The Uncanny Reader (20 page)

With the sailor leading the way, they left the office and went out into a little passage, which after a few steps took them to a small door, after which a short flight of steps led them down to the boat which had been prepared for them. The sailors in the boat—into which their escort leapt with a single bound—rose to salute them. The Senator was just telling Karl to be careful as he climbed down, when Karl started sobbing violently on the top step. The Senator took Karl's chin in his right hand, hugged him tight, and stroked him with his left hand. They went down together, one step at a time, and in a tight embrace got into the boat where the Senator found Karl a good seat directly facing him. At a signal from the Senator, the sailors pushed off from the ship, and straightaway were rowing hard. Barely a few metres from the ship, Karl discovered to his surprise that they were facing the side of the ship where the head office looked out. All three windows were occupied by Schubal's witnesses, shouting goodbye and waving cheerfully, the uncle even waved back and one sailor managed to blow a kiss without interrupting the rhythm of his rowing. It really was as though there was no stoker. Karl examined his uncle a little more closely—their knees were almost touching—and he wondered whether this man would ever be able to replace the stoker for him. The uncle avoided his eye, and looked out at the waves, which were bobbing around the boat.

 

DECAY

Marjorie Bowen

I want to write it down at once, to get it ‘out of my head' as they say, though why one should suppose these things are in one's head I don't know—they seem to me all about us, flavouring the food we eat, colouring the sky.

Of course I've got the journalist's habit of scribbling too, it is so much easier to jot things down than explain them by speech.

To us, at least.

And you are so far away it is a good excuse to send ‘newsy' letters. Only, I've got a feeling that in Lima this will read, well,
queer
.

Still you
must
be interested and I must write, no, I forestall your objection, it won't do for ‘copy.' I'm not spoiling a good ‘scoop.'

What I have got to say can never be published.

Nor written to anyone but yourself—and you won't speak of it, I know.

Good Lord, you won't
want
to.

You'll remember the people as they would you—we were all in the same ‘set' together for so long—I think you were the first to break away when you got this Lima job, weren't you?

And soon after that came the marriage of Cedric Halston.

You heard all about it, I sent you the ‘cuttings' written by our own colleagues—you were rather fond of Halston, I think.

So was I.

Of course we were rather prejudiced by his being called Cedric and writing poetry, but it was such good stuff and he was such a decent sort and, of course, being so palpably ruined in Fleet Street! Much too good for what was too good for the rest of us, wasn't he?

And rather more poverty-stricken than anyone ought to be it seemed to me.

Lord! The sheer sordidness of Halston, ‘hard-upishness'!

He couldn't write his stuff for grind and worry and despair—but the little bits that struggled through as it were, were jolly fine.

Even the old Die-hards that ‘slam the door in the face of youth,' etc., etc., said he was—well, the right stuff.

None of your crazy, mazy, jig-saw, jazzy poets, poison green and liver yellow, but the ‘real thing.'

Like Keats.

Of course there ought to have been money in a stunt like that, being the real thing, I mean, and starving, but poor old Halston never could work it, could he? He just—starved.

Not very picturesquely.

Till he met Jennifer Harden.

(Did you ever think how
wrong
that ‘Jennifer' was? I'd never seen the name before except signing one of those articles that begin, ‘It's
ever
so crowded on the Riviera now, and oh my dear'—you know the patter—and the people who write it!)

You know they married—one rather wanted to jeer, but couldn't—we all sat back and looked humble.

It was so tremendous you could only describe it in terms of claptrap, ‘Abelard and Heloise,' a ‘grande passion' and ‘immortal love,' ‘eternal devotion,' ‘twin souls' and all the rest of the good old frayed symbols, old chap, but they are getting worn—I'm thinking.

You remember I sent you her photo? One of those misty affairs looking like—well,
not
like Jennifer Harden.

Still, she was beautiful, but out of drawing—lots of money, lots of taste, not too young, by any means—and then the ‘love of a lifetime' thrown in.

