The Oracles

by Margaret Kennedy

  I’ll hide that record one of these days, thought Christina. It’s too sad. There are enough sad things in real life, I say, without making yourself miserable over the gramophone.

  6

  ‘CA MARCHE!’ said Martha, as she looked through her morning’s letters. ‘The Brixcombe school has climbed down. They will take the little Swanns at reduced terms. I thought they would, considering all the pupils I’ve sent them.’

  ‘Good,’ said Don.

  He was reading the newspaper and answering Martha, an accomplishment which he had mastered pretty well. There was no need to listen to her with close attention. She made four kinds of noise. The first denoted pleasure, the second annoyance, the third was informative, and the fourth asked a question. He rang the changes on four answers.

  ‘I must let Mr. Pattison know. I shall avoid further dealings with his wife after her abominable rudeness to me over the telephone.’

  ‘A nuisance!’

  ‘I’m sure he wants to get rid of them, poor man. He’s had them a fortnight. I shall simply ask him to bring them all here on Wednesday morning, and then I’ll drive them over to Brixcombe. He and his wife can fight it out.’

  ‘Good.’

  There was a short silence while she opened another letter.

  ‘Nigel Meadowes,’ she said. ‘Proofs for his article on the Apollo, for Friday’s Gazette. He wants me to look them over.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘By Friday everyone will have seen it. Yesterday I don’t count because Monday is washing-day for most of them. Hardly anybody goes to the Pavilion on a Monday.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You could exhibit the Crown Jewels in the Pavilion vestibule on a Monday and nobody would be much the wiser.’

  ‘A nuisance.’

  ‘I wasn’t surprised when Mr. Beccles told me over the telephone that he didn’t think anybody had noticed it much. But, did I tell you, Don? Sir Gregory happened to come in. You can imagine what his reaction was.’

  ‘A nuisance.’

  ‘Well, I’m not so sure that it was. Controversy is often very stimulating. I’m glad he saw it.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘He went off, so Mr. Beccles said, declaring that it was an outrage and threatening to have it removed. How could he have it removed?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Of course he couldn’t. Sir Gregory has no say at all in what happens at the Pavilion. But he went off to bully the Mayor about it. He won’t get much change out of Mr. Dale. He actually called it obscene.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Well … yes … I agree with you. In a way we couldn’t have a better antagonist than Sir Gregory. He’s such a bully and so unpopular. If he says it ought to be taken away a great many people will automatically feel that it ought not. Yes! I want controversy of that sort.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Mr. Dale is surprisingly favourable. Of course his taste is non-existent, but he likes to think he is a live wire—progressive. He likes anything that attracts attention to the town. Attention means custom. I think a good many of the tradesmen may take that view. They feel they are putting East Head on the map. A succès de scandale, perhaps, but a succès.’

  Martha opened a third letter, saying:

  ‘Alan Wetherby.’

  ‘Really?’

  The flow of comment ceased. There was such a long silence that Don began to be aware of something unusual. He looked over the top of his newspaper.

  She was staring at her letter with a blanched face and a stupefied expression. It seemed to be quite a long letter; there were several sheets covered in Wetherby’s minute, angular handwriting.

  ‘What does Alan say?’

  ‘He … he …’

  She gave him a strange, despairing look.

  ‘Martha! Are you all right? Are you quite well?’

  ‘No.…’

  She picked the letter up and put it down again.

  ‘No,’ she repeated faintly. ‘I … I don’t feel very well. I think I’ll go upstairs … and lie down for a little.…’

  ‘Has Alan … is he being tiresome about something?’

  ‘Oh no. No! It’s just that I don’t feel well. I’ll be quite all right by and by. I’ll just lie down quietly for a little.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘No. Nothing. It will pass off. Just a little faint, that’s all. It’s nothing.’

  ‘You look ghastly. I believe I ought to send for Dr. Browning.’

  ‘Oh no. Please don’t. I shall be all right.’

  She picked up the sheets of her letter and went upstairs to her room, waving him away when he tried to come with her. For nearly an hour she lay upon her bed in the sleepy lassitude which succeeds a tremendous shock. Not immediately could she bring herself to reread Wetherby’s dreadful letter. But a moment came when she had to do so.

  Dear Martha,

  If you must quote my opinions, please do so correctly. I ran into your friend Carter last night; she’s in Bristol for a conference, so she says. I heard from her that you are telling everybody that I admire a contraption which I saw in your music-room the last time I was at The Moorings,—a piece of scrap metal which you (not I) assumed to be Conrad’s Apollo.

  You have no grounds whatever for making such a statement. When did I say that I admired it? I said I was stunned. I was. At you, for supposing that Conrad could ever have been responsible for such a ludicrous object. I am not, as you know, one of his claque, but I should never have done him so great an injustice.

  I think I said that Gressington had missed something. I am still sorry that you did not send it there; I should have enjoyed hearing what they made of it.

