by Richard Hull
Now it has unfortunately become an established custom that I assist in this unpleasant business each year. Apparently the netting cannot be put up by two people and apparently, too, my aunt has decided that I must assist, although other people could be found, I am sure. I did refuse one year, but my aunt merely refrained from putting up the netting. I like cherries while my aunt does not, and that year the birds got them all. But to choose this very afternoon for this annual performance, when I must admit that my whole body craved for rest, when my interrupted siesta, my aching feet, my weary arms, my tired muscles, and my scratched face, all loudly demanded a halt – to choose that moment was indeed hard.
However, my aunt must have no suspicion of this. Instantly I answered, ‘Feel up to it? I’ve never felt so fresh.’
‘You don’t look it,’ said my aunt in a flat, significant voice, staring hard at the scratch on my face.
It was then that I realized what my feelings towards Miss Mildred Powell were. It was then that I mentally framed the sentence with which I have opened these notes!
It has been a great relief to write this typical incident down. I did it partly after dinner last night when the exhausting events of yesterday were finally over, and I finished it this morning. I think I shall go on keeping this rough sort of diary from time to time whenever I want to ease my mind. I see a new religious sect has got hold of the idea of ‘sharing’ – only they apparently like sharing – or confessing – their sins with other people physically present, and I prefer sharing my troubles with these taciturn sheets of paper, which no one else will ever see.
4
The events of today have not been pleasant.
My aunt has been in a strange mood, and I never have known a woman who is so capable of conveying a sense of disquiet without saying anything. From breakfast-time onwards it has been clear that she has something on her mind. Several times she has been on the verge of saying something, and each time she has checked herself. At other times, too, she has seemed to be half inclined to laugh at me, which is a thing no man likes. Naturally enough, I have been wondering whether this attitude has anything to do with the little incident of the day before, and so as I have been putting down the notes I have written earlier on in this diary, I have written them rather fully and considered each point as I have done so. Is it possible that my aunt knows much more of my afternoon’s adventures than I think she does? Can her action over that netting be entirely a question of spite?
That she is capable of being spiteful, I am sure; but can she know? I think not. So far as I can make out, there are only two things which may have made her even guess. One is the scratch on my face, to which, oddly enough, she has made no further reference, and the other is the length of time I had been away. But, after all, there are many possible reasons why I should be a little late for tea. One might be a natural desire to avoid her company after the affaire at lunch.
As I glance out of my window I can see my aunt on the lawn that slopes steeply from the French window of the drawing-room to the meadow beyond the garden fence. Beyond the meadow, dotted here and there with old oaks under which Farmer Williams’ cows are placidly sheltering from the afternoon heat, rises some miles off the crest of the Broad Mountain, a long hill, featureless and unworthy of the name mountain, but this afternoon quite pleasant to look at. Far away to my left the three peaks of the Golfas, the guardian pillars between England and Wales, are standing up dimly in the afternoon haze. One of my aunt’s white pigeons is cooing sleepily, and only the faintest breeze stirs the leaves of the copper beech. For once I find myself liking the countryside, at peace with it. Only my aunt, weeding the rose-bed, strikes a restless note. My aunt would say, did she know of it, that the contentment of my mood was due to the exercise I had taken yesterday. But then my aunt is capable of talking in public about my liver.
From across the meadow I see Williams coming and my aunt going to meet him. I know quite well that my aunt is going to complain of the presence in the home meadow of the cows – she will persist in a pedantic way in calling them young bullocks probably. With any luck she will work off her suppressed anger at her defeat on Williams. I can see from here that they are both distinctly angry.
It was at this moment that my aunt called me to her. It will be a great relief to put down her exact words while they are still fresh in my memory. I still boil with rage to think that any woman could be so rude, so treacherous, so capable of conspiring with subordinates, so malicious, so … I have broken my pen-nib writing it. I am not surprised.
When I reached her in the garden I found her almost trembling with rage. She has little self-control when these spasms of fury come on her. She began at once, totally ignoring the fact that Williams was present. ‘Edward, I never really like a liar.’
