On the day they landed, Constance’s spirits were high. She looked at Manhattan with love and with expectation. Standing on the deck, she kissed her husband with some passion. The face she lifted toward him was dazzling.
“Darling,” she said (she had begun to call him this on the voyage). “Darling Montague. You have made me very happy. I can’t wait to be ashore. I am a land creature, you see.” She gave him a teasing glance. “I like pavement under my feet. That way—I run faster.”
It was at this point in the journals that, for some time, I broke off. It was strange to read a story with a combination of hindsight and foreknowledge, and when I reached the point of that Atlantic voyage, I felt uneasy. I knew what happened next; I
almost
knew.
Do you see? A pattern was being fixed. It was a pattern that was to remain fixed over the next twelve years, a span of time that divided 1918 (when the war ended, and my parents married) from 1930, the year of my birth.
During that time my parents lived at Winterscombe. My father, for a few years, took work as a partner in a merchant bank in London—in an effort, I imagine, to repay some of the financial debt he owed Jane. It was work he disliked, for which he had no aptitude—his quick mind, his keen intelligence, his gift for abstract argument, his interest in literature, history, and philosophy, did not adapt well to the stringencies of finance. In this respect he was, perhaps, a prisoner of his class: The pursuit of profits made his lip curl.
Once his father died (it
was
an apoplexy, or as we would say, a heart attack; the year was 1923) my father gave up the merchant bank to devote himself full time to Winterscombe. He became caught up, increasingly, in my mother’s many charitable projects, particularly in the architectural design of orphanages. He wrote several pamphlets on the subject and even, at one point, campaigned energetically for parliamentary reform regarding the care of the destitute in society. He came to believe that the actual design of institutions (not just orphanages but also prisons) had a profound effect on the mentality of those confined within them: If you caged people, he said, then obviously they would behave like animals.
In many of these arguments—that prisons for minor offenders should be more open; that orphaned children should be placed with families and not institutionalized—my father was far ahead of his time. I think he knew his schemes were a lost cause, but that did not deter him. He liked lost causes. Lost causes cost money; Winterscombe cost money; over the next twelve years a number of my mother’s charitable schemes would come to successful fruition—but successful or less successful, they ate into her capital. She was, I think, somewhat easy prey to con men and charlatans, at least in the early years. Certainly some of her investments (and all these projects were being funded by investments) were unwise. Year by year, idealism inched my parents toward that genteel poverty of my childhood. I was proud of this, and I am still—but I could see the pattern ahead of me as I read. At Winterscombe, idealism and financial decline; across the Atlantic, pragmatism and an inexorable advance toward worldly success.
In New York, Constance and Stern prospered. Stern was to become as feared on Wall Street as he had been in the City; Constance danced her way to dominance in New York drawing rooms. “The meek shall inherit?” she liked to cry. (Constance was never averse to mild blasphemy.) “What nonsense! The meek go
under.
”
Every year, once a year, these two factions met, when Stern and Constance traveled to Europe, to England, and to Winterscombe. The last such visit was made in 1929, the year of the Wall Street crash. The following year I was born, and Constance attended my christening without her husband. It was her last visit. She was then banished from Winterscombe.
Something happened then; something happened to interrupt that twelve-year pattern. I still did not know what it was, but I did know one other fact: 1930 was also the year in which Constance’s marriage to Stern ended.
Do you see my predicament? I knew something of the past and something of the future—and it seemed to me that the link between the two had become obvious. Constance’s obsession with my father was a small time-bomb; it ticked away for twelve years. At the time of my birth, presumably, it exploded. For me, many years later, the detonations continued.
And so one night, about a week after Wexton arrived at Winterscombe, I decided. I would not continue. I was afraid to continue—and you will see exactly why, shortly. I did not admit that to myself at the time. I simply packed all those letters and diaries away. I packed up the past and confined it to desk drawers and packing cases.
Wexton made no comment. I think, in fact, that Wexton had already decided where I needed to go next and was waiting for me to catch up with him. He took the disappearance of all those disorderly papers in his stride.
