Cordelia

by Winston Graham

  ‘Thank you.’

  She peeped into a big paper bag he produced and took one. The old man’s head was temporarily on a level with her own. Seen so close, his face seemed lop-sided with eccentricity.

  He suddenly looked up from peering in the bag to meet her interested gaze. ‘At a loose end, young woman, eh? Ever seen my mice? More interesting than old greybeards who’ve forgotten all their natural instincts twenty years ago.’

  She was afraid of mice, but she said: ‘Thank you. Are they nice mice? I’d like to very much.’

  They climbed the stairs to Pridey’s bedroom. A strong ‘brown’ animal smell met them.

  ‘Now,’ said Pridey, ‘over here,’ and padded across to what must have been intended as a dressing-room but which now was lined with shelves and glass cases in all the dark corners of which were to be seen tiny bead-bright eyes and nibbling noses.

  ‘You see,’ said Pridey. ‘My little friends. Far more faithful than human beings, eh? Come on, my pretties, come on then!’ He pursed his lips and made little popping noises like drops of water splashing. Then he opened a door and six or eight white mice ran upon his hand and up his sleeve and moved sniffing round his collar.

  ‘Showed them to Margaret,’ said Uncle Pridey, shaking his head. ‘She pretended to be disgusted, said they made her feel faint. What nonsense! They’re clean, healthy little things, healthier than men and women. Look at this one. Look at his soft little belly. Look at his legs going like pistons. And he doesn’t need a cold bath every morning. What’s all this fetish of baths, young woman? My brother’s crazy about ’em. A bath’s a necessary evil, no more, no less. Once a week or once a fortnight you pop in, scrub down, pop out. Quicker it’s over the better. Hot water. Soap. Steam. Towels. But no one’s improved for smelling of a tar barrel. People think it’s progress. But it’s back to the days of woad.’ He paused, having wandered from his point.

  ‘Yes. They’re sweet,’ said Cordelia with great calmness, keeping a watch on each individual mouse so that none of them should get lost. ‘Esther likes mice. That’s my sister. She – really likes them more than I do.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got pluck. Can see that. There, that’s enough, my pretties. Lady’s edgy. Back you go.’ Pridey picked them off himself, his great fleshy thumb and forefinger seeming to threaten each mouse with broken ribs as he put it back. Then he shook two out of his sleeves and shut the door. Cordelia let out a breath.

  ‘Why do women fear mice? Peculiar. Nothing to show for it. Nothing to see. You’d find no evidence on the dissecting table. One of the imponderables. Yet people these days think they can find evidence for everything. They want evidence of God; evidence against God; proof of the pudding before the eating. It’s childish. I laugh. Let me show you Mr Gladstone.’

  He opened a cage set separate from the others and put in a great hand. While he fumbled about he watched her. Presently he withdrew his hand and had in it, held firmly by the hindquarters, an enormous old brown rat.

  Cordelia took a step back and he wrinkled his restless eyebrows in good-humoured interest.

  ‘Something’s happening inside you now, young woman. Wonder what it is. Juices stimulated or something. But he’s quite harmless. Far more harmless than his namesake, I assure you. This Mr Gladstone’s not concerned with spending seventy millions a year or whether he can take a penny off the income-tax. He’s concerned with the important things in life: good food, good friends, a proper use of leisure. Eh, aren’t you, now? Aren’t you?’

  He set the great rat on his shoulder and it squatted there, its long tail hanging down his sleeve, its old, wicked, blood-shot eyes suspiciously on the girl.

  She said: ‘Where is Mr Disraeli?’

  Uncle Pridey showed his yellow teeth in laughter. ‘Good. Good. Pluck, as I said before. And a sense of humour. Very unusual in a woman. Think I’m going to like you. Better than Margaret. Brook’s done well for himself this time, though how it came about … Should be a law against it; how old are you: sixteen?’

  ‘Twenty,’ said Cordelia, flushing. ‘Why didn’t you like Margaret, Uncle Pridey?’

  ‘You want to be knowing, don’t you? Only natural. Curiosity. But who said I disliked her? Did we say so, Mr Gladstone? Not at all. Have another sweet?’

