Читать книгу Suicide Excepted - Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark - Страница 13

The cousin with the taste for Press cuttings was as good as his word. Before he went to bed that night, Stephen was in possession of a thick, untidy volume, full of irregularly pasted extracts from publications of every kind. They began with snippets from school magazines, commemorating such earth-shaking events as that “Dickinson, mi., was a bad third” in the Junior Hundred Yards, and continued for a few pages to record the rare occasions when the doings of the owner or his family had escaped into print. “The short and simple annals of the obscure,” was Stephen’s comment as he fluttered the pages. It was not long before he came to the account of the tragedy at Pendlebury Old Hall, which absorbed more than twice as much space as the rest of the contents put together. With ghoulish assiduity the compiler had preserved every scrap of newsprint that contained any reference to the matter. Headlines and photographs, paragraphs short and long, all were fish for his net. The death of Mr. Dickinson, a respectable but not particularly noteworthy figure, had not, in fact, created much stir in the world, or occupied much room in the newspapers of the country, and most of the references were brief, although, when collected, they looked impressive enough. But it had evidently been an event of the first magnitude in the immediate neighbourhood of Pendlebury, and, as the owner of the book had said, the local Press had dealt with it thoroughly. By the time that he had finished reading its report of the proceedings, Stephen was confident that he knew as much about the affair as if he had been present at the inquest.

Stephen went up to his room very late that night. He had had a tiring day, and his researches had taken him a considerable time. None the less, he seemed even now strangely disinclined to go to bed. After wandering up and down the room for a short time, he sat down on a chair and lit a cigarette, frowning in an attempt at concentration. Had any observer been present, he would have seen a very different Stephen from the cocksure young man who over the coffee-cups had so blithely announced his intention of putting the insurance company in its place. This Stephen was anything but cocksure. On the contrary he was obviously acutely anxious, the observer might have even added nervous, at the prospect of the task which he now saw before him. At the same time, here was evidently a young man firmly determined in his mind on what he had to do. If he was different, he was certainly a more formidable person altogether.

The cigarette finished, he at last began to undress. He had propped the book of Press cuttings upon the chest of drawers, open at the report, and from time to time broke off his undressing to consult it again, as a fresh thought struck him. He was still half clad, poring over the book, when the door opened quietly. He looked up.

“Anne!” he exclaimed. “Why aren’t you in bed? Do you know what time it is?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I heard you moving about, so I knew you were still up.”

She came in and sat on his bed, swinging her pyjamaed legs meditatively backwards and forwards. Looking at her, Stephen wondered, not for the first time, whether Martin really knew just how lucky he was.

“Give me a cigarette,” she said.

He did so, and lit it for her in silence. The cigarette was half finished before she spoke again.

“Stephen.”

“Yes?”

“Look here, you meant what you said in the drawing-room after dinner, didn’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You still mean it?”

“Of course I do. Why shouldn’t I?”

“I dunno. You look so worried, that’s all.”

“Not surprising. I am worried. Hellishly.”

“Because of that?” She pointed to the open book upon the chest of drawers.

He nodded.

“But the verdict was wrong, wasn’t it?” she persisted.

“Yes. As wrong as wrong. We start from that, don’t we? But all the same, I’m damned if I can see what else they could have done on the evidence. Look here, for instance—”

“No, I don’t want to hear about it, not now. I shall have to some time, I suppose, if I’m to be any use to you. Only, Stephen, I wanted to be sure that you weren’t—weren’t weakening about it, that’s all.”

“Weakening? I like that! Not on your life!”

“That’s all right then.” She grinned suddenly. “You look quite the strong man, even in those awful pink underclothes of yours. So long as you’ve made up your mind that it’s worth going through with it—”

“I should damn’ well think it was! Do you realize just how badly off we are going to be if we don’t?”

“Oh, the money, yes! I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“Well, you can be pretty sure I was.”

“You always were keen on money, weren’t you, Stephen? Ever since we were tiny. That’s not what’s worrying me. It’s simply that I can’t stand the idea of people saying about Father—”

“What Uncle Edward calls the Stigma?”

“If you like—but it’s more than that, really. Oh, I can’t put it into words, but what I feel is that the poor old parent had a pretty rotten deal while he was alive, and it would help to make up a bit if we can stop people telling a lot of nasty lies about him now he’s dead. Make up to him, I mean. Does that sound awful rot to you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can’t help it if it does. I never thought you would understand. You see, I was really fond of Father, only he never gave me the chance of showing it, and you really hated him, and never had the smallest difficulty in showing it. That’s just the difference between us.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Stephen. “So far as my hating the old man is concerned, I mean. You’ve no right to say that.”

“I’m sorry, Stephen. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“I’ve got no feelings in the matter, one way or the other. I didn’t get on with Father, I agree, but no more did you. We don’t exactly seem to have a knack of getting on with our seniors. Look at Uncle Arthur, for example.”

“Uncle Arthur doesn’t count. He was a maniac. His will proves that. But Father was different. He did try to do his best for us, but always as if it went against the grain, somehow. And it wasn’t just us, either. He seemed to have a sort of grievance against life.”

“Exactly. That’s what the jury found, wasn’t it?”

“But he never ran away from life—that’s the point. And the less we succeeded in making him happy while he was alive, the greater our duty to—to—”

“To make him happy now he’s dead?” suggested Stephen with a yawn. “I’m sorry, Anne, but your doctrine of posthumous reparation does not appeal to me. Personally, I think that if he is conscious of anything at all, Father is probably rather glad to be dead, however in fact he came to die. Luckily, it doesn’t matter very much which of us is right.”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t. I wish we looked at things in the same way, though. It might make things easier.”

