The Book and the Brotherhood Read Free Page A

such a nice boy at last.’
    ‘I hope she’ll grab him and hold on.’
    ‘I can’t see her doing anything so vigorous. He’ll have to do the grabbing.’
    ‘She’s so gentle,’ said Gerard, ‘so simple in the best sense, so pure in heart. I hope that boy realises what a remarkable child she is.’
    ‘You mean he might find her dull? She’s not a bright young thing.’
    ‘Oh, he couldn’t find her
dull
,’ said Gerard, almost indignantly. He added, ‘Poor girl, always in search of a father.’
    ‘You mean she might prefer an older man?’
    ‘I don’t mean anything so banal!’
    ‘Of course we’re impressed by her,’ said Rose, ‘because we know her background. And I mean rightly impressed.’
    ‘Yes. Out of that mess she’s come so extraordinarily intact.’
    ‘The illegitimate child of an illegitimate child.’
    ‘I hate that terminology.’
    ‘Well, I suppose people still think in these terms.’
    Tamar’s mother Violet, never married, was the child of Gerard’s father’s deplorable younger brother Benjamin Hernshaw, also never married, who abandoned Violet’s mother. Tamar, who, it was said, only survived because Violet could not afford an abortion, was the result of an affair with a passing Scandinavian which was so brief that Violet, who claimed to have forgotten his name, was never sure whether he was Swedish, Danish or Norwegian. Upon Tamar’s waifish charm, her mousy hair and big sad grey eyes, no particulartheory could be rested. Violet herself had resolutely taken the name Hernshaw and had passed it on to Tamar. Violet’s ‘messy life’, looked so askance at by Patricia, even by Gerard, had continued during Tamar’s childhood, but without any comparable accidents.
    ‘Violet was remarkably attractive to men,’ said Rose. ‘She still is.’
    Gerard said nothing to this. He looked at his watch. He was wearing, of course, the black and white rig deplored by Gulliver Ashe, and which suited him so well.
    Rose thought, I’m still jealous of any woman who comes near him, even poor little Tamar whom I’m so fond of! Sometimes she thought, I’ve wasted my life on this man, I’ve waited though I’ve known I’m waiting for nothing, he has accepted so much and given so little in return. Then she would think, how ungrateful I am, he has given me his precious love, he loves me and needs me, isn’t that enough? Even if he does think of me as a sort of ideal sister. All the same, now he’s retired from the Civil Service, he says to write things, he says to start a fresh phase of life, to perfect himself or something, he could suddenly start some mad new thing like loving women – and coming to me for advice! Then she thought, what nonsense! – and after all, haven’t I been happy?
    ‘How’s your father?’ she asked.
    ‘Not well – but not – actually dying. Of course there’s no hope, it’s just a matter of how long.’
    ‘I’m very sorry. Patricia didn’t think it was a crisis?’
    ‘No, he’s a bit worse, and we couldn’t get hold of the nurse. Pat’s very good with him, she’s an angel of patience.’
    Rose had seen little of Gerard’s father in recent years, he had been living in Bristol, in the house in Clifton where Gerard had been born. Only lately, after becoming ill, he had moved to Gerard’s house in London. There was a bond between him and Rose which also made them ill at ease together. Gerard’s father had so much wanted Gerard to marry Rose. Just as Rose’s father had so much wanted Sinclair to marry Jean Kowitz. If Sinclair had survived he would have had the title. As it was it went to the Yorkshire Curtlands(second cousins, the grandfathers had been brothers), who were also to inherit Rose’s house when Rose was gone. We are all without issue, thought Rose, all those hopeful family plans frustrated, we shall disappear without trace!
    ‘Surely Patricia and Gideon haven’t decided to
settle
in that upstairs flat you made for your father?’
    ‘No,