by A. J. Cronin
It was a crisp morning, holding that faint autumnal nip she loved, and she enjoyed her brisk walk to the town. Ardfillan, indeed, had always pleased her. The streets, wide and clean, set out with young lime, ash, and chestnut trees, had the pleasant air of boulevards. The shops, attractive, flaunted their patronage by a patent of nobility blazoned above their doorways. Yes, it was a pleasant town, resembling somewhat in its design an English spa, yet purely residential, priding itself – a wholly justifiable snobbery – upon its culture and exclusiveness, merely tolerating its handful of summer visitors, a town to which the nabobs of the district retired with their money and took in due distinction well-merited delight. There was abroad an atmosphere of order and good taste – ‘Select’ she mentally remarked – which in the first instance had caused her to declare:
‘This is where we’ll live, Frank. We can’t afford the best part, yet. But we shall some day.’
It was true that – perhaps because of the faintly inferior situation of her house – she had few friends in Ardfillan. That was understandable. In Perth, her native place, where her father had long held reputable office – he had been a ‘writer’ at the County Court – her social background had been secure. She was known, accepted; had moved in the professional circle of the city. But since her marriage into this Irish family the background had become less secure, the circle unprofessional. That, she recognised, was inevitable. But she did not care. Well she knew that a woman should lift her husband to her own level. She had proved herself; and she was convinced that one day she would prove herself more fully, that she would establish their position, make their future more secure.
Now, in the comfortable train, her thoughts fell back insensibly to those years of happiness in the town. She could not deny – despite the attitude of her brother, who had foretold calamity in those early days – that she had made of her marriage a most notable success. Frank’s family might be a little vulgar. But Frank was not vulgar. Frank was – well, Frank. And it was her nature to make a success of things. Failure! She did not recognise the word. Perhaps the sound Scottish stock from which she sprang had given her the power to regulate and contrive; to control so happily the temperamental orbit of her husband’s character. But for her, indeed, there would have been no orbit – simply an easy sliding before circumstance. She had taken charge of Frank, shaped his destiny towards a sane and constant horizon. And how easy it had been. Easy, because she loved him. Yes, undoubtedly, her love for Frank was the motive actuating her, actuating her forwards. Frank himself recognised this fact, often with a subtle satire – what was that absurd phrase of his? yes, ‘the carrot before the donkey’, he had with irony remarked. In the corner of the compartment she smiled faintly at the ridiculous aspersion. He didn’t mean that. Just his way.
She loved Frank. He was so completely hers; he was her creation; moulded so consciously by her love that she had almost the possessive instinct of the artist towards the finished handiwork; become so manifestly a part of herself that she rose with a swift reaction of defence when his weakness was impugned or his failings called in question.
That in a sense was why it gratified her to contemplate her felicity and to exhibit it without self-consciousness: she was glad always to confront Richard with the patent evidence of her happiness, her well-being, her success. Richard was not loath to demonstrate his own success, both familial and professional; his infrequent letters were full of Eva, ‘his dear wife’, of Vera and Charles, his sweet children, who were perpetually distinguishing themselves in social and educational spheres, and of those cases, invariably important, wherein, against the general opinion, he had triumphed at the Sheriff Court. It was only just, therefore, that she return the shuttlecock. Perhaps Richard was a little self-sufficient; certainly he was uxorious, fond to a degree of Eva. His regard for her had never been so evident. Often with more than the inevitable superiority of an elder and only brother he had tolerantly – that tolerance: an easy vehicle for his derision – dismissed her in a word. Idealist. Well, she had accepted his definition like a challenge. And she had sustained that challenge. What was the object of life, and where indeed was its beauty, were it not based on this formula of honesty and virtue: in her more homely phrase, the satisfaction of ‘doing the right thing’? The constancy of love; the loveliness of little children and their laughter; the sweetness of sacrifice; the acceptance of God in all His providence – reject these facts and you were lost in a wilderness of darkness. For her part, she preferred the sunshine; and thus far she had found it warm and comforting.
The train whistled, and she started from her reverie. Gracious! She was in Ralston already. With a brisk movement she got up and descended from the train.
