Sleep in Peace (72 page)

“Why, you're—” she began.

“Yes, I'm Kay Byram,” said the young man shortly.

But that was not at all what Laura had meant to say. The words on her lips were:

“You are Edward's son!”

She stared at him in silence.

“You're Miss Armistead, I suppose. They thought you might come. Will you come in?” said Kay ungraciously.

To Laura, following him silently down the hall, everything was clear. Edward's thin figure, his bony hands, his sandy hair (red in his son), his bright blue eyes. Edward appearing suddenly in the mill yard behind—of course!—Eva Byram. Edward who loved life and hated Gwen. Edward whom she herself had told emphatically that she rejected marriage. Yes, Kay was Edward's son.

She was immensely grateful to life, decided Laura, for not forcing this revelation upon her until she was old enough to see it in its true light. Once it would have killed her love for Edward and her faith in life, but now she saw it only as a sad little story, part of the common human lot. For Edward had not deserted a woman pregnant with his child, she remembered gladly, forcing herself to retrace the course of past events; he had gone out to France and been killed before he could have known Eva's secret. How much did Frederick know of Kay Byram's parentage, wondered Laura. Nothing? Everything? The boy's resemblance to his father, so striking to Laura who knew half Kay's story, might mean little to someone ignorant of the suspicions about his birth. She considered the deep silence of the Armisteads about the Byram scandal; it was certain that none of them had ever mentioned it to a single soul, Hinchliffe or other, lest Ludo should be implicated.
Ludo! A bright light seemed to explode in Laura's brain. But of course it was
Ludo
to whom she should be grateful for not forcing this revelation upon her; it was Ludo to whom they should all be grateful. For Ludo knew the truth. Of course he knew it— Ludo who spent every day of those pre-war years at Blackshaw Mills. And he had kept it secret, so that the image of the war-hero Edward should not be marred in the hearts of those who loved him. Yes, thought Laura, remembering Ludo's look when she had told him of the death of Mrs. Hinchliffe, he had kept it secret for the sake of Edward's mother, and for Mr. Hinchliffe, perhaps for Frederick and Grace too, perhaps even for Gwen and Laura. He had kept it secret all these years, supported Edward's child and taken a strange proud pleasure in doing so. The Hinchliffes despised him, thought Ludo, though if they only knew the truth— but he should not tell them. No doubt his childhood love for Ada came into it too. How silly! But how noble! How like Ludo! He had a martyr complex, of course, thought Laura sadly. She began to frame phrases with which to tell her brother in a letter, without telling him, that she knew of his long sacrifice.

All this passed through her mind in the short moment while she followed Edward's son down the tiny hall; they entered the room, Frederick and Madeline were crossing to the door to greet her, and she was sure of their ignorance of Kay's parentage.

“Sit down here by the fire—you look as pale as if you'd seen a ghost, Laura,” said Frederick kindly.

Madeline and Kay exchanged embarrassed glances.

“Did you hear us speaking of your work? I'm sorry if we hurt you—we didn't know you were there, Auntie Laura,” said Madeline with blunt candour.

“Well,” began Laura, seizing upon this pretext to conceal the real cause of her distress, and feeling a warm anger rising in her as she spoke: “You have me somewhat at a disadvantage, Madeline. My work is open to public inspection, but I have seen none of yours—you haven't condescended to show me any.”

“That's fair enough,” admitted Madeline. (Laura observed that the two men watched her closely.) She paused, then flung aside, snatched up a print and threw it on the refectory table so that it spun across the polished surface. “There's one of my latest,” she said. “What do you think of it, eh?”

Laura pounced upon the print, drew it towards her and bent over it with an eagerness which was by no means simulated.

She was stunned. It was a wood engraving; a free rendering of the Blackshaw Mills chimney, from that angle whence she herself had drawn it with such faithful realism. But it was not the Blackshaw Mills chimney; it was, as indeed a tiny pencil scribble at its foot entitled it,
Industrial Chimney
. It was all mill chimneys, symbolised, crystallised, presented. The bold arrangement of mass and line, of planes and angles, into which Madeline had composed the familiar outlines of roofs and chimney, formed a design at once original, beautiful and striking; it was conceived and executed with freedom, decision, an almost savage power. Laura thought: genius. But no; one didn't splash such words about. Exceptional, remarkable. “But what is the use of saving words if not to use them when they are required?” thought Laura. “Don't let me indulge in a West Riding parsimony of praise.”

