The Well of Loneliness (32 page)

3

They took Raftery in an ambulance from Great Malvern in order to spare him the jar of the roads. That night he slept in his own spacious loosebox, and the faithful Jim would not leave him that night; he sat up and watched while Raftery slept in so deep a bed of yellow-gold straw that it all but reached his knees when standing. A last inarticulate tribute this to the most gallant horse, the most courteous horse that ever stepped out of stable.

But when the sun came up over Bredon, flooding the breadth of the Severn Valley, touching the slopes of the Malvern Hills that stand opposite Bredon across the valley, gilding the old red bricks of Morton and the weather-vane on its quiet stables, Stephen went into her father’s study and she loaded his heavy revolver.

Then they led Raftery out and into the morning; they led him with care to the big north paddock and stood him beside the mighty hedge that had set the seal on his youthful valour. Very still he stood with the sun on his flanks, the groom, Jim, holding the bridle.

Stephen said: ‘I’m going to send you away, a long way away, and I’ve never left you except for a little while since you came when I was a child and you were quite young—but I’m going to send you a long way away because of your pain. Raftery, this is death; and beyond, they say, there’s no more suffering.’ She paused, then spoke in a voice so low that the groom could not hear her: ‘Forgive me, Raftery.’

And Raftery stood there looking at Stephen, and his eyes were as soft as an Irish morning, yet as brave as the eyes that looked into his. Then it seemed to Stephen that he had spoken, that Raftery had said: ‘Since to me you are God, what have I to forgive you, Stephen?’

She took a step forward and pressed the revolver high up against Raftery’s smooth, grey forehead. She fired, and he dropped to the ground like a stone, lying perfectly still by the mighty hedge that had set the seal on his youthful valour.

But now there broke out a great crying and wailing: ‘Oh, me! Oh, me! They’ve been murderin’ Raftery! Shame, shame, I says, on the ‘and what done it, and ‘im no common horse but a Christian…’ Then loud sobbing as though some very young child had fallen down and hurt itself badly. And there in a small, creaky, wicker bath-chair sat Williams, being bumped along over the paddock by a youthful niece, who had come to Morton to take care of the old and now feeble couple; for Williams had had his first stroke that Christmas, in addition to which he was almost childish. God only knew who had told him this thing; the secret had been very carefully guarded by Stephen, who, knowing his love for the horse, had taken every precaution to spare him. Yet now here he was with his face all twisted by the stroke and the sobs that kept on rising. He was trying to lift his half-paralysed hand which kept dropping back on to the arm of the bath-chair; he was trying to get out of the bath-chair and run to where Raftery lay stretched out in the sunshine; he was trying to speak again, but his voice had grown thick so that no one could understand him. Stephen thought that his mind had begun to wander, for now he was surely not screaming ‘Raftery’ any more, but something that sounded like: ‘Master!’ and again, ‘Oh, Master, Master!’

She said: ‘Take him home,’ for he did not know her; ‘take him home. You’d no business to bring him here at all—it’s against my orders, Who told him about it?’

And the young girl answered: ‘It seemed ‘e just knowed—it was like as though Raftery told ‘im…

Williams looked up with his blurred, anxious eyes. ‘Who be you?’ he inquired. Then he suddenly smiled through his tears. ‘It be good to be seein’ you, Master—seems like a long while…’ His voice was now clear but exceedingly small, a small, far-away thing. If a doll had spoken, its voice might have sounded very much as the old man’s did at that moment.

Stephen bent over him. ‘Williams, I’m Stephen—don’t you know me? It’s Miss Stephen. You must go straight home and get back to bed—it’s still rather cold on these early spring mornings—to please me, Williams, you must go straight home. Why, your hands are frozen!’

But Williams shook his head and began to remember. ‘Raftery,’ he mumbled, ‘something’s ‘appened to Raftery.’ And his sobs and his tears broke out with fresh vigour, so that his niece, frightened, tried to stop him.

‘Now uncle be qui-et I do beseech ‘e! It’s so bad for ‘e carryin’ on in this wise. What will auntie say when she sees ‘e all mucked up with weepin’, and yer poor nose all red and dir-ty? I’ll be takin’ e’ ‘ome as Miss Stephen ‘ere says. Now, uncle dear, do be qui-et!’

