Statues in a Garden

by Isabel Colegate

  ‘Top floor. Mind the stairs. Light’s gone.’

  He remembered the stairs. Stars through the uncurtained top window. She was out. Rattle the door. It opened. She in a kimono, befringed.

  ‘Wait a moment, can’t you? I’m coming. What do you want anyway? Oh, it’s you. Thought you were never coming back.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  It was warm in her room, pleasant too, orange curtains, white walls, cushions. She was an artists’ model, twenty-eight, unlucky in love, overenthusiastic and rather ill. She said she would make some coffee. He lay on her sofa and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

  In the morning he did not want to see her, and besides he had to be on parade at 11 o’clock. He left before she woke up.

  6

  Cynthia had just received a declaration from a duke. She had rejected his offer of a liaison. His manner, though commendably calm in the circumstances, nevertheless betrayed enough agitation for Philip, who was shown in a few minutes after the incident, to suspect something of what had been going on. After a little polite conversation, and the most controlled and decorous of farewells, the duke left.

  Philip asked, ‘Is he your lover?’

  Cynthia blushed. ‘You are impossible, Philip.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Of course not. Why are you always so aggressively outspoken?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  But she could not forgo a little jubilation. ‘I must admit – but, Philip, seriously you are not to tell a soul – I must confess that something of the sort was evidently in his mind.’

  ‘I thought as much. Did he pounce?’

  ‘No, no, no, of course he didn’t pounce. He merely – made a suggestion. No, you’re not to laugh. It’s not at all funny.’

  ‘Why are you laughing yourself then? Go on. What did you say?’

  ‘I said no of course. But really I can’t help being rather amused. You see, Sylvia Newton told me last week that she was perfectly certain he had designs on her and that she couldn’t make up her mind what to do about it. Poor Sylvia, I am afraid she’s fallen in love with him.’

  ‘You don’t mean poor Sylvia at all. But I thought she was afichée with another.’

  ‘Oh no, that was all over long ago. But really we shouldn’t be talking like this.’

  ‘Why not? Tell me, have you had many lovers?’

  She was no longer amused. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But your friends do?’

  ‘If some of my friends have discreet adventures of one sort or another, that’s no reason why I should. Did you seriously think that I did?’

  ‘I didn’t know. That’s why I asked.’

  ‘You are quite naive in some ways although you pretend to be so blasé. One’s not necessarily fast because one has some fast friends. Besides, I have some very slow ones as well.’

  ‘Will you tell Aylmer about the duke?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps not. It would look like boasting’

  ‘Weren’t you boasting to me just now?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter boasting to you. Besides, it had only that moment happened. If you had come in half an hour later I shouldn’t have boasted even to you.’

  ‘I suppose people often make this sort of proposition to you. Is it true that the late king did?’

  ‘Of course not. How can I stop you asking these impertinent questions? Really, you have no right to do it. If you go on I shall be as angry as I ought to be already.’

  ‘I was awfully in love with you myself when I was eight.’

  ‘That was a long time ago and gives you no right to cross-examine me now.’

  ‘Do you remember that time, when I first came?’

  ‘I remember that you kept hitting me all the time.’

  ‘That was because I was in love with you.’

  ‘It seems an odd form for love to take. You were dreadfully difficult.’

  ‘That was because I was in love with you. I was I had never seen anyone like you before. Everyone in India was either Indian or yellow. There was no one as white as you, no one with those white shoulders, no one who wore such clothes, or laughed like you, or was so soft.’

  ‘And so you hit me?’

  ‘And so I hit you. Don’t you believe in my great love?’

  ‘Of course.’ She walked over to ring the bell for tea. ‘It is very touching. When did you grow out of it?’

  ‘Perhaps I never did.’

  ‘That serves me right for asking such a stupid question At least you don’t hit me any more. Now let’s talk about some thing else I hear you have decided to send in your papers.’

  ‘Yes. Aylmer doesn’t approve.’

  ‘He told me he did.’

  ‘Did he? Tell me what he said.’

  ‘That he approved.’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘Now you are rapping questions at me again I won’t have it. Sit down and have some tea.’

  A silver tea tray having just been brought in, she poured some out and went on, ‘Aylmer thinks it’s a good idea because he wants you to do something which you yourself believe to be worth while. That’s all, nothing more complicated. And he will meet Mr Hogan with an unprejudiced mind.’

  ‘Horgan. Yes, I know he will. And listen carefully. And sum the whole thing up with exquisite precision at the end. And advise a cautious advance. And provide the money. And be helpful in every way.’

  ‘Then what more can you possibly want?’

  ‘What indeed?’

  ‘Then what is wrong? Explain yourself.’

  ‘I can’t. Does Aylmer like me?’

  ‘Like you? Don’t be absurd. He loves you. We look on you as our son.’

  ‘I feel that I can’t somehow reach him, or shake him. I should like to shake him.’

