Three Sons (Timeless Classics Collection) Read online

  He took Heidwig home on the night of the twenty-seventh, although he had sworn that nothing would induce him to do this again. Next morning he was torn between joy and contrition. In a physical way he adored her, mentally he hated himself for it. He wanted to marry Heidwig, not throw more stones at her like the woman taken in sin, and then, with the best intentions in the world, he must go and see her home again and lose himself once more.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her despairingly.

  ‘Aren’t you funny?’

  ‘Funny? I don’t see why.’

  The Christmas had been ruined, they’d missed St. Moritz, which would have been glorious (she’d be like some lovely snow bird on skis), and now he had committed the very sin he had vowed never to commit again. Lost in a miasma of self-reproach, he wandered for a walk by the Serpentine, why he did not know, nor did Heidwig when it was all ‘ever-so-cosy’ in her own little room. They had a fresh quarrel about the ‘cosiness’ and he, trying to work off his temper, went out, but the Gardens were bleak. The occupants were chiefly children trailing obviously new toys after them, and people with indigestion trying to walk off the effects of Christmas and failing to do so.

  Adam blamed the whole world for himself. He could see no future, nothing ahead, all he knew was that something would have to be done, and for the moment he did not know what it would be.

  Heidwig did it!

  In spite of everything, she discovered that Adam was a very dull young man, and that he had no income, and could not even keep her in pretties. Heidwig was not squeamish about lovers, and from her point of view if Adam did not intend to ‘cough it up’ then she couldn’t see why he objected to anybody else doing it.

  Already her first gilt dream of herself wearing a coronet had tarnished more than a little.

  Early in the new year when neither of them had really recovered from the Christmas row, she fell in with a weak young man whose father made textiles in Birmingham and who was very wealthy. The father had been one of those lucky men in 1914 ‒ 18 who had come to the top, and he gave his only son a heavy allowance on which Heidwig got a finger hold. The first pair of diamond ear-rings sent her into ecstasies. Next morning she took them round to an ‘Uncle’ in Rupert Street, and he told her that they were the real thing, and good white stones!

  The young man proposed to Heidwig very earnestly, and Heidwig, having to choose between penury with a coronet, and wealth with a mere hat, married him at a register office and sent Adam a grand note from the Dorchester Hotel stating that, as far as she was concerned, he could go to hell!

  This letter came to Adam when he was at Dedbury for the week-end, and it was far too big a blow for him to pretend that he had not received it. Mutely he handed it to his mother.

  ‘It’s all my own fault,’ he said.

  ‘Nonsense, dear, you always think that! It is nothing to do with being your fault, she never cared for you, and she’s married the first big bank balance that offered itself. That’s all.’

  ‘No, he persuaded her.’

  ‘Never mind about who did the persuading; try not to think of her, Adam,’ but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about her!

  The truth was that his mother could never have been in love herself, to talk about it so indifferently. After a while he said in a still, calm voice, ‘You remember when you spoke of that cruise to Honolulu? I said that it was old-fashioned then, but now I think I’d like to go away.’

  ‘But, Adam, what about taking Orders? You ought to spend the time in qualifying …’

  ‘You were glad enough to put forward the idea when you wanted to get me away from Heidwig,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Yes, I know it looks like that. I’ll ask Daddy about it. We want to do the best for you.’

  ‘I can’t possibly stay on here. You do see that? I’ll have a nervous breakdown or something if I force myself to go on. Oh Mother, I’ve been such a fool. You will stick by me, Mummy? You won’t let me down?’

  ‘No, Adam, I won’t let you down.’ But her eyes were worried as she reached out and took his hand. ‘I’ll talk to Daddy and see what can be arranged. It isn’t going to be easy, dear, I’m afraid, it …’

  She just sat there stroking his hand. Sons! Why did women have sons and then have to arrange their lives for them? she asked herself.

  At the end of that term Adam left for a cruise to Honolulu.

  BOOK THREE

  MARTY

  VII

  THE BOY

  Marty didn’t like Adam. He never had done.

