Seducers in Ecuador and the Heir

by Vita Sackville-West

  IX

  When the inventory men came, Chase suffered. They came with bags, ledgers, pencils; they were brisk and efficient, and Chase fled them from room to room. They soon put him down as oddly peevish, not knowing that they had committed the extreme offence of disturbing his dear privacy. In their eyes, after all, they were there as his employees, carrying out his orders. The foreman even went out of his way to be appreciative, “Nice lot of stuff you have there, sir,” he said to Chase, when his glance first travelled over the dim velvets and gilt of the furniture in the long Gallery; “should do well under the hammer.” Chase stood beside him, seeing the upholstered depths of velvets and damasks, like ripe fruits, heavily fringed and tasselled; the plaster-work of the diapered ceiling; the fairy-tale background of the tapestry, and the reflections of the cloudy mirrors. Into this room also he had put bowls of flowers, not knowing that the inventory men were coming so soon. “Nice lot of stuff you have here, sir,” said the foreman.

  Chase remembered how often, representing his insurance company, he had run a casual and assessing eye over other people’s possessions.

  The inventory men worked methodically through the house. Ground floor, staircase, landing, passage, first floor. Everything was ticketed and checked. Chase miserably avoided their hearty communicativeness. He skulked in the sitting-room downstairs, or, when he was driven out of that, took his cap and walked away from the house that surrounded him now with the grief of a wistful reproach. He knew that he would be well-advised to leave, yet he delayed from day to day; he suffered, but he stayed on, impotently watching the humbling and the desecration of the house. Then he took to going amongst the men when they were at their work, “What might be the value of a thing like this?” he would ask, tapping picture, cabinet, or chair with a contemptuous finger; and, when told, he would express surprise that anyone could be fool enough to pay such a price for an object so unserviceable, worm-eaten, or insecure. He would stand by, derisively sucking the top of his cane, while clerk and foreman checked and inscribed. Sometimes he would pick up some object just entered, a blue porcelain bowl, or whatever it might be, turn it over between his hands, examine it, and set it back on the window ledge with a shrug of the shoulders. There were no flowers in the rooms now, nor did he leave his pipes and tobacco littering the tables, but kept them hidden away in a drawer. There had been places, intimate to him, where he had grown accustomed to put his things, knowing he would find them there on his return; but he now broke himself of this weakness with a wrench. It hurt, and he was grim about it. In the evenings he sat solitary in a stiff room, without the companionship of those familiar things in their familiar niches. Towards Fortune his manner changed, and he appeared to take a pleasure in speaking callously, even harshly, of the forthcoming sale; but the old servant saw through him. When people came now to visit the house, he took them over every corner of it himself, deploring its lack of convenience, pointing out the easy remedy, and vaunting the advantage of its architectural perfection, “Quoted in every book on the subject,” he would say, “a perfect specimen of domestic Elizabethan,” (this phrase he had picked up from an article in an architectural journal), “complete in every detail, down to the window-fastenings; you wouldn’t find another like it, in the length and breadth of England.” The people to whom he said these things looked at him curiously; he spoke in a shrill, eager voice, and they thought he must be very anxious to sell. “Hard-up, no doubt,” they said as they went away. Others said, “He probably belongs to a distant branch of the family, and doesn’t care.”

  X

  After the inventory men, the dealers. Cigars, paunches, check-waistcoats, signet-rings. Insolent plump hands thumbing the velvets; shiny lips pushed out in disparagement, while small eyes twinkled with concupiscence. Chase grew to know them well. Yet he taught himself to banter even with the dealers, to pretend his excessive boredom with the whole uncongenial business. He advertised his contempt for the possessions that circumstances had thrust on him; they could and should, he let it be understood, affect him solely through their marketable value. The house itself – he quoted Nutley, to the dealers not to the people who came in view – ” Small rooms, dark passages, no bath-rooms, no electric light.” He said these things often and loudly, and laughed after he had said them as though he had uttered a witticism. The dealers laughed with him, politely, but they thought him a little wild, and from time to time cast at him a glance of slight surprise.

  All this while he sent no letter to Wolverhampton.

