Devil By The Sea

by Nina Bawden

  “Is it really mine? Then I’ll call it Hilary.”

  He frowned. “You can’t. It’s a girls name.”

  “Why not? All right, then, it isn’t mine. You said it was a present.”

  “It is,” he pleaded. “It’s yours, really. I bought it with my own shilling. You can call it what you like. Only it can’t stay here now. Daddy said it must live in the kitchen because it might do things under the bed.”

  She might have known there would be a catch in it. Nothing was ever freely given. There was a rotten core to all delight.

  “Take it away, then,” she said stonily.

  He stammered, “I h-have to. It’s not m-my fault. I wasn’t supposed to show you now at all. Mummy said wait till the morning. She said you were asleep.” His voice became confident and injured.

  She relented. “All right. You’d better take it. We’ll fetch it in the morning when we wake up.”

  He departed, the kitten bouncing on his shoulder, the cord of his dressing-gown trailing on the floor. When he returned, he advanced boldly to the end of her bed and asked, “Did you like my present? You didn’t say thank you.”

  “Why do you always have to be thanked?” she asked irritably.

  He answered stubbornly. “You should always say thank you when someone gives you a present. It isn’t polite not to.”

  She said, in a mocking voice, “Thank you, dear Peregrine.”

  His lips shook. “Not like that,” he protested with dignity.

  He stood beside her, a thin little boy in a handed-down dressing-gown that was too small, even for him. Wrists like matches stuck out of frayed sleeves, there was a sore, swollen patch on his lip. Suddenly remorseful, she knelt and beat her head solemnly on the counterpane, intoning, “Thank you, O Great One, O Bringer of Rich Gifts.”

  His giggles became uncontrollable. He stuffed his sleeve in his mouth. “I said you were asleep,” he said. “I promised not to wake you up.”

  She slid under the bedclothes and lay still, ankles crossed, hands folded on her breast. Seeing the delight on his face, her heart flowed over with kindness. “You can come into my bed if you like.”

  He took off his dressing-gown and hung it neatly over the iron rail at the head of his own bed. Then he climbed into the warm place she had made for him.

  Fixing her eyes on the ceiling, she said casually, “Does your mouth hurt?”

  He felt it tenderly. “Only if I touch it.”

  She said awkwardly, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  “I expect I deserved it,” he said humbly. Their hands met and stickily clasped.

  He said fearfully, “Where did you go?”

  Her heart leapt. “I saw Him again,” she confided rapidly. “I climbed the cliff and played on the pipes. Then he gave me some bread. He lives in a caravan. He wanted me to go home with him and see his bird.”

  “Did you?” he asked, impressed.

  “No.”

  He continued eagerly, “I wish I’d been there. Would he have taken me too?”

  She considered this and smiled triumphantly. “I don’t expect so, not for a minute. He only likes little girls. He told me so.”

  “But you could have asked him to take me. I expect he would if you’d asked him. I’ve never seen inside a caravan. It’s not fair, you get all the fun.”

  Had it been fun? She said spitefully, “You’d have been afraid to go. You’re always afraid of things.”

  He said meekly, “I’d have tried not to be. Did you see his horns?”

  “No. He didn’t have any. I don’t believe he is the Devil.” Her voice rose. She felt an upsurge of wild relief as if, by her loud denial, she could strip him of his vile importance, reduce him to no more than an old man, mumbling his bread in a field. That was all he was, really, someone to be whispered about, the stranger you were not supposed to talk to.

  By his next words he killed her faint hope forever. “Perhaps he only didn’t want you to see. Of course, he can make himself into any shape he likes …”

  “Then if it’s true, if he really is …” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence. Instead, she concluded, “You didn’t tell Janet. Or Mummy, or anyone …”

  “Oh no,” he said gravely. “I didn’t tell them. It wouldn’t have been any use.”

  He was so calm about it, so free from the kind of awed excitement that would have hinted at deliberate tale-telling, that Hilary was convinced. He had tossed his belief at her quite casually, so sure himself of its rightness that it was impossible to question it.

