must have been long since chopped down, or, more likely, have died of blight. In either case it must have been a merciful release for them.
There was no real colour in Melville Avenue. The houses, each hugging its neighbour, each with its two stucco pillars on either side of a flight of steps, were painted in tones which appeared to have been primarily chosen for their drabness. Some were fawn, some grey, and some had their pillars painted a curiously depressing shade of chocolate brown, or even black. The house owned by aunt Emily had once been painted the shade of weak mustard.
Behind each house was a small garden, bordered by a grimy brick wall, and here lurked various dark-leaved shrubs and trees. Some house-owners tried to grow a patch of lawn-Bartels’ uncle had tried to do so-but the earth was black and sour and full of broken bricks and stones, and the grass grew only thinly and coarsely.
At No. 257 the square of rank grass, with its bald patches and ragged edges, had been surrounded by Bartels’ aunt Rose with a border of large seashells, which made it particularly repulsive. Along the wall at the end of the garden an endless procession of cats passed by day and by night. Some were tabby, some black, some tortoiseshell or white, and a few displayed such a variety of colour and design as to make the imagination boggle at the broad- mindedness of their ancestors.
No. 257 Melville Avenue, like all the neighbouring houses, had a ground floor and basement, and two other stories. Bartels’ aunt Rose, and her husband James, aunt Emily, Cook, and Bartels himself occupied the ground floor and basement.
The first floor was let to a retired district commissioner from East Africa, whose name I have forgotten. I would sometimes see him and his wife passing down the stairs, a spare, yellow-faced, unhappy-looking couple. He had obtained a job as secretary in some minor West End club, and rarely returned until late at night.
Now and again, when my parents went away, I would spend a night at Bartels’ house; and I would hear the wife’s footsteps, as I lay in bed, pacing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, above my head. Once I heard sobbing. I think she was being driven mad by loneliness.
The top floor was let to an artist in his early thirties, and the woman whom he called his wife, though sometimes carelessly read-dressed letters led aunt Rose to remark good-humouredly that if Mrs Martin were asked to produce her marriage lines she might be hard put to it to find them. The Martins were a gay and happy couple, who kept much to themselves.
Sometimes they gave noisy parties which went on late into the night, and afterwards the guests would make their way on tiptoe, giggling and whispering, down the linoleum-covered stairs. I have sometimes wondered how the district commissioner’s wife felt, as she listened to the sounds of gaiety, so near and yet so far removed from her.
Aunt Rose and uncle James, as from force of habit I still think of them, lived on the ground floor with Bartels; aunt Emily and Cook lived in the basement. It is typical of the remarkable salesmanship of aunt Rose that although aunt Emily owned the house, aunt Rose and her husband occupied the best rooms, though they paid no rent, while aunt Emily lived in the basement.
The reason was clear enough, at least to aunt Rose, and lay in the fact that one day aunt Rose was going to be a millionairess, and was going to keep all the rest of the family in luxury for the remainder of their lives.
All that stood between her and untold riches-computed at compounded interest, the figure ran into hundreds of millions-was the little matter of winning a lawsuit against her husband’s cousin. It was known as Aunt Rose’s Case, and was a subject of incessant discussion.
It was a case with such tortuous ramifications that though I heard it explained a dozen times, though talk of it interrupted on countless occasions my evening games with Bartels, I never really got the hang of it.
I only know it was full of legitimate and illegitimate births, of stolen birth certificates, pages torn out of church registers, wicked sisters, old family nurses who remembered this, and old chief clerks who remembered that; all of whom were prepared to go into the witness box and swear that this or that did or did not happen.
True, one lawyer after another had turned the case down, or quarrelled with aunt Rose. This one had apparently been too weak; that one bribed by the opposition; a third intimidated; a fourth had had the audacity to demand some interim payment.
Invariably, when I returned for the holidays, she had at last found the right man, a real fighter, honest and unafraid of anybody. By Jove, he was going to make them sit up! The writs were going out next week, if Counsel’s opinion were favourable! But it never was.
Bartels’ aunt Rose was a short woman with fair hair, grey eyes, and a belligerent disposition, and prone to emphasize her words by pounding the table with her fist; in contrast, aunt Emily was tall, with a pale oval face, wide, dark, credulous eyes, and an earnest, anxious expression; she wore old-fashioned inexpensive jewellery, odd bits of lace and fur, and in her ears a pair of long black earrings.
There was one snag about aunt Rose’s lawsuit: there was always a bit of money which had to be paid out for something or other.
Uncle James had long since commuted his Army pension and had only a small family allowance left. So aunt Rose used to fall back upon aunt Emily for financial assistance.
I have often wondered whether aunt Rose was a rogue or a misguided woman, and have come to the conclusion that if she twisted aunt Emily out of every penny she could get out of her, which she did, she probably thought that she was really acting in the true interests of everybody. (Even I myself, though no blood relation, was going to benefit financially in some obscure way no longer clear to me, once the great case was won.)
Had she not a case which was just on the point of coming to court, which when won-and who could doubt it would be won! — would enable her to repay aunt Emily every penny she had had from her, including the years of unpaid rent, and enable everybody to buy rich estates in the country and live happily ever after?
The links in the chain were complete, except for one or two paltry bits of evidence which would come to hand at any moment. Who, then, should more properly finance her for a further few months than aunt Emily, who stood to gain so much?
Sometimes aunt Emily was a bit sticky about paying up. You could scarcely blame her. On such occasions the glass and the letters of the alphabet would come out at aunt Rose’s suggestion.
Everybody knew Bartels’ aunt Rose was psychic, because she said so herself, over and over again. Aunt Emily thought that she, too, was psychic, but she would admit in an awed tone that she was not nearly as psychic as aunt Rose.
So in due course, if her sister was being difficult about money, aunt Rose would arrange the letters in a circle around the little, highly polished mahogany table, and place the glass in the middle, and they would both place the tips of their fingers lightly on the upturned glass.
Thus they would sit in silence for a few moments; aunt Rose, untidily dressed, but intense and forceful; and aunt Emily dressed in her eternal bits and pieces, and black earrings, her cow-like eyes, utterly credulous, fixed watchfully on the glass.
Fortunately the spirits never kept them waiting long, largely because they knew, no doubt, that aunt Rose had so much work to do on her case.
I remember the last time I ever saw aunt Rose at work. It was a remarkably fine exhibition.
Aunt Emily had said she had not a penny more to spare for the moment. Not a penny. So after a tactful interval aunt Rose suggested having a turn with the glass. Aunt Emily could never resist it, though she ought to have known by bitter experience exactly what was going to be the end of it.
After the usual short wait, aunt Emily said, in her nervous way:
“Is anybody there? Who is there?”
For a second or two the glass remained immobile while aunt Emily stared raptly into space, her face twisted into the sort of welcoming smile which she imagined a spirit on a short visit to Bayswater might find reassuring. Then the tumbler began to move hesitatingly from letter to letter and spelt out: F-A-T-H-E-R.
“It’s Father!” cried aunt Rose triumphantly. He was, I may add, a frequent astral caller at the Bayswater house.
“Well, well,” said aunt Emily, trying to keep her voice normal, “what do you want, Father? Are you and Mother happy?”
The glass, gaining confidence, moved quickly.
“Y-U-S,” spelt out aunt Emily in a puzzled tone.
