Читать книгу The Secret Sanctuary (Historical Novel) - Warwick Deeping - Страница 9

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Carlyon's impression of the Burnt Heath country retained so much of Miss Isobel Copredy's colour that his report on it to Bartholomew was not wholly that of a business man. Car had been acting as confidential friend to the whole family, with Rollin Beal in the background, and Messrs. Groob and Giddy, of Pride Street, as purveyors of possible properties anywhere within a hundred miles of St. Paul's. There had been expeditions into Sussex, Hampshire and Bucks, but John's eyes had brightened to none of them as they had brightened to the cottage on the edge of Mascall's Wood.

"That is the place I want."

He was very definite about it, and so well able to persuade his mother that there was some mysterious and healing life to be lived on Burnt Heath, that Bartholomew—buttressed between his wife and his two sons—prepared to draw a cheque on the future and to hope that he would be left in peace to win golf balls off old Lambrick.

"We'll do the thing well."

Messrs. Groob and Giddy were asking twelve thousand pounds for the property. This "rock-bottom price" included Ottways, let on a repairing lease to Colonel Copredy at £150 a year, the two farms, Lydiards and Romans, the Rising Sun Inn, several cottages, Mascall's Wood and about fifty acres of heath.

Bartholomew sent a surveyor down to go over the buildings, and his report was very favourable, but he took exception to the cottage by Mascall's Wood. This came near wrecking the scheme, until John won over his mother by telling her that he meant to camp out for most of the year, and that he would have the cottage repaired.

But before a final decision was taken Rollin Beal held a very unusual consultation at his house in Wimpole Street. John was not present; in fact, he knew nothing about this family council, and he might have felt restive and uncomfortable had he been there. Bartholomew and his wife, Carlyon and Reginald sat round Beal's table and discussed the scheme in all its details. Car and his mother did most of the talking; Lavinia had made a secret excursion to Kingsbury; she had not seen Miss Copredy, but she had discovered a glamour of her own, the glamour of the mysterious and the sentimental.

"It is such sweet country, even in winter, and of course, in time, John will have Ottways."

She had mapped it all out. She saw her favourite son living the life of a country gentleman, with that mind-scar wiped out, and a wife and children completing the picture. Lavinia hankered after grandchildren; she felt that she would be able to enjoy them without feeling in any way responsible; and Car was not married and Reginald's wife did not want children. The fact was she did not want Reginald's children, and Reginald's brothers did not blame her.

At this family conference the three thousand a year man sat bald and bored, ostentatiously sceptical. He had had a passage of arms with Car and with his mother. This mad-hatter scheme! Did Bartholomew intend to settle the capital on John? Yes, Bartholomew did intend. Reginald looked contemptuous.

"Does not anyone realize that John cannot be credited with stability? In six months he will be clamouring for some other toy."

His mother flared with startling unexpectedness.

"You won't try to do him justice, you with all your success and your career. John is utterly in earnest. Why, he is even learning to cook."

Reginald laughed. His laughter was rare and it did not suit him.

"I suppose he wears an apron! Am I to take this as evidence of his sanity?"

Car, who was saying something to Beal, turned on Reginald with one of his quick flashes.

"We are not here to break eggs in a hat."

This fierceness put Reginald upon his dignity.

"I wish to dissociate myself—"

"Thank God," said Car.

Beal took the tangled threads into his hands and gently pulled them straight. He had certain questions to ask Carlyon Stretton. Who would be John's nearest neighbours; what sort of people were they?

Car described old Viner, painting a pleasant picture of him, but he said nothing of the girl at Ottways, though some of her colour crept into portraiture of Thomas Viner and into his impression of the landscape. Mrs. Stretton nodded and smiled at Car. Bartholomew, sitting judicially with his hands on his stomach, felt that that family would persuade him to sign that cheque.

He was quite ready to sign it. He could go to the club and say with casual impressiveness: "I have bought that poor lad of mine a little place in the country. A few hundred acres, you know. Rollin Beal's advice. Wonderful man—Rollin Beal." And even old Lambrick would be sympathetic. They would say that Bartholomew Stretton was a warm man, a generous man. He could put down his thousands to give a broken boy his chance.

Yes, a very sad case young Stretton's; of course, the law was an ass, but what could you do with a man who was liable to beat out the brains of some respectable citizen? Cage him or put him somewhere where he was likely to come to no harm? A very excellent arrangement.

The party broke up, Bartholomew and his wife driving off to Esher, and Reginald returning to his Kensington flat where he could relieve himself by being portentously unpleasant to his wife. Car remained behind with Rollin Beal; they had need of each other.

"Doctor, what do you think the chances are? I mean, is that life down there going to cure him?"

Parker had brought in tea, and Beal was filling Carlyon's cup.

"I don't know. No one knows. But we are giving him his most likely chance. Help yourself, will you?"

When Car looked serious he grew more like his younger brother, and he was very serious now.

"Are you sure that it is his best chance?"

"Can you suggest any alternative?"

"No, I can't. All I know is that Jack is passionately keen on the life, and that it would drive me to drink or an intrigue in ten days."

"Men differ. There's a platitude for you. And I think I can tell you how you differ from John."

"I am listening."

"You want to impress yourself on people; he prefers to make his impression on things."

