Sea of Glass (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) (20 page)

Eventually I fell into an uneasy sleep; from which I roused up at the first squeak of my door. By the light of the moon which was now shining brightly I saw Varvara enter, statuesque in her dressing-gown. Though we made pretty free with one another’s rooms, we never paid visits after we had finally said good night. Something must have happened to make her deviate from this custom. I was suddenly afraid lest I should have to listen to a confession.

‘David? Are you awake?’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘There is a ghost trying to get into the house,’ said Varvara.

‘Whose?’

‘That of my uncle, naturally.’

‘You’re dreaming. Where did you see this thing?’

‘I heard it,’ she corrected.

‘You mean a voice seemed to speak to you?’

‘I know what you are thinking, David,’ she said sadly. ‘But my conscience is silent because it is pure. Besides the ghost has not spoken yet. It is outside sawing through the railings.’

‘Why in God’s name should it do that?’

‘To escape the impalement.’

I suppose my face showed what I thought of this beautiful notion, for she continued: ‘If you go to the window you will hear it.’

I did so and became aware that she was not talking nonsense. A faint but insistent noise of a kind not readily identified was rising from below, and as far as I could judge its point of origin was in the garden directly below the flat roof from which Cedric had fallen. It was an odd rasping sound which seemed to change quality from moment to moment without changing volume; now it did indeed resemble somebody working on metal with a file, but then again it would soften to a sort of harsh snoring. Aynho Terrace was quiet at night but it was still uncanny that the noise could reach us so clearly without any cause being visible. Though I was well situated for scanning every yard of the small moonlit garden, I could see nothing to account for it.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘There’s only one way of setting your mind at rest.’

Yawning, I pulled on my trousers. But when I made for the door Varvara hung back. I fear that I was delighted for once to be able to appear as the bold and resourceful male. It was clear that she believed in ghosts: I did not. When I was little I was afraid of large dogs and rude boys with knobbly fists and most of the other things that a real little man should face valiantly. On the other hand I did not mind dark cupboards or empty houses or stories told on winter nights. This, as the annoyed mother of a schoolfellow once pointed out, was due to my innate lack of reverence and sense of the mystery of life.

‘I’ll tell you what it was when I come back,’ I said.

Varvara gritted her teeth and followed. We went down to the back-door which led into the garden at ground level. It had glass panels and whilst I was easing back the bolts I could look through on to the moonlit gravel and grass. Except for a few small patches of shadow the visibility was excellent. And still out of nowhere came the noise, louder now and faintly apoplectic. Despite my vaunted insensitiveness I felt the hair crisp a little on the back of my head. It really did sound as if an animal was trying with pain and labour to extricate itself from some horrible trap.

We skirted the back of the house. The rasping was so near now that it seemed to rise from the ground beneath our feet. And yet I was almost convinced that there must be some auditory illusion and it was being carried over from the next-door garden; when suddenly from behind me Varvara gave a cry. I whipped round and saw her pointing at a spot immediately beneath the railings. The stone foundation into which they were sunk cast a few inches of deep shadow. Still I could see nothing at all, until I stood behind her and followed the exact line of her finger. On the ground was a rough ball, less than a foot in diameter. It seemed to be disturbed by an internal agitation which caused slight changes of shape but not of place.

I went up and poked it with my foot—as good a way of testing apparitions as has yet been devised. But the next instant I drew back sharply, for something had pricked me through the cloth of my bedroom slippers. Slowly, still uttering their extraordinary mating noise, two hedgehogs separated themselves from an embrace.

‘What is it?’ said Varvara, breathing almost as heavily.

I explained. I had heard of this phenomenon before though I had never personally witnessed it, and without experience it is hard to believe how much row these animals will kick up in their erotic transports. Since I also knew that they were often deliberately introduced into London gardens to keep down pests, the affair had lost all its mystery for me. But Varvara was not entirely satisfied. She bent over the hedgehogs, inspecting them closely.

‘They look like wicked, long-nosed old men,’ she said. ‘Why should they come to trouble us on this of all nights?’

