dazzling, so to speak – as to obscure what might otherwise be at least equally significant characteristics. That the man had some disreputable past, and that George cherished him for it, I had no doubt of whatever. But there was also, it struck me, something enigmatic about him here and now. There was something odd and indefinable in his relationship to the household, to George, to myself – and this was more than the aura which must surround any manservant who has long ago been implicated in some intimate family scandal. What was out of the way about Owdon – and whatever it might be I could by no means define it – was more than his being the father of Timmy (if he was that). And here I pulled myself up. For surely I had set myself romancing about the man simply because of the actual mystery before me: namely, that here he was hurrying furtively through the park with a couple of suitcases when he ought to have been superintending the labours of such servants as were left to us.
A prosaic and yet startling explanation struck me. Were those suit-cases perhaps crammed with the Simney family silver, and was Owdon decisively reverting to his pirate days?
‘Owdon,’ I said, ‘are you making off with the spoons?’
I think you will agree that it was queer – so queer as to deserve a little paragraph to itself. Timmy would have called it cheap, and moreover Owdon could have walked off with every stick in Hazelwood and I wouldn’t have given a damn. So how I came to utter such words I don’t at all know. Perhaps I was remembering the broken glasses and the man’s unaccountable perturbation on the night before, and hoping to startle or sting him into some explanation of himself. Or perhaps I was just feeling oafish. Certainly I was preoccupied. The scene in that bare, horrid room of George’s, the angry men, the smashed portrait with the safe behind it, the broken whiskey-bottle on the table and George stretching out his hand to it: I had got to turning these images round and round in my head as if they were going to reveal something… Anyway, and however that may be, here I was insulting a servant.
And Owdon set down the suitcases in the snow. ‘It would be reasonable enough,’ he said.
If my question had been odd this reply was surely a good deal odder. Moreover it was, in some subterraneous way, a new Owdon who delivered himself of it. The man was looking at me consideringly, and for a moment I felt that I had become something more than the person to whom he was accustomed to announce that dinner was served. I was sure that he was a very bad man, with a history of villainy by no means confined to getting an illegitimate son on the upper classes. Yet I was aware that at this moment some decent human feeling towards me was animating him – and that it was so only some seconds after I had been extremely rude. And – what is more – I felt an altogether unexpected current within myself. We stood there, the two of us, in the snow – Owdon between his suit-cases like some creature led into a stall. And, if momentarily only, some sympathy, some obscure intimation of fellow-feeling, declared itself. Then my mind went back to what he had said. Why should it be reasonable enough that Owdon should make off with the spoons? Did George owe him money? Had he, too, when in Australia been cheated in the matter of a Dismal Swamp?
During these few seconds I was on the verge of having it out with Owdon. But I hesitated – it was just the sort of failure I had known an hour before with Gerard – and what followed was a lot of lies. Owdon explained that the suitcases belonged to our departed housemaid and that he was benevolently taking them to the bus. Perhaps this was the best story he could think up. Or perhaps he had forgotten that when a new maid came to Hazelwood I had the housekeeper bring her to me and myself settled her into her room. The girl whom Timmy had kissed quite a lot was one of those whom I had received in
A prosaic and yet startling explanation struck me. Were those suit-cases perhaps crammed with the Simney family silver, and was Owdon decisively reverting to his pirate days?
‘Owdon,’ I said, ‘are you making off with the spoons?’
I think you will agree that it was queer – so queer as to deserve a little paragraph to itself. Timmy would have called it cheap, and moreover Owdon could have walked off with every stick in Hazelwood and I wouldn’t have given a damn. So how I came to utter such words I don’t at all know. Perhaps I was remembering the broken glasses and the man’s unaccountable perturbation on the night before, and hoping to startle or sting him into some explanation of himself. Or perhaps I was just feeling oafish. Certainly I was preoccupied. The scene in that bare, horrid room of George’s, the angry men, the smashed portrait with the safe behind it, the broken whiskey-bottle on the table and George stretching out his hand to it: I had got to turning these images round and round in my head as if they were going to reveal something… Anyway, and however that may be, here I was insulting a servant.
And Owdon set down the suitcases in the snow. ‘It would be reasonable enough,’ he said.
If my question had been odd this reply was surely a good deal odder. Moreover it was, in some subterraneous way, a new Owdon who delivered himself of it. The man was looking at me consideringly, and for a moment I felt that I had become something more than the person to whom he was accustomed to announce that dinner was served. I was sure that he was a very bad man, with a history of villainy by no means confined to getting an illegitimate son on the upper classes. Yet I was aware that at this moment some decent human feeling towards me was animating him – and that it was so only some seconds after I had been extremely rude. And – what is more – I felt an altogether unexpected current within myself. We stood there, the two of us, in the snow – Owdon between his suit-cases like some creature led into a stall. And, if momentarily only, some sympathy, some obscure intimation of fellow-feeling, declared itself. Then my mind went back to what he had said. Why should it be reasonable enough that Owdon should make off with the spoons? Did George owe him money? Had he, too, when in Australia been cheated in the matter of a Dismal Swamp?
During these few seconds I was on the verge of having it out with Owdon. But I hesitated – it was just the sort of failure I had known an hour before with Gerard – and what followed was a lot of lies. Owdon explained that the suitcases belonged to our departed housemaid and that he was benevolently taking them to the bus. Perhaps this was the best story he could think up. Or perhaps he had forgotten that when a new maid came to Hazelwood I had the housekeeper bring her to me and myself settled her into her room. The girl whom Timmy had kissed quite a lot was one of those whom I had received in
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