Читать книгу The Sea Tower - Hugh Walpole - Страница 11

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Mrs. Field was born Elizabeth Clowes on January 29th, 1874. Her father, Mr. Stephen Clowes, was a successful solicitor in Polchester. Bessie Clowes’ memory went back as far as perhaps her second year when her stout, rubicund, bewhiskered papa sat, with his legs spread and his stomach protruding, throwing her into the air and catching her again. Although now sixty-three years of age, Bessie Clowes remembered perfectly the whiskers, the warm thighs, the rocketing laugh, the thick heavy hands that pinched her legs. She remembered also that she was not, in the very slightest degree, frightened—for how could she be? She adored her father and he adored her. So far as she could tell, in the innocence of her childhood, she was the only person who counted for anything in his life. Grown to full age, her dear father dead, she understood that there had been ‘ladies.’ Her father had in fact a Polcastrian reputation as ‘gay.’ It was true enough that he loved his little daughter, just as it was also true that he despised his wife and never even considered Bessie’s younger sister Matty. Matty was a weak, colourless little thing, always eager to please; it is to be feared that her sister Bessie tyrannized over her from the very first—bullied her also a little.

In any case from the very earliest years Bessie Clowes learned to despise women. Her mother seemed to her a weak poor creature. In aspect she was thin, ringleted, pale-faced. And, although she said nothing to anyone about it, she was always in pain.

Bessie could not have been more than seven or eight when, one day at dinner her father saying to her mother: ‘Pooh, Marianne, mind your own business,’ the child beat with her fists on the table: ‘You shan’t speak to my mother so,’ but, even while she defended her mother, looked at her contemptuously for submitting with such meekness.

And, although she rated him for it, she worshipped her father’s haughtiness, intolerance, loud laughter, physical energy. Bessie Clowes does not, possibly, sound a very charming little girl. She was not, however, uncharming. She was self-willed but not mean. Her father spoiled her, but she loved him. She despised her mother and sister, but was often kind and generous to them. She had no small faults. She demanded to have her own way, but she could love passionately, give generously, behave fearlessly. When she was sent to the girls’ school at the top of Orange Street, on the opposite side from the Church, she was, at first, most unpopular and spent her entire time in fighting, raging, being punished and, in private, crying herself sick for her father.

The girls at once discovered that she lost her temper in a moment and that the simplest way to rouse it was to laugh at her small stature. She was nicknamed Mrs. Tom Thumb. During all this time of persecution she murmured no word of it to her father.

‘Are you happy, my love?’

‘Oh yes, papa. Of course I’m happy.’

Then public opinion changed. It was discovered that Bessie Clowes was no coward, that she played games well, that she was not a sneak, that she was a good capable leader. She soon had much authority in the school. She made, however, no intimate friends and none of the mistresses liked her. She too plainly scorned them all.

Her love for her father grew into a passion so all-devouring that it tortured her. He, busy with affairs, both public and private, being a man who in any case thought of himself so persistently that he saw everyone—wife, children, mistress, friends, clients—as through a glass darkly, realized his little daughter’s love now chiefly as a pleasant tribute to himself. Because he liked everything feminine—except his wife and younger child—he enjoyed kissing his little Bessie, feeling, with his large hand, the rapid beating of her heart, holding her close to his solid thumping chest. He was as fond of her perhaps as of any human being save himself.

But when one morning he was found dead in his bath of heart failure Bessie was, for a while, herself desperately ill. No one knew what was the matter. They had always said that she was a ‘hard’ child. They added now, rather grudgingly, that ‘she must be grieving for her father.’

Quite suddenly she was ill no longer. She was strong, reserved, hard, a woman. She was seventeen years of age and the year was 1891.

She quickly took a prominent place in the little Polchester world. She dressed to suit her figure, very plainly and a thought old-fashioned. She refused the extravagances of the large hats, the puffed sleeves, the pinched waists. Her mother died; Bessie and Matty lived in a pretty house with a walled garden near the Cathedral. They had ample means, for Mr. Clowes had left a considerable fortune. Bessie was on intimate terms with the Cathedral set, Archdeacon Brandon and other important men. Indeed she always preferred the company of men and was considered by other Polchester ladies rather daring in the things that she would say and hear. She was, in fact, something of a ‘character.’

She studied herself closely and without any sentimental bias in her own favour. She knew that a deep spiritual blow had been dealt to her by her father’s death, but a more serious blow followed when, in the passing of time, she learnt his true character. Gossip, then letters and documents accidentally discovered in a drawer, proved to her that he had been dishonest in business and lecherous in morals. His adventures in love had been for the most part conducted out of Polchester, largely in Drymouth. He was a very prudent man. One bundle of letters, every word of which she read, were of the grossest indecency. Here he had not been so prudent.

