The Feast (35 page)

‘It was vulgar gossip‚’ he told her. ‘Nothing in it. There couldn’t be.’

Hebe nodded.

‘Did you … say anything to the others?’

‘Oh, no … I never told anyone. Only to-day … I was so furious….’

‘Forget about it.’

‘She won’t. You’ll have to send me away.’

He knew this was true.

‘Perhaps,’ he mused, ‘you’ll do better at school.’

‘Perhaps I shall,’ agreed Hebe, cheering up slightly. ‘Like Jane Eyre.’

He took the tray downstairs and went out on to the sands. So far as he could see this grotesque discovery made very little difference to his position. It merely made him feel more of a fool. It robbed his troubles of any claim to dignity.

This earthly ball rolled on towards the Feast. That was how a good many people at Pendizack felt. For the seven children it rolled far too slowly and the day seemed endless. But their elders, harassed with many
occupations
, had no such grudge against time. Evangeline, who was still doing all the cooking, regretted that she had undertaken the manufacture of so many costumes. She did not finish Mrs. Paley’s hat until the very last minute and when she ran upstairs with it the children, already dressed, were gathering in the hall for the opening procession.

She found Mrs. Paley struggling into the old green mackintosh which Duff had lent her. It was very tight and the sleeves were rather short. But there was no doubt that it had a skinny look.

‘Here it is‚’ said Evangeline, putting the hat on the bed. ‘But how you will keep it on, I can’t think.’

‘It’s a masterpiece!’ said Mrs. Paley.

The hat was four feet in diameter. It was made in stiff cardboard. Ribbons and little bells hung from its brim. On the top of it there were two canaries, a stork, a duck, an owl, a snail, a bee, a fimble fowl (made with a
corkscrew
), a golden grouse, a pobble, a small Olympian bear, a dong, an Orient Calf, an Attery Squash, and a Bisky Bat, all dancing to the flute of a Blue Baboon. Mrs. Paley put it on and immediately it tipped sideways, in a most disreputable way.

‘I was afraid it would,’ said Evangeline. ‘But I’ve brought some ribbons. If I sew them on, you could tie them firmly under your chin….’

She sat on the bed sewing, while Mrs. Paley put on black gloves with pencils in the fingers to make them look like claws.

‘I’ve had the shock of my life,’ said Mrs. Paley. ‘Mrs. Cove has asked me to keep an eye on the children while she is away. She was almost agreeable. Said I’d been so kind to them. Thanked me for the Feast. And
smiled
!
’

‘I can’t believe that,’ said Evangeline. ‘She couldn’t smile.’

‘She bared her teeth at me in a sort of grin. Really she did. I wish I knew what she’s up to!’

‘Oh, but isn’t it obvious? She’s booked the rooms. She doesn’t want to pay and not use them. And why shouldn’t she leave the children?’

‘One would think so. But Hebe’s motto hits the nail on the head. I’m frightened of that woman. As soon as I knew she wanted them to stay, I began to wonder if it was all right for them to stay.’

‘Do you think she wants to be rid of them … for good, I mean?’ asked Evangeline, biting off a thread.

‘Yes. Don’t you? Haven’t you got that feeling, somehow?’

‘Yes. But I’ve nothing to go on—only her manner.’

‘I daresay she doesn’t quite recognize it herself. But she … lets them run risks … I don’t know. They seem to have had such a lot of narrow escapes. I shall never forget her face when she watched them going down to Dead Man’s Rock. I saw it through the glasses. She did go after them, to stop them; but very reluctantly. She doesn’t love them a bit, and I think they are in her way. When she gave me that ghastly smile, I immediately thought: Oh, is it dangerous for them to be here?’

‘It couldn’t be,’ said Evangeline.

‘No. It couldn’t, could it? Perhaps I’m fanciful. And I don’t suppose for a minute that she would
consciously
… it’s just that I feel she subconsciously ill wishes them for some reason. Wants them out of her way. Wouldn’t be in any hurry to stop them taking themselves out of her way…. I wish they were mine, Angie! I wish I could have them for keeps.’

‘There,’ said Angie, finishing the second string. ‘I must run and put on my funny bonnet. Tie it on very tight….’

She rushed upstairs to dress up as Mrs. Discobolos. Mrs. Paley had to take the claw gloves off again to tie on the hat. Even with the ribbons it tipped a little, but she was able to secure it by hairpins twisted in the lining and skewered to her head.