  Marty remembered his own nursery and the maid who doted on him, and defended him from Nanna, a big bulging major domo of both nurseries, but strongly welded to the son and heir. Ruthie had been the name of the little nursery maid, an encouraging and engaging girl, he thought. Early in his small life, Marty’s flair for acting established itself; he would strut forth across the nursery floor, in excellent imitation of the big bulging Nanna, a cruel imitation which sent everyone (save Nanna) into hoots of laughter. He could imitate his father rather well, reserved, afraid of making a false step, icy cold.

  ‘A proper little caution!’ said Ruthie.

  Marty went on acting, and to this one talent everything took second place. He was plastic substance on which personalities fastened themselves, and he lived only to be someone else. But he had no self, being everybody. The person who realised this was his mother.

  His mother! He thought of her with far deeper affection than Adam had ever done. He liked holding her hand. ‘You’re my boy, Marty,’ she would say, ‘I never see anything of myself in Adam, but there’s lots of me in you,’ and she would squeeze the little hand affectionately.

  Sometimes she took him to London; once, to have the childish squint he developed (really to imitate somebody else) attended to. They had tea in a big restaurant and a rather nice gentleman came and had tea with them. A fair gentleman, who looked tenderly at his mother, and kept saying, ‘Once I never thought we’d meet again. This is wonderful!’

  All the way home in the train Marty repeated it to himself. ‘I never-thought-we’d-meet-again-this-is-wonderful.’

  ‘Whatever are you saying that for?’ asked Ruthie when she undressed him. ‘My, you are a one!’

  ‘That’s Arthur,’ he told her. Just Arthur!

  He didn’t know any more.

  Then there was that time when he had measles, and Ruthie had left to be married, not before she ought to be, somebody said, the ‘somebody’ being old Gramp the gardener, and Marty bringing it out when in the drawing-room was rebuffed for it by his father. Adam was ill, entailing Nanna’s ministrations, so his mother took Marty down to Margate to recoup. Margate was the loveliest place in the whole world; there were fat little donkeys and sand, and whelk stalls, and long sticks of pink rock. The pierrots danced and sang, and the sea was there to paddle in, and one day Arthur came down, and they went out in a boat, and over to Birchington for an afternoon. Then Arthur seemed to be there quite a lot. Sympathetic. Understanding. A very nice man was Arthur, thought Marty!

  One day he said, ‘Why wasn’t Arthur my Daddy?’

  And Carolyn, who never lied to her children, said a trifle reproachfully, ‘He nearly was, darling. Then, you see, I met Daddy.’

  All that disappeared in the scheme of nursery things. Ruthie, Nanna, donkeys at Margate, and Arthur. At Christmas a lovely present would come for him, with no name, and Marty knew that it was from Arthur, although it did not say so. The present was always exactly what he wanted. Then Luke was born, one summer’s evening, when Marty could not sleep because there was such a stir in the house. Then he heard a door opening and shutting, and one of the maids in an indignant voice: ‘It would have to be another boy! My, but she’ll be disappointed!’ was what she said.

  All that faded away into the prep school life, and Marty enjoyed school; he remembered playing Mark Antony in the end-of-term production.

  Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. Such lovely, lovely words
! He wondered why it was that other people did not adore words as he did. Hearing them trip off his tongue, delicate pieces of music, infinitely more important than music, infinitely more beautiful. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him …

  Eton followed, and early on he had made a mark above Adam’s. It was the time when he was understudying Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice, and on the very day of production Gratiano went ill. He was a fat oaf of a boy, always overstepping his financial allowance, and being short of money; being in need of a particular wireless accessory from a shop (he doted on the wireless), he had a whip round. He was bribed by a group of well wishers to eat a large garden worm for seven-and-six, which he did. Then getting alarmed and feeling most strange, he admitted his crime and was whisked off to the ‘San’. Oh, blessed worm! Blessed hard-upness, and thrice blessed cleaving to wireless accessories! Marty, who had been cast for the miserable part of the second Jew, now swaggered on to the stage behind Belshazzar. He made his mark there, but Gratiano was so easy a part.