She didn't mind using that phrase about him—publicly, in the woman's club she ran, and where she had met him—lured to gas on ‘Truth in relation to Modesty' by the bribe of a good dinner. She also said she worshipped him—I admired her for that—you know they take a bit of saying, those sort of things now-a-days!

And he raved about her—got the rose-coloured spectacles firmly fixed and took her on as she was, ‘Jennifer' and all—dashed into poetry and spread himself out over ivory pomegranates, roses, and all the rest of the irrelevant stuff we drag in to say a woman's a
woman
. Do you remember the old Italian who saw his beloved at the fountain and said:

‘She alone of all the world is worthy to be called a woman'?

That is the prettiest compliment I know of.

Well, to return to the Halstons, they were married and I don't suppose you ever heard any more of them.

It is three years ago.

You know how lucky we all thought him—she really had such a lot of money.

And money had always been just what Halston wanted.

Of course they were very wonderful about it: he was ‘so humble in his great happiness, he could not let paltry pride stand in the way,' and she only ‘valued her fortune in that it could minister to his genius'—a pity how all these fine sentiments slip into ‘clichés.'

I suppose someone believes them, or means them, sometimes.

I wonder?

Well, they cleared out. She bought a place in Herts and called it ‘Enchantment.' Why not, after all? You might really feel that, I suppose.

Well, they shut themselves in this Paradise—never came to town, hardly ever wrote—sometimes a few ‘choice' poems from him, the kind that goes with handmade paper and silk ties and you keep reading over feeling sure that it means much more than it possibly could—and sometimes letters from her to ‘privileged' friends (they really thought they were), letters that are like screams of happiness.

Of course we all thought it rather wonderful that they could stay shut up like that and enjoy it—it was quite a blow for the real cynics.

‘A case in a million' was all they could say.

He never wrote to anyone and there was not one of us who would not have thought it cheek to write to him, we even sank to seriously thinking of him as ‘a God-sent genius.'

Well, here comes what I must set down—only to you, Lorimer.

Halston and I knew you best of all in the old days and you are the only person I can tell.

Forgive the preamble, but I have a sense of your being so far away—I imagine you saying: ‘Who is Halston?'

I haven't mentioned him for so long—there was nothing to mention—‘Happy nations,' etc. Here is the story.

I was sent down to Hertford town a few weeks ago to investigate some ghost story, you know what a rage that sort of thing is with us just now, all of us shouting things you can hardly say in a whisper and trying to disprove what no one can prove.

The case was interesting and kept me some time—the day before I was due back in London I met Halston in the High Street. He seemed very cordial and prosperous, had a good car waiting, was rather too well dressed in uncommon kind of clothes—sort of peasant handicraft and Savile Row combined. But I did not think he looked well, strained, aged and thin—but this he explained by the fact that he was writing an Epic.

(Why do you smile, Lorimer, people
have
written Epics, you know.)

That was why he had been shut away all the time—that great work might grow under the beautiful ministrations of his wife … Jennifer, I gathered, was really running a little Paradise for his special benefit … she had just snatched him away from all that was ugly or crude or mean or distressing and lapped him in Love and Beauty and Service …

Of course I grinned … but I was ashamed of grinning.

Halston did not seem to notice; he actually asked me over to ‘Enchantment' to stay a few days.

Being a free lance I could accept and did—you can imagine my curiosity—a vulgar thing to admit to, but don't you think it will be our first emotion if we ever step into Heaven?

Imagine the relish of being able to settle those questions—‘What is God really like?' and ‘those robes and crowns?' and the ‘many mansions?'—and little private pet queries of your own.

That was how I felt as I motored over to ‘Enchantment,' which was known to the outsider as a very delightful Tudor Farm House, completely brought up to date, that had formerly been called Eversley Lodge and run by a city gentleman, whose reputation was more noted for lustre than solidity. I found the place (which was isolated, a great way from the station, a good way from the road) perfect.

