The Beauty of the Dead and Other Stories (21 page)

He lay in the bedroom all that day, irritated and tired, yet restless. Frequently he found himself troubled by the motions and the sound of the chandelier. It was a very strange thing that he had never noticed it before. Yet now it troubled him. Once or twice he settled back on the pillows, trying to sleep, but the tinkling of the little pieces of glass, stirring in the wind blowing in at the open window, made a tiny maddening curtain between himself and oblivion. At other times he lay thinking: about the shop, then Edward, about the chrysanthemums in his little greenhouse behind the shop, about the doctor. When the doctor had been and departed he turned over in his mind what he had said. He tried to read into his reticent words at first more and then less than they seemed to mean. ‘The heart has had a nasty bump, Mr. Peacock, that's the trouble. A nasty little bump.
It needs rest and quiet, that's all, Mr. Peacock. If I were you I should get someone in to look after you.' In time these words began to have on him the same effect of irritation as the sound of the chandelier. They told him nothing. Very clever to say the heart had had a nasty bump; wonderful to advise getting someone in. The trouble was that he had nobody: except a sister who lived at the far end of the town, married to a third-rate insurance agent who rolled his own miserable ragged cigarettes for the sake of economy. He did not like either his sister or her husband; he did not think they liked him. It annoyed him that he should be forced even to think of them now.

He was glad when, about twelve o'clock, Edward came upstairs to say that his solicitor had arrived. Yet once again his feelings instantly took the form of fresh irritation.

‘All right, all right, all right!' he said. ‘Show him up! What's the sense in tramping upstairs twenty times when once will do?'

‘Yes, Mr. Peacock, yes.' Edward hurriedly left the room.

‘Wasting shoe leather!'

He lay back on the pillows, ashamed. His heart was beating very rapidly. He had not intended to speak like that. Far from it. No. He did not know at all what was coming over him. A few minutes later his
solicitor came in, a tall narrow-jawed man who enjoyed a little shooting two or three days a week and who now entered the room with great heartiness, smiling. Suddenly the little jeweller, who had lived for so many years without contention or malice, felt that he hated him. He felt illogically that the solicitor and the idea of the will were the causes and not the result of his pain. His mouth set itself coldly against the bed-sheet, his eyes levelly transfixed.

‘Sorry to see you like this, Mr. Peacock. Awfully sorry. Understand you wanted to see me?'

‘No!' the little jeweller said. ‘No!'

‘Well, Mr. Peacock – '

‘I don't want to see you! I don't want to see anybody!'

‘All right, Mr. Peacock, all right, all right. As you like, Mr. Peacock. As you like. Perhaps I might come in again tomorrow?'

‘No!' the little jeweller shouted. ‘No!'

For some moments after the solicitor had gone he was still speaking, repeating that angry monosyllable in a voice that was foreign to him. When he had finished he was again ashamed. He lay silent, his hands pressing his nightshirt against his heart. Closing his eyes, he tried to search for the causes of his strange behaviour. He then discovered that he was lonely. He felt suddenly a great need for companionship, for some
objective event or circumstance that would make him forget his fear.

Lying there, he recalled the chrysanthemums in his little greenhouse behind the shop, and it seemed to him that he had found a solution. He felt a great hunger for the sight of the flowers. He called Edward, and then when Edward came upstairs he began to explain what he wanted: how Edward was to go downstairs to the greenhouse and cut the chrysanthemums. The young man stood listening reticently, with an expression of grave concern, asking at last how many chrysanthemums he was to bring? Something about the young man's earnest gravity suddenly seemed very funny to the little jeweller and he began laughing.

‘Cut them all,' he said. ‘Cut them all, Edward. Bring them up here so that I can look at them. All of them, Edward, all of them! Go on! Go on!'

‘You don't mean it, Mr. Peacock?'

‘Bless me, mean it? Of course I mean it. Why should I say it if I didn't mean it?'

‘What shall I do for vases, Mr. Peacock?'