  ‘You remind me of my father,’ said Cordelia. ‘ He has a hobby, but it’s clocks. He’s coming to supper tomorrow night. You didn’t really have a chance of getting to know him at the wedding.’ (But, she thought, Father’s queer little twists are on the surface. Uncle Pridey’s are deeper set, sharper, spikier. And there’s a sort of malice. But it’s not towards me.)

  ‘They gave me the wrong flavours today,’ said Pridey, chewing. ‘I hate these purple things. I shall complain. Is he an idealist, a progressive, a radical, a reformer like every third person you meet in this benighted town?’

  ‘He doesn’t take much interest in politics. You see, with clocks and children …’

  ‘I shall tell him to stick to his clocks. His clocks. Safer and cleaner. Demagogy’s in its infancy, young woman. If your father-in-law was younger he’d be in Parliament in no time. Come and see my skeletons.’

  He took her to a cupboard and showed her five tiny skeletons mounted on wood and beautifully built up with fine copper wire, one of them a mouse, the other four shrews. He also showed her a rat’s stomach preserved in spirit and a shrew’s brain floating in an Epsom-salt bottle. Afterwards she had to admire the live shrews, which Pridey kept in separate cages because they fought if they had to share. ‘The family instinct, young woman; we should all live in separate houses, and then there’d be good will among men.’ He took one of the animals out and pulled back the upper lip to show the tiny crimson-tipped teeth. ‘Notice the smell? Like Stilton that’s been left too long. He doesn’t like you. That’s his way of showing he’s frightened.’ Uncle Pridey’s small, quizzical, twinkling eyes scrutinized her a moment. ‘ More advanced than man, you know. Man’s cruel when he’s frightened. Better if he only made a smell.’

  Back went the shrew at last, having had all his finer points inspected, and Cordelia, glad to escape, made her excuse and left.

  When she reached her own bedroom she was surprised to find Brook there. He had paper and pencil in his hand but had written nothing.

  ‘I came out,’ he said smoothly. ‘They didn’t want me. I’m useless at this politics stuff.’

  ‘Why do you always run yourself down? You have just as many thoughts and ideas as they have.’

  ‘Have I? I don’t know, if it occurs to me to say something, I put it badly, and if I take time to think out how to put it, then the chance is gone and they’re talking of something else!’

  ‘That’s only because you’re not as used to talking as they are. Practice would make all the difference.’

  ‘Oh, stop consoling me,’ he said snappishly. ‘I know I’m no good.’

  There was a moment’s silence. She looked at the tall old clock in the corner. ‘I’ve been seeing Uncle Pridey’s mice. They’re nice and tame and well behaved, but I wanted to scream. Why are we frightened of mice, Brook? It seemed quite natural to be until Pridey thought it strange.’

  ‘He’s writing a book on them,’ said Brook like a sullen boy. ‘He’s been rat-mad as long as I can remember.’

  ‘It’s half-past nine. Do you want to stay up till they go?’

  ‘I expect Father will expect me to.’

  ‘Brook, why were they talking so much about cotton tonight? I thought it was calico printing and dyeing that we – that your father was in.’

  ‘Oh, that’s our own works, yes. But Father’s been – two years ago he put money in some cotton mills in Oldham; and after that he got interested in a cotton merchants. He’s been trying to bring them together – into one company. That’s why we invited them here to supper tonight.’

  She shivered. ‘ Well, I’d better go and see Mrs Meredith about the fires. It’s bitterly cold.’

  He caught her as she reached t
he door. He was embarrassed.

  ‘I’m sorry I – you know – I didn’t mean to be irritable.’

  She smiled quickly. ‘ It’s all right, Brook. Really. I didn’t think anything about it.’

  Which was the truth. Forgiving and even-tempered at the worst of times, she did not pause to think as she flew down the stairs why she was not more often hurt by his occasional peevishness towards her, why he sometimes seemed to want to rebuff her. She didn’t reason that she might have felt it much more if her own feelings had been more deeply taken.

  Chapter Seven

  Next day the Blake family – the elder and more portable half – came for the afternoon and evening. This was the first formal visit paid by the family since the marriage.

