The Feast (31 page)

As the door closed behind the Giffords, Miss Ellis sent up another rocket.

‘I never! No I never! She ought to be on the dole. Then she’d find out if money matters!’

‘Still, she made quite a point,’ said Anna. ‘People do concentrate on cash rather than on getting value for it.’

Mrs. Cove, who had not contributed very much to the barrage, looked up from her knitting and said, with a sniff of disgust:

‘It isn’t money people seem to want, nowadays. We shouldn’t be in this hole if they did. All they want is less work and shorter hours. Hunger is the only call they’ll answer. As soon as their stomachs are full they slack off. They don’t want anything that means effort. They don’t want higher standards unless somebody else pays. You see … you
see
what will happen when all our money is spent. The schools will be the first to go. For years they’ve educated their children at our expense.
When they have to pay for it themselves you won’t hear them howling so loud about education. Look at all the waste and extravagance! In my opinion it’s sheer laziness that is ruining this country. People hate work. They think it a hardship.’

She sniffed again and held up one grey sock against another, measuring the length.

Nobody took up her point. Mr. Paley, a little ashamed perhaps at his own volubility, had retired behind a newspaper. Anna and the Canon had shouted
themselves
hoarse. The only comment came from Miss Ellis, who exclaimed that she had never been so insulted in her life.

‘Who by?’ asked Mr. Siddal.

‘By a lot of people. I’m not to ask for higher wages; it’s wicked. I’m not to ask for shorter hours; it’s wicked. I’m not to think I’m born with any rights at all; it’s wicked. I’m not to stand up for myself; it’s wicked. If there were more people like me there would be fewer like you, Mrs. Cove.’

‘That,’ said Mrs. Cove, ‘would be a pity.’

Miss Ellis rose, muttering, and flounced out of the room just as Mr. Siddal took up a position on the hearthrug and cleared his throat.

‘Don’t tell me you are going to start now!’ cried Anna.

‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t,’ said Mr. Siddal. ‘All the rest of you have said what is wrong with the world. Why shouldn’t I? …’

He broke off to cross the room and look out of the window.

‘I thought I heard something fall,’ he explained. ‘But it was a false alarm. Nothing there. I thought the Pendizack poltergeist had been at work again.’

And he came back to the hearthrug.

‘What poltergeist?’ asked Anna.

‘Didn’t you know we had one? It throws things at night out of the top floor windows … little objects of value….’

Mrs. Cove sat up abruptly and gaped at him.

‘We’ve heard various classes of people blamed to-night,’ he continued, ‘for our sorry condition … the envious, the luxurious … the lazy, the intolerant, and so forth … what! Mrs. Cove, are you leaving us?’

Mrs. Cove was bundling her knitting into a bag. With an abrupt good night she hastened from the room.

‘What a meanie you are, Dick!’ reproached Anna. ‘Is it really those children who have been playing tricks with her soapstone?’

‘I strongly suspect that it is.’

‘She’ll skin them alive.’

‘Oh no! If she does, Paley’s wife and Wraxton’s daughter, not to speak of Nancibel, Robin and Hebe, will skin her alive. The little Coves can look after
themselves
. The little Coves are immensely powerful! They have got the whole house in their pockets. They are the Meek, who are going to inherit the earth, and they will feast above our graves. But I, being a sportsman, have a soft spot in my heart for poor Mrs. Cove, that dying gladiator. Now I don’t think any one class of individual is to be blamed in this collapsing world. If there wasn’t something a little wrong with all of us we could deal with any one pernicious group. But we can’t because nobody is grateful enough. Ingratitude! That’s what is the matter with everybody. And isn’t that because every man, any man, has a completely false idea of what he really is? He will regard himself as an independent and self-sufficient unit—a sovereign state. And in his dealing with the rest of us he imagines he is negotiating with other sovereign states. No wonder the negotiations break down. For by himself he is nothing. Nothing at all. All that he is, everything that he possesses, he owes to the rest of us. He has nothing that is really his own.’

‘He has an immortal soul,’ stated the Canon.