  Marty liked Luke far better than he had ever liked Adam. They were much closer to one another, and Luke was a boy exactly like his mother, with no trace of his father in him. He wasn’t reserved, if anything he was too open and above board. Luke sometimes came to Cambridge to see Marty, never troubling to go across to see Adam.

  ‘What, that?’ Luke would say. Then, with twinkling eyes, ‘Don’t be silly!’

  When Marty heard of the trouble with Luke’s lung he was seriously worried, but it was the time that he was playing Sir Peter Teazle in the C.U.D.S. and he couldn’t think too much. His mother slipped down for the show; he could always rely on Carolyn being there somewhere in the house, her quiet reassurance, her congratulations. ‘Well done, Marty, you’re fine,’ which meant something to him.

  ‘How’s Luke?’ he asked.

  ‘I think he will be all right. We’ve got it early, of course, but it is spoiling all his career. He’ll never be able to stand school, and tutors aren’t the same thing.’

  ‘If you ask me, Mummy, all education is a waste.’ For Marty was throwing up Cambridge after a couple of years there, and he knew there would be parental frowning.

  ‘I don’t know. We have to live by some standard of knowledge and the present system is the best one known to date, I should have said.’ Then, throwing it off, ‘but I came to see you Marty.’ A long time after, she said, ‘Arthur was here. He had to catch an early train back or he would have come round. He sent you this.’

  She held out a small parcel, and opening it Marty found a gold fountain pen. ‘I say, that’s awfully good of him.’

  ‘He’s rather a nice person,’ she said very quietly. No more.

  She was very preoccupied with Luke, and Marty, after a staggering scene with his father who tried to terrify him as he terrified witnesses in court (but failed utterly), left Cambridge and accepted the part that had been offered him in a new London production. It was a trivial little part, but it carried with it understudy of the lead.

  The man acting the lead and supposed to be juvenile, might have a name, but he was past impressing his public. Early on in the production he and the producer crossed swords. Most of Marty’s rehearsals were spent sitting on a property basket eating chocolate (of which he was inordinately fond) and waiting his turn. The cast referred to him as ‘that blond boy’, which he loathed. The leading lady, past her first freshness but still attractive, took to casting an eye in his direction; that he detested too, but one has to step the stony path to Paradise by inches.

  The night before the production things were not going too well, and the leading man went out with some friends; the party launched itself into a rowdy one. In the general ferment he slipped down some area steps into somebody’s basement, ricking an ankle which immediately came up to the size of a man’s thigh, totally incapacitating him.

  The producer rang up Marty on the morning of production. ‘You will have to play lead, my lad.’

  ‘Good egg!’ said Marty, completely unperturbed, because he couldn’t get nervous. It was a funny thing that whilst other people sweated blood, he remained wholly tranquil. There was a faint stir inside him, otherwise complete peace, and he was delighted that he had got Carolyn and his father and Luke into a box to see the show. They would never know till they got there that he was playing lead, and he knew that he would be a success.

  They called a special rehearsal, which irritated the leading lady, and Marty went through it fluffing his lines hopelessly. The producer took him aside and talked to him in a paternal strain, but Marty did not worry, he went off to a little cafe for some tea, and sat there with his script beside him, going through the cues one after another. It was annoying that a woman reporter should spy him out, and come to the table too. She’d got all the dope; it was extraordinary how these papers smelt out the rats.

  ‘Scared?’ she asked, and then as he shook his head, ‘See, didn’t you get a medal at your school of acting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re Lord Croft’s son?’

  ‘There’s no need to drag in the title by its heels. I’m just Martin Hinde, and keen on my job.’

  ‘I daresay, but our readers like a nice sprinkling of titles. You’d rather I said that, than …’

  ‘Alluded to me as the “blond boy”? Yes, I would. I curse my hair.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful colour.’

  ‘There are three of us and we’ve all got it. It’s a shame we weren’t girls, it would have saved a lot in peroxide. My baby brother is coming to-night, and he’s even yellower than I am.’

