The Assize of the Dying Read online

  ‘Very well, by all means take my own case. You’ll hardly believe it, but, however difficult my temperament may be at other times, when I’m working I’m a creature of rigid habit, and my day’s vulnerable at a dozen points, well-known to all the household and a large number of my friends outside it. It wouldn’t take much observation to get the hang of my routine. For instance, when I’m working I retire to my glory-hole up there,’ he said, indicating by a wave of his hand the door at the head of the staircase, where the little gallery made latticed shadows against the lofty roof of the hall, ‘about ten o’clock, and work half the night, all night if my deadline is catching up with me. No inspiration is involved – I do it on coffee. Mary makes a large pot of it just before she goes to bed about eleven. She’s a creature of habit, too, so it always is about eleven, and it’s always the same old black ceramic pot with the flowers, that Helen bought me on our honeymoon, with a matching cup – we broke the second one long ago – and she always tiptoes up and puts it on the table outside my door, and tiptoes away again. Mary, bless her, is the one person in the world, apart from Helen, who has any reverence for my work. So she never gives me a knock, for fear of interrupting the muse, and as often as not I don’t remember the tray until nearly midnight. It stands out there for anything from ten minutes to three-quarters of an hour before I remember to fetch it in and drink it, and the whole household marches past it to bed, there being nothing to do here after about eleven, except go to bed. How easy, how very easy, instead of laying elaborate plots that are sure to leave a loose end somewhere, simply to wait for an occasion when the house has enough people in it to render your presence no more conspicuous than anyone else’s, and drop something lethal into the coffee-pot! True, it would entail getting hold of the something lethal by strictly private means, and something not so volatile as to lose its potency during the half-hour interval – but it wouldn’t really present much of a problem, because, you see, it needn’t be something that left no trace. The traces would only end in mid-air, among half a dozen people who shared the same opportunity. Then all you would have to do would be keep your nerve, admit nothing, know nothing, do nothing. No, all you need to kill efficiently is patience, placidity and the ability to observe accurately. The rest the victim himself provides. Every murdered man, in fact,’ said Philip, with his perverse, dark smile, ‘is in some degree a suicide. As every suicide has, in a sense, been murdered.’

  The meditative little lecture ended, and there was a brief silence of uncertainty and disapproval. Only Rachel, standing in the shadows by the window with her large and daunting eyes fixed upon Philip, shook back her black hair, and pursued with evident enjoyment:

  ‘Would you extend that theory to the deaths of classes – nations – civilisations? Rome going down before Attila – was that a suicide, too? And aren’t we always being told that our own highly moral civilisation is already doomed? What’s the verdict going to be at that inquest?’

  ‘Civilisations? They open the door to their own deaths, and sharpen the knives, and hand them to their heirs! As often as not they lean over and impale themselves. What I can’t understand is how they manage to retain the capacity for surprise and indignation when they see the blood flow. Now I,’ said Philip, reflecting Rachel’s smile, ‘shall not be in the least surprised, though I may retain enough human fallibility to feel slightly indignant.’

  The rector exclaimed warmly: ‘But really, Greville, I must protest! I know you’re indulging a fantasy – a rather ill-judged one, if I may say so – but to confuse the simple issues of right and wrong in this irresponsible way is a very bad example to—’

  Philip and Rachel broke into speech together, he placidly, she hotly, crying that nothing in human experience could be less simple than these. The rector did not argue about the nature of right and wrong, he stated them in flat terms, by the book, washing his hands decisively of other people’s sins, though he admitted, without conviction, the existence of his own. The hostility between him and his stepdaughter was probably a matter of temperament in the first place, but plainly it had flourished in its growth for a long time. He opposed to her passion only an impenetrable indulgence.

  ‘By what compass, then, my dear child, do you hope to pick your way between right and wrong, since you despise the rules drawn up by the wise out of their experience?’ His smile was invulnerable, because whatever she said, he would not argue with her seriously, and he who never argues can never be refuted.

  ‘By the only honest compass I, or anyone else, can have in this world; my own judgment and my own conscience.’