Ralston, a near suburb of Glasgow inhabited by the more successful of the citizens, was, though she refused to recognise its superiority to Ardfillan, an agreeable residential locality, and one well situated to Richard in his profession of the law. Richard’s house, too, of red sandstone, surrounded by its well-kept garden, with a small but elaborately ornamental greenhouse at the side, was indicative of Richard’s prosperity and of Richard’s adequate social standing in this manifestly exacting neighbourhood. It was, like Richard, definitely established, definitely Scottish. But its name was not Scottish. Eva, sustaining her reputation for chic, thinking perhaps to stimulate Richard’s home-making instinct – already sufficiently engorged – had named it coquettishly Le Nid. Touching felicity!
And it was very genteel; yet, despite this scrupulous gentility, it was not a maid, but her brother who himself opened the door to her.
‘Lucy,’ he exclaimed at once. ‘Ah! Lucy!’ His greeting held an unusual cordiality, a note almost of relief. ‘I knew we could depend on you.’
He took her immediately to his study, and there, under the Murray arms that hung above his desk, he faced her – his look less severe, less critical, less superior than its wont. He was a dignified figure, his dark hair and moustache still glossy, his lips still showing that peculiar vivid red against his pale skin. And he had an attitude – left arm bent across his back, chin thrown out, brows heavy, a little aloof, ready to frown, which typified his character.
‘It was good of you to come,’ he began quickly. ‘I appreciate it. You see clearly that I am upset. Actually I have been unable to get to the office.’ He paused, aggrieved, frowning impressively. ‘Eva – Eva has been ill. And that nurse – that wretched abominable woman who came on Saturday – yesterday she engaged with the cook in a drunken brawl. A shocking business! My poor wife! Naturally I flung both of them out of the house. And I am left with Eva in bed, the children on my hands, nobody but a young maid to look after us. It’s – it’s preposterous!’
His usual manner, precise, dispassionate, judicious, infused with a caustic legal flavour, was gone, and in its place lay exposed the naked pathos of the outraged citizen, the anxious father, the devoted spouse.
‘I’m sorry, Richard,’ she murmured. ‘What – what is wrong with Eva?’
He flushed darkly, in a virile fashion, his head high.
‘A little indisposition,’ he stammered with an air of mystery which at once revealed the, intimate delicacy of Eva’s illness. ‘She’ll be over it soon. And on Tuesday we can have her own nurse – she’s always seen to Eva and understands her constitution.’ He looked at her appealingly.
‘Of course I’ll help you,’ she declared openly. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘I’m relieved – profoundly relieved.’ He paused, added self-consciously: ‘And now I’ll take you up to Eva.’
As, with a heavy step, he preceded her up the well-carpeted stairs, she prepared herself to meet Eva. The truth was that Lucy had never found herself comfortable with Eva, whom in a peculiar comprehensive adjective she summarised as ‘small’. The ramifications of the word were many, yet Eva was, altogether, a small woman; her waist tight, her limbs slender, her actions quick and exaggerated. She had a pale skin of excellent texture and of which she took excellent
care; her hair, shampooed to a high fragrance, and coiled fashionably, was passionately dark; her nose was thin and aquiline, her eyes grey, her teeth good but, to her sorrow, faintly serrated at the edges. She affected elegance, covered a natural stupidity by drooping her eyelids, dressed well and according to the mode; she was, indeed, a student of that fashionable world towards which she ardently aspired. She lisped in her speech, trilled in her laugh, minced in her walk, and was adored by Richard.
That was Eva as Lucy knew her. But now, alas, Eva neither trilled nor minced Pale, most interestingly pale, she lay upon her pillows, languishing, with every delicate evidence of having suffered in the cause of love.
‘Lucy has come, my dear,’ murmured Richard in a voice appropriately low.
Eva by a faint flutter of her lashes alone betrayed the fact that life was still in her.
‘And she’ll see you through the next two days,’ he went on soothingly.
Eva, languishing more entrancingly, opened at last her eyes and turned them – wide and still reproachful – on Richard. Then she sighed, offered a pining hand to Lucy without speech.
‘You’ll be all right, Eva,’ said Lucy. ‘Just don’t worry.’
Eva smiled wanly – the gentle pathos of that smile! It would have melted marble!
