Читать книгу The Last Bouquet: Some Twilight Tales - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Kezia Faunce lived very well at Stibbards. She had power, money, position, activities and leisure, and valued all these things exactly in that order.

There was no one to dispute her authority either in her own household or in the village; there was no fear of any contradiction either in her management of the Manor or in her general supervision of her poorer neighbours' affairs. She was charitable and even kind, for she felt these things to be virtuous and she had early set herself out to be virtuous. The fine Palladian Manor House, Tudor timber and bricks, re-fronted with eighteenth-century stone, classic portico and windows, was far too large for her, for she lived alone and seldom entertained. But she refused to shut up any of the rooms and the large staff of servants kept everything as precise and orderly as if the original number for which the house had been built still inhabited its spacious wings. And she filled her days that would otherwise have been sometimes empty and often lonely, by a minute supervision of all the details of her own household, by a close supervision of all the affairs of all her servants, tenants, and poorer neighbours.

For years she had led this active, authoritative life with no trouble save the annoying thought of Martha in Paris, and since she had been to Paris and seen Martha this thought had grown until it overspread all her days as a fungus will overspread a healthy tree, seizing on a speck of diseased wood and growing until there is no sap or vitality in root or branch, and, in the next Spring, no leaves are put forth.

There was no one to whom Kezia Faunce could speak of her sister, and therefore she brooded the more deeply day and night on that same personality that was at once so alien and so much part of herself, leading that other life so distant from her own, and yet very much a life that would have expressed something of herself that had never been expressed. It was not likely that she would ever see her again or that they would ever correspond. Some day she would read in the paper of the retirement or the death of Mme. Marcelle Lesarge; possibly of her marriage or her disappearance into a convent. There was only one thing that Mme. Lesarge, supposing that she ever looked at an English newspaper, could read of her, and that would be her death and her burial in the churchyard which was so near Stibbards and where every other Faunce lay and would lie, except Martha herself.

The estate would go to a distant cousin whose name was not Faunce, and Kezia's money would go to austere charities. And so the very existence of the two sisters would be, as it were, wiped off the earth. There would only be Kezia's name among all her ancestors in the English churchyard, and that assumed, false name of Marcelle Lesarge in some huge Parisian cemetery. And Kezia often wondered which of them would die first. Which would read the notice of the other's death in the paper? And what would it be like for her to realise that that other self of hers in Paris had ceased to exist, or for Martha to know that her second half which had stayed at home in Stibbards had left the familiar rooms empty?

Kezia Faunce tried, often enough, to analyse her feelings towards her sister, to get, as it were, to the very heart of this dull, envious hatred, but she could not. Whenever she tried to do so she became both confused and rebellious. She was quite sure that her scorn for Martha was sincere and that she despised the kind of woman that Martha was, and yet she was forced to admit that Martha had had a great deal that she would have liked to have had, experiences that she would have given much to have enjoyed, adventures that she would have delighted to have tested.

She believed that Martha felt much the same about her; surely she had seen regret and envy in those dark, painted eyes under the elegant little hat with the crimson ostrich feathers!

Martha had regretted, ah, surely, that she had forfeited her status as an English gentlewoman, that she had no part in Stibbards, and all that Stibbards meant. She had envied Kezia and the courage which had chosen the dull, monotonous way, the dignity that had clung to duty, the self-sacrifice, the austere decorum which would force even the most ribald and light-minded to respect Miss Kezia Faunce.

This obsession about Martha, which she had hoped a sight of her would efface, grew, on the contrary, from day to day, until it became almost unbearable.

'I suppose it will go on for years and years,' she thought, with a sense of panic, 'I used to think I saw her sitting at table with me, walking beside me in the garden, and even through the woods and the orchards; meeting me in the village and coming into my bedroom at night. But I always saw her as I remembered her—a young girl in a muslin frock, doeskin slippers, and long curls falling from under a chip straw bonnet. Well, I have got rid of that image, but it has been replaced by another. I see her now as I saw her in that detestable red plush and gilt drawing-room in the Paris hotel, in that vulgar interchangeable blue and red silk, in those diamonds—yes, I believe they were real—in that lace, I was sure it was genuine, on her bosom, with her hair dyed and her face painted, and the little hat with the crimson feather placed so elegantly on her curls; looking, I must confess, no more than thirty-five, and yet I thought that towards the end of the interview she looked as old as I do. Yes I see her like that now. It is quite unescapable. I don't know what I shall do. It must be some kind of an illness.'

And she wondered passionately if Martha were haunted by her, if Martha, at the theatre, in her choice little apartment, in her tilbury, driving in the Bois in the midst of her little supper parties, saw her, Kezia Faunce, in her plain frock, cut by a provincial dressmaker, with her grey hair in the chenille net, with her uncared-for complexion and dull eyes, with her keys at her waist, and her account or receipt book in her hand, going from still-room to closet, from kitchen to dairy, through all the handsome well-kept, unused rooms of Stibbards.