  He got one letter from his office, a type-written letter, considerate and long-suffering, addressed to P. Chase, Esq., at the foot (he was accustomed to seeing himself referred to as “our Mr. Chase” by his firm – anyhow they hadn’t ferreted out the Peregrine), suggesting that, although they quite understood that private affairs of importance were detaining him, he might perhaps for their guidance indicate an approximate date for his return. He reflected vaguely that they were treating him very decently; and dropped the letter into the wastepaper basket.

  XI

  He saw, however, that he would soon have to go. He clung on, but the sale was imminent; red and black posters appeared on all the cottages; and larger, redder, and blacker posters announced the sale, “By order of Peregrine Chase, Esq.,” of “the unique collection of antique furniture, tapestries, pictures, and contents of the mansion,” and in types of varying size detailed these contents, so that Chase could see, flaunting upon walls, trees, and gate-posts, when he wandered out, the soulless dates and the auctioneer’s bombast that advertised for others the quality of his possessions.

  An illustrated booklet was likewise published. Nutley gave him a copy. “This quite unique sixteenth century residence”; “the most original panelling and plaster-work”; “the moat and contemporary out-buildings”; “the old-world garden” – Chase fluttered over the pages, and rage seized him by the throat. “Nicely got up, don’t you think?” Nutley said complacently.

  Chase took the booklet away with him, up into the gallery. He always liked the gallery, because it was long, low, deserted, and so glowingly ornate; and more peaceful than any of the other rooms in the whole peaceful house. When he went there with the booklet in his hand that evening, he sat quite still for a time while the hush that his entrance had disturbed settled down again upon the room and its occupant. A latticed rectangle of deep gold lay across the boards, the last sunlight of the day. Chase turned over the leaves of the book. “The Oak Parlour, an apartment 20 ft. by 25 ft., partially panelled in linen-fold in a state of the finest preservation,” was that his library? it couldn’t be, so accurate, so precise? Why, the room was living! Through the windows one saw up the garden, and saw the peacocks perched on the low wall, one heard their cry as they flew up into the cedars for the night; and in the evening, in that room, the fir-cones crackled on the hearth, the dry wood kindled, and the room began to smell ever so slightly of the clean, acrid wood-smoke that never quite left it, but remained clinging even when the next day the windows were open and the warm breeze fanned into the room. He had known all that about it, although he hadn’t known it was twenty foot by twenty-five. He hadn’t known that the panelling against which he had been accustomed to set his bowl of coral tulips was called linen-fold.

  He was an ignorant fellow; he hadn’t known; he didn’t know anything even now; the sooner he went back to Wolverhampton the better.

  He turned over another page of the booklet. “The Great Staircase and Armorial Window, (cir. 1584) with coats-of-arms of the families of Chase, Dacre, Medlicott, and Cullinbroke,” – the window whose gaudiness always seemed to attract a peacock to parade in rivalry on the outer ledge, like the first day he had come to Blackboys; but why had they given everything such high-sounding names? The “Great Staircase,” for instance; it was never called that, but only “the staircase,” nor was it particularly great, only wide and polished and leisurely. He supposed Nutley was responsible, o
r was it Farebrother? Farebrother who was so kindly, and might have wanted to salve Chase’s feelings by appealing to his vanity through the splendour of his property?

  What a fool he was; of course, neither Nutley nor Farebrother gave a thought to his feelings, but only to the expediency of selling the house.

  He turned the pages further. “The Long Gallery,” – here, at least, they had not tried to improve upon the usual name – ”a spacious apartment running the whole length of the upper floor, 100 ft. by 30 ft. wide, sumptuously ornamented in the Italian style of the sixteenth century, with mullioned heraldic windows, overmantel of sculptured marble, rich plastered ceiling,” here he raised his eyes and let them stray down the length of the gallery; the rectangle of sunlight had grown deeper and more luminous; the blocks of shadow in the corners had spread, the velvet chairs against the tapestry had merged and become yet more fruity; they were like split figs, like plums, like ripe mulberries; the colour of the room was as luxuriant as the spilling out of a cornucopia.

  Chase became aware that Fortune was standing beside him.

  “Mr. Nutley asked me to tell you, sir, that he couldn’t wait any longer, but that he’ll be here again to-morrow.”

  Chase blushed and stammered, as he always did when someone took him by surprise, and as he more particularly did when that someone happened to be one of his own servants. Then he saw tears standing in the old butler’s eyes. He thought angrily to himself that the man was as soft-hearted as an old woman.