She did not, however, after these discoveries, disown him. She befriended him in her mind and even wished that, while he had lived, he had been in serious trouble, so that he might have come to her for help. She considered the women whom he had loved fortunate, and at the same time despised them for their weakness and was jealous of them for the intimacy that they must have shared with him.

She also obtained from these letters a rooted hatred of sexual adventure. At the same time she longed fiercely for the emotions that she had known for her father. She had a passion within her like a fire, but not a sexual passion. She longed to have someone of her own, someone whom she might possess and love and never let go.

Because she had means, proposals of marriage were made to her. All of them seemed to her ridiculous. Of all the men in the town she admired the most Archdeacon Brandon because he was a tyrant and a despot. Had he been a bachelor she would gladly have married him although he was so much older than herself—married him and then possessed him. When she was not crossed she was kindly, gentle and generous. Her sister was, of course, her slave and worshipped her. She knew her own faults: her temper, her imperiousness, her desire to possess, and she had no great conceit. She was, however, altogether unaware of one very serious lack: she had no sense of humour either about herself or anyone. When people laughed she laughed too, but never knew at what they were laughing unless it were at some obvious physical awkwardness. She was deeply conscious of her own small stature and fiercely sensitive to any allusion to it. She knew that herself and her sister were called ‘the little Miss Clowes’.’

She was lacking in all aesthetic sense and like others in the same case was, on the whole, pleased about it. She liked a picture to tell a story, music to have an obvious tune, a book ‘to have a good plot’—but the arts did not concern her. Artists who were unsuccessful she thought ridiculous; when they made money she ‘wondered how they did it.’ If she met one she regarded him with quizzical kindness and expected him to behave oddly in some way.

Then, at long last, appeared Archer Field. She might have met him years before, because he had always lived at Scarlatt, which was not very far from Polchester. When she met him he was handsome and energetic. He came for some Christmas dance in Polchester and was at once attracted by the little neat girl, her hair parted down the middle, in a plain white dress. He called her ‘the Quakeress’ and, being clever, well-read and ‘Ninetyish, considered that there must be plenty of sensuality under that ordered demureness. He danced with her during most of the evening and only at the close discovered her identity. When he heard that she had money he was pleased.

On her side she really fell in love with his good looks. Then it was time that she should marry. She liked the idea that she should be mistress of an estate. It would be pleasant to live on the sea and yet be near Polchester. Archer Field was bold and a little impertinent. It pleased her to think that she would tame him.

So she married him and took Matty with her to live at Scarlatt. Here she was happy and contented, and, for a year or two, as agreeable and good-natured a woman as you would find anywhere in England. There was plenty to be done at Scarlatt and she found a man, Morgan, to manage the estate. Archer protested, but she persuaded him that he would be much happier in his library arranging his books. She dominated him at first by treating his physical ardours with a tolerant elusiveness. His embraces were to her those of a beseeching child. She surrendered to him as a mother allows her infant to disturb her hair or dress. Side by side with Morgan she gained complete possession of everything and everybody. Morgan, who was a capable rogue, thought her a fine woman, and, out of sheer admiration of her character, was honest for longer than he had ever been before.

Then, after three years of marriage, Congreve was born. In a moment everything was changed. She had a difficult delivery but triumphed in the pain; she had known for nine long months what a glory was coming to her.

At the hour of Congreve’s birth her husband ceased to have any meaning for her. With the first tug of the child at her breast she was a sanctified woman. She knew for what she herself had been born.

Congreve was a delicate baby and needed much care. His mother fiercely willed it to live and soon it looked to her for every source of vitality.

Two years later Joe was born, this time a lusty squalling fighting baby and at first rebellious. This rebellion delighted its mother and she fought it every inch of the way. As the boys grew she became the only figure in their lives. They disregarded their father from the very first.

Joe was her kind. He was gay, matter-of-fact, physically strong, handsome. Congreve was very different. He was more feminine, given to moods, silences, noticing lights and colours, disliking rough behaviour and loud voices, deeply sensitive, walking by himself. But she did not know which she loved the better.

Because Congreve was difficult and strange she was gentle with him, would read to him, until she could have cried with boredom, bought him picture-books and his first paint-box. She was proud of him for being ‘different,’ and when Archer once, in a temper, said that he was more like a girl than a boy, she rated him for a fool and asked whether he did not know that all men who had ever amounted to anything had had much of the feminine in their temperament. She rejoiced that her two boys were so different. It would have been dull had they both been alike. With Joe she was a straightforward friend and companion and soon he came to her for everything.

