Cordelia

by Winston Graham

  He glanced at her in surprise at her tone.

  ‘By divorce? I don’t know. It’s very unpleasant. It entails all sorts

  of things you may not realize.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I realize.’

  ‘Yes, well, personally, I’d go through a lot before I went through

  that. And in any case I shouldn’t discuss it over tea as if I were

  simply changing houses.’

  She didn’t reply and he let the subject drop. Women were

  incomprehensible and their sudden changes of front didn’t make

  sense.

  She kept close to the house all that evening, and it wasn’t until

  the following afternoon that she walked down alone into the village

  to post a letter. As she turned away from the tiny post office Stephen

  was coming to meet her from the direction of the local inn.

  He raised his hat. ‘This is well met. D’you mind if I walk back

  with you as far as the stile?’

  She said: ‘I mean what I said, Stephen. I can’t come to you now.’

  He fell into step beside her.

  ‘All because of Virginia? You couldn’t bear to think I was married,

  was that it?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter what my reasons are.

  But while Brook was ill I made my choice. I realized that I cared

  for him more than I thought.’

  ‘I can’t understand it and I don’t believe it. What’s come over

  you?’

  ‘Nothing’s come over me.’ She added with a sudden softness:

  ‘I’m sorry – sorry. Don’t think it’s easy for me.’

  They had reached the end of the village. The day was overcast

  and the bare country lane stretched out before them, dry and rutted

  and hard.

  They argued for a while. She longed to tell him the truth, to

  justify what she was doing.

  At length he said: ‘If you won’t come away – if nothing will

  persuade you – would you be willing to go on meeting as before?’

  She shook her head vehemently.

  ‘What’s to stop us? Massington is out of the way.’

  ‘I’ll never do that again.’

  He said with a hint of anger: ‘I might be asking you to be a holy martyr.’

  ‘That’s the last thing I feel.’

  ‘Dad warned me once,’ he said. ‘He warned me that you’d let me down.’

  ‘Well then,’ she said, hurt and sore and wildly angry. ‘I’ve let you down and that’s an end of it. What else did he say? Did he tell you your behaviour had been perfect and that it was quite all right to tell any lies you pleased so long as you got your own way? Who else have you told? Surely there must be others you’ve taken into your confidence over so trivial a matter. I’m sure they must all think it very wrong of me to have refused you at all. And now–’

  ‘Be quiet,’ he said, gripping her arm. ‘If you–’

  She wrenched it free. Careless of the cowhand gaping over the gate, she hurried on with Stephen stalking beside her. They walked on, right down the lane, into the copse, up to the stile. The old dead leaves crunched under their feet. The farm lay over the next brow.

  ‘He warned me this would happen,’ Stephen said with great bitterness. ‘ He said you’d withdraw at the last, he did indeed.’

  She took a deep breath. Anger was greater than grief. Welcome anger; let it blaze; let this be a fine fire burning up all the past.

  ‘It must be a great consolation to you to know he was right.’

  She put a foot on the stile, but he grasped her arm again and pulled her back. He had never lost anything before in his life and he couldn’t believe he was going to lose her now.

  ‘Oh, Cordelia, have you no sense, sweetheart? We agreed to run away together.’

  ‘Please let me go,’ she said.

  He said fiercely: ‘I believe you hate me!’

  She tried to pull her arm away but he held it so tight that it hurt. She put up her other hand to help and he grasped her wrist, pulled her into his arms. With a sweep he pushed her hat off and began to kiss her. She made no effort to fight now but turned her face away so that for the most part he kissed her cheek, which was cold with the air and smelled sweet.

  He seemed to try to warm it with his own passion. ‘I believe you hate me,’ he said softly, hoping for some sign that meant a denial.

  ‘I do now,’ she whispered.

  He released her so suddenly that but for the stile she would have fallen. He had gone very white.