While she was doing this she heard her husband come in, but she could not see him, for the huge hat, with its fringe of ribbons, restricted her line of sight. He remained very still and she knew that he was looking at her. Presently he said:

‘You can’t really mean to make such an exhibition of yourself? What good will it do to anyone? I know you are sorry for these children. But what good will it do them?’

‘It’ll make them laugh‚’ mumbled Mrs. Paley, her mouth full of hairpins.

After a minute she added:

‘I’m very sorry you won’t come. You wouldn’t like it‚ I know. But you wouldn’t be more miserable there than you are here, and they would be pleased. So it would cost you nothing, and give them pleasure.’

He did not answer immediately and she felt that he was hesitating. She ducked her head sideways so as to squint at him from under the hat.

‘Come‚’ she said. ‘It might take your mind off …’

‘Off what?’ he asked sharply.

‘Off … whatever it is that’s killing you. You won’t tell me, so I don’t know what it is….’

‘It’s a dream …’ said Mr. Paley, in a low voice.

A great tumult broke out on the terrace below. The first feasters were issuing to the strains of Fred’s accordion.

‘I can’t hear,’ said Mrs. Paley.

‘Nor can I tell you,’ shouted Mr. Paley, ‘while you have that ridiculous thing on your head. Take it off!’

‘I can’t. It takes hours to fix, and I ought to be going.’

Down below they had begun to sing:

‘What are you?’ he shouted. ‘What do you think you are?’

‘A Quangle Wangle,’ quavered Mrs. Paley.

‘A what? I can’t hear.’

‘I’m a Quangle Wangle.’

‘And what may a Quangle Wangle be?’

‘I don’t know. Nobody knows.’

Mrs. Paley blew her nose under the hat. She was overcome with grief and did not wish to go to the Feast.

‘Well?’ he shouted. ‘What are you waiting for?’

‘I don’t know. Good-bye, Paul.’

She ducked sideways again to look at him. He had turned away and was sitting in his arm-chair by the window, his head in his hands. He would not answer.

She got herself and her hat, with some difficulty, through the door.

A profound hush enveloped Pendizack Manor Hotel. The procession had formed on the terrace and had wound its way, singing, up the drive to the cliff path, since the tide was over the sands. The shouts and music died away and the silence rolled up like a mist.

Mrs. Siddal, lying inert upon her bed, felt it first of all as a relief. The noise made by the children, dressing on the attic floor and shouting from one room to another, had been intolerable. She was glad when they all rushed downstairs.

She was fully dressed, for she was not ill, only tired, and she might be entreated at any time to take up the reins of government again. Some catastrophe would certainly occur which would bring them to their knees. But she would not go down until she was invited. She would not go down while Evangeline Wraxton was in the house.

Her meals were brought to her on trays by Robin, Duff or Nancibel, and they all assured her that she was not needed, that everything went perfectly well without her. She did not believe them. She did not want to believe them. And the excellence of the food they brought her only hardened her heart. Gerry and that girl were very sly; they never came up, they never gave her a chance to shake their confidence. They were happy, down there, lording it over her kitchen, planning their future, and never once thinking of her ruined hopes.

The light faded and the house grew quiet. Her room
was always a little dark, for it had no sea view. It was the least pleasant room in the house, which was why she had moved up there; no guest would have taken it. In former days it had been merely a lumber room. The little window looked out on the creek and the menacing bulk of the Other Cliffs, which leant over so close to the house that she got no glimpse of the sky unless she put her head out. She could hear the high tide gurgling into the creek, but she did not hear the noisy departure of the feasters from the terrace on the far side of the house. She merely knew that there was silence, that she was lonely, and that night was falling.

This was the second evening she would spend all alone up here, shut in with her troubles, while the light sank away and shadows on the cliff wall merged into a
conquering
obscurity. Dusk, in this room, had no soft and lingering tints; it was merely the failure, the death of day. And the silence of this room had no peace, no repose. It was sterile and empty.

