Now she knitted. When she was appealed to by her sisters, she laid her knitting on her lap, took off her spectacles, and said with pleasant diffidence, ‘Well, dear, you know what I think.’ One realized that one was in the presence of a profound but unorthodox philosophy, which made its self-evident contribution to any symposium. Unfortunately it was too late to ask her what that philosophy was; the question should have come thirty years ago. So nobody ever did know what she thought, and each side could claim her as an ally.

  Auntie Bibs was the youngest. She was the only one called Auntie; perhaps because she was the only one called Bibs. From some common ancestor she and Carol had inherited that fresh complexion, that innocent look, that slightly tilted nose. Her abundant, snow-white hair cascaded round her still youthful face in a glory which befitted her genius. She was the youngest of the sisters and the most greatly endowed. She was, it was believed, a Poetess.

  As a poetess, Auntie Bibs was in the direct line from Shelley, and almost any other poet. Indeed, faint far-away echoes of her literary forbears still seemed to linger between her lines—as the Willesden Gazette once cautiously put it. It might have been said of her: Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit, had critical opinion been more responsive to her art. Here, as an example of it at its most mature, is a poem entitled (for some reason)—

  EPITHALAMIUM

  The lark now leaves his wintry nest

  To join the feathered cherubim!

  His music soothes my saddened breast,

  I feel new life in every limb!

  His profuse strain I hear him sing

  With unpremeditated art!

  O Grave! O Death! where is thy sting

  When careless rapture fills my heart!

  She was not a plagiarist, it was just that poetry was in her blood. Her prose style was, in a sense, more original. An occasional page of Reflections or Word Pictures would find its way between the poems, each reflection or picture protected from its neighbours by some pretty colophon of mermaids, or wild duck in flight.

  REFLECTION

  Wise men condemn action without thought. But only a fool would substitute thought without action!

  Simple, yes; but one cannot remember that it has ever been said before.

  WORD PICTURE

  A baby cloud floated happily across the deep azure of the sky, shadowing the mighty majesty of the Sun! Then with an innocent laugh it flitted on, and the Sun shone forth again with redoubled splendour!

  As the Willesden Gazette said, any of us might notice these common phenomena, but it takes a poet to give them full expression.

  Auntie Bibs published her works in slender green volumes at her own expense, over the name Genevieve la Touche, which she felt to be more euphonious than Bibs Higgs; as no doubt it is. Gradually she had come to believe that la Touche had a separate identity from her own, being, as it were, a spirit which took possession of her from time to time, and then returned to Mount Olympus. For this reason she was able to be completely natural and unaffected as Auntie Bibs; indeed, almost in the mood sometimes to joke with Carol about the intruding Genevieve. Carol thought her a darling. Crackers, but a darling. She was his favourite among The Aunts.

  2

  So when on this Sunday afternoon over the tea-table Carol announced to the family that he proposed to change his name, it was Auntie Bibs who immediately approved. The others assumed that it was one of Carol’s jokes. Even Claudia felt vaguely that it was not quite English.

  ‘Very wise, dear,’ said the poetess. ‘You will find that it makes a wonderful difference. It gives one’s art a freedom to which it can never aspire under one’s own name.’ She closed her eyes and murmured tentatively, ‘My freedom, ’tis of thee!’ It seemed as if inspiration had come upon her again. ‘Freedom that never was on land or sea!’ The poem began to shape itself.

  ‘Darling, but why?’ interrupted Claudia.

  ‘Well, pretty, you can’t want to be Mrs Higgs.’

  ‘Mrs Carol Higgs,’ she corrected. ‘Of course I do.’ Why, the name had been in every column of The Times (except Deaths) for the last ten days. Mrs Carol Higgs had been among those present at luncheon parties, had been delivered of twins, had presented a bouquet to the Queen, and, in brackets, had joined Claudia Lancing in producing play after play for her husband. How could she be anything but Mrs Carol Higgs? It seemed so funny now.

  ‘Darling, you’d much rather be Mrs Carol Congreve or Mrs Carol Sheridan. Of course you would. Come on, let’s choose a really exciting one. What about Carol de la Touche?’ He winked across the table at Genevieve, who came back to earth and shook her head at him smilingly.

