The Philosopher's Pupil (77 page)

‘He was in such a terrible state of mind.'

‘He seemed to me rather pleased with himself.'

‘He's in despair, I know, please let's at least ring up.'

Brian rang George's number but there was no answer. Gabriel then begged him to go round and see whether George had not taken an overdose of sleeping pills and were lying semi-animate on the sofa at Druidsdale. She was so upset by her dream, and likely, if Brian did not go, to go herself, that he had set off.

‘I'm not answering the telephone,' said Stella, who had listened in silence to a curtailed and improved version of this account.

Brian looked at his handsome sister- In-law of whom he was a little in awe. Stella looked older, her face thinner. Two light hairlike lines rose up between her brows giving to her face a greater concentration. Her dark immaculate hair rose in a stiff springy dome above her brow, like to a crown or ceremonial helmet. Her clever mouth, with its indelible ironic shape, was calm. Her dark eyes gleamed with a light which Brian had but rarely seen in them before, not a quiet communicative luminosity, but a fanatical light, a light of will. She was to him an alien, a phenomenon, a kind of being whom he absolutely could not understand. The whisky emboldened him, however.

‘Where were you?'

‘With N at Bath Lodge. Then with May Blackett at Maryville.'

‘Ruby knew you were there. She finds lost things. She went and stared at the house. Why didn't you come back sooner? We were worried.'

‘N wanted me to, but — '

‘You mean you didn't do what N wanted? Most people do.'

‘I wanted to see what would happen.'

‘To George?'

‘To me. To George too.'

‘So George is getting off scot free, off to Spain with that woman! Fancy old George gone at last, we'll have nothing to talk about! Aren't you relieved he's clearing off? It solves a lot of problems, doesn't it? You can find someone else, get out of this rotten little town. Go to Tokyo and find a nice man, someone clever, an English diplomat, or a French one. I can see you married to a Frenchman. Forget about us. Why not? God, you can't
love
that swine, can you?'

‘Do you mean George?'

‘Sorry, excuse my vocabulary.'

‘You don't think it possible.'

‘Oh it's possible, half the women in this town are in love with George or imagine that they are, even Gabriel is. But you, you're a cut above - I mean you're special, like royalty - you know, I've always admired you so much, though I've never had a chance to say so, I hoped you knew - we've hardly ever had a real talk together, I wish we could - I feel now, now that you're going — '

Stella was frowning and narrowing her eyes, deepening the two new lines on her brow. She straightened her shoulders and leaned back.

Brian thought, whatever possessed me to spill all that, I must be drunk, and I've been disloyal to Gabriel, Stella will despise me utterly.

Stella said, ‘But I'm not going.'

‘Why not, if he is?'

‘We'll wait and see.'

‘God, do you want
revenge
on George? You can't forgive him, is that it? Are you still waiting … for something to happen …?' Stella, who had been writing something down, pushed a slip of paper towards Brian.

‘What's that?'

‘Mrs Sedleigh's address. But perhaps you know it?'

‘God, I'm not going
there.
'

‘Then you'd better go home, Gabriel will be anxious.'

Brian walked home cursing. He felt drunk. He thought, she's a witch. She made me say all those incredibly stupid things and then threw me out. She's worse than George. I do believe she's capable of murder. What
is
she waiting for?

It was Saturday night, late, dark. Alex had just come out of the drawing-room to find Ruby standing at the top of the stairs. The house was silent. Alex felt frightened.

‘What are you doing? Why are you standing there?'

Ruby said nothing. She stared at Alex with a frown, biting her lip. Her face expressed anguish.

‘Is anything the matter?'

Ruby shook her head.

‘Have you locked all the doors?'

Ruby nodded.

When George had gone away Alex had finished the bottle of whisky and fallen asleep. Then she had eaten some of the supper which Ruby had set out as usual for her in the dining-room. Then she had come upstairs again and drunk some more and fallen asleep again. Now she felt giddy, dislocated in time and space. She had, at some stage, she could not remember when, taken off her dress and put on her dressing-gown. So she would live in a Spanish village with George and Diane? Would that be?

