Giant's Bread (12 page)

Both the cousins looked at Sebastian with a tinge of envy. Queer, and rather wonderful, to be in old Sebastian's position. His father had died some years before. Sebastian, at twenty-two, was master of so many millions that it took one's breath away to think about them.

The friendship with Sebastian, begun all those years ago at Abbots Puissants, had endured and strengthened. He and Vernon had been friends at Eton, they were at the same college at Cambridge. In the holidays, the three had always managed to spend a good deal of time together.

‘What about sculpture?' asked Joe suddenly. ‘Is that included?'

‘Of course. Are you still keen about taking up modelling?'

‘Rather. It's the only thing I really care about.'

A derisive hoot of laughter came from Vernon.

‘Yes, and what will it be this time next year? You'll be a frenzied poet or something.'

‘It takes one some time to find one's true vocation,' said Joe with dignity. ‘But I'm really in earnest this time.'

‘You always are,' said Vernon. ‘However, thank heaven you've given up that damned violin.'

‘Why do you hate music so, Vernon?'

‘Dunno – I always have.'

Joe turned back to Sebastian. Unconsciously her voice took on a different note. It sounded ever so faintly constrained.

‘What do you think of Paul La Marre's work? Vernon and I went to his studio last Sunday.'

‘No guts,' said Sebastian succinctly.

A slight flush rose in Joe's cheek.

‘That's simply because you don't understand what he's aiming at. I think he's wonderful.'

‘Anaemic,' said Sebastian, unperturbed.

‘Sebastian, I think you're perfectly hateful sometimes. Just because La Marre has the courage to break away from tradition –'

‘That's not it at all,' said Sebastian. ‘A man can break away from tradition by modelling a Stilton cheese and calling it his idea of a nymph bathing. But if he can't convince you and impress you by doing so, he's failed. Just doing things differently to anyone else isn't genius. Nine times out of ten it's aiming at getting cheap notoriety.'

The door opened and Mrs Levinne looked in.

‘Teath ready, dearths,' she said, and beamed on them.

Jet dangled and twinkled on her immense bust. A large black hat with feathers sat on top of her elaborately arranged coiffure. She looked the complete symbol of material prosperity. Her eyes dwelt with adoration on Sebastian.

They got up, and prepared to follow her. Sebastian said in a low voice to Joe:

‘Joe – you're not angry, are you?'

There was suddenly something young and pathetic about his voice – a pleading in it that exposed him as immature and vulnerable. A moment ago he had been the master spirit laying down the law in complete self-confidence.

‘Why should I be angry?' said Joe coldly.

She moved towards the door without looking at him. Sebastian's eyes rested on her wistfully. She had that dark magnetic beauty that matures early. Her skin was dead white, and her eyelashes so thick and dark that they looked like jet against the even colour of her cheeks. There was magic in her way of moving, something languorous and passionate that was wholly unconscious as yet of its own appeal. Although she was the youngest of the three, just past her twentieth birthday, she was at the same time the oldest. To her Vernon and Sebastian were boys, and she despised boys. That queer dog-like devotion of Sebastian's irritated her. She liked men of experience, men who could say exciting, half understood things. She lowered her white eyelids for a moment, remembering Paul La Marre.

Mrs Levinne's drawing-room was a curious mixture of sheer blatant opulence, and an almost austere good taste. The opulence was due to her – she liked velvet hangings and rich cushions and marble, and gilding – the taste was Sebastian's. It was he who had torn down a medley of pictures from the wall and substituted two of his own choosing. His mother was reconciled to their plainness (as she called it) by the immense price that had been paid for them. The old Spanish leather screen was one of her son's presents to her – so was the exquisite cloisonne vase.

Seated behind an unusually massive silver tea-tray, Mrs Levinne raised the teapot with two hands, and made conversational inquiries, lisping slightly.

‘And how's your dear mother? She never comes to town nowadays. You tell her from me she'll be getting rusty.'

She laughed, a good-natured fat wheezy chuckle.

