Peter still stood stolidly with his back turned. Did he have to? Must he, until the very last minute, pretend to be unaware of what was creeping up behind him? A kind of marriage by capture, reflected Selwyn, only the other way round. A toddling assortment of children now held the scene, so nearly stepping on the bride’s train that a ripple of anxiety went through the onlookers.
Then the sun rose in splendour upon the chilly twilit world of Selwyn Potter.
A shock ran through all his nerves and his flesh tingled, as it had when he first caught sight of Aphrodite rising from the waves in the Terme Museum at Rome. When in collision with some great work of art this shock was familiar enough. Now all light, joy, and beauty had come to life. It was floating up the aisle.
How she came to be there was a mystery. She could have nothing to do with all these odd capers, although she wore the same long green dress that the children wore, and the same flat little wreath of roses. Some girls, walking two and two behind her, were all got up to look like her. She floated past, and Selwyn turned to watch her.
At the chancel steps rearrangements had taken place. Peter must, at last, have acknowledged the arrival of his bride. She now stood between him and the red-faced man. The singing had stopped. The children formed two ragged lines, leaving a clear space up the centre of the aisle. A clergyman said something. Presently she floated forward to take the bride’s bouquet. The bridesmaid! perceived Selwyn. They have them!
She stood just in front of him, her young head lifted, gravely watching the ceremony. He decided that she was a girl, as though he had never seen one before. She was watching her friend being married. What was she thinking?
To imagine the thoughts of another person was an unfamiliar exercise. He had done so very seldom, and then only because his compassion had been aroused. Beholding extreme pain, grief, or fear, he had been aware that these were experiences unknown to him, and had made efforts to comprehend them. Of the multiple preoccupations, the contentments, satisfactions, felicities, anxieties, resentments, and grievances felt by others he had little idea, supposing everybody, normally, to be exactly like himself. Now a mysterious truth burst upon him. People think, privately and secretly, all the time, nor is there any sure way of guessing what they think, since each of them is an isolated world.
Is She hoping Her friend will be happy? he wondered, casting a softened look at the foaming white veil, now elevated to a place in Her thoughts. Happy? What does happy mean really? What does She think it means? Why does She bow Her head?
She had bowed her head in prayer. Everybody in the pews now crouched devoutly. Selwyn alone remained erect until a woman beside him poked his leg. He dived down hastily, upsetting a prayer book from a pew ledge with a bang. She was praying for Her friend, he decided. She believed in God. Did he believe in God? Might he not have been taking far too many things for granted? He must start again at the beginning and think everything out afresh.
As the congregation squatted the choir began to sing, in English, a hymn of which he knew the Latin version. She, probably, he surmised, might think it was written by St Gregory. A lot of people did. He would have known no better himself if he had not begun to poke about in mediaeval poetry, just to annoy old Challoner. She might not have heard all the arguments in favour of Rabanus, although there was reputed to be a recent pamphlet by St Quentin, which Selwyn had not read, casting doubt on them.
The hymn ended. The lawn sleeves blessed the squatting faithful. Everybody sat up again and the bridal party went off through a door under the organ pipes. Lady Myers and some people in the pew just in front of Selwyn scurried after them. A rustle of discreet conversation broke out. A child in the aisle began to eat its bouquet. The nearest adult interfered. Not all those girls in green dresses had gone away, although She had. They stood in a group, smiling and nodding to their friends and whispering to one another. They were now to him a touching sight since they had something in common with Her, which made of them a dedicated bevy. The female creatures with whom he had romped, when amorous romping was on the programme, were girls too, but not quite the same species of girl.
Now She must be coming back again, since the organ was making trumpet noises, and everybody was jumping up. Ta-ta-ta-TA! Ta-ta-ta-TA! Peter, Rosemary and the rabble of children got themselves down the church and out of the way. Chords of joy crashed from the organ. Chords of joy thrilled through Selwyn as he tasted for the first time the exquisite felicity of knowing that the Beloved was coming. He would see Her again.