  He said: ‘I know I’ve not done all the right things. I’m no angel and’ve never pretended to be. But I do know that day in, day out, I’ve thought of no one else but you – all these months, all last year. Everything else has gone overboard. It’s been your happiness, your welfare … Well, if this is the way you want it, then you can have it this way and I’m finished. Go back to Brook. I wish him luck. Stay with him. This is the end …’

  He turned and walked off through the copse, beside himself with anger, hating her with all the barbed hatred of inverted love.

  Blindly, wiping her face on her glove, not knowing what she was looking for but only that something was lost, she began to feel among the undergrowth by the stile for her hat and veil.

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter One

  It was five months later that she carved her name on the broad maple-wood mantelshelf where it ran down beside the fireplace in her bedroom.

  A thunderstorm drove her in from the garden one afternoon, but its passing did not clear the air. Everything was heavy and damp and breathless.

  The day before she had opened one of the books on Brook’s table and read a poem which began: ‘When I have thoughts that I shall cease to be …’ She had had many such thoughts of late. Today they were stronger than ever before, strong to the point of morbidness. She thought, if I die next month, Brook will marry again; his father will make him; I shall be a shadow, a name. Like Margaret. What did she leave: a diary hidden away, an accounts book, some hair combings; clothes, I suppose, which they hastily sold or gave to the poor. But I mustn’t think of Margaret ever any more.

  She had had her wood-carving tools out this summer, unused almost since her marriage. Now she looked at them and looked about the room and thought, Well, why not? It was a queer impulse, foreign to her; under the ordinary feminine sways she was usually so level-headed. But in late weeks all that had changed; odd needs beset her; so now the need to perpetuate her name. She thought, I’ll leave some mark in this room.

  She began. She had hardly made the COR when she began to feel aghast at her own impulse. She had no need to fear the anger of the household – everyone was too indulgent to her these days – but only its astonishment, and perhaps even slight alarm. She didn’t like the thought of making a fool of herself, but having now begun she felt that COR looked slightly more insane than the full name would. So with inner defiance she went on.

  She had finished DELI when a knock came at the door. She got up laboriously but hastily, glanced at the clock; it could not be the maid.

  ‘Come in.’

  The figure of Uncle Pridey insinuated itself round the door. He wrinkled his eyebrows at the sight of her.

  ‘Ah, I’m glad you’re up, young woman. That’s to say, it makes no difference to me, but I see you’re open to visitors. That’s the notice they have everywhere at Blackpool, isn’t it? I went there once. The Something Gardens, Open to Visitors; the Something Solarium, Open to Visitors. What? What’s this? A little fretwork? Jolly good. But you’ve left out an A.’

  She had flushed to her ears. ‘I haven’t finished it.’

  ‘Well, go on, finish it, then. Don’t let me interrupt you. I’ll sit here and watch. Here, this’ll do; this stool.’ He folded himself up like a pen-knife. ‘ Now, I’ll keep quiet. Naturally one has to be quiet. No creative
work ever done in a chatter.’

  She laughed rather weakly. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t really know why I started. It was just a silly impulse.’

  ‘Very good impulse. Decorate the house a bit. Mind if I have a sweet? Here, try one, those in paper are the best. Have always wanted to put my initials on the piano downstairs – one of these days I will. Go on. Important thing about being silly is never to get self-conscious about it. Fatal.’

  She said, putting the knife down: ‘ Well, I have now. Did you want to see me about something?’

  ‘Just to tell you a bit of news. You’re the only one in the house who might be interested.’ He fidgeted about on his stool for a moment, looking like an elderly lantern-jawed leprechaun. ‘Here, if you won’t finish it, let me. Hate to see a thing half done, cake or a joint or a job.’

  She moved a little aside and he pulled up his stool. In a queer way he had made her irrational act rational. She supposed that was how really eccentric people looked at things; to them the slightly abnormal was commonplace, one’s range of behaviour was enlarged.

  In silence she watched him dig out the A. It was not a very good A, being curlier than her letters and slightly askew. Like Uncle Pridey.

  ‘Now for the date,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary!’

