The Pandervils Read online

  ‘I can’t stand it any more.’

  Mr Pandervil uttered these words clearly and quietly but in a voice that trembled, almost as though they had been a prayer. His face was deathly pale, his eyes were blazing; Egg saw the corners of his mouth twitching as with pain.

  Egg ran forward. ‘Is anything the matter, sir?’

  ‘That dog,’ began Mr Pandervil … and for a moment could say no more. ‘Where’s Willy?’ he presently gasped. Willy had already emerged from the stable and was moving towards his brother. ‘Ah, Willy!’ said Mr Pandervil, in a tone of ice. ‘That dog’s noise. Every time anything passes in the road. I can’t bear it. Take the animal away, Willy, do you hear? Take it away and shoot it. Yes, at once, my boy. Fetch your gun and shoot the damned thing.’

  In Mr Pandervil’s world, to command was to be obeyed. He withdrew, and shut the window. Egg felt as though he had received a heavy blow on the back of the head. He removed his fascinated stare from the now blank window and looked upon a world that had become, in a few seconds, crazy and horrible. The sunlight, formerly a splendour, was now a sickly grin. The silence, after that thin cold precise voice had finished speaking, was dreadful, full of nameless menace.

  ‘Willy,’ said Egg to his brother. ‘Do you think the Guv’nor’s mad?’

  For answer Willy scratched his head thoughtfully. His plump red face wore a puzzled look. But his hesitation, if he experienced any, endured but for an instant. Thought was an activity beyond his scope. He could eat and sleep, love and hate, fight and dumbly suffer and (as he proved two years later at Inkerman) die in his country’s quarrel without understanding a word of it; but to these talents had not been added the power of thought. Best of all he could obey; and now, with the merest frown puckering his forehead, he turned into the house to obey his father. Egg, following close at his brother’s heels, could scarcely believe what he saw; could scarcely believe, being unversed in the world’s unchanging ways, that dull wits would faithfully carry out what the sick brain had ordered. Above all things in the world he wanted to save poor Fang, and in his heart there burst into flame an old smouldering fury against his brother. ‘Don’t be such a great oaf, Willy!’ he called. But Willy, though affronted by this unseemly speech from a junior, took down without a word the gun that hung across the kitchen fireplace; loaded it; and went out into the yard again.

  Egg ran to his mother. ‘Stop him, Mother. He’s gone out to shoot old Fang.’

  ‘Shoot Fang?’ echoed Willy’s mother. ‘Deary me, now what would he do that for?’

  ‘Stop him, Mother. Oh, do stop him!’ Seeing her look of bewilderment he patiently explained: ‘Father told him to do it, but he couldn’t have meant it really.’

  ‘Father said shoot Fang?’

  ‘Yes, but … ’

  ‘Now, don’t you be a narty boy,’ said Mrs Pandervil, mildly reproving. ‘No doubt your father has his good reasons. And of course Willy must do as he says! The very idea!’

  A kind of terror mingled with the childish rage that burned in the boy’s eyes and cheeks. A sense of impotence came upon him—a sense that the world might at any moment go mad and he be powerless to stop it. As he stumbled into the sunshine he could hear the voice of Willy—‘Come along Fang! Good dog! Good dog!’—wheedling the animal to its doom. That fellow, that lump of docility, had cunning enough to pat and stroke the victim, and coax him out of the yard. They were already moving away, Fang leaping joyously about his master, encouraged by the sight of the gun to believe that rabbiting was afoot. Egg, staring in dumb misery, watched the two disappear behind the barn. The paralysis of despair had descended on him. He guessed that the meadow called Flinders was to be the scene of slaughter, because the intervening hill, Stally Pitch, would help to deaden the sound of the gun. But why, he asked himself, why this shyness about a mere gunshot, no unusual event on a farm? Would it injure his wretched father to know that his edict was obeyed? The boy, racked now by indecision, whether to attempt a rescue by violence or to wait here till Willy returned alone, could not for the space of several minutes find heart to do anything whatever beyond stand at the edge of the sunlight and stare dismally at his own dark thoughts. Hate blazed in his heart, blazed darkly and dreadfully like ancient night wild with black winds and lit by neither moon nor star. He imagined himself with a gun in his hand and slaying—with a cold anger not unlike his father’s—all the stupid people in the world. Violent impulses, running riot in him, spent themselves harmlessly against the wall of his temperamental indecision. In fact he could do nothing, nothing at all, it seemed; but in fancy he saw himself knee-deep in murder—killing Willy, killing Father, killing everything that wantonly threatened the wretched innocent Fang. And Mother as well? From that last insanity his imagination recoiled, and tears blurred his eyes. A cloud lifted from his brain; his limbs were released; he set off in pursuit of his brother.

