Not to Disturb

by Muriel Spark

  ‘Sister Barton calls him Tony,’ says the Reverend.

  ‘His name,’ says Lister, ‘is Gustav Anthony Klopstock. It’s on his birth certificate, his medical certificate exempting him from army service, and it’s in their father’s will.’

  ‘The Registers?’ says the Reverend.

  ‘He’s also mentioned in a social register for 1949. That’s the latest we have in the house. It occurred to me he must have died, but I was wrong. I admit we were in error,’ Lister says. ‘But fortunately we left room for error, and having discovered it in time, here we are. There is a vast difference between events that arise from and those that merely follow after each other. Those that arise are preferable. And Clovis amends his script.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have married him for choice,’ says Heloise. ‘He doesn’t cognate.’

  ‘You don’t have to cognate with him,’ says Hadrian. ‘You only need get your marriage-lines in black and white.’

  ‘Reverend,’ says Lister, ‘do you recall that night last June when the Klopstocks were away and him in the attic got loose? Remember we called you in to catch him and calm him down?’

  ‘Poor boy, I remember, of course,’ says the Reverend. ‘He didn’t know what he was doing.’

  ‘He’s not officially certified,’ says Eleanor. ‘The Baron and Baroness wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Lister says. ‘And I wish to draw the Reverend’s attention to the result of that rampage last June.’ Lister indicates Heloise who smiles at her stomach.

  ‘Good gracious me!’ says the Reverend. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him.’

  ‘We must lose no time,’ says Lister getting up. ‘Prepare the drawing-room, Eleanor. It’s past five o’clock. I’ll go and give orders to Sister Barton.’

  ‘I would need a few days,’ says the Reverend firmly. ‘You can’t marry people like this.’

  ‘It’s a special case, Reverend. You can’t refuse. In fact, you may not refuse. Look at poor Heloise, her condition.’

  The central posy of violets is missing from the funeral wreath which lies under the shower in the scullery bathroom being gently sprinkled to keep it fresh. Heloise in her bedroom holds the posy in her hands. Pablo stands by admiringly. ‘I’ve unpacked all my things again,’ he says.

  ‘What a business,’ she says. ‘Nobody needed to pack their things, after all. All those trunks and suitcases.’

  Hadrian appears at the door of her room holding the white mink coat lately left in the cloak-room by Victor Passerat. ‘Just right for the occasion,’ she says, putting it on.

  ‘Lister says it has to go back in the cloak-room immediately after the ceremony,’ Hadrian says. ‘The police will want to know what coat he was wearing. Lister is keen that the police should see this coat. It speaks volumes, Lister says.’

  ‘It doesn’t meet in the front,’ Heloise says.

  ‘You look nice,’ Pablo says.

  There is a knock at the door and Irene walks in.

  ‘You really going to marry him?’ she says.

  ‘Sure,’ says Heloise. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Then you’ll need some music,’ Irene says. ‘How can you have a wedding without music?’

  ‘Eleanor could play the grand piano,’ says Hadrian.

  ‘No,’ says Heloise. ‘I like Eleanor but she’s got a lovely touch on the piano. I can’t stand that lovely touch.’

  ‘Mr Samuel plays the piano and also the guitar,’ Pablo says. ‘Mr Samuel energises.’

  ‘Bring down the gramophone,’ says Heloise. ‘That’s better; because Mr Samuel will be taking the photographs and Mr McGuire has to do the sound-track. This thing’s got to go on record. It’s got to compass.’

  ‘It’s still stormy,’ says Hadrian as a flash of lightning stands for a second in the square pane of the window. A clap of thunder follows it. ‘There must be trees felled in the park,’ he says.

  ‘I shall arrange for them,’ says Heloise, ‘to be swept up some time tomorrow. Let’s go down to the room. They’re all waiting.’

  Upstairs there is a scuffle and a howl.

  ‘Isn’t it usual for the bridegroom to arrive first?’ says Irene.

  ‘It’s all right if he’s late on account of his health,’ says Pablo. ‘Let’s go.’