  ‘How violent you are. You hit people you love and want to shake your truly loving and devoted uncle. What is the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing I am very happy, as a matter of fact, at this moment. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Happy? Yes. But then I often am.’

  ‘I feel much more as if it were you and I who were of the same blood, don’t you? And yet we are hardly related at all.’

  ‘We are. I am your aunt by marriage and your adoptive mother.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Cynthia. And don’t you sometimes feel a bond with me closer than that one?’

  ‘No I think that is a very close one.’

  ‘No, but – sometimes I feel that with you there are no barriers. You are almost the only person with whom I do feel this. And yet I have a lot of secrets from you. And you, I suppose, from me.’

  ‘I have hardly any secrets from anybody.’

  ‘Why aren’t we always like this, though? Why do we some times quarrel and why do you irritate me so? I suppose it is when you are being Aylmerish.’

  ‘Philip, I cannot let you say one word against Aylmer.’

  ‘I am not saying anything against Aylmer. You know I never would I am only saying that some of his qualities don’t exactly suit you. At least they do suit you in a way, I suppose, but not to my mind. To my mind they veil your splendour. Tell me – just because at this moment we are close, you know we are – haven’t you ever wanted them, any of the others?’

  ‘If you mean lovers, no, I have never wanted them. Do sit down and stop fidgeting.’

  ‘I was bringing my cup for some more tea.’

  ‘Why don’t we talk about your affairs? Why you don’t get married for instance. After all, you’re twenty-eight.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Forty-one. But I don’t like thinking about it.’

  ‘Are you afraid of getting old, of your beauty going, of wanting things you haven’t had when it’s too late to have them?’

  ‘No. And we are talking about you, not me.’

  ‘I don’t get married because I have no money.’

  ‘You have a little. And I expect Aylmer would try to give you a little more if you married. Besides, you
are going to make a fortune.’

  ‘Then I don’t marry because none of the girls I meet are as beautiful as you. They are all little skimpy creatures with no bosoms.’

  She burst out laughing. ‘Philip, I will not sit here drinking tea and talking about bosoms. You are too disgraceful. I insist on talking about the latest play.’

  ‘I never go to the theatre. It bores me.’

  ‘Well then, the latest book.’

  ‘I don’t read either.’

  ‘Anyway here’s Aylmer. Now you’ll have to behave.’

  ‘I’ll have to run as well. It’s later than I thought. How could you have kept me dallying here like this? I’m on duty at 6 o’clock.’

  She gave him her hand and said, ‘Come and see me again.’

  She heard him talking briefly in the hall with Aylmer. Then the door banged and Aylmer came in.

  ‘Philip seemed cheerful,’ he said.

  ‘He was.’ She rose to kiss him on the cheek. ‘I don’t think we need worry about him. He doesn’t mean half he says, you know. And he is so sweet when he is being nice I am so glad you are coming with me this evening. It’s going to be fun, I know I shall wear my black velvet and all my diamonds and everyone will be amazed at me. Don’t you think so? And I shall be frivolous and flirtatious and everything reprehensible and you will be quite ashamed of me.’

  ‘I dare say. And in the meantime I should like some tea.’

  And here she is in her black velvet and all her diamonds, pausing at the top of the stairs which lead, so conveniently for dramatic effect, down into the crowded reception room. And the faces turn, obediently. And she pauses, pretending to look for her hostess, turning her head with its elaborate gleaming pile of hair first to one side then to the other, on the famous long white neck. And how gloriously white the shoulders and the bosom, how fine the moulding of the arms, how wide the great dark gaze of the eyes. But the pause is not a moment too long. She begins to move, and Aylmer, happy in his role, follows a step or two behind, and she glides down the stairs with the velvet spreading out behind her, and her smile begins slowly and widens for her hostess, and she stretches out both jewelled hands, as it were impulsively, and what a benefit she bestows!

  And later an ambassador says, ‘I must tell you that I think you make the most beautiful entrances,’ and is quite ravished by the serene happiness of the smile with which she answers, ‘Don t I?’

  7

  The girls in the Gothic summer house were talking about love: it was all very suitable. They wore their morning clothes, Alice a long blue skirt, tightly belted, and a striped blouse with a short tie, Kitty a white muslin dress and long black stockings. They had been carrying hats. The summer house was in the wood, well placed in a sunny clearing overlooking the narrow valley. They had walked across two fields and through a wicket gate to reach it and, though Kitty was holding a book which she was supposed to be reading aloud (they were doing Ruskin) they felt themselves far enough from the intimidating influence of old Mrs Weston to neglect their studies. Kitty was envying Alice for having had the unhappy love affair to which she had at last admitted.

  ‘Then of course you will never marry,’ said Kitty. ‘You will devote your life to lost causes. Have you ever thought of becoming a nun?’

