by A. J. Cronin
‘They come best to the table at the beginning of September,’ he said, with a welcome change of topic, and to these they had Pommard, gently brought to room temperature. Lucy was, firm – she felt her cheeks tingling – and would accept only half a glass, but Anna had no reluctance. As he sipped delicately he temporarily abandoned theology and explained the true art of serving wines and the fatal error of sudden alterations in their temperatures. At Valladolid – it pleased him to recall his Spanish days – he had learned something of the nature of vintages and the manner of their preparation; he spoke of the grapes, recounting how he used to rest under a certain vine in the college vineyard where the sweet grapes hung around him; how, by merely stretching out a hand, he could grasp them and taste their warm succulence. Sweet little grapes, like bunches of white currants. De-licious!
Lucy listened with attention; but at the back of her mind was the curious perception of that aloofness in Edward’s manner towards her cousin. What lay behind it? Somehow it worried her, spoiled the pleasure of the day.
When they had finished the trifle, that came up rich in cherries and foamed with cream, Miss O’Regan came up herself to receive the verdict upon her efforts. As she stood in her habitual meekness by the door, Edward lay back in his chair, quite his own man again, twirling the stem of his wineglass, a faint smile comfortably twitching his long lip, the light from the window falling gently upon his bump of benevolence.
‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘quite excellent.’
A watery smile ran over her face, but immediately ran off again as he added:
‘The only point was – the birds. I think they might have waited a trifle longer. Yes – I like my blackcock well hung.’
She blushed a little and looked down.
‘Yes, your reverence,’ she breathed. ‘I will have to speak to the poulterer again.’
There was no timidity in her tone, but merely a profound resignation, as though, deploring extraneous incompetence beyond her earthly powers, she fervently desired the strength to adventure out upon the moors and grass him a brace of blackcock to the appropriate second. Yes, ‘All for Edward’ was the motive of her life; for she loved Edward; physical affection it could not be; but spiritually – spiritually, she was his concubine.
‘Mind you, quite excellent otherwise,’ said Edward smoothly.
‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ added Lucy warmly.
‘Delicious,’ echoed Anna gently, as Edward nodded his head in dismissal.
Miss O’Regan satisfactorily acknowledged, Edward now thanked God for an excellent luncheon, then they went upstairs to the sitting-room to have coffee. There, comfortably ensconced, with Peter departed to enquire for the yellow cat, they should have been at ease. But at first the conversation halted.
‘Frank,’ said Edward, at length, ‘how is he getting along, the odd fellow? Is he – is he regular with his duties now?’ He paused and, watching her urbanely, suggested: ‘That’s where your influence should come in, my dear.’
‘Frank’s not – not too devout,’ she replied slowly, fixing her eyes upon a speck of grey ash that had fallen upon a button of his soutane. Conscious of her own shortcomings – she had a sentimental attachment to her religion, but she felt now that her belief did not cover the multitude of her deficiencies – she added, ‘ But I know he’s all right at heart.’
‘Of course, of course,’ he agreed, his gaze resting for a moment impressively on Anna. ‘He may pretend to scoff, like others; but he has the faith. A little apathy, perhaps, a little indifference, a touch of coldness, but he’s sound at bottom. And you, Lucy,’ he murmured, pressing his pearly finger-tips together and delicately making his point, ‘ you’re too fond of Frank to let him be careless.’
She smiled at Edward’s shrewdness. The excellent luncheon, the sherry, and the burgundy mingling agreeably with the sherry, permitted her to be sentimental.
‘Frank and I get on very well together,’ she said, her smile faintly lingering.
‘You’re the one to manage him,’ said Anna pleasantly. ‘ There’s no doubt about that.’
‘For my own part,’ said Edward quickly, ‘I think Frank’s none the worse of a little managing.’
And now, his conscience purged, he turned to matters temporal.
‘Is business,’ he said, ‘going well with him?’
‘Splendidly,’ she declared. ‘And there’s a good chance – well, I won’t say more than this – I’m hoping that there may be something good ahead for Frank.’
