Читать книгу Blencarrow - Isabel Mackay - Страница 6

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There were several show places in Blencarrow, notably the residence of Mr. Joseph Tiddy, but the Fenwell house held the distinction of being the town’s only curiosity. It was not so much a house as a half-house, the front half being non-existent save as a tracing on a blue-print. The back half, arrested abruptly in its normal growth, had remained fixed, as by some strange enchantment, in all the ugliness of outraged proportion. At first, scaffolds had decorated it, but, bit by bit, the scaffolding had disappeared and nothing had taken its place. No steps below, or eaves above, broke the wide flatness of its face. The front door was not properly a front door, but a door leading into a hallway that was not there. The windows were not windows really, but glassed-in entrances to dining-rooms and drawing-rooms—which lived and had their being in a fourth dimension.

Upstairs—that is, upstairs in the blue-print—there had been three bedrooms, two small and one large, and a wide hallway into which the hallway already existent would have opened. This accounted for one of the principal oddities of this odd house—a door in the centre of the second story which opened out upon nothing. Because it had been temporary once, and equally because it had become permanent now, this door had never been provided with a balcony or ledge. Any one attempting to take advantage of its purposes as a door would have walked unhindered into thin air.

Besides being of no shape, the Fenwell house was of no colour either. One does not paint a half-house and one cannot paint a whole house which isn’t there. This is logic, and what was true of the paint was true of all those other finishings to which well-built-up houses are accustomed. Of these deficiencies the house itself seemed shamedly aware. It stood well back in its neglected garden, the ghost of something once new and fresh and promising. On its strange, flat face was a negation of all hope. It was a house which had given itself up.

Blencarrow had given it up also. While the scaffolding still stood, Blencarrow had pointed it out to strangers as ‘the unfinished Fenwell place.’ But this they did no longer, for a thing which never will be finished is the most finished thing of all.

Only in the mind of one man did the house still live as a house and not as an abortion; and this man was its owner, Gilbert Fenwell. Blencarrow was well aware of this absurdity, since Gilbert, when he was ‘well soaked,’ had no secrets from any one. On these occasions he boasted and, as he boasted, the house he had never built grew and took on form and comeliness, and, if thoughts are things, became as much a reality as Joseph Tiddy’s residence or the Town Hall. This, Blencarrow found amusing, especially, when rumour added that the upstairs door, which led into the atmosphere, had to be kept locked lest some night Gilbert’s thought might take a fancy to sleep in one of its large front rooms, and the triumph of matter over mind be unpleasantly demonstrated.

There were not wanting persons of philosophic mind in Blencarrow who saw some analogy between Gilbert Fenwell and his house. These were mostly old folk who remembered his father. They would tell you, shaking their heads, that, of all strange things, inheritance, or the lack of it, is the strangest. How old Colonel Fenwell could have had a son like Gilbert was ‘a teaser.’ True, the Colonel had been no farmer and his goodly acres had wasted under his untutored care, but even Blencarrow would admit that this might be a misfortune, not a fault. True, also, the Colonel had been a hard drinker, but what could you expect in a day when every one drank hard? Besides, the Colonel always carried his liquor like a gentleman. And if he drank hard he worked hard, too—worked hard and lived straight and never blamed others for his own mistakes. Not a bad sort of father, take him all round, but—look at his son!

Proceeding to look at the son, Blencarrow found little worth looking at. Even the earliest accounts of Gilbert held little that was good—if one excepts good looks. He had been a headstrong boy, idle, mischievous, subject to strange rages. Sent early to school in England, bad reports of his school life had culminated in a sudden return which challenged gossip. Development, plainly, had not meant improvement. The unmanageable child had grown into an irresponsible youth. Handsome and reckless and lazy, he was utterly out of place in a growing community which had no use and small patience for wasters.

Yet, in those earlier days, there had been those who believed that young Fenwell was worth watching. ‘The lad has good blood, he may go far,’ they said. Wilder young sprigs than he had been known to settle down. Women, especially, believed this. The younger Fenwell was effective with women. His way with them was never to offer any excuse. They might take him or leave him—and he was very seldom left. If he were to marry well, they agreed, it would make all the difference. And they saw to it that he did not lack for opportunity. Can you blame them for a revulsion of feeling when these opportunities were one and all neglected?