  •

  ‘Clara,’ says the porter, ‘your tea, dearest. It’s nearly half-past five, and I’m early bringing it up. I’ve got the jitters, somehow. I’ve just got orders not to open the gate before eight and after that, let everyone in. “Absolutely everyone.” Can you understand it? Why should everyone come at eight in the morning?’

  ‘Oh, my dreams, Theo,’ she says, sitting up in bed and reaching for her frilly bed-jacket. She puts it on and takes her tea from Theo’s waiting hand.

  ‘He said, “Let everyone in after eight o’clock, not before.” This job’s beyond me, Clara. We have to move on.’

  ‘Oh, but I love this little house. It was always what I wanted. You know I think the Baroness got sentimental with one of the secretaries. I think she’s going to run away with him.’

  ‘Those two strange ones who came in the green car asking for Victor Passerat all the time,’ Theo says. ‘They came back up here a few minutes ago. They didn’t get to see Victor Passerat. Now they’re anxious to go home but I’ve got orders not to let them out. The gates don’t open till eight, then everyone, absolutely everyone, can come and go as they please.’

  ‘Where have they gone then, those two?’

  ‘Back to the house to wait there.’

  ‘Do you know, Theo, the one that sat beside the driver doesn’t look like a lady. Very hard face. Like a man.’

  ‘Don’t dwell on it, Clara dearest.’

  The drawing-room is being re-arranged for the wedding. Irene and Eleanor bustle and give orders to Pablo and Hadrian who are moving chairs and tables. The Reverend wanders with a perplexed air from one end of the room to the other, carefully piloting himself around the busy workers, weaving in and out between the minute tables and small sofas, and puzzling his brow absentmindedly at the tiny portraits and litter of small ornaments.

  ‘I really think,’ says the Reverend, pulling his press-cutting out of his pocket, ‘that Baron Klopstock should take this pill.’

  ‘Too far gone,’ says Hadrian, standing back to see if the table he has placed beside another squares off neatly. ‘He’s past caring.’

  Clovis comes in with an embroidered tablecloth which he lays carefully across the two oblong tables which Hadrian has placed end-to-end. ‘It makes a very good altar,’ says Clovis. He snaps his fingers. ‘A large candelabrum from the dining-room!’ he shouts. Irene skips out of the room, while Lister with Heloise on his arm appears in the doorway of the ante-room at the far end.

  The Reverend puts his press-cutting back in his pocket.

  Eleanor says, ‘We are to use the Book of Common Prayer appointed to be read in the Church of England.’

  The Reverend says, ‘I always marry according to the Evangelical Waldensian form, which is very free.’

  ‘Heloise,’ calls Eleanor, her voice rising on the last syllable, ‘what religion are you?’

  ‘None,’ says Heloise. She lets go Lister’s arm, comes in from the ante-room and relaxes into a comfortable chair.

  ‘What religion were you brought up in?’ says the Reverend.

  ‘None,’ says Heloise.

  ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘Lyons,’ says Heloise,
‘but that was by chance.’

  ‘It should be Evangelical,’ says the Reverend.

  ‘In this house it is the Book of Common Prayer,’ Eleanor says. ‘Do you want her to have that child out of wedlock? We haven’t all night to spend arguing, Reverend. The father has assented but he might change his mind.’

  ‘Let me see the English book, then,’ says the Reverend. ‘I have it within my competence to make exceptions in a case like this. Perhaps I could simplify the English form. I don’t read well in English, you know.’

  Eleanor points to a flat, leather-bound book lying ready beside the small porcelain statuettes on a wall-table. ‘That’s it,’ she says. ‘It can’t be simplified, it’s impossible.’

  Lister advances into the room, stopping to twist a bowl of flowers to better taste. He says, ‘Eleanor, the bridegroom is C. of E., I think.’

  ‘No, they’re Catholics.’

  ‘Oh well, he went to Winchester, an English school.’

  ‘No, he never went to school. He was always unable.’

  ‘He went for a week.’

  ‘It isn’t enough.’