“I’ve booked us some seats for Stratford,” he announced one morning at breakfast.
We went the next day. For that day, and several afterward, we edged away from the past.
The play we would see was Shakespeare’s
Troilus and Cressida,
one of Wexton’s favorite plays, and one that reflected his current obsession with war.
We drove to Stratford-upon-Avon that morning, had lunch, walked about the town, saw the play in the evening, and then drove home, on dark and peaceful country roads, to Winterscombe.
I think this visit was a kind of pilgrimage for Wexton, part of his process of saying goodbye to my uncle Steenie. We had often made expeditions to Stratford before, but always with Steenie making up the party. It was the first time Wexton and I had ever been there alone. Wexton never mentioned this, of course. He never once showed the least sign of melancholy. We ate lunch at Steenie’s favorite riverside pub. After lunch we strolled about the town, Wexton deciding which of the numerous Olde English Tea Shoppes would be the one we would patronize later. Having selected the worst of the half-timbered places on offer (it provided an Anne Hathaway cream tea—Wexton was delighted), we took the route I knew we would take, because we had always taken it with Steenie: along Waterside to Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried.
Wexton never visited Stratford without paying his respects to Shakespeare’s tomb. This must have been our twentieth time there.
We made our way into the church. We approached the tomb. Wexton appeared blind to the school party (bored) on one side of him, and the Japanese businessmen on the other (disappointed; inside the church, they were not allowed to use cameras).
He stared down at the inscription on the gravestone for some time. Later, he struck up one of his instant friendships with a Japanese businessman, with whom (walking back from the church) he discussed charabanc outings, the meaning of
Hamlet,
and the likelihood of Anne Hathaway’s having provided cream teas for her husband.
When we had finished that tea, Wexton (happily oblivious to the nudges and stares from across the café—there were students there; he had been recognized) lit a cigarette. He smiled at me amiably. His thoughts, obviously, were still back at Holy Trinity Church, and the inscription on the tomb which he had again been reading.
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebarel to dig the dust enclosed here.
“Excellent advice,” Wexton said. “Got it right, as usual. When we go back to Winterscombe, let’s have a bonfire.”
The next day, we did. I discovered the contents of those two mysterious suitcases with which Wexton had arrived at Winterscombe: Inside them was a mess of papers. Wexton dumped them in a great pile. Neither he nor I was allowed to examine them.
We had selected a place not far from the lake. Wexton’s preparations were meticulous. “A funeral pyre,” he said cheerfully. “We have to build it properly.”
There was plenty of kindling, plenty of dry timber. We lugged logs back and forth. We made a fine bonfire. Wexton tipped out the contents of the suitcases: There were certainly letters there; I think there were also poems. Then, when it was all arranged, Wexton lit the first match. The funeral pyre burned beautifully. The paper caught; the dry sticks crackled; the breeze fanned the flames, and the flames licked and mounted.
The heat became intense. We had to step back from it. Occasionally, when some scrap of paper threatened to flutter out from the pile, Wexton—using a long stick as a poker—would shove it back in again. He was—there was no doubt in my mind—enjoying this very much.
I was more hesitant … at first. I felt I ought to have argued more, dissuaded more. It was one thing for Wexton to consign letters, his private life, to the flames—that was his choice—but I hated to think he was also consigning poems to oblivion. Wexton, however, took such pleasure in the whole enterprise that I was caught up in it too. Fires produce a certain excitement; a pyromaniac lurks in all of us. Within a very short time we were both feeding the fire energetically. At one point, when the flames gushed, Wexton (normally slow-moving and staid) almost capered.
“That’s it,” he said finally. “That’s everything. Up in smoke. I feel
much
better.
That’ll
show that vulture at Yale what I. think of him.”
I hesitated then.
“It isn’t the whole lot, Wexton,” I said finally. “There’s still all your letters to Steenie. They’re here, in the house. Do you want me to fetch them?”
“No,” Wexton said firmly. “Those belonged to Steenie, not me. Now they’re yours. You decide what to do with them.”
“You’re sure?”