Barely a year after the old Colonel’s death, Gilbert had married, but his bride had not been chosen from the eligible maidens of the countryside. In this, as in everything else, he had followed a wavering fancy, choosing, to fill his mother’s place, a young woman of whom nobody in Blencarrow had ever heard. This, of course, in a Pickwickian sense, for the new Mrs. Fenwell was not quite so unknown as all that. She had been, so Blencarrow understood, a lady companion to old Mrs. Danvers, being herself a distant relative of the Danvers family (one of whom had regrettably married a person of foreign blood). This accounted for her artistic tendencies and for the fact that she had been educated for the concert stage until some throat trouble had made a singer’s life impossible.

This marriage, so unexpected, struck the first blow at Gilbert’s brief prestige. Being no longer eligible he ceased to be interesting. Those who had credited him with a touch of genius became increasingly doubtful. But the few who had his interests really at heart felt that now, if ever, he would have his chance. With a young wife to provide for and with the old Colonel’s affairs in a sad muddle, Gilbert might brace up. Faced with the alternatives of work or poverty, he must show the sturdy material of which he was made. And for a time it looked as if he might do so. The farm sold for a surprisingly good figure and a legacy from an uncle in England lent its timely assistance. With some small blowing of trumpets, Gilbert entered the world of business, and accurate knowledge of his affairs passed beyond Blencarrow’s ken.

These were the days when the financial world talked in whispers of Big Business. Gilbert Fenwell talked of it, too—and not in whispers. Then he began to build his house. It was to be—he made no secret of it—a very fine thing as houses go. Something to which the Town might point with pride—while naturally not expecting its owner to spend much of his time in it. Big Business gravitates to cities and Gilbert’s affairs took him very often far afield. They were connected largely with companies represented by new and gorgeous offices and attractive stationery.

Then, without warning, work on the new house stopped. Gilbert, it was understood, felt that, after all, a house in Blencarrow might be a mistake. He might have to move to the city at any time. Big Business demanded a man’s whole attention. Blencarrow, somewhat awed, suspended judgment.

The fates were not so kind. Their judgment was swift and their verdict final. They did not seem to bother over Gilbert Fenwell at all, but wiped him off the financial map as carelessly as a child rubs out a name upon a slate. Down from the blue he came like the stick of a skyrocket. No one seemed to know exactly what happened, except that, abruptly, Gilbert was back in Blencarrow, having left most of his money and all of his reputation behind him.

For some years he had muddled along, living with his wife and baby girl in the unfinished house. Trying one thing after another, in a constantly descending scale, he antagonized every one by a pride of manner equalled only by a poverty of everything else. He drank heavily. Not as his father had done, with a level glass and a level head, but continuously, soakingly. The black humours, so noticeable in him as a child, returned. Children and animals learned to flee before him. There were whispers of drugs, as distinct from decent whiskey, which thoroughly shocked Blencarrow—and at the same time added an unholy interest to an otherwise too familiar spectacle.

The last of his ventures to come remotely within the scope of business was the keeping of a livery stable. He understood horses. But it takes a fairly sober man to make even a livery stable pay. Gilbert’s stable lasted one summer season, but did not know a second spring. He was left with two cart horses and a Cameron wagon (unpaid for), and with these he made shift to do what ‘carting’ was thrust upon him. Otherwise he loafed. Then Mrs. Fenwell, recovering slowly from the birth of her second child, began to ‘take in a little sewing,’ and Blencarrow felt that the last word had been said.

Unfortunately the saying of the last word does not settle the score—life goes on precisely as if no one had said it. Gilbert Fenwell, as a possibility, had ceased to be, but Gilbert Fenwell, as an actuality, lived on.

