Cucumber Sandwiches

by J. I. M. Stewart

  What are the kisses whose fire clasps

  The failing heart in languishment, or limb

  Twined within limb? or the quick dying gasps

  Of the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim

  Through tears of a wide mist boundless and dim,

  In one caress? What is the strong control

  Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb . . . ?

  But no – not even more Shelley. For I am become a practical man.

  30 September

  We have spent a night together in my boat on the lake. The thwart was inconvenient – but what of that? Only there must not be such another mad occasion, since detection would now mar all. A short month ago, I would cheerfully have considered renouncing my whole modest patrimony for love. It would have seemed a killing of two birds with the one stone: an action at once in the high romantic manner and at the same time consonant with a fully philosophic view of the evils incident to the acquisition of wealth without toil. But now I am for more sober courses.

  I recall my mother as once speaking to me of the hazard to position and property which may be occasioned by rash and impetuous attachment to a member of the other sex. Perhaps it is something that she herself once escaped, since the theme roused her to a surprising vehemence. But if I paid no attention then, I do now. I cannot become a peasant, since I should be too poor a hand at it. And without money and acknowledgement from my family, my Perdita’s lot would be hard in any other station of life. My parents then, must be presented with un fait accompli, else they will take such means as rank and power own to thwart our union perhaps forever. Equally, they must then have some enforced interval for reflection, and one during which they may hear well of my bride from persons they will acknowledge as of judgement.

  Hence my plan for flight to Italy. There the bear-leader Blowbody shall pronounce us man and wife – he shall do it though honest Jack have to stand over him with a switch the while. And provided it be within the dwelling, and in the presence, of the English Resident in one or other of the great cities, the validity of the contract will be beyond question at law. And Jack shall certainly contrive that our eventual return to Vailes be by way of Fawn Court, and after our enjoying there the countenance of his father the Duke. How shall such sponsorship be resisted by my father, with his paltry courtesy title of Lord? Almost do I spy some merit in the vanities of aristocracy.

  7 October

  My parents are won over to the Italian scheme – happily just before any need to return to Oxford to keep there the Michaelmas Term. Servants and a covered wagon have been despatched to fetch my furniture, books, etc. from Christ Church, and I have written a proper letter to the somnolent Dean, thanking him for his civilities during my residence in the House. I am off to tell my darling the news.

  8 October

  Near disaster! Success having made me bold, or careless, I walked from the lake’s end up the green ride to my darling’s cottage, first hand in hand with her, and then with our arms entwined. Having soon to part, I could not refrain from drawing her within the shadow of a great beech and there embracing. We stood embracing, that is – but it was closely and passionately enough. And thus did her mother come upon us! The good woman seemed to be wandering the woods to gather herbs on her own account. Observing us, she gave a cry. The encounter was awkward, and I believe I handled it ill. Thus surprised, would it not have been best to confide in her – to trust my beloved’s mother with at least the essential part of our secret? Surely I had but to convince her of the honourable character of my intentions to make her not wholly hostile to such a match for her daughter? But something in the woman’s look made me hesitate. I reflected that it is not so strange a thing for a young man of my station to make free with a village girl – at least to the extent of a few imperious kisses – should he come upon her in a convenient privacy. Hateful as conjuring up such a picture was, I now instantly adopted it. Touching my Perdita’s cheek lightly with a finger (as if whimsically to minimise what had plainly passed), I told her mother, laughing, that she had the prettiest daughter in the shire. And with that I sauntered off into the wood!

  I was little pleased with myself. I could not bear to think of Perdita rebuked after some rough, rustic fashion. Still less could I contemplate without pain having seemed to treat her – however much it were a mere deceit in sudden exigency – as a common country wench to be idly kissed in frolic. And I continue extremely uneasy now. The mother – I judge from what seemed terror on her face – may fear that, should her child be judged as leading me astray, my father’s displeasure may result in her husband’s losing both his cottage and his employment. One hears of such abominable petty tyrannies often enough. If this merely keeps her silent, all may be well. But what if she thinks to forestall such a penalty by going to the bailiff with some warning, or even thrusting herself into the presence of my parents themselves? Nothing of the kind need be fatal, no doubt. I might carry it off with my father by a promise of circumspection together with the ghost of a gay look such as might appeal to him. Or he might even be prompted to hasten my departure!

  Time is all-important now. I must effect that hastening by my own endeavours.

  12 October

  So far, there has been no sequel to the alarming rencontre. But it has made all approach to Perdita hazardous.

  13 October

  We have met – hastily and at a signal from me near the cottage. Nothing has been said by her parents about her mother’s unlucky discovery. But her father, like her mother, she reports as apprehensive and fearful. And suddenly there is talk of sending her away – that she may look after some bed-ridden aunt in a distant part of the country, and at the same time relieve what is declared to be a straitened household of one mouth to feed. She is sure that this is but an excuse to place us beyond one another’s reach. If this threat becomes more imminent, my best course will be to declare myself to these simple people. I find myself wondering whether they know more than the mother came upon: that simple embrace, I mean, in the woods. Can they be aware that their daughter has been—grotesque word, yet justified in the world’s regard!—seduced by me? This would account for their extreme alarm. But speculation is idle, and I must hasten my plans. With my father’s approval, I am now enquiring after some ship bound for Genoa. There are sailings almost every day, it seems, from one or another of the southern ports. But I must tread warily if the vital part of my design is to prosper.

