Cordelia

by Winston Graham

  When at last he had graciously bowed himself out of the front door, silence fell. Stephen knew they could have expressed their feelings much more frankly had he not been there, but he wasn’t leaving yet.

  ‘A remarkable little man,’ said Mr Ferguson in his most broad-minded tone. ‘Of course one is inclined to jump to conclusions, to meet any psychic suggestion more than half way. I am rather sorry that Brook interrupted at so interesting a moment–’

  ‘But the piano!’ said Mrs Thorpe with a shudder. ‘Did you hear the piano?’

  ‘– at least we are greatly indebted to you for the experience.’

  ‘There, it was nothing,’ said Stephen. ‘Thank you all for being so patient. He is a remarkable man.’

  ‘Quite astonishing,’ said Slaney-Smith dryly.

  Stephen glanced up, but was reassured when Slaney-Smith added: ‘Of course there’s a scientific explanation for it all. Telepathy in the main. Telepathy and some trickery.’

  Pridey said: ‘Well, I hope you’re all satisfied. Why didn’t you stick pins in him to see if he was a witch?’

  They ignored him, but began to argue, three or four of the other men, as to how it had happened, how it could have been done.

  Stephen said in a low voice: ‘Thank you for having me in your home, Mrs Ferguson. It’s been a rare privilege; it has indeed. I have been lonely since I came to Manchester.’

  ‘Do you live here all the time?’

  ‘Not quite all the time. I travel about. My father has bought a house in Moss Side. But of course it’s in the city that I spend most of the day.’

  She seemed about to turn away.

  He said: ‘Although I’m always meeting people, I am really very slow to make friends. But I’ve the feeling I have made friends here.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes,’ embarrassed by the admiring zestful sparkle in his eyes. He would be good company anywhere – one didn’t imagine him slow at anything.

  Frederick Ferguson said in an undertone: ‘Well, I am interested that the evening has brought one convert.’

  ‘Convert nothing,’ said his brother, who had heard. ‘You can’t convert a man to what he already believes in.’

  ‘You’ve believed in spiritualism? I didn’t know you were even interested.’

  ‘I don’t believe in spiritualism, man. I believe in the existence of spirits – as you would if you read your Bible as much as you claim.’

  Cordelia glanced across with a troubled frown. It was rare for Pridey to stand up to his brother – and in company. Stephen said quickly:

  ‘Some time I would like you and your husband to visit me at the Variety. We are trying very hard to raise the standard of the place and to provide respectable entertainment for all.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Do you go out in the evening much?’

  ‘No. Only sometimes to concerts.’

  ‘In Town? I go regularly,’ said Stephen. ‘Let me see, when will the next concert be?’

  ‘Next Monday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course, yes. I have tickets. Would you join me – you and your husband, Mrs Ferguson?’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But usually my husband’s father goes with us …’

  ‘Of course, please include him. May I call for you here?’

  The word ‘you’ on his lips still seemed to mean only her.

  ‘Please don’t take it as a definite engagement, Mr Crossley. I can’t accept for Brook or Mr Ferguson.’

  Partly to stop the storm that was developing, Miss Griffin had risen to go. It was a signal for a general move. Although he did not persuade the Fergusons to accept an invitation to the Variety, Stephen went away content that they were to be his guests at the concert on Monday, content that he would see her at least once more.

  Slaney-Smith was silent on the way home, and Stephen could almost see his astute logical brain working out the mysteries of the evening. Before they separated, Stephen had invited the older man to go with him on the following Saturday to the Pomona Pleasure Gardens again. It would be the last opportunity Slaney-Smith would have of seeing the Great Clodius before the Great Clodius took his vanishing lady to Liverpool.

  Chapter Five

  He called again on the Friday.

  ‘It was an incautious thing to do, but he just could not get her out of his thoughts.

  A maid let him in, not the side whiskered butler, and she said she would see if Mrs Ferguson was at home. He twiddled his hat for a few moments and then, hearing voices in the drawing-room, he moved across and half through the open door, to come upon the maid with her back to him speaking to Cordelia, who was by the middle table. The maid stepped back and nearly bumped into him.