Ruby kept on staring. Alex thought, does she want me to do something? To ask her into the drawing-room and pet her? Does she want me to … to
kiss
her …? These were such odd things to think that Alex felt that Ruby must have actually put them into her mind. Nothing stopped her from taking Ruby's hand and saying, Ruby, dear, we've been together a long time, ever since we were children really, and now we are old. Come in and sit with me. Do not be afraid. Are you afraid? I will care for you, I will look after you. Then Alex wondered,
does she know I'm going away?
She has second sight or something. Perhaps she
knows?
Nothing stopped Alex from speaking those comforting words to Ruby and questioning her gently, except that all the years which should have made it possible had made it impossible, and Alex felt so sick and so frightened and so confused and so tired.

She said impatiently, ‘Don't stand there. Go to bed. It's past your bedtime. Go on.'

Ruby did not move. She stood like a heavy large wooden figure, larger than life, at the top of the stairs.

Alex said, ‘You talked about us. You gave away things about us at the Baths. You did it on purpose. Didn't you talk?'

Ruby's face changed, expressing distress. She said, ‘I told the boy. I only told the boy.'

‘What boy?'

The boy in question was Mike Seanu, the ‘little scamp' of a reporter on the
Gazette.
What had happened was this. When John Robert had made his first visit to the Slipper House to apprise Hattie of his ‘plan', Ruby had followed him down the garden, primed with jealousy and curiosity, and had eventually posted herself close enough to the sitting-room window to overhear some of what was said. From this she gathered that Rozanov had arranged for Hattie to marry Tom. She carried this interesting information away but, being more given to silence on family matters than Alex gave her credit for, did nothing with it. Young Seanu had not been present at the ‘riot'. He was ‘covering' the masque for the
Gazette
and had come on as far as the Green Man, but had been too shy to stay long and returned to his local, the Ferret, on the wasteland where he lived. (A pub where drugs used to change hands, now an innocent enough little hole where Sikhs and gipsies amicably rub shoulders.) He was filled with chagrin on the next day to hear that he had missed so much newsworthy fun, but consoled by being given some immediate detective work to do. Someone (it was never clear who) had indeed (as they surmised) overheard some of Tom and Emma's drunken conversation about John Robert and Hattie. This titbit, as it reached the ears of Gavin Oare, did not however amount to more than amused and unserious guesswork. Gavin promptly (on Sunday) sent Mike Seanu out to discover more, suggesting in particular that he should visit Ruby. The ‘young scamp' was a gipsy and in fact (as Oare knew) related to Ruby, and the old servant, who would not have talked to anyone else, talked to this boy, of whom she was fond. Seanu, coached by his editor, put his question in terms of ‘so it is true, is it, what everyone says that' (and so on), to which in good faith Ruby replied yes, she believed that John Robert had arranged for Tom to marry Hattie. This was enough for Gavin Oare. The further speculations were his work. (I am told that Mike Seanu was very upset and disgusted by the resultant article and considered resigning, but sensibly did not.) This was the way in which the rumour, which had so many consequences, gained currency in Ennistone.

However, Alex never received an answer to her question, not because Ruby was ashamed to give it (though the matter did trouble her) but because at that moment Ruby's poor head was entirely filled up with something else.

She moved back a step, away from the stairhead, and said to Alex, ‘The foxes — '

‘What about the foxes?'

‘They are evil, evil things, bad spirits. They bring bad luck. They make bad things to happen.'

‘Don't be silly. That's stupid superstitious gipsy nonsense. Don't talk like that to me. Go away, go to bed.'

‘They are dead.'

‘
What?
'

‘The foxes - they are dead. The men came and killed them - here in the garden - I showed them where.'

Alex screamed out, her lips wet with a foam of rage - ‘You
what,
you let them do it? You
showed
them? You
devil -
without telling me - you let them kill the foxes - oh I could
kill
you for this - how could you do it - let them kill my foxes - why didn't you tell me—?'

‘You were asleep, you were drunk, the man came with the gas, all the foxes are dead.'

‘You hateful vile wicked thing, get out of this house forever, I never want to see you again!' Alex moved fiercely, raising her hand as if to strike Ruby. Ruby pushed her away.

In a moment Alex was tumbling headlong down the stairs. She rolled to the landing, then all the way down to the hall where she lay curled and motionless.

Wailing, Ruby ran down after her. She pulled at her mistress, trying to lift her head, weeping. Then withdrawing her hands Ruby began to howl like a dog. Alex lay still.