  The farmlands lay still and drowsy in a trance of afternoon sunlight, but in the boy’s mind a storm was raging. He ran quickly across the yard and passed out of it by way of the east gate that gave on to a narrow cart-track bounded by high hedges, a cool cloister of shade from which, scarcely noticing that the blackthorn was already in leaf and the tardier hawthorn in bud, he presently emerged into a region—exquisitely unreal —of flowering fruit-trees, pink and white; and so to the twelve-acre field of young corn, and beyond to where in the shelter of a shallow valley a few score sheep were grazing. After the recent April rains the grass in the green valley was bright with urgent youth, its greenness starred with daisies and lit with buttercups. Cowslips sheltered under the hedges; and dandelions, like little rayed suns, blazed yellow from the ground. But to these rich colours, as to the quivering web of sound spun by the bees, and the lyrical passion of ascending skylarks, the boy’s heart was dead. Upon him a shadow had fallen, and he hurried on with no thought to spare for anything except the benevolent lie he was preparing for his brother’s ears.

  As he climbed, panting, towards the green crest of Stally Pitch he heard the sound of gunshot and knew that he was too late. He slackened pace and presently came to a standstill, again in the grip of a sick lethargy. But after a few blank moments he resumed his journey, not knowing why, and a dozen steps brought him within sight of where Willy stood, gun in hand, staring down at his handiwork. Young Egbert, still hating his brother, cherished now no murderous thoughts. The time for action was past; the stupid thing had happened; it was over and done with and irremediable, and he struggled to harden his heart against grief, trying to forget the calamity in contempt for its cause.

  His brother, by the time Egg reached him, had begun digging the dog’s grave. The two exchanged no greeting, but after watching the work in silence for a while Egg inquired in a dull cold tone: ‘Where did you get that spade from?’

  ‘Eh?’ Willy turned a surprised face to the questioner.

  ‘Where did you get that spade from?’

  ‘The spade? It was lying about up yonder. So I brought it along with me.’

  Egg smiled devilishly. ‘Think of everything, you do.’

  Willy resumed his digging. ‘One thing. He was getting old,’ he muttered after a few minutes.

  ‘By the way,’ said Egg airily, ‘what will Algy have to say about it when he comes back from Doctor’s? Give you a putty medal, shouldn’t wonder, for being so clever.’ Obscurely he felt that he mustn’t for one moment stop hating and hurting Willy; for in that hatred lay his only salvation from tears. He was bitter and dry-eyed. He stared at the dead dog with no visible emotion. After a pause he returned to the attack. ‘How will you round the sheep up now, eh? Perhaps you’ll learn to bark yourself? It’s all you’re fit for, if you ask me.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Willy.

  From his blank look Egg could see that Willy had not taken in a word he had said. And he saw, with a shock of something more than surprise, that there were tears in the stupid fellow’s eyes. Egg hastened to remind himself that he hated Willy. They had been friends, no doubt,
his brother and the dog; and he hadn’t much liked the dirty job. But Egg wouldn’t be sorry for him. Great oaf, he should have thought of that before! What’s the good of being sorry now? Egg’s mind slipped back ten minutes, and, carried forward by the impetus of his former plan, he suddenly and without volition blurted out: ‘Father’s sent me to say he’s changed his mind, Willy. Mother spoke up for Fang, and he says not to shoot Fang after all.’ He himself was surprised to hear these words.

  But still his brother seemed not to have been listening. ‘What you say, Egg?’