She lugged the bath-chair round with a jolt and trundled it, lurching, towards the cottage. All the way back down the big north paddock Williams wept and wailed and tried to get out, but his niece put one hefty young hand on his shoulder; with the other she guided the lurching bath-chair.

Stephen watched them go, then she turned to the groom. ‘Bury him here,’ she said briefly.

4

Before she left Morton that same afternoon, she went once more into the large, bare stables. The stables were now completely empty, for Anna had moved her carriage horses to new quarters nearer the coachman’s cottage.

Over one loosebox was a warped oak board bearing Collin’s studbook title, ‘Marcus,’ in red and blue letters; but the paint was dulled to a ghostly grey by encroaching mildew, while a spider had spun a large, purposeful web across one side of Collins’ manger. A cracked, sticky wine bottle lay on the floor; no doubt used at some time for drenching Collins, who had died in a fit of violent colic a few months after Stephen herself had left Morton. On the window-sill of the farthest loosebox stood a curry comb and couple of brushes; the comb was being eaten by rust, the brushes had lost several clumps of bristles. A jam pot of hoof-polish, now hard as stone, clung tenaciously to a short stick of firewood which time had petrified into the polish. But Raftery’s loosebox smelt fresh and pleasant with the curious dry, clean smell of new straw. A deep depression towards the middle showed where his body had lain in sleep, and seeing this Stephen stooped down and touched it for a moment. Then she whispered: ‘Sleep peacefully, Raftery.’

She could not weep, for a great desolation too deep for tears lay over her spirit—the great desolation of things that pass, of things that pass away in our lifetime. And then of what good, after all, are our tears, since they cannot hold back this passing away—no, not for so much as a moment? She looked round her now at the empty stables, the unwanted, uncared for stables of Morton. So proud they had been that were now so humbled; and they had the feeling of all disused places that have once teemed with life, they felt pitifully lonely. She closed her eyes so as not to see them. Then the thought came to Stephen that this was the end, the end of her courage and patient endurance—that this was somehow the end of Morton. She must not see the place any more; she must, she would, go a long way away. Raftery had gone a long way away—she had sent him beyond all hope of recall—but she could not follow him over that merciful frontier, for her God was more stern than Raftery’s; and yet she must fly from her love for Morton. Turning, she hurriedly left the stables.

5

Anna was standing at the foot of the stairs. ‘Are you leaving now, Stephen?’

‘Yes—I’m going, Mother.’

‘A short visit!’

‘Yes, I must get back to work.’

‘I see…’ Then after a long, awkward pause: ‘Where would you like him buried?’

‘In the large north paddock where he died—I’ve told Jim.’

‘Very well, I’ll see that they carry out your orders.’ She hesitated, as though suddenly shy of Stephen again, as she had been in the past; but after a moment she went on quickly: ‘I thought—I wondered, would you like a small stone with his name and some sort of inscription on it, just to mark the place?’

‘If you’d care to put one—I shan’t need any stone to remember.’

The carriage was waiting to drive her to Malvern. ‘Goodbye, Mother.’

Goodbye—I shall put up that stone.’

‘Thanks, it’s a very kind thought of yours.’

Anna said: ‘I’m so sorry about this, Stephen.’

But Stephen had hurried into the brougham—the door dosed, and she did not hear her mother.

At an old-fashioned, Kensington luncheon party, not very long after Raftery’s death, Stephen met and renewed her acquaintance with Jonathan Brockett, the playwright. Her mother had wished her to go to this luncheon, for the Carringtons were old family friends, and Anna insisted that from time to time her daughter should accept their invitations. At their house it was that Stephen had first seen this young man, rather over a year ago. Brockett was a connection of the Carringtons; had he not been Stephen might never have met him, for such gatherings bored him exceedingly, and therefore it was not his habit to attend them. But on that occasion he had not been bored, for his sharp, grey eyes had lit upon Stephen; and as soon as he well could, the meal being over, he had made his way to her side and had remained there. She had found him exceedingly easy to talk to, as indeed he had wished her to find him.

