The Oracles

by Margaret Kennedy

  ‘Are you busy?’ asked Archer, as the two avengers surged into the hall. ‘We’ve come about your letter to Conrad. How do you do, Mrs. Pattison?’

  ‘How do you do?’ she whispered, shaking hands.

  She looked so scared and so pretty that both Conrad and Archer felt anxious to kiss her. Conrad did so, and drew her arm through his as they all went into the lounge. His brows were no longer furrowed, and a little colour stole back into her cheeks.

  ‘How is Mrs. Swann? How are the children?’ she cried in distracted tones.

  Conrad, recollecting that he had been forbidden to utter a word, glanced at Archer, who replied that they were all well and sent their love. At this Conrad looked mutinous, for he liked the truth. They had done no such thing. The children had not known of this expedition and Ivy was far too well aware of her place to send her love to Mrs. Pattison.

  ‘About your letter …’ began Archer, but was interrupted by Dickie, who wanted to get rid of Christina.

  ‘I’m sure,’ he said to her, ‘that you’re busy, and this is really a matter for the committee.’

  ‘I want to stay and hear about it,’ she said stubbornly.

  He could not actually thrust her from the room, but he was terrified lest she should become contumacious, and gave her a look as quelling as that which Archer was, at the same moment, bestowing upon Conrad. Don’t talk! was the tacit command to these two reprobates, who forthwith sat down side by side on a settee and prepared to hold their tongues.

  ‘About the letter,’ repeated Archer, shooting out his eyes at Dickie.

  Some things were already clear. Pattison knew nothing. No disclosure could have taken place since he wrote that letter; he could not else have opened the door in so placid a manner. Mrs. Pattison, on the other hand, knew everything. She was terrified. There might be very little difficulty in persuading her to hold her tongue for ever.

  ‘The fact is,’ continued Archer, ‘that the Apollo isn’t for sale. Not at present. I’ve advised against it. Conrad very much appreciates your kindness in writing. He realises, of course, what an honour the town has done him.…’

  ‘Huh! Huh! Huh!’

  Conrad caught Archer’s eye, heaved, and blew his nose.

  ‘But I’ve strongly advised him to decline. I feel that after Gressington there’ll be a good many Apollos about, don’t you know. Some of them rather so-so. What with one thing and another, I think this one had better go into cold storage for a while. Perhaps you’d be so very kind as to tell your committee that?’

  ‘I will,’ said Dickie, and added hastily, ‘Though they’ll be very sorry to hear it.’

  He was not a bit sorry himself and found it impossible to say that he was. So he asked if they would now like to have it removed from the Pavilion.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Archer. ‘We’ve done that already. We went there last night and saw the manager, and he handed it over. Everything is quite in order.’

  ‘Then … then where is it now?’ breathed Christina.

  Archer managed not to hear this question and explained that he was arranging to have all Conrad’s property sent over to Coombe Bassett. But Conrad could not ignore the misery in her eyes; he said heartily:

  ‘It’s at the bottom of the sea. We took it out in a boat early this morning and dropped it overboard.’

  Christina and Dickie gave two gasps, one of relief, the other of surprise.

  ‘You needn’t have told them that,’ admonished Archer. ‘You’re supposed to be out of the bin and of sound mind again. The fact is,’ he turned to Dickie, ‘Conrad has taken a sort of dislike to it.…’

  ‘Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh!’

  ‘He can’t stand the sight of it. You know, he was a very sick man when he was … er … working for the Gressington competition, and the associations … well … they’re painful.’

  ‘Huh! Huh! Huh!’

  ‘Shut up, Conrad. But this is in confidence, Pattison. We’d just as soon not have it known.’

  ‘Oh yes, I see,’ said Dickie, trying to look as if he did.

  ‘I mean, the people here might think it a bit odd. They offer to buy it and he takes it and … and …’

  A violent convulsion shook Archer. He realised that in another minute he would begin to laugh himself.

  ‘So that’s that,’ he concluded hastily, determined to get Conrad out of the house as soon as possible. ‘If you’ll be a good fellow and say all the polite things? Put all the blame on me. You’ve been such a very good friend to us both. Sorry to have taken up your time. You must be busy. Come along, Conrad!’