  “Seen this little book, Fortune?” he inquired, holding it out towards him.

  “Oh, sir!” exclaimed the butler, turning aside.

  “Well, what’s the matter? What’s the matter?” said Chase, in his most irritable tone.

  He got up and moved away. He went out into the garden, troubled and disquieted by the excessive tumult in his soul. He gazed down upon the mellow roofs and chimney, veiled in a haze of blue smoke; upon all the beauty that had given him peace and content; but far from deriving comfort now he felt himself provoked by a fresh anguish, impotent and yet rebellious, a weak fury, an irresolute insubordination. Schemes, that his practical sense told him were fantastically futile, kept dashing across his mind. He would tell Fortune to shut the door in everybody’s face, more especially Nutley’s. He would destroy the bridge across the moat. He would sulk inside his house, admitting no one; he and his house, alone, allied against rapacity. Fortune and the few other servants might desert him if they chose; he would cook for himself, he would dust, he would think it an honour to dust; and suddenly the contrast between the picture of himself with a duster in his hand, and of himself striking at the bridge with a pickaxe, caused him to laugh out loud, a laugh bitter and tormented, that could never have issued from his throat in the Wolverhampton days. He wished that he were back in those days, again the conscientious drudge, earning enough to keep himself in decent lodgings (not among brocades and fringes, or plumed and canopied beds, not in the midst of this midsummer loveliness, that laid the hands more gentle and more detaining than the hands of any woman about his heart, not this old dignity that touched his pride), and he stared down upon the roofs of the house lying cupped in its hollow, resentful of the vision that had thus opened out as though by treachery at a turning of his drab existence, yet unable to sustain a truly resentful or angry thought, by reason of the tenderness that melted him, and the mute plea of his inheritance, that, scorning any device more theatrical, quietly relied upon its simple beauty as its only mediator.

  XII

  Mr. Nutley was considerably relieved when he heard that Chase had gone back to Wolverhampton. From being negligible, Chase had lately become a slightly inconvenient presence at Blackboys; not that he ever criticized or interfered with the arrangements that Nutley made, but Nutley felt vaguely that he watched everything and registered internal comments; yes, although not a very sensitive chap, perhaps – he hadn’t time for that – Nutley had become aware that very little eluded Chase’s observation. It was odd, and rather annoying, that in spite of his taciturnity and his shy manner, Chase should so contrive to make himself felt. Any of the people on the estate, who had spoken with him more than once or twice, had a liking and a respect for him. Perhaps, Nutley consoled himself, it was thanks to tradition quite as much as to Chase’s personality, and he permitted himself a little outburst against the tradition he hated, envied, and scorned.

  Now that Chase had gone back to Wolverhampton, Nutley arrived more aggressively at Blackboys, rang the bell louder, made more demands on Fortune, and bustled everybody about the place.

  The first time he came there in the owner’s absence the dog met him in the hall, stretching himself as though just awakened from sleep, coming forward with his nails clicking on the boards.

  “He misses his master,” said Fortune compassionately.

  Nutley thought, with discomfort, that the whole place missed Chase. There were traces of him everywhere – the obverse of his hand-writing on the pad of blotting-paper in the library, his stick in the hall, and some of his clothes in a pile on the bed in his bedroom.

  “Yes, Mr. Chase left a good many of his things behind,” said Fortune when consulted.

  “When does he think he’s coming back? – the sale takes place next week,” grumbled Nutley.

  It was nearly midsummer; the heat-haze wickered above the ground, and the garden was tumultuous with butterflies and flowers.

  “It seems a pity to think of Mr. Chase missing all this fine weather,” Fortune remarked.

  Nutley had no affection whatever for Fortune; he possessed the knack of making remarks to which he could not reasonably take exception, but which contrived slightly to irritate him.

  “I daresay he’s getting the fine weather where he is,” he replied curtly.

  “Ah, but in towns it isn’t the same thing; when he’s got his own garden here, and all”, said Fortune, not yielding to Nutley, who merely shrugged, and started talking about the sale in a sharp voice.