Archer made what seemed to him a vigorous attempt to regain his relationship with her. But he had nothing with which to hold her. He threatened physical infidelity and she laughed. He attempted to practise it but had not the temperament. He said he would manage the place and would dismiss Morgan, but he was, by now, too lazy. He was still in love with her because he had never possessed her, and so, because he wanted what he would now never obtain, she sapped his vitality.

A day came when the two small boys were lost. They had escaped their governess, the stupid Miss Hart, and wandered to some distant beach. Bessie Field knew a terror and a horror on that dreadful afternoon that showed her something of the passion that possessed her. The boys, when they were found, were frightened at the loss of her as desperately as she had been frightened by the loss of them. They clung to her for weeks after, as though, without her, there was no meaning in life.

They were now charming little boys, both good-looking in their different ways. She became their absolute friend and companion. She had never to punish them, for one sign of her displeasure and they quaked for fear: fear, not because they were afraid of her, but because they hated to give her pain. No wonder that they loved her! She saw to it that every facet of their personalities was fed by her and by her alone. She was a different person with each. Congreve liked to tell her of his dreams, imaginings, visions. She listened with sweetness and patience. Privately she thought them baby-nonsense but was assured that he would grow out of them. Joe was quite different. He liked the companionship of other boys and she saw that he had it. Whenever there was an especially foolish mother in the district she invited her, with her children, to Scarlatt. When Joe had his first fight with little Paul Hamley of Bassett, two years older than Joe, was his mother not proud? He was awarded his first bicycle for this.

The brothers were never great friends with one another. Congreve was fiercely jealous of his brother, and sometimes Mrs. Field was most loving to Joe only in order that she might see that flash in Congreve’s eye and his pale cheek flush.

The time came when she must face the problem of school and here she gave herself some sharp, honest, deep self-examination. About Congreve she felt no uneasiness, but Joe, she knew, ought to go to boarding-school. He was exactly the boy for a boarding-school, strong, sturdy, fearless, rejoicing in games and all outdoor exercises. She saw herself with the utmost clarity. She knew that she would be doing her son a wrong if she kept him at home. Without any compunction she kept him at home.

She engaged for them a tutor and this strange young man influenced the boys’ development very considerably. He was called Tatham Flutley, an absurd name and an absurd creature. He was fat and flabby like an unhealthy potato. He was not over cleanly. He was effeminate in voice and movement. But he was just what Mrs. Field wanted. He became, at once, her fellow-conspirator. At first sight of her he seemed to understand everything. It was as though he had said, with one wave of his lackadaisical flabby hand: ‘Mrs. Field, I understand perfectly. Nothing matters in life to you but your two boys. And we must see to it that nothing matters to them but yourself.’

He was a mysterious creature. He wrote for his own pleasure and showed no one what he wrote. He was so very clever that Mrs. Field could not understand why he was only a tutor. She asked him one day. He replied: ‘I have no ambitions. Why should one have? Everything is so very ridiculous.’ He had a strange power over the two boys. Although he hated exercise, and never played a game in his life, loathed to bathe in the sea or trust himself to a boat, yet Joe respected him. He did exactly what was intended; he strengthened in every possible way their absorption in their mother. It was as though with his fat ugly hands he thrust them further and further inside her spiritual being.

One day he said to her:

‘Mrs. Field, if I’m impertinent tell me so.’

‘I certainly will,’ she answered.

‘Tell me one thing.’

‘What is it?’

‘When the boys grow up and find their own lives what will you do?’

‘Really,’ she said, grinning at him. ‘Do you think I don’t love them enough to be unselfish?’

He nodded his head. ‘Yes. Of course.’ He looked at her exactly as though the two of them had just sworn an oath together.

By this time she was a mature, settled, assured middle-aged woman. She dominated everything in Scarlatt completely. She was known in the neighbourhood, in spite of her small stature, as Boadicea. She had made herself a ‘character,’ already wearing her black dress with white collar and cuffs, a sort of uniform. Morgan had been replaced by an excellent man, Santley. Santley was admirable but did not yield to her quite as Morgan had done. She was never sure whether he admired her or no. The first crisis with her boys arrived when she discovered Joe, in the vegetable garden, kissing the little kitchen-maid. For a swift moment she hated the little kitchen-maid so deeply that she could have struck her dead there and then among the cabbages. She was, however, quiet and restrained. She discovered that both the boys had confused ideas about their sexual nature, so she quietly instructed them. From that time her personality, her love for them, her wishes dominated their sexual instincts.