‘We have had ghosts,’ I said firmly, ‘and we are not going to have transmigration as well. Doesn’t your Church forbid these superstitions?’

Varvara went into a heavy sulk compounded of shame and annoyance at having her orthodoxy impugned.

I led the way back upstairs, hoping that we had not disturbed the household. Between us we already had enough to laugh off.

She did not speak again until we were outside her room. Then she tried to recoup herself with a little of the smart jargon which she was picking up from Andrew and his friends.

‘Sorry to have been such a nitwit. Too boring!’

‘It was enough to scare anybody. I didn’t understand it.’

‘Nor yet do you!’ she said with a sudden vehement change of manner. ‘If you had lived in Doljuk, of which you are so fond, you would be wiser and less brave.’

By this time, despite my weariness, my blood was up in defence of rationalism.

‘Can you honestly pretend that you’ve ever seen an evil spirit or a ghost?’ I countered.

‘I have heard them hooting and chattering in the desert to lead the caravans astray.’

‘I said—have you
seen
such things?’

‘That also,’ she replied, though more reluctantly.

My eyes were fixed on her with satirical challenge and she knew that she had got to justify her claim.

‘It was nearly a year after my mother’s death,’ she began, ‘and I was sleeping alone in my room, when suddenly I heard a noise of something moving outside. I took a lamp and a knife and I ran into the passage. There I saw a figure dressed in coat and trousers like a Tungan woman, but unveiled. It stood beside the sockets for the water-jugs outside the room of my father. For a moment I thought that it was a thief or an assassin sent by the new Governor, but it threw up its arms with a thin cry, and vanished down the stairs which ran into the courtyard. Some of the servants were sleeping there, but when I questioned them, they swore that they had seen nothing.’

‘Had your father?’

‘No,’ said Varvara. ‘Nor did he ever, though the thing came again several times and it was always lurking near his bed. I believe that it was sent by the sorcery of an enemy to harm him, but his nature was too strong for it.’

I looked at Varvara hard but she returned my gaze with unembarrassed candour, and I knew that I could not touch her ghost. It was a situation in which even the most determined iconoclast must be powerless. So oddly, when she spoke as a daughter, did inhibition and frankness mingle in her mind.

Next day the inquest duly took place. It was held in a depressing building of red brick with tall chimneys and a domed skylight over the well of the Court which gave it an odd resemblance to a mosque. Turpin, who with Varvara and myself made up the witnesses from Aynho Terrace, remarked on the likeness in characteristic fashion:

‘Up the Prophet!’ he said as we went in. ‘ ’And me my ’ouri.’

The coroner seemed a nice man. He had a pleasant but discreetly depreciatory touch. By the time he had done with it no incident was very large or very surprising. You felt that he could have held an inquest on somebody torn to death by wolves in Oxford Street without raising more than a paragraph in the Press.

The first two witnesses were the police sergeant and the surgeon who had examined Cedric’s body. Then Turpin, I, and Varvara gave evidence in that order. None of us were in the box more than five minutes and there was hardly any questioning beyond a general invitation to tell our respective stories. I had been apprehensive about how Varvara would behave and in particular lest she should show that she regarded herself as under suspicion. But the fact that she had almost committed an indubitable murder by killing a police officer in the course of resisting arrest seemed to have had an admirably steadying influence on her. She told the tale of her brief neutral exchanges with Cedric unemotionally, almost woodenly, in a fashion which drew the minimum of attention to her eccentricities of speech. When she stood down the coroner made some sympathetic remarks about the trying nature of the experience for a young girl.

‘Up the Bud!’ said Turpin under his breath. ‘Box on.’

I thought we were heading for an open verdict which would leave the cause of Cedric’s fall unexplained. Because it had originally been presented in a frivolous manner, I had unjustifiably discounted what I knew of his medical history. But there was still one more witness, an elderly man in a morning coat. He gave his name as Mortimer Giles and his profession as physician. He was a Harley Street specialist, who had attended the dead man on a number of occasions.

‘Will you tell us why he consulted you?’ said the coroner.