He nodded his head, pleased at the prospect of his brother’s advancement.
‘You see,’ she ran on, enjoying her sanguine expectation of the future, stimulated by the occasion and his interest, ‘ we want to get on in life. Move up, you know. There’s the future to think of. The question of Peter’s education, too. He’s getting a big boy now, and I’m not quite satisfied with the little school he’s at.’ It was evident from the eager resolution in her face that she had her hopes and her determination for their success. So much was certain. She would see that they got on, that something was made of Peter.
In answer to Edward’s question, she acknowledged that she had observed in him no signs of a vocation for the priesthood, and admitted that her own indication lay in the direction of making him a doctor.
‘They do good, too,’ responded Edward amiably. ‘They are the physicians of the body, but we are the physicians of the soul.’
Here Anna, who had followed the conversation in silence, moved a little restlessly. But when Edward looked at her enquiringly she smiled.
‘I feel sleepy,’ she said, ‘that’s all.’
He took a final puff at his Turkish cigarette, over which he arched his nostrils delicately, then he said:
‘Shall we have a turn round the garden? That’ll freshen you up.’
‘You two go,’ said Anna, leaning back and closing her eyes. ‘I’m snoozy. I’ll stay here and have a nap.’
‘Well!’ exclaimed Edward; and again he frowned. Rising with a lofty air, he assisted Lucy to her feet, then took his biretta from the mantelpiece and, from a peg behind the door, a short cloak of thin dark material. It was an old cloak which he had brought from Spain, but, as he now threw it over his shoulders with a magnificent pontifical gesture, never did garment seem more romantically befitted to its wearer. Now indeed could she dimly understand the reason of Miss O’Regan’s awe.
Downstairs, they went through the French window of the dining-room and began to stroll slowly round the circular walk of the garden.
Still occupied by his pique, he was for a moment silent, then he exclaimed abruptly:
‘What do you think of her – of Anna?’
‘I don’t quite know,’ she smiled. ‘ I like her, I think, but she’s rather – rather mysterious, isn’t she?’
‘Mysterious!’ he shot out. He opened his mouth as though to speak, then suddenly closed it; though she waited for some remark, that remark did not come. There was an appreciable silence, during which Edward re-established his composure; then, having passed the outstretched arms of the coloured statuette exactly twenty times, he paused.
‘That’s my constitutional,’ he said. ‘Twenty times round shakes up the liver’; and he suggested, as he always did, showing her the church. He was proud of his Pugin church, and, when they went in, drew her attention, in a low voice, to the lines of the Gothic arches, the construction of the reredos, and the carving of the wooden angels on the pulpit. Pugin had made that church before God made Edward; yet, observing him, it was impossible to escape the notion that Edward had designed the church, raised it with his own hands, and now possessed it exclusively as his own.
‘Yes, it’s remarkably fine,’ he exclaimed finally from between pursed lips, letting his glance dwell upon her serious face. He thought her then a modest and ingenuous creature, not perhaps of the highest intelligence, but honest, deferential to his priestly calling, nicely turned out too – he liked the pleasant elegance of a well-dressed woman.
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br /> They knelt down and said each a silent prayer. A little affected by his priestly presence, she did not coherently express herself, demonstrating only by her devotion towards that mysterious altar an inarticulate gratitude for the happiness of her lot in life. Rising, they left the church and, withdrawing Peter from close communion with Eileen in the pantry, they went, following the recognised ritual of these visits, into the school. Edward was proud also of his school! As they passed through the classrooms – and in every classroom the children rose simultaneously upon their entry and exclaimed, with well-trained euphonious exactitude: ‘ Good af-ter-noon, fa-ther’ – Edward demonstrated his nephew:
‘This big man,’ he said, handling the youthful head with a proud pomposity. Certainly the kilt looked superior against the background of ragged pinafores and burst boots; nor were the various teachers stinting in their praises of ‘his reverence’s nephew’.
