Portrait of a Murderer Page 11

  Richard walked to the door and flung it open. “I’ve always thought you barely responsible for your actions. Now I know you’re crazy. To talk like this—they aren’t the words of a sane man—and at such a time. I expect that’s the police. I’d better see them, and for God’s sake pull yourself together and put some kind of a face on it. All the countryside knows you for a byword already…”

  Brand began to laugh. Having begun, he could not stop. He held on to the table shaking with mirth; the tears ran down his cheeks, his body trembled. “Oh, Richard,” he sobbed, between his gasps. “Oh, Richard. A byword! Because I wanted to paint, and because I haven’t much money, and got fooled by a harlot? Oh, don’t be so damned squeamish. Haven’t you ever heard the word before? Or met one? Or known one? If you’re so innocent, read your Bible. It would be a good excuse anyway. A byword! Yes, I might be that in a family like mine, that spends its time scheming for tinsel wreaths and empty honours…” His laughter ceased as abruptly as it came. “I beg your pardon. I think I’m a little hysterical. But you must make allowances. When a man is expecting momentarily to be arrested for murdering his father he is apt to be a little incoherent. At least, that’s my experience. If those are the police, you’d better have the first innings. They should have a good impression of the family, or they won’t conduct themselves suitably. You know, it’s abominable that these things can happen to exclusive folk like ourselves. Murder shouldn’t be allowed in the upper classes—so vulgar.”

  His violent reactions shocked Richard, who said hastily, “All this has upset you, Brand. I apologise for it. It’s my fault for making such a suggestion. The fact is, I’m almost beside myself. It’s true we disagreed fiercely yesterday, but he was my father, a root; I don’t know if you can understand, but something definite has been cut out of my life. It can’t be the same again, though it might be more triumphant, better in another way. I don’t know about that. There are things one wants I’ve never been able so far to get. Those may all be added unto me. But this, precisely as it was twenty-four hours ago, that’s gone. It affects me, Brand. Because, however strange it may seem to you, it was a relationship that touched the affections. You probably think it’s my turn to exhibit hysteria.”

  The unexpectedness of this outbreak, this sudden revealing of a cold man’s heart, touched and awed Brand. All desire to scoff left him; he knew, instead, the intense loneliness of a man who has always been a stranger to his kin. And this man whom he had openly derided and pitied had tasted an experience he himself would never know. More, it was an experience that enriched and softened. A partial realisation of the distress that this loss must occasion a man who, however peculiar it appeared, had actually loved the dead, sobered him almost to grief. But the grief was impersonal. As he had not cared for Adrian Gray, so he was indifferent to Richard; but his heart was wrung by the ineffectual misery of men for the passing, the intangible thing. He wrenched his thoughts back to his dream of the future. That held, was solid, reliable. A man’s work could not be measured by any known rule; and immediately his heart lifted, his eyes brightened in anticipation. Yet, turning to leave the room, he saw again those melancholy eyes, the worn resignation of the thin face, and the dignity and hopelessness of them smote him to an intense dejection.

  5

  He went into the morning-room, where the family was now assembled. They all started at the sight of him, and Amy cried, “What is it, Brand?”

  Brand said in a weary voice, “He’s dead.”

  “Yes, we supposed so. But what did Richard want with you?”

  “To know if I’d killed him. I told him ‘No.’ I can’t be sure if he believed me. It doesn’t seem to matter very much. It’s a fatal tendency to allow the insignificant to dwarf the significant.”

  Miles said, calming the atmosphere of panic that had arisen at Brand’s words, “Do you mean to imply murder, Brand?”

  “Richard seems to think so. A blow on the temple. It doesn’t seem likely that he did it himself. Why should he? Besides, Romford thinks so too.”

  That silenced even Amy for the moment. Then she exclaimed; “But who—how…?”

  “They found the window open.”

  “Then perhaps someone broke in and father interrupted him, and he killed him. And all of us in the house. How—how appalling!” The inadequacy of the expression was obvious even to her, and she sank back in her chair, her head theatrically sunk in her hands.

  Brand moved away to a window, that commanded a long view over the dales. The snow had been much trampled by now, and black, unsightly patches marred its glittering whiteness. Without looking back, he called softly, “Isobel.” She came, stepping nervously, and looked at him in an enquiring manner. She was so seldom addressed, except by Amy in a hectoring tone, that she seemed genuinely perplexed at his invitation.