  ‘What is all this nonsense, Carol?’ demanded Aunt Harry sharply. She sat at the top of the table behind the silver monogrammed tray. As head of the family it should have been her right, but Jo always spoilt it for her when visitors were present by saying, ‘Harry, will you pour out?’ On this occasion she had added to Claudia: ‘I always get Harry to pour out for me. She’s stronger than I am—naturally,’ and Harry could think of no more dignified reprisal than the slipping of a lump of sugar into her sister’s tea. Now, however, she could assert herself as The Eldest Living Higgs, and protect the family honour. ‘Are you saying that our name is not good enough for you? Your own father’s name?’

  ‘If it’s good enough for you, Aunt Harry, it’s good enough for me. Ah, but am I good enough for it?’

  ‘I think you are getting on very nicely,’ said Aunt Jo. ‘We all enjoyed your little play very—Tchah!’

  ‘What is it, Jo? Don’t say I put sugar in your tea by mistake.’

  Jo was certainly not going to say it. ‘Oh dear, no,’ she laughed. ‘You could hardly do anything quite so silly as that. Is your tea as you like it, dear?’

  ‘Perfectly, thank you,’ said Claudia.

  ‘It just tasted a little odd to me for the moment, and I wondered——’ She closed her eyes, and heroically sipped again. ‘Ah, yes, delicious. You were saying, Carol?’

  ‘Well, you see, my next little play is going to be quite a different sort of little play.’

  ‘Variety,’ murmured Bibs. ‘The spice of life. The many-formed.’ She seemed to be feeling for something.

  ‘Yes, dear, but the public doesn’t care about the many-formed. Nor do the critics. They like to know where they are with you. Carol Higgs, the man who wrote——’ He turned to Claudia: ‘What was it called?’

  ‘Oh, Carol, darling!’ laughed Claudia. He really hated the play, didn’t he? She knew now that it wasn’t a good play, but he had written most of it, and he oughtn’t to feel so bitter about it. I suppose, she thought, it’s like choosing a new dress, and then loathing yourself in it, and wanting to give it away.

  ‘You mean,’ said Aunt Harry, ‘that you would just take a nom de plume? Like your aunt. You would still be Carol Higgs in the ordinary way.’

  ‘Oh, rather. A well-dressed man calling himself Carol Higgs.’

  ‘You could keep the Carol, dear, couldn’t you?’ said Jo. ‘I don’t like to think of you giving it all up.’

  Carol, spreading honey on a buttered bun, waved his knife in the direction of Bibs.

  ‘Oh, but she had never been called Barbara. She was Bibs from a baby. What do you think, Amy?’

  Amy, who had been wearing her Mona Lisa smile, put down her cup of tea and said, ‘Me? Oh, well, I am afraid I take rather the modern view.’ Nobody liked to ask her what this was, and Claudia said, ‘Of course, you could call yourself Lewis Carol,’ and laughed to show that she wasn’t serious. Amy nodded at her, saying, ‘I think Claudia and I understand, don’t we, Claudia?’ Claudia, who had been uncertain up to now, decided that she understood. She nodded back to Aunt Amy with authority, as one artist interpreting another. Very soon she would be a wife interpreting a husband.

  ‘I think you are very wise, darling,’ she said to Carol. ‘Now let’s be serious. What name shall we have?’ She looked round brightly at the company. ‘I’ve got it! What’s your second name? Fancy my not knowing!’

  It was clear to her at once that she had said the wrong thing. Aunt Jo flushed slightly. Aunt Harry’s mouth hardened. Aunt Amy gave her enigmatic smile, as if here she were on her own ground. Only Auntie Bibs remained impersonal. Her lips moved. The divine spirit had taken possession of her.

  ‘What’s in a name? (it was saying). The meanest flower that blows

  Will smell the same, though called by some a rose.’

  ‘That, beautiful,’ said Carol, ‘is the skeleton in the cupboard or Bluebeard’s secret. I might whisper it to you one day, but——’

  ‘You’ll have to say it out loud in church.’

  ‘So I shall. Oh, all right. Muggeridge. Say “Oh!” if you like, but don’t say “What?”’

  ‘Oh!’ said Claudia.

  ‘He was a bad man,’ said Jo bravely.

  Claudia waited for some development of the theme. There were so many ways of being bad. Did she mean—— Aunt Amy, the authority on sex, recognizing that Claudia would soon be one, nodded to her. Yes. That was what they meant.

  ‘But why you——’

  ‘My godfather. He was a great friend of my father’s. At one time.’