  Egg shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Well, now you’re here,’ said Willy, a trifle truculently, ‘you can lend a hand lifting ’un.’ The grave was ready, and but little remained to be done. Only a dog after all, Egg told himself. Without word or sign of feeling he stepped forward to do as he was asked.

  As though a drop of blood had been spilt upon it, the gold in the western sky was gradually reddening, and the April sun, tempering the sharp sword of his light, glowed now within an ace of the world’s rim. On their way back to the house Willy remarked: ‘Late for tea, I fancy. Must be nigh on ha’ pas’ six, by the look of it yonder.’ He nodded towards the sun. Egg made no sign of having heard, being absorbed in the task of industriously hating his companion; and presently Willy, as if afraid of silence, spoke again. ‘Tell you one thing, Egg. He didn’t suffer, old Fang didn’t.’ Egg strode on, a pace or two ahead, staring fixedly at the ground. ‘’Twas over in no time,’ said Willy. ‘When I … when I’d done it, I just sorta patted him, and he licked my hand, you know, same as ever, and rolled over dead. And … well, that was all.’

  ‘Oh, shut your row, can’t you!’ growled Egg, turning quickly round.

  The brothers confronted each other with every appearance of anger. Then suddenly Egg realized with astonishment that Willy was blubbering and shouting at him: ‘You bloody young fool, why coont you stay outa harm’s way! I dint make you come, did I! Come out to Flinders a-purpose, I did, so’s to keep you out of it. And here’s you sneering and sulking and … ’ The voice broke past control, and Willy, ashamed of his emotion, turned his back on Egg, hunched up his shoulders, and, snatching a large red handkerchief from his pocket, blew his nose with trumpeting emphasis.

  Egg was bewildered, aghast. Life had become, in an instant, an inconceivably complicated and mysterious affair; and hating, an almost impossibly difficult task. He was disconcerted, even angry, to find his purpose weakening; disconcerted by this revelation in Willy of something that inconveniently evoked in himself an old affection and a new feeling akin to what he had once or twice felt for the smallest of his sisters, four-year-old Mildred. Blubbering donkey, he thought, or tried to think. But it was no use: the iron of his resolution, the cold steel of his contempt, had melted; and he caught himself wishing that Willy would box his ears, as an elder brother should, and so resolve this problem of what to do next. In default of any such happy termination of the situation Egg stared at the horizon and contrived to whistle a bar or two of The British Grenadiers. He sauntered on for a few paces, and when he heard Willy’s footsteps overtaking him called back over his shoulder, ‘Mother’s sure to save us a bit of something, late or not, eh?’ And so, without further incident beyond an occasional sniff from Willy, the brothers walked home together, shy of each other, afraid to speak much, and still more afraid lest their glances should meet and confess the newborn love that vibrated between them.

  The kitchens, back and front, were populous with Pandervil children. In what they called the back-kitchen, Flisher, Egg’s junior by two years, was helping Sarah, his senior by ten, to wash up the crocks and cutlery of the last meal, with the little girls, ten-year-old Martha and six-year-old Jane, getting in the way by alternately playing shops and clamouring to be taken on as extra hands. Shoo’d away from the sink these juniors started a rival washing-up industry and became very busy cleansing imaginary plates in imaginary water. The game was not a success; for Jane was a child imitative to the point of stubbornness, and Martha was too weakly compliant. If Martha did the washing, so then must Jane; and if Martha, yielding up the invisible dishcloth, began the pantomime of wiping the things her sister had dipped in water, that ritual became at once infinitely attractive to the younger child. Flisher, from the Olympus of her real sink, intervened from time to time, urging upon Jane that this business of washing-up tea-things involved two operations, and that a double washing or a double wiping was profitless. But Jane would not listen to these reasonable counsels; and Flisher, a fair freckled prematurely domesticated child, anxious beyond her years, grew cross with her, and infected Martha with this crossness, so that the back-kitchen became noisy with the broad vowels and the sing-song intonation of Mershire so marked in the female Pandervils. Sarah, plump like her mother and pretty as twenty years earlier her mother had been, cast an occasional glance behind her and said mildly, ‘Leave ’er be, Flisher. Why, what a to-do, to be sure!’—an appeal that passed quite unnoticed.