“It's a work of genius,” she said aloud in a casual tone, throwing down the print. “Whether you'll keep that level up or not is for you to show.”

Madeline, suddenly blushing, waltzed away towards the window.

“Well, that's generous,” she said. “Yes, really that's generous of you, Laura. Would you like a print?”

“Very much,” said Laura, choking down some bitterness. Why was it so much worse, she wondered, to be surpassed by a member of one's family than by anyone else? But one must not show it; one must not be basely jealous; one must foster, encourage, judicially admire. Only I wish I'd been able to enjoy my distinction a little longer without this overpowering rival, thought poor Laura;
I've only been “the West Riding artist” for so few years. She was pleased, however, to hear herself called by her name without the stupid prefix; it meant that Madeline regarded her as an artist now rather than an aunt.

“I'll do one for you,” said Madeline, with a delighted grin. She picked up one of the blocks, and crossing to the ottoman began vigorously to wield the roller on its inky bed.

“Can I help?” suggested Kay, following her.

“No!” said Madeline contemptuously, tossing her tawny plaits. “Get out of my light.”

Such is the baseness of the human heart, reflected Laura, that I positively enjoy hearing that young man snubbed. He minds it, too, she thought; giving him a longer glance and observing how the long scar which marked his cheek flushed when Madeline spoke thus to him, she perceived that Kay was in love with his cousin, and felt more sympathetic towards the lad.

“Popsy,” called Madeline, “show Laura my Ashworth caricatures.”

Frederick rose, and having rooted about amongst various portfolios on the ottoman, produced a dozen drawings. Laura was almost loth to look at them, for she liked immensely to watch the firm easy movements of Madeline at the press. However, she dutifully turned her eyes downwards, and was rewarded; her niece's satiric boldness at the expense of Yorkshire town councillors was highly refreshing to one who had lived beneath their sway for forty years.

“They're grand—grand,” said Laura, with a hearty laugh. “Pity they're so libellous—they could easily be placed.”

“I'm glad you like them,” said Madeline, grinning. “I use them as a kind of test, you know.” She looked gleefully towards Kay, who was leaning against the table with folded arms. He coloured uneasily. “Real artists like them irrespective of politics,” she explained. “But Kay only appreciates a caricature if its subject is a man in a fur coat. One of the bour-geoi-sie,” enlarged Madeline,
pronouncing every syllable of this word with dramatic unction. “Kay is a Communist, you know.”

“Really?” said Laura with interest.

“I'm a Marxist,” began Kay morosely.

“Have you met any Communists before?” asked Madeline, her grey eyes dancing.

“Only the rich kind who live on unearned incomes,” replied Laura, rather disingenuously. “I'm a mere wage-earner myself.”

Madeline laughed, then frowned.

“You hear that, Kay?” she said.

“Look here, Madeline!” cried the goaded Kay, springing erect and changing on the instant from a morose and conceited to a young, lively and likeable person. “I've had enough of this! Shut up about my politics!”

“Shut up yourself,” said Madeline cheerfully. “He really isn't that kind of Communist,” she explained to Laura, handing her the completed print. “(It's still wet, look out.) He used to be an engineer in Ashworth, now he's an engineer in Bermondsey, perhaps to be near me; he got that mark being arrested at Olympia in the counter-demonstrafion.”

Laura started. “And where did you meet each other, if I may ask?” she said, turning from the subject of Olympia with a distaste amounting to fear. That the Armistead and Hinchliffe grandsons should be there in such hostile capacities distressed her greatly.

“He attended some evening classes in Leeds on economics because he went there in the day for engineering classes, you see,” explained Madeline. “I was at the evening classes. He knew my name—his mother used to be housekeeper for my—” she paused to get the relationship right—”great-grandmother. His grandfather is firer at Blackshaw Mills.”

