The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [17]
‘Aylmer Conyers will never get to the top of that damned hill,’ said my father more than once during the week before their arrival.
‘Did you tell him about it? * said my mother.
‘I warned him in my letter. He is a man who never takes advice. I’m told he was just the same at Pretoria. Just a bit of luck that things turned out as well as they did for him – due mostly to Boer stupidity, I believe. Obstinate as a mule. Was up before Bobs himself once for disobeying an order. Talked himself out of it, even got promotion a short time after. Wonderful fellow. Well, so much the worse for him if he gets stuck – slip backwards more likely. That may be a lesson to him. Bad luck on Bertha Conyers if there’s an accident. It’s her I feel sorry for. I’ve worried a lot about it. He’s a selfish fellow in some ways, is old Aylmer.’
‘Do you think I ought to write to Bertha again myself?’ asked my mother, anxious to avoid the awful mishaps envisaged by my father.
‘No, no.’
‘But I will if you think I should.’
‘No, no. Let him stew in his own juice.’
The day of the Conyers’ luncheon came. I woke up that morning with a feeling of foreboding, a sensation to which I was much subject as a child. It was Sunday. Presentiments of ill were soon shown to have good foundation. For one thing, Billson turned out to have seen the ‘ghost’ again on the previous night; to be precise, in the early hours of that morning. The phantom had taken its accustomed shape of an elongated white figure reaching almost to the ceiling of the room. It disappeared, as usual, before she could rub her eyes. Soon after breakfast, I heard Billson delivering a firsthand account of this psychical experience to Mrs Gullick, who used to lend a hand in the kitchen, a small, elderly, red-faced woman, said to ‘give Gullick a time’, because she considered she had married beneath her. Mrs Gullick, although a staunch friend of Billson’s, was not prepared to accept psychic phenomena at any price.
‘Don’t go saying such ignorant things, dear,’ was her comment. ‘You need a tonic. You’re run down like. I thought you was pale when you was drinking your cup of tea yesterday. See the doctor. That’s what you want to do. Don’t worry about that ghost stuff. I never heard such a thing in all my days. You’re sickly, that’s what you are.’
Billson seemed partially disposed to accept this display of incredulity, either because it must have been reassuring to think she had been mistaken about the ‘ghost’, or because any appeal to her own poor state of health was always sympathetic to her. At that early stage of the day, she was in any case less agitated than might have been expected in the light of the supernatural appearance she claimed to have witnessed. She was excited, not more than that. It was true she muttered something about ‘giving notice’, but the phrase was spoken without force, obviously making no impression whatever on Mrs Gullick. For me, it was painful to find people existed who did not ‘believe’ in the Stonehurst ghosts, whose uneasy shades provided an exciting element of local life with which I did not at all wish to dispense. My opinion of Mrs Gullick fell immediately, even though she was said by Edith to be the only person in the house who could ‘get any work out of’ Mercy. I found her scepticism insipid. However, a much more disturbing incident took place a little later in the morning. My mother had just announced that she was about to put on her hat for church, when Albert appeared at the door. He looked very upset. In his hand was a letter.
‘May I have a word with you, Madam?’
I was sent off to get ready for church. When I returned, my mother and Albert were still talking. I was told to wait outside. After a minute or two, Albert came out. My mother followed him to the door.