  ‘Eleanor,’ says Lister, ‘we can have any little irregularity put straight later.’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Heloise. ‘This coat’s heavy.’

  Irene comes in with a large branched candlestick in ornamental silver with long white candles set in its sockets. She places it on the covered table.

  ‘Don’t light the candles yet,’ says Eleanor, raising her eyes to the ceiling, from above which comes the sound of a scuffle and a howl. ‘Goodness knows what might happen. We don’t want a fire.’

  ‘He’s had his injection,’ Lister says.

  ‘Well it hasn’t taken yet,’ says Heloise.

  ‘Come back into the little room and stand with me,’ Lister says to Heloise. ‘The bride should enter last and enter last she will.’

  The scuffle upstairs continues and is accompanied by a repeated banging.

  ‘Is that the wind or is it him?’ says Eleanor. ‘Is it the shutters?’

  ‘It could be either,’ Pablo says listening expertly.

  ‘I’d better go and help,’ says robust Hadrian. He bounds out of the drawing-room and up the stairs.

  Heloise has again joined Lister at the door between the ante-room and the drawing-room and from there he gives his final instructions. ‘Remove the Sèvres vases — take them away, just in case. Irene, your skirt’s too short, this is a ceremony.’

  Heloise says, ‘Irene likes to show her legs. Why not?’

  ‘They’re all she’s got,’ says Clovis.

  ‘He’s coming!’ says Irene.

  The wind now whistles round the house and the remote shutters bang as another latent storm wakes up. Footsteps descend heavily and the occasional howl that accompanies them becomes, as it approaches, more like a trumpet call.

  Mr Samuel now enters with his camera. Mr McGuire follows with his tape-recorder which he places on a table in an angle of the room, unplugging the lamp to make way for the plug of his machine. He tests it out, then pulls up a chair and, folding his arms, waits.

  As the footsteps and the trumpet-blast tumble their way down, Pablo puts a record on the gramophone with a pleased, but unsmiling expression. It is a new rendering of Greensleeves, played very fast even at the beginning, and plainly working up to something complex and speedy.

  ‘Not so loud,’ says the Reverend, but his words cannot be heard at the door of the ante-room, where Pablo has settled the gramophone by the side of Heloise and Lister. ‘Play it more quietly,’ Lister says.

  Pablo turns it down.

  ‘It seems unsuitable but one has to go along with them,’ says the Reverend as Hadrian and Sister Barton edge into the drawing-room, supporting between them him from the attic. It is immediately noticeable that the patient’s howls and trumpetings appear to be expressions of delight rather than pain, for he grins incessantly, his great eyes glittering with ecstatic gladness.

  Lister, with Heloise on his arm, advances slowly to meet the bridegroom. ‘What a noise he’s making,’ says Heloise.

  ‘There must be at least eighty-two instruments in that band you’ve got for your wedding march,’ Lister says, ‘another can’t be amiss.’ An instant of quick lightning at the windows followed by a grumble of thunder reinforces his argument.

  The zestful cretin’s eyes fall first on Irene. He neighs jubilantly through his large teeth and shakes his long white wavy hair. He wears a jump-suit of dark red velvet fastened from crotch to collar-bone with a zip-fastener. This zipper is secured at the neck by a tiny padlock which very likely has been taken, for the purpose, from one of the Baroness Klopstock’s Hermès handbags. Beside him, holding him fast with one arm round his shoulders and with the other hand gripping his arm, is a young nurse whose youthfulness does not help. Hadrian, his eyebrows tentatively raised, holds the other arm.

  ‘My boy,’ says the Reverend to him from the attic who now stands shaking off his keepers with his powerful shoulders.

  The other servants stand back, and Hadrian joins them. Eleanor casts a glance behind her to the open door, and stands a little nearer to it.

  ‘A vivacious husband,’ says Lister. ‘Miss Barton, try to hold him firm. It’s an exciting moment in his life.’

  ‘It’s a scandal,’ says young Sister Barton. ‘It’s me he wants to marry.’