  I also said I wouldn’t have thought Conrad had it in him. He might, I agree, have been capable of exposing some metal object to a tremendously powerful electric current, but he could not possibly have known what the exact effect would be, and could not, I think, have handled it during the process without electrocuting himself. He must simply have turned the current on and left it to God.

  You will therefore, in future, refrain from saying that I consider it to be Conrad’s best work. I am not one of those who confuse Conrad with the Almighty. And, moreover, I don’t believe he even turned on the current. I have good reasons for supposing that he never saw or handled the thing in its present shape, and knows nothing whatever about it, for I believe that he had left East Head before this ‘Act of God’ took place.

  Why do I think so?

  Well! This ‘Apollo’ struck me as oddly familiar when I saw it in your house. I was convinced that I had met it before, in an earlier incarnation. I cast my mind back. I remembered a stroll I took round Conrad’s estate one day, when you escorted me there to hear Carter reading poetry. I was much struck by several of his domestic arrangements. My insatiable curiosity even took me up to the meadow behind his garden. Perhaps you have never been there? It had a tree in it—a tree which was struck by lightning, I believe, on the first night of the storm. Conrad, as you have often observed, is a very simple person. Tree-climbing appeared to have been one of his hobbies. It wasn’t an easy tree to climb, but he is a man of resource, and had pinched one of those steel chairs which used to be round the bandstand at the end of the Marine Parade before the worthy Mr. Dale substituted deck-chairs at double the price. I say pinched, knowing Conrad, but I may do him an injustice; he might have bought it, for I believe they were sold in job lots. Anyway, it gave him a leg-up into his tree.

  When I recollected Conrad’s chair this tantalising familiarity was solved; only you’d got the thing upside down. That great flat foot was once the back, and the head a molten blob at the end of a chair leg. And it used to be green. Immediately after leaving you, that afternoon, I went up to Summersdown to have a look round, and was lucky enough to fall in with the farmer who owns the meadow. We inspected the ruins of the tree. He told me that he had discovered the accident at 6.30 a.m. on Sunday and described the strange transform
ation of the chair, which stood, so he said, immediately under it. I then had a hunt round for Conrad’s Apollo and found it, as I believe, hidden in the garage. It must have been taken from the shed, and God’s Apollo substituted, at some time between 6.30 a.m. on Sunday and Tuesday afternoon.

  God’s Apollo, however, is presumably Conrad’s property. I gather that you abstracted it from his premises during his absence, and without his leave. If you want it for your music-room I think you should pay him for it. I suggested what I thought to be a reasonable sum. Two hundred pounds might, anyway, sweeten Conrad’s temper when he comes back and discovers what you have done.

  I said nothing of all this to Carter. I had an idea you might prefer that I didn’t. But I shall say a great deal, as publicly as possible, if you go on misquoting me. She told me that you had some plan for an exhibition. I doubt if that is wise. I daresay it’s highly unlikely that Farmer Hackett would attend it, but he just conceivably might. I know that ‘what he thinks he sees’ is of no importance, but it would be awkward if he insisted that he thought he had seen it before. He might not, however, recognise it—upside down and all dolled up, as I’m sure it will be. Still, it’s not a risk I’d take myself.

  Yours ever,

  Alan Wetherby.

  This second reading brought on a violent spasm of nausea. For the greater part of the morning her physical discomfort was so great as to leave her little leisure for reflection. She had an excellent constitution and did not know how to be ill. But these unpleasant sensations had one merit; they induced a salutary blankness of mind. She could not, she would not, she must not, understand what had upset her so much. At one point she burnt the letter without reading it again.

  There was an aspect of this calamity which she could never have understood, however often she read the letter. Wetherby’s spite and malice would always have been incomprehensible to her. She might be a pretentious fool, conceited, a bully and an egotist, but she was not cruel and had never in her life taken pleasure in other people’s misfortunes. She had never cold-bloodedly inflicted pain, or felt any temptation to do so. In this respect she was more innocent than many of her betters.

  Don came up at lunchtime and again suggested calling the doctor, for he was alarmed by her looks. When she refused all medical advice he brought her a stiff tot of brandy.

  This really did her a little good. He had left the bottle, and she took a second tot. After that a few ideas began to float through her mind. They were disconnected and therefore endurable.

  One was in no way responsible for Conrad Swann or for anything that he might have done. One had been very kind to him, but one could not be regarded as his representative. No!

  One had arranged this exhibition with the trustees of the Pavilion. That was all.

  Dr. Browning was stupid and behind the times. Really she must be quite ill. A London doctor would be better. Get away, to London.

  Who could be described as Conrad’s representative? Who would naturally act for him? His solicitor? Had he one? Mr. Pattison? He saw to that business when the truck knocked down the wall. Mr. Pattison! He had the children.

  Since she felt so ill, something should be done about it at once. There was no point at all in delay. Delay might even be dangerous. A London doctor ought to be consulted at once.