  But Conrad, who had suddenly grown serious, was looking searchingly at Dickie. Then he turned to Christina and said:

  ‘He didn’t like it, did he? They made him write that letter? He didn’t want to?’

  ‘He likes some of your other things better,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t understand it,’ said Dickie hastily. ‘I tried to, but …’

  ‘You tried to?’ cried Conrad in amazement.

  ‘I wanted to like it, you know. I went and looked at it several times. I must say, it’s a great relief to me to know that you … don’t care for it so much yourself. I couldn’t get anything from it, and felt that must be all my fault. I even started to read everything I could get hold of about Apollo, to see if there was anything …’

  Conrad’s yelps were no longer to be stifled. He kept trying to apologise, but only went off into fresh convulsions every time he opened his mouth. Neither Christina nor Archer could resist the contagion. They were soon as helpless as he was. Dickie politely laughed too.

  ‘Books … books …’ said Conrad, at last, with a violent effort at gravity. ‘I’m sorry. Books! You see, Martha read me some books … funny … very funny … those books.…’

  ‘They can’t have been the same books that I read,’ said Dickie.

  ‘Oh yes,’ gasped Archer, coming to Conrad’s rescue. ‘Girl turned into a tree. Must have been a sell for Apollo, that.’

  Conrad had fallen into a fresh paroxysm. He was trying to say something but could only hoot. At last he managed to articulate one word:

  ‘Thunderstorm!’

  At this Archer and Christina nearly jumped out of their skins. Their laughter ceased abruptly.

  ‘Just remembered it,’ explained Conrad, getting his breath. ‘Very bad thunderstorm, killed all the barbarians.’

  ‘Oh, I remember,’ said Dickie. ‘It’s in Herodotus.’

  ‘You see,’ said Conrad, turning to Christina, ‘these barbarians, these Persians, they were marching on this mountain … what is it called? Apollo’s mountain?’

  ‘Parnassus,’ said Dickie.

  ‘Where his temple was, at Delphi. So the local yok … the shepherds and … er … gro … farmers, and so on, they thought they had to fight. They went up to defend the place. But the priests who worked the oracles, they weren’t going to fight. They decided to sell out. They had some sacred armour that it was sacrilege to touch; they put it out in front of the temple as notice of surrender, and announced that the God had moved it out by a miracle.’

  ‘Herodotus,’ interposed Dickie, ‘merely says that the armour was found outside.’

  ‘Does armour walk out of a temple on its own legs?’ demanded Conrad. ‘It wouldn’t now, and I don’t believe it could then. You can see what Herodotus thought by the way he put it.’

  Dickie had taken a book from a shelf and turned up the passage.

  ‘“But when the barbarians were hurrying down upon the temple,”’ he read, ‘“a still greater portent befell. For it was marvel enough that arms of war should, of their own will, move out and lie before the temple; but thereafter occurred a second, of all prodigies the most worthy of wonder. For, as the barbarians were approaching the temple of Athena Pronaia, thunderbolts suddenly fell on them from heaven, and two crags were torn from Parnassus, falling in their midst and crushing many to death. A cry of triumph was heard from the temple of Pronaia. These combined events p
rovoked panic among the barbarians. The Delphians came up and slew a number of them. The rest fled straight to Boeotia.”’

  ‘You see!’ commented Conrad. ‘And that reminds me! Where’s Martha gone?’

  ‘Mrs. Rawson?’ said Dickie. ‘I believe she’s been ordered to take a year’s cruise.’

  Conrad nodded and turned to Christina.

  ‘Very good thunderstorm,’ he suggested. ‘Did a lot of good. They do, sometimes.’

  She murmured a faint agreement. He knew. This was his way of telling her that he knew exactly what had happened, and that she need not be frightened any more. She wanted to go away and cry, but feared that she might faint before she got out of the room.

  ‘Hadn’t I better,’ he suggested, ‘come and look at your baby? The children will want to know how he is. They’ll be disappointed if I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘He … he’s in his play-pen … in the dining-room,’ murmured Christina, struggling to her feet.

