Portrait of a Murderer

it for granted that the old cease to experience desire, that their passion is spent, their feeling, even, numbed. They become, in fact, like the chairs and cupboards among which their days are passed. The old lady was the one redeeming feature in this sordid case. No one but herself genuinely grieved for the dead man. To her, he had been primarily the son she had borne nearly seventy years ago. And he remained at once the child for whom she had dreamed, and the disappointed, embittered creature he had become. She had watched him change, lose his first fine ideals, seen him gradually sink, lose hope, go down and down. And her affection for him had remained stable; it was rooted in no fineness of his, no achievement, not even in the qualities he possessed. It lay in their common blood and heritage. And now he had gone, and she preserved an attitude dignified and remote. Yet, despite her years, her sorrow, and the cumulative experience of her days, she still retained sufficient vitality to have desires and hopes, and at length to achieve them. They were little things, perhaps, but desires are comparative, after all. And it was to such things that the attention of old people instinctively turned, thought Miles, when they were at too great a remove from the fierce ambitions of their youth to be stirred by them any longer.

There was in these bleak days something beautiful about her, as she spoke, listened, and suggested in the midst of her kinspeople, herself tranquil and unattainable. Into that secret chamber where the spirit sits alone she admitted no one. But, above all, beauty remained. It was not, in essence, any beauty of feature or even of bone or expression; springing from a certain graciousness in her own nature, and the courage the old will often display, it held the attention of all the more thoughtful of the household—the Amerys, Laura, Isobel, Brand.

Isobel had reacted oddly to the position. Since her father’s death she had changed, awakened, begun to glow; as a piece of silver that has not been polished for years, suddenly receiving attention, catches the light in a dozen places, reflects, burns, almost illuminates the room where it is placed, so Isobel flashed with an ardour that had been typical of her early years, but that had been quenched for so long that few recognised its return. She said to Brand, shortly before their separation, “You’re right, my dear. It’s a terrible warning. It would be frightful to come to death with no more to show or to carry with you than he had.” She left the house before her grandmother and sister departed to the Worthing flat, and found herself work in London. Brand, hearing of it, thought, “That alone would be justification for what I did. She was a prisoner so long as he was alive. And whereas his life held neither promise nor hope, hers is chock-a-block with both.”

5

Brand returned in due course to his wife in Fulham. Walking up the dreary road, carrying his shabby case, his senses exulted at the prospect of leaving this behind for ever. Since Eustace’s arrest he had put the whole affair of the murder out of his mind; he no longer identified himself with the man who had cringed and scraped and quarrelled with Sophy for so many years. It was as though a new personality, purged by his ordeal and the weight of knowledge that still lay upon him, had risen in the dark library on Christmas morning, its face set towards the dawn, its being cleansed from fear.

The house presented its usual ramshackle, slovenly appearance. It was one of a long terrace, each house separated from its neighbour by a thin, dingy wall; a long flight of cracked steps led to the front door, whose dirty paint was peeling. Some of the houses had inartistic little excrescences bulging from the ground floor, square green or brown painted boxes, ludicrously christened conservatories, with panes of blue and red glass, alternating with the opaque oblongs found in bath- and waiting-rooms. The houses were Victorian, heavy and ungraceful, inconvenient and ugly, displaying none of the beauty of antiquity or the brisk cheerfulness of good housekeeping. Brand mounted the steps, noting that it was several days since they had been washed, and stood for a moment under the pretentious, hideous portico. Trails of ivy coiled over the windows, soiled yellow blinds hung awry on the further side of the glass, that was further obscured by long lace curtains. The whole aspect was one of a cheap and sordid poverty.

The door was opened by his second daughter, Eleanor, a child of nine years old. Her face was a travesty of youth, though the features were immature enough in their pinched and colourless fashion. Her fair hair hung over her eyes and was untidily cut on the nape of her neck. Neither her face nor her hands was clean, and her frock was torn. Yet she would never, in any assembly, be overlooked. It was, perhaps, the expression that held the stranger’s gaze. It was arresting, fierce, and withdrawn. After seeing father and child together, there could be no doubt of their relationship. The little girl, also, had none of the candour and vitality of her years, but resembled a creature perpetually on guard, prepared for any new torment or alarm the days may hold, armed with a bitter stoicism that, in a less inattentive parent, would have touched and cut the heart.

“Where’s your mother?” Brand asked.

“She’s upstairs. She didn’t know you were coming to-day.”

“She doesn’t have to make any preparations for me. Tell her I’m here.”

He turned into the living-room to the left of the front door; the other side was a blank wall, separating them from the next house. He had neither offered nor expected a kiss or any sign of affection from the young creature whom he had begotten. He heard her going upstairs slowly, and