I must admit it was weak of me, but I fear I must have blushed – largely of course for her. Stamping her clumsy garden boots on the lawn, she continued: ‘I’m glad you have the decency to blush. I put up yesterday with all your little silly lies. I didn’t really mind your telling Herbertson and Hughes that your vulgar’ (vulgar indeed!) ‘little car was just round the corner. You see I had laughed heartily when I saw you push it behind that bush in the dingle, and so did Herbertson and Hughes when they saw you start to walk back to here with that enormous parcel of books and the petrol can. You looked so funny dodging behind that tree, that they nearly gave themselves away. Where were they? Oh, looking out of the back of the post office, of course.
‘Yes, you may well look surprised. I don’t suppose your feeble little make-believe story would have deceived either of them anyhow, but I want you to realize that when I say you are going to walk into Llwll, you ARE going to walk into Llwll. Of course Herbertson and Hughes were doing just what I told them, but as they both had a few scores to settle with your lordship, I thought they might as well have a good laugh also.’
‘Really, Aunt, I am surprised that you should demean yourself so.’ I was getting calmer. ‘It is unpleasant to think that these rustic people have been jeering at me, but if you are prepared to sink to the depths of plotting with the village postmaster to obtain it, well, really …’ I was about to add that I hoped she was proud of herself, when she broke in vehemently:
‘A man who is a hundred times more of a man than you, and, I regret to say, more of a gentleman.’
‘No doubt, my dear Aunt, your opinions are very interesting to Williams,’ I retorted. Had the woman no sense of the fitness of things?
‘Mr Williams is concerned in this matter too,’ was her surprising rejoinder.
‘I really fail to see –’
‘You would. That’s just the point. Lies and liars, as I have said, I don’t like, but I can understand your poor little attempts to keep up your precious dignity. When it comes, however, to a selfish disregard for other people’s property, to ignorance of the first principles of how to behave in the country and a callous disregard for other people’s convenience, or the safety of animals, then I will speak.’
‘Having, of course, been quite silent before, my dear Aunt.’ Light, however, was beginning to dawn on me. ‘Considering,’ I continued, ‘that Williams’ cows chased me yesterday, I hardly see what you are driving at.’
‘There were at least two witnesses of what you did, young man.’ My aunt thrust her fiery face into mine, while Williams shifted from one shabbily gaitered leg to the other. ‘First of all, I myself was watching from the top of Yr Allt your progress up the road. You get an excellent view from there, and a lovely sight you looked, by the way,’ went on my aunt, suddenly grinning broadly, ‘when you eventually struggled out of the Fron Wood and reached your precious car. Oh, a lovely sight, sweat pouring off you, bedraggled, scratched, your fat little body all panting, and your greasy fair hair quite rumpled. Oh dear, oh dear, what a lovely sight, and what a gorgeous furtive, malevolent expression. And then the look on your face when I suggested putting the netting up over the cherries. I could have laughed aloud, only that I was too
angry with you.’ And with that my aunt positively put her hands on her hips and guffawed. I can use no other word.
There are moments when only silence can assert one’s dignity. I started to stalk off to the house.
‘Oh no,’ said my aunt, changing her mood at once, ‘you don’t go yet. I haven’t told you about the other witness, Owen Davies. He’s had quite enough trouble with your precious books, so I thought it was only right he should have a chance of watching you carrying them back, especially after your remarks about him. He decided to go farther up the hill, and so got an admirable view of your deliberate smashing down of Mr Williams’ fence.’
‘Really, what a bathos,’ I remarked. ‘All this to lead up to a badly and unnecessarily repaired gap in a fence!’
‘Unnecessary indeed,’ suddenly snorted Williams, making his first contribution to the conversation.
‘All right, Mr Williams, let me go on my own way.’
Williams deferred to my aunt at once. They all do round here. Somehow or other she seems to have a great influence over all of them.