  To her it was as if a great gush of fresh air had suddenly blown in among the overbearing mahogany furnishings and the ormolu ware, the heavy patterned velvet curtains, the tasselled overmantels, and the quiet respectful servants. Chatter and normality had arrived. The fact that they were slightly less restrained, slightly more noisy than those of the Fergusons’ friends she had met was something she noticed for the first time, but it did not upset her. She returned to its welcoming arms with joy and a little relief.

  For her the day was more of a success because an hour before they were due Brook came home with word that his father was kept at the works and would not be home until very late.

  Instantly she said: ‘ Brook, do you mind? I’d like to ask Hallows. He could help me carry Papa’s clock down into the hall, just for this evening.’

  He had brought back flowers for her; but underneath this pleasant gesture, perhaps because of a developing cold in his head, he was irritable again.

  ‘Father won’t like it. I know him better than you do, Cordelia. You’ll never hear the last of it. And after all – it’s his house.’

  ‘But it’s such a little thing,’ she wheedled. ‘It won’t corrupt his old furniture for one evening, my love.’

  ‘You don’t know Father.’

  ‘I really don’t believe he could be annoyed. But I know what we’ll do! They’re sure to go by eleven and we can whisk it upstairs again as soon as the front door closes. Hallows won’t mind a bit if I ask after his rheumatism.’

  ‘He’s sure to get to know. Aunt Tish or one of the other servants.’

  ‘Not if I ask them not to. Please, Brook. It was Papa’s most precious possession. I’d hate him to be hurt.’

  ‘Well, I’m having nothing to do with it,’ Brook said. ‘It’s entirely your own responsibility. I specially didn’t want you to – to get at loggerheads with Father.’

  He blew his nose and went into the drawing-room to play the piano. She looked after him a moment, ill-at-ease, then shook her head as if to shake away the depression his attitude left, the possible implication of the emphasized word. When the representative seven of the Blake family came the clock was ticking and striking satisfactorily in a corner of the hall. It was a clock that hated to be moved, but Cordelia understood its inside nearly as well as her father.

  Brook had conquered his ill-temper and in between blowing his nose and husking his throat played the host to them with good grace. In fact he found himself rather enjoying his new role; they were so different, so much more appreciative than his other in-laws. News of the family was passed about for Brook’s benefit. Esther Jane, after a whirlwind courtship, was almost as good as engaged to the tall young Scot called Scott whom she’d met at their wedding.

  Hugh Scott had been at school with Brook and was still one of his best friends. He was a journalist on the Manchester Courier, and it was agreed how jolly it would be if two sisters came to marry in this way.

  At Cordelia’s suggestion, Uncle Pridey took Mr Blake and Esther to see his rodents, and after supper they played a round game of cards. A noisy game, and the merriest hour the drawing-room had seen for several years. Mrs Blake’s hair, tidy at the outset, had barely seen supper and sherry through in good order, and by the time she had built in front of her a pile of counters which meant five hundred per cent return on capital, there were hairpins all over the floor.

  On this agreeable scene came Mr Ferguson, frock-coated and imposing, gracious, dignified, suavely agreeable but somehow casting a blight over the game. They played two more rounds under his benign breathing supervision and then Mrs Blake clutched at a falling coil and said they really must be going, and Mr Blake, who had been strangely silent since the other man’s arrival, took out his own great silver watch and got up and said slowly: yes, the children would be yawning their heads off tomorrow; and in a moment all was movement and self-conscious stir.

  Just for a few seconds, while Cordelia was helping him with his coat, she was alone with her father, and when she’d done it in the old way he turned and looked at her and opened his mouth in a smile.

  ‘Very nice, Delia, my dear. House is more human-like than when I saw it last. Perhaps it’s you being in it. You and dear Percy. Does he keep good time?’

  ‘Excellent, Papa.’

  ‘I thought the chime was a bit flat. Has he been moved much?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s not quite level. I’ll look at him tomorrow.’

  ‘It was against the grain not to tinker at him myself. Sometimes it’s hard to remember to be polite. Who looks to the clocks in this house?’

  ‘I don’t know, Papa. I think they just go on and on until all the wheels fall out.’

  Mr Blake tutted. ‘Very bad policy. Are you happy, Delia?’

  She wished he was not so close to her, suddenly felt irritated because she did not want to meet his eyes.