'It is grotesque, it is absurd.' With all the force of her strong mind she endeavoured to shake off the obsession, and threw herself with suppressed and burning energy into good works.

Her charities, always considerable, became lavish; she gave away blankets and coals, medicines and foods, until the vicar protested that she was spoiling his parishioners. She bought a new organ for the church, although she cared nothing about music, and she spent many hours on her knees in her high pew with the green curtains though she knew nothing about prayer.

She began several letters to her sister, formal epistles, asking after her health, and the drama that she was appearing in, and asking, vaguely, for news.

But she sent none of these.

Towards September she felt much more at ease and she began to think with a great thankfulness that the haunting, as she secretly named it to herself, had ceased. She could not, of course, forget Martha, but the figure of the actress became vague and blurred in her mind, and for hours together, when she was absorbed in some task or in some outside interest she would not think at all of the woman in the full, beruffled, interchangeable blue and red taffeta, in the little hat and the crimson feathers.

She began to cease wondering how Martha was employing her time, to cease turning over in her mind, so ignorant of such affairs, the possible various episodes of that alien yet closely connected life. She ceased to wonder and to brood over these coquetries, the wickednesses, the successes of Martha. She was soothed by a sense of being more fairly treated than she had hitherto been, for it had always seemed to her grossly unjust that she, the virtuous, the spotless, the irreproachable, should have been troubled in the slightest by any thought of the worthless, the degraded, the contemptible.

Surely the reward for her noble life of complete self-sacrifice should, at least, have been complete peace of mind.

'God,' she thought, 'should have seen to that.' And now she felt that He had done so, for when she did think of her sister it was in a vague, compassionate fashion. She would still wake up suddenly in the night, alert, and full of exasperation, expecting to be challenged by that thought of Martha. But now there would be emptiness, merely her large, handsome, silent bedroom with the harvest moon showing through the unshuttered windows, and a sense of security all about. She would think of Martha, certainly, but only of someone very far away who did not concern her in the least.

She would lie contentedly in the large bed considering her own possessions, Stibbards, full of her furniture, her silver, her pictures, her china; the stables, with her horses in them, the park full of her timber and sheep and cattle; her farms, well stocked, prosperous. All hers, glorifying her, supporting her, giving her honour, dignity and importance, while Martha had no part in any of them. Martha had run away from all this thirty years before, when she had gone through the garden perfumed by the early currants, and slipped away to her worthless young soldier, to whom she had not been for very long faithful.

In the first week of September, Miss Kezia Faunce superintended the making of pickles, sauces, and relishes from the early unripe fruit. Never yet, since as a girl of ten or so she began to help her mother in these domestic duties, had Miss Kezia missed the different picklings, preservings, jam and wine making as they came round at their several times of the year. The cupboards, closets, and presses of Stibbards were filled by the products of her industry; perfumes, lotions, preserves, balm, aromatics, sweet waters, washes, and confections, more than she would be able to use in the rest of her life, stood stocked in the darkness that they filled with a musty fragrance.

This year, when the last day of this work was over, Kezia Faunce felt suddenly tired, almost as if she were going to be ill. She walked out into the garden about the time of sunset in a lassitude that was too indifferent to seek rest. The evening was cloudless, overwhelming in spacious gold, the landscape was transfigured by the pure uninterrupted light of the western sun; the air was full of Autumn fragrances, and from the house came the mingled sour-sweet smell from the preserving-pans, still redolent of hot spices and sugared fruits.

The large house was silent, as if everyone rested after the day's labour. There was no one in the wide trim gardens but Miss Kezia Faunce herself. She wiped continually with a delicate handkerchief the last sparkles of sugar from her fingers. She felt a mingled sensation of excitement and apprehension, but she did not think of Martha at all. She went to the herb garden and noted how the various plants, hot and cold, moist and dry, were growing in the warm air. Everything grew well that year. It seemed as if there was going to be a splendid harvest of every kind of fruit, a thing that Miss Kezia Faunce could not remember having happened before—everything in fruitage at once. She found herself trembling and she sat down on the circular stone seat beside the great beds of thyme, rosemary, and lavender, all silver grey in that increasing golden light, for, as a lamp will flare up at the last before it goes out, so as the sun finally sank it seemed to give out a more powerful glow.