  She made notes in a book. ‘His name is?’

  ‘Luke.’

  ‘The others act?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is your big brother?’

  ‘An ass,’ said Marty before he could stop himself. ‘Out in Honolulu getting over a love affair, but that isn’t for publication, blue pencil it quickly.’

  Marty went to his dressing-room early, because the theatre seemed to have got that pre-first night sense of strain in the atmosphere, and he did not wish to become infected by it. He sat down on a lumpy divan trying to get the hang of his cues again. The dresser was disturbing, a gnome-like little man, with a completely bald head, across which he drew a long strand of hair, fastened down on the opposite side with a blob of spirit gum. It fascinated Marty and appalled him at the same moment. He thought he would rather be a blond boy than that! What was more, the dresser seemed determined to make the lead nervous.

  ‘If you keep on dithering about, of course you’ll make me nervous,’ Marty said, turning from the trestle table half way through his make-up.

  ‘There’s a lady at the door, sir.’

  ‘I don’t know any ladies.’ For one moment he had an idea that it was Adam’s cast-off come to blackmail him, then he heard Carolyn’s voice. ‘Oh, it’s Mummy! Mummy darling, do come in.’

  He turned with a dirty towel draped shawl-wise round his shoulders, and he saw her standing there in her white satin frock with the diamanté bodice, and her fair hair held back in wings like a bird. ‘Isn’t this a bit of luck for you, Marty?’

  ‘If I knew my part it would be, but I fluffed frightfully at rehearsal this afternoon.’

  She perched like a girl on a property basket. ‘They say a dud rehearsal makes a good show, don’t they? I left Luke and Daddy in the box. Luke is wildly thrilled. Daddy is taking silk and hasn’t an idea beyond it. I have a thought that life at Dedbury will be pretty grim with Daddy taking silk. Still, I’ve got Luke.’

  ‘He’s better?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I think so. He’s got a new tutor, the smug type, wears a bowler and carries a neatly-furled brolly. All very Foreign Office, and Daddy thinks he is a miracle. Of course the village think he’s mad.’

  Marty got the impression that she was purposely launching herself into back-chat to hold back his nerves. He knew that he could always rely on Carolyn to see him through, she was extraordinarily thoughtful. ‘Mummy, tim
e is getting on, you’ll have to go to the front of the house soon.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I brought this for luck,’ and she held up a tiny black cat with a huge bushy tail. ‘I thought he was rather nice.’

  ‘He’s divine.’

  The black cat did bring him luck. He took his entrance without a flicker, it was just too easy. He wasn’t Martin Hinde any more, but Alec Crown of the play. The house was with him from the first, and he knew that almost immediately, because he was strangely sensitive to atmospheres. In the dimness he could see his father’s motionless face, his mother’s amused and encouraging one, and Luke’s excited flush. But none of them were his people any more. His mother was the stage one, his father the far more understanding stage father.

  He was called before the curtain after the act, and the producer wild with excitement pushed him between the curtains, clapping wildly himself. ‘Bad dress rehearsal always means a good show. There you are! Word perfect.’

  ‘But two more acts to come.’

  ‘The first is the acid test, and anyway the critics are in the bar and I’ve got my scouts out.’

  The scouts returning with favourable tidings, everything was well under the way for the second act. Marty knew that he was made. This would mean signing up with a long contract, and he’d have to be careful. Too many young men coming quickly to the top are liable to get swelled heads and make fools of themselves, with their over-eagerness; he’d have to put the brakes on. He must go slow, he had had amazing luck, but the luck might not hold. In all probability Hamilton would be back to play the lead next week, and Marty would be merely the understudy again. But his luck held.

  With an exit in the last act he saw the producer making signs to him from the wings, and went across.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  There was the stage brilliantly lit, with its luxury and exactness, and around it the raggety scene-shifters, the tired backs of props, the pulleys, the dust, the litter and general sordid setting of ‘back stage’. ‘You’ll be playing this for the run, Marty. I have had a telephone message from Hamilton’s flat.’