‘Which he didn’t make himself. He is simply a creature presuming to negotiate on equal terms with his Creator. If he could ever fully realize what he owes to the rest of
us he would be so flooded, so overwhelmed, with humility and gratitude that he would only be anxious to pay his debts, not claim his rights. He’d be the easiest fellow in the world to play ball with.’

‘I do not think,’ observed Mr. Paley, ‘that I owe anything to anybody. What I am, what I have, are the result of my own efforts.’

‘You didn’t conceive yourself or give birth to yourself. You didn’t invent the language you use, and in which the wisdom of other generations has been communicated to you by other people. You couldn’t even do a noble deed without some help from us: it was we who first gave you a notion of nobility and anyway you’d need somebody else to do it to. You didn’t weave the cloth you wear or grow the bread you eat.’

‘I pay for what I have.’

‘Do you pay enough? Does anybody pay enough? Has any man repaid a millionth part of all that he has received? Where would you be without us? Did you ever read the life of Helen Keller? Blind, deaf, dumb … a soul in prison … an intellect frozen by solitude … unable to reach us … all
alone
! And then …’

Mr. Siddal paused, for Mr. Paley had risen with a smothered cry.

‘You said?’

‘I said nothing,’ gasped Mr. Paley, who had grown very white.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Anna.

‘No. I … I’m ill …’ He turned furiously on Mr. Siddal. ‘You’re talking nonsense. You’re talking rubbish….’

A spasm shook him and he rushed from the room.

‘Now what,’ enquired Mr. Siddal, ‘can I have said? Why should a reference to Helen Keller give Paley a fit? It’s a wonderful story. She found us through the one link left: a sense of touch. They used to pour water on her hand, over and over and over again, and each time
they did it they spelt out the word on her fingers. At last she understood. It was a message. We were there. She went half crazy. She rushed round the room,
snatching
, grasping, touching everything within reach, holding out her poor little fingers for more names, more words, more messages. Then the brain could function. Then the soul could expand. Through her finger tips she learnt all that we know.’

Anna yawned, and the Canon, leaning back in his chair, tapped impatiently with his foot. They were now Mr. Siddal’s only audience, and they did not encourage him to continue. But he pursued his point, rocking up and down on his heels in front of the fireplace.

‘I don’t think that man is going to survive. There is this fatal flaw in our construction; a kind of moral
imperviousness
to a truth which we can perceive intellectually. Reason tells us that we should be grateful. Reason tells us that, if we were, we might be able to co-operate in the pursuit of happiness. But reason can’t run the machine. It can only draw up blue prints. Civilization after
civilization
has gone down into the dust because we cannot manage to be humble.’

‘And is that why you hog it in the boot-hole all day?’ asked Anna.

‘Yes. That’s why I hog it in the boot-hole. I am ‘born but to die and reason but to err.” If everybody else saw that as clearly as I do they would all hog it in boot-holes. But you are all very busy and active in the pursuit of happiness and security. A vain pursuit. You are nothing and you can do nothing for yourselves. You might do something for each other, if you really believed in each other’s existence. But you don’t. Very few people are really able to believe that anybody exists
except
themselves. Too few. They can never do more than start something which grows a little and then dies.’

‘What a ray of sunshine you are,’ said Anna, getting
up. ‘Well … I still think the monkeys get top marks. Good night, Canon Wraxton.’

The Canon did not return her salutation. He waited until she had gone, and then he said:

‘Now that we are alone I’d like a word with you, Siddal.’

‘If it’s about my son and your daughter….’

‘It’s not. I know you count for nothing in this house. No! It’s about a cock-and-bull story that was told to me to-day. I know what is behind it. Somebody wants to scare me out of the place. It’s not the first attempt. And I’m asked to believe that the house isn’t safe; that the cliffs are likely to subside!’

‘Who said so?’

‘Never you mind. If you don’t know, I shan’t tell you. But there’s no doubt that my informant was set on by somebody or other. Plenty of people here, I imagine, want to get rid of me. If you know who they are, tell them this: I wasn’t born yesterday. They must think of a better lie.’

‘Do you mean the Other Cliffs?’

‘You know best what cliffs I mean. I was told that you have had a letter from the Government telling you to clear out of this place immediately. Is that true or is it not?’

‘No,’ said Mr. Siddal. ‘Not that I know of.’