  What arrangements Conrad might have made with Mr. Pattison one didn’t know. One hadn’t been told. Mr. Pattison was looking after the children; that was evidence that he acknowledged some kind of responsibility. He had been told about the exhibition, in the boathouse, and he had raised no objection.

  Don had looked so worried. It was not fair to worry him. There was no reason why they should not go up to London tomorrow, by the first train.

  Perhaps a London doctor might say that she had been doing too much. Travel … a long cruise … he might suggest something like that. There was nothing to keep her in East Head. If necessary, she could leave it for a very long time. Don had never liked it. He would be happier elsewhere.

  One had done one’s best, but it was an unrewarding place. One’s efforts had not been appreciated. These people would really, so it seemed, prefer to be left to their own devices. If they got themselves into some ridiculous scrape, one had better not be concerned in it. One need never really have to know about it. One could be on the high seas.…

  Annette! Ahmed! Board wages! Packing!

  There were a million things to be done immediately, if one was to get away by an early train tomorrow morning. This brandy was wonderful. It had cured one, for the time being.

  She found herself upon her feet again, restored to health and able to think connectedly. She could even address herself to an unpleasant task, which she must undertake before plunging into more welcome activities. By some disclaimer of responsibility she had better make her whole attitude about … about the incomprehensible … perfectly clear. She must write a letter to Mr. Pattison.

  She sat down to it at once. The ease with which it flowed from her pen surprised her. Somebody might almost have been dictating it to her.

  Dear Mr. Pattison,

  I enclose a letter which I have had from the Brixcombe school. You will see that they are willing to take Conrad Swann’s children at reduced terms.

  Of course it is for you to decide whether he should take advantage of this offer or not. I thought it no harm to make enquiries and pass this information on to you. I am afraid I can’t do anything more in the matter myself, as I have been far from well lately and my husband insists upon taking me up to London to see my doctor there. I may possibly have been overdoing it; a long rest and change of scene may be necessary.

  If Mr. Swann does not return and there is any question of disposing of his property, I had better mention that the piano in the Summersdown house is mine. I lent it to him.

  Yours sincerely

  Martha Rawson.

  She addressed this letter to Dickie’s office, not his house, because she did not want him to get it until after she had left East Head on Wednesday morning. She ran down herself to post it in the pillar-box on the quay.

  Upon her return the household was roused to a whirlwind of activity. It soon became clear that she was preparing for an absence of several months.

  Ahmed and Annette were not merely delighted at the prospect of a long period of inactivity on board wages; they were in transports of relief. A private problem of their own was now likely to be solved. Annette was pregnant, a fact which they could not have hoped to conceal from Martha for very much longer. They turned to with a will, and accomplished miracles in the way of rapid packing.

  As for Don, he was so much overjoyed to get out of East Head that he found it very hard to regret Martha’s timely indisposition. He hoped that it would not hurt her much and would keep them both away for a very long time. Upon the whole, it did not greatly perturb him; she had been ill all the morning, but she looked much better now. He had no doubt about the cause; these distressing symptoms had been brought on by Alan Wetherby’s letter, the contents of which he was, apparently, never to know. He had no wish to do so. Wetherby was a nasty specimen and his letter unlikely to make anybody feel good. People who cultivated his acquaintance must expect these shocks. Now perhaps it would never be necessary to hand the brute another Martini.

  As Don bustled about, bringing his personal possessions from the boathouse, he hoped that he might not see the place again. He might even rebel if Martha threatened to bring him back. He said to himself, when he slammed and locked the door:

  Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,

  Profit again should hardly draw me here.

  7

  WHATEVER’S that?

  On loan, it says.

  But what on earth is it?

  ‘Apollo. By Conrad Swann. On loan to the Trustees.’

  Oh, him!

  Just like him, I should say.

  We mustn’t laugh, I suppose.

  No. I suppose not.

  Well … I don’t know.


  I don’t know, I’m sure.

  I never can remember which is the heavier: 15 or 30 denier. I say, Muriel! Just look at that!

  Oh, I’ve seen it. I saw it yesterday. But did you know they’ve got these new fish-net ones in Mason’s?

  Is that supposed to be its head?

  They say Mr. Wetherby says it’s marvellous.

  My nephew, the one in the B.B.C., explained it to me.…

  Well! You can’t say we aren’t up to date!

  No, Mrs. Dale. We’re modern, anyway.

  Oh, Nell? Where’s Martha? I thought she’d be down here by now. She said she was coming in this morning.

  She’s ill. I rang up The Moorings. Some kind of indigestion, so Don said.

  Fancy Martha! I can’t imagine her ill somehow.

  Art doesn’t have to be beautiful any more, so my nephew says. Because artists can’t go on doing the same things over and over again and they’ve done all the beautiful things already.

  Are we allowed to laugh?

  Goodness no! My dear!

  There’s to be a picture and an article in this week’s Gazette. I shall send it to my sister in California. She loves getting the Gazette.

  I don’t suppose they have them like this in America.