  ‘I do beg your pardon,’ he said, not to her but over her head to Cordelia. ‘It was all my fault, Mrs Ferguson, but I quite understood your maid to say I was to follow her in.’

  ‘Oh, then …’ Colouring a little, Cordelia said: ‘It doesn’t matter, please come in, Mr Crossley. All right, thank you, Patty.’

  Smothering her indignation, Patty left them. Stephen said again:

  ‘And I swear I’d no idea of intruding. But I thought your husband looked upset after the séance; I called to ask about you, to know if you were all well.’

  At sight of her he was in fact angry that his thrustful impulses had betrayed him into a show of bad manners. He would not win her approval this way. A dust-sheet had been spread over the plush tasselled table-cloth, and on the table were brass wheels and pinions and an upended case. Over the spreading skirt of her cashmere frock she had tied a black silk apron with a fringe.

  ‘Thank you, we’re all well.’ She was going to say that Brook had a sore throat, but something stopped her. ‘Please sit down, Mr Crossley.’

  ‘I’m interrupting you. I feel guilty.’

  ‘… It’s only a clock.’

  ‘So I see. What are you doing with it?’

  ‘Cleaning it – now.’

  ‘A very unusual pastime. Very original.’

  ‘Not really. I’m used to clocks. Is it raining?’

  ‘Just a few spots in the wind. You know, I haven’t a mechanical bent at all.’

  ‘She said: ‘Uncle Pridey went out without his coat.’ Her eyes glinted as she looked towards the window.

  ‘Now, Mrs Ferguson, if you don’t go on I shall be forced to leave again; I shall indeed. It was bad of me to interrupt you.’

  She picked up one of the cog-wheels and looked at it, glad of something to occupy her attention. She knew now – had known since early on Monday evening – that this handsome, widely travelled, and curiously vital young man was ‘in love’ with her. (Or he thought he was in love, which was more likely, she felt.) It was impossible for her not to know it, and she was flattered and excited and a bit uncertain of herself.

  ‘I found out what was wrong,’ she said; ‘but then I went on taking it to pieces because it was so dirty. A pity to neglect a nice old clock like this.’

  ‘And what was really wrong?’ He moved over to the table and stared down at the oak case and at the mêlée of nuts and wheels and cogs.

  ‘The escapement,’ she said. ‘It’s one of the old anchor escapements, and the teeth have worn tiny places in the pallets so that the pendulum isn’t true any longer.’

  ‘Where?’ he said. ‘Well, it’s all double dutch to me. Can you show me?’

  She showed him. He bent to look and their heads were close together.

  He took in a slow, deep, fascinated breath. ‘Those tiny dents, now. Do you mean they make a difference in time-keeping? How are you to stop it?’

  ‘It needs a new part for the clock. A dead escapement doesn’t wear like this – or if the pallets are shaped differently.’

  ‘But why should a trifling flaw make all the difference?’

  ‘It affects the swing of the pendulum.’

  ‘And what are all these things?’

  ‘That’s one of the pinion wheels. And this is a ca
m. Er – this is the hour-wheel. And that’s what they call a snail.’

  ‘Why?’ he said in amusement. ‘It’s not at all like one to me.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s because it moves slowly … This is the striking train, as you can see, and this is a fan-fly.’ She glanced at him, suspecting that he wasn’t listening. He met her gaze and she straightened up.

  ‘Clever of you to know all this! Where did you learn it?’

  ‘From my father. He makes clocks.’

  ‘For a hobby?’

  ‘And a living.’

  ‘I’ll swear he must be an interesting man.’

  ‘Yes, I think he is.’

  ‘Does he live very far from here?’

  ‘About a mile.’

  ‘Do you visit him often?’

  ‘Yes – quite often. Why?’

  ‘I should like to meet him some time. I wondered if one day you would take me with you?’

  She said: ‘Yes, I – shall be very pleased.’ She’d never met anyone like Stephen Crossley before. With a charm that made one forget his impudence he went on attacking and attacking.

  ‘Is your husband out?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. He doesn’t usually get home until about six.’