“Oh, yes.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “I’d kind of prefer them
not
to end up at Yale—or Austin. Austin’s getting really terrible, you know. Every writer’s graveyard. But you decide. Make another bonfire sometime … or don’t. It’s up to you. I trust you. Oh”—he paused—“and this wasn’t a hint to you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not suggesting you make a bonfire—or not yet anyway.”
We stood for a while, watching the fire burn down to bright spars of wood. Then, as dusk fell, we walked back to the house, my godfather and I.
Wexton was quiet over tea, and thoughtful. There was a brief interruption, when an almost-excited Gervase Garstang-Nott telephoned to say that he had finally pinned down his corporate raider/property developer, who had, it seemed, finally stopped shuttling between the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. He was now in London. He had agreed to come down to Winterscombe.
“Strike while the iron is hot!” said Garstang-Nott, uncharacteristically. “He wants to come down the day after tomorrow.”
An appointment was agreed upon. I felt faint stirrings of optimism, which I tried to clamp down on. I knew the corporate raider was likely to prove as lukewarm in his interest as the previous potential purchasers who had visited. Still, I felt a certain hope. And, as it turned out, I was justified. The corporate raider did not buy Winterscombe, but his visit was to prove important.
Wexton, still quiet and thoughtful after his bonfire, did not take a great deal of interest in the advent of the corporate raider. I was full of plans for making Winterscombe look enticing; Wexton did not listen. He helped me prepare dinner, but did so inattentively.
“About those journals,” he said finally, when dinner was over. “About Constance and your father—”
“Yes, Wexton?” I replied, tensing.
“Something’s bothering you. Something more than you said. Something you haven’t told me.”
“Yes, it is. Wexton, I don’t want to think about it—”
“Well, you’ll have to, sooner or later. It won’t go away. If it’s any help, I can guess what it is. It used to bother me, too—and Steenie.” He paused. “The accident to Shawcross—it’s about that, am I right?”
“Yes,” I said, somewhat cagily. I hesitated. “You had a theory about that, Wexton. I know, because Steenie mentions it, in one of those letters he never sent. He said you’d discussed it, and he’d decided you were both wrong.” I stopped. “I … wondered what it was, Wexton. It seemed odd—that you’d never told me.”
Wexton shrugged. “It was just a theory. Probably wrong. I don’t want to discuss it now. It wouldn’t be right.”
“It might upset me?”
“Yes. It might.” Insofar as he could, Wexton began to look evasive.
That evasiveness in Wexton alarmed me. I began to feel a little sick. I pushed the rest of my meal aside, unfinished.
It was steak, I remember that, because Wexton—more sanguine than I was—continued to eat with every appearance of good appetite. When he finally set down his fork, he smiled his benevolent smile and leaned forward. He mentioned Tibet. He made a further suggestion, an obvious one, I suppose—certainly one I should have considered.
The next morning, I acted upon it. After all, there was a professional solver of puzzles in my own family. I also happened to be very fond of him. And while I had no wish to upset him with my questions, he was, apart from Constance herself, the one person still alive who had been there, at Winterscombe, on the night of the comet party.
M
Y UNCLE FREDDIE WAS
THEN PAST SEVENTY. He Still lived in the house in Little Venice where I visited him for tea as a child. The house had, however, been smartened up: The sweep of a new broom in Freddie’s life could be detected the moment you entered the front gate. This new force was responsible for the gleaming brass mailbox and knocker, for the hedge, which was cut with military precision, and for a garden pond, installed since my last visit, which lay squarely beneath the windows. It was decorated by a fat and pugnacious cherub.
“Newts!” said Winnie as she opened the door to me and clasped me to her battleship bosom. She pointed at the pond with pride. “They’re our new thing. Absolutely fascinating.”
Winifred Hunter-Coote had been widowed in the mid-1950s, when I was living in New York. Winnie mourned her husband, Cootie, greatly, and still tended to wear black in his honor, but she was a sensible woman with a great zest for life, and widowhood did not suit her. Once she realized this, which took about two years, she set about the business of finding a new husband.