  He slipped an arm through hers. “None of us knows how this is going to end,” he said. “And, whichever way it does, it means a change in our lives. It must. You can’t have your background broken up and not be affected by it to any degree. I hadn’t realised that till I saw Richard. Let’s not anticipate the future. It’ll come upon us soon enough, and what it will bring we can none of us tell. Do you remember that governess you had, who used to take all our pleasure out of snow by saying that before it was trodden it was like one’s record in life, and how quickly it was ruined?”

  “She wore whalebone supports to her collar, and had a huge brooch made of someone’s hair at her bosom.”

  “And she took us to see those people who, when we asked if the church was old, because father always wanted to know, said heartily, ‘Well, it’s been here longer than we have, and that’s over forty years.’”

  “I remember. That was the day we saw a stoat cross the road like a flash.”

  “And Miss Gowan—that was her name—told us how stoats killed rabbits, and took all our pleasure out of stoats.”

  “And rabbits too, Brand. I couldn’t bear to see them afterwards, thinking they were either going to be killed by stoats or slit up and hung in rows in poulterers’.”

  “You were always too soft-hearted. Do you remember when we found the thrush that had dashed itself against the telegraph wires, and you thought the devil must have inspired their inventor?”

  “And you said it might quite as easily have dashed itself against a tree, and asked if the devil inspired that inventor, too.”

  “It’s a question I still can’t answer. What a lot of things we used to talk about.”

  “And what fun we had. Do you remember getting up and looking for mushrooms when the dew was so thick the grass seemed black with it?”

  “And when it was so misty we couldn’t see our own feet.”

  “And all the things we meant to do. Have you ever thought, Brand, how many things there are in life, and how terribly few we manage to keep? They go slipping past, and we’re left in the midst of plenty with nothing in our hands.”

  “It’s our own fault for not holding on to things. Or sometimes not reaching out far enough. Too risky. Too expensive. Those are the real reasons why people don’t have what they want. I was to have a great body of fine work; and you were to be happy.”

  Isobel drew so deep a sigh it seemed to cause a shudder through her whole body. “We haven’t got very far, have we? And there comes a time when it’s too late. Why, Brand, do you suppose we’ve made such a mess of things?”

  “Because we didn’t care enough.”

  She turned startled eyes upon him. “Oh, but I did. You can’t realise how much…”

  “But even that wasn’t enough. If it had been, you’d have held on to what you wanted.”

  “Nobody could hold on to Harry.”

  “You hold on till death to the thing you mean to have. If you let go, it’s because something else has a superior claim in your heart. Besides, you’re confusing Harry with happiness. You’ve lost happiness
precisely for that reason. If you’d made up your mind to that, you’d have allowed no obstacle to deflect you. Losing Harry, you’d have found happiness elsewhere. I’m the same. I don’t condemn you. Heaven knows, I’m not in a position to condemn anyone. I’ve always believed that work is a man’s indissoluble link with life. It outlasts him; it matters more than anything he is in himself or anything he owns. If I’d really meant to be an artist I should have let nothing stop me. Not Sophy or the children or my own need or misgivings.”

  “But there’s such a thing as right, Brand. You were right to support Sophy and your children…”

  “Not by my theory. To admit that would be to admit that ethics are more important than art. We do the thing—whether we realise this or not—that we’ve set our hearts upon. If morality or religion or conventional considerations guide your course, that’s tantamount to admitting that they’re of more importance than what you’ve always supposed to be the mainspring of your life. To the man with a set purpose, laws don’t exist. He makes his own; he’s the only man who’s strong enough to make them.”

  Isobel’s breath came sharply; he had opened to her imagination a new country, rich with promise, denied the fact of her futility, shown her a hope. She said, “Brand, why didn’t we talk before? Why have I been down here so long?”

  He said, “That’s one of the minor tragedies of life. One drifts because it’s so difficult to fight the tide, of course. There’s so much darkness ahead. At this instant you’re immersed in some bright dream, but reality isn’t so simple. You can say, ‘I won’t be beaten; I’ll achieve happiness,’ but you don’t know how to set about it. You’ve no compass. I doubt if you even know what happiness means to you.”

  She said quickly, “Ah, I do know that, Brand. Once it meant Harry. That’s past a long time ago. But to be free, to live where one pleased, to have books and leisure and tranquillity, to be able—laugh, if you like, but this occurs to me so often—to go into some restaurant and have a scratch meal, with one’s book; to feel oneself in life, part of it, belonging to it, drawing vitality from it…”

  Brand looked at her in amazement. “And all these years you’ve been storing that in your heart? And staying here!”

  “It’s you, I think. I haven’t felt sufficient ardour even to feel so keenly until you began to speak.”