  ‘I don’t think I should care for it,’ said Alice. ‘And the truth is not so much that I shall never marry as that no one will ever marry me. Everyone knows, you see, at home, so of course no man in his right mind would have anything to do with me.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Kitty. ‘It would be all right if you were a widow. But anyway you can’t want to marry, surely? I mean, you will never love again, will you?’

  ‘Oh dear, I don’t think it’s as romantic as that. I didn’t love so very much then anyway. I mean that I – I was attracted and I admired him and but love doesn’t really begin until it is returned. At least that’s what I think. And this was not returned, so it amounted to nothing.’

  ‘But it must have been returned a little?’

  ‘He was flirting,’ said Alice firmly ‘He liked going for walks with me and holding my hand and – that sort of thing – and then he married someone else.’

  ‘Beast,’ said Kitty. ‘I hate men anyway. I shan’t marry. I’m going to go about teaching the poor about birth control. You can come with me if you like.’

  ‘Oh Kitty, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Why not? These poor women get absolutely worn out with childbirth. It’s quite disgraceful. Just because the men come home drunk on Friday nights and wreak their filthy passions on them. Well, they do. Why are you laughing?’

  ‘I’m not. I mean I know there is something in it, but, oh dear.’

  ‘And then anyway don’t you think it might not be so simple as that? Perhaps the women sometimes like it?’

  ‘Like having babies? Oh you mean like? Good heavens, no, that’s quite impossible. Well, really, Alice it is. No one could possibly enjoy it I know, because I’ve read about it in the medical dictionary and it must be simply revolting.’

  ‘Hush! Someone’s coming.’

  Kitty picked up the book and began to read at a rattling pace: ‘but most of our great teachers, not excepting Carlyle and Emerson themselves, are a little too encouraging in their proclamation of this comfort, not to my mind very sufficient, when for the present our fields are full of nothing but darnel instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley, and none of them seem to me yet to have enough insisted on the inevitable power and infectiousness of all evil, and the easy and utter extinguishableness of good Medicine often fails of its effect, but poison never, and while, in summing up.’ But looking up she burst out laughing, because it was Edmund, and she could see from his face that he knew she had only just picked up the book.

  He had carried out his plan to come down to Charleswood and work in peace for his examinations, and had already been there for some days. He persuaded them now to come with him for a walk, saying that it was so late in the morning that it would be better to leave Ruskin for after lunch.

  Old Mrs Weston was on her way back from the village in her car, driven by her chauffeur Ralph Moberley. She lived in a certain style at Charleswood, with her own rooms at the top of the house, her own maid, Fletcher, whom she loathed, and Moberley and the Silver Wraith, to both of whom she was devoted. The Silver Wraith had a glass screen between driver and passenger, and a speaking tube. When she was bored, which was quite often, she would send for the car and Moberley, and they would drive about the countryside, talking on the speaking tube. The idea of sending for Moberley and talking to him without the intercession of the speaking tube, which would have saved her many meaningless journeys and pointless calls, would never have occurred to her.

  Today he was driving her back from the village, where she had been to see old Mrs Maidment and taken her some meat jelly. Mrs Maidment lived in the almshouses and was probably dying. She was not yet as old as Mrs Weston, but she had lost her memory, so that she still sewed buttons on to her husband’s shirts, and sometimes got his tea ready for him, though he had been dead three years.

  ‘I believe that in some primitive tribes,’ said old Mrs Weston down the tube, ‘they kill off the old people as soon as they become a burden to the community. I dare say there’s something in it.’

  ‘As long as they’re not a burden to themselves,’ said Moberley.

  ‘You think they should be allowed to survive until they become that?’

  ‘I think everybody should be allowed to live out the term of their natural life,’ said Moberley firmly. ‘But it’s when they become a burden to themselves that you can’t help wishing their natural life might come to this end. Like Mrs Maidment there.’

  ‘How’s Beatrice?’

  ‘Much the same, thank you, ‘m.’

  ‘Still pressing you?’

  He smiled. He was rather handsome.

  ‘You’re mad if you do it.’

  ‘I want a good wife, that’s all. Not o
ne of these flighty creatures. You don’t know what they’re up to the minute you turn your back.’

  ‘She’s got a mean mouth.’

  ‘A good head, though I need someone with a strong character. I’m weak myself. That’s always been my trouble.’

  ‘You’re not in the least weak. It’s just that Beatrice is much cleverer than you. What you want is a nice cheerful wife like little Ellen.’

  He did not answer.

  ‘You like her don’t you?’ persisted Mrs Weston interferingly.

  ‘Well, I do, yes ‘m. But you see the trouble is, I’m afraid she’s one of the flighty ones like I was saying. And I’ve seen where that can lead I don’t want that sort of trouble.’

  ‘She’d settle down. Does she like you?’

  ‘I think she does. But you see there was the baker. A year ago it was all the baker. Then he went off, married a girl from somewhere near Marlborough, went to live there, I believe, and that was the end of that.’