  ‘Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he would be away every day. But I hope we shall be meeting on Monday.’ He moved slowly over to the window. ‘What a gem of a garden this will be in the summer, Mrs Ferguson.’

  ‘Can I offer you tea, Mr Crossley?’

  An instinct of timing made him refuse. ‘But it’s good of you. Perhaps another day when you are more prepared for me and I shall feel less in your way.’ He turned. ‘Did you like M. Gustave?’

  ‘I was very impressed.’ (‘It wasn’t her voice,’ Brook had said, ‘and it wasn’t what she would have said if she could have come back; I swear it, Delia. And as for that light …’)

  ‘Do you feel interested enough to go on with it?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘M. Gustave has left the district. But I had hoped we might have tried a private séance among ourselves.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Brook. But I’m nervous. It’s too uncomfortable a feeling for me.’

  Stephen nodded. ‘I felt it the same at first.’ He added: ‘M. Gustave was greatly impressed by you.’

  ‘By me? I hardly spoke to him.’

  ‘No, no; it wasn’t what you said. But he’s a student of character, you know, and his view was that you were – wasted here, that you were really meant to go far. He wasn’t at all meaning it against your family, but he said you’d exceptional powers that needed exceptional scope to develop.’

  ‘… Did he say all that?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and more. He spoke about your great beauty – which of course is not to be wondered at …’

  ‘I’m very happy in my life here, Mr Crossley.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt of that. Why shouldn’t you be?’

  ‘Also,’ she said, ‘ I haven’t got exceptional capacities.’

  ‘But it may be you don’t realize them.’

  ‘Even if I had I shouldn’t want to use them at the expense of other people.’ She smiled at him. ‘Thank you for your kind inquiries about us. We shall meet again on Monday, shan’t we?’

  ‘Of course.’ He took her hand rather gravely. ‘Thank you for seeing me, Mrs Ferguson. Thank you for your kindness in having me here at all. Good-bye, now, and I shall be looking forward to Monday.’

  He went out, quietly and pleasantly but with a slightly hurt expression, before she could ring the bell for the maid.

  In sixteen months, I’ve tried to become a Ferguson. Good wife, dutiful daughter-in-law. To be kind, keep my temper, be obedient gracefully. Fallen in with all Mr Ferguson’s preferences, habits. Church three times on Sundays, once on Wednesdays; prayers in the house when held, my own prayers privately at night. Queer feeling to be looked at like that. Knees weak after he’d gone – and my tongue dry. If there’s spiritualism, there’s magnetism too: when I was explaining the clock it was as if I were being infected by something. Oh, rubbish, more likely it is Brook’s sore throat.

  Mr Ferguson’s cold bath not quite ready this morning, at breakfast as if we had all committed some crime. (Do we live, do we breathe, except through him?) Anyway, why must he insist on having it so early and in the cellar, making everyone else feel uncomfortable, pampered? Yes, I’ve given way to him all along, but I’ve done it freely, so why should I feel resentment? Tell them of Stephen Crossley’s call? No one saw him except Patty. But of course I must; absurd not to.

  She said: ‘I think you should send down to the Polygon, Brook, if your throat’s so bad.’ (In Grove Hall one never called in the doctor, one always ‘sent down to the Polygon’ where Dr Birch lived.) ‘These patent gargles and things.’

  ‘Oh, I shall be all right,’ said Brook indistinctly. For all his succession of minor ailments, he never wanted to be thought really ill. He was frightened of the medical profession, even one who had been a school friend.

  ‘Well, do go to bed, then; you may be so much better in the morning.’

  A good daughter too. Mother has lots of nice things for the children, Teddy no longer in grey cloth but in insurance, Essie engaged to Hugh Scott. Papa … Well, if he will not come here he at least can’t deny what I’ve been able to do. And for myself. Happy. I told Stephen. Not excited perhaps, but happy. I am excited now …

  ‘Mr Ferguson,’ she said. ‘ I’ve persuaded Brook to stay in bed. I’ll take a bowl of gruel up to him after supper.’

