The Jury (13 page)

Brian was not forgetting all that. He was remembering it with peculiar bitterness. Perryman had done him a kindness. Roderick had done him a kindness. Daphne … Daphne had opened the door of paradise and then slammed it in his face. A rotten cheap metaphor, said Brian, and just like me. I'm rotten and cheap, that's why she treats me like this. If I'd got any guts she'd never have dared. I'm soft and easy and she was laughing at me all the time. When I kissed her she was laughing that first time: when I kissed her that first time was thinking what a young sop. But it's a quaint experience she said to be necking with a bootmaker's son, such a nice smell of leather, and how he trembles, how his eyes bulge, how lovely I am, aren't I, darling? Nice to feel my body so soft in your arms, isn't it, darling? And you so tame and modest and not taking liberties like that chauffeur. But then he was a man wasn't he, shouted Brian in his mind, taking his part in the dialogue. He was a man, not a lovesick baby. He was a man, he yelled, and by now this fictitious chauffeur was real to him: he had a little close-clipped moustache and stained teeth; his eyes were red and full of lechery; he was grinning like a fox at his woman, saying nothing, grinning, grinning, while his lascivious fingers unhurriedly seized her. He was a man and knew how to treat you, didn't he, my lovely Daphne? And now it's Perryman, he's your fancy. Sitting so sleek in Soho restaurant with downcast eye demure. And when he'd fed you did he bed you, did he rape you, did he pluck you, did he pluck his beauteous bird, his flower of the night? And you insatiate lay like Messalina, great whore of all the world. Is that Marlowe, is it Ford, is it one of those boisterous boys, dear? No it's me, it's mine. It's my pent heart unvialling its gall. By God, I know how Shakespeare felt, by God I do,
by God! Shakespeare, you should be living at this hour. I'm your man, I'm your brother, I have a soul like yours. And she, what is she but a filthy drab, soft and white, soft and warm, soft fleshing clouds enclose the pyramid in streets of Soho cavernously cool. God, I'm raving, I'm ranting, I'm spouting! My sperm is a trickle of words. I'm a minor poet, I'm a muckheap, I'm nothing. She knows I'm nothing. She's made me nothing. I won't go on living. Won't I? You bet I will. But some shall die, not I, not I. Perryman, for one. Perryman, you should be dying at this hour. Sweet Perryman, merry Perryman, I would have speech with thee, dear love.

She has driven me mad, said Brian, as he pushed his way into Perryman's favourite tavern. I am a very foolish fond young man. I watch myself going mad. I wallow in filth, she is stripped bare, she is foul, my great heart cracks and reason is o'erthrown. The vile quality of his emotion convicted him of greatness. Yes, he was great: he couldn't but know it. He was a giant among pigmies and he suffered like a giant. He would stalk into the middle of the stage and there die, superbly, with the spotlight on his tragic face.
No,
she would cry, you mustn't, Brian, you mustn't; I can't bear it. Too late, light heart, too late. I am dead. I am noble in death. Dead, he's dead, and I have killed him. Never look upon his like again. Away, Perryman, I hate you. This white body is dedicate to a dream. … He saw Perryman and Strood standing together at the bar, and the flow of phrases stopped abruptly. He was an ordinary young man, diffident, pimpled, humbly waiting for a nod of recognition.

“Hullo, Goodeve,” said Perryman. “What'll you have?”

Brian smiled nervously. “Hullo … perhaps … bitter, I think. Thanks awfully.” Perryman ordered a pint. “Oh no, half a pint, please. Thanks very much.” Well, paramour, are you her perryman?

“What are you doing nowadays?” asked Roderick. “Haven't seen you for a long time.”

“Oh, the usual things,” said Brian. “Bits of verse, and a few short notices.”

“You ought to get down to something big,” remarked Perryman paternally. “Why aren't you writing a novel? Everybody else is.”

“Are
you?”
asked Roderick. He was weary of this place and this talk. He wanted to hear news of Daphne.

“Not I,” said Perryman. “I know better. But everyone under thirty is. Men, women, and children.” He noticed Roderick's glazed eye. “Come along, Rod. We must be moving along. 'Bye, Goodeve. …” He steered Roderick out into the street. “We'll have a bit of lunch. I know a quiet place.”