‘Not only,’ she continued, ‘did he see you break down the fence, but he saw Mr Williams’ mild cows wander slowly after you, as cows will when they want to be milked or just out of curiosity, and he saw you, you little coward,’ (my aunt’s voice was really venomous) ‘deliberately stone them out of pure fright. Fortunately Owen Davies is a man, not a little cry-baby who runs away from a cow. He repaired the fence as best he could – do you realize that otherwise the cattle might have strayed all over the road? – and he did what he could for the cow you had injured. Now I can see from your face that you don’t realize what a little cad you made of yourself, and so I’m going to try to bring it home to you in one of the places where you will feel it – the pocket. You’re going to pay,’ said my aunt, thrusting her face towards mine, and enumerating her points by wagging her forefinger in my face, ‘first, for the cost of repairing the fence properly; secondly, for Owen Davies’ time; thirdly, the vet’s bill; fourthly, for the loss of condition to the cattle; fifthly –’ My aunt paused and looked at Williams for guidance.
‘Milk,’ quoth that individual. I’m bound to admit he looked a little ashamed of the profit he was going to make out of my aunt’s persecuting spirit.
‘Yes, the milk,’ added my aunt, obviously not quite sure how that came in.
‘Wasted,’ said Williams monosyllabically.
‘Yes, wasted,’ confirmed my aunt a little vaguely; ‘and anything else I can think of,’ she added.
I turned to Williams. ‘One way and another it seems that you are going to make a very good thing out of this.’ I faced my aunt, and, mustering all my dignity, I said, ‘I shall be happy’ – a slight pause, and then with concentrated scorn – ‘to pay.’
With that I left them. For a second even my aunt was silent. Then, as a Parthian shot, she yelled across the lawn,
‘Oh no, you won’t be happy. But I shall see you do. I shall stop it out of your allowance.’
The unfortunate thing is that she will.
5
I must think the position over calmly. For I must admit that some very strange ideas are coming into my head. Such a mountain as is rising in my mind from the molehill of fetching a parcel.
Let me look the facts in the face. I hate living here. Yet why don’t I leave this abominable and dreary place and my autocratic and domineering aunt at once, tomorrow, today, even?
The answer is simple. I can’t, simply because my aunt holds the purse-strings. My father was unfortunate in his financial affairs. Indeed, I understand that it was worry over money matters which brought him and my mother to an early grave. There seems to be some mystery about it. At least I have never got my aunt or my grandmother, during her lifetime, to explain it to me. I notice that they change the subject or put me off when I try to find it out. Even the country folk and our neighbours, such as they are, never seem to mention my parents.
However that may be, my grandmother’s will was curious. My aunt was made my sole guardian and trustee. Everything was to be hers for life, but out of it she was to make me an allowance, the size of which she was to determine, as long as I lived with her or in any place of which she approved. Should I leave her, she was under no moral obligation to assist me, and at no time was she under any legal obligation. She had absolute and entire discretion. On the other hand, she had apparently given a solemn promise to ‘look after me’ – an attitude I resent, but I must do my aunt the justice to say that I know she will keep any promise she has made. When she dies, Brynmawr, ironically enough, comes to me, and all the money. I shall sell the house and go and live in civilization. That is why I started my notes by saying that ‘my aunt lives just outside Llwll. That is exactly the trouble. Both ways.’
I see, looking back, that I mentioned Surrey. But, of course, were I my own master, I should not live there. I only mean that it is more civilized as country. As a matter of fact, I doubt if any part of Great Britain is really civilized. I shall ultimately dwell in Paris or perhaps Rome, if it were not for those frightful Fascists. The Riviera, Naples, and places like Ragusa and Istanbul, I shall visit occasionally, but certainly none of those raw British Colonies. I once met an Australian and the way he shook hands –
But I wander from my thread.
