully. ‘Old Sebastian used to say then very much what he says now. Perhaps one doesn’t change as much as one thinks.’

  ‘You were going to marry someone very beautiful and live at Abbots Puissants always,’ said Joe with slight scorn. ‘You don’t still feel that to be your life’s ambition, do you?’

  ‘One might do worse,’ said Vernon.

  ‘Lazy – downright lazy!’

  Joe looked at him in unconcealed impatience. She and Vernon were so alike in some ways, and so different in others!

  Vernon was thinking, ‘Abbots Puissants. In a year I shall be twenty-one.’

  They were passing a Salvation Army meeting. Joe stopped. A thin, white-faced man was standing on a box. His voice, high and raucous, came echoing across to them.

  ‘Why won’t you be saved? Why won’t you? Jesus wants you! Jesus wants you!’ Tremendous emphasis on the you. ‘Yes, brothers and sisters, and I’ll tell you something more. You want Jesus. You won’t admit it to yourselves, you turn your back on him, you’re afraid – that’s what it is, you’re afraid, because you want him so badly – you want him and you don’t know!’ His arms waved, his white face shone with ecstasy. ‘But you will know – you will know – there are things that you can’t run away from for ever.’ He spoke slowly, almost menacingly. ‘I say unto you, this very night shall thy soul be required of thee –’

  Vernon turned away with a slight shiver. A woman on the outskirts of the crowd gave a hysterical sob.

  ‘Disgusting,’ said Joe, her nose very much in the air. ‘Indecent and hysterical! For my part, I can’t see how any rational being can be anything but an atheist.’

  Vernon smiled to himself, though he said nothing. He was remembering the time, a year ago, when Joe had risen every day to attend early service and had insisted on eating a boiled egg with some ostentation on Fridays, and had sat spellbound listening to the somewhat uninteresting but strictly dogmatical sermons of handsome Father Cuthbert at the Church of St Bartholomew’s, which was reputed to be so ‘high’ that Rome itself could do no more.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said aloud, ‘what it would feel like to be “saved”?’

  3

  It was half-past six on the following afternoon when Joe returned from her stolen day’s pleasure. Her Aunt Ethel met her in the hall.

  ‘Where’s Vernon?’ inquired Joe, in case she might be asked how she had liked the concert.

  ‘He came in about half an hour ago. He said there was nothing the matter, but somehow I don’t think he’s very well.’

  ‘Oh!’ Joe stared. ‘Where is he? In his room? I’ll go up and see.’

  ‘I wish you would, dear. Really he didn’t look well at all.’

  Joe ran quickly up the stairs, gave a perfunctory rap on Vernon’s door and walked in. Vernon was sitting on his bed, and something in his appearance gave Joe a shock. She had never seen Vernon look quite like this.

  He didn’t answer. He had the dazed look of someone who has undergone a terrible shock. It was as though he were too far away to be reached by mere words.

  ‘Vernon.’ She shook him by the shoulder. ‘What is the matter with you?’

  He heard her this time.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘There must be something. You’re looking – you’re looking –’

  Words failed her to express how he was looking. She left it at that.

  ‘Nothing,’ he repeated dully.

  She sat down on the bed beside him.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said gently but authoritatively.

  A long shuddering sigh broke from Vernon.

  ‘Joe, do you remember that man yesterday?’

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘That Salvation Army chap – those cant phrases he used. And that one – a fine one – from the Bible: “This night shall thy soul be required of thee.” I said afterwards I wondered what it would be like to be saved. Just idly. Well, I know!’

  Joe stared at him. Vernon. Oh, but such a thing was impossible.

  ‘Do you mean – do you mean –’ Difficult somehow to get the words. ‘Do you mean you’ve “got religion” – suddenly – like people do?’

  She felt it was ridiculous as she said it. She was relieved when he gave a sudden spurt of laughter.

  ‘Religion? Good God, no! Or is it that for some people? I wonder … No, I mea
n –’ He hesitated, brought the word out at last very softly, almost as though he dared not speak it. ‘Music –’

  ‘Music?’ She was still utterly at sea.

  ‘Yes. Joe, do you remember Nurse Frances?’

  ‘Nurse Frances? No, I don’t think I do. Who was she?’

