So Well Remembered (8 page)

Richard Felsby was seventy-eight, oaken in physique, the last of a
generation destined to glower (within gilt frames) from above thousands of
mantelpieces upon dwindling families. Both the Channings and the Felsbys
were, in this matter, typical; once so prolific, they seemed now in danger of
reaching a complete full- stop, for only the surviving Richard, the absent
John, and the infant Livia could claim direct descent from the original
Channing and Felsby who had built up the firm. The last of the Felsbys could
not forgive the last of the John Channings—not so much on personal
grounds (for Richard, disliking John’s new-fangled business ideas long before
the crash came, had dissolved partnership and retired a rich man), but
because of the disgrace to the Channing name in a world that still associated
a Channing with a Felsby. It was said that the trial and the scandal
connected with it had aged Richard considerably, and if so, there were many
in Browdley who wished it had done more, for the old man was generally
disliked. When younger he had been against drinking, smoking, gambling,
dancing, and theatre-going (anything, indeed, that might lessen the week-day
efficiency of his employees); but of later years he had mellowed to the
extent that he only scowled wordlessly if he came across Livia sewing or
reading a novel during one of his Sunday visits. He did not much care for
Emily, though he felt he ought to keep an eye on her; he was disappointed in
Livia, because she was not a boy to carry on and rehabilitate the Channing
name; and, as before remarked, he could not forgive John. But he was old
enough both to remember and revere the memory of John’s father, who had died
some years before the turn of the century. Friend, partner, and contemporary,
this earlier John had been, in Richard’s opinion, the last of the ‘good’
Channings; and it was for his sake, chiefly, that the old man now visited
Stoneclough.

Besides being thus a tribute to the dead, the weekly visits were an
undoubted trial to the living, for Richard honestly believed he conferred
great benefits by patting Livia on the head and by discussing the state of
the cotton trade in a loud voice with Emily. He discussed this because, with
Livia hovering about, and in his usual mood by the time he arrived at the
house, it was practically the only thing he dared discuss; for Dr. Whiteside
had warned him against undue excitement, however caused. If he had anything
to say about John he would therefore take Emily into a corner for a session
of mysterious sibilant whispering, and sometimes in the middle of this Livia
would burst into the room, whereupon Richard would boom out again about the
state of the cotton trade. After this sort of thing had happened a few times
Livia grew convinced that there was a ‘mystery’ about her mother and old Mr.
Felsby, and once the idea got into her head she was quick to notice other
evidences of mystery—certain occasions, for instance, just before and
just after her mother went away for a few days, when a curious air of tension
filled the entire house, when even Sarah and Miss Fortescue seemed to rush
from room to room with secrets as well as pins filling their mouths. Livia
noted too the almost guilty look they had if she interrupted them at such
times; it made her determined to discover what everything was all about, like
the detectives in some of her favourite stories. Actually ‘the Mystery of
Stoneclough’ (as she privately decided to call it) gave her an added interest
in life, since it was clearly more exciting to LIVE in a detective story than
merely to read one, especially when the detective was herself. For that
matter, she sometimes imagined she was the criminal also, or the suspected
person who was really innocent, or the stupid policeman who made all the
mistakes, or any other of the familiar characters… it was so easy, and so
fascinating, to climb on the moors and lie down and imagine things.

