A Little Treachery

29

Now there came spells when day after day opened in the same golden haze. That first festival of the sun had heralded a rare summer.

They took chairs down to the lawn, now an islet in the midst of a wonderful forest of purple loosestrife and towering angelica, all flourishing again without let or hindrance; and there, in the sparse shade of the old apple trees, they sat talking in all but total idleness; Catherine never touching her pile of mending and Emmy pitching aside board or sketchbook to stretch out in the sun. Simon, meanwhile, scouted in the thickets and ran back with reports of sights and discoveries, tumbled about on the grass and did his winning tricks for them, revelling in too much attention of the wrong kind. He listened and took precocious part in the conversation. And now and again the two women would break off their talk to say, ‘I spy –’ for the little boy’s entertainment. Or a game of ball would be begun, interrupted many times and usually ending unnoticed.

Or Emmy, under ardent questioning from Simon would tell of curious adventures which one could only hope were apocryphal, for they were not merely beyond belief, they were scandalous. Simon listened with his whole attention. It was no good remonstrating. Emmy would merely turn eyes which laughed with good-humoured malice. Drowsy, Catherine watched the two young faces so closely, incongruously encountered under the light shadow of the apple boughs; the serious, impassioned one upturned, and the sparkling one whose hidden eyes perhaps did not tease alone, did not stop at that, but planted an unspeakable invitation, not with evil intent, but in sheer careless curiosity. ‘Emmy – Emmy!’ And the pouting mouth smiling and shaping itself sweetly on the adored name could be classed with the flowers, a pretty sight, a touching sight. ‘Well, what is it, Simon, Simon?’ Emmy mocked. But Simon could not say. Then, grubby, looking like a little street thug, he was off to the town on some small errand, to buy ices, to buy cigarettes for Emmy, or to spend a few pennies at the toy counter in Woolworth’s.

So the days passed in the idlest frittering of time.

Why not take pattern from Emmy, now supine on the grass, with arms twined over her head, the very model of ease, all her urgent work thrown aside? Why not live like Emmy, hand to mouth, in disregard of the depths?

For indeed now there was no more to be done. Never again could the cuckoo taunt her as on the first spring; the cuckoo cried its taunt in vain. By sheer importunity, she had forced a change. At her insistence, Clem had at last been transferred to hands a little more tender or human, removed to a place where there was a better spirit – no more than that could be said for the change of state. It was merely the best of a choice that was all of evils.

These new conditions had brought some little relief to Catherine, but they also absolved her from further effort, or appeared to do so, and the relaxation was in itself dangerous to one whose nerves and spirit were still at such a stretch, to one who had been driven to such extremities of exertion as she had been by then.

For the exertion had been desperate. First she had had to try to grasp with the stiffening wits of middle-age, dulled ominously by shock and exhaustion, those practical affairs of figures and business arrangements which she had never been able to grasp even in her youth. Now she could only do it in the haziest fashion, with a terrible effort, so that her blunders were ludicrous and continual; while humiliation was embittered by the sense that, after all, she had a certain intelligence, and of a pretty good quality, but of another class. Useless to expect these people to see it. To them, she was an utter fool. Still, she had blundered along to the end; thrusting her ungainly, excruciated person to the fore (she who had all her life shrunk behind Clem), raising her disused voice (she who had always had Clem’s tongue to speak for her); time and again presenting herself before one or another of those authorities in whose power they were with some impracticable scheme, some crazed hope which had visited her in the fevered, horror-struck night; going from pillar to post, distracted, conscious of sneers, catching smiles behind her back, imagining cruelty where none was, only stupidity; shamefully imagining herself acquiring a character for aggression, branded as a shrew, a fury, God knew what! But finally succeeding.

Well? Should one call it ‘the violent determination of the neurotic’, as the know-all ‘opposition’ doubtless did? ‘Desperation, that lamentable substitute for courage’, desperation under intolerable pain, had been the single spur.

But of course struggle itself had supported her; and now there was a more subtly undermining part to play. The illusion of evil yielding to action was gone. Now there was nothing to be done for the lost one but watch the infinitely slow progress of her degeneration.

In comparison with this, and after all this, what a trifling thing it seemed that in the sunny spaces among the weeds Emmy was laughing into the eyes of Simon!

A trifling thing, and there was no harm in the girl, no real harm – and so much good that it was a marvel in an undisciplined, untaught creature whose exemplars had all been of the worst. Ah, she was fascinated! Her sickened mind was fascinated by this open break with a deadly temperance.

In truth, it was hard to think what reward was adequate for Emmy who had created a little, tinsel, penny-whistle paradise within the dominion of hell, where sleep was possible, and laughter and human gossip, where one could sink with a deadened heart into a long swoon of forgetfulness.