‘I've never regretted having this town house as well as a country one. Deerfields is all very well, but one wants a bit of life. And of course Sebastian will be home soon for good – and that full of schemes as he is! Well, well, his father was much the same. Went into deals against everybody's advice, and instead of losing his money he doubled and trebled it every time. A smart fellow, my poor Yakob.'

Sebastian thought to himself:

‘I wish she wouldn't. That's just the sort of remark Joe always hates. Joe's always against me nowadays.'

Mrs Levinne went on.

‘I've got a box for
Kings in Arcady
on Wednesday night. What about it, my dears? Will you come?'

‘I'm awfully sorry, Mrs Levinne,' said Vernon. ‘I wish we could. But we're going down to Birmingham tomorrow.'

‘Oh! you're going home.'

‘Yes.'

Why hadn't he said ‘going home'? Why did it sound so fantastic in his ears? There was only one home, of course, Abbots Puissants. Home! A queer word, so many meanings to it. It reminded him of the ridiculous words of a song that one of Joe's young men used to bray out (what a damnable thing music was!) while he fingered his collar and looked at her sentimentally. ‘Home, love, is where the heart is, where'er the heart may be …'

But in that case his home ought to be in Birmingham where his mother was.

He experienced that faint feeling of disquietude that always came over him when he thought of his mother. He was very fond of her, naturally. Mothers, of course, were hopeless people to explain things to, they never understood. But he
was
very fond of her – it would be unnatural if he wasn't. As she so often said, he was all she had.

Suddenly a little imp seemed to jump in Vernon's brain. The imp said suddenly and unexpectedly: ‘What rot you are talking! She's got the house, and the servants to talk to and bully, and friends to gossip with, and her own people all round her. She'd miss all that far more than she'd miss you. She loves you, but she's relieved when you go back to Cambridge – and even then she's not as relieved as you are!'

‘Vernon!' It was Joe's voice, sharp with annoyance. ‘What are you thinking of? Mrs Levinne was asking about Abbots Puissants – if it's still let?'

How fortunate that when people said, ‘What
are
you thinking about?' they didn't in the least mean that they wanted to know! Still, you could always say ‘Nothing much', just as when you were small you had said ‘Nothing'.

He answered Mrs Levinne's questions, promised to deliver her various messages to his mother.

Sebastian saw them to the door, they said a final goodbye and walked out into the London streets. Joe sniffed the air ecstatically.

‘How I love London! You know, Vernon, my mind's made up. I'm coming up to London to study. I'm going to tackle Aunt Myra about it this time. And I won't live with Aunt Ethel, either, I'm going to be on my own.'

‘You can't do that, Joe. Girls don't.'

‘They
do
. I could share rooms with another girl or girls. But to live with Aunt Ethel, always asking me where I'm going, and who with – I just can't stand it. And anyway she hates me being a suffragette.'

The Aunt Ethel they referred to was Aunt Carrie's sister, an aunt by courtesy only. They were staying with her at the present moment.

‘Oh, and that reminds me,' went on Joe. ‘You've got to do something for me, Vernon.'

‘What?'

‘Tomorrow afternoon Mrs Cartwright's taking me to that Titanic Concert as a special treat.'

‘Well?'

‘Well, I don't want to go – that's all.'

‘You can make some excuse or other, I suppose.'

‘It's not so easy as that. You see, Aunt Ethel's got to think I've gone to the concert. I don't want her ferreting out where I am going.'

Vernon gave a whistle.

‘Oh! so that's it? What are you really up to, Joe? Who is it this time?'

‘It's La Marre, if you really want to know.'

‘That bounder.'

‘He's not a bounder. He's wonderful – you don't know how wonderful he is.'

Vernon grinned.

‘No, indeed I don't. I don't like Frenchmen.'

‘You're so horribly insular. But it doesn't matter whether you like him or not. He's going to motor me down to the country to a friend's house where his
chef d'œuvre
is. I do so want to go, and you know perfectly that Aunt Ethel would never let me.'

‘You oughtn't to go racketing about the country with a fellow like that.'

‘Don't be an ass, Vernon. Don't you know that I can look after myself?'

‘Oh, I suppose so.'

‘I'm not one of those silly girls who know nothing about anything.'

‘I don't see, though, where
I
come in.'