  Shivering, Hilary pressed herself against the warm angles of his body. She felt herself to be poised above a dark and terrible abyss.

  She said, “I don’t suppose I shall see him again, do you? But anyway, I won’t go anywhere without you, ever again.” She ended, fearfully, “And you mustn’t go anywhere without me.”

  He moved restlessly beneath her clutching hands. “You’re hurting me,” he complained. “I want to go back to my own bed.”

  She knew he meant it, he liked his comfort. And she could not bear to be left alone. “Don’t go.” She searched for a bribe. “If you stay in my bed, you can choose the name for the kitten. So in a way it’ll be your kitten as well as mine.”

  She half-regretted the offer as soon as it was made: he would have been contented, she knew, with a far less magnificent gesture.

  As she had feared, he clinched the bargain immediately. His nature, though nobler than hers, was also more forthright: he had a clear eye for his own advantage.

  “I shall call her Moppet,” he said firmly, “and if I stay you mustn’t poke me.”

  “I won’t,” she agreed meekly. She lay carefully still until he was asleep beside her, holding her body rigidly apart from his. When his breathing grew heavier, she moved cautiously closer to him, drawing his sleeping arm across her chest. Locked against his familiar body, she knew comfort and safety. He was with her, he shared her loneliness. While they were together, she need not be afraid.

  When she ran from the house, leaving it, she assured herself passionately, for ever, Janet had forgotten both her coat and her handbag so that when she reached the town she was not only wet but almost, though not quite, moneyless. The pocket of her dress revealed a sixpence, a threepenny bit and a halfpenny, presumably the change from a ’bus ride. This discovery plunged her into the deepest gloom and self-recrimination: what an inefficient fool she was, how did she imagine she could make a gesture of defiance on ninepence halfpenny?

  She sat in a shelter on the front, alone except for a pair of shop girls in plastic mackintoshes giggling in a corner, and stared at the sea. Her wet dress clung coldly to her body but she was in the elevated state occasionally produced by violent agitation and unaware of physical discomfort.

  She began to examine her relationship with Aubrey in the light of the interpretation Alice had placed on it. At first, Alice’s belief that she and Aubrey were lovers had seemed the quite unwarranted assumption of an evil-minded woman. Janet had felt indignation, shame, and above all, surprise. Now, her innocence gone for ever, she saw that her stepmother’s conclusion had been entirely reasonable. She thought, not being of a sufficiently self-deceptive nature to persuade herself that her case was different: presumably it is more likely, if people love, that they are lovers.

  Having admitted this point, she began to feel young and unsophisticated. Her sins had been so childish. She hated Aubrey for having put her in a false position. She hated Alice for making her look a fool. More than anything else she hated Hilary. Angry tears stung her eyelids.

  The sun came out. Rainbows of oil shimmered in the puddles on the promenade, the gilded dome of the pier pavilion reflected the bright rays with tawdy splendour. Frail as an echo, the synthetic music of the Fun Fair came to her on the wind.

  The front became crowded. In the dying afternoon, children, released from the boredom of boarding house, and ice-cream parlour, clattered their pails on the beach. People were coming ou
t of the cinema. Arm in arm, they strolled in pairs, their faces shining in the damp, clean air. She thought: everyone is happier than I am, and walked, self-consciously alone, on to the pier.

  Along the length of the pier, the fishermen leaned on the rails, the deck beside them littered with canvas bags and jars of squirming bait. In the centre of an interested circle of spectators, a conger eel wriggled and snapped, its red mouth open. Grinning, a man bent forward and hacked at the back of its head with a clumsy knife.

  Averting her eyes, she leaned over the rail and looked at the green water sucking at the barnacled supports of the pier. A voice called her and she turned to see one of her school friends, a girl she had not seen since their last term. Wearing an embroidered peasant blouse, her hair knotted in a pony tail she had been walking with her boy friend who now waited a few yards away, affecting indifference to this encounter. Both girls were embarrassed by his presence and as they talked, they darted shy glances at his profile. They talked about the girls they had both known: what had happened to Bernice, to Ann, to the Italian girl who had been going to take a course at R.A.D.A.? The brief spurt of interest they had both felt on first seeing each other flickered and died like a candle flame in a gust of wind.