During the remaining two or three years of their boyhood she knew once again a happiness similar to the first years of her marriage. The three of them were wrapt away from the rest of the world. She was so kindly and gentle to everyone that the world wondered.

Joe was much with Santley and discovered a natural talent for estate management. He adored his home and his mother. He wanted nothing else. Unlike Congreve, however, he was aware of the attraction of healthy young women, and healthy young women were aware of him, for he was handsome and strong.

Congreve cared nothing for women but was determined to be a great artist. His mother allowed him to go to London and study. As she watched the train that contained him steam out of Polchester tears dimmed her eyes. She knew her blissful years were ended. It was her first test. She was certain, however, of victory. Like many another she believed in God when she needed Him. Now she prayed:

‘Oh, God, bring Congreve back and keep him here safe with me for ever.’ And: ‘Oh, God, if Joe must marry, make him marry someone I can love who will live with him here in peace for ever.’

By ‘someone I can love’ she meant someone who would surrender to her love just as her sons had done.

God heard her first prayer, for, after two years and a one-man show, Congreve returned. He had been back, of course, for holidays before. He meant this return to be a holiday too, but his mother built him a studio. He stayed three months, six months, a year. He could not leave her.

Joe’s difficulties were other. He was healthy, vigorous, a strong animal. He could not altogether sublimate his passions. She decided that he must marry and proceeded to select a bride for him. This was not easy. She searched Polchester and the neighbourhood, but the submissive girls he would not care for and the independent girls would not do. She found a handsome girl, daughter of one of the Polchester canons. Her name was Katherine Heron. She spent some weeks at Scarlatt and at first it seemed that all was well. It was clear, although she was proud and carried her head high, that she was deeply in love with Joe. Joe was beginning to care for her. All that was needed was that she should care for Joe’s mother. Mrs. Field gave her all her affection. She poured out her charm. She subdued her possessive mastery.

Then quite unexpectedly one evening Katherine Heron said: ‘Why don’t you let Congreve go and paint in London?’

‘Oh, my dear, he doesn’t want to.’

‘He soon won’t want to if you don’t let him go. And then he’ll become a rotten painter. And then he’ll be nothing at all. It would do Joe good, too, to get away for a bit.’

Mrs. Field, her fingers trembling a little on her lap, said: ‘My dear, I think you must let their mother judge....’

‘Why? They’re not children!’

There was an eloquent silence and then Katherine Heron, who was accustomed to say what she thought, burst out:

‘Oh, Mrs. Field! I am so sorry.... Have I been tactless? I’m always interfering.... Do forgive me!’

Katherine Heron went back to Polchester and was seen at Scarlatt no more. But, a little later, Joe sitting beside his mother, her hand in his, she said:

‘Joe, I want to ask you something.’

‘Yes, mother.’

‘Do you think I absorb you and Congreve too much? Do I prevent your doing what you want? I love you so dearly that it’s a little difficult for me to see fairly. Tell me honestly.’

He put his arm around her and drew her closer to him.

‘Darling mother! Of course not.’

‘No. But let’s not be sentimental. Be honest. Are you happy? Have you the kind of life you want?’

‘Happy! I should say so! I’ve everything in the world—the place I love best, work I care for, and you! I don’t suppose there’s such a lucky man anywhere!’

They kissed.

‘Yes, but you’ll marry one day. You must. It’s right. I want to be a grandmother.’

‘Oh, there’s plenty of time for that. Of course I like women. It’s only natural. But there’ll never be any woman to compare with you! I don’t know how it is, but when I’m away from you I’m restless, uncomfortable....’

However, he was also a little restless with her. She couldn’t but notice it. So she ventured on Test Number Two. She sent Joe to London for three months. She had no doubt of the result. His letters to her proved it. He was enjoying himself, the lectures were interesting.... He had met a wonderful agriculturist called ... He had had a most amusing night at the theatre.... ‘All the same, mother, I doubt whether I shall last the three months. I miss Scarlatt like hell. I’m always turning round wanting to tell you things and you are not there.... The fact is, mother, I miss you damnably and your photograph on my mantelpiece isn’t enough....’ Then came the letter announcing his engagement.

This, she knew at once, was a blow comparable only to the death of her father. The letter had come with the second post and the little pile was handed to her by Simpson as she sat at table with Archer, Congreve and the Captain.

‘Second post. It’s late. Nothing for you, Captain.... Ah, a letter from Joe!’