The little jeweller suddenly began laughing again, telling the young man that he was to get the vases out of the shop. The assistant looked very troubled but said, ‘Yes, Mr. Peacock', and left the room. Ten minutes later he began to bring up the first of the flowers, great stalks of bronze and yellow and amber
and pink, which he held at arm's length, like torches. He laid them first on the bed, where the little jeweller could reach out and touch them with the tips of his fingers, and then began to arrange them in bowls and vases brought up from the living room and the shop. The little jeweller watched him with bright, alert eyes, the chandelier and the solicitor and the pain in his heart momentarily forgotten. It seemed to him now that the room was alight. For the first time that day he lay untroubled by fear. He let the lids of his eyes relax and from his prostrate position on the bed he watched the great curled chrysanthemums swim about the room like constellations that brightened and soothed his mind. He asked at last how many flowers there were. The young assistant said he did not know, and the little jeweller said, ‘Count them, Edward, there must be fifty or sixty.'

‘Yes, Mr. Peacock,' the young man said and began to move his hands, counting the flowers, turning his head at last to say, ‘Sixty, Mr. Peacock. Exactly sixty. Funny how you guessed.'

‘Guessed?' The little jeweller began laughing in a strange way again. ‘No, Edward, no. I counted them! Counted them.' He laughed at the young man's grave disturbed face. ‘Caught you that time, Edward, eh? Caught you?'

‘Yes, Mr. Peacock,' Edward said.

‘Caught you nicely, eh, Edward?' He continued for some moments to laugh with bright eyes. He ceased only to turn again to the young man and speak.

‘Like having sixty moons shining in the room together,' he said. ‘Eh, Edward, eh?'

Later that afternoon he fell asleep, awaking with fear in his heart about half-past three, momentarily disturbed by the November twilight and the sound of the chandelier. Earlier, before sleeping, he had been along to the bathroom. The catch of the bedroom door had not fastened properly, and the door now stood partially open. In this way he could hear voices. He lay listening intently for some moments, and then it came to him that they were the voices of his sister and her husband, talking to Edward at the foot of the stairs.

For some time he could not hear what they were saying. He caught only the tone of their voices. They seemed almost to be arguing. He heard Edward make a sudden exclamation, as if in protest. He heard the aggressively pitched note of his sister's voice, surprised, resentful, dominating Edward. He did not know why he concluded that his brother-in-law was there; except perhaps because he was completely silent.

Soon the voices came nearer. He heard the sound of feet on the stairs, and caught a sentence of his sister's: ‘Well, then I think we'll go up and see what just
is
the matter.'

He lay gripping his hands under the sheet. He did not know why he should feel suddenly so antagonistic towards his sister, towards everyone. He had never liked his sister, but his attitude had been one of remote indifference. But now pain had ripped away the neat edge of his nerves, and he was angry because his sister had somehow been able to discover that he was ill.

He had withdrawn himself almost entirely under the sheets by the time his sister, preceding Edward and her husband, came into the room: a small, juiceless, volatile woman, with crinkled skin, her hands grasping a large patent leather handbag.

‘Well?' she said. ‘Well! What have you been doing to yourself?'

He muttered sounds of denial and protest that had on her the effect of a challenge.

‘Well, of course, if you're going to be like that after we've traipsed all the way up from North End!'

‘Like what?' he murmured. ‘Like what?'

‘Jumping down folks' throats! Muttering!' she said. ‘Muttering!'

He did not say anything. The slight exertion of protest had made him feel once again old and tired. In a
moment the tranquillizing effect of sleep and flowers had been lost. He turned with slight weariness in the bed.

At that moment he saw that his sister had seen the flowers. Her eyes were behaving like lights of warning in their wrinkled sockets. Her mouth, falling open, revealed a colourless dark gap between the plate of her false teeth and the roof of her mouth; but a single word of speech was enough to bring the plate into place again with a click of acid astonishment.

‘Well!' she said. ‘I wonder what next, I wonder what next!'

The little jeweller clenched his hands even harder under the sheets. As he did so his brother-in-law spoke for the first time.

‘Been bringing the greenhouse indoors, eh?' He spoke with false robustness, as if trying to be funny. His words became as it were knotted in his moustache, which his habit of smoking loose cheap cigarettes had turned a gingery yellow.

