The Tumbled House Page 8

  “Good.”

  “As comment, good, yes. I met a man called Smith at the club as I was coming out to pick up Wolseley. He asked me if it was true, what Moonraker said.”

  “Enchanting person.”

  “No … only tactless. Many people must be thinking the same.”

  They joined the Great West Road. Traffic was heavy both ways, the overcharged artery of a sclerotic city.

  “Bennie, Joanna and I are going down to the Old Millhouse tomorrow. It may be we shall work some of this out there. Why don’t you come?”

  “Your first week-end off with Joanna? No, there’ll be another time.”

  “Do you still do that voluntary hostel work?”

  “I try to. I don’t put in a lot of time.”

  “I admire your social conscience.”

  “Maybe it’s not such an asset.”

  He glanced at her, surprised at her tone. “ I think I’m a bar or two behind. D’you mind bringing me up with you?”

  “There’s nothing much to bring you up with. Don, d’you think I’m a prig?”

  “My dear girl!”

  “Well, do you?”

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  “You see,” she said, trying to explain as if to a stranger; “living to me is a sort of give and take. I take what I want from it and try to give something back—not because I ought to but because I want to. It makes sense that way. It doesn’t make sense any other way. I’ve no profound convictions; I just go on instruments, as it were. But lately.…”

  “What?”

  “Oh, never mind.” She had been frowning at the back of the car ahead. “ Forget it.”

  He drove on for a while in silence. She thought he was not going to make any comment but at length he said: “It’s odd how much on the defensive one is these days if one does anything which is not entirely in step with jungle ethics. If you’re now going to say you’re ashamed of yourself because you help some down-and-outs in North London——”

  “Calm down, darling. I was only wondering if I might become a more fully integrated personality if I went on the streets for a bit.”

  “Fully integrated personality—hell!”

  “That’s what chiefly shocks you?—not the suggestion?”

  “I’m as shocked as a maiden aunt to hear you using dog-eared phrases out of Psychiatry for Beginners.”

  “It would give Moonraker a new angle to work on,” she said. “Incidentally d’you think it was an isolated broadside last Sunday or do you imagine he’ll come back with something more this week?”

  “I don’t know,” said Don. Until then the possibility hadn’t occurred to him.

  Chapter Nine

  When Don and Joanna got to Midhurst on the following evening the sun had just set, and the afterglow silhouetted the tall trees in which a great many birds were making a great deal of noise. “ They keep on tuning up,” Don said, “ but their conductor never comes.”

  He went into the kitchen to find the main switch and then came back putting on the lights as he came. He found Joanna still at the front door.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll get a fire going. It’ll be different then.”

  Joanna followed him into the living-room, glanced round it as if expecting to recognise the ghosts of a different mood. It was all there, utterly and precisely untouched. Don’s mother looked at her with the unchanging half-smile of a church madonna. He bent at the fire and tried to persuade the paper to catch.

  She said: “I’ll bring the sheets in from the car.”

  When she got back the fire was flickering and Don was standing thoughtfully by the desk. “ His pipe,” he said, holding it up.

  “You understand why I haven’t been much on my own.”

  “Perhaps you were right in not wanting to come here for our week-end.”

  She hesitated. “It will be better soon.”

  They had brought food down with them and Don got a bottle of wine out of the cupboard. When she saw it Joanna said: “ D’you think we could have something else tonight, a Burgundy or a white wine?”

  “There’s nothing as good as this claret. I thought it was your favourite drink.”

  She half smiled. “I’m temperamental.”

  He made a gesture disclaiming responsibility and changed the bottle for a Chablis. After supper he played through one of the ballets he was to take; presently she joined him.

  “Don’t stop. I think I missed the sound of the piano almost as much as anything while you were away.”

  There seemed to be music scores all round him, as thick as telephone books. He got up. “It’s years since I saw a ‘Daphnis and Chloe’; I can’t even remember who did it.”

  “How long have you had this house, Don?”

  “Dad bought it after the Munich scare, partly as a place for Mother to come if there was a war. Queer after that that she should refuse to budge from London and be killed by a bomb.”

  “Did your father never think of marrying again?”

  “I think he did once, not very long ago. He was friendly with a Mrs Delaney. I never met her, but Bennie did and liked her. For some reason it never came to anything, and I think she left England. I’ve found the Chislehurst booklet, by the way.”

  He handed her a thin book bound in yellow boards. “ Man and the Future. A Christian Affirmation. By George Ludwig Chislehurst.” Fifty-six pages of close type. No publisher’s name, but the printer was Frederick Moore of Dorchester.

  It seemed to be a justification of the Christian ethic on philosophical grounds. There were chapters on St Augustine, Aquinas, Berkeley, Fechner. She went to one of the bookshelves and took down a copy of Crossroads by John Marlowe. Don watched her tall shadow move jagged-edged along the books. She said: “If there’s any similarity at all you’ll obviously have to have some sort of expert opinion.”

  “The Observer is apparently getting one for tomorrow.”