She tore it open eagerly, a smile on her lips. A snapshot fell out on to the tablecloth and lay there disregarded.

‘... She is lovelier than anyone you ever saw.’ (Dear Joe! not very clever of him!) ‘I’m sending you a picture.... Of course it’s only a snapshot.’

She picked it up and looked. One of Christina standing on the little lawn in front of the house, laughing, holding a biscuit up for a puppy.

Mrs. Field smiled on them all.

‘Great news. Joe is engaged.’

It was at the Captain that, for an instant, she looked. He was the most penetrating. He would understand. What was he doing there anyway? She felt a sudden rage against him. She had met him in Polchester six months before, asked him to stay for a week-end. Joe had taken a liking to him. She herself had been amused by him, enjoyed her power over a man so animal and masculine. If he wished to stay, why not? She slowly mastered him. He became weak and lazy under her force even as her husband had become weak and lazy.

But now in a flash she realized (because she was indeed no fool) that you never get anything for nothing and that the Captain’s surrender to her had given him a knowledge of her that bound them together. He saw instantly what this news meant to her.

They had all cried out: ‘Joe engaged! Whoever to? Who is she? What’s she like?’

The snapshot was passed round.

‘By Jove, she’s lovely! ... Joe’s a lucky fellow. He’ll be bringing her here!’

‘They’re to be married at once,’ Mrs. Field went on. ‘Then he’ll bring her down here.’ Her voice was steady and calm.

‘That’s a bit hole-and-corner, isn’t it?’ Archer Field said. ‘Why can’t they have a decent wedding here?’

‘I don’t know. You must ask Joe.’

Yes, that was the worst blow of all. They were to be married at once. Was Joe afraid lest she should prevent the wedding? Was it the girl’s influence? The girl ... the girl ... Christina ... Christina....

All that night she lay awake. She called all the resources in her nature to her aid. After all only the inevitable had happened. She had known that Joe would marry. She had herself urged him to do so. The hurt, the dreadful hurt, was that he had chosen his wife without consulting her. He had been thrown, she could tell, completely off his centre. She had not been there to hold him steady. That the girl was beautiful she could see from the photograph. She was very young. She would be very easily influenced. Mrs. Field sat up in bed, listened to the sea crooning, as it seemed, submissively at her feet. There ought to be no trouble about the girl.

When she saw Christina she realized instantly that the snapshot had done her poor justice. She was the most beautiful human being Mrs. Field had ever seen, and with that realization came the queerest mixture of feeling: pride that Joe had won a creature so lovely, fierce jealousy and a stirring, wounding fear. It was not only that the girl’s body was of perfect grace, her fair colour shaded and blended to an exquisite gradation of pale gold, ivory shadow, faint rose, but that in her eyes and mouth there was much sweetness and in her forehead a grand honesty. Mrs. Field realized all these things. As she kissed the child she thought: ‘You shall be mine.’

Those first days were strange indeed. She loved her, she feared her, she hated her, she was compassionate for her youth, tender for her child-like submission, jealous of her love for Joe and Joe’s for her. She knew that there was power here. The girl was no nonentity. She would not easily be subdued.

Then came the laugh. Mrs. Field had been hurt, and rightly so, at Joe’s brushing past her with not so much as a good-morning. She was not only hurt; she was in a raging temper. She had long ago learnt that it was in her nature to have raging tempers, and that raging tempers put one at a disadvantage. Indulged, they weakened power, authority. Therefore when the temper uncoiled in her, like a snake raising its cold and scaly head, she drove it down. It was still there. It coiled, its tongue flicking, its eyes on the watch. Controlling it, she assumed a fine and commanding austerity. In fact she sulked imperiously. She had learnt long ago that these grand silences disturbed everyone around her. People hated them like hell and anyone who loved her would do anything to shift her into kindliness again. Wisely she did not apply them often—only when the thing that she really wanted to do was to stamp, shout and tear someone’s hair. As she sat there in regal majesty she enjoyed the contrast of her icy indifference and imprisoned fury. There was a consciousness, too, of a poor little girl vilely illtreated. She thought of her father and of how angry he would be to see her treated so. She was sorry for herself and proud of herself. She was altogether tremendous. And then the girl laughed.

Later on that same afternoon, she came into the drawing-room where Christina and the Captain were waiting for tea. She had a son on either side of her. Her arms were round their waists.

She smiled upon them all.

‘Tea ready? Splendid! You pour out, Christina dear. There! ...’ She seated herself. ‘Thank you, darling.... Yes, Joe dear, a scone. And a little blackberry jam. Now you are here, Christina, I can begin to be the old lady I really am.’