She was there. She was gone. Where? To the Rockford Hotel. He tried to rush out after Her but was informed that the bridal party must be allowed to get away first.
The April sunshine was full of pealing bells. Happy people poured out of the church and set off in little groups towards Knightsbridge. Marvellous! Everything was marvellous! Champagne! They had it at Society Weddings. Had they drunk it already? No. Not yet.
‘She shouldn’t have worn dead white,’ said somebody.
They were crackers. She wore green.
He followed the gay throng, absorbed by this impression that he had been taking too much for granted and that life, life, and people, were more astonishing than he had thought. It seemed to him that he had been walking all his days down a narrow bare corridor and had emerged, during the past hour, into a trackless but enchanting forest. Still dazed by surprise, he reached the Rockford Hotel and joined a long line of people which crept slowly across a lobby towards a large room with a chandelier. A great hubbub and chatter went on and an irritating voice kept bawling unlikely sounding names.
‘DOCTOR … and … MRS TONKS.’
So happy? What does it really mean? Must come from hap. Chance.
‘MR … and MRS … and MISS … SLUGG.’
A happy man … a man who has had a lot of good luck? Is that all it means?
‘MR … CYRIL … BRAGGE.’
No. We say somebody ought to be happy. Meaning he’s had good luck but isn’t enjoying it. It’s something in himself that he hasn’t got.
‘LADY … COTTON.’
Have I got it? I’ve always thought so. But I never was happy like this before. Because I’ve seen … and that was luck. I happed to be here. So why …
‘MRS … GURNEY.’
It makes a difference to the future. ‘They say that hope is happiness.’ That’s what that means. Who said it? If it’s true, it turns on luck again. Who did say it?
‘Byron,’ he murmured as he passed into the room with the chandelier.
‘Beg pardon, sir?’ said a voice at his elbow.
‘Byron. Lord Byron….’
‘LORD … BYRON.’
He found himself looking into the startled eyes of his hostess. There were two lords at this Society Wedding and both were feathers in the Myers’ cap. The Hosegoods could rise no higher than a baronet. Now a third had turned up.
‘Thank you for asking me,’ he said, shaking her heartily by the hand. ‘I hope you aren’t too tired?’
With a dazed look she passed him on to Mrs Hosegood who quavered miserably:
‘Nice to see you.’
‘Isn’t it?’ he agreed. ‘Thank you for asking me.’
Dr Hosegood, next in line, had long ceased to know or care who anybody was. Peter thanked Selwyn very earnestly before anything had been said at all. The bride, finally, gave him a radiant smile.
‘I’m glad you are so happy,’ he told her.
‘Sweet of you,’ she murmured, turning the radiant smile elsewhere.
At liberty again, he looked round in eager hope. The room was sprinkled with girls in green dresses, but none of them was the right one. Somebody gave him a glass of champagne. A voice at his elbow said:
‘Hullo, Lord Byron. What a good bad-taste joke!’
It was Michael Brewster, discreetly snickering.
‘It’s going the rounds. You really are rather like Byron, you know. In the last stage, when he got fat. But what a thing to do to poor Lady M.!’
> ‘I don’t know what you’re … Oh!’
There She was! Surrounded, the centre of an animated group, talking and laughing, She looked more beautiful than ever.
‘Who is she?’ demanded Selwyn.
‘Who … Oh! That’s Liz Colleoni. Quite a puss, isn’t she?’
‘You know her?’
‘Everybody knows her. She’s a very, very prominent Deb. The daughter of Amanda Kreutzer. You know! The tragic millionairess.’
‘Could you introduce me?’
‘No, old man, I couldn’t,’ said Michael, who had never spoken to her in his life. ‘She’s not your style of puss.’
‘How did she … get to be here?’
‘Ah!’ Michael looked sage. ‘A lot of people are wondering about that. Lady M. is a remarkable woman. Definitely on the up and up.’