On the afternoon of Christmas Day, 1910, Livia entered the drawing- room
just in time to catch Mr. Felsby inveighing against “any man who makes a
proposal of that kind”. In truth, there was nothing particularly mysterious
about the words, since they referred to the wickedness of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer (Mr. Lloyd George, who was still bent on increasing taxes), but
from force of habit Emily shot the old man a warning look, whereat Richard
assumed his glassiest Christmas smile and reached out his less arthritic
hand. Livia then allowed herself to be patted on the head as usual; but
later, while Mr. Felsby enjoyed his usual nap, she pondered alone in the
downstairs room which was her own whenever Miss Fortescue was away, since it
was there that she received lessons, played quiet games, and felt entrenched
in extra-special privacy. She was still pondering, with a book on her knee,
when she overheard something else—her mother telephoning from the hall
outside. Without any intention to eavesdrop at first, she gathered it was a
trunk call from London, and after that she listened deliberately. The talk
continued, with long pauses and a lowering of her mother’s voice in short
staccato replies; at last she heard her end up—“I can’t hear
you—yes—no—I still can’t hear you—I’ll write… yes,
I’ll think about it… yes, dear, happy Christmas to you too… Goodbye…”
Livia then put aside her book and abandoned herself to wondering who ‘dear’
was and what ‘it’ was that her mother had promised to think about; and
suddenly, as she speculated, an idea came that she instantly labelled as
absurd, yet instantly allowed to take possession of her; supposing ‘it’ had
been a proposal of marriage? Doubtless the remark of Mr. Felsby’s she had
overheard was really responsible; anyhow, during the next few minutes the
idea became a perfectly tenable theory, and by the time her mother called her
to tea the theory had developed into a near-certainty, strengthened by the
absence of any comment about the telephone call. It would have been natural,
Livia thought, for her mother to say—“Guess who rang up just now?”
—and because this did not happen Livia stifled her own natural impulse,
which was to ask.

Presently, however, the near-certainty slipped back into a mere theory
again, and then into its proper place as an absurd idea; a few guests began
to arrive for the Christmas dinner, and the whole thing passed out of mind
till it was revived hours later by a remark of Mr. Felsby’s about something
else altogether—he was discussing the state of the cotton trade and
trying to be seasonably cheerful about it. “There’s only one thing I can say,
Whiteside—booms come after slumps just as slumps come after booms.”

Dr. Whiteside, who wasn’t particularly interested in the cotton trade,
though indirectly, like any other Browdley professional man, he depended on
it for the quality of his living, responded absently: “That’s about it,
Richard. It’s always been the same.”

“How do you know it always WILL be the same?” Livia asked, with an air of
casualness. “How do you know that this time it isn’t different?”

Every eye was turned on a girl of eleven who could put such a question;
Dr. Whiteside blinked quizzically, and after a rather awkward pause Mr.
Felsby cleared his throat and snorted: “Never you mind. You’ll know what we
mean when you grow up.”

All at once Livia became really interested, but with a far-away rapt look
that drew even more curious stares around the table. “But I know what you
mean NOW,” she said quietly. “And I don’t think it’s right.”

Richard Felsby snorted again, then gave a cross look to Emily, as if this
were all her fault for not bringing up the child to have better manners;
while Emily, with her own typical gesture of helplessness, began to
expostulate: “Now, Livia dear, how CAN you contradict Mr. Felsby?”

“Nothing’s ever just the same,” Livia repeated, cryptically and with the
utmost adult solemnity. She had an odd feeling of being actually adult at
that moment, of being carried along by an emotion that grew with its own
momentum—as if she were dramatizing something in a rather marvellous
extempore way. The drama she had constructed that afternoon was now an even
bigger one in which she heard herself speaking lines as if they were being
dictated by some inner yet half-random compulsion.

“Livia dear—what on earth do you mean?”

“Nothing can be just the same, even if it does happen again. It can’t,
mother.” Gradually, inexorably, the words moved to the vital point of attack,
and her eyes flashed as she challenged the other eyes across the table
—no, across the footlights that she had read about and imagined, but so
far never seen. She knew she was acting, yet she could have vowed that her
emotion was not wholly counterfeit.

“But—Livia—whatever’s the matter? Has anything upset you?”

“Nothing, mother, except that… Oh, how could you even THINK of such a
thing?… after being married to father…”

And at that moment she really meant it; the man whom she did not remember
was now more than a ghost, he was at last a holy ghost, in his daughter’s
imagination.

A short time afterwards Livia, weeping and exhausted in her bedroom, gave
way to equally sincere remorse. She knew that the strange scene had spoilt
the evening, that it had distressed her mother, embarrassed Dr. Whiteside,
infuriated Mr. Felsby, and caused the party to break up early; she knew she
had in some way been rather wicked. “Oh, mother, I’m so TERRIBLY sorry. I
don’t know WHAT could have possessed me. I’ll never, NEVER say such things
again… It all sprang out of nothing—I just heard you talking on the
telephone to someone, and the idea got hold of me that it was a man proposing
to you…”

Livia felt her mother’s hand tighten over her own. “But—
darling…”

“Yes, I know, mother. I know it’s silly.”