Roderick, striding along by his side, wondered why poor old Mark couldn't have met him at that quiet place instead of requiring of him this ritual drinking-act. “Well, out with it, Mark,” he said. “You've seen her?”

“Daphne?” said Mark. “Daphne's gone away.”

“Gone away. What on earth …? I thought she said …”

“Yes, she said she must see you. Now she says she won't see you. She's gone away.”

“Where?”

“That,” said Mark, “is supposed to be a secret.”

“Very likely.” Roderick was impatient. “Where has she gone?”

“She said I wasn't to tell you.”

“Did she? All right. But I don't want to know what she said. I want to know where she's gone.”

“Here we are,” said Mark. He pushed open the door of his quiet restaurant. Roderick followed. They sought and found a table for two. “Steak-and-kidney pudding. Humble but delicious. It's positively
de luxe
here. What do you say?”

“Yes, yes,” said Roderick. “Anything you like.”

Mark smiled. “Not exactly graceful, as from guest to host. But never mind. Now look here, Rod. Are you
sure
you want to know where Daphne is?”

“Obviously. I've got to know. What the devil's she playing at? It's childish.”

“You left her. She's left you. That's the idea. And now, why not let well alone and wait till you're asked for?”

“How can I? Don't you see, I'm responsible for her.”

“You mean in law? Her debts and so on?”

Roderick shrugged his shoulders. “Well, yes.” But that was not what had been in his mind, and Mark knew it. “She told you not to tell me, did she?”

“She did,” said Mark. “And she'll be profoundly disappointed if … if what, Roddy?”

“If you betray her confidence?”

“Wrong,” said Mark. “She'll be profoundly disappointed if I don't betray her confidence. Or, at all events, if you don't find out from someone where she is.”

Roderick looked uncomfortable. “I see what you mean. But I don't think you understand Daphne.”

“She agrees with you there,” answered Mark with a sigh.

“You rather misjudge her, old chap. Daphne is very unhappy, you know. This business has upset her.”

“Really?” said Mark. “I hadn't thought of that.” As he met Roderick's troubled glance he had to admit that his irony was a trifle heavy. “So you want the address, do you?”

Roderick nodded.

“She kindly wrote it down for me. Somewhere on the coast of Somerset.”

“Widdicot?” asked Roderick.

Mark had found the slip of paper. “You're a wizard, Rod. No hiding anything from you. What made you think of Widdicot?”

“The last time we spent a holiday at Widdicot,” said Roderick slowly, “we hired a car and drove over to Budleigh Parva.”

Mark waited for more. Roderick's manner excited his curiosity. “Really? I don't know Budleigh Parva. Never heard of it.”

“It's where my reverend father lives,” explained Roderick. “He's been vicar there for about fifty years.”

CYRIL GASKIN, even at thirty-five, still had moments of regret that his mother had not named him Michael or Patrick, so that the world at large might the more readily see him—as he saw himself—trailing clouds of Celtic Twilight. His maternal grandmother had been at least half-Irish, and it was from her, they said, that he had inherited his curly black hair, his blue
eyes, his carefree, laughing style. He knew—how could he help knowing—that he had ‘a way with him', and if ever he was tempted to lose confidence in his famous charm, the thought of that grandmother, whom he had never seen, brought to his eye a sparkle that few women could resist. “If I weren't such a scrupulous chap,” he would sometimes say, with a sigh half-wistful but wholly self-appreciative … As for his father's line, there was neither doubt nor evidence that Gaskin was merely an Anglicized version of Gasquin, and that the logical volatile French, as well as the whimsical volatile Irish, had contributed to the unique blend of him. Such an inheritance was a responsibility as well as an asset: only a man of sound principles could be safely trusted with it. There was little Stella now, his nineteen-year-old sister-in-law, a dear child whose full red lips and large eyes and soft peach-bloom complexion were, to a man advancing towards high summer, a rather poignant reminder of springtime joy. That was the worst of being so sensitive. Perhaps Agnes herself had looked something like that at Stella's age, ten years ago. But he doubted it. Be that as it might (a favourite phrase), it was a great comfort to have so charming a creature to share his vigil with him. For there she sat, in the arm-chair in which he had tenderly placed her, while upstairs, on the second floor, poor Agnes lay in labour with his first child.