‘You can't say it's over when it's just beginning.'

‘It's over, it's ended, better so.'

‘But why, and what's over? It can't all be spoilt, it's you that are spoiling it! I don't even understand.'

‘It's not necessary for you to understand.'

‘Well, of course, I
do
understand, but — '

‘Let's stop talking.'

‘You know that's impossible.'

‘We shall have to stop soon. We
ought
to stop.'

‘You started talking.'

‘I know.'

‘If only you hadn't - you didn't have to say anything - you didn't have to say what you said — '

‘I know, I know, I know — '

‘You could have drawn us gradually together, it would have been so easy — '

‘
Please,
Hattie.'

‘You're supposed to be so terribly clever, why didn't you
think
how to do it?'

‘I've thought too much.'

‘Why didn't you keep quiet and just let me learn.'

‘Don't torment me with that.'

‘I'm grown up now, I could have learnt, without your making it into a sort of tragedy!'

‘Don't
torment
me!'

‘You torment me! You've broken everything up into horrible jagged pieces, you've disturbed and changed my heart, and now you talk of ending and parting.'

‘It must be so.'

‘But I love you — '

‘You are mistaken.'

‘I do, we can
manage
this, we can
manage.
'

‘You might, I cannot.'

‘What about my wishes?'

‘Your wishes are unimportant, they are ephemeral, you are young, your interest is not deep, your pain will be brief. Better not a step further. For me this is - not a tragedy - life is not tragic - It is a catastrophe - perhaps it is a merciful one.'

‘You're only interested in your catastrophe.'

‘Yes.'

‘But I do love you, I want to help you, to save you.'

‘Young girls always see themselves as saviours, but it is the one role which they cannot play.'

‘Don't generalize. I can. Why not let me try?'

‘Because I don't want to be hurt by you any more.'

‘Oh, that's so cruel, so
awful.
'

‘And so unfair, as you said before.'

‘I can love you and look after you and make you happy, and we can be
friends
now, like you said you always really wanted.'

‘No. You refuse to see how impossibly painful, for a hundred reasons, I would find that situation.'

‘Yes, I do refuse! Oh, we keep going in circles.'

‘Let us stop talking. It is dawn. The birds are singing. We have talked all night.'

‘It's nearly midsummer, there is no night, we haven't talked for long, I can't stop talking, I can't sleep. You were afraid I would run away. Now I am afraid you will run away.'

It was early on Sunday morning, though as Hattie said, morning was early. A blackbird was singing in the apple tree at number sixteen Hare Lane. John Robert rose stiffly and pulled one of the curtains back a little, letting a deadly breath of blank clear dawn light into the lamp-lit room. Hattie shuddered and moaned. She said, ‘I was so happy at the Slipper House with Pearl. You've taken Pearl away from me. And now you're taking everything else away.'

Hattie had given John Robert ‘the day' he had asked for, Friday. But on that morning, after his outburst, they had not really talked. Both were terrified and anxious to draw back. He kept saying, ‘I'm sorry,' and she, ‘It's all right.'

John Robert's mumbling ‘explanation', his ‘apology' turned into a long review of their meetings and their memories in which they both took refuge. During these reminiscences, which to a listener might have sounded like the talk of friends, they eyed each other like antagonists waiting to fight, while both were ferociously thinking. Their two intent faces even showed, during this time, a marked resemblance as they inwardly
concentrated
upon what had happened, and what was going to happen. They assessed, they reflected, they planned. In the afternoon (after they had distractedly played with some bread and cheese for lunch) Hattie said she was tired and had a headache and wanted to lie down, and they parted with relief. She lay on her bed stiff and alert. Now it was he who moved and sighed and she who listened. In the evening they reminisced again, less randomly, more carefully, it was as if they
had
to go through all those memories, like a kind of litany, before they could, cautiously approaching themselves to the present moment,
engage.
They discussed and argued warily, even sparring a little, declaring they would go to bed early (which they did), postponing the glimpsed frightfulness of a further clarification. Hattie asked questions about her mother, about her mother's childhood, and talked a little about her father. They discussed Margot, talking almost pointlessly at last to tire themselves out. That night, on going to bed, Hattie very silently bolted her bedroom door.