  ‘Responsible to no one?’ he said, smiling indulgently.

  ‘Responsible to God,’ said Rachel, speaking the name with an aplomb and certainty he would have thought it unbecoming to use even in a sermon, ‘who gave me the tools, and presumably intended me to use them. But not to any other person, or group, or church, or nation. And if I mistake my way, I’ll be damned with goodwill, rather than crawl into your kind of heaven by your kind of rulebook, half a woman and a sterilised model of a soul!’

  This defiance had arisen, or so it had seemed at first, entirely out of the antipathy between these two incompatible people, and was really a part in a disputation which had begun somewhere several years back, when their personalities first clashed, rather than relating to this small, half-serious argument on the ethics of murder and suicide. And yet the dark girl, with her fierce, challenging smile, had turned away from her uncle, and was facing full into the room, making her declaration of faith – for though it was a rejection of established standards it was, Bill supposed, in its way a declaration of faith – towards the assembly in general. Unwillingly he felt the stimulation of her perversity, and recognised pleasure in it, until he identified at last the exact point against which she was balancing her lance. The sting of incredulous resentment made him wince. Fair, quiet and immune in the middle of enmities, Helen sat with her long, delicate hands in repose along the arms of her chair, and her tranquil smile pardoning them all for the excesses of speech and fancy she could not share. It was the way she looked at children; children did not feel insulted by it, and adults, if they shared Helen’s own wisdom and humility, were grateful for it. But after all, thought Bill, with an attempt at forbearance, this arrogant girl was at the sore stage between child and adult, and might almost be forgiven for flinching at the recognition of another woman’s superiority.

  ‘I must apologise,’ said the rector, wryly smiling, ‘for my daughter’s modern usage. They call it being outspoken. I’m told they grow out of it, in time.’

  ‘Only to acquire our complacency, probably,’ said Helen. ‘I’m not sure that it’s a fair exchange.’ She smiled at Rachel without protest or disapproval, in every dispute apart, no one’s ally but everyone’s friend, calming, reconciling, forgiving, asserting her excellence by never asserting it. She looked round the circle of faces with a deprecating little grimace. ‘I’m so sorry, I hate to go, and please don’t let me disturb anyone else – but Dr Benson’s looking at me! I’m supposed to get plenty of rest before the journey tomorrow. Will you forgive me if I go to bed now?’

  The rector rose at once, with apologies for failing to notice the length of their stay, and profuse hopes that they had not tired her, but she pressed him gently back into his chair, and declined with firmness to let her departure break up the evening. Though she knows, thought Estelle, her eyes fixed on the slender, straight back as Helen ascended the staircase, that it will! She knows that they all – except that wild girl, of course – move and breathe and function in attendance on her will. She’s too sure of herself! Am I negligible, that she confides her husband to me for a whole day without even a qualm? She despises all competition. Well, we’ll see! But for that, Helen Greville, I don’t think I’d have bothered to take him from you. But now I will. But for that, I don’t seriously think, on consideration, that I should have wanted him. But now I do want him! And now I’ll take him!

  Helen passed by the
door of Philip’s study, touching the panels with her finger-tips as she went by, and disappeared into the corridor beyond.

  Bill, marking the moment of her vanishing, experienced again the sudden coldness of loss which of late had frightened him so unreasonably whenever she left his sight. It was almost indistinguishable from despair, and he attributed it to his own immediate anxiety, thinking miserably: ‘It won’t be any use, Philip won’t give in. Not even for her! He’s made it plain enough. If only it didn’t depend on him – if only it was Helen—!’

  Helen rose early in the morning. There was no need, as Mary; who was always up by seven, pointed out very gently, but Helen said she could not sleep with the sun so brilliant and the spring so visibly awake in the garden. She filled in the time by running happily about the mill, doing innumerable little jobs which Mary would have preferred to do herself, and apologised disarmingly for her own activities.

  ‘I know I’m a nuisance. Don’t be angry!’ Her hands were full of yellow and red tulips fresh from the glossy turf by the river. ‘They’re for Philip’s work-room. Don’t tell him, let him find them after I’ve gone. I love doing things for him, and I shan’t see him all day. Let me play!’