When they came away from the school, Lucy, under a pretence of unconcern, concealed an inward glow. For her, by this subtle indication of her son’s distinction, the apex of the visit had been achieved. And yet, as she left Edward and the boy and went alone, according to her custom, to pay her visit of courtesy to the housekeeper’s room, she had, for all her satisfaction, a vague sensation of perplexity. Something – what she hardly knew – invading the warmth of her contentment. Yes, she could not evade the fact that Anna was puzzling her, a sensation wholly foreign to her downright mind. Anna, today, had held herself so pleasantly apart, had, indeed, seemed so subtly out of key with the harmonious concord of the visit. Anna had money, good looks, independence: these entitled her to wear that air of unassertive assurance. But there was more to it than that. At times Anna’s careless composure seemed a crust beneath which strange and unexpected forces ran. What, moreover, was the explanation of that aloofness in Edward’s manner, of that curious gleam in Miss O’Regan’s eye? Her inclination had been to ask Edward frankly; but he had patently sealed his lips upon the subject. Now, however, seated in Miss O’Regan ‘s stuffy little closet – for Teresa O’Regan ventilation was not, except in so far as it pertained to the airing of Edward’s flannels – Lucy cast a speculative glance towards the housekeeper.
‘His reverence tells me,’ Miss O’Regan was saying, ‘that Peter will be over with us for a few days when Anna leaves you.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy. A pause followed, then suddenly, almost involuntarily, she exclaimed:
‘Miss O’Regan! Will you tell me something? Why don’t you like Anna?’
‘Anna!’ echoed the other, utterly confused by the unexpectedness of the question.
‘Yes! Why do you dislike her?’
There was a pause, during which Miss O’Regan coloured deeply.
‘I don’t dislike Anna,’ she said at length, haltingly. ‘ I – I disapprove of her.’
‘But why?’ persisted Lucy.
‘Don’t you know?’ stammered the other. ‘Your husband – he didn’t tell you?’
Lucy shook her head, curious yet confused, a little uneasy at the other’s manner.
Miss O’Regan covered her pale lips with her finger-tips, torn manifestly between her desire and her fear.
‘I better not tell you,’ she quavered.
‘What!’ Impatiently, Lucy waited.
‘I don’t know –’ faltered the housekeeper, then, twisting her thin hands together, she burst out with a sudden spate of words.
Lucy started, profoundly upset. Despite Miss O’Regan’s ridiculous embarrassment, there was nothing ludicrous in the unhappy fact which she had just disclosed. Unadorned, shorn of all pious ejaculations, the fact was staggering – Anna, the mother of an illegitimate child!
Shocked, still slightly bewildered, Lucy stared at the other in silence. It was the last thing she had expected. She would never have asked had she even dimly suspected this devastating revelation.
‘Five years ago, it was,’ rushed on Miss O’Regan, with a movement of delicate anguish. ‘And it has died since – the poor child – when it was three years old.’
Lucy’s eyes clouded. It was a disconcerting situation she had stumbled on: unpleasant, upsetting, so incredible as to be almost novelettish. But it was there, for all that. And with it the warm comfort of the afternoon was suddenly dispelled.
‘But why –?’ said she at last. ‘Who was –?’
A flutter invaded Miss O’Regan’s eye, which immediately fell down. Her embarrassment now, as before, was painful.
‘I don’t know,’ she answered hurriedly. ‘Nor does anybody know who the father was. Wild horses wouldn’t drag his name out of her. Just shut her mouth, she did, and said nothing. His reverence was miserable upset. Oh, she’s a queer one, is Anna!’
‘But surely,’ persisted Lucy, ‘surely –’
She did not finish the words, for at that moment Peter burst into the room, followed by Edward and Anna.
‘We’ll be late, mother,’ he cried. ‘You told Dave four o’clock.’
‘Yes,’ she answered automatically, ‘so I did.’
‘Hurry, then! Hurry! What with Anna sleeping and you talking, we’ll miss the boat.’
There was a pause, then a general movement towards the hall.
‘I’d come down with you,’ explained Edward at the door, ‘ but I’ve a call to pay – a dear old friend – Miss MacTara!’
‘Don’t miss that on our account,’ said Anna, smiling. ‘It’s such a lovely name.’
