Family Matters Page 2

  So in moments of perplexity Mr. Kewdingham gladly turned for reassurance to his aunt and cousin, Mrs. and Miss Poundle-Quainton. To them he brought his doubts and grievances, and those doubts and grievances were quickly dissolved in the warm flow of their affection, quickly dispelled by the gentle murmur of their friendly voices.

  Perhaps he was not quite so sure of his other aunt, Mrs. Pyke, a sturdy old widow; or of his venerable uncle, Richard Kewdingham, who had now been established in the town for several years. But of course he was strongly supported in his own house by his even more venerable father.

  Robert Henry Kewdingham, the ancient father, was neat, springy and vigorous for his age, which was about eighty-one at the time of our story. His lean, clean-shaven face was raw, cruel and rather stupid, the face of a man who had always been a bully. And yet there was something unguarded and credulous about it: you could baffle the bully easily enough, if you knew the trick. He had two rooms on the top floor of his son’s house. He did not thrust himself upon the others. If it was fine he pottered about in the tiny garden; and if it was cold or wet he sat upstairs reading the innumerable volumes of Victorian magazines which he had brought with him. When he retired from the employment of the Duke of Tiddleswade in 1907 he had a respectable income, but as he was misled by an imaginary knowledge of the stock market his capital was quickly frittered away. For some years he had lived in comfort upon his wife’s money; and then his wife had died, revengefully leaving the greater part of her fortune to her young daughter, Phoebe Kewdingham. The ancient father had still the meagre residue of an income, and he made a reasonable contribution towards his maintenance, as, indeed, was only proper.

  Phoebe Kewdingham, who was unmarried, lived in London, where she had a spacious flat in Dodsley Park Avenue.

  The family was also represented in London by a young man of whom we shall see a good deal presently—John Harrigall, the son of old Kewdingham’s sister, and so the cousin of Robert Arthur.

  It will be time enough to speak of these interesting people when they make their first appearance on our scene. Let us only observe here that Mr. Harrigall, a literary young man, was a welcome visitor at Mr. Kewdingham’s house. Mr. Kewdingham and his wife both liked him, though for very different reasons. John was one of the few people who really did seem to appreciate the collection, and he was also one of the few people who went out of their way to be agreeable to poor Mrs. Kewdingham.

  Shufflecester is only seventy miles from London, and London visitors can easily run over for the day.

  Michael, the only child of Robert Arthur, had been sent away to school at Barford. Michael was a problem.

  And thus the situation of Bertha Kewdingham was in every way unfortunate. Robert Arthur had not been a success. He was now in middle age, without a profession, impecunious, full of absurd notions, a wretched hypochondriac, irritable, silly and resourceless. So, at least, he appeared to his wife. There were horrible quarrels and reproaches, futile arguments, incessant bickering. Poor Bertha, with her French impetuosity, her intolerance, her snappy wit, did not know how to manage this dreadful man, this lamentable situation. There was not enough money, there were no hopes of inheritance—though it was understood that Uncle Richard intended to help them in the education of Michael. Everything was wrong, everything was going from bad to worse.

  Bertha knew well how much the family disliked her; she knew they considered her partly responsible for Robert Arthur’s collapse. A woman who understood her job as a wife, a woman who could sympathise and make allowances, they said, would soon have got him on his feet again: never mind how—she would have done it. But of course Bertha was a failure. She was of no use at all. Instead of gently raising the prostrate Robert Arthur, instead of guarding his dignity and warming his diminished hopes, she had added to his vexations—poor fellow!—by wickedly indulging a spiteful and rebellious temper.

  The family as a whole disapproved of Bertha. Mrs. Pyke detested her; the Poundle-Quaintons were grudgingly tolerant; the venerable Kewdingham was openly hostile; only Uncle Richard was really amiable, and she seldom saw him. She had no relations in England. She was half foreign—and she looked it. People thought her rude, farouche and melancholy, and so she had few friends.

  Nor did Kewdingham encourage visitors. The family was enough. His collection, his Britannia League, kept him busy. The shortage of money, the difficulty of providing for Michael’s future, did not seem to worry him at all. Providence would never desert the Kewdinghams. They had only to wait, and something would be sure to turn up—it always did. As for his wife—well! He would say, sighing noisily, women are funny creatures, they never understand the problems of life.