  Mary did not say that whatever Helen did would be perfect in her eyes, but her smile and her acquiescence were heavy with adoration. ‘Only don’t tire yourself out. Remember you’ve got a big day ahead of you. You really ought to take things easy until Bill drives you to the station.’

  ‘There’s nearly two hours yet. I shan’t be tired, I promise you I shan’t. I feel entirely well today. And in good voice! You’ll see!’

  She went to lift down from its shelf in the cabinet the black glaze coffee-pot and the one remaining cup Philip had described the previous evening. It was Japanese work, not old, but good of its kind. The pot was decorated within and without with a spray of a flowering tree, the white petals immaculate against the matt black. The same spray coiled within the cup. She passed a finger-tip over the slightly raised flowers, smiling to herself at all the memories this cup held.

  ‘And I don’t believe he ever really liked it, Mary – not for itself, I mean. He only loved it because I gave it to him, and afterwards because of all the days and nights it had seen with us.’ She laid ready the little tray for the night, touching every piece with the same gentle, glowing smile. ‘I know that wasn’t necessary. I only wanted to do it myself. And now I’m going to take him his letters. He’ll still be asleep – he worked so late, my poor darling.’

  Philip opened his eyes upon her face, and instantly smiled. He had a way of being awake in one motionless leap into full consciousness and intense intelligence. He reached up a long arm out of the bed, and drew her down to the pillow beside him, her cheek against his cheek.

  ‘Don’t desert me! Don’t go! Or let me come with you.’

  ‘Darling, if only we could! But the Renauds—’

  ‘Damn the Renauds!’ he said, but his sigh was resigned and quiet. He knew that he would do whatever she expected of him.

  ‘But I’m not deserting you, I’ll never desert you. This evening you’ll be with me. We have a secret assignation at ten minutes past ten, before the news. Thousands of people will be watching, and none of them will know. You won’t forget to meet me?’

  He turned his head, and pressed his face into the hollow of her shoulder, kissing her with slow, thoughtful pleasure. The lids of his closed eyes were sunken and blue with weariness. She stroked them very lightly with the tip of one delicate forefinger.

  ‘You won’t forget? If you weren’t with me I should know, and I couldn’t sing.’

  ‘I shall be with you. Don’t you know it? As long as you need me, I shall always be with you.’

  She smiled over his greying head, reflecting tenderly within her secret mind whose was the need, and whose the power to satisfy needs.

  ‘And afterwards, you won’t go and work all night, will you? You’re so tired, you ought to get a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said comfortably into her soft shoulder. ‘Yes, afterwards I’ll sleep. I can finish the proofs in another half-hour, and then I promise you I’ll sleep.’

  They all came out on to the sweep of gravel before the mill to see her off. At the last moment she turned back from the open door of the car to kiss Philip again, lifting her face to him with a sudden impulsive passion. Estelle, watching from the doorstep, thought: ‘Everything about her has to have the symbolic quality of a religious rite. And she’s only leaving him until tomorrow! Saints are the very devil!’ But the momentary stab of mingled amusement and animosity dissolved suddenly into the enchanting thought: ‘Perhaps she’s given herself away a little – perhaps she isn’t as absolutely sure of herself as she likes to believe.’ She thought of the long hours of the day and the night unrolling before her at leisure, and smiled to herself, turning the garnet ring upon her finger.

  Bill drove the big car out from the gates and down the lane in expectant silence, waiting for Helen to say something about the commission he had entrusted to her; but when he reached the high-road, and halted dutifully at the line, and still she was silent, he could bear it no longer.

  ‘Well, did you speak to him?’ Helen looked round at him with a blank, blue stare of bewilderment, as though he had said something in a foreign language. ‘About me!’ he said, hurt and exasperated that she should allow so urgent a matter to slip out of her mind. ‘What did he say? Did he listen to you?’

  ‘I haven’t talked to him about it yet, Bill. There’s been no opportunity.’ She had wrenched her mind to his concerns only with an effort, he could see that, but her voice now was mild and firm as ever, demanding of him more patience than he possessed.

