Barbara Vine - The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

1

It is an error to say the eyes have expression. Eyebrows and eyelids, lips, the planes of the face, all these are indicators of emotion. The eyes are merely colored liquid in a glass.

—A MESSENGER OF THE GODS

“NOT A WORD TO MY GIRLS,” HE HAD SAID ON THE WAY home from the hospital. My girls, as if they weren’t also hers. She was used to it, he always said that, and in a way they were more his. “I’m not hearing this,” she said.

“You’re going to have major surgery and your grown-up children aren’t to be told.”

“ ‘Major surgery,’ ” he said. “You sound like Staff Nurse Samantha in a hospital sitcom. I won’t have Sarah and Hope worried. I won’t give them a day of hell while they await the result.”

You flatter yourself, she thought, but that was just spite. He didn’t. They would have a day of hell; they would have anguish, while she had a little mild trepidation.

He made her promise. It wasn’t difficult. She wouldn’t have cared for the task of telling them.

The girls came down as usual. In the summer they came down every weekend, and in the winter, too, unless the roads were impassable. They had forgotten the Romneys were coming to lunch, and Hope made a face, what her father called “a square mouth,” a snarl, pushing her head forward and curling back her lips.

“Be thankful it’s only lunch,” said Gerald. “When I first met the guy, I asked him for the weekend.”

“He refused ?” Sarah said it as if she were talking of someone turning down a free round-the-world cruise.

“No, he didn’t refuse. I wrote to him, asked him for lunch, and said he could stay at the hotel.”

Everyone laughed except Ursula.

“He’s got a wife he’s bringing.”

“Oh God, Daddy, is there more? He hasn’t got kids, has he?”

“If he has, they’re not invited.” Gerald smiled sweetly at his daughters. He said thoughtfully, “We might play the Game.”

“With them ? Oh, do let’s,” said Hope. “We haven’t played the Game for ages.”

Titus and Julia Romney were much honored by an invitation from Gerald Candless, and if they had expected to be put up in the house and not have to pay for a room at the Dunes, they hadn’t said so, not even to each other. Julia had anticipated eccentricity from someone so distinguished, even rudeness, and she was pleasantly surprised to encounter a genial host, a gracious, if rather silent, hostess, and two good-looking young women who turned out to be the daughters.

Titus, who had his naive side, as she well knew, was hoping for a look at the room where the work was done. And perhaps a present. Not a first edition, that would be expecting too much, but any book signed by the author. Conversation on literary matters, how he wrote, when he wrote, and even, now the daughters had appeared, what it was like to be his child.

It was a hot, sunny day in July, a few days before the start of the high season at the hotel, or they wouldn’t have gotten a room. Lunch was in a darkish, cool dining room with no view of the sea. Far from discussing books, the Candlesses talked about the weather, summer visitors, the beach, and Miss Batty, who was coming to clear the table and wash up. Gerald said Miss Batty wasn’t much of a cleaner but that they kept her because her name made him laugh. There was another Miss Batty and a Mrs. Batty, and they all lived together in a cottage in Croyde. “Sounds like a new card game, Unhappy Families,” he said, and then he laughed and the daughters laughed.

In the drawing room—so he called it—the French windows were open onto the garden, the pink and blue hydrangea, the cliff edge, the long bow-shaped beach and the sea. Julia asked what the island was and Sarah said Lundy, but she said it in such a way as to imply only a total ignoramus would ask. Coffee was brought by someone who must have been Miss Batty and drinks were poured by Hope. Gerald and Titus drank port, Julia had a refill of the Meursault, and Sarah and Hope both had brandy. Sarah’s brandy was neat, but Hope’s had ice in it.

Then Gerald made the sort of announcement Julia hated, really hated. She didn’t think people actually did this anymore, not in this day and age, not grown-ups. Not intellectuals.

“And now we’ll play the Game,” Gerald had said. “Let’s see how clever you are.”

“Would it be wonderful to find someone who caught on at once, Daddy?” said Hope. “Or would we hate it?”

“We’d hate it,” said Sarah, and she planted on Gerald’s cheek one of those kisses that the Romneys found mildly embarrassing to witness.

He caught at her hand briefly. “It never happens, though, does it?”

Julia met Ursula’s eye and must have put inquiry into her glance. Or simple fear.

“Oh, I shan’t play,” Ursula said. “I shall go out for my walk.”

“In this heat?”

“I like it. I always walk along the beach in the afternoons.”

Titus, who also disliked parlor games, asked what this one was called. “Not this Unhappy Families you were talking about?”

“It’s called I Pass the Scissors,” said Sarah.

“What do we have to do?”

“You have to do it right. That’s all.”

“You mean we all have to do something and there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing it?”

She nodded.

“How will we know?”

“We’ll tell you.”

The scissors were produced by Hope from a drawer in the tallboy. Once kitchen scissors had been used for the Game, or Ursula’s sewing scissors or nail scissors, whatever came to hand. But the Game and the ascendancy it gave them afforded so much pleasure that, while his daughters still lived at home, Gerald had bought a pair of Victorian scissors with handles like a silver bird in flight and sharp pointed blades. It was these that Hope now handed to her father for him to begin.