  ‘He killed your father.’

  ‘Aunt Harry!’

  ‘And your mother.’

  ‘Oh, well——’

  ‘And now he has the impertinence to call himself Lord Sheppey.’

  ‘Well, he had to take some name. He wouldn’t want to be Lord Muggeridge.’

  ‘I didn’t know that they gave peerages to murderers and seducers.’

  ‘Oh, rather. As long as they’ve got the cash.’

  Aunt Jo caught Claudia’s troubled eye, and said, ‘I think, Harry, that Carol would prefer to tell our family history to dear Claudia in his own way.’

  Aunt Harry sniffed. Aunt Amy, who had given up all for love, or had so persuaded herself, spoke gently.

  ‘He must have been very fond of her. He never married.’

  ‘That sort of man doesn’t need to,’ said Harry viciously.

  Carol gave Claudia a look which meant ‘I’m sorry for all this, darling, wait till we’re alone’, and said cheerfully, ‘Well, anyway, Muggeridge and Shakespeare both being out, what’s left? What about an anagram of Carol Higgs?’ He took out a pencil and was busy for a moment. ‘The best I can do is Charli Gogs. I couldn’t be Charli Gogs, could I? We’re so short of “e’s,” that’s the trouble. If I put in a couple of “e’s” I can get George Shilac. Hail to thee, blythe shilac. Shilac Holmes reached for his violin. You come to me and you say, “Shilac, I would have moneys of you.”’

  ‘John Preston,’ said Bibs suddenly with her eyes shut.

  They all looked at her.

  ‘Why, darling? Any reason, or just inspiration?’

  ‘It came,’ said Bibs simply.

  ‘It’s as good as any other,’ said Harry, speaking as head of the family.

  ‘I like it,’ said Claudia.

  ‘Like it? It’s marvellous. John Preston. Simple, dignified, and not obviously made up. John Preston Never had a vest on. When in Hants He also discarded his pants.’

  They all laughed, and the skeleton went back into its cupboard.

  3

  ‘They’re much older than you, aren’t they?’ said Claudia in the taxi. ‘I mean as aunts.’

  ‘Father was the baby of the family, twenty years younger than Harry. They brought him up. Then they brought me up.’

  ‘What happened, darling? Or don’t you want to tell me?’

  ‘Of course I want to tell you.’ He kissed her suddenly. ‘I love you, darling. Don’t you ever leave me . . . Father was everything to the aunts. Particularly to Jo and Harry. Particularly, I think, to Harry. He was the only baby any of them had ever had. And then they got another one. A girl this time. Mother. They weren’t jealous of her, she was just another baby. Perhaps she didn’t like that; or the way Father let himself be managed; or living in the house with them all. Anyway, she went off with this fellow when I was a year old. They went abroad and crashed in his car in France. I think they had all hoped she would still come back to them. Aunt Jo told me all about it when I went up to Cambridge, but of course I’d heard it all before. From Bibs and Amy. Aunt Harry tried to make out that he had deliberately killed her, and, when that was no good, that he was drunk. I don’t see why he need have been. Father died a year later; Aunt Harry said of a broken heart. May have been. He just—died. So I never knew either of them, they mean nothing to me, and I can’t be sentimental about them, or feel anything about this fellow Sheppey, as he is now. Then, of course, I became the baby of the family, but luckily not so badly. At least, I’ve managed to survive.’

  ‘Oh, Carol, darling!’ cried Claudia from a full heart. Anxiously she asked, ‘Do you want us to live with them when we’re married?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ said Carol.

  4

  There is hardly a woman who does not get some emotional satisfaction out of a wedding; a satisfaction independent of her acquaintance with the contracting parties. It is not entirely selfish. She may be reminded sentimentally of her own wedding-day, or savour happily the day which will come to her, this year, next year, some time. She may be criticizing, or even admiring, the bride’s dress and the bridesmaids’ hats. But deep down inside her, perhaps not fully realized by herself, is the satisfaction of her creative impulse. The world will go on. One more man has been beguiled into the business . . . Or there may be another reason for her emotion.