He bade them most affectionately good-bye, indicating again that Peter must return for a few days’ stay towards the end of the holidays. Miss O’Regan, too, offered a limp and humble hand. And Eileen, pressing the yellow’ cat’s nose against the side window of the kitchen, presented a fleeting vision which made Peter laugh as they went down the road.
But Lucy did not laugh. She was perplexed, uneasy – touched by a sort of causeless disquiet, as though the housekeeper’s unpleasant news had struck somehow at her. No definite distress oppressed her, nor had she a belated sympathy for Anna – impossible to be sorry for Anna: she did not ask for sympathy. Again she looked towards Anna. But Anna apparently had her own thoughts. And then again there arose in her that pricking irritation, unaccountable but actual – a vague presentiment she could not place. ‘Why,’ she thought, with a sinking perplexity, ‘why on earth did Frank never tell me about Anna?’ It hurt her, that thought; gave her a sudden heaviness; made her strangely silent. And Miss O’Regan’s words came to her again with a curious confusion: ‘Your husband – he didn’t tell you?’ The question seemed to burn in her mind: Why had Frank never told her?
Chapter Six
The succeeding Saturday was the occasion of the picnic, an excursion formulated by Peter before Anna’s arrival and now insisted on with the relentless enthusiasm of youth. Lucy had little inclination for this picnic: strangely – for a reason she, could not have explained – she did not wish to go. But Frank had picked up the idea with unusual jauntiness, discussing various extravagant projects – from the hiring of a lug-sail to take them down the firth to an expedition by wagonette across the Winton Hills. She had replied shortly that if they must go they would row simply to the woods on Ardmore Point. The Point, she briefly indicated, was hear, and there she would at least be able to utilise the expedition by picking some raspberries for jam.
She was in a curious attitude of mind as in the kitchen, with sleeves rolled up, she went about her preparations for the picnic: an absurd mood, she was aware, utterly absurd, yet for the past two days it had lain heavily upon her. She had made no mention to Frank of her recent discovery; but she had the feeling that Frank himself should long ago have told her. Why hadn’t he told her? She kept nothing from him; she was herself his; and she demanded rightly that he should equally be hers. Moreover, since the visit to Port Doran she had offered him every opportunity to repair his omission; had given him a lead here, an opening there; had waited, on edge almost, for his belated confidence. But he had said nothing. It chafed her, this palpab
ly deliberate concealment.
Impatiently she raised her head and caught a glimpse through the back window of Anna, Frank, and Peter, their figures bent together, intimately inspecting the turned soil. She heard, too, the thin, excited laugh of her son as he dug deeply for worms beneath the ash-tree. At dinner he had related how he proposed to defeat the cunning of the trout which rumour allocated to the upper pool of Ardmore stream, a fish of legendary size and fabulous antiquity.
She might have smiled at this boast; but she had not smiled. She had been irritable, sharp, thinking of Anna – this so curiously contained woman whom she could not understand – of Anna, now exposed in one aspect, and that an aspect not wholly reassuring. Had she known of the past episode, would she so readily have left Anna in charge of her home, of Peter and – she faced this with an inward wincing – of Frank? Anna and Frank were cousins, of course. But to have left them in a state of palpable indifference, and, returning, to find them pledging their amity in beer – incredible, disgusting bathos! None the less, she did not like it. There must surely be an element of vulgarity under Anna’s smoothly indifferent skin.
She paused.
‘I must,’ she thought, her brows creased to a troubled uncertainty, ‘I must get this thing straight.’
To begin: Anna, on this sudden unexpected evidence, was a woman of at least indifferent character. And she, unsuspecting, in perfect sincerity, had left this woman and her husband alone when he, by a single word, could have explained the situation. But he had not uttered that word. Moreover, it was not as if he did not know. Edward knew; so, too, she was sure, did Joe, Polly, even Lennox. Frank must know. Moreover, that very year of Anna’s misfortune – five years ago – approximated with his own visit to Belfast. He must have seen the trouble there, must have realised it. And yet he had said nothing.