This first meeting had led to one or two rides in the Row together, since they both rode early. Brockett had joined her quite casually one morning; after which he had called, and had talked to Puddle as if he had come on purpose to see her and her only—he had charming and thoughtful manners towards all elderly people. Puddle had accepted him while disliking his clothes, which were always just a trifle too careful; moreover she had disapproved of his cuff-links—platinum links set with tiny diamonds. All the same, she had made him feel very welcome, for to her it had been any port in a storm just then—she would gladly have welcomed the devil himself, had she thought that he might rouse Stephen.

But Stephen was never able to decide whether Jonathan Brockett attracted or repelled her. Brilliant he could be at certain times, yet curiously foolish and puerile at others; and his hands were as white and soft as a woman’s—she would feel a queer little sense of outrage creeping over her when she looked at his hands. For those hands of his went so ill with him somehow; he was tall, broad-shouldered, and of an extreme thinness. His clean-shaven face was slightly sardonic and almost disconcertingly clever; an inquisitive face too—one felt that it pried into everyone’s secrets without shame or mercy. It may have been genuine liking on his part or mere curiosity that had made him persist in thrusting his friendship on Stephen. But whatever it had been it had taken the form of ringing her up almost daily at one time; of worrying her to lunch or dine with him, of inviting himself to her flat in Chelsea, or what was still worse, of dropping in on her whenever the spirit moved him. His work never seemed to worry him at all, and Stephen often wondered when his fine plays got written, for Brockett very seldom if ever discussed them and apparently very seldom wrote them; yet they always appeared at the ‘critical moment when their author had run short of money.

Once, for the sake of peace, she had dined with him in a species of glorified cellar. He had just then discovered the queer little place down in Seven Dials, and was very proud of it; indeed he was making it rather the fashion among certain literary people. He had taken a great deal of trouble that evening to make Stephen feel that she belonged to these people by right of her talent, and had introduced her as ‘Stephen Gordon, the author of The Furrow.’ But all the while he had secretly watched her with his sharp and inquisitive eyes. She had felt very much at ease with Brockett as they sat at their dimly-lit table, perhaps because her instinct divined that this man would never require of her more than she could give—that the most he would ask for at any time would be friendship.

Then one day he had casually disappeared, and she heard that he had gone to Paris for some months, as was often his custom when the climate of London had begun to get on his nerves. He had drifted away like thistledown, without so much as a word of warning. He had not said goodbye nor had he written, so that Stephen felt that she had never known him, so completely did he go out of her life during his sojourn in Paris. Later on she was to learn, when she knew him better, that these disconcerting lapses of interest, amounting as they did to a breach of good manners, were highly characteristic of the man, and must of necessity be accepted by all who accepted Jonathan Brockett.

And now here he was back again in England, and sitting next to Stephen at the Carringtons’ luncheon. And as though they had met but a few hours ago, he took her up calmly just where he had left her.

‘May I come in tomorrow?’

‘Well—I’m awfully busy.’

‘But I want to come, please; I can talk to Puddle.’

‘I’m afraid she’ll be out.’

‘Then I’ll just sit and wait until she comes in; I’ll be quiet as a mouse.’

Oh, no, Brockett, please don’t; I should know you were there and that would disturb me.’

‘I see. A new book?’

‘Well, no—I’m trying to write some short stories; I’ve got a commission from The Good Housewife.’

Sounds thrifty. I hope you’re getting well paid.’ Then after a rather long pause: ‘How’s Raftery?’

For a second she did not answer, and Brockett, with quick intuition, regretted his question. ‘Not…not…’ he stammered.

Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘Raftery’s dead—he went lame. I shot him.’ He was silent. Then he suddenly took her hand and, still without speaking, pressed it. Glancing up, she was surprised by the look in his eyes, so sorrowful it was, and so understanding. He had liked the old horse, for he liked all dumb creatures. But Raftery’s death could mean nothing to him; yet his sharp, grey eyes had now softened with pity because she had had to shoot Raftery.

She thought: ‘What a curious fellow he is. At this moment I suppose he actually feels something almost like grief—it’s my grief he’s getting—and tomorrow, of course, he’ll forget all about it.’

Which was true enough. Brockett could compress quite a lot of emotion into an incredibly short space of time; could squeeze a kind of emotional beef-tea from all those with whom life brought him into contact—a strong brew, and one that served to sustain and revivify his inspiration.