  At the moment he seems to prefer Irene, and, breaking loose, plunges upon her. Heloise says, ‘He doesn’t level, you can’t really construe with him.’

  He is lifted off Irene, who demands a cigarette, and he is then consigned, still wishfully carolling, to the strong arms of Hadrian and Pablo.

  ‘Make it look like something,’ says Mr Samuel, training his camera. Immediately they open their mouths in laughter to combine with his, and group themselves on either side of him so that their restraining arms are concealed, only Hadrian’s arm of fellowship and Pablo’s congratulatory hand in the bridegroom’s being revealed. Mr McGuire’s bobbins whirl sportively while the scenes lasts.

  ‘Just hold him there,’ says Lister, ‘for a minute.’

  But now the captive has caught sight of the bride, tall, pink and plump, and indicates his welcome with a huge fanfare of delight, straining mightily towards her.

  ‘Reverend,’ says Miss Barton, ‘this is not proper. He’s had his injection and these girls are simply nullifying the effect. In his normal state he is very much attached to me.’

  ‘This bit of group-therapy,’ Lister tells her, ‘is precisely what he needs. Poor man, confined up there all the time with you!’

  ‘I am perplexed,’ says the Reverend. ‘I have to know which one he wants to marry.’ He smiles at the prisoner and says, ‘My boy, which of the ladies is your preference, if any?’

  The bridegroom gives a cunning heave, triumphantly dragging Pablo and Hadrian in the direction of Heloise who is now taking a light for a cigarette from Irene’s. He also spares a glance of beatitude for Eleanor, but continues to make for Heloise with determination.

  Lister says, ‘It’s Heloise, obviously.’ The storm beats on the windows and detonates in the park. The music comes to an end, causing him from the attic to crow and romp a little, and to touch the padlock of his zip lovingly.

  ‘He wants to take his clothes off,’ says Sister Barton. ‘Take care. He’s been known to do it.’

  ‘Who is the father of your child?’ says the Reverend desperately
to Heloise.

  ‘Well,’ says Heloise, taking a chair, ‘it isn’t born yet. Four months and a bit to go. Pablo was busy helping the Baron every evening at the time and Hadrian was off-duty. Mr Samuel and Mr McGuire were in the Baron’s team, too, following their respective professions. Then —’

  ‘The Baron?’ says the Reverend impatiently. ‘Don’t tell me he’s never attempted to exercise droits de seigneur, because Baron Klopstock was well known in his youth.’

  Lister says, ‘A pornophile, merely. Pornophilia does not make for fatherhood, Reverend. At least, in my experience, it doesn’t. Now, if the Baroness could have been the father in the course of nature she might have been, but the Baron, no.’

  ‘Let me see,’ says the Reverend, looking round the room. ‘Who does that leave?’

  ‘All the rest of them,’ says Heloise. ‘Let’s have some music.’

  ‘Someone from outside,’ says the Reverend.

  ‘Do you mean one of the guests at one of the banquets, Reverend?’

  ‘No, one of their private affairs, perhaps.’

  ‘Heloise was strictly on duty at the time,’ says Lister. ‘Very busy. The secretaries were fully occupied and there were no visiting cousins. You saw for yourself how it was the month of June. You were a constant visitor at large.’

  ‘Then it rests between Clovis, the poor boy Klopstock here, and you, Lister,’ says the Reverend, ticking them off again on his fingers while mentally going through the roll-call.

  Lister whispers in the Reverend’s ear.

  ‘Oh,’ says the Reverend. ‘Well it isn’t Clovis. That leaves you and the poor boy.’

  ‘I am enamoured to the brim with Eleanor,’ says Lister, ‘and her prayer-book carry-on.’

  ‘Lister,’ says Eleanor.

  ‘Eleanor,’ he says.

  ‘It’s got to be him in the attic,’ says Heloise. ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘It could only be him or the Reverend,’ Lister says.

  ‘Let us begin,’ says the Reverend. ‘Bring him over — carefully, carefully. He must stand here with the girl.’