Car's eyes lit up.

"That means that I have more vanity?"

"No, more ambition."

"Quite true. And you are saying what Jack said in much the same words. By the way, has it occurred to you to wonder whether he is interested in women?"

"Oh, yes," said Beal; "but I don't think he is. Is that your impression?"

"I don't think he cares a tinker's cuss about them just at present," said Car, munching buttered toast; "but I suppose it will happen. What then?"

"It may depend on the woman," said Beal.

"You mean that it ought to be a particular sort of woman?"

"Yes. Say one with a happy, comely temperament."

"That's rather a one in a hundred chance, Beal. You see, I have no more illusions about women than I have about men. We are patchwork."

"Yes, until something happens," said Beal, smiling his luminous smile, "and then the gold threads show."

But he had other work for John's brother. He told Car that he wished him to go down to Kingsbury and interview one of the local doctors, a man named Mellor.

"I knew Mellor well at the hospital. I have had cases from him. He is a sound man, mainly because he has not yet got bored with his work. I shall write to him and explain your brother's case."

"Then what am I to do?"

"Go into it with Mellor. I want him to hold what we might call a 'watching brief.' Of course, your brother must not know."

"I think I could manage it this week-end. Your idea is to have someone more or less on the spot who understands the situation?"

"Exactly. He knows the neighbourhood. He might be able to help Jack to know the people he ought to know, and to avoid those—"

Car gave Beal a shrewd look.

"Do you really think that personality is of such importance?"

"It may seem strange to you, but I do. I believe it to be the most important factor in this case. How much illness or wellness is there in other people's souls!"

"Yes, I suppose that's true," said Car. "Reginald always gives me a liver; and Jack is sensitive. I rather liked the people at the farm, the Viners: homely folk, you know, looked as though they had grown there."

"Simple without being stupid, and kindly?"

"Yes, much like that. Of course, I only saw them for a few minutes, but that is the impression I had."

Car went off to his club, pondering this subtle subject and wondering whether Beal's psychology was not a little too clever and esoterical. It seemed to him to suggest the labelling of people like medicine bottles. "Two tablespoonfuls of Mr. Viner to be taken three times a day after meals," or, "one dose of Miss Isobel Copredy an hour before bedtime!"

Yes, and he had not even mentioned Miss Copredy of Ottways. The idea was absurd. What harm could it do John to have an occasional glimpse of a red head and an apple-green jumper? Beal's theory postulated too great a complexity.

Meanwhile, Bartholomew and his wife, posting back to Esher, discussed another aspect of John's future, an aspect that was definitely feminine. It was old Stretton who raised the point. He did not like the idea of John living all alone in that cottage; his own sociability recoiled from such a prospect and foresaw incipient melancholia. Moreover, who was going to cook and clean and wash and make beds? Men are such helpless mortals.

"I think Madge ought to live with him for the first six months. I suppose they could get a woman to come in and do the work."

He was astonished to find that his wife did not agree with him, and when he pressed her for her reasons she gave them with what was for her unusual bluntness.

"Madge would not go."

"But it is her duty to go."

"I don't think John would want her."

"But he must have somebody there. Why not an ex-service man? Anyhow, I shall put it to Madge."

He did so, and was met with the bluntest of blunt refusals. She, too, had her reasons and very good reasons.

"John and I don't agree. We should quarrel in a week."

"The fact is you don't want to go," said her father rather testily; "you modern young women—"

"We say what we think, pater. It saves such a lot of trouble. Ask John; if he is honest as I am he will tell you that he would not have me at any price."

"In my young days—" said her father.

"You expected women to be genteel housemaids. Ask John."

Bartholomew took her at her word, and going in search of John, found him in the library reading a book on the keeping of bees. His father took the hearthrug, and assuming the "my dear boy" attitude, asked his son to explain how he proposed to live in that hypothetical cottage. John, plucked away from the hiving of imaginary bees, looked straight at his father, keeping his forefinger in the book to mark his place.

"I can look after myself all right."

"What, cook and wash up the dishes and make your own bed?"

"Men do it in the colonies."

"Yes, yes, I know, and do you think they like it? I have suggested to Madge that she should come and keep house for you."

John was less abrupt than his sister, but he made it perfectly plain that he did not want Madge.

"I'm sorry, pater, but we should bore each other to death. I would much rather be alone."

Bartholomew gave a shrug of the shoulders.

"Well, well; you young people are different from what we were. But what on earth are you going to do down there?"

John accepted the question in all seriousness.

"I shall have to run the cottage. I mean to develop the place, enlarge the garden, take in another field and plant fruit trees. I want to expand it gradually into a small intensive farm. I shall have a lot to learn."

"Yes, yes," said his father, "I see all that, but what about live things—friends? A man can't live with vegetables and—and dish-cloths."

John laughed, but there was no mockery in his laughter. His father's point was thoroughly sound.

"Oh, there are the people at the farms. Besides, I shall have dogs, and bees, and a cat, and some live stock later on. Plenty to keep me busy."

Bartholomew gave it up.

"I'm thinking of you—your happiness, John," he said.

His son got up and stood very close to him.

"Dear old pater, you have been very generous to me. Don't—don't worry. I shall make good."