  Conrad rose too and helped her out of the room. Dickie made an effort to follow them but was detained by Archer, who said that he wanted to settle the exact wording of Conrad’s reply to the committee.

  ‘Do you have any brandy anywhere?’ asked Conrad when they reached the dining-room.

  ‘There’s some c-cognac in the sideboard.’

  He found it and gave her some, after which she cried for a little and he inspected Bobbins.

  ‘Hasn’t he got rather a long back?’ he asked, when her muffled sobs had subsided.

  ‘They all have,’ she said. ‘It’s normal. Oh, Mr. Swann!’

  ‘That’s all right. Forget all about it.’

  ‘He would mind so much if he knew. He would feel that he hadn’t appreciated you properly.’

  ‘He needn’t know. Was that why you never told him?’

  ‘Later on, yes. But at first … out of unkindness. Oh, but I am so glad you aren’t angry.’

  ‘Why should I be?’ he asked, in obvious surprise.

  ‘It might have done you a lot of harm.’

  ‘So Frank says. But it hasn’t.’

  ‘It was Mr. Wetherby’s fault. I’m sure it was. He egged Martha on. I suppose it was his idea of a practical joke.’

  ‘It would be. But we’ve been too many for him.’

  Bobbins threw a coloured woollen ball outside his pen. Conrad stooped to retrieve it, smiling to himself and repeating:

  ‘Too many!’

  ‘Mr. Swann …’

  ‘No hurry, you know. Forget about it for a bit, and then think it over.’

  ‘I’d feel more comfortable if I could tell him. But why should I upset him just because I want to feel more comfortable?’

  ‘Wait. Later on, it might not upset him so much.’

  ‘Oh, it would. Unless he changes a lot.’

  ‘Yes. But he might.’

  ‘Change? People don’t change.’

  ‘Oh yes. They change all the time.’

  ‘Do they?’

  He did not answer that, because she was finding an answer for herself. Where was the furious child who had crawled about on this floor looking for pins?

  ‘I love him so much,’ she said, with a sigh.

  When they rejoined the others in the lounge they found Dickie both composed and elated. Archer had explained Conrad’s strange behaviour: there was still, he hinted, a certain amount of instability, although there was every hope of complete recovery. The Apollo could only be regarded as evidence of temporary insanity, so that it was good that he could now laugh at it. Dickie, by opposing Martha and preventing a hasty purchase of the thing, had done him an inestimable service.

  ‘Thanks to you,’ Archer had said, ‘the whole business can now be hushed up and forgotten. If you hadn’t used your eyes, and stood up to them, we should be in a God-awful mess.’

  All this was balm to Dickie. To have been right in his judgment, to have done Swann a good turn, to find himself once more in accord with Christina, gave him considerable grounds for elation. And he was deeply thankful that Bobbins was going to be spared the Apollo.

  After a cordial leave-taking Archer hurried his friend off the premises.

  ‘I was a fool not to drop you into the sea too,’ he said, as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘You couldn’t have behaved worse.’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Conrad. ‘But I took her out of the room so that you could tell him I’m still a little mad.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And he looked quite happy when we came back. He’s all right. We didn’t really hurt his feelings. She’s the one I’m sorry for.’

  ‘Did you talk to her? Will she hold her tongue?’

  ‘I think so. She won’t want to upset him.’

  ‘Yes. He takes himself rather seriously, I fancy.’

  ‘So he ought,’ said Conrad. ‘Nobody else will if he doesn’t. I think people should take themselves seriously. But I don’t see why he should make such heavy weather over taking me seriously. If I take myself seriously, that’s quite enough. Trying to … trying to … I’m sorry! I still can’t help laughing. Why should he try so hard?’

  ‘He’s a disappointed man,’ said Archer thoughtfully.

  He did not take Pethwick’s view of Dickie. He did not assume that the choice of an easy life in East Head arose from any strong desire for leisure in which to appreciate Swann. On the contrary, he suspected that all this culture might have originated in frustration, and that Dickie would have preferred a more arduous career.