But Emily didn’t think it was silly so much as uncanny. There was, of
course, no question of her marrying; that was impossible under the existing
conditions of British law. But she had fallen in love, and it was that man
who had telephoned, begging her to come to London again as early as possible
in the New Year. His name was Standon, and he had met Emily by chance in a
London restaurant on her return north from one of those no longer monthly
visits. He was several years her junior, and lived in a studio in Baron’s
Court, painting portraits when he could get commissions, and idling when he
could not. He liked Emily because she was easy-going and had money; she loved
him because he was attractive and also (though she did not realize this)
because she was starved for the kind of attention he was always most happy to
provide. It was not a bad bargain, in the circumstances.

After the scene at the Stoneclough Christmas dinner-table
of which Dr.
Whiteside had been a witness, he pressed his argument that Livia should be
told the truth and then allowed to mix with children of her own age; and even
Emily (thinking of Mr. Standon) realized that something had to be done.
However, a solution occurred to her of a kind that she delighted in—
one that really solved nothing, but merely delayed the issue. Why not send
Livia to a good boarding-school in another part of the country? In such
surroundings could she not mix with children of her own age AS WELL AS remain
in happy ignorance about her father? If the headmistress were let into the
secret beforehand, surely there was no reason why the plan should not work
out perfectly?

So Livia went to Cheldean, in Sussex, where for the first time in her life
she was thoroughly unhappy. She had tried to look forward to meeting other
girls, imagining that they would all be eager to know her; but the facts of
school life, and even more the fictions, brought quick disillusionment. She
could not fit herself easily into the patterns of schoolgirl right and wrong,
of not doing things that were ‘not done’, of avoiding taboos. And questions
that Miss Fortescue would have tried to answer even though they were
unanswerable were thought merely exhibitionist or absurd at Cheldean; so
after a few unwelcome experiences Livia ceased to ask them. That helped to
lessen her initial unpopularity, the more so as she was growing up rather
personably; she was a girl one would look at twice, even if one did not agree
that she was beautiful.

Meanwhile the cotton trade in and around Browdley slumped further, giving
Mr. Felsby more to shout about during family dinners that took place at least
once during every school vacation. And also during one of these vacations
Livia was introduced to this man called Standon, who spent a week-end at
Stoneclough for the ostensible purpose of advising Emily about a colour
scheme for the drawing-room. The visit was not an entire success, for Sarah
thought it nonsense that a man should travel all the way from London to tell
anyone how to paint a house, while Miss Fortescue could not believe that a
youth with such exquisite manners was not somehow a deceiver. Livia simply
did not like him. All this was a rather poor reward for Mr. Standon’s efforts
to be agreeable to everybody, as well as for Emily’s carefully planned scheme
to introduce him to the family without causing too much comment. But it was
impossible for Mr. Standon not to cause comment, and though Mr. Felsby did
not meet him, rumours of his visit got through to the old man and gave him
material for unlimited banter afterwards. “And how’s your painter friend?” he
would ask, nudging Emily in the ribs. “Still sleeping with nothing on?” (This
was according to a horrified report made by Sarah after taking a cup of tea
up to Mr. Standon’s bedroom early one morning.) Of course Mr. Felsby did not
for a moment suspect that Emily was privileged to know how Mr. Standon
slept.

Standon, on his side, also realized that the visit had not worked out as
well as had been hoped, but he was less disappointed than Emily because he
had found the entire weekend rather a bore—awful house, undistinguished
food, uncouth servants, wet days, bleak scenery, and a precocious brat of a
girl on holiday from a boarding- school who (he could see) continually got on
her mother’s nerves. Altogether he thought Emily much more fun in Baron’s
Court, and hoped that all their subsequent meetings would be on his own
ground. He really DID like her, and forbore to sponge more than a poor artist
must on a better-off woman. (For instance, she was going to buy him a
motor-car, but in return he had promised to teach her to drive.) Knowing all
about her past, having investigated it from newspaper files long before she
told him, he could feel with some justification that he was being as good to
her as to himself.