Hemlock and After

by Angus Wilson

  He started from his reverie as Mrs Craddock placed her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Do peacocks make a hideous noise?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Eric replied in surprise; ‘they’re said to.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Mrs Craddock. ‘Well, it was only an extravagant dream. I was thinking as I came back from the post that you might like to add to the “bolshies”. Something exotic to gladden our sad days together.’

  *

  Bernard received Celia Craddock’s letter at breakfast. The handwriting sprawled and jerked across the thick, rough-edged paper.

  My dear friend, he read, I have so long rehearsed this letter that it cannot but seem lifeless and secondhand to me. I can only hope that your generous spirit and penetrating sympathy will pierce the empty words to the sincere distress which makes me write them. Eric is sad and puzzled! I am not so fond a mother as to think it extraordinary that a young man should be so. All humanity worth its salt is often sad, all young people should be, must be, puzzled. But there are sadnesses of growth, moods that come and go with the awakening consciousness of passing time–or so it seems to me, though I am appalled to think of writing my poor reflections on mankind to you – these are puzzles, necessary puzzles that lead on to new views of life. Eric’s are not. His sadness is ingrowing, it may lead to bitterness. His puzzle may end in the boring eternal question mark of the premature cynic.

  It is because you and I alone see and value his unusual quality of natural gaiety and strange impudence to life’s pomposity – an impudence that I always think comes neither from ignorance nor from cynicism, but from a deep seriousness – do you agree, I wonder? – that I have determined to write to you what might otherwise seem a cruel letter. I know that it must seem cruel to you, and I know also that you will take it and accept it far below the surface of its immediate unwelcomeness. (She had written here and then crossed out, Is there such a word? Oh! how awful it is to write a letter to a great writer. The letter continued.) You will accept what I write not only because you are the very remarkable man you are, so that any words from me would be impertinent, but because you have been and have the power to be more, so much more, to Eric than I can ever be. Oh, yes! it’s true, my dear friend. You have, I think, believed that I minded. And in face of such a judgement I have of necessity searched and searched the truth of my mind as far as we poor creatures can know it. But for once I think you are wrong – do you perhaps occasionally fix people a little in moulds that are oh such clever moulds, but that don’t just quite fit? I am far too selfish, far too exultant in myself and all that surrounds me to be the possessive mother you novelists so delight in. But just because I love life so much myself, I must want my son to grow up loving it too. As I have watched his delight in you and all you could give him, I have tried so hard to stand aside. Pulled affections are so cruel, and whatever else we must not be cruel.

  You described yourself once – was it to me or in some newspaper? when people are famous, it’s so difficult to know – as a humanist. It is to the humanist then that I appeal. Eric is sad because his idol has feet of clay. There, I have written it at last and it has hurt you. You will know of course that I do not point to any real defect in you, but only to the impossibility of anyone with a large life, large interests, large sympathies like you being the central core of any young person’s existence, as Eric in his youthful egotism had expected. I had thought before that he was adult enough not to expect it – I believe you have thought so too – but alas! he is not.

  Vardon Hall was the collapse of the very sky above him. Oh! not the project, the future of Vardon Hall, that is and will be fine. But your speech, my dear friend, your sad, despairing speech – for me it was human and good of you to speak what we all fear to say, but for Eric it was a tumble of bricks. And then the foolish little fracas and squabbles which were, of course, simply the result of those over-hot afternoons with which England tries to make up for her wretched climate, were a quite disproportionate agony of shame to him. He is far too loyal a friend, of course, to have said any of this to me. But Alan, who is a simple blundering old Dobbin – do you hate Amelia Sedley as much as I do for her treatment of Dobbin? – rushed in where angels … and then there were words and anger; and I saw my Eric divided as I have always wished him not to be. I am glad to say, that with a little help from me, the silly quarrel is now over, and they are once more the good friends they must always be. But Eric is still lost and unhappy. He wants so much to rebuild his dream of his importance to you and he wants – bless him! – to be honest with himself.