  He sent the car forward with a furious jerk. ‘You forgot all about it!’ he said, cut to the heart.

  ‘If that’s what you believe, my dear, then there’s nothing I can say, is there?’ Her soft voice held no note of reproach, but it flooded him with affectionate, unbearable memories of past goodness, and he drove for a few minutes struggling with his own temper and his instinctive and over-violent regrets. Quarrels with Uncle Philip had come and gone in his experience too often and too simply to be remembered long, or leave any scars; but a word amiss between him and Helen, and he was tormented with a fierce and immoderate remorse. His childhood had been overcharged with these extremities of feeling. He had never understood them; he was so much afraid of them that he had never tried looking at them very closely.

  He stole a quick, shamefaced glance at Helen now, and his heart melted in his breast with frantic tenderness. She was gazing straight before her into air, her eyes wide and brilliant with tears. The car lurched as he reached over and shut a large palm over the slender hands clasped in her lap.

  ‘Darling, forgive me! I didn’t mean it! As though you’d ever let me down! As though I didn’t know. – Oh, God, I am a heel, to turn on you, just because he’s made up his mind—’

  Helen’s soft mouth quivered into a startled smile. ‘Do keep your mind on the road, Bill, you’ll have us in the ditch. It’s all right, don’t worry. I know you were just letting off steam. But I didn’t forget, and I shan’t forget. Yes, I know I shall be away until tomorrow, and I know that leaves you only three days, but still you must trust me.’

  ‘But it couldn’t be done in three days, all the legal business, and everything. And Lawson won’t wait any longer, he can’t, he has to think of his own future—’

  ‘Listen to me, Bill! You must have patience, you must believe that I know best. I promise you I’m doing my best for you. I promise you that if this venture is really so important to you, you shall have what you want. Now are you satisfied?’

  Of her affection and good faith he was indeed satisfied, but he could not feel equally assured of fate’s good intentions towards him. A day lost was a day lost, and could never be recovered; Philip was fixed in his determination and when it came to the point Bill could not imagine him being shaken even by Helen’s appea
ls. Ordinarily he would do whatever she wanted, but in this matter there was another person’s wish to be considered; Philip was right, in a way, Bill conceded grudgingly, to adhere to what he believed his sister would have wanted him to do. If only it had rested with Helen, he was thinking again wretchedly, as he stopped the car in the station yard.

  ‘I’ll come and meet you tomorrow, off the ten o’clock train. Do take care of yourself.’

  ‘You’ll see me tonight,’ she reminded him, smiling.

  ‘Yes, of course! I wouldn’t miss it!’ He kissed her, the identical quick, dutiful kiss of all young men seeing their mothers off by train. At least, he had always supposed it to be the same model, making allowances for the extra tenderness he had felt towards Helen because she had really none of a mother’s obligations towards him, and had cared for him rather out of the goodness of her quite superhumanly good heart. The pain and the pleasure that found their way into that brief contact of lips had always somewhat confounded him. But then, all the wounds and delights of life had seemed to him to be more extreme than other people admitted, and he had very early learned to, dissemble them, too, in order to be exactly as other boys were.

  Now, as he watched Helen’s train move out, honesty compelled him to notice the discomfort of his own heart. He turned back to the car thinking incessantly, tormentedly, helplessly: ‘I’ve got to get the money! I’ve got to get away!’

  Gerard was standing beside the dressing-table, with the garnet ring in the palm of his hand, when his wife came in from the bathroom to dress for the evening. She looked from the little circle of gold to his face, which was as still and unrevealing as stagnant water. She was not disturbed. She could not conceive of any reaction of his moving her to any emotion beyond boredom, and she was not by nature a timorous woman. She was even a little cramped within her respectability, after a whole day of moving softly, pleasurably, nearer and nearer to a new footing with Philip, and would almost welcome, she thought, the stimulus of a fight, and the openness of behaving exactly as she chose again. She felt as though the thaw had set in in her bones, after seven years of frost.