  Claude and Chloe shared a hymn-sheet. Was it his fancy that her hand was trembling? There had been a pony, Peggy, lent to him to ride one holiday; there was a little bridge over the stream by Holt’s Corner. At first she trembled whenever she came to it; tugged to get her head round and gallop away from danger. He could see himself holding her there, leaning down to soothe her, telling her that there was nothing to fear. Gradually she had grown used to it. She didn’t tremble now; to the hedger watching them over his shoulder their crossing was no different from that of any other pony on any other bridge; but Claude could always feel the difference: the awareness of Peggy as they made the approach, the inward trembling which told of her inward struggle to crush the memory of that bridge. Something had happened there once. He never found out what it was. He only knew that something had happened.

  No, Chloe’s hand was not trembling; it was not her hand. But something had happened once, something she could never forget. The clergyman’s voice, the bridesmaids, the flowers, perhaps this very hymn they were singing together, they were all crying to her, reminding her, warning her. And he, somehow, was listening in.

  She must have been to a hundred weddings. Does she always tell her secret to the person she is next to, or am I different? He remembered hearing Claudia’s nurse say to the cook: ‘He’s sort of different, if you know what I mean. Gypsy-like. Must have got it from his poor mother. I tell you, he frightens me, he does really, Mrs Parsons.’ He had been very proud of this, and had jumped out at her and frightened her. But that was not what she meant.

  There was Henry, giving Claudia away. Sir Henry Lancing, K.C.B. Very important man once. Now retired. Father. Henry. A crashing bore. But damned good-looking. Only fair, not dark, not like us, not like Mother. ‘Ah, she was a lovely one, Master Claude.’ I suppose he is our father? He doesn’t mean anything to us.

  So little, indeed, that it had been assumed by Claudia that her brother would give her away. He did say halfheartedly, ‘What about Henry? Rather his job, isn’t it?’ and Claudia had said, ‘Oh, dear! I suppose it is. Then he’d want us to be married down there, wouldn’t he? I can’t do that.’

  ‘If you’re married down there, then you’ve got to have Henry. He can’t be at the wedding and not give you away. Didn’t you think of asking him?’

  ‘Well, no. I mean, I haven’t thought about him. We were going to be married at St Paul’s——’

  ‘Cathedral?’

  ‘Portman Square, silly. Naturally I want all my friends to come. Who’d come to a country wedding at the end of January? Think of the poor old aunts. I say, Claude, we must ask him, mustn’t we?’

  ‘Have you organized this at all? Who’s sending out invitations? Who’s paying for the reception? God Almighty, woman, you didn’t think I was?’

  ‘Oh, Claude, I am a little fool. The aunts sort of took it for granted that they were, and I sort of—sort of——’

  ‘Let them take it for granted that you were an orphan?’

  ‘Well, yes . . . I told Carol,’ she added proudly, as if this were an unusual concession on her part.

  Sir Henry had come to London; now all London knew that the young Lancings were not wholly orphaned. He had called on The Aunts, charming them with his correct good looks, his gracious manner, his courtly acceptance of their desire to pay for the wedding reception. Almost as soon as he had heard, and mastered, the details of Carol’s patrimony, he had waved all this aside as of trifling importance. What mattered was that their children should be happy together. Is it not so, Madam? Jo and Harry assured him that it was indeed so. Carried away by the thought of their loved one’s happiness, Jo essayed a little reminiscence of Carol’s first visit to the seaside at the age of three. It was a challenge which Sir Henry was not likely to pass by. He told them of his first visit to the Colonial Office at the age of twenty-two. Mr Joseph Chamberlain was already there; Rhodes and Milner were slipping in and out. It was a fascinating story, if they had heard it; but though they listened to it with an absorption to which it was quite unaccustomed, each of them was far away with her own thoughts. Jo was wondering which grandfather Carol’s son, Claudia’s son, would look like; she was following him from school to college, and so into the great world; perhaps he would be a famous singer . . . Harry had been caught by those old remembered names: the Jameson Raid, the Boer War, Little George playing at soldiers, big George frightening them all by saying that he would enlist in the Yeomanry . . . Amy wore the gentle smile of one who had had a passionate interlude with Cecil Rhodes, and could now look back on it without bitterness . . . Genevieve’s eyes were shut. This in itself could still surprise, and might have annoyed, Sir Henry; but there was a purpose behind those tightly-closed eyelids and the murmuring mouth which told him that she was merely trying to visualize the dramatic scene which he was painting for them: the exact position on his table of the IN and OUT baskets. It was not so. She was composing. Later she wrote the well-known lines in her manuscript book, headed ‘King and Country’, with a question-mark after it, as if she were not quite sure.