‘Owing to a condition known as Menière’s symptom-complex.’

‘What does that involve?’

‘Intermittent noises in the head; dizziness combined with a desire to vomit; in bad attacks actual loss of balance and inability to rise after a fall. Its causes are not altogether understood but it is associated with disturbance in the inner tube of the ear.’

‘I see. Was Mr. Ellison suffering from this complaint at the time of his death?’

The doctor shrugged slightly.

‘The general condition was there. It is not one that can be cured. But of course I’m in no position to say whether he was actually attacked at the—’

The coroner interrupted:

‘Quite, Dr. Giles, quite. We understand your position. All the jury will want to know is whether, in your opinion, the deceased might have been suddenly overcome so that he staggered off the roof.’

Dr. Giles shrugged again. He was not a man who found it easy to accept approximations, a trait for which his patients may often have been grateful.

‘Yes . . . it might have so happened. But usually the sufferer retains enough temporary control to avoid danger.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the coroner, seeing his neatly packaged solution being untied at the corners. ‘But we are trying to find a reasonably possible explanation of an unwitnessed accident. And if I understand you rightly, the disease in question supplies that.’

‘Yes,’ said Dr. Giles. ‘But with a wall there, I should have expected—’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

After that, of course, Accidental Death was the only starter. Although their experiments showed that they must at one time have entertained other possibilities, the police representatives did not appear either surprised or dissatisfied.

I suppose I cannot sit on the fence indefinitely, nor pretend that over all these years I have retained an open mind about Cedric’s death. I believe—though I have no proof—that what really happened was something like this.

Varvara unexpectedly ran across him in the morning-room. Either because of her general indignation at his legal manœuvres or because he specifically provoked her, the smouldering hatred between them blazed into an open row. Arguing and slanging each other they went out on to the roof. And then? . . . Well, perhaps Cedric in his greasy way thought he would try for a reconciliation and laid an avuncular hand on her. If so it would certainly have come off double-quick. And what more natural than that the rejection should have been accompanied by a little push. Varvara’s little pushes were pretty drastic, and supposing that this one coincided with an upset in Cedric’s ear he might easily have gone into a long stagger which would carry him over a considerable obstacle.

It may be that I have invented this theory only because the alternatives are either too improbable or too painful. But it has the merit of explaining Varvara’s curious attitude, which seemed to be based not on guilt itself but on a conviction that it would be imputed to her. Once the Law had had its negative say, she gave no sign that anything was preying on her mind. If she could look back on whatever happened with equanimity, why should not I?

Mrs. Ellison was too ill to attend the funeral. But by her wish the cortège started from the door of
8
Aynho Terrace. As I went out to take my place in one of the black Daimlers, Turpin was in the hall looking out at the hearse.

‘ “Beautiful Dreamer, Goodbye,” ’ he said; and then, still faithful to his ancient enmity: ‘I don’t bloody think!’

12

Before I went down from Cambridge I had tentatively arranged to join a reading-party in Cornwall for the last three weeks of the vacation. Mrs. Ellison again asked me to stay on, but she was by then so ill with delayed shock that I could not decently accept her invitation.

Oddly enough, I can remember very little about my farewell to Varvara. It was not like her to miss such an opportunity for memorable drama. I do, however, know that we swore to write to each other regularly—a promise which I kept, partly from inclination, and partly because, God help me, I thought that she would be lost without my guiding hand. Her replies began on a one-for-one basis but soon tailed off; until by the middle of November she had ceased to write at all. Correctly or not, I associated this defection with the news contained in her final letter.

‘. . . The lawyer has come again, but on a worthier errand. My grandmother purposes to convey money to me to give me face with the bankers. She is acting very rightly in this and consequently her mind is serene. I pray for her, and that she may continue to do well. Perhaps you do not understand what a responsibility there is in money. . . .’

From time to time there went through my mind a variant of Keyserling’s celebrated remark about America: I hoped Varvara would never lay herself open to the verdict that she had passed from savagery to rich bitchiness without even an intervening period of civilization.