Catherine began pondering what she could do to show her gratitude. And at length she hit upon a project, eccentric perhaps and all too simple-minded, but a practical thing and within her power. She could revise the will she had had drawn up when Clem had made her a gift of the cottage. So one day she spoke to Emmy to see how she felt about it. ‘What would you do with this little place if ever it came into your hands? I mean, if it came to you by will. Would it worry you? Would it seem to you more trouble than it was worth? At least you might one day make a few hundreds by it. If I were to put your name into my will, after Clem’s –’

They were sitting indoors that day while long, quiet rain refreshed the earth.

Emmy, in the act of retrieving a pencil from the floor, remained with an arm outstretched while looking up from the corners of her eyes into Catherine’s face. Then she righted herself. Her expression had suddenly become purely, sternly disinterested.

‘Haven’t you got any other relatives?’ she asked cautiously, like one who felt herself on delicate ground.

Catherine was silent, looking out towards the ponds misted by rain. She was silent some while.

Then she was forced to speak to Emmy as to one who knew all the story.

‘Well, it wouldn’t be the house itself, of course, unless Clem died before me, but its value’; and she explained laboriously (and was intently eyed and listened to by her hearer) that if she herself should be the first to die, the house, willed to Clem, would fall into the hands of the Court and the Court would sell it and sit on the proceeds and not allow them to be touched. It would only be a few hundreds anyway, she reckoned, but it would go to swell by a fraction Clem’s income, and so she could not leave it away from her sister. The sum would, however, be kept intact by the Court. An insane person was not competent to make a will, so Clem’s old will which left everything to Catherine would stand. Therefore, unless Catherine had provided for its disposal otherwise, and had left it to Clem on those conditions, at Clem’s death (after her own) the money would go, with anything else she had, to a few distant, uncongenial relatives. ‘And none of them needs it. Whereas you – You’ll still be quite young when we’re both dead. And a little bit of money might be of use to you some time in the future.’

Emmy gave a fervent expression to her eyes, but stopped at that, feeling it was a moment for sobriety.

‘I think,’ said Catherine, ‘that it’s called leaving it in trust. I must find out.’

‘Yes, that’s what it’s called,’ said Emmy, marvelling, thinking it was a marvel indeed how this poor woman got through practical life at all.

But Emmy, with her own intense family feeling, was really a little shocked. Why, didn’t Catherine see what she was doing: tying the good stuff up so that her poor sister couldn’t blue it, if she felt so inclined, supposing one day she should come to her senses? Emmy could not conceive of her friend’s state of mind, that extreme fatalism, product of an experience which had made Catherine incapable of entertaining for a moment the possibility of Clem’s recovery.

‘I’m not offering you much, you see, because, after all, you’ll have to wait till we’re both dead. Still, it’s the best I can do, and unless you object I’ll do it.’

But here, after thought, Emmy burst out earnestly, in real alarm, ‘No, look here, dear, you mustn’t dream of any such thing! They’d say it was undue influence. And I should be hailed into court and properly beaten up!’

‘Nobody at all would bother about it,’ Catherine assured her.

Emmy thought again. ‘It’s a lovely idea of yours – lovely!’ she cried dreamily. ‘Lord, I’d do a lot just to have anyone cherish such a nice idea of me! Well, it’s just as you like, of course. And I shan’t mention it to a soul. And it won’t surprise me if you change your mind. But what’s all this? – you’ll outlive me by fifty years. Won’t be long before I drink myself to death.’

This had reference to the fact that Catherine had not been able to hide a rather critical attitude towards Emmy’s fondness for a glass. And so the matter was dismissed with a laugh.

Although she had preserved such a seemly tone of detachment, Emmy was profoundly excited. And it was all on the level, too, she had just walked into it honestly! She had never even dreamed of having a try at it, for she had taken for granted that the poor woman hadn’t a penny-piece to her name. Like it? Would she not! Worried? She was really moved and gratified beyond measure at the bare idea that anyone could think of her as a beneficiary – even though nothing could ever come of it. For of course nothing could ever come of it – on second thoughts. Looked at closer, the rosy mists subsiding, the position, with two lives, however shaky, between herself and the blessed money, did not call for the putting out of the flags. Nevertheless, she could not prevent her mind running on. Ah, she had had a presentiment that her luck lay in that little ad as soon as it had jumped to her eye!

But Emmy had already, at the first word of it, made an alarmed private note. ‘Save us, I shall have to keep the glad tidings from Ferdy, or he’ll be on at me to put her down the drain with a dose of rat-poison.’

And yet, whatever there was in this lurid reflection, if there was anything at all, it seemed probable that Emmy would not keep the news to herself. To impress her hearers, she might also add, ‘And I should never be surprised if she put herself out one day. She’s the sort to put herself out – melancholy. It’s my belief she’ll do herself in when she’s alone again. And as for the sister – I have it on good authority, my boy, that she can’t last long.’