  He was in his element, Chase once dismissed from his mind. He came up to Blackboys nearly every day, quite unnecessarily, giving every detail his attention, fawning upon anyone who seemed a likely purchaser for the house, gossiping with the dealers who now came in large numbers, and accepting their cigars with a “Well, I don’t mind if I do – bit of a strain, you know, all this – the responsibility, and so on.” He had the acquisitiveness of a magpie, for scraps of sale-room gossip. Dealers ticking off items in their catalogues, men in green baize aprons shifting furniture, the front door standing permanently open to all comers, were all a source of real gratification to him; while in the number of motors that waited under the shade of the trees he took a personal pride. He rubbed his hands with pleasure over the coming and going, and at the crunch of fresh wheels on the gravel. Chase’s ridiculous little padlock on the wooden gate – there wasn’t much trace of that now! Front door and back door were open, the summer breeze wandering gently between them and winnowing the shreds of straw that trailed about the hall, and in the passage beyond; and anyone who had finished inspecting the house might pass into the garden by the back door, to stroll up the central walk, till Nutley, looking out of an upper floor window, taking upon himself the whole credit, and full of a complacent satisfaction, thought that the place had the appearance of a garden party.

  A country sale! It was one that would set two counties talking, one that would attract all the biggest swells from London (Wertheimer, Durlacher, Duveen, Partridge, they had all been already, taking notes), such a collection didn’t often come under the hammer – no, by jove, it didn’t! and Nutley, reading for the fiftieth time the name “Nutley, Farebrother and Co., Estate Agents and Solicitors,” at the foot of the poster, reflected how that name would gain in fame and lustre by the association. Not that Farebrother, not that Co., had been allowed many fingers in the pie; he, Nutley, had done it all; it was his show, his ewe-lamb; he w
ould have snapped the head off anyone who had dared to claim a share, or scorned them with a single glance.

  He wondered to whom the house itself would ultimately fall. He had received several offers for it, but none of them had reached the reserve figure of thirty thousand. The dealers, of course, would make a ring for the furniture, the tapestries, and the pictures, and would doubtless resell them to the new owner of the house at an outrageous profit. Nutley had his eye on a Brazilian as a very probable purchaser; not only had he called at the estate office himself for all possible particulars, but on a second occasion he had brought his son and his daughter with him, exotic birds brilliantly descending upon the country solicitor’s office. They had come in a white Rolls-Royce, which had immediately compelled Nutley’s disapproving respect; it had a negro chauffeur on the box, the silver statuette of a nymph with streaming hair on the bonnet, and a spray of orchids in a silver and crystal vase inside. The Brazilian himself was an unpretentious cattle magnate, with a quick, clipped manner, and a wrinkled face the colour of a coffee-bean; he might be the purveyor of dollars, but he wasn’t the showy one; the ostentation of the family had passed into the children. These were in their early twenties, spoilt and fretful; the tyrants of their widowed father, who listened to all their remarks with an indulgent smile. Nutley, who had never in the whole of his life seen anything like them, tried to make himself believe that he couldn’t decide which was the more offensive, but, secretly, he was much impressed. “Plenty of bounce, anyway,” he reflected, observing the son, his pearl-grey suit over admirably waisted stays, his black hair swept back from his brow, and shining like the flanks of a wet seal, his lean hands weighted with fat platinum rings, his walk that slightly swayed, as though the syncopated rhythm of the plantations had passed for ever into his blood; and, observing him, the strangest shadow of envy passed across the shabby little solicitor in the presence of such lackadaisical youth . . . The daughter, more languid and more subtly insolent, so plump that she seemed everywhere cushioned: her tiny hands had no knuckles, but only dimples, and everything about her was round, from the single pearls on her fingers to the toe-caps of her patent leather shoes. Clearly the father had offered Blackboys to the pair as an additional toy. They were as taken with it as their deliberately unenthusiastic manner would permit them to betray; and Nutley guessed that sufficient sulks on the part of the daughter would quickly induce the widower to increase his offer of twenty-five thousand by the necessary five. Up to the present he had held firm, a business convention which Nutley was ready tacitly to accept. He had reported the visit to Chase, but Chase (the unaccountable) hadn’t taken much interest. Since then he had seen the brother and sister several times wandering over the house and garden, and this he took to be a promising sign. The father he hadn’t seen again, but that didn’t distress him: the insolent pair were the ones who counted.