At Cambridge I had one continuing source of first-hand news. Andrew still lived on my staircase, and though we did not maintain the close contact of earlier weeks, he continued to pay me occasional nocturnal visits. (I suspected that one day I should overhear him tell somebody that he dropped in ‘to cheer me up.’) He went to town a good deal and from various remarks which he let fall I knew that he saw something of Varvara. Her description and status varied interestingly with the item which he had to recount:

‘. . . Our protégée has taken up golf and tennis. I gather she already strikes a pretty formidable ball.’

‘. . . My partner was Varvara. That girl’s beginning to get around. I mean, really circulating in the right places.’

‘. . . Your girl-friend will have to watch her step. The other day at Sadie Prince’s she had a row with some woman and threw a vase of flowers over her. Somebody ought to warn her that people won’t stand for that kind of thing.’

Alas, in mid-term even this irregular flow of information was cut off. Andrew had an accident—which arose, rather improbably, from putting too much faith in human nature. One of his girls fell asleep in his rooms and so remained until long after the hour when women were supposed to be out of college. Andrew not unreasonably decided to keep her for the night. Next morning he made no particular effort to conceal her presence from his bedmaker: whom, to his credit, he always treated with great liberality. But the crafty brain of a Cambridge woman easily struck a balance between the tips of one transient undergraduate and a lifelong wage from the college. She went straight to the authorities and reported him. Regretfully they sent him down.

I could of course have taken a day off and gone to London and called at Aynho Terrace. There was no quarrel between us or other reason why she should refuse to see me. Common sense argued that her failure to answer letters was probably due to nothing more than laziness and an expanding social programme. But on the other side was ranged the self-immolating pride common in young men. If keeping in touch with me was not a matter of overriding importance to her we had better stay apart. At least that was what I pretended to think.

A week before the end of term, in the middle of a wet afternoon, a knock sounded unexpectedly on my door. Outside were two women, neither of whom appeared in the least familiar. I imagined that they had come to the wrong set of rooms: until the younger said hesitantly:

‘It is Mr. Lindley, isn’t it? . . . Don’t pretend you remember me because there’s absolutely no reason why you should.’

But her voice had done the trick.

‘Miss Ellison . . . Deirdre!’

‘ “Miss Ellison—or may I call you Deirdre?” ’ said the other woman in a light ironic voice. ‘Sorry, but that’s how it sounded!’

She was considerably the older of the pair—about thirty, I judged. She was outstandingly well-dressed in a style which I have learnt to associate particularly with women who combine elegant bodies and ugly faces.

Deirdre said: ‘You are a swine, Tilda. Now you’ve made me feel so silly that I can’t possibly ask him.’

‘All right, then I will. . . . Mr. Lindley, Deirdre is sharing a flat with me now, and we’re giving a small party on
22
nd December. Would you care to come?’

‘Yes, of course. And now you must let me give you some tea.’

But they refused, saying that they were visiting Cambridge with friends whom they were due to rejoin in a few minutes. I don’t imagine that when they arrived Deirdre had any intention of calling on me. Probably my name on the board at the bottom of the staircase caught her eye and she came up on impulse.

‘I hope you won’t be bored,’ she said with the diffidence which had been her public front before the days of her orphanhood.

‘Of course not.’

‘Two or three quite clever people have promised to come. Perhaps they will. Tilda’s friends, of course. And Varvara will be there.’

I could not resist asking: ‘Do you see much of her?’

‘Speaking for myself,’ said Tilda, in her cool, light voice, ‘too much.’

‘You mustn’t say that,’ said Deirdre, giggling. ‘Not to David.’

They went, leaving me with an address in South Kensington. I wondered about their set-up, but came to no conclusion except that somebody had taken a wise step in deciding that Mrs. Ellison’s other granddaughter should not join the household in Aynho Terrace. Varvara, Deirdre, Nurse Fillis—it would have been like three Red Indians with raised tomahawks perpetually stalking each other round a camp-fire. To keep the peace, Turpin would have had to mix them knock-out drops every night.