  It needed no subtle observer to perceive at Number Six Wellington Avenue a state of affairs bordering upon tragedy. No one cared for the Robert Kewdinghams. No one cares for a failure; and then Robert was such an odd man, such a peculiarly irritating bore, with his innumerable disorders, his mysticism, his red-hot politics. And few people can tolerate the angry jangling of husband and wife or the tart allusions to family matters which are so provocative.

  Apart from the members of the family in Shufflecester the only visitors at Number Six were Dr. Wilson Bagge, a frequent caller; John Harrigall, who occasionally ran over from London to see the family; and Mr. and Mrs. Chaddlewick, two kindly people who lived at Sykeham-le-Barrow, about five miles outside the town.

  4

  The Kewdingham drama may be said to have begun with a conversation which took place on a September afternoon in 19—. It was market-day. The Chaddlewicks had come to the town in order that Mr. Chaddlewick might see the famous Tiddleswade bull, and they had looked in at Wellington Avenue on the way home. Mr. Kewdingham was feeling unwell, and when he was unwell he had a distressing way of talking about occult experience. He felt that such experience was a ready channel for sympathy. Now he was talking of his Atlantis visions, a very dangerous theme.

  Mrs. Pamela Chaddlewick flipped her fat little hand up and down, expressing her astonishment. Her soft, luminous face was gently animated, but even gentle animation meant a good deal in a face usually as blank as the painted wooden mask in a milliner’s window. Mrs. Chaddlewick was a pretty, fluffy woman, very expensively dressed.

  “But how marvellous!” she piped. “I’m rather like that myself, you know. Rather an odd little person. Doctor Mackworth said he’d never met anyone so curious as me, didn’t he, George? Only, of course, I’ve never—”

  Mr. Kewdingham had a monocle, and he now adroitly screwed it over his left eye, at the same time puckering up in deep creases the whole of his long yellow countenance. He stared at the amiable vacancy of Mrs. Chaddlewick with a flicker of unmistakable admiration.

  “It is a very strange thing, very strange indeed.” Mr. Kewdingham spoke in a slow, melancholy voice. “To feel in touch with these Atlantis people who lived so many thousands of years ago—”

  “Thousands of years ago!” repeated the shrill piccolo of Mrs. Chaddlewick.

  Mrs. Kewdingham jerked up her shoulders nervously. She was talking to Mr. Chaddlewick about gardens, but the fatal sound of Atlantis caught her attention at once.

  “Oh, Lord!” she said, with muffled exasperation, “Bobby’s off again. He’s got Atlantis on the brain at present.”

  “Eh?” replied Mr. Chaddlewick politely. “Atlantis? Very exciting, but rather beyond me, I’m afraid.” And he paused to listen.

  “I have been having these experiences for a very considerable time,” said Robert Arthur in his most impressive manner, though still mournfully. “At first I was rather disturbed. Now I may say, in a sense, that I am getting used to it. Psychic people tell me it is quite remarkable.”

  “It must mean something,” said Mrs. Chaddlewick.

  “Is it a dream? I don’t clearly understand the nature of this experience.” Mr. Chaddlewick spoke with an exaggerated seriousness, as though he was talking to
a child.

  Mrs. Kewdingham bit her lip and sharply tapped her toe on the hearthrug. There are few things more dreadful than a husband who will persist in making a fool of himself in public. She looked out of the window at a grey line of cloud above the housetops.

  “Do you think it will rain?” she said to Mr. Chaddlewick.

  Robert Arthur sighed heavily, tilting his face sideways and fixing his eye on a corner of the ceiling. These people are really interested, he thought, and of course Bertha has made up her mind to spoil everything, as she always does. He could not help thinking how different life would have been with a lovely sympathetic lady like Mrs. Chaddlewick.

  “In a way, it is a kind of dream. I am aware of my own identity as a—a high priest or something of that sort. I feel that I have mysterious knowledge and power.”

  “How lahvly!” cried Mrs. Chaddlewick. “Do go on. I’m simply mad to hear the rest of it.”