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t. It was before you came – the time I broke my leg. I’ve always remembered something she said to me. About not being in a hurry to run away from things before you’ve had a good look. Well, that’s what happened to me today. I couldn’t run away any longer – I just had to look. Joe, music’s the most wonderful thing in the world –’

  ‘But – but – you’ve always said –’

  ‘I know. That’s why it’s been such an awful shock. Not that I mean music is so wonderful now – but it could be – if you had it as it was meant to be! Little bits of it are ugly – it’s like going up to a picture and seeing a nasty grey smear of paint – but go to a distance and it falls into its place as the most wonderful shadow. It’s got to be a whole. I still think one violin’s ugly, and a piano’s beastly – but useful in a way, I suppose. But – oh! Joe, music could be so wonderful – I know it could.’

  Joe was silent, bewildered. She understood now what Vernon had meant by his opening words. His face had the queer dreamy exaltation that one associated with religious fervour. And yet she was a little frightened. His face had always expressed so little. Now, she thought, it expressed too much. It was a worse face or a better face – just as you chose to look on it.

  He went on talking, hardly to her, more to himself.

  ‘There were nine orchestras, you know. All massed. Sound can be glorious if you get enough of it – I don’t mean just loudness – it shows more when it’s soft. But there must be enough. I don’t know what they played – nothing, I think, that was real. But it showed one – it showed one …’

  He turned queer bright excited eyes upon her.

  ‘There’s so much to know – to learn. I don’t want to play things – never that. But I want to know about every instrument there is. What it can do – what are its limitations, what are its possibilities. And the notes, too. There are notes they don’t use – notes that they ought to use. I know there are. Do you know what music’s like now, Joe? It’s like the little sturdy Norman pillars in the crypt of Gloucester Cathedral. It’s at its beginnings, that’s all.’

  He sat silent, leaning forward dreamily.

  ‘Well, I think you’ve gone quite mad,’ said Joe.

  She tried on purpose to make her voice sound practical and matter-of-fact. But, in spite of herself, she was impressed. That white hot conviction. And she had always thought Vernon rather a slow coach – reactionary, prejudiced, unimaginative.

  ‘I’ve got to begin to learn. As soon as ever I can. Oh, it’s awful – to have wasted twenty years!’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Joe. ‘You couldn’t have studied music when you were an infant in a cot.’

  He smiled at that. He was coming out of his trance by degrees.

  ‘You think I’m mad? I suppose it must sound like that. But I’m not. And – oh! Joe, it’s the most awful relief. As though you had been pretending for years, and now you needn’t pretend any more. I’ve been horribly afraid of music – always. Now –’

  He sat up, squared his shoulders.

  ‘I’m going to work – work like a nigger. I’m going to know the ins and outs of every instrument. By the way, there must be more instruments in the world – many more. There ought to be a kind of waily thing – I’ve heard it somewhere. You’d want ten – fifteen of those. And about fifty harps –’

  He sat there, planning composedly details that to Joe sounded sheer nonsense. Yet it was evident that to his inner vision some event was perfectly clear.

  ‘It’ll be supper time in ten minutes,’ Joe reminded him timidly.

  ‘Oh! Will it? What a nuisance. I want to stay here and think and hear things in my head. Tell Aunt Ethel I’ve got a headache or that I’ve been frightfully sick. As a matter of fact, I think I am going to be sick.’

  And somehow that impressed Joe more than anything else. It was a homely familiar happening. When anything upset you very much, either pleasurably or otherwise, you always wanted to be sick! She had felt that herself, often.

  She stood in the door hesitating. Vernon had relapsed into abstraction again. How queer he looked – quite different. As though – as though – Joe sought for the words she wanted – as though he had suddenly come alive.

  She was a little frightened.

  Chapter Two

  1

  Carey Lodge was the name of Myra’s house. It was about eight miles from Birmingham.

  A subtle depression always weighed down Vernon’s spirits as he got near Carey Lodge. He hated the house, hated its solid comfort, its thick bright red carpets, its lounge hall, the carefully selected sporting prints that hung in the dining-room, the superabundance of knick-knacks that filled the drawing-room. And yet, was it so much those things he hated, as the facts that stood behind them?

  He questioned himself, trying for the first time to be honest with himself. Wasn’t it the truth that he hated his mother being so at home there, so placidly content? He liked to think of her in terms of Abbots Puissants – liked to think of her as being, like himself, an exile.

  And she wasn’t! Abbots Puissants had been to her what a foreign kingdom might be to a Queen Consort. She had felt important there, and pleased with herself. It had been new and exciting. But it hadn’t been home.