  Only you can help. Be cruel now to be kind. Break his idol completely. Tell him now – or let your silence tell him – that he is not ready for a life and a friendship so far outside his achievements. It will hurt – if it comforts you, let me say it will hurt deeply for a while – but he is young, and that is not just the comforting phrase of middle age. It will also, of course, mean the end of a life in London, at any rate for the time being. Later, perhaps, I may manage something, but I repeat that he is young, younger, as I see now, than I had supposed. I have thought even that we might try to get him work nearer here. It would save the tiring journeys and give him more time for those studies, which you have made us see are so important. But whatever and however, with your cooperation, your silent cooperation, we can help to rebuild his self-confidence.

  Forgive me, my dear friend, for writing what perhaps many mothers would have written long ago, and, since we shall not meet again, accept my sincere gratitude for all you have done – this sad end to it cannot diminish that by one jot – and my every good wish for your noble enterprise. That demands all your faith and energy now.

  Yours,

  Celia Craddock.

  The tree of love was so thickly entwined by the vast hairy trunk of power’s ivy, the roots of conscience so overlaid by the lush weeds of self-deception, that who could blame Celia Craddock if she offered so rank a bouquet? Who could condemn her if she took the crown of thorns which she had worn so gracefully and with such loving care for all these years and planted it firmly upon her own son’s brow? Only herself, Bernard decided, and no doubt she was already enjoying the painful thrills of guilt’s embrace. Certainly, he could not offer to prune and weed, though Eric choked, whilst his own garden was so thick with briars. He returned to his breakfast, but the coffee and the Oxford marmalade had lost their savour. He fetched an ashplant and a cap, and set off on a long walk.

  Though Bernard’s hours of walking had been sad and solitary, there was another figure who had shown himself only too ready to make them lighter, more companionable. Ron seemed somehow ubiquitous during these weeks. Like some spiv-dressed satyr or dryad in a modern ballet, he would appear suddenly now by this hedgerow, now from that copse, winking, smiling, or with sly deferential touch of his head. Bernard, in his guilty preoccupation, almost welcomed these appearances as a concrete, less terrible manifestation of the phantoms that beset him. Nevertheless, he never spoke or smiled in response to this battery of winks and nods. Horror at his inertia before Eric’s distant drowning, however, made him resolute now to save that other unknown victim from the waves.

  As he left the last row of village council houses behind him and ascended the hill, he saw Ron making his way from his hovel. His padded shoulders and draped hips made a curious contrast with the meadows and woods. He had cut a switch from a hedgerow and as he walked he lashed the heads from the straggling blackberry trailers beside him. Bernard turned his course and walked deliberately over to him.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Ron. He had expected this. He knew Ron Wrigley never wanted something he didn’t get. That was how the stars worked out for him. ‘I see you about a lot lately.’

  ‘And I you,’ said Bernard. ‘It has been in my mind to help you. And now I’ve decided that I must.’

  Even Ron was surprised that his ‘old one two’ was quite so compelling. But he only smiled and said, ‘I wouldn’t take no help and give nothing in return.’ He
clothed all potential situations in the most brilliant colours, but as he had not the faintest conception of what relations with a man in Bernard’s sphere of life might offer, he had limited his visions to an endless horizon of drape suits interspersed with an occasional signet ring.

  ‘Don’t worry on that score,’ said Bernard. ‘Any help I gave you would mean a considerable return from you.’ Then he added, startling Ron, ‘I want to know all about your little job for Hubert Rose.’

  As Ron began to bluster and expostulate, Bernard once more surprised him with a short statement of how much he had already learnt from Bill. ‘It’s enough, you know,’ he said, ‘to have you put away for a long time – but for me, the mixture of motives would be indecently complicated, so I’m willing to help you.’

  ‘I shouldn’t talk too much about putting away, if I was you,’ said Ron. ‘Your sort aren’t very popular with the cops either, you know.’

  Bernard smiled at this. ‘You know exactly how much notice I shall take of that,’ he said. ‘I’m not supposing you feel anything against giving Mr Rose the little help you’ve been giving him, but I’m not supposing, either, that you’re getting any special kick out of it. If you tell me enough to caution Mr Rose,’ he went on, ‘you’ll none of you hear any more of it. You can say it’s because I’m frightened, but it won’t be true.’ Bernard was surprised at his own sudden renewal of vigour, the disappearance of his burden. If he was to claim Eric from the net, he thought, he must release the other rabbit first.

  ‘What if Mr Rose has had his little party?’ asked Ron.