‘I thought not. I thought you’d admit as much if I nailed you down to it. Very well. Now I know what to think. I wish you a good evening.’

Mr. Siddal sat meditating for some time in the empty lounge. Before he returned to his boot-hole he had an impulse to look into the boiler-room. The coke furnace was crackling merrily, and the room was very tidy. There was no way of telling whether all the letters he had left there had been burnt up or not.

‘Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty,’ counted Blanche, as she stacked the invitation cards.

‘But there are twenty-three going to the Feast,’ said Maud.

‘Three are us. Now let’s settle who gets which.’

Each card had been decorated by the Coves, who could draw and paint beautifully. They had been busy all day.

Beatrix spread them on her bed, and the three sisters knelt round it, arguing whether it would be polite to give Maud’s design of snails to Mr. Siddal. Eventually they gave him hollyhocks and allotted the snails to Robin. For Nancibel they set aside their favourite card, with a border of dandelion clocks, exquisitely done in pen and ink by Blanche, while Mrs. Paley was to have their rival favourite, which had a pattern of shells.

‘Rabbits for Mrs. Siddal, the spider’s web for Duff, fir cones for Gerry and bracken crooks for Angie. What about Angie’s father?’

‘Give him the sea anemone I blotted,’ suggested Maud.

‘No,’ decided Blanche. ‘That’s the worst one. We don’t want to give the worst to somebody we don’t like. Let’s give him the owls. I wonder what he will dress up as?’

‘He could change clothes with Fred,’ said Maud. ‘Then Fred could go as a clergyman and the Canon could go as a waiter. Oh I do hope poor Lady Gifford will be well enough to go. We mustn’t forget to put her card on her breakfast tray.’

Their own ecstasy did not surprise them in the least, though they had never enjoyed such a transport before. But they had always believed in it as a natural
accompaniment
of a feast. So they took it calmly and attended to details. Their costumes had been easily settled. Hebe and Caroline had lent them two cotton kimono
dressing-gowns
in which Blanche and Beatrix were to appear as Geishas. Maud had collected Hebe’s slacks, curtain
ear-rings, a sash, a red handkerchief and a plastic pencil case which looked like a pistol. No pirate could ask for more.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ said Beatrix. ‘Let’s go to sleep and make to-morrow come quickly.’

But Blanche objected that now was just as good as to-morrow. And after the Feast was over they would have it to remember for always.

‘This time to-morrow,’ she said, ‘we shall be up on the headland feasting and revelling. Now we are here, thinking about it. Afterwards we shall be in other places, thinking about it. So it will sort of happen for a long time in a lot of places.’

They went to the window and hung out, looking at the solid mass of Pendizack Head, standing out above the sea. The tide was high. They reckoned that it would be high to-morrow when they started for the Feast. They would not be able to cross the sands. The musical
procession
, the first item on Hebe’s programme, would have to wind its way up the drive to the place where the higher cliff path branched off.

They were all still hanging out of the window when their mother came. Something ominous about her approaching footsteps, as she hurried down the passage, warned them of trouble before she came into the room. A premonitory shiver went through all three. They turned slowly when they heard the door open. She was
exceedingly
angry, a fact not easily apparent to a casual observer, since it made little difference to her expression, but always discernible to her children.

‘Come here,’ she said, sitting down on her bed.

They came and stood in a trembling row in front of her.

‘Somebody in this room,’ she said, ‘is a thief.
Somebody
took my keys, while I was in my bath, and stole my black amber, and threw it out of the window. Which of you is it?’

Anybody could have seen which it was. The blank astonishment of Maud and Beatrix could not have been
assumed. Mrs. Cove shot out a steely hand and seized Blanche by the shoulder.

‘Why did you do it?’

‘I … I don’t know,’ whispered Blanche.

‘Who put you up to it?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Don’t tell lies.’

‘Nobody else knew. I … just didn’t want us to have it.’

‘You know what happens when you tell lies?’

A gasp went up from them all.

‘No …’ cried Blanche. ‘No. I’m not telling lies. Nobody knew.’

‘Somebody must have known. You are telling lies. Put a bath towel in the middle of the room and put a chair on it. Put another towel round your shoulders.’