‘Well, now,’ said Richard tactfully; he drew out his watch. ‘Perhaps – yes – I feel I can get away to the office now. I leave everything in your hands, Lucy. Eva, my poor Eva. I know you’ll look after her.’ He turned to go.
‘Kiss me, Richard,’ lisped Eva, reaching white arms towards him with a sudden burst of passion. ‘Kiss me before you go.’
Lucy turned away. Eva always set her teeth on edge; at the back of her mind she had invariably a lurking suspicion as to her sister-in-law’s sincerity. It was not that Eva ran perpetually to pathos and lace pillows. No! Eva could be brisk, entertaining, chic – Eva’s own word; she ran her house admirably; and she fed Richard succulently and to satiety. But her methods were not Lucy’s methods. Not for Lucy this kittenish attainment of a man’s subjection. No, no! She attained her objective by something less simpering – a more downright honesty of purpose. And so she kept her gaze averted until the conjugal caress had languished to its end. Then she went downstairs with Richard and saw him to the door.
And now briskly she addressed herself without delay to the work in hand. In the kitchen she discovered Charles and Vera ranged under the eye of the immature maid. The maid, exhibiting a willingness expressive of the force of the tornado which had recently encompassed her, desired passionately to serve. Charles, a boy of nine with a dark and solid taciturnity, betrayed suddenly a most engaging smile; and Vera, who at five could sit upon her flaxen hair with conscious pride, gave encouragement if only through the slow suppression of her tears.
Yet it was not an easy day for Lucy. The house was in some disorder; the servant, despite her willingness, inept; the children, as familiarity developed, a sore affliction; and Eva – Eva was at least a fractious patient. Still there was for Lucy the satisfaction of achievement. Not that she viewed herself with admiration in the role of ministering angel – if wings existed in the house, they enfolded Eva’s alabaster form – but she had, with a sort of innate obduracy, that sense of fulfilment, the conviction that she discharged a covenant of loyalty.
Richard, returning in the evening with parcels and a troubled air, found his hearth swept his home lapped in a soothing tranquillity. Bounding – for a heavy man he displayed in this cause remarkable agility – bounding to the bedroom with exotic flowers – white lilies, symbolic of purity – and a bunch of bursting black grapes, provocative of alimentation, he remained some time devotedly with his invalid. Then, descending more slowly, his frown erased, he came into the dining-room and sat down to his evening meal, named by courtesy ‘dinner’ – no such solecism as ‘high tea’ could have endured at Le Nid.
‘Eva seems pleased,’ he exclaimed, in a voice more closely resembling his ordinary judicial tone. ‘And I – naturally I am pleased also!’
‘She’s eaten well,’ suggested Lucy, passing him cutlets and peas. ‘Some jelly I’ve rather a hand with she’s had – chicken broth too – and quite a number of sponge fingers.’
‘She simply pecks,’ said Richard, attacking his chop severely. ‘A bird – no more! I hope you didn’t let the children worry her.’ He paused as if surprised. ‘These peas – I must say they’re very tolerable.’
She smiled: she had made up her mind to show Richard what she could do. And apparently he found the remainder of the meal equally tolerable. For he said, finally, caressing his red lips and glossy moustache with his napkin:
‘Really, Lucy, I’m obliged to you. That was appetising – almost as good as Eva could have done!’
She said nothing; but she had the feeling that, if Eva did better than this, Richard was a well-fed man.
‘You know,’ he continued, staring at her as with a fresh interest, ‘if you hadn’t been in such a hurry to run off, you might have done much better for yourself.’
The remark was vague. But its inference was not vague. And she flushed sharply. To balance Frank against his Eva! Indeed!
‘If you’re as happy as I am, you’ll do,’ she declared indignantly.
He frowned; yet it was significant of his present mood that he did not pick up her challenge – in the old days they had fought their bitter battles. Now he rose.
‘Well,’ he said, composedly, ‘I think I’ll go up and sit with Eva. She likes me to be with her.’
She watched his retreating back with a curious indrawing of her lips, then, making a quick gesture, she began to clear the table. Vehemently almost she helped the maid to wash the dishes; and thereafter she went immediately to bed.