It is impossible then for me to live other than at Llwll, for my aunt refuses to give me an adequate allowance on which to live away from her – unless I am prepared to abandon all claim on her financially, for a while at least. I suppose, of course, I might take some degrading occupation, but I think anyone could see that that is impossible for me – quite, quite impossible. I have indeed tried my hand at a little modern verse, but there are too few cultivated souls to make this commercially successful, and indeed I am rather glad it is so.
So then at Llwll I must live while my aunt lives and insists on my staying there. And so tenacious is she of her promises, that I am afraid that nothing I can do will induce her to stop ‘looking after me’, which she interprets as keeping me under her eye. If only, if only my aunt – No, I’m not going to think about that possibility. It makes my pen tremble, it makes the most frightful thoughts rise to my mind. I must put these pages away before I lose my calm. I will not think about it – I will not – I will not. That way lies – Oh, the rumours and suspicions I have of my father’s death!
6
I have put aside this record for some days so that I might think things over quite calmly as I said I intended to do. Outwardly, relations with my aunt have resumed their normal standard, never at any time a really cordial one. Of course she has always got on my nerves. Her intensely masculine view of life and her complete disregard for appearances naturally would; but I have made a great effort not to let this affect me to any unusual extent. I have, devoted a good deal of my time to So-so, my Pekingese. I find that his oriental face gives me a sense of philosophical calm. ‘What, after all,’ he seems to say, ‘does anything matter? You are, I suppose, the only friend I have in the world, and I would cheerfully sacrifice you if it helped my comfort in the least.’ Oh, admirable honesty and frank cynicism!
On the whole I think he is right. A spirit of true steel, even if it is encased in a ‘fat little body with greasy fair hair’, and I should like to say that my hair tonic is not greasy – should be prepared always to face facts.
Very well then, let me face the facts. I meant what I wrote when I recorded that the trouble was that my aunt lived in Llwll. I should be very much happier if she were dead, and if I could see the way to do it safely, I have now been exasperated to such a pitch, that I would see to it that the desirable end was achieved, preferably painlessly. But alas! I cannot see the way.
However low an opinion one may have of the legal authorities of Cwm, one must see that if Miss Mildred Powell were to meet with an untimely end by obviously violent means, suspicion would be bound to fall on her only relation, the only person who would benefit financially by her death, and with whom s
he had recently been known to quarrel. And if, moreover, that person were the cause of her departure from this world, he would be automatically and inevitably in a position of great danger. Besides, I do not think honestly that however ingeniously I arranged matters and however certain I was that I should ultimately be released, I should be capable of standing the long-drawn-out agony of suspicion, questioning, pressing interrogation, possibly even of trial.
The fact is quite clear. I am too obviously the person to be suspected to allow of any sudden end to my aunt, however detached from the matter I might apparently be, and however compact and certain an alibi I might have arranged to provide. The question therefore cannot arise, and I will think of it no more.
I had written so much when I was interrupted by a curious incident. So-so has for a long time past carried on a feud with my aunt’s white pigeons. He has a strong, and to my mind entirely reasonable objection to their presence in the house, and he never sees them in the garden but he pursues them clamorously, though in vain, his legs being all too short. My aunt, however, will induce them to eat out of her hand and will encourage them to come in through the French window, which she will fling open on the bitterest winter day regardless of the rush of freezing cold air she is letting in. Just now So-so was sleeping peacefully in the sun, the red-brown of his coat toning in charmingly with the golden brown of the carpet, and so still was he lying that one of the pigeons, fluttering in all unasked through the window, not only failed to see him, but walked straight into his comic little button of a nose.
Naturally he snapped. Any dog would. I am not particularly fond of the pigeons, but I wish So-so had not killed that one in my room at that particular moment. For one thing, there is a small, but quite definite stain on the carpet. For another thing, it was an accident too near to my thoughts. If only my aunt would walk into the jaws of fate in some such way and meet a similar accident! I must get Evans to bury the pigeon, I suppose. Otherwise So-so will misbehave himself with it. It had better be buried some way off or So-so will dig it up again. It is all extremely tiresome.