  14 October

  I have considered whether, during so long a passage, Perdita might pass undetected as a youth. My younger brother? A serving lad? The latter seems impossible, since in her coming and going on my behalf she would be much exposed to curiosity. Nor would the former serve unless we had with us (as we shall not) confidential attendance of our own and could thus keep ourselves close in our quarters. Moreover such notions only come from reading idle romances. My first, simplest, and boldest plan is the best. It is fortunate that my father is proving liberal of his purse, and that I have, besides, those few hundred guineas put by. Just before sailing, I shall announce to the ship’s captain a change of plan whereby my wife travels with me. She shall drive up to the quay (suitably habited), and we shall be at sea before much thought can be given to the matter. That we are a runaway couple may soon be guessed at. But by then, and with money flowing, we are little likely to meet with any check or even impertinence. Fit conveyance to the port etc. I can manage – although I could wish I had to run my errands some fellow I could trust. My father, indeed, has been awkwardly of the same mind in this. It does not suit his notion of our consequence that I should join a Duke’s son without a man or two about me. It is, I own, an almost impossibly awkward degree of singularity. But I have rounded this sharp corner with some address. Lew Custance, the huntsman’s boy, whom fortunately I have had much about me these last two years, and whose lately broken leg is now mending, is to be shipped out after me as soon as he is serviceable.

  15 October

  The t
hreat to banish Perdita to her distant aunt’s is afoot again. But now, if all can be timed aright, I shall make this work for us! How to prevent instant alarm upon her disappearance has seemed an insoluble problem. But here, with good fortune, may be eight-and-forty hours granted us, which is twice the measure that we need.

  A letter has happily come to my father from the Duke, and been shown to me. An old beef-witted Duke, and indifferently skilled in his orthography. But he expresses himself so amiably, and with a regard so high for sundry Senderhills living and dead, that my father has incontinently brought out another purse for me, and as a parting gift has presented me with his best gold repeater to boot.

  16 October

  It is the Gloriana – and from Plymouth in three days time. I have lately been inclined to admit at least the hypothesis that a Supreme Being may exist. Unfortunately I cannot conceive Him as disposed to hearken to Bertrand Senderhill. Were it so, I should tonight be on my knees for the safety of my darling in what lies before us.

  Vailes

  Midnight

  I open my casement upon a stormy sky and a great gale blowing. Chariot us, oh wild West Wind!

  3

  ‘Well?’ Holroyd asked. Having finished the last page of the diary first, he had waited for me to catch up. ‘What do you say to that?’

  ‘These violent delights have violent ends, and in their triumph die.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. A few days after the young man almost brought himself to pray for his mistress’s safety, both of them were drowned. I’ve noticed before that Shakespeare is your poet. Not Shelley.’

  ‘Shelley? Those lines about the physical union of two lovers are by him?’

  ‘They’re about Laon and Cythna in The Revolt of Islam. Impressive, wouldn’t you say? I doubt whether just that was ever better recorded by poet. But what of this real-life love affair? Would you call that impressive too?’

  ‘I don’t know that we can judge. Perdita – Joan Stickleback – may have been a paragon, but we have only an excited boy’s word for it.’

  ‘Yes – yet at least his experience seems to have been a maturing one. Don’t you notice? At the beginning of September he is an adolescent with his head full of nonsense. By the middle of October he is rash, no doubt, but quite unmistakably grown-up. Which, I suspect, says something for the quality of the relationship. The Reverend Doctor Blowbody never read from his Prayer Book over them. But I’m glad that they had been husband and wife, all the same. It’s the cheerful point in a sad story.’

  I saw no need to dispute my friend’s judgement – which might equally have been delivered of Shakespeare’s lovers in the play that had been running in my head. I knew nothing about Laon and Cythna, but Romeo and Juliet had always been very vivid to me. I wondered whether Bertrand Senderhill and his bride would now a little haunt me too.

  ‘Isn’t it strange,’ I said presently, ‘that after beginning a diary under stress of the affair he should simply have left it behind him?’

  ‘Perhaps he had a presentiment of disaster, and wanted some record to remain.’ Holroyd glanced at me quizzically. ‘Ho-ho! You think I have precognitive experience on the brain. I dare say you are perfectly right. And as for this diary, young Bertrand had a great deal to think about – one must admire his bringing the thing off as he did – and as a consequence it simply got left behind.’

  ‘In which case it would have been discovered and brought to his parents.’

  ‘That’s a probability. Yet it may have been otherwise. Imagine its being come upon by a servant with a fondness for the lad, or indeed for the family. Such a one might think it best simply to shove the thing out of sight. You and I – and such a servant, if he existed – may be literally the only persons in the world ever to have known those young people’s secret.’