In the Orkneys, five years earlier, Michael had been a fanatical bird watcher. His transformation into a man about town did not impress Selwyn, who made his way obstinately to the group surrounding the Beloved. There he stood for many minutes, glass in hand, edging a little way towards the centre whenever he got a chance. Her voice, when audible, matched the rest of her; it was sweet, low, and clear. At last he gained a position at her elbow. As if aware of his unflagging attention, she shot him sundry little glances of inquiry while she listened to, and answered, other people. Finally, she turned to face him, allowing him an opportunity to say something.
‘I saw you in church,’ he told her.
She gave him a mirthful glance and agreed that she had been there. Since it appeared that she might be going to turn away again he added hastily:
‘Who do you think wrote that hymn: Veni Creator Spiritus? Rabanus?’
She stared. Her face clouded and she gave him a sharp, almost a suspicious look. Sinking her voice to a whisper, she said:
‘Yes. I don’t think anything of St Quentin’s red herring. Or anyway, it must have been some pupil of Alcium. It’s the scansion of Paracletus….’
Selwyn leapt into the air and did a sort of pas de chat. This habit of his, when excited, had been known to bring down ceilings.
‘Exactly! Exactly! Qui ParaCLEtus dicitur …. Anywhere else in Europe, anywhere else, it would have been dicitur ParACletus. Their Latin by that time was all sweet … only those boys from l’Ecole Palatine would have known enough to get it right. But have you read St Quentin? Where?’
His voice rang through the room. The group immediately surrounding them had fallen into a kind of gaping stupor at ParaCLEtus dicitur and the silence had spread. She, aware perhaps that they had by now a large audience, sank to an even lower murmur:
‘In the Sorbonne Library. But we can’t very well talk about it here, can we?’
‘Then where can we talk about it?’ boomed Selwyn. ‘When can I see you again?’
She hesitated. Somebody tittered. At that she flushed and spoke up.
‘Thursday afternoon? Three o’clock?’
‘Yes! Yes! Where?’
‘Five Mount Square.’
‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth dear! Rosemary wants you.’
Lady Myers, pushing her way through the listeners, had come to rescue her prize exhibit from this terrible person. She had been making inquiries about him and a few unpleasant words had passed between her and poor Mrs Hosegood. Seizing the girl by the arm, she marched her away.
Selwyn blissfully finished his champagne and walked out of the Society Wedding just as the bride’s health was being proposed. He spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about in Hyde Park. His top hat had been left in the pew at St Paul’s Church. He did not discover this until it was time to return his hired plumage whence it came.
2
Mrs Gray, who bought the lampshade for Selwyn, had been a good scholar in her day. In the early 1930s she had been mainly responsible for a new edition of a classical dictionary for which the firm of Richardson had been famous for more than a century. During and after the war, owing to the paper shortage, this work had, for a time, gone out of print. Now another, considerably enlarged, edition was to be brought out. In recognition of her past services she was again put in charge of this exacting work, but, without Selwyn’s help, she would have found it a good deal too much for her. She was growing old. Her memory was uncertain; when tired she was liable to stupid blunders. Everybody in Richardson knew this and most were anxious to cover up for her, since she had still a year to go before qualifying for a full pension. Recent changes in the firm, and the influence of a new partner bent on economy, made it unlikely that she would be treated with any particular generosity, in spite of her past record.
Selwyn was soon doing two-thirds of her work as well as his own. He found it necessary to look over proofs corrected by her, before sending them to press. Obvious misprints, which she had failed to detect, he corrected on his own responsibility, but he was occasionally obliged to send the proofs back with a query.
On the Monday after the wedding she found a batch of them waiting on her desk. Not for the first time she was horrified at her own carelessness and grateful for the trouble that he had taken. To her room mate, Ruth Thomas, she remarked that Selwyn Potter was really very nice.
‘It’s all on the surface, his annoying ways. If only someone would take him in hand, drop him a few hints, he would get on so much better.’
Ruth pursed her lips. She had no liking for Selwyn. She intended to marry, if she could, a man called Eric Tipton, also in Richardson, who would have got that work on the dictionary if Selwyn had not been promoted over his head.
‘So who is likely to take him in hand?’ she asked coldly. ‘Why should they?’