Rather like the ‘Ideal Homes' they make so much of just now, still they
are
ideal, aren't they?

Well, here it all was, ‘pleasance,' ‘pleached walk,' sunk ponds, statues, peacock, arbours, box hedges, astrolabes, sundials—all the bag of tricks and inside everything done by electricity and servants so efficient you forgot they were there. Wonderfully comfortable.

Everything right—flowers, pictures, furniture, food—the last word in little contrivances for ease and luxury—three cars, I think, electric bells disguised as lanthorns and telephones concealed in sedan chairs, wood fires to ‘look nice' and steam heating. Elzivirs to tone with the walls and modern books slipped into brocade covers to read, you know the kind of thing!

But really perfect!

Halston had a wing built on specially for himself—specially for the Epic, I ought to say, perhaps.

The most marvellous writing-room and library. I don't know what he hadn't got.

It was all ‘choice'; I hate the word but no other will do.

All really ‘choice' and as I was gaping round, in came Jennifer.

And she was ‘choice' too.

Just a rough silk dress, a girdle of queer stones no one else would have liked, leather shoes simply asserting they were hand-made—and a manner.

She was gracious—sweeter than anyone need or ought to be, I thought, but I hadn't quite got the atmosphere.

‘Our first guest,' she murmured, holding out both hands. ‘How strange Cedric should meet you. He so seldom goes to the town, or ever leaves the house. He doesn't care to,' she added with a thrill in her voice.

She looked at him and he looked at her and murmured, ‘Jennifer.'

While we had dinner—all excellent—that evening I observed her; she absolutely fascinated me and I want to describe her to you, Lorimer.

She is tall, with wide shoulders and a full Rossetti sort of neck, and a head rather nicely set, dark waved hair gathered in a knot at her nape and good forehead and dark rather flat eyes—then the nose tight, the lips hard and crooked, the complexion harsh and grained with red and the chin too small, running with a bad line into the Rossetti throat.

She lisped a little and showed more of her teeth than her lips when she talked.

Graceful enough she somehow gave an impression as I have said of beauty; she had a still yet enthusiastic manner and an air of almost incredible fastidiousness and refinement.

The conversation was delicately ‘high-brow,' and afterwards she played to us (yes, it was a Scriabin, and someone else, unknown to me who makes even Scriabin seem old-fashioned!), then he played and she stood behind him and rested her hands on his shoulders, and when it was over raised his face with slow fingers and kissed him.

There was a lot of this sort of thing; she, Jennifer, looked through me, with a sort of ‘divine pity'—but she was kind, very kind.

I soon learnt that Halston's ‘sanctum' was ‘just for writing,' upstairs they shared the same room; he hadn't a corner, not even in the ‘sanctum,' for she would glide in there and sit in place of the banal secretary who could not have been tolerated in ‘Enchantment.'

Not a corner—the woman pervaded the whole house—but why not?

You don't want corners in Paradise.

There was a day or two of this; I don't know why I stayed save that I was really rather fascinated.

Wanting to pick holes and not able to—you know.

I'm not sneering when I say again that it was really perfect.

Comfort, beauty, ease, leisure—every book, picture, magazine you could think of, the exquisite garden, the marvellous service (the servants were all in some quarters of their own, I believe, so seldom did one see them). And always Jennifer in tasteful gowns, in pretty poses moving lightly about doing useless beautiful things.

And always Cedric in his good quiet clothes with his fountain pen and his smile, and his running his fingers through his hair and his one or two dropped words that she understood so perfectly and took up with that bright brave smile ‘one soul signalling to another along the ramparts of eternity'—that was Jennifer's smile.

She knew it and so did I; but I wished she had prettier teeth.

Of course, I should not have been noticing teeth, or the way she whitened her rather red throat, or the quick glitter of her eyes so out of harmony with her slow speech … but I still had not quite got the atmosphere.

Of course also there were no callers or callings, the mere thought was like a blasphemy, the isolation was as complete as the rarefied air … it was really rather wonderful how they did it.