  ‘That’s perfectly true.’ Suddenly, I didn’t understand why, I felt uneasy. ‘Do you know, Holroyd, I rather wish we didn’t?’ I paused, searching for some justification of this remark. ‘Perhaps it’s as if we were disturbing their shades.’

  ‘Of course, we don’t positively know that they were both on board the Gloriana.’ Holroyd seemed too struck by this thought to attend to what I had said. ‘Young Senderhill, yes. He undoubtedly went down with the ship. But might not there have been a hitch about the girl? She might have been caught by her parents. Or her heart may have failed her. Who knows?’

  ‘In that case, Bertrand would surely not have sailed tamely for Italy himself.’

  ‘He might have, in a kind of despair, if the girl had ditched him at the last.’

  ‘But they weren’t like that, either of them.’

  ‘I believe that’s true.’ Holroyd said this soberly, and I realised that, like myself, he sensed a strong intensity of passion behind this long-past and disastrous runaway affair. But he rapidly reached for a robust note. ‘Ho-ho! Would you say that it is perhaps Shelley who has sold us something?’

  ‘Bother Shelley! I suppose it might still be possible to find out for certain whether the girl was on board the Gloriana?’

  ‘I doubt it. She left home to go to an aunt, and of how she was actually conveyed to Plymouth it is almost inconceivable that any record can remain. And what would happen when she got there, with the barque all set to sail? The vessel’s master, or his purser, would presently take money for her passage, no doubt. But that would simply be on board ship, and any note of the transaction would go down with her.’

  ‘Perhaps something could be discovered about the Sticklebacks?’

  ‘My dear chap, it’s most unlikely. Consider how short as well as simple are the annals of the poor.’

  ‘I doubt whether that quite meets the case. In any civilised society a missing girl is quite something.’ I paused, perhaps to wonder why, since my own instinct was to avoid further investigation, I should be pressing these possibilities upon Holroyd. ‘Surely the magistrates would have ordered some sort of enquiry as soon as the parents reported the thing.’

  ‘If they ever did report it. They may have learnt the truth, or suspected it – the fact, I mean, of their daughter’s having run away with the young gentleman from the big house. And so they may have kept mum out of sheer fright. Bertrand records, remember, that they were dead scared. And if it was known in the neighbourhood that the girl was to go off to a distant aunt for keeps, no one outside her own home would necessarily give her a thought ever again. No, no – whoever the Sticklebacks were, and wherever that cottage was, depend upon it, we shall learn no more about them.’

  ‘At least there’s no obscurity about the cottage. On the strength of what Bertrand records, I can take you to it, or to the ruins of it, tomorrow. Incidentally, it appears to be Martha’s favourite haunt.’

  ‘Martha?’ It was quite blankly that Holroyd had repeated the name. He was staring absently at the vellum-bound book.

  ‘Mrs Uff’s apathetic daughter.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ My friend’s tone was inexpressive, but he raised his alarming eyes to mine in what I can only call a queer look.

  We had been talking about the poet Shelley – which is one reason, no doubt, why, at this moment, the poet Keats came into my head. Or, rather, not Keats at all, but simply Keats’s philosopher Apollonius in Lamia – a fellow, I thought, with a gaze just like Arthur Holroyd’s.

  4

  On the following morning – and it was the day on which I had planned to end my stay at Vailes – Holroyd displayed no particular interest in being shown the one-time home (as it assuredly was) of the Sticklebacks. We might take a stroll there, he suggested, after lunch. Meanwhile, he proposed a return to the muniment room, so-called, and its adjoining attics. For this I had myself no further fancy, and I believe I even found something curiously obsessive in his concern with all that cobweb and dust. It was true that in Bertrand Senderhill’s diary he had come upon a document of considerable human interest – and of something more than that, no doubt, if the shipwreck to which it was an unconscious prelude had been unknown to
Lucius Senderhill when his hallucinatory experience of just such a disaster had occurred to him when himself a young man and ill-fated lover. But what more was there any likelihood that the family archives would reveal?

  At least I declined to companion Holroyd in his further rummaging, with the consequence that I had another morning to spend as I pleased. And it was a gorgeous morning. I ought, I think, to emphasise that. The previous day I have described, I see, as ‘bright and rather blowy’, but this succeeding day seemed to belong more to a golden summer than to an early spring. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. This must appear improbable of any English day, but I think it is literally true – and that the heaven so remained, indeed, until dusk fell. At least I can say that what happened – anything that did happen – had clear sunlight as its accompaniment.

  It was shortly after breakfast that I set out to retrace the steps of my previous exploration. The encounter with the bicycling Mrs Uff had prevented me from rounding the lake, and this time I was resolved to succeed. But first I walked down to the boathouse and peered inside. Perhaps I had taken it into my head that there might be a craft in which I could make a small water expedition instead. And this certainly proved to be so, since I spied a dinghy in excellent order, and ready for launching, within. But lawyers have an exaggerated sense of decorum in such matters, and I may well have decided that it would be improper to make free with what must now be within the trusteeship of the Senderhill Settled Estates. Whether for this reason or another, I turned away and resumed my walk.