  ‘Course it is. No carving’s any good without a date. Just 1869, I should say. Month doesn’t matter. Year of Grace, eh? Civilization expanding like a bit of elastic. Question is, where’ll it snap?’

  He began on the 1.

  ‘And your news?’ she said.

  ‘Going to get my book published.’

  She said: ‘Oh, I’m delighted! That’s splendid!’

  ‘Ah. Thought you’d be glad. It’s not quite all it might be: got to pay half the cost. But that’s better than Brook did with his poems. And little he’s got out of it. Little I may get out of it too, but at least the thing will see the light. And some day people will recognize it. Maybe you’ll live to see that. Envy you, you know, being still in your twenties; you’ll see things. Have an idea the world’s been climbing uphill all this century; about next year, 1870, it’ll start running down. Exciting.’

  He finished the 1 and did the 8. His tongue stuck out tantalizingly while he joined up the ends.

  ‘Really, though, I wish we lived in the year 1777.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘All nice straight cuts.’

  She laughed. He said: ‘Can’t have all the diagrams; costs too much; pity because people buy books with diagrams; makes it easier for the simpletons to understand; this knife’s not sharp.’

  ‘But is it very expensive? Surely you’ve enough money if you wanted.’

  ‘Bit of coarse corundum stone,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing better for sharpening a good tool. Where should I have money, young woman? Frederick makes an allowance, and deducts so much for my keep. By the time my magazine subscriptions are paid, my–’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to seem to–’

  ‘No. Perfectly all right. Quite entitled to ask. But where should I lay my hands on a hundred pounds – a hundred more than I’ve already put up?’

  ‘Well, the works.’

  ‘Oh, the works.’ Pridey waved an impatient knife. ‘Money’s there but always tied up. Frederick’s always expanding, never content to sit back and make money; always putting it into a new machine, a new extension. If I ask him I know. He’s always making money for us but we never see it.’

  She said nothing. It could not be her concern to read Uncle Pridey his first lesson in treason.

  ‘There,’ said the old man, sitting back with his fingers on his imperial; ‘that’s done. H’m. What d’you think of it? Not so even as yours. Will have to do. Now for some ink.’

  ‘Ink?’

  ‘Well, don’t you think so? Always used ink on the desks at school, make it look as if it had been done by the boy last week.’

  Her depression had gone. ‘All right. I’ll get you some.’ She brought some from the dressing-room and watched him again. ‘I see you’re an expert.’

  ‘Used to be. Certainly used to be. It’s going to rain again.’

  She stared out at the lowering sky. The leaves were dead and still, only now and then one quivered under the impact of a drop. Something splashed on the window-sill and spread like a damp star.

  She said: ‘Would you let me put up the last hundred pounds?’

  He turned his head and frowned at her. ‘ What? What nonsense! Spend your money in a proper manner. You’ll have something to use it on in a week or two: christening robes! lace frocks! veils and velvets! I know.’

  ‘Brook will pay for all those things. This is money I’d saved up for – something else, an emergency, out of my allowance, and now – I don’t think I’m ever going to want it – at least as I thought I might.’ She had not been discovered; there had been no rumours, no flight; against the run of probabilities their precautions had held. ‘And I’d like to see the diagrams in. I liked the diagrams.’

  ‘And the tables,’ said Pridey, cracking his fingers in anguish; ‘the tables of breeding. And the genealogical trees. And the graphs. They’ve all had to go. Agreed to that.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t too late to change, is it? You could wire them, couldn’t you?’

  He peered at her. ‘A whim. Nothing more. You may have the money, but it’s just a whim.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I want to use it that way.’

  ‘I don’t like it. A bad business. Sure you’re quite all right, young woman? It isn’t this condition you’re in? People get queer ideas sometimes. Expect that’s why you went off gallivanting those first weeks.’

  ‘It was only one week, Uncle Pridey.’

  ‘And not only people go queer, you know. I remember one of my best mice. She began to eat her own tail. Far better keep your money, you know.’