She cried a little, and then dozed, until a short, shrill scream jerked her into wakefulness. It was only a gull, swooping past the window, but it left her with a thumping heart and a presage of fear. An overpowering need came upon her to get up, to get out of this room, to see human faces and to hear voices. For a few seconds she fought with it, but the dread, advancing upon her, was too strong. Her pride fell before it. She jumped up and hurried into the passage, where she encountered the same deathly silence. Out there it seemed stronger. She flinched from it aghast, as some wretch, waking to a smell of fire, might peer from his room and meet a wall of stifling smoke. Then footsteps creaked. A door opened. Her panic
subsided
. For the first time in her life she felt glad to see Miss Ellis. That frog face, peering at her through the crack of a door, was company of sorts.

‘Oh!’ said Miss Ellis. ‘I thought everyone was gone.’

‘So did I‚’ said Mrs. Siddal. ‘It’s so quiet. Where is everybody?’

‘Gone to the Feast.’

And of course that explained everything. She had forgotten the Feast, though Robin had brought up her invitation card that morning, and she had sent her love to the little Coves and her regrets that she was not well enough to come.

‘Been a lot of trouble downstairs‚’ Miss Ellis told her. ‘You’ll be upset when you get down and see. Well … Fred has broken two vegetable dishes. And the way Miss Wraxton is using up the sugar…. Are you feeling better?’

‘Yes, thank you. Has everybody gone? Aren’t you going, Miss Ellis?’

‘Me? To this picnic affair? No, I’m
not.
’

‘But weren’t you invited? I thought …’

‘Oh, yes. I was asked. Along with Nancibel and Fred! Very kind of them, I’m sure. Did you hear the row they made going off?’

‘No. I don’t hear anything my side of the house.’

‘Sir Henry was livid. Well … that young Hebe, she’ll end up in Borstal if she doesn’t look out. There’s something about that child … something really nasty. What d’you suppose her fancy dress was?’

‘I can’t think.’

‘Nothing.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing but a pair of paper wings and a bow and arrows. Said she was Cupid. In front of all those boys. So they all had to wait while she was sent upstairs to put something on. So she had the nerve to stick on a nightgown with those wings and say she’d turned into an angel….’

‘Mrs. Siddal!’

Miss Ellis and Mrs. Siddal turned. Mrs. Cove had come out of her attic.

‘I’m glad you’re about again,’ she said. ‘Can you see that my ration book is put on my table to-morrow morning at breakfast? I shall want it. I have to go to
London to-morrow, and I like to get my ration book back in plenty of time before I leave. So often in hotels they make mistakes and take out too many points, and don’t give you time to find it out.’

‘Going to London?’ exclaimed Mrs. Siddal. ‘Are you all going? I didn’t realize …’

‘No,’ said Miss Ellis. ‘She’s leaving the children. Aren’t you, Mrs. Cove?’

Mrs. Cove looked at Miss Ellis. The stifling waves of silence seemed to roll along the passage again as the two women stood gazing at one another. Something passed between them, but they neither moved nor spoke. Mrs. Siddal left them standing there and made her way downstairs to the kitchen, as far away from them as possible.

But it was no better down there. The deadness, the oppression, seemed to have crept into every corner of the house. She could not even manage to be indignant over the fragments of broken vegetable dishes, or triumphant at the prevailing evidence of disorder. Never had such chaos been seen before in her kitchen and her scullery, for the feasters had gone off without clearing up or washing the dishes. But she looked at it all with an indifferent eye, unable to feel that anything mattered very much any more. Lady Gifford’s bell, demanding Horlick’s Malted Milk, could scarcely shatter the heavy quiet. Its peal left no echoes.

A good thing, I’m here, thought Mrs. Siddal languidly. They forgot.

She put on a kettle and went to the dresser for the tin. Here she found something else which had been forgotten—a basket containing four bottles of hock,
evidently
packed for the Feast and left behind.

A foolish extravagance, she thought, with the same dull detachment. And then a sharp feeling came to her: the first she had known since she left her room.
They
forgot
.
She was very sorry that they should have forgotten this basket. She felt it as a calamity. While the kettle
was boiling she went out on to the terrace to see if any of them were still on the sands. She might wave to them to come back and fetch it.

Nobody was on the sands. The tide was up, and they must have gone by the drive to the cliff path. But she lingered a moment, for the air out there was sweet, after the stuffy oppression of the house, and a fine sunset blazed over Pendizack Point. The fresh air and the sharp colours caught at her heart. She thought that she ought to get out more often.