My aunt had returned to England and I was spending that vacation with her in a hotel at Wimbledon. It was she who, so far from raising any objection to being left alone, prevented me from cutting Deirdre’s party. For the last few days of term I had felt vaguely unwell and since then idleness seemed to have intensified my lassitude and the aching in my limbs. I thought I had suppressed ’flu. On the morning of
22
nd December nothing appeared less attractive than three hours of making conversation with strangers.

But Aunt Edna said:

‘Nonsense. Of course you must go.’

‘It hardly seems worth it.’

‘The Ellisons are very well worth anybody’s while—yours, certainly.’

Suddenly I greatly wanted to annoy my aunt.

‘You think, don’t you, that everybody ought to be flat out to improve his or her social position?’

‘You’re old enough,’ said my aunt, ‘to understand the advantages of looking after yourself in that way.’ (Her crisp, aggressively sensible tone made it sound as if she were talking about some embarrassing aspect of health.) ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of in making suitable friends, even if you have to go out of your way to do it.’

‘But don’t you see,’ I persisted, ‘that if everybody follows your policy it’s bound to be self-defeating? Smith is trying to put salt on Brown’s tail, but just as he’s getting there Brown jerks himself another couple of rungs up the ladder in pursuit of Jones. And suppose that one day they all arrived together at the top of the ladder, and there was nowhere left to climb! What would it be like—Nirvana or the Black Hole of Calcutta?’

‘I hope,’ said my aunt, ‘that you will save a little of this clever talk for tonight. It may impress some nice young girl.’

Nevertheless when I came downstairs that evening in my best suit, my appearance evidently caused Aunt Edna some misgiving.

‘David,’ she said as we stood in the hall, ‘at South Kensington Underground Station there is a refreshment room. I know because Diana Maddox-Faure was once taken faint there after her operation. When you arrive, you can go in there and order yourself a double brandy. Only one mind. I don’t want you either drooping or whooping at this party.’

She insisted on giving me one-and-eightpence which was the current price of the drink she had prescribed.

I spent the money as she had directed. But by the time I reached South Kensington I no longer badly needed any stimulus. As on other occasions a rising temperature in the blood had a curiously liberating effect on my mind: which in this instance was not counteracted by headache.

Frensham Gardens lay back at one remove from the Old Brompton Road. ‘Mrs. M. Norroy—Miss D. Ellison’ I read on the card below the first-floor bell of No.
76
. Up I went humming merrily to myself, until the escaping noise of the party drowned my voice in my own ears. Allowing for the fact that I was late and the first guests must have been there for nearly an hour, it did not sound like the staid assembly which I had expected.

I soon found out why. This was not so much a rackety party as one organized regardless of expense. The only drink seemed to be plain champagne or champagne cocktails, both of which go straight to the lungs. On my entry I was greeted, rather vaguely, by the woman Tilda and introduced to a number of people who were already absorbed in their own conversations. Of neither Deirdre nor Varvara did I see any sign at first. This was not altogether surprising, for the flat was a big one and the party had diffused itself over three rooms. Finally, however, whilst circulating alone, I ran across Deirdre in a passage.

After the usual greetings she said: ‘I’ll let you know as soon as
she
comes.’

The arch note of conspiracy jarred on me.

‘Thank you, but that’s not necessary.’

‘No, probably not. She’ll let everybody know for herself.’

She looked at me with that confiding gleam of malice which, when first we met, had done much to remove my prejudice against her heredity.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll find you someone nice to talk to in the meanwhile.’

She was as good as her word. I spent the next half-hour very pleasantly with the help of several glasses of champagne and a small pretty woman of about Tilda’s age. Seeing that she was far more at home than I in these surroundings, I took the opportunity to ask about the occupants of the flat.

‘They’re related,’ she said. ‘Pretty distantly, but still related—Tilda was a cousin of Deirdre’s mother. You may say what you like, but I happen to know for a fact that years ago she was kind to Deirdre and stood up for her against that dreadful father.’

‘He
was
dreadful, wasn’t he?’

‘My dear, the absolute sub-basement! So whatever anybody says—’

‘By the way, what exactly is it that people would say?’