  ‘When you look at me like that,’ she said, ‘you make me feel like a mouse.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re not a mouse. You’re a mixture. I’ve watched you. Don’t think I haven’t. Cool head and warm heart. Sounds romantic, but I mean it. Always warring, first one on top, then the other. Dangerous.’

  She said: ‘ Well, I’m quite serious and sane at the moment. My head’s clear and I can get you the money tomorrow. Why don’t you wire them?’

  The rain was coming. It sounded in the garden like the pattering of feet.

  ‘All right,’ he said energetically. ‘It’s a damned disgrace, but I will.’

  Chapter Two

  At 2 p. m. on Thursday, the sixteenth of August, 1869, with a trained midwife, a doctor, and a specialist in attendance, and in a mild state of anaesthesia reluctantly sanctioned by Mr Ferguson, Cordelia gave birth to a son.

  Mr Ferguson ordered extra prayers in the hall.

  Towards evening he was allowed in to see the mother and child. The curtains were drawn to keep out the hot sun, and a mellow pink light filled the room. It gave it a sanctified grandeur so that one spoke in whispers and walked with quiet feet. To Mr Ferguson’s annoyance Mrs Blake, being a woman, had been let in some time ago, and she stood now gazing down with complacent pride at the bundle in the cot. Brook, worn out with a night and half a day’s anxiety, sat by the bed holding Cordelia’s hand, saying nothing and not knowing what to say; and Cordelia, having done her part, decorated the pillow like a quiescent flower, content for the time to let life slip by, too tired for any irony which the evening might bring.

  Mr Ferguson’s bulk towered towards the bed canopy, and she smiled quietly up at him.

  He said: ‘Well done. Well done. Of course I’d never any doubt, had you, Brook? You must be very happy, my dear.’

  ‘Yes – I am.’

  ‘Mr Slaney-Smith called to inquire. He was just off to his lecture and made a detour.’

  ‘Oh – that was kind of him.’

  ‘So I thought. He was naturally gratified at our ne
ws. He sent his compliments.’

  Mr Ferguson’s eyes were straying, and presently he said: ‘I will see the baby now. Show me him, Brook; bestir yourself.’

  Brook got up and went with his father to the cot. They stared down at the crumpled pink features of Cordelia’s child.

  ‘Isn’t he a little dear?’ exclaimed Mrs Blake. ‘Taking it all in already and sucking his thumb as if he was two months old! Look at his little finger-nails, like little sea-shells, aren’t they? And look at the little creases round his neck, Mr Ferguson. Grannie’s joy! You know. I never get tired of seeing a new-born baby, many as I’ve had myself. They’re God’s messengers, that’s what I call them, straight from Heaven–’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Ferguson heavily. He wished the woman would go away. He wanted his first glimpse of his grandchild to be a private glimpse, a dignified glimpse, not one punctuated by a woman’s chatter. Besides, it offended his propriety to see that she was in a certain condition herself; for a woman well over forty with a grandchild now of her own it did not seem quite decent. It was time she stopped all that. Sometimes life seemed more than a little vulgar.

  ‘He’s got the Blake eyes,’ said Mrs Blake, ‘and the Ferguson nose. Look, he’s yawning. Cordelia used to yawn a lot, I remember. The doctor said she was anaemic, but we cured that with cod-liver oil. When she was four she was the roundest chubbiest, brightest–’

  ‘Mother, dear,’ said Cordelia, rightly perceiving that Mr Ferguson was not interested in her childhood.

  When the interloper had moved off, Mr Ferguson said: ‘It will be in the papers tomorrow, Brook. I sent it down by special messenger.’

  ‘Good. Thanks, Father. What a queer, tiny thing. So young! What shall we call him?’

  ‘Ian Frederick Brook,’ said Mr Ferguson without hesitation. ‘After his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather.’

  ‘I’ll – suggest it.’

  ‘The fifth generation since we came to this city. Though only the second born here. I am glad he has come, Brook, while I am not too old to guide him as he should go.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Brook.

  Mr Ferguson bent over the cot and fumbled at the bundle with his big hands. Presently he had a firm grip and picked it up.