With a swift reaction she realised how much she would have preferred to be at home administering her own establishment. Very definitely that night she had this feeling. And during the next two days the feeling intensified. Richard, observed at close quarters after an interval of length, seemed to have become more selfishly absorbed, more uxorious than ever. Eva, improving rapidly, assumed progressively her simper, her trill, her coquettish airs. She used to its fullest extent the prerogative of her condition to have fancies: she had fancies about her diet, her complexion, her flowers. Only the recollection that she had received ‘house room’ from Richard after their father’s death – the old man had left little; there had been no alternative! – prevented Lucy from regretting her impulse of sisterly assistance. Yet, even then she had repaid his hospitality by services in kind. Was it conceivable that, as Frank had suggested, Richard was now simply making use of her? Her brows drew down with characteristic suddenness at the mere suggestion!
Moreover, she began at intervals with inevitable solicitude to visualise the state of her own household. Was Peter all right? Had Netta remembered her instructions? Anna! Was Anna being looked after? And Frank – yes, above all, Frank! Was he comfortable? Had he forsaken his moodiness to attend reasonably to the entertainment of his cousin and his guest? With a sudden sentimental emotion she became conclusively aware that home – her own home – was a place of sweetness. Strangely, considering the tranquillity of her departure, she was taken by a quick impatience for her return.
Tuesday she greeted with a breath of full relief. On the previous evening the new cook – subject of glum speculation on the part of Richard – had come; and now the nurse, though it seemed too late, arrived in panoply. It was afternoon when Lucy, attired for travel, came to Eva’s bedroom for the last time – she had borne a tray up those stairs many times during her few days at Le Nid.
‘Well,’ said she finally, and with a fitting modesty, ‘if I’ve been of any use –’
Eva smiled sweetly, sitting upright, smart, but still – at least so Richard asserted – still a little frail.
‘Kiss Aunt Lucy, children,’ she lisped. ‘And send your love to Peter.’
Charles and Vera, who stood grouped woodenly as for a pho
tograph by her bedside, advanced obediently.
‘You’ll hear from us at Christmas,’ said Richard significantly – he had returned early from the office. Now he shook her warmly by the hand – a manly grip of gratitude – and came with her as far as the garden gate.
She went down the road with mixed emotions: Richard might at least have accompanied her to the station, Eva have exhibited more gratitude in her farewell. But as the train swept her away from Ralston her dissatisfaction became lost gradually in a warm uprising of anticipation. It was good to be going home!
Making resourceful application of her ticket – on which Richard had not even thought to reimburse her – she included the city of Glasgow in her return trip. The lace d’oyleys were, at last acquired – Mr Gow had ‘the exact thing’ – and with a lively spirit of reactionary generosity – she at least would prove that meanness was not the Murray attribute – she purchased a humming-top for Peter, some tobacco for Frank, and for Anna a charming little flask of Florida water.
She dallied with her shopping, protracting her anticipation, intensifying the pleasurable prospect of her return. And she took tea at Paltock’s – a rare treat; still she had the sweet tooth of her childhood, and Paltock’s cream cakes were delectable, melting through the power of their own succulence upon her tongue. As for the pastry – well, she knew, privately from Frank, with insight quite professional, that Paltock’s used naught but the purest butter in their ‘stuff’.
Seated at the small marble table ‘upstairs’, charmed by the distinctive prospect of the street beneath, her cheeks rather flushed, as they always were after the sipping of hot tea, her lace handkerchief delicately upon one knee, she was pervaded by a sense of completion, of vivid happiness.
She had ‘done the right thing’, satisfied her family loyalty, and now she was going home – to Frank. Well she knew how ridiculous it was that she, married those long years, should so ardently desire this reunion with her husband. But, ridiculous or no, it was so. It was she. Suddenly she remembered another reunion – two years ago, or three, the date was no matter, so vivid was the occasion in her mind: she returning from a few days with Peter at the seaside, Frank awaiting her, Frank who, with amazing, unthought-of premeditation, had placed flowers in her bedroom and a bottle of champagne upon the table. Champagne. And roses. Astounding, incredible tenderness from Frank. But he had done it; and she had loved it. Meditating with remote, shining eyes, she saw herself returning, the evening stillness settling upon the darkening firth as she came along the shore road towards the house, the sudden welcome springing into light of the front room window. Unexampled phenomenon!