The girl who had married him lived on too. It is difficult to say when a person really dies. Death, they say, is only a change. Perhaps it is. Certainly those who had known Lucia Danvers would never have known Lucia Fenwell. Women make these mistakes. And pay for them. Lucia paid quietly, but to the last farthing.

She had her children, of course, and it is a great thing for a woman to have children. Unless she feels that perhaps she shouldn’t have had them. Lucia felt like that. Seeing Gilbert as she came to see him, she could hardly escape it. Nor did she understand those theories of heredity which comfort (or annoy) by reminding us that children have other ancestors besides their fathers. Therefore, the more she loved her children, the more she paid.

Kathrine had come first—a quiet, shining-eyed baby with a shock of dark hair. Gilbert, then in the glory of his skyrocketing, had been boisterous about her. Had tossed and dandled her at the risk of an injured spine; had teased and frightened her, roaring with laughter at her fear. But the baby had been so quiet that the sport had palled. ‘A little black imp,’ he came to call her, and, later, ‘little black devil.’ The names meant nothing to her baby mind. Or perhaps they did. When she learned to toddle, she did not avoid her father, as most children did, but she never smiled at him. And she had a particularly nice smile.

Kathrine was two years old when Gilda was born—Gilda, as fair as her sister was dark. Lucia Fenwell looked upon the child and marvelled. What miracle had produced her? Does life take no account of anything but itself? Does the death of love mean nothing? Is spiritual horror but a breath upon the glass? ... How her very soul had sickened ... and here was Gilda, as lovely a babe as ever ecstasy had dowered—perfect, fair, smiling, with unclouded eyes.

Perhaps because she had expected to hate her, Lucia Fenwell loved this child with a deep and secret passion. Little Kathrine soon learned that the newcomer was the centre of her mother’s world. She did not resent it. To her also Gilda was a wonderful thing. No other little girl had a baby sister like a fairy in a picture book. Also, having been born with a love of beauty, she found in her heart a generous will to serve it.

Whether Gilda, as she left babyhood behind, realized the constant service and watchful protection which surrounded her, it is difficult to say. She was a strange child. Most children begin to differentiate around the age of two. But, to her mother, it seemed that Gilda had always been different. Her little smile which appeared to spring from some inward source of amusement was the same in babyhood as in childhood. Her remote eyes never changed from their first cloudless serenity. She seemed utterly selfish. Yet was she? Lucia was never sure. Most children are selfish, but not utterly. The common selfishness of childhood is a thoughtless, primitive thing. It is accepted by grown-ups with forbearance as a natural and passing phase. Lucia realized that the selfishness of Gilda was not like this. There seemed to be, in an almost startling way, reason and purpose behind it. And it was accompanied by the sweetest of tempers. People did not trouble Gilda unless they were directly in her way, and even when they were, regrettably, in that position, she walked around them if she could. Why be disagreeable when one could get what one wanted without it? Besides, half of the petulance of childhood is due to reaction from the moods of other people. And other people’s moods did not react on Gilda. She did not care much about other people. To live, to enjoy, to provide her awakening senses with the stimulation which they clamoured for—these were the important things. But why be disagreeable about it? In her cool, detached manner the child was charming.

Gilbert Fenwell hated her. What queer twist in his queer nature might account for it, who can say? There may be an antagonism of the unconscious which is outside one’s reckoning, an ageless, dogging something reaching out from life to life. Lucia believed this. But the explanation may have been simpler. The man, valuing only what he did not have, may have been jealous of his wife’s devotion. Or he may have hated Gilda because she did not care whether he hated her or not. When she was very little, he had been able to frighten her, but it had been an impersonal fright, an affair of nerves rather than of emotions. He may have resented this.

Whatever the reason, the result was patent. A new terror grew up in the unfinished house—a haunting thing which ate into Lucia Fenwell’s heart like a slow acid and which kept little Kathrine’s eyes shadowed and watching. Only Gilda was unaffected. If she wakened in the night to the sound of a loud and gusty voice, she never stole to the stairway with her heart in her throat. Nor did she lie awake trembling, fearing she knew not what. It was enough that Kathy and her mother did these foolish things. Gilda covered her ears to shut out the voice and went to sleep again.