‘It would do him a lot of good to get married.’
‘Then tell him so. Why don’t you? Tell him the world is full of poor girls who’d sooner marry him than nobody. It’s a wonder he’s dodged the altar for so long.’
‘I don’t believe he’s ever had a home of his own – anybody of his own. We must find him a girl.’
‘There’s Dillon.’
‘Poor Jean? Oh no! She’s too plain and dreary.’
‘She might do something for her catarrh. You can hear her sneezing from here to St Paul’s. But Selwyn can’t afford to be choosey. Really he can’t.’
‘He’s got a very good brain. Really he’s brilliant.’
‘So some people seem to think,’ agreed Ruth bitterly.
‘I don’t believe he’s ever forgotten a single thing. Generally people who come up with a fact or a date are rather boring; they have minds like card indexes. But Selwyn remembers things because he’s always been so intensely interested.’
‘So how will that get him a wife?’
‘Some girl with intellectual tastes …’
‘Even intellectual girls like to hear their own voices once in a while. They wouldn’t want to hear Selwyn talking all day and all night into the bargain.’
‘I wonder …’ speculated Mrs Gray.
‘You needn’t. He’s got a love life of sorts. Pretty crude.’
‘And who is your authority for that, pray?’
‘Eric’.
It would be, thought Mrs Gray, who loathed Tipton.
Later in the day she took the proofs back to Selwyn, thanked him, and asked if the wedding had been fun.
‘Oh, it was wonderful!’
‘Very pretty?’
‘Quite beautiful. I didn’t know they were so beautiful. I’ve been trying to remember what picture … couldn’t place it at first. You’ve been to Florence, haven’t you? Remember the Gozzoli Frescoes in the Medici Chapel? They’re rather in a corner. Three girls. Daughters of Piero. On horseback, with little wreaths. They’re dressed like pages because they’re on a pilgrimage and riding astride. Of course, he wasn’t really a very good painter, but the wedding made me think of those girls. Only she wore green.’
‘What? The bride wore green?’
‘Oh no. The bridesmaid.’
‘Only one bridesmaid?’
�
�No. There were some more. They all had the same clothes.’
‘Oh?’ said Mrs Gray. ‘I see.’
‘There was a bishop. But he only wore sleeves. Nice music. At the end they played that bit out of Midsummer Night’s Dream when Theseus and Hippolyta come in. Lah! Lah! La-lah! Lah! Lah! …’
‘Mendelssohn? They always have that.’
‘And there was a nice eighth-century hymn with, I think, a Gregorian tune. But a poor translation. She … the bridesmaid … told me that she’d got hold of a pamphlet in the Sorbonne Library …’
‘You know her?’
‘I got to know her at the party.’
‘You did? How nice.’
‘I’m going to see her on Thursday afternoon. Which reminds me. If anybody asks where I am on Thursday afternoon can you say I’ve gone to have a tooth pulled out?’
‘Well … all right. I will. What’s her name?’
He hesitated. It was the first time that he had said it to anyone.
‘Elizabeth.’
‘A pretty name. The Sorbonne Library? Does she teach?’
‘No. She’s a prominent Deb.’
It was delightful to see him so much in love, but she went back to her room in two minds about it. Poor sneezing Dillon might not be good enough for him, but a prominent Deb must surely be quite out of his reach. She was sorry that she had undertaken to cover up for him if he played truant on Thursday, since he was probably setting out to break his heart.
3
Five Mount Square was such a very large house that Selwyn wasted a few minutes in a vain search for Elizabeth’s doorbell. There should be, he thought, a row of doorbells with cards beside them and he would have been glad of some such guide to her surname, of which he was not quite sure. Eventually he rang the only bell to be seen.
The manservant who opened the door seemed to recognize his errand. They shot up in a lift to the top of the house. A maid, waiting in a corridor, took charge of him. He was shown into a pleasant room full of books, pictures and flowers. The Contessina, he learnt, would be with him shortly. Before he could explain that he had not come to see a Contessina the woman went away.
The Forgotten Smile Page 10