  She opened Crossroads and turned a page or two. Chapter One was headed “The Problem Stated”. “We are living in the most exciting and significant time since the beginning of man as a thinking creature. It needs an effort of disciplined imagination to understand all that that means, but once the effort has been made, then there is an end to despair and the poverty of self-pity.” Her eyes, strayed further on. “The one real purpose of life is to intensify life and so to enlarge it. The one real hope of man is that he should recognise that there are two meanings to the phrase ‘a higher standard of living’.… The one essential for all our rationalism is that we should refuse to be intimidated by it. For it must be constantly seen, and kept, in historical perspective, along with all the other means and ways by which men have tried to apprehend the truth.”

  She said: “Is it really an epoch-making book? I can’t judge at all.”

  “Neither can I. I was too close to him. Of course some people shoot it down and say it isn’t all that original; but the majority of men whose opinions count rate it high.”

  She glanced at a page or two more and then closed it. “If they were friends—I mean Chislehurst and your father—if they talked together for hours on end, as Bennie says they did, there might very well be an unconscious resemblance in the books.”

  “Chislehurst’s book was published five years before the other. Dad had too good a memory to use things out of a friend’s work which he had read recently—without permission and acknowledgement, that is.”

  “I wish I could see into Moonraker’s mind. It isn’t clever to suggest something that can easily be disproved.”

  Don said: “ I was thinking the same.”

  Next morning he woke at nine. Joanna was still asleep, one arm flung across the counterpane, her hair ruffled in the way he liked to see it ruffled. Outside the window starlings were quarrelling and a finch was providing the counterpoint. He slid out of bed and dressed quietly, watching Joanna to see that s
he did not wake.

  He went downstairs. When he opened the door the sunlight crowded in as if it had been queuing there. A thrush carrying a snail hopped across the path as he went down it. He walked towards the village. Tomorrow he started work with Henry de Courville, who had done the choreography and Simon Bellegarde, who had written the music, on the new ballet, Les Ambassadeurs. So far he had only read through the music a couple of times, but, in spite of everything else, that filled his mind now. It was an unfamiliar terrain, to be occupied and lived in and interpreted alone.

  The man was just sorting out his morning orders.

  “A Times, a Gazette, an Observer and a Sentinel, please.”

  “There you are, sir. Lovely morning. Forecast wasn’t too good for later in the day. One and six, two shillings. Thanks.”

  Fold the papers under your arm. Don’t concede anything by opening them now. Country gentleman out for a stroll before breakfast. Disconcerting to be the victim of this anonymous spite. For if one faced it, the likelihood was that much of the ill-will was directed against him. What was the purpose of attacking the reputation of a dead man unless there was someone still alive to care?

  As he walked back to the cottage he passed the local policeman. “Good morning, sir, nice to see you down again after all this time.”

  “Oh, thanks. I’ve been away since my father died.”

  “Yes, sir, I heard. We’ve missed him a lot, you know. Always used to see him out in the garden and taking his morning stroll. Always made you feel you’d got his personal interest, like. He was a great man.”

  Don smiled. “I’m afraid the house will have to be sold.”

  “Ah, that’s a pity. That’s a pity. Sorry Midhurst is going to lose touch with you, sir. Matter of fact, I thought perhaps it had been sold that night in February when I was coming past on my late beat and saw a car in the drive. But I shone my light on it an’ saw ’twas yours.”

  “When would that be?”

  “Oh, ’twould be about one o’clock in the morning, one Sunday in February. I expect Mrs Marlowe was down for the week-end.”

  “Yes, she did come once or twice while I was away.”

  Don walked on. The cool spring breeze blew on his face and flipped at the corners of the papers he carried. Japanese cherry and almond trees were in blossom in an overgrown cottage garden. A dog barked and thrust its muzzle through the gate at him.

  When he reached the Old Millhouse he went into the kitchen and filled the kettle and switched it on. He put a teapot and two cups on a tray. Then he sat down and opened The Sunday Gazette.

  This week the article was in two parts, the first being an attack on the Home Secretary. The second part ran:

  “There has been a fine tizzy in the dovecotes since our article last week on John Marlowe, Knight of the British Empire, ex-barrister, ex-philosopher (Remember Crossroads?).

  “Some amiable folk have rushed to his defence. A few, less amiable, have tried to bring pressure on this newspaper to take back what it said.

  “They should have known better.

  “Among the latter come tripping four elderly legal big-wigs under the leadership of Lord Queenswood. In a reproving governessy letter to The Times—‘Master Ernest, where are your manners!’—they contradict some of the statements I made last week, deplore the standards of modern journalism, and commend our ways to the attention of the Press Council.

  “Leaving the Press Council to its slumbers for the moment, let us see who these four gentlemen are and how they are qualified to deny our charges. Lord Queenswood is, as we all know, a distinguished if elderly Lord of Appeal. We do not deny his sincerity in this matter but we deny his competence. He was serving on the Cartwright Commission at the Hague during the events leading up to John Marlowe’s retirement. A judge does not sum up in a case he has not presided over.

  “As for the barristers. First among them is Mr Arthur Morrissey, Q.C. Who’s Who gives his age as fifty-three and says he was educated at Westminster and Magdalen. Where was John Marlowe educated? I give you one guess——”

  The kettle was boiling. Don rose and switched it off. When he came back his eyes skipped on.