  ‘Very, Papa, thank you. Don’t I look it? Don’t I radiate it? You should hear me singing in the morning.’

  ‘You don’t mind me asking?’ He touched her arm. ‘When I sell a clock I don’t just lose thought for it. Neither then when I give away a child.’

  She said: ‘ Of course,’ and kissed his cheek. She added lightly: ‘But you haven’t really given me away. I’m much harder to get rid of than a clock. I come back twice a week in a carriage and you’d be sure to notice if you heard me chiming flat. I must have been born to be a lady. I like it all so much. Riding about and having servants and ordering a house …’

  ‘All the things I couldn’t give you.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said lightly, but embarrassed. ‘You gave me all the more important things. Far more important. I – only like these things as well. I’m really a glutton. Gourmand! I was telling you how everything helped.’

  Outside in the hall Mr Ferguson’s deep voice could be heard explaining one of the dark oil paintings to Mrs Blake.

  Mr Blake twisted his thin neck. ‘Did we stop too long? Didn’t he mean to stay out till we’d gone?’

  ‘Of course not! There was a breakdown at the works.’

  Mr Blake glanced at her. ‘ You’ll think me a testy old man. Sometimes I need you to poke fun at me, Delia. The others are not so good at it. I wonder if your mother has finished admiring that foggy old picture?’

  The farewells were said. Mr Ferguson had offered them a carriage home, but when they deprecatingly said it didn’t matter, he did not insist. A bitterly cold night again but clear and still. It would be pleasant for walking, Mr Ferguson said when Hallows closed the door.

  Cordelia flitted into the drawing-room to tidy up the card table, but Patty and Doris were already there putting away the cards and rearranging the tables. She picked up some crochet work from the sofa, said good night to Aunt Tish, who had settled down again like a fall of sand, and, if not disturbed more than three times by her brother, would sit there dozing and lacking the initiative to go to bed for at least another hour.

  Thinking of her father, she walked humming to the stairs when Mr Ferguson said:

  ‘Cordelia.’

  She turned.

  ‘Yes, Mr Ferguson?’

  ‘Did you have this clock brought down?’

  ‘Oh – yes.’ She flushed a little and smiled. ‘ I �
� meant to explain but just for the moment I forgot. My father – you see, it was my father’s favourite clock. To give it to me – I mean to us – was a big thing to him. I felt if he didn’t see it in one of these rooms …’

  Why did this imposing stout old man make one hesitate and stumble over words, a failing she’d never suffered from?

  ‘You know I don’t like it in here.’

  ‘Oh, yes, but I knew you wouldn’t mind for one evening. My family wouldn’t know whether it suited the room or not, and no one else was coming. It made all the difference to Papa’s evening to see the clock. I’ll have it carried up again first thing in the morning.’

  He said with quiet, sombre persistence of manner: ‘Nevertheless, Cordelia, I think I do mind.’

  She looked at him in surprise.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’d rather hoped – Brook said you wouldn’t be back until midnight, and I’d hoped …’

  ‘D’you mean that I shouldn’t know?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Wasn’t that rather deceitful, my dear?’

  Her flush suddenly deepened. ‘It wasn’t meant to be.’

  Brook came out into the hall, blowing his nose.

  ‘Did you help Cordelia with this clock, Brook?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Brook knew nothing about it,’ she said.

  Mr Ferguson’s eyes came round and she met his ice-blue Olympian stare. It was the first real clash because it was the first time Cordelia’s spirit had been roused to opposition. He instantly recognized it.

  The three of them were alone in the hall and he came across to put one hand on the banister.

  When he wanted to speak with emphasis his tongue was slightly too large for his mouth, so that he lisped. ‘ Of course, this is not the clock but the principle. You agree? You feel hardly done to, my dear? Well, so, I confess, do I. You have been here two and a half months – under my care – under my tutelage, one might say. Have you received any unkindness or lack of consideration?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘I have watched – with interest and some affection. Growing affection. You are not one of many now, my dear. You must stand alone, all your actions open to the general gaze. You have a high place to fill in this house. Do you feel that we’ve lacked any confidence in you, that you haven’t been treated fairly or generously or straightforwardly?’