The anxious husband paced up and down the room, occasionally pausing to glance, with an almost more than brotherly solicitude, at his young companion in anxiety. In distress she was prettier than ever: very unusual that, he thought, generally quite the other way round. Prettier than ever, and she adored him. You could not blame her for that, and Cyril in fact did not blame her. It was all very natural, almost inevitable. A man mature in judgement yet still young, a man of boundless good nature, do anything for anyone, and … well, one isn't conceited, but it's no use pretending that one's altogether repulsive to look at, is it? And then, on the other side, a young and loving heart, not quite understood at home perhaps, a wee bit lonely in this big world, missing the favourite sister and glad—one might almost say, like the poet, surprised with joy—to have found a brother. They had always been pals; pleasant chaff and
alluring dimples had never been wanting in their friendship; and Agnes's state of health during the last few weeks of pregnancy had brought them still closer to each other. Stella's sympathy had been a great solace to him, and now, in this supreme hour of trial, he appreciated it more keenly than ever. Moreover, the Stella he had been accustomed to think of as a little girl (and of course he still thought of her so, how else?) was fast growing into a lovely woman; and (one must be honest, mustn't one?) that sort of thing, the new shyness, that swelling bosom, that hint of sweet agitation in the heart of innocence, well, it does make a difference and what's the use of denying it?

It was precisely this difference that made Cyril congratulate himself and Stella that he was the man he was. Come, little sister, we must be sensible, mustn't we? There, there, let's have a jolly laugh. That's what he'd say. Then there'd be a long, gentle, understanding kiss, a little stroking and fondling … well, naturally: anything short of that would be sheer unkindness. And … no more tears, darling. We've something that no one can take from us, haven't we. We'll play the game, eh? Straight bat. At this point in his fantasy Cyril paused to thank God that she had fallen into the hands of a man of honour.

“… someone to share my vigil,” he said lovingly. And at the word ‘vigil' his smile became braver, became tragic. He was a knight of old time suffering for his lady. She little knew how much he suffered. “It's this waiting, Stella. This suspense. This … this …
silence.
Eight hours now it's been going on. And to me it seems like eight years.”

Stella, in his best arm-chair, sat in a posture strangely un-restful. Turning eyes of wonder towards him, she answered in a low meek voice.

“Yes?”

“A son, Stella, think of that. Think what it must be to have a son. A new life, and part of oneself. Part of one's very essence. And to think that this wonderful experience may be mine at any moment now! But it's still in the balance. This waiting is the most dreadful part of the whole business.”

“Is it?” asked Stella. “Still, one can always talk.”

“Talk!” He echoed her with gentle derision. “What good is talk? How can one talk when at this very moment, Stella,
in this very house, the great drama is being enacted that is to make me a father! But you're right. One mustn't give way to one's feelings. Tell me, what have you been doing with yourself lately? Tennis? Theatricals?” She made no answer, but sat staring at her thoughts. So he came nearer and laid a caressing hand on her shoulder. “What are you thinking about, little star?”

She looked up at him wanly. “Does it matter?”

“It matters if it makes you unhappy, darling. It matters very much … to me.”

Her shoulder slipped from under his hand as she altered her position in the chair. “I don't know what you mean. I'm thinking of Agnes. What else could I be thinking of?”

“Agnes?” he said. “Yes, Agnes. We mustn't forget
her.”
What else, indeed, could the poor child think of but Agnes? The point of honour. The sword, as it were, between. But he couldn't resist probing further. “And what,” he said, in a low sad tone,
“what
were you thinking about Agnes?”

As though nervous of his hovering presence, perhaps untrustful of herself so near the arms of temptation, she got out of her chair and moved away. Then faced about and stared at him. “Really, Cyril, you're rather extraordinary, aren't you?”

So, ah so, it was coming at last! “Am I?” he said. “Not really, Stella. I'm really a very ordinary sort of chap. It's just an idea you've got about me. An idea. An ideal.” He moved towards her with arms ready to shelter her, and a manly shoulder against which she might hide her confusion. Loyal little sister. A shame that she should be so bewildered and unhappy.