More and more, Lucia saw that to protect one child she must sacrifice the other. There was something about the ‘little black imp’ which acted as a check upon her father’s wildest moods. He seldom struck Kathrine. Sometimes just to see her sitting there, silent in her little wicker chair with her doll or book, prevented an outburst. Sometimes when he had reached the ‘talking stage’ of drunkenness, he would ramble on to the child whose dark, shaded eyes regarded him gravely. Horrible monologues these, mercifully unintelligible to the childish ears which listened ... dreadful not to dare to snatch the child away from every sound of that crazy voice ... but Lucia had tried that once ... after all, Gilda was the littlest ... it was natural to spare her.

Then one day something happened. The fear which had etched Lucia Fenwell’s face saw itself justified. She had left the house to carry home a piece of finished sewing. Kathrine had not returned from school, and Gilda, then just six years old, was amusing herself chasing a kitten through the uncared-for garden.

Gilbert was supposed to be occupied elsewhere, but his unexpected appearance in one of the door-windows did not disturb Gilda. She felt that she could match herself fairly well against her father in the daytime. Her slim form, her light step, and a capacity for holding herself motionless as long as it suited her were great assets. The very wraith-like qualities which infuriated her antagonist were invaluable in eluding him.

Seeing him in the door, the child would ordinarily have run away. But to-day she wanted to catch the kitten and the kitten had escaped into the house. In her excitement she did not notice that her father was ‘ill’—her mother’s word for a horrid condition all too familiar. Even had she noticed it, her driving impulse to do exactly as she pleased would probably have carried her on. At any rate, she made straight for the open doorway and into the arms of the drink-crazed man.

It had been one of Gilbert Fenwell’s exalted days. The ego, prodded by the right amount of stimulant, had reached the stage where it seizes upon its vehicle, strong, triumphing. In the strange world of his mind, the failure, Gilbert Fenwell, had surmounted all difficulties, realized all dreams. He was going through his finished house, the finest home in Blencarrow. Before him was his well-stocked library, furnished as he had always intended to furnish it, cosy, complete. All he had to do was to sink into one of those wide chairs before the fireplace ... they always stood there ready ... so vivid was the hallucination that he could see the pattern of the paper on the wall ...

But what was this? Some one in the way? ... the doorway of dreams blocked by a scurrying figure? ...

He drew back. The waiting chairs, the flickering fire, dissolved like wind-ripped smoke ... only a tangled garden lay where the pleasant room had been ... the man staggered ludicrously under the shock of his awakening ... and in that moment Gilda laughed ... a mocking, elfish laugh ...

After that, Mrs. Fenwell had a weapon of sorts, and Fenwell, thoroughly frightened for the moment, had perforce yielded to her will. Gilda was to be sent away. When she had quite recovered from her strange ‘accident,’ she was to go to live with an unmarried cousin of the Danvers family. Cousin Elizabeth possessed a little money of her own and was eager to have a child about the house. The parting was terrible to Lucia. But there are worse things than partings.

Gilda went dry-eyed. Her farewell was pretty and affectionate to a degree. She hung about her mother and kissed dear Kathy very sweetly. What she felt about going, or about the cause of her going, none knew. Only once had Lucia found her gazing intently into the mirror, her eyes upon the jagged scar which would always mar the beauty of her forehead.

‘I shall train a curl to cover it,’ the child had said in a matter-of-fact tone, adding in exactly the same tone, ‘I would like to kill my father, wouldn’t you?’

Lucia had shivered and turned away.

Blencarrow had not guessed—at the time. Had it done so it would have been stirred to its complacent depths. But a man’s house, in Blencarrow, is very much his castle. A marriage license and a closed door are presumed to shut in only the calm delights of home. Later on, there were rumours, rumours which came very near the ugly truth as Euan’s careless story had shown. But no one knew anything really. They pitied Mrs. Fenwell on general principles, but quite without any adequate idea of how pitiable she was.

And that was the one thing for which Lucia Fenwell could never be sufficiently thankful!