  Sheila said, “Well, I must be going now…. It’s too absurd, really, that you should still be here. London’s such fun, you’ve no idea, dances and parties….” Her eyes shone like glass beads in the sun.

  “We must see each other,” Janet ventured, feeling dowdy.

  “That would be marvellous. If you come to Town, just give me a ring. Cheery-bye for now.”

  With the same enthusiasm with which she had first greeted Janet, Sheila left her. She thrust her hand through her boy’s crooked arm. Brightly, she smiled. The boy gave a shy grin. He was very young, not yet twenty and his navy blazer with pink piping was too small for him.

  They walked towards the shore. Sheila’s high heels clicked on the uneven boards. The boy walked jerkily, trying to match his steps to hers.

  Janet shivered and looked at her watch. It was after six. She walked slowly, anxious not to catch up with Sheila and her boy who were strolling with their arms round each other’s waists. Unfortunately, they stopped at a seat and she was forced to pass them. As she did so, she quickened her steps and pretended an intense interest in the view from the opposite side of the pier. She knew this would not deceive them: Sheila, enlarging on the incident to her friends, would say that Janet Bray had deliberately followed them.

  This encounter increased her sense of isolation. She was a natural outcast, a butt. She had no friends, her family did not understand her. She saw herself growing old, unmarried at thirty, her life wasting. Shrouded in a delicious melancholy, she walked home. She had nowhere else to go.

  Creeping up the stairs, she met Alice on the landing. She had just closed the door of Auntie’s room and her expression was forbidding.

  “Oh, it’s you, is it.” She was as disconcerted as Janet. Their eyes met guiltily.

  “Is she back?” asked Janet in an exhausted voice. She leaned heavily on the banisters, anxious to appear worn out and pitiable.

  Alice nodded. “Asleep. She knows about the murder.”

  “I didn’t tell her.”

  “I didn’t say you did. It’s her fault.” Frowning, Alice jerked her head at Auntie’s door. “That awful old woman.”

  “She’ll upset Peregrine,” said Janet, anxious to put Hilary in the worst light possible. “She’s bound to tell him. She enjoys frightening him.” She went on hastily to avoid discussing the matter. “I must change my dress.”

  “You’re wet,” said Alice in a surprised but uninterested tone.

  “Soaked.” Janet elaborated with childish pathos. “Soaked right through to my skin.”

  “Of course—you were looking for Hilary,” said Alice in a softer tone.

  Janet did not disabuse her. She went into her room. Alice hesitated for a moment and then followed her. She closed the door.

  “Janet …”

  “Yes?”

  There was a certain respect in Alice’s face and manner. Her voice was hushed and conspiratorial. “I was unkind, earlier. I’m sorry. If … if you should find yourself in trouble, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

  Janet did not immediately understand her. When she did, she was too ashamed of her own innocence to tell the truth. She looked at the floor with a guilty expression and said, “Yes, yes of course I would tell you.”

  Alice, looking for the morning newspaper, had discovered it in Auntie’s room. Since the afternoon, Auntie had progressed through despair to indifference. She no longer cared what became of her and despised herself for having, in her weakness, been afraid of Alice. Who was she, anyway? A presumptuous, working-class chit who had bettered herself by marriage.

  This state of mind led her, inevitably, into imprudence. When she confessed to Alice that Hilary had found the newspaper where she had carelessly left it, she did so with a haughty lack of apology that breathed a fine, social arrogance.

  Alice behaved rather better. She said it was unfortunate but could not be helped. It would not do to be too angry with Auntie: she might leave her money elsewhere.

  After dinner, when Janet had gone to bed, she spent her anger on Charles. “She’s an irresponsible old woman. Fancy allowing Hilary to see the newspaper! God knows what she made of it.”

  “She’ll forget.” Charles, putting aside the newspaper, looked up reluctantly.