She looked significantly at the luxurious room and the maid coming round with another tray of shallow golden glasses.

‘I adore Tilda. She’s brave and gay and she has a sort of heavenly poise. Besides being terribly well-connected. But those aren’t things that necessarily bring you a bank balance. When her antique-shop failed, I think she was in rather a tight spot . . . until she had the chance to make this generous offer about having Deirdre to live with her.’

‘In fact Deirdre pays.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it’s utterly above board. Anyhow she’s still a minor, with trustees and whatnot. But half a million is half a million and I believe there’s a prospect of more to come.’

My little acquaintance was a nice person and I think she was genuinely well-disposed to Tilda. But she had that distinctively feminine way of coming to the defence of another woman, which is like a rescue from drowning performed by a shark. She seemed herself to feel that some of the rough edges needed smoothing.

‘I should be the last to suggest that Deirdre gets nothing out of the arrangement. In fact I think it’s absolutely vital at this stage in her life that she should be under the eye of somebody with a really cool head. Tilda won’t let her make mistakes . . .’

‘Is she likely to, then?’

‘Well’—my informant sank her voice—‘it all comes back to that father. He so badgered the poor girl and suppressed her personality that she thinks anyone is doing a favour by noticing her. Well, you can see that’s dangerous, can’t you?’

‘Not for the moment.’

She giggled. ‘I haven’t drunk quite enough yet to get into my frank mood. But if you’ve no belief in the value of your society in itself you’re liable to start throwing in other attractions.’

She may have thought that I disapproved of her hints, for during the next couple of minutes I cannot have appeared to be paying her much attention. The fact was that I had heard Varvara’s voice somewhere in the throng behind me, and I was engaged in stealing quick glances over my shoulder.

At last my eye lit on her. She had come in with Andrew whom she must have brought on her own initiative. But even as I looked he moved away in a manner which suggested petulance, and she was left with an older man in a dinner-jacket. Varvara herself was wearing a frock bordered with golden discs like spade-guineas. Her clothes-sense had obviously come on since the previous September: but there was still something to learn. Her dress, though intrinsically pretty, would have been more suited to vivifying and colouring up a type of looks which ran the risk of insipidity; for her to wear it was like gilding a peony.

‘Of course,’ said my companion, who must have followed my gaze, ‘the other Ellison girl might get it all.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The extra money we were talking about. But I’d rather it went to Deirdre.’

‘You don’t like her cousin?’

‘Not much. I can’t stand people who’re larger than life—particularly outsize
prima donnas
.’

‘I’m sorry she’s getting that name.’

‘I didn’t realize you knew her. Perhaps I’m prejudiced. And anyhow I admit you’ve got to hand it to her for her work among those natives.’

‘I hadn’t heard about that.’

‘You know she was brought up in darkest Asia? I mean real Asiatic Asia, not India or somewhere like that. Well, naturally the inhabitants were continually ravaged by every sort of disease. I’m told that this girl used to go about nursing them quite regardless.’

I began to laugh. ‘Which will you have?’ I said. ‘Cholera or the ministering angel?’

My companion looked at me indignantly for a moment, then she too broke into a titter. We drank another glass of champagne apiece and then parted on that basis of mutual esteem which is often so unfairly engendered by malicious conversation about third parties. I made my way across the room and took up a strategic position behind Varvara’s back. She was still talking to the man in the dinner-jacket, and he was listening, his face inclined towards her with an expression of almost superhuman urbanity.

‘. . . My father would scarcely ever leave his estates in Turkestan, so consequently my mother and I never got a glimpse of the Season. Poor daddy, it was only his terrific sense of responsibility towards the tenants that made him—’

I stepped round to the front.

‘Hallo, Varvara!’

‘David! Where have you come from?’

‘My ancestral duck-shoot in the Carpathians.’

Varvara was not pleased, more especially as a grin of surprising intelligence flashed over the face of the other man. She retaliated on me by means of an introduction.

‘This is Sir James Lexing. And this, Jim, is David Lindley, a boy whom my grandmother took in for his holidays.’