  ‘He’s got a lot to sit on and nowhere to put it,’ said Archer. ‘If his job gave him more headaches, he wouldn’t take you so seriously. I know that type. You see them around, in the galleries, trying away. But they don’t often have the cash to buy anything, so I don’t have many dealings with them.’

  He had observed that type, the frustrated, the disappointed, the unsuccessful, which asks for most from Art, since it is continually haunted by questions which life has not answered. Who am I? What am I? What do I here? Is this my destiny, or have I made some avoidable mistake? Give me truth which disregards me, in which I play no part, but which stands unshaken and admirable, which I may contemplate and so forget my lot. Give me escape from hope and regret, anguish and solace; carry me into some other world where explicable laws prevail.

  The assured, the successful men, to whom he sold his wares, had found their place in this world, had found work which absorbed all their faculties, which set problems serious enough to preserve them from the importunities of those other, unanswerable questions. They knew what they were buying and valued their acquisitions. They took pleasure in their aesthetic sensibilities. They snatched an afternoon, occasionally, to visit an exhibition; they took an evening off for a concert. Some of them might read poetry before they went to sleep. But certain transports were denied to them, since they were reconciled to life. These are reserved for the unreconciled—for those among the failures who refuse to wither, to rot, to drink, or to rail at fortune. Such men save their souls by turning to some great disinterested activity.

  ‘You think he’d better be an appointed man?’ asked Conrad.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘The opposite of a disappointed man. In a job which gives him a lot of headaches, so he doesn’t have much time to be solemn.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Then I wonder he doesn’t appoint himself somewhere. What’s to keep him here?’

  ‘I dare say he’s got into a rut. And I don’t think his little Mrs. would like moving. She’s got her roots here.’

  ‘She’d do anything in the world for him,’ said Conrad. ‘I think you ought to manage it, Frank. You know how to make people do things. We owe them both a lot. It would be a good way of saying thank you if you kicked him out of here.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Archer, after a pause during which he sought vainly for adequate words. ‘Sometimes I think the disappointed men get the best of it. That Fellow up there,’ he jerked his thumb skywards, ‘is a good
deal fairer than you might suppose. There’s an orange for most people—if only they have the sense to see it.’

  7

  THE young Pattisons moved into The Rowans at Michaelmas. Early in December they took a short trip to London. Dickie had to go there for a Chancery action, and Christina, consigning Bobbins to the care of Mrs. Hughes for five days, went with him. She had not been away for eighteen months and felt that she needed a little holiday.

  They went expecting to have a wonderful time, and had the sort of time which is usually the lot of country cousins in Town for a week. On the night of their arrival they dined in Bayswater with Christina’s relations, the Barlows. It was a dull evening. The dinner was vile and their hosts appeared to be overcome by the effort of producing it at all. They had, they complained, no servants, and they were still haunted by the memory of queues and ration books. Nobody in London, so they said, tried to entertain any more. Things had become too difficult. Christina, listening to the lamentations of the other women over their tepid coffee, reflected that the same difficulties had prevailed in East Head, but had been defied by an endemic neighbourliness which seemed to be lacking in Bayswater. People in London did not enjoy one another’s company; the other guests at this dreary feast had obviously been invited because some debt of hospitality was owing to them, and they could be worked off with the Pattisons. Everybody watched the clock, and at halfpast ten they all trooped out together.

  Dickie, on the drive home, refrained from crying: What a sluggery! He would have liked to say something appreciative, and racked his brains for a pleasant comment, but could think of none. Christina, however, was not offended by his silence. She was wondering why the coffee was cold; had people in London never got around to the idea of a percolator?

  He was occupied with business during the day. On Tuesday Christina explored all the shops in Oxford Street, bought some Christmas presents, and lunched with Mrs. Barlow in a well-known store. In the evening they went to a restaurant in Soho, of which Dickie had heard; the food was eatable, but only just, by Christina’s standards. Afterwards they went to the current intellectual play. Christina, who did not attempt to understand what it was all about, enjoyed it, since the acting was first-rate and several scenes were very funny. Dickie came away feeling that he must have missed something.