  “Not this. She’ll make the most of it. She’s got a ghoulish mind. In a few days she’ll persuade herself that she saw the whole thing at least. You know what she is!”

  Charles sighed. “Don’t make too much of it, dear.” He saw that she was working herself into a nervous state and said soothingly, “I agree it’s a pity.”

  Alice continued dramatically, “It’s more than a pity. She won’t keep it to herself. Janet says she’s bound to tell Peregrine. And he’s such a sensitive little chap. Heaven knows what horrors she’ll tell him. She’ll frighten him out of his wits. He must be sent away….”

  “My dear girl, are you out of your mind?” He saw, by her angry reddening, that this was quite the wrong line to pursue. He ended, awkwardly, “Where to, anyway? After all, school starts next week.”

  “He could go to your brother. He likes the farm. And it would do him more harm to hear about this dreadful business than to miss a few days school. He’ll listen to anything Hilary tells him. He must be got out of it.”

  Her face lit with crusading fervour. If Charles refused to see the danger, then it was up to her to act, to save Peregrine from contamination. “He must go to-morrow.” She added, in a significant voice, “Janet can take him. I’d like her to leave Henstable too, for a while. There are reasons….” She had no intention of telling Charles what those reasons were, but she could not resist making a mystery out of it.

  Charles shrugged his shoulders. He was tired: he had no inclination for decision and practicalities. Indeed, he could not bring himself to think the matter of any importance: it seemed as if a veil had been drawn between him and the world.

  Alice said indignantly, “Charles, you aren’t listening …”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not feeling too well. I’ll telephone Edward this evening. Of course, you’re perfectly right.”

  “You really think so?” Alice was surprised at his easy acquiescence and a little sorry that she had been so insistent. She became aware that she did not really think it necessary for Peregrine to go and that she had relied on Charles’s making light of the matter. She said, abashed, “They need only go for a week.”

  Standing, she adjusted her hair in the looking-glass above the mantelpiece. She was flushed and looked very attractive and alive; emotion became her. Glancing at Charles, she thought: how different we are. There are not so many years between us and yet he looks quite old and finished, a dry stick. She wondered, with fear: can he be really ill?

  He was looki
ng into the fire. He said, “Alice, do you ever feel cut off? From other people, I mean.” He frowned into the flames, trying to find the right words to reach her. It seemed suddenly tremendously important that she should understand him. “It’s as if we were each enclosed in a bubble. When I had pneumonia that time, it was like that. You know the other people are there, you can see them, talk to them, but that’s all there ever is. So much goes on that you can never understand and the awful thing, the really terrible thing, is that you don’t want to understand, you don’t care.” He regarded her earnestly with shy, soft eyes. Seeing the frozen look on her face, his hope died.

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, bridling. “I’m sure I care about other people. And understand them, too. It only needs a little imagination.”

  “But aren’t you ever lonely?” he cried. He hesitated on the verge of telling her about his immediate worry; his treacherous heart.

  Then she gave a high, indignant laugh. “Really, Charles, you are morbid. You’re tired, that’s the matter with you. You think too much about yourself, worrying over your health like a stupid old woman.” She went on in a forced, motherly tone, proud of her ability to manage him when he was in a silly mood, “Pull yourself together and be sensible, now. I’ll make you a nice, hot drink.”

  Chapter Six

  It was announced at breakfast that Hilary was to spend the morning with her father. The barely concealed anxiety with which her reaction was awaited, coupled with the air of mystery and bustle that had pervaded the house since the early morning, might have caused a more perceptive child to wonder at this sudden “treat”. However, Hilary, who appeared to be in a dulled and downcast mood—not, Charles thought, simply sulky but rather absent as if she were inwardly and completely occupied with some problem of her own—merely expressed her satisfaction at Peregrine’s exclusion from the expedition and went upstairs, as she was told, to put on a clean frock.

  Charles said, “Is there anything wrong with her?” He spoke in an undertone because Peregrine, who was a slow eater, was still buttering his first slice of toast.