“I knew that,” said Laura, unable to repress a certain dryness in her tone.

“Are you a snob?” enquired Madeline bluntly. “Because if so—”

“Good heavens, no!” cried Laura. “Don't be so insulting, child. One need not be a reactionary snob just because one isn't a red-hot Communist.”

“Needn't one?” muttered Kay sceptically.

“—you'd better know that Kay and I are considering marriage. Only considering, you know,” continued Madeline equably, surveying her proposed husband, who flushed beneath her calm scrutiny, with her head on one side. “But there's no secret about it.”

“Splendid. I wish you every happiness,” said Laura, looking doubtfully at Kay's long narrow head, his strong jaw and bright blue eyes.

Kay snorted and turned aside.
“He
doesn't want happiness, bless you,” said Madeline. “All
he
wants is the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Laura involuntarily released a ringing laugh. Frederick and Madeline joined her, and even Kay reluctantly smiled. When he smiled his face lost its Spanish Inquisition look and grew young and eager; Laura remembered that he was twenty years old and Edward's son.

Madeline now went off to the kitchen to prepare their meal.

“Come along and help me, Kay,” she said. “Haven't you any manners?”

“Last time I offered to help, you told me to get out of the light,” grumbled Kay, nevertheless following her eagerly.

“Laura, you mustn't worry too much over Madeline's opinion of your work,” said Frederick as soon as they had left the room, lighting Laura's cigarette. “Youngsters are always so conceited; it's part of their pose to attack their elders, you know. We did it ourselves, after all. Your work will last; it's good.”

Laura shook her head.

“Yes, Laura,” insisted Frederick.

“No. Don't try to flatter me, Frederick,” said Laura firmly. “My work has its use—it's good in its way, as Madeline said. But it's not a very high way. I have the seeing eye all right, but I can't
form what I see into high art. I haven't the technique. I haven't the style. I haven't the line. How could I have, Frederick? How could anyone have it in our generation? We're muddled, inhibited, cramped; people born and brought up and conditioned as we were born and brought up and conditioned can't be bold and free.”

“Popsy,” said Madeline, appearing in the doorway, “and Laura. Will you have brown bread or white?”

“I don't mind,” said Frederick and Laura simultaneously.

“Kay,” called Madeline over her shoulder towards the kitchen: “Brown bread or white?”

“Brown,” called Kay.

“All right, I shan't send Kay out for a white loaf, then,” said Madeline comfortably. “We've only brown. If you two don't know what you want, you mustn't blame me if you don't get it.”

“We shouldn't think of blaming
you,”
said Laura with meaning. When her niece had gone, she turned to Frederick with a smile. “You see,” she said.

“Well, but seriously, Laura,” said Frederick, sitting down in the Shetland chair, which dwarfed him to the appearance of a benevolent gnome: “You mustn't despise your work just because the next generation has adopted a different style. Every generation revolts against its predecessor, you know; every generation says:
Sleep in peace, father! I will be different from you.”

“But,” began Laura.

“In a sense, to excite that revolt is what one generation does for the next,” went on Frederick firmly. “Remember Whitman:
I teach straying from me
—
he most honours my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher!”

“I think that is what Kay might call a defeatist ideology,” argued Laura. “If one generation consisted of admirable people, living a thoroughly good life, the following generation would not need, or wish, to revolt against it. Ergo, the measure of one generation's revolt is the measure of the previous generation's failure.”

“Everything would be very dull and static if the generations agreed,” objected Frederick.; “I think we need change,
lest one good custom should corrupt the world!”

“Now, Popsy, don't go all quotatious,” said Madeline briskly, entering with a tray. “You're not writing an article for the
Manchester Guardian.”

“Would you like me to ask my agent to place this chimney cut for you, Madeline?” asked Laura. “He could get you a good price for it, I'm sure.”

Madeline frowned and did not answer; for a moment she resumed the muted stolid look she had worn in Blackshaw days. Laura saw that she had somehow wounded the girl, though she was ignorant of her offence.