‘And what if I have?' the little jeweller said. ‘What if I have? What exactly is it to do with you?'

‘Mr. Peacock,' Edward said. ‘Mr. Peacock. The doctor said you were on no account to get excited.'

‘Excited?' the woman said. ‘Excited. It looks as if that's the trouble. Over-excitement about something. Bringing a greenhouse-full of flowers into the house.'

‘Can't I do what I like with them?' he said, trying to raise his voice. ‘They're my flowers! Without you interfering?'

‘Mr. Peacock,' Edward began.

‘Be quiet, Edward!' he said. ‘Get downstairs! Get down to the shop. What do you suppose customers will be doing? Get down to the shop!'

As the young assistant went reluctantly out of the room the little jeweller's sister began speaking again, in protest, but he suddenly cut her off with an attack of angry words, at the same time throwing up his hands and bringing them down on the sheets.

‘And you get out too! Both of you. Before I lose my temper. How can I get rest if you come up here arguing? How can I? How can I?'

‘All right!' his sister said. ‘All right! But it looks to me as if you want someone to look after you!'

‘I don't want anything except a little peace and quiet!' he shouted. ‘Get out!'

Rather hurriedly his brother-in-law went out of the room, his sister following, her lips strangely set. Suddenly he shouted after them that they could leave the door open. He wanted a little fresh air in there, a little fresh air!

The door was left slightly open. Exhausted, astonished at himself, feeling slightly ashamed, he lay back on the pillows. It took him some moments to get
his breath. Then in the silence he lay listening, hearing again the voices from downstairs.

It was only after three or four minutes, after his anger was really passed and had become in recollection something foreign and meaningless to him, that he got out of bed, put on his slippers, and went to his bedroom door. As he opened it, he took his grey woollen dressing-gown off the door-peg and slipped it over his shoulders. Then he went slowly along the landing. The voices had already become clearer, yet not distinct. It was already late in the afternoon and as he went cautiously down the first few steps of the stairs he could see the chinks of electric light splintering sharply the darkness between stairs and shop. Half way down the stairs he sat down, looking very small, slightly perplexed with his head to one side, and very solitary. He could hear the voices quite clearly now.

They came from the living room: mainly the voices of his sister, catechizing, and of Edward, answering. His sister seemed to be immensely concerned about the flowers.

‘Didn't it strike you as very funny,' she said to Edward, ‘that he should ask you to cut
all
the flowers?'

‘Well, it did rather. Yes.'

‘Fifty of them if there's one,' she said.

‘There's just sixty,' Edward said. ‘Mr. Peacock
counted them. He said it was like having sixty moons shining together in the bedroom.'

‘What?' she said.
‘What?'

The little jeweller heard Edward repeat what he had said.

‘Well!' she said. ‘Well! Well, that settles it, that settles it. I'm stopping here until things are straightened out a bit. First he acts funny with the solicitor, then with us. Then he talks about seeing moons shining in the room. I think it's a good job we found out about it when we did.'

The little jeweller made his way slowly back upstairs while she was still speaking, catching now and then some more strident passage in what she was saying. In the bedroom the colour of the many flowers had died, but the room was full of a strong odour of chrysanthemums that hung pleasantly on the damp November air. Tired now, he lay down in bed. As he began to try to think, turning over in his mind what he had just heard, the chandelier stirred and began to drop down on him its small tinkling irritant bits of sound. It was this repetitive maddening sound, he thought suddenly, that throughout the day had goaded him into brief fits of anger. Why was it? He did not want to be angry. He felt recurrently ashamed of himself, miserable. Yet underneath the shame he was aware of a strange, dormant anxiety. It seemed to
him that unless he took a terribly firm hold on himself he must sooner or later leap up in bed and seize the chandelier and smash it to pieces.

He was struggling with the perplexity brought about by this desire when his sister came upstairs and into the darkening room. Though he did not see it, she had taken off her hat and coat. It was in explanation of this that she addressed him in a challenging voice: