John Powys - Ducdame

“Contempt,” was the younger Ashover’s laconic answer.

“Lexie, that’s not fair,” protested the accused man with the peculiar expression of half-ironic, half-authentic humility which he always assumed under a frontal attack. “Why is it contemptible to call this thing an obsession?”

“Because you sing such a bloody song about it, and then go on exactly the same! Why can’t you treat your girls as girls ought to be treated; and as, in their hearts, they like to be treated? Why can’t you just enjoy them for what they are and let them know what you are; without making such a devil of a fuss about it? It was a piece of pure sentimentality to bring Netta here in the beginning. And then, to go and marry Ann just because you’d taken your pleasure—”

“But, good Lord!” Rook interrupted, “one can’t get one’s cousin, and a girl like Ann, too, into trouble and ‘nothing said’!”

The invalid made one of his most goblin-like grimaces at this.

“ She got her pleasure out of it as well as you, brother Rook, and as for the results — oh, well! It’s no good going back on all that now. When is her child to be born?”

He flung out the question with as much nonchalance as if it had been of very small moment whether Ashover had an heir or not.

“In September, I suppose,” answered the other. In the silence that followed this, Rook’s mind wandered off to Netta and a miserable frown came upon his forehead as with his eyes watching the movements of a pair of green finches in a small hazel bush beyond the stream he wondered whether that drinking habit into which she had flung herself had gone from bad to worse. “I’ve done it for the best,” ran the phrase in her letter. Did that refer to the drinking? And if so, what did she mean?

“What’s the matter now?” enquired Lexie, and his elder brother began to explain how his remorse about Netta’s disappearance was mixed with his fear of the effect of drink upon her.

“You know what it is,” he said. “Men can drink heavily without its changing their life. I don’t think women can do that. If once they get any real dependence on it, they’re lost! Their whole nature seems to go to pieces.”

Lexie nodded grimly.

“I can’t think what started her drinking like that,” Rook continued. “She never touched liquor when I first knew her; but since that New Year’s Eve party of yours she got worse and worse. She used to drink in her room. I found a lot of bottles afterward; and I could see that Pandie knew about it.”

Lexie opened his eyes very wide at these words. “You don’t mean to say you didn’t see what was at the bottom of that?” he cried in unfeigned astonishment. “I saw it like a map.”

Rook stared at him blankly. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t mean to say you missed the piquancy of that little game,” Lexie went on. “I don’t know how much was due to your philanderings with Ann and Nell; but it was plain to me that Netta had got something on her mind that she was trying to drown; something that egged her on to be absolutely reckless.”

Rook struggled awkwardly and stiffly to his feet.

“Did she say anything to you?” he cried harshly.

“Don’t fly off at a tangent now. You couldn’t have stopped her. It was natural enough.”

“But she knew Ann and I were old friends. I told her so often. And she hadn’t the least idea there was anything between Nell and me.”

Lexie smiled complacently and pityingly. “It’s amazing, Rook, how you can be so intuitive with women sometimes and so absolutely blind at other times! I don’t say that your flirtations made her unhappy; but they were quite enough to make her a bit careless of appearances.”

“Did any one else see what she was doing, do you suppose, except you and that little baggage Pandie?” Rook began swinging his stick as he asked this question. A troubled and nervous desire for some sort of action made it impossible for him to remain still.

“I have not the least doubt that everyone saw it — except you. I shouldn’t be surprised if Cousin Ann saw it, even before I did.”

“Why didn’t she tell me, then? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Really, Rook, that’s going a bit too far! Outsiders can hardly be expected to meddle between a man and his girl. Besides, nothing could suit Ann better than that Netta should make herself impossible!”

Rook let his stick fall to his side.

“You don’t think she encouraged her in it, do you?” he said in a harsh whisper. “They were always together.”

Lexie laughed. “There’s a big gap between encouraging a person in a thing and making a fuss to stop them from it. I don’t suppose Ann did anything about it at all. Just watched it going on, as I did, and hoped for the best! ”

Rook’s face was now convulsed with anger. “You were all against her!” he cried. “Every one of you! You all hated her and wanted her to clear out, while you kept me locked up and fed with penny buns like the bear in the Bristol Aquarium!”

Lexie chuckled with immense zest at this comparison. There was something, he thought to himself, very like a zoo animal about Rook’s sulky restlessness. He got up from the ground and came over to his brother.

“Come,” he said, “we won’t quarrel over Netta. I would far rather live with Netta, drunk or sober, than be married to Cousin Ann! But don’t look so miserable! If I were married to your wife I would soon put her in her place. And I’d dearly love to do it, too!” he added, with a leer that was at once dictatorial and satyrish. “I’d manage her, brother Rook. I’d tame her.”

They gathered up the remains of their meal and tossed them into the basket.

“No, I’ll carry it,” said Rook, “and you take my arm! I can’t have the doctor cursing me for tiring you out over this day’s business. I want to have a lot more jaunts with you this summer.”

They moved off together along the edge of the lake. For some reason or other Lexie’s blunt, uncompromising attitude to Lady Ann gave Rook a feeling of relief. He felt less submerged, less invaded, less divided from himself with his brother at his side.

“Well!” he said presently. “This isn’t the first time you and I have walked along this piece of grass. Oh, Lexie, Lexie, what things we have seen and felt together! I know that, wherever I am and whatever I see, there aren’t many objects that catch my notice without my wanting to share them with you. I don’t hold back much from you, Lexie.”

The younger Ashover irreverently put out his tongue at this.

“Liar!” he said. “You know perfectly well that you’re as reserved as the devil, even with me! I often feel that you have endless ideas and sensations that you hug to yourself and would hate my getting a hint of. But I do believe you love me, Rook, better than any one else. I think you’ll feel queer, now and then, after I’ve been put by Mr. Pod under that elm tree.”

Rook’s reply to this was to hang his stick over his wrist and hug his brother tightly in his arms, kissing him repeatedly on cheeks, mouth, eyes, and forehead.

“Well!” he said breathlessly as he released him, “it’s a good thing that you and I were born under the same roof. Think what it would have been like if we’d just casually glanced at each other on some railway platform or pavement and realized what we’d missed when the crowd divided us! No, no, Lexie. Nothing will make me believe that you won’t live longer than I shall. These doctors are always making mistakes. There! I announce to you, this last day of June and by the edge of this blue lake, that we shall live to walk here together in twelve months’ time, talking just as freely as we’re talking now! Perhaps I shall have found Netta again by then.”