  ‘I was afraid of that until I spoke to you,’ said Bernard, ‘but now I know he hasn’t.’

  ‘I don’t want no trouble with Mrs Curry,’ said Ron, looking down at the ground and switching the hedge angrily.

  ‘You don’t want any sort of trouble,’ said Bernard, ‘and that’s why you’re going to help me. Mrs Curry won’t know,’ he added, ‘and if she does turn funny, let me know. You don’t seem to do so well out of her anyway,’ he said, looking Ron up and down.

  ‘I could go places if I wanted to,’ said Ron.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bernard, ‘and I think you should. A bright boy like you. But not to prison. That’s where Mrs Curry will put you one of these days.’

  ‘I can look after myself.’ Ron was mumbling now.

  ‘Oh, you’ll get by all right,’ said Bernard. He fought to prevent himself making promises, offering money, anything to make up for this use of force. ‘When was this little party to be that won’t take place?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘I never thought it was right, you know. Not with kids. But you don’t know Mrs Curry….’

  Bernard waited while the self-justifications that must precede the facts were over. He imagined that Ron must be fighting self-disgust at his betrayal of a cinema-learnt code of crooks’ honour. He was wrong. Ron was quite soon as happy in the rôle of the ‘decent’ crook for whom some things – messing about with kids, for example – went too far.

  When the whole confession had ended, Ron drew himself up like a soldier at attention.

  ‘That’s the honest truth,’ he said, straight and decent.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bernard, ‘thank you.’ As he turned to go, he found himself saying, ‘By the way, you needn’t bother about “appealing” to me any more. I prefer to take my walks alone.’

  Once again he realized that the little knife had appeared from nowhere, and with it he had thrust home to hurt. There was no amends that he could see, but he turned and called to Ron, ‘You’ll get by, you know. Don’t worry.’

  His encouragement was unnecessary. As Ron continued his walk, he soon forgot any duress under which Bernard had placed him, as he thought of the central part he had played in cheating Mrs Curry and Hubert of their gains. One, two, he switched at the briars, and Mrs Curry fell to the ground with a resounding bang.

  *

  It was the pathos of Hubert’s setting which Bernard had not expected, against which he had to fight so sternly in order not to throw in his hand. How could he have known that the inner sanctum into which Hubert had led him for their private talk would have revealed not the lavish display of Edwardian gentleman’s taste that marked the main living-rooms, but the deathly hygiene of an operating theatre? He would have liked nothing so much as to have cut short his demands, to have risen from the deep armchair and, crossing the vast desert of Hubert’s studio, to have left behind for ever that sad functional glass tank.

  The high, steel-framed windows, through which the faint light of a wet summer afternoon shone like the last fading gleams of a cooling planet, seemed to offer no concealment to Hubert’s self-pity. An infinity of space hung above Bernard before his eye could rest upon the endless stretch of ceiling, an infinity of stone flooring seemed to lie between him and that other armchair in which Hubert had submerged his lanky form. Every object from the complicated radiogram to the carpentry bench and the drawing board seemed determined to reveal its mechanism, to lay bare its inner organs, as though the owner’s fear of being charged with any positive assertion either of taste or personality had forbidden him the use of all covering which, by design or ornament, might be used as evidence against him. Not even the frightened disclaimer of English good taste had been allowed – no trace of colour in the neutral chair-covers and distempered walls, no evidence of form that could not be explained by function. Only the desolate moonlit horror of a single Samuel Palmer summed up in coherent statement the world of its owner – the empty hopelessness of a desert universe which had almost wound down to its end.

  The conscious assertion of old English gentlemanhood that sounded in Hubert’s affected Edwardian tones only further emphasized the desolation of the scene.

  ‘All this understandin’ then, this goin’ about like a cross between St Francis and Thomas More comes to nothin’ then, when it doesn’t happen to be your particular little fed,’ he said.

  ‘I make you a present of the failure of humanism, if it consoles you to believe that my despair makes yours less,’ Bernard answered. ‘They are, in fact, two despairs and they can help neither of us. Nor, for that matter,’ he added, ‘do they say anything about what other men may do with the same things – other humanists or,’ and he looked round the room,’ other disciples of negation.’