  Bertha looked at the other woman darkly—a quick level glance full of new suspicion. Damn her! she thought; is she trying to humiliate me? or is she flirting with Bobby? or is she merely an astounding idiot?

  “I am always in the same place, standing in the temple. There’s an enormous crowd. In front of me are a lot of girls in white dresses, and I can see a white bull with a garland of blue flowers on his neck. There are a great many pillars and that sort of thing. Tall men with golden axes on the end of silver poles—”

  He paused, as though endeavouring to recall some detail.

  “How simply exquisite!” Mrs. Chaddlewick twittered. “It’s like a play. Go on! Oh, do go on! It’s too fearfully thrilling for words.”

  “Then I seem to raise my hand and I make a sort of speech. I proclaim my title as the High Priest of Atlantis, Keeper of Wisdom. All the people fall on their faces in front of me—all except the men with the axes. Then I say, ‘ Bring me the Belt of Stars!’ An old man comes along on his knees, and he says, ‘Oh, my Lord! Must I indeed bring thee the Belt of Stars?’ And I say, ‘Verily; for it is my will, the will of Athu-na-Shulah.’”

  “That is very curious,” said Mr. Chaddlewick, with a shadow of a smile on his good-humoured face. “And what language are you speaking?”

  “The Atlantis language, of course,” Mr. Kewdingham replied. “No living person knows it, and that is what makes my dream so remarkable. I have the knowledge of this tongue in my astral brain, you see. I cannot remember it when I am using my mental brain, my physical brain, as I am now.” He saw the shadowy smile on Mr. Chaddlewick’s face, and he looked rather hurt.

  “The High Priest of Atlantis—”

  Mrs. Kewdingham groaned. Her husband stared at her for a moment with a flash of nasty malice. Only a flash, however, and he turned back to Mrs. Chaddlewick with a delightful sense of being understood—and perhaps admired.

  “You see,” he said, “I can remember my name, and that is the most amazing part of it all. Athu-na-Shulah.”

  “Oh, do write it down for me!” cooed Mrs. Chaddlewick. “I should like to have it in my address-book. The High Priest of Atlantis!” She beamed in her soapy, enveloping way at Bertha. “Don’t you think it’s too gorgeous, Mrs. Kewdingham?—don’t you think it ought to be written down?”

  “I am not thinking about it at all,” said Bertha rudely. “I am looking at those lovely amber beads of yours.”

  “Oh, they don’t suit me one little tiny bit! I only wear them because an astrologer told me I ought to wear yellow things. Professor Motoyoshi—a Japanese. Have you heard of him? My dear, he’s marvellous. Told me all about George—didn’t he, George? He seemed to know George even better than I do; told me a lot of things that would never have come into my head, I can assure you.”

  “Be quiet, Pam!” said Mr. Chaddlewick, but he said it in a playful manner.

  “And he told me all about sex and marriage—yes, really, everything. It was just too wonderful. And I asked him, What does it mean when you have a funny feeling in both ears? Because I often have it, you know. And he said it was the influence of a star that is only just visible to the naked eye. I forget the name of it, but I wrote it down in my address-book. I have to write everything down; there are such a lot of things in my head. And then he looked at my hand, and said he’d never seen such a happy little hand in all his life. Wasn’t that sweet of him? So he gave me the dearest little horoscope on blue-and-pink paper. He did it in a few minutes. He’s a most frightfully intriguing person. Of course, he doesn’t advertise. You have to get an introduction, and then he sees you as a sort of favour.”

  “Does he do it for nothing?” said Mr. Kewdingham, rather peevishly. He wanted to come back to Atlantis.

  “Practically nothing. Only five guineas.”

  Mr. Kewdingham started again:

  “There’s a connection between the Atlantis mystery and the inch-year-circle system of the Pyramid builders—”

  “I don’t quite see what you mean,” said Mr. Chaddlewick.

  “Nor does anyone else,” said Mrs. Kewdingham, with a wry, irritating smile. “It’s all nonsense.”

