Death in Devon

‘And it’ll take a better man than you to tame her, Sefton. With all due respect. There’s talk of another engagement …’

‘I see.’

He gazed up at the window above the desk. It was a clear night sky.

‘There’s a storm coming.’

It wasn’t immediately clear to me whether he was speaking literally or metaphorically; he spoke often of gathering storms. It wasn’t always clear whether he meant rain, or Miriam’s doomed engagements, or the imminent collapse of human civilisation. Or all three.

‘Do you ever think about the future, Sefton?’

‘Occasionally, Mr Morley. Yes, I do.’

‘And when you think about the future, what do you think?’

‘Erm …’ An answer, obviously, was not required.

‘When I think about the future, Sefton, I think that what we are doing now will be seen largely as an irrelevance, alas. The book will become a decorative art object, and as for newspapers …’ He shook his head. ‘There will be endless wars. Famines. And the England that we know and love will have entirely disappeared. We will achieve a classless society, not because we have all been raised to new heights, but rather because we have all been dragged down to the same depths.’ When speaking of heights and depths, Morley illustrated the point with his usual gestures.

‘I see.’ This was a version of a speech I had already heard him utter on numerous occasions.

‘People’s bodies will seize up, Sefton, due to their unthinking reliance on machines. Men and women will balloon in size, like vast blimps, and go bouncing around our towns and cities, crushing one another in their hurry to acquire more and more of less and less that is truly good. Don’t you think it’s possible, Sefton?’

‘It’s certainly not im—’

‘But one day, I believe, man will overcome himself. He will rise from his slumber. He will slip the bounds and trammels of this earth. He will transcend his small concerns and reach for the stars! He will travel … to the moon! Do you think it’s possible, Sefton?’

‘Again, it’s entirely—’

‘Not in my lifetime, perhaps. But in yours. It will be wonderful: an opportunity to start all over again, eh? Not granted to every man, Sefton, is it?’

‘No, Mr Morley.’

‘But in this brave new world I believe there will be so much going on that no one will care to remember what we have lost.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Which is our task, of course, Sefton! To act as recording angels, if you like. No more. No less. Quite a calling though, eh?’ His rambling speech seemed to have cheered him – as his rambling speeches so often did. I wondered sometimes if he spoke merely for the sole purpose of his own encouragement.

‘Yes. Indeed.’

He stared at me again. ‘You seem rather liverish this evening, Sefton, if you don’t mind my saying.’

‘Yes, well, I …’

‘Time for your beauty sleep, perhaps.’

‘Well, I am rather tired, Mr Morley.’

‘Raram facit misturam cum sapientia forum, Sefton.’

‘Quite. So … unless there’s anything I can do for you here …’

‘No, no, no. The cottage won’t be ready for a while, I’m afraid. I’ve spoken to Wilson about it. It’s going to need quite some fixing up. In the meantime we’ll put you upstairs in one of the attic rooms, if that’s still OK? Same room as before. All set up for you.’

‘That’s wonderful, thank you.’

‘Eaten?’

‘I had a sandwich at Liverpool Street.’

‘Cheruntis pabulum! You can find yourself something in the kitchen if you’d like. Cook made a wonderful mutton and parsnip soup a few days ago. It’s maturing rather nicely.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘What’s the Korean dish?’

‘I’m not sure, Mr Morley.’

‘Kimchi! That’s it. Rather reminiscent. I was there just after the Japanese occupation. Pretty grisly. Merciless … Anyway. Probably best to avoid the soup in your condition. I’ll bid you goodnight. Must just finish this.’ And with that he turned back to his books and his typewriter, and the endless words began to flow again.

Upstairs, as I walked down the long corridor towards my room up in the attic, the echo of Morley’s typewriter in the distance, a door happened to open and Miriam walked out. She was smiling inwardly, it seemed to me: there was a look of satisfaction on her face, of satiation, one might almost say, as if she had … Well … I had enjoyed a rather long weekend in London and was tired; my imagination was doubtless running away with me. Her hair, I noted, was a blonder shade of blonde than I remembered, her cheeks were flushed, and she was wearing a nightgown made of a silvery silk, creating an effect that in the half-lit corridor might be described as simultaneously ethereal and electrifying, shuddering almost, as if one had bumped into Carole Lombard herself, made-up, half dressed, lit, on set, and ready to take her call …

‘Oh, Sefton. You’re here!’ she gasped, clutching her nightgown more closely to her. ‘Sorry, I was just …’

‘Yes. Good evening, Miss Morley.’

‘Back for more then? We haven’t put you off?’

‘No. No. Not at all.’

‘You were in London?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘I hope you had fun?’

‘I … did. Yes. Certainly.’

‘Good. I think we’re going to have fun, aren’t we, Sefton?’ She was standing alarmingly close to me at this point, so close that I began to feel rather vulnerable, like the poor antelope in Rousseau’s painting.

‘I’m sure we will, Miss Morley.’

‘You … and me,’ she said.

‘And your father, of course.’

‘Hmm.’