  Myra greeted her son with extravagant affection as always. He wished she wouldn’t. In some way it made it harder than ever for him to respond. When he was away from her, he pictured himself being affectionate to his mother. When he was with her, all that illusion faded away.

  Myra Deyre had altered a good deal since leaving Abbots Puissants. She had grown much stouter. Her beautiful golden red hair was flecked with grey. The expression of her face was different, it was at once more satisfied and more placid. There was now a strong resemblance between her and her brother, Sydney.

  ‘You’ve had a good time in London? I’m so glad. It’s so exciting to have my fine big son back with me – I’ve been telling everybody how excited I am. Mothers are foolish creatures, aren’t they?’

  Vernon thought they were rather – then was ashamed of himself.

  ‘Very jolly to see you, Mother,’ he mumbled.

  Joe said:

  ‘You’re looking splendidly fit, Aunt Myra.’

  ‘I’ve not really been very well, dear. I don’t think Dr Grey quite understands my case. I hear there’s a new doctor – Dr Littleworth – just bought Dr Armstrong’s practice. They say he is wonderfully clever. I’m sure it’s my heart – and it’s all nonsense Dr Grey saying it’s indigestion.’

  She was quite animated. Her health was always an absorbing topic to Myra.

  ‘Mary’s gone – the housemaid, you know. I was really very disappointed in that girl. After all I did for her.’

  It went on and on. Joe and Vernon listened perfunctorily. Their minds were full of conscious superiority. Thank Heaven they belonged to a new and enlightened generation, far above this insistence on domestic details. For them, a new and splendid world opened out. They were deeply, poignantly sorry for the contented creature who sat there chattering to them.

  Joe thought:

  ‘Poor – poor Aunt Myra. So terribly female! Of course Uncle Walter got bored with her. Not her fault! A rotten education, and brought up to believe that domesticity was all that mattered. And here she is, still young really – at least not too terribly old – and all she’s got to do is to sit in the house and gossip, and think about servants, and fuss about her health. If she’d only been born twenty years later, she could have been happy and free, and independent all her life.’

  And out of her intense pity for her unconscious aunt, she answered gently and pretended an interest that she certainly did not feel.
/>   Vernon thought:

  ‘Was Mother always like this? Somehow she didn’t seem so at Abbots Puissants. Or was I too much of a kid to notice? It’s rotten of me to criticize her when she’s been so good to me always. Only I wish she wouldn’t treat me still as though I were about six years old. Oh, well, I suppose she can’t help it. I don’t think I shall ever marry –’

  And suddenly he jerked out abruptly, urged thereto by intense nervousness.

  ‘I say, Mother. I’m thinking of taking Music at Cambridge.’

  There, it was out! He had said it.

  Myra, distracted from her account of the Armstrongs’ cook, said vaguely:

  ‘But, darling, you always were so unmusical. You used to be quite unreasonable about it.’

  ‘I know,’ said Vernon gruffly. ‘But one changes one’s mind about things sometimes.’

  ‘Well, I’m very glad, dear. I used to play quite brilliant pieces myself when I was a young girl. But one never keeps up anything when one marries.’

  ‘I know. It’s a wicked shame,’ said Joe hotly. ‘I don’t mean to marry – but if I did, I’d never give up my own career. And that reminds me, Aunt Myra, I’ve just got to go to London to study if I’m ever going to be any good at modelling.’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Bradford –’

  ‘Oh, damn Mr Bradford! I’m sorry, Aunt Myra, but you don’t understand. I’ve got to study – hard. And I must be on my own. I could share diggings with another girl –’

  ‘Joe, darling, don’t be so absurd.’ Myra laughed. ‘I need my little Joe here. I always look on you as my daughter, you know, Joe, dear.’

  Joe wriggled.

  ‘I really am in earnest, Aunt Myra. It’s my whole life.’

  This tragic utterance only made her aunt laugh more.

  ‘Girls often think like that. Now, don’t let’s spoil this happy evening by quarrelling.’

  ‘But will you really seriously consider it?’

  ‘We must see what Uncle Sydney says.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with him. He’s not my uncle. Surely, if I like, I can take my own money –’

  ‘It isn’t exactly your own money, Joe. Your father sends it to me as an allowance for you – though I’m sure I would be willing to have you without any allowance at all – and knows you are well and safely looked after with me.’