‘Well, you see,' Joe displayed a trace of anxiety. ‘You're to go to the concert.'

‘No, I won't do anything of the kind. You know I hate music.'

‘Oh, you must, Vernon. It's the only way. If I say I can't go, she'll ring up Aunt Ethel and suggest one of the girls coming instead, and then the fat will be in the fire. But if you just turn up instead of me – I'm to meet her at the Albert Hall – and give some weak excuse, everything will be all right. She's very fond of you – she likes you heaps better than me.'

‘But I loathe music.'

‘I know, but you can just bear it for one afternoon. An hour and a half. That's all it will be.'

‘Oh, damn it all, Joe, I don't want to.'

His hand shook with irritation. Joe stared at him.

‘You are
funny
about music, Vernon! I've never known anyone who sort of – well, hates it like you. Most people just don't care for it. But I do think you might go – you know
I
always do things for
you
.'

‘All right,' said Vernon abruptly.

It was no good. It had got to be. Joe and he always stood together. After all, as she had said, it would only be an hour and a half. Why should he feel that he had taken a momentous decision? His heart felt like lead – right down in his boots. He didn't want to go – oh! he didn't want to go …

Like a visit to the dentist – best not to think about it. He forced his mind away to other things. Joe looked up sharply as she heard him give vent to a chuckle.

‘What is it?'

‘I was thinking of you as a kid – so grand about saying you were never going to have anything to do with men. And now it's always men with you, one after the other. You fall in and out of love about once a month.'

‘Don't be so horrid, Vernon. Those were just silly girls' fancies. La Marre says if you have any temperament, that always happens – but the real grand passion is quite different when it comes.'

‘Well, don't go and have a grand passion for La Marre.'

Joe did not answer. Presently she said:

‘I'm not like Mother. Mother was – was so
soft
about men. She gave in to them – would do anything for anyone she was fond of. I'm not like that.'

‘No,' said Vernon, after thinking for a moment. ‘No, I don't think you are. You won't make a mess of your life in the same way she did. But you might make a mess of it in a different way.'

‘What sort of a way?'

‘I don't quite know. Going and marrying someone you thought you had a grand passion for, just because everyone else disliked him, and then spending your life fighting him. Or deciding to go and live with someone just because you thought Free Love was a fine idea.'

‘So it is.'

‘Oh, I am not saying it isn't – though as a matter of fact, I really think it is anti-social myself. But you're always the same. If anyone forbids you anything you always want to do it – quite irrespective of whether you really want to. I haven't put that well, but you know what I mean.'

‘What I really want is to
do
something! To be a great sculptor –'

‘That's because you've got a pash for La Marre –'

‘It isn't. Oh! Vernon, why will you be so trying? I've
always
wanted to do something – always – always! I used to say so at Abbots Puissants.'

‘It's odd,' said Vernon thoughtfully. ‘Old Sebastian used to say then very much what he says now. Perhaps one doesn't change as much as one thinks.'

‘You were going to marry someone very beautiful and live at Abbots Puissants always,' said Joe with slight scorn. ‘You don't still feel that to be your life's ambition, do you?'

‘One might do worse,' said Vernon.

‘Lazy – downright lazy!'

Joe looked at him in unconcealed impatience. She and Vernon were so alike in some ways, and so different in others!

Vernon was thinking, ‘
Abbots Puissants. In a year I shall be twenty-one
.'

They were passing a Salvation Army meeting. Joe stopped. A thin, white-faced man was standing on a box. His voice, high and raucous, came echoing across to them.

‘Why won't you be saved? Why won't you? Jesus wants you! Jesus wants
you
!' Tremendous emphasis on the you. ‘Yes, brothers and sisters, and I'll tell you something more.
You want Jesus
. You won't admit it to yourselves, you turn your back on him, you're afraid – that's what it is, you're afraid, because you want him so badly – you want him and you don't know!' His arms waved, his white face shone with ecstasy. ‘But you will know – you
will
know – there are things that you can't run away from for ever.' He spoke slowly, almost menacingly. ‘
I say unto you, this very night shall thy soul be required of thee
–'