  Feeling trouble in the air, Mrs. Chaddlewick was pleasurably excited. She opened her tantalising vermilion mouth:

  “Oh!” she said, “the Pyramid—”

  Bertha lost control of herself. A sudden hatred of Mrs. Chaddlewick flamed up within her. The woman had got all she wanted—lovely clothes, money, an amiable husband; why need she come along making fun of Robert Arthur, or making love to him? Anyone could see, now, that Robert Arthur was fascinated by Mrs. Chaddlewick. Bertha had woes and grievances enough, accumulating until their pressure was almost intolerable, and now she was to be humiliated by a little fluffy puppet. It was a sense of this cruel humiliation, rather than a sense of jealousy, which caused her to flash out:

  “Can’t we talk sensibly for a change?”

  Again her husband glanced at her venomously. A black sparkle of anger came into his eyes. His monocle fell, rattling faintly over the buttons of his waistcoat. Deprived of that piece of glass, his face looked suddenly naked and evil. Mr. Chaddlewick was evidently pained; he coughed a little, and shuffled his feet on the carpet.

  “You’ve no need to be so abominably rude,” said Mr. Kewdingham in a hard, exasperating tone, “even if you don’t understand what we are talking about. I’m sorry my wife sees fit to be so outrageous, Mrs. Chaddlewick. She is probably out of sorts—”

  “Out of sorts!” Bertha rose from her chair, trembling. “Out of patience, if you like. That’s nearer the truth, anyway.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry, my dear Mrs. Kewdingham,” piped Mrs. Chaddlewick. “It’s all my fault, I’m sure. It was the Pyramid, you know—”

  Realising her awful mistake, poor Bertha subsided weakly.

  “No, no,” she said. “The fault is mine; it always is. I am sorry if you think me rude. I apologise.”

  “It’s the least you can do,” said Mr. Kewdingham acidly. “You might have the decency to let us choose our own conversation. If we are interested—as we all appear to be, except you—”

  Bertha remained standing by her chair, but she said nothing. Once more she gave Mrs. Chaddlewick a searching, level glance, full in the eyes.

  Mrs. Chaddlewick flushed. “Oh, please!” she said, on a tremulous, fluty note, almost the note of appeal.

  “Quite right, quite right!” observed Mr. Chaddlewick without much relevance. “Nothing at all. Slight misunderstanding. Absolutely, of course.” And he smiled amiably, for he hated a scene.

  “Well—” Mr. Kewdingham began; but here the situation was mercifully changed by the arrival of his father.

  The old man knew the visitors. He shook hands with them pleasantly enough.

  “We’ve been hearing all about Mr. Kewdingham’s wonderful dream,” said Mrs. Chaddlewick in a patronising coo. (Old men are such ghastly bores, my dear!—but you have to be polite. And she
was not going to let Bertha have her way, not if she knew it.)

  “Ah, yeh!” replied the ancient fellow, rapidly moving his chops and clicking his firm white teeth. Secretly he thought it was all nonsense, but his opposition to Bertha prevented him from saying so. “Tell me not in mournful numbers—And how are you, Mrs. Chaddlewick?”

  “Now that daddy has come,” said Bertha, “I’ll go and see about tea. Will you have it with us, daddy?”

  Old Kewdingham looked at his daughter-in-law with a grim, unaccountable flicker of dislike. He felt the tension in the room, he knew that something was wrong, and he guessed the cause. For a moment there was a curious resemblance between his expression and that of Robert Arthur. But it was only momentary. “Thank you, my dear; I think I’ll go upstairs again,” he said in the sweetest of senile voices.

  Mrs. Chaddlewick rose.

  “We simply must be going, I’m afraid,” she said. “I have just remembered that I want to get some mackerel in the town. I adore mackerel. And then George has promised to see the rector at five o’clock—such a nuisance! Thank you most awfully, but we shall have to wrench ourselves away. Your Atlantis dream is quite the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard, Mr. Kewdingham. I should like you to tell me more about it; I’m simply crazy to know how it goes on. It makes me feel all shivery down my back—like I feel when the Archdeacon is preaching, you know. Do let us hear the rest of it. If you could spare the time…And I know George would like you to see his dahlias.”

  Mrs. Chaddlewick’s intention was perfectly clear to Bertha. The terms of the invitation might have made it clear to the others, but men are slow to perceive such things. Mr. Chaddlewick smiled in his most amiable way. “Yes,” he said, “we’ve got a fine show this year.”