  “So some rush in where angels fear to tread.

  “But statements are not made in these columns without evidence to support them. We don’t wantonly blacken the names of men who can no longer defend themselves. All we seek is that, where the public interest demands it, the truth shall be proclaimed.

  “All that I said about Sir John Marlowe last week was based on evidence in my possession.

  “There is an eminent witness, who will testify that John Marlowe confessed to him that he was a fraud, that his retirement was not voluntary. We have letters in our possession from women clients whom John Marlowe defended in the courts, addressed to him and beginning, ‘ Darling Johnny’. Remember the notorious Narissa Delaney? Remember her divorce? Remember the trickster Stanley Salem?

  “What about the books? We don’t ask you to take our word. Just compare them.

  “Convinced? You will be.

  “We sincerely sympathise with his relatives. We wish them all well.

  “But we will not be prevented from speaking the truth.”

  Don made the tea and carried it upstairs. Joanna was still asleep. She lay with her body slightly twisted. In the curtained morning light her forehead looked damp under the tawny hair.

  Don bent and kissed it.

  She stirred and sighed. He began to pull the curtains back, making no noise. She suddenly opened her eyes and half sat up. Recognition was slow, and before it came he saw a brilliant hostility that broke up only as she fought her way out of sleep.

  “Ten o’clock and all’s well. You don’t usually moan so hideously when I kiss you.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, and shook her head. “ I was dreaming.”

  “Were you being pursued by wolves or only Moonraker?”

  She glanced quickly round the room. “You’ve been out?”

  “Yes. Drink your tea.”

  “What has he got to say?”

  “It’s very much the mixture as before.”

  “Let me see.”

  “Drink this first. Fill up with Supercarburant for greater pep on the road.”

  While she read the column he opened The Observer. The article was on the middle page. “In view of the widespread interest which has been aroused by The Gazette article of last week in which it was alleged.… The Reverend George Chislehurst … the two books were therefore sent to Professor Lehmann.… In the following article he has made an attempt to.… Don’s eyes skipped down the column. Lehmann began with an estimate of John Marlowe’s book.

  “Crossroads, a work which appears to have come near to achieving the impossible by appealing both to the man in the street and the man in the ivory tower.… Sodermann, whose views are not to be ignored, has described it as ‘a book whose exact scholarship and lucidity of mind has laid bare the bones of twentieth-century behaviour in such a way that the moral dilemma of the West seems a little less intractable since its publication’. A big claim. There are those who will deny it, and I confess I am one of the sceptics. Yet we are all too close to see what its lasting contribution will be. Already there are signs of a Marlowe ‘ school’; Deepdale and Ross-Parker would be unlikely to deny their attribution.… And the play now running at the Gate by Colin McGee has obvious affiliations of thought.…” Lehmann then went on to question some of the conclusions in the book; and it wasn’t until he had got through all this that Don found what he had been looking for.

  “However, a detailed comparison of Chapters 6 and 9 in George Chislehurst’s books with Chapter 2 and 5 in Marlowe’s work shows fundamental resemblances of thought which could hardly be the outcome of coincidence. Although the treatment is quite different the reasoning is the same, and it is hard to escape the conclusion that one mind has been at work on both, however that may have come about.” There followed some details; then Lehmann went on: “There is, of
course, no comparison in the status of the two books as a whole. Marlowe’s brilliant analysis of today’s malaise, whether one accepts it in toto or not, can stand well enough without the two chapters referred to, good though they are. There cannot be any over-all measuring up between Crossroads and this turgidly written treatise which appeared five years earlier. Even the conclusions are quite different. Nevertheless there would appear to be some basis for the accusations levelled by The Gazette so far as these particular chapters are concerned.”

  Don looked up and saw Joanna watering him. He said “Instalment Two,” and passed her the paper. She read it carefully.

  He looked out at the sunshine. “ Tennis this morning?”

  She said: “Odd you mentioned Mrs Delaney.”

  “Who’s Stanley Salem? I know the name.”

  “He was in a financial swindle a few years ago. I read more of the gossip papers than you.”

  “Perhaps you’ve some idea, then, why Narissa Delaney is ‘notorious’?”

  “I remember her divorce but not anything particular about it. But the name suggests racing to me. Wasn’t there a Bob Delaney who had racing stables and got into trouble with the stewards?”

  Don put a finger inside the neck of his polo sweater, as if it chafed him. “None of this sounds exactly Dad’s style to me—but you may be right.”

  Joanna slid out of bed and put on a house coat. She said: “I hope the water’s hot. We switched on last night, didn’t we?”

  “Yes. Oh, that reminds me. Did you spend a night here during February?”

  She had gone to the suitcase they had brought and was rummaging about in it. After a moment she said: “Why do you ask?”

  “I met the local policeman when I went for the papers. He said he saw our car here on this late beat one night in February.”

  She had found what she wanted, a bath cap, and for a moment or two she concentrated on pushing her hair inside. It kept escaping in wiry auburn folds.