  Between this scene of strife and the kitchen proper, where Mrs Pandervil presided over her sons’ delayed tea, the door was wide open; and the three males carried on such manly conversation as seemed necessary, discussing crops and prices and the news from the war-front, to the accompaniment of clattering dishes and feminine altercation. Algernon, loyal to his brothers, had refused to eat until their return, and was now expiating this neglect of his appetite by the consumption, heroic in its scope, of bread and dripping and suet pudding swilled down by half a gallon of weak tea. Willy and Egg were more taciturn than usual, a little unresponsive to the traveller’s tales brought home by Algernon, whose casual labour for Doctor Wilson sometimes took him as far as six miles distant into regions seldom visited by his brothers and never (‘The very idea!’) by his mother and sisters. All three were conscious of a certain constraint in the air, though only two of them, the youngest and the eldest, knew its cause; and all, with no overt sign, turned their hearts towards Mrs Pandervil, the one utterly right and unchanging fact in this world of flux, this maelstrom of Early Victorian modernity. She sat at the head of the table, a huge brown teapot in front of her, and, without ceasing to savour the rich joy of this present moment, chewed the placid cud of her memories. This was her hour, and this her teapot: an hour she never forewent: a teapot whose use she never delegated, even to Sarah, no matter what domestic crisis should be darkening the horizon. The humblest of women, asking only (and not in vain) that she should be made perpetual use of by her husband and children, she was at such moments happily and rosily enthroned. Her cheeks retained something of the roundness and the wholesome colour that had once made her, in the eyes of young William Pandervil, irresistible; and time, removing the bloom of youth, had summed up her history in delicate hieroglyphics, a significant beautiful tracery of fine lines. She was not an old woman, and a certain native insensibility had prevented her being too intimately hurt by life’s assaults; her youth persisted, and was visible, beneath the thin veneer of advanced middle age; but her everlasting benevolence, tempered only by the rigours of the current code, made her a venerable figure. Slow-minded, uninformed, she yet by habitual kindness showed herself wise. Being as sensitive to emotional atmospheres as she was proof against ideas, she detected at once the undercurrent flowing between Willy and Egg, and she was aware, no less, of Algernon’s growing perplexity. It was he who led the conversation and he who sustained it.

  ‘They frosts last week will have snipped all the fruit blossom, eh Willy?’

  ‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ admitted Willy.

  ‘Bad thing,’ said Algernon. ‘Wrong time o’ year for frosts, ain’t it, mother? ’Tis them as cripples it. They frosts, I mean.’ He seemed determined that his remarks should not be disregarded for lack of being understood.

  Willy was still apathetic. ‘I dare say.’

  ‘No fruit at all this year,’ said Algernon, after a silence. ‘Eh, Willy?’

  ‘Eh?’ returned Willy.


  ‘I were saying, no fruit at all this year, what with frosts so late and all. Frosts at the end of April—tint fair! No fruit at all this year. No stone fruit anyhow, by the look of things.’

  Egg could see that Algernon was now making a deliberate assault on the ramparts of silence built up by his brothers. Having guessed that something was being concealed from him he was ill disposed to leave them in peace. Moreover he was naturally a talkative lad and he had been away from home all day seeing the world, for the most part through the window of Doctor Wilson’s dispensary. Adolescence—for Algernon was two years deeper in that adventure than the nimbler-minded Egbert—had not tied his tongue; nor had it quickened his inventive wit. He had introduced the subject of frosts and fruit, and of that conjunction of ideas an endless series of small irritating remarks would be born unless his sociable appetite were speedily appeased.

  ‘Well,’ said Algernon, eyeing his elder brother narrowly, ‘if we don’t get any fruit this year. …’

  Egg cried out, almost in his father’s voice: ‘Oh shut up about fruit, Algy! Can’t you think of something else to say?’

  Sixteen and fourteen glared at each other. ‘Don’t you be so cheeky, young ’un!’

  Mrs Pandervil intervened: ‘Now don’t quarrel, boys. Egg mustn’t shout, and Algy mustn’t worry poor Willy. We’re not in a chattering mood this evening.’

  Algernon stared. ‘Somebody dead?’ he inquired with veiled insolence.

  ‘Yes. Fang’s dead.’