  ‘You’ve done right, my dear. Oh Lord, we commend this food to Thy blessing and give thanks for the bounteous gifts granted to us this day …’

  Unkind at the end? But it wasn’t what I said. Perhaps he has taken offence. It can’t be helped, he was saying too much, going too far. Well, perhaps I shan’t see him again, after Monday. Should I care? …

  ‘Amen. Arrowroot’s more use,’ said Aunt Tish. ‘A nice bowl of arrowroot delicately made, that’s what the lad needs. Eh, Frederick, you shouldn’t work him so hard; I know your own son better than you do yourself.’

  ‘He coddles himself, that’s half the trouble. I don’t like to say it of my own son, but if he took as much exercise as I do he would be much healthier.’

  Cordelia had noticed recently something acid in the old man’s voice when he spoke of Brook. Sometimes now he was nicer to her than to Brook.

  Aunt Letitia had no tact. ‘ He’s not been well, not since Monday and that darkness game. It wasn’t right to have it here; he’s a nervous lad, Frederick, you should remember, Frederick.’

  ‘If I’d been Margaret,’ said Uncle Pridey, chewing, ‘back from the spirit world for a minute or two, I shouldn’t have wasted my time telling us all the things we already know. But she always was a bit cross-grained. Didn’t like music,’ he said to Cordelia, waving his knife. ‘It’s a sign of something wrong in the character. Something atrophied. Like a wall-eye. Only it doesn’t show. Now–’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Mr Ferguson, ‘ that Cordelia is not interested or elevated by your conversation, Tom.’

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ Cordelia said. ‘Mr Crossley called this afternoon.’

  ‘Did you receive him?’

  ‘For about ten minutes. He called to see if we were all well after Monday evening.’

  ‘That was very obliging of him,’ said Mr Ferguson in an equivocal voice.

  ‘He insists on coming for us in his carriage on Monday evening. It seems a little unnecessary.’

  ‘Some gentlemen like to pitch their hospitality at a high level. I regret I shall not be there. I find I’ve to go to Oldham on Monday morning and shall spend the night there. No doubt Brook told you.’

  ‘No. His throat was so sore when he got home.’ She glanced at her father-in-law to see if this was one of his diplomatic absences.

  He said: ‘ I expect Uncle Pridey will go in my place. Do you wish to, Tom?’

  ‘Already
going,’ said Uncle Pridey. He plucked at his imperial. ‘But my seat was a cheap one so I may as well have yours. Pass the cake, Tish.’

  Mr Ferguson had never been to these concerts until she and Brook started going. A relief, this change, she thought; Uncle Pridey is unpredictable but he is a person by himself. We’ll be free to forget him and to enjoy the music. Had Mr Ferguson taken a sudden dislike to Stephen? He so often did if a friend of his was becoming a friend of theirs. He didn’t really like them to have personal friends.

  To test her suspicion, she said after supper:

  ‘Is it an unexpected call to Oldham, Mr Ferguson?’

  He put down his paper and looked at her over his reading spectacles.

  ‘Some trouble with the unions. The employers are threatening to lock out the men if they amalgamate further. I am going to see if I can prevent a deadlock.’

  ‘What do you hope to do?’

  ‘I may be able to persuade the employers. There may be a time when it is necessary to make a stand. Then we must be sure we are right – as Christians. This is not the time.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll be able to make the others see it that way?’

  He smiled tolerantly, conscious of his power, his influence. Councillor Ferguson.

  She would have gone then, but he said: ‘Why do you always ask these questions?’

  ‘Because I’m interested.’

  ‘I really believe you are.’ He took off his glasses and polished them. ‘It is a contemporary mistake to confine the interests of our womenfolk too closely. Those few who have broken free of the shackles have given ample proof … Let me see, where did you go to school?’

  ‘At Miss Griffith’s.’

  ‘Not very good, was it?’

  ‘It was better than my father could afford.’

  ‘Quite. But your talents are natural ones. No teacher could give you the ability to order this house the way you have done.’

  She smiled. ‘ Oh, it isn’t really hard, doing what you like doing.’

  He nodded slowly. She was embarrassed now, pleased with his praise but anxious to be gone.