Miss Kezia Faunce thought that never before had she noted so much light. She sat there on the semi-circular stone seat, between those high, silver-grey plants of rosemary, lavender, marjoram; she felt her senses becoming slightly confused and she had a sensation of light-headedness, as she had often experienced before a severe thunderstorm. Her glance fastened on a large rose bush in the bed opposite, which looked unnaturally tall and seemed to have uncommonly large red thorns. There were no flowers now on this bush, but she knew that it bore crimson blooms, the last of which had fallen about a week ago.

She thought then, not definitely of Martha, but of a bill poster that she had seen stuck up on an ugly brick wall in Paris as she drove to the station. An actress with a nose and mouth something like her own, holding a large bouquet of crimson roses with a white paper frill. The garden seemed too large and the sky too vast, and the bright light of the sunset too overwhelming for Miss Kezia Faunce's senses.

She turned and walked back towards the house as one seeking a refuge. She had not quite reached the large terrace when she saw Sarah, the new kitchen-maid, coming hurriedly towards her.

Miss Faunce frowned. It was not part of Sarah's duties to run errands or take messages to her mistress and she certainly had no business to be in the garden in the print dress and the white apron, now slightly sticky, which she had worn to help in the pickling and the preserving.

Miss Kezia Faunce hastened her step with a rebuke ready on her lips, but what Sarah had to say was so curious that Miss Faunce forbore her reproof.

The little kitchen-maid, who spoke rather breathlessly, had, she said, been standing at the kitchen door scouring out the last of Cook's pots when she had looked up and seen a lady standing just before the square of potherbs. She had stared at Sarah, smiled, turned away without a word, and gone through the gate in the privet hedge towards the house. Sarah had run after her, but lost sight of her. Then, seeing Miss Faunce in the distance, she had thought that she should tell her of this stranger.

'What was there strange in it?' asked Miss Kezia quickly. 'It was some visitor who had lost her way and come to the side kitchen door instead of to the front entrance. I can't see anything peculiar about it, Sarah.'

'But she was so odd, ma'am, and not like anyone round here.'

'What was she like, child? Don't make so many words about nothing. What was this lady like?'

'She was very finely dressed, ma'am, and had a queer look of you.'

'A look of me? What do you mean, child? Express yourself better. Do you mean that she was like me?'

The kitchen-maid became confused under this severity.

'She was something like you, ma'am. I don't know. She made me think of you. She had a big nosegay in her hand.'

Miss Kezia's lips pinched themselves together.

'Run away and finish your duties, Sarah. This lady has no doubt gone into the house, where she is waiting for me.'

Dismissing the kitchen-maid, Miss Faunce continued her slow walk towards the terrace.

So, Martha had come to Stibbards. Now, why? And in what devilish mood of mockery and spite? Was she going to be married or to enter a convent? Was she at least leaving the stage and her disgraceful manner of life? Miss Kezia felt her thin cheeks flush. Martha had come, bringing with her the bouquet.

The last bouquet?

'She means to disgrace me, I suppose. To make a scandal and a talk all over the place. Perhaps she has lost all her money and may be dependent on me, after all.'

Her thoughts full of hate, Miss Kezia Faunce entered the house which seemed to her more than usually quiet. If Martha had left the side kitchen door and gone through the gate in the privet hedge and then been lost sight of by Sarah, she must have entered the house by the front door. So Miss Kezia Faunce went directly to that and looked in the hall.

This was empty.

'I suppose that she would, even after all these years, remember the place very well. She has probably gone to the green parlour, where she used to sit and do her lessons with Mamma.'

So Miss Faunce opened the door of the green parlour, a room that, though kept spotlessly clean, swept and dusted, had been long since shut up and disused. The slatted dark-green shutters were closed now and the strong last sunlight beating on them filled the room with a subdued glow, almost as if it were under water.

The walls were painted an old-fashioned, dull green; the carpet was green and so were the rich curtains, the damask covered chairs. Everything was the same as it had been when Martha and Kezia used to have their lessons there with their mother.

There was the desk at which they had worked, the piano at which they had practised, and on the walls still hung some of the water-colours of moss roses, birds' eggs in nests, and white rabbits which they had drawn and painted together.

The room smelt slightly of musk and Miss Kezia, whose mind was not working very alertly and who felt some vagueness over all her senses, thought:

'I must have the shutters opened tomorrow and a little sun and air let in. I had forgotten quite how long it was since the room was used.'

And then she saw Martha standing up close against an inner door, looking at her over her shoulder, holding rather stiffly in both hands, a large bouquet of crimson roses, exactly as she had held them in the poster which Miss Kezia had seen the day she drove to the railway station in Paris.

'Martha,' said Miss Faunce stiffly, 'so you've come home at last. To give me the bouquet?'

Still smiling and still without speaking, Mme. Marcelle Lesarge's delicately gloved hands held out the crimson bouquet.

Kezia Faunce took it, and as she did so all the roses turned to blood and emptied themselves into her bosom.