The Dark House | Page 2

no servants, a circumstance which coincided exactly with a periodical
financial crisis, she scrubbed the floors. Robert's first hatred had
changed rapidly to the love he would have given his mother had she
lived. There was no romance about it. Christine was not omnipotent as
his mother had become. He knew that she, too, was often terribly
unhappy, and their helplessness in the face of a common danger gave
them a sort of equality. But she was good to him, and her faithfulness
was the one sure thing in his convulsed and rocking world. He clung to
her as a drowning man clings to a floating spar, and his father's, "I wish
to God, Christine, you'd get out and leave us alone," or, "I won't have
you in my house. You're poisoning my son's mind against me,"
reiterated regularly at the climax of one of the hideous rows which
devastated the household, was like a blow in the pit of the stomach,
turning him sick and faint with fear.
But Christine never went. Or if she went she came back again. As
James Stonehouse said in a burst of savage humour, "Kick Christine
out of the front door and she'll come in at the back." Every morning, no
matter what had happened the night before, there was the quiet, resolute
scratch of her latch-key in the lock, and when James Stonehouse, sullen
and menacing, brushed rudely against her in the hall, she went on
steadily up the stairs to where Robert waited for her, and they fell into
each other's arms like two sorrowful comrades. Ever afterwards he
could conjure her up at will as he saw her then. She was like a
porcelain marquise over whom an intangible permanent shadow had
been thrown.
He knew dimly that she had "people" who disapproved of her devotion,
and that over and over again, by some new mysterious sacrifice, she
had staved off disaster. He knew that she had been his father's friend all
her life and that his mother and she had loved one another. There was
some bond between these three that could not be broken, and he, too,
was involved--fastened on as an afterthought, as it were, but so firmly
that there could be no escape. Because of it Christine loved him. He
knew that he was not always a very lovable little boy. Even with her he
could be obstinate and cruel--cruel because she was so much less than

his mother had become--and there were times when, with a queer
unchildish power of self-visualization, he saw himself as a small
fair-haired monster growing black and blacker with the dark and evil
spirit that was in him. But Christine never seemed to see him like that.
There was some borrowed halo about his head that blinded her. It did
not matter how bad he was, she had always love and excuses ready for
him. And she was literally all he had in the world.
But even she had not been able to make his birthday a success. Indeed,
ever since that one outstanding day all the celebrations had been
failures, though he had never ceased to look forward to them. For days
before his last birthday he had suspected everyone of secret delicious
plottings on his behalf. He had come down to breakfast shaking with
anticipation. All through the morning he had waited for the surprise
that was to be sprung on him, hanging at everyone's heel in turn, and it
was only towards dusk that he knew with bitter certainty that he had
been forgotten. A crisis had wiped him and his birthday out altogether.
And then he had cried, and James Stonehouse, moved to generous
remorse, had rushed out and bought a ridiculously expensive toy
having first borrowed money from Christine and scolded her at the top
of his booming voice for her heartless neglect of his son's happiness.
Christine had argued with him in her quiet obstinate way.
"But, Jim dear, you can't afford it----"
There had been one of those awful rows.
And Robert had crept that night, unwashed, into bed, crying more
bitterly than ever.
But this time he had really had no hope at all. Yesterday had seen a
crisis and a super-crisis. In the afternoon the butcher had stood at the
back door and shouted and threatened, and he had been followed
almost immediately by a stout shabby man with a bald head and
good-natured face, who announced that he had come to put a distraint
on the furniture which, incidentally, had never been paid for. Edith
Stonehouse, with an air of outraged dignity, had lodged him in the

library and regaled him on a bottle of stout and the remnants of a cold
joint, and it was understood that there he would remain