“My good girl, do be practical for once. We want the same thing, don’t we?”

“Yes. With me bent on clearing Father’s memory, and you with both eyes firmly fixed on the main chance, we ought to make a pretty strong team. Not to mention Martin.”

“Yes, of course,” said Stephen carelessly. “I was forgetting him.”

“Well, please don’t forget him in future, that’s all.” Anne’s voice had suddenly taken on a dangerously hard quality. “I’ve no doubt you’d like to if you could.”

Stephen knew perfectly well that the one way to precipitate a quarrel with his sister was to cast any aspersions on the man upon whom she had chosen, for reasons which he could not understand, to fix her affections. He was, moreover, desperately sleepy and longing for bed. He had, therefore, every reason to make some soothing reply and get Anne out of the room as quickly as possible. But some imp of perversity made him reply, instead:

“I’m not likely to have much chance with you about, am I?”

The mischief was done. Anne’s slumberous brown eyes lit up for battle, her cheeks glowed, her chin was thrust forward.

“Why,” she began, “why are you always so perfectly beastly about Martin?”

Too late, Stephen saw his danger.

“I’m not, really I’m not,” he protested feebly.

“Yes, you are, always. If you’re not, why don’t you sometimes tell me you like him?”

“But I do like him. I can’t always keep saying it can I? I—I admire him in lots of ways. Only ...”

Fatal word.

“‘Only!’ That’s just it. That’s always it where Martin’s concerned. ‘Only’ what, may I ask?”

Stephen’s temper took command.

“Only that I don’t happen to think he’s the right sort of man to make you happy, that’s all.”

“For God’s sake don’t talk like a good brother in a Victorian novel! It doesn’t suit you in the least. Why can’t you say what you mean?”

“I’ve said exactly what I mean, so far as I am aware.”

“No, you haven’t. You’ve simply hinted at it. What you mean is that you think Martin is a—what’s your choice word for it?—a womanizer.”

“Since you insist on introducing the subject, I do.”

“Well, please understand once for all that Martin and I have absolutely no secrets from each other on that subject or any others. I don’t care what his murky past may have been. If you’re such a beastly little puritan as to object to someone for having sown a few wild oats, I’m not.”

Stephen’s fatal weakness for scoring a verbal point betrayed him once more.

“The trouble with these people who sow their wild oats,” he said in his most aggravating manner, “is that they’re apt to have a grain or two left in odd corners of the sack when you think it’s empty. As you may discover in due time.”

“I suppose I’m to consider that witty,” retorted Anne. “But if you imagine ...”

From this point the quarrel degenerated into a mere schoolroom brawl, in which nothing was too sacred, nothing too trivial, to be snatched up as a weapon in the fight. The armoury of old grudges and grievances that every family keeps stored away somewhere was ruthlessly exploited by both sides. At one point Stephen was pointing out to Anne that she had hopelessly lost her nerve the year before during the descent of the Rimpfischorn, and was being reminded in turn how he had been caught cheating at cards at a children’s party twelve years ago. At another, Anne got in a vicious blow by recalling the fatal misconduct by which her brother had finally alienated the affections of Uncle Arthur, and Stephen, white with rage at the mention of the unmentionable, retorted by disinterring her appalling faux pas at her coming out party. And on and on the battle raged, with the name of Martin recurring again and again to provide fresh fuel for fury when the flames showed signs of being exhausted.

“As I happen to be in love with Martin, and he with me—”

“How do you know he is in love with you, and not simply the money he thought you’d get?”

“Simply because you’re incapable of loving anything except money, you imagine that everybody’s like you!”

“Well, if he’s as fond of you as all that, why did he shirk coming out to Switzerland with us? Or was he afraid of climbing?”

“You know as well as I do that he’d have come if he could. It was simply that he couldn’t get away.”

“Very likely! I wonder how he was amusing himself—and who with?”

“I’m not going to answer your beastly insinuations. For that matter, why did you come out three days later than you said you would, and leave me hanging about at the hotel by myself after Joyce had had to go home? A lot you cared!”

“I’ve explained to you already that I couldn’t help it. My firm asked me to go specially to Birmingham because their accountant was ill and—”

“Yes, you’ve explained it already. I’m sick of your filthy accountant at Birmingham, if there is one. Then why couldn’t you have come by air instead of wasting time in a train?”

“If you think I’m going to waste money on aeroplanes to suit your convenience ...”

And so on.

“Anyhow,” Anne said some time later, “Martin is in this with us, whether you like it or not. And you can just lump it!”

“Of course he’s in it. He knows which side his bread is buttered. Has it occurred to you, in all your highfalutin reflections, that our collecting the boodle may make quite a difference to your chances of getting married?”

“Yes, it has occurred to me. I’m not quite a fool.”

“You relieve my mind. Perhaps you remember also that one of the few things Father and I agreed on was that he couldn’t stand the idea of Martin as a son-in-law at any price?”

“I dare say it was. But it’s not the least good your thinking you can play the heavy father with me, because it won’t work.”

“I’m not going to. All I say is, that putting those two things together, namely, that Father wouldn’t help you to marry while he was alive and that you can’t afford to marry unless you collect your share of the insurance money, it seems to me a nauseating hypocrisy for you to pretend not (a) that you lament his death as a terrible blow, and (b) that your only interest in upsetting this verdict is ...”

But Anne did not wait for the end of her brother’s carefully polished period. Getting off the bed she stalked to the door with as much dignity as her dressing-gown allowed.

“You make me sick,” she observed crisply, as she went out.

Thereafter these two highly intelligent, deeply affectionate, grown-up young persons went at last to bed, to wake next morning feeling more than a little ashamed of themselves.