  Brand said soberly, “No, it’s father. When you see how his life’s over, and there’s nothing to show for it—the waste. When I was confirmed, the angular Protestant bishop who performed the ceremony said, ‘There’s one unpardonable sin, and that’s waste.’ Life’s full of it; waste of opportunity, talent, time. And generally the reason is fear.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, and that is what I meant,” she agreed.

  Then Amy called authoritatively, “Isobel!” and she turned, the bright colour in her cheek, her smiling lips automatically composing themselves to meet her sister’s glance. Brand, watching her walk towards the speaker, noted a new buoyancy in her step, a spring, an eagerness, a sense of advance and hope. Like finding some blossom alive under a frost, he thought.

  Miles had been carefully working his way round the room. Now he paused at Brand’s side, and said quietly, “As a lawyer, Brand, and speaking quite without prejudice, let me from my experience give you this bit of advice. We’re all bound to be questioned pretty closely about this affair, and I don’t suppose any of us will enjoy it.”

  “You’ve nothing to be afraid of,” said Brand belligerently, resenting this suggestion of guidance.

  “No? My position is less enviable than you seem to think. We all suspect some kind of hanky-panky about these financial affairs your father was unwise enough to confide to Eustace. I shall very probably be asked—it’s not really relevant, but all manner of irrelevancies crop up in these cases—if I knew what Eustace’s professional reputation was. And, knowing it, why didn’t I warn my father-in-law that he was playing with fire and could count on being badly burned? The obvious implication is either that I didn’t know about these companies, and am therefore a fool whom no man in his senses would ever employ again, or that I did know and kept my mouth shut for reasons of my own, connected with pickings. In which case I’m a knave. No, don’t imagine you’re the only person who’s going to have a bad time. We’re practically all of us for it.”

  “Do you think I did it?”

  Miles said kindly, “My dear fellow, it’s no use asking me questions like that. I’m a lawyer.”

  “Still, you’re not here in that capacity. You must have some private opinion.”

  “Even so, I couldn’t answer such a question. There are codes of behaviour in all classes and callings. Think for yourself of the psychological effect of my telling a man in a highly nervous state and a dangerous position that I consider he’s a murderer. Immediately the balance would swing down, and, though you might know yourself as innocent as the archangel Gabriel, your position would be weakened. Of course, if you were proposing a confession of the crime, that would be different. But I gather you’re not.”

  Brand agreed. “I’m not. Though not for want of encouragement. Richard did all he could to persuade me.” But despite the lightness of the tone his expression was so heavy with melancholy that Miles was moved with compassion. He was aware that the family on the whole had accepted without question the theory of Brand’s guilt, and the effect of so general a belief on the atmosphere in which the man moved must be to depress and to dishearten. He went on, “It isn’t a desire to intrude on your affairs that makes me say this, but as a lawyer one sees so many false steps taken that a word in season would have prevented. If they can’t prove that Eustace or anyone else was in the library after you admit to being there, you will, all things considered, be in a very awkward position. I don’t know, of course, what took place at the interview, but my advice—and I give this to every client I have—is to stick to the bare facts. Don’t, if it was a bit stormy, pretend it was plain sailing. And if you had, practically speaking, to wrench the money out of your father’s hands, say so. You’ll create a much better impression, and though, of course, men do have second thoughts, these don’t obliterate the first ones. If they think they’ve caught you tripping once, they’ll take everything else you say with a grain of salt.”

  Behind them they heard Amy say to Eustace, “I wish you would be frank with us. We have all guessed that things were not going so well as he had hoped. My father admitted as much, so I don’t think there’s any need for secrecy among ourselves, at all events. Perhaps he asked you to keep that final conversation private, but then he couldn’t have foreseen this position. And, whatever it was, I do think you owe it to us to tell us anything that may bear on the case.” She observed him with a piercing gravity, but he only said with added emphasis, “I assure you, Amy, I saw nothing of your father after he went to the library, when we had finished bridge. Certainly there were some points I was anxious to discuss with him, such as the advisability of making one or two changes in his investments, new developments that have only just occurred, but I had not intended to trouble him before to-morrow. A man, when he has his family round him, doesn’t want to be plagued by business details.”

  Even the solemn Miles grinned at that. Brand laughed too, and Amy, who believed in describing a spade accurately, remarked in forceful tones, “It was when my father had his family round him that he was perpetually plagued by business details.”

  Eustace said furiously, “That may account for his persistent letters to me, asking for larger dividends, greater scope for his capital. If you suppose, my dear Amy, that acting for one’s father-in-law is a joke or a sinecure, let me disabuse you. I wouldn’t have stood so much interference and complaint from any other man, but one tries to make all the allowances possible, and I knew he was being pestered by his family.”