  ‘Oh! my dear fellow,’ Hubert laughed. ‘I’d forgotten how little the room must be to your taste. Nothin’ of the human about it and less still of that special devitalized human which you Greek-love boys need so much to make life seem safe. No Murillo shepherd-boys or Michelangelo heads to make you feel lovin’ and good. No little Greco-Roman indeterminates to bolster the itchin’ palm up with a bit of culture. Not even one of those etiolated mad scarlet sins to make you feel naughty and different. Just man in his proper place among a lot of bigger things that serve their purpose.’

  Once again Bernard thrust back immediate compassion. ‘Don’t make me add impertinence to necessary interference,’ he said. ‘I’m not here to point out the arrogance of your assumption of man’s smallness. If your despair does not lend you compassion, then I can only limit its field of devastation.’

  Hubert jerked a hand towards the long windows. ‘Your own house, you know,’ he said, ‘has quite a lot of glass in it, and a well-aimed stone would make an unsightly havoc.’

  ‘Since the day of Vardon Hall’s opening, I have accepted the possible collapse of everything I have constructed,’ Bernard replied. ‘I have no more care for what you or anyone else may do to bring about its ruin. That was the purport of the speech you so much admired.’

  ‘My God!’ cried Hubert, ‘you talk about compassion, you creeping-Jesus Karamazov. I attempted to meet you on the level below good and evil which you profess to live on, to speak to you directly out of our despairs and desires, and you throw it back in my face.’

  ‘No,’ said Bernard, ‘I believe that your gesture was sincere, though many might have thought it indulgent self-abasement. You have quoted Dostoyevsky at me.
All right! He knew two kinds of abasement: Myshkin, the divine idiot’s, and Lebedev, the professional clown’s. Yours, I think, was Lebedev’s.’

  ‘And you,’ Hubert cried, ‘are Myshkin, I suppose.’

  ‘No,’ said Bernard, ‘God help me. But because we recognize each other’s failures gives you no brotherly claim on my acquiescence. I accepted your handshake as recognition, not as a pact to silence.’

  ‘You bloody prig,’ said Hubert, ‘and you bloody fool too. All this because a girl who was born into a world with nothing to offer her is going to part with something she’ll be giving away to Tom, Dick, and Harry in a couple of years, at an age when an ignorant society prefers to think she’s bathed in childhood innocence instead of slum smut. And you, the man outside convention, put that above sensual needs.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bernard, ‘even above the emotional needs of so unhappy and lonely a man as yourself.’ He rose from the armchair. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘I know quite enough to act if you do.’ From Hubert’s silence, he felt confident that he had won. It was only as he walked down the gravel path between the rhododendron bushes that the pain in his side told him of the strain of the interview. He took out a digitalis tablet and crushed it between his teeth.

  *

  Ella, in old felt hat and goloshes, was very active in the garden during these rainy days. She fought through a week of crying and trays of scrap ends of food, the dreary prison of luminal sleeps, and an over-hastily made bed. She had fought, too, through the sudden revelations of Bernard’s despair, and of Elizabeth’s humanity. She had absorbed the humiliation of Sonia’s public declaration of what she had so long guessed at. But the calm and confidence of her renewed attack on sprouting weeds and untidy shrubs was built upon more solid ground than the usual recurrent emergencies from neurotic flight. She had come closer, in the days after the opening ceremony, to losing herself in a land of rocks and ice than at any time since her breakdown. She had walked on the edge of crevasses and bridged icy torrents that threatened to engulf her personality, to swallow her up and save her from her dilemma by cutting her off for ever from the sane. Yet, at the most hideous crisis of her fears, when even the living death of madness seemed a longed-for peace beside her ghastly fancies, she had suddenly known that if Bernard feared life and sought death, she faced a living extinction because she feared to relinquish her hold on life. Surely and deliberately, in her symbolic world, she had braved the annihilation of crevasse and icy ocean, had stepped out from the safety edge into the void, and remained herself. Beside the terror of that step, the surrender of her will, the deliberate courting of annihilation, life, when she returned to it, seemed a small problem. Her will and her power, she knew, were equal to anything it might offer. As she cut back the honeysuckle bush and pruned the roses, she wanted only an object, a task, a duty, or a call on her love to live again fully in the world around her, and with fresh sources of strength derived from her long battle that seemed exhaustless.