The Chimney Sweeper's Boy (edit version) -BV by BV

Author:BV
Language: eng
Format: epub

She had asked which 'somethings' and he said, their beauty and their intelligence. What about the rest of her, then? What about Delphine's shyness, her goodness, her reclusiveness? No one, even then, could have pretended she and Hope were shy or retiring or even particularly good.

'That was someone I knew long ago,' he said. 'No, not a girlfriend.' He had hesitated. 'A relative.'

She remembered that now. She was thinking of _Hamadryad_ because Frederic Cyprian had still been her father's editor when it was published. After that, and before the next book, he had retired. Some said his retirement was directly due to _Hamadryad's_ failure to win. At the dinner, when the winning novel was announced, he had done something authors had been known to do but not publishers. He had got up from the table and walked out.

Sarah had met him a few times in the seventies when he came with or without his wife to stay at Lundy View House. He was old then and his wife was older and had since died. She had known, since moving into this flat, that he and she lived very near each other. For some reason, now forgotten, she had once looked him up in the phone book. It must have been simple curiosity since she had never intended to phone him or visit him.

Now she had. If he was still alive and Robert Postle said he was, he was still there, round the corner, two hundred yards away. She walked down and looked at the house. Victorian, red brick, a steep flight of steps up to the front door. It looked empty, closed up. She hesitated only for a moment, then walked up the steps and rang the bell.

No one came. She rang again. The door was opened by a woman some ten years older than herself, but very different from herself She looked worn and harassed and irritable and she was dressed in a dark purple shell suit.

'Yes?' she said.

'My name is Sarah Candless. Gerald Candless was my father. I wonder if I might see Mr Cyprian?'

'Well...'

'He was my father's editor at Carlyon Brent.'

'I know that, Miss Candless.'

The woman looked at her doubtfully. Sarah thought she recognized her from years ago as Frederic Cyprian's daughter. Jane? Jean? Or perhaps it was just that she saw something of him in this strained intense face.

'I've met your father,' she said. 'When I was young.'

'That can't have been very long ago,' the woman said dryly. 'Won't you come in? I am Jane Cyprian. My father is very old and not well. More than that, but you'll see, you'll see.' She added, 'He may be quite lucid. He sometimes is.'

Sarah felt that apprehensiveness which is almost fear and which comes at the threat of being confronted by someone whose control has slipped or been fragmented. She followed Jane Cyprian down the passage. It wasn't dark or in any way sinister unless a profusion of pictures, ornaments and clutter is sinister.

Outside the closed door Jane Cyprian turned to Sarah and said, 'I wish you'd phoned first.

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