Statues in a Garden

by Isabel Colegate

  ‘We shan’t hear the nightingales again until next year.’

  ‘Yes, but you know,’ said Kitty, to whom she had spoken, ‘that hardly worries me at all.’

  ‘You have got terribly untidy.’

  ‘Bother.’ She patted her lace cap hopefully. ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘I like this wedding, don’t you? I think everybody is being nice, even horrors like the Tammies.’

  ‘You mustn’t speak like that about old family friends.’

  ‘They couldn’t have heard. Do you think it would matter if I took my shoes off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They are terribly uncomfortable.’

  ‘Never mind. Come and sit with me on this bench for a little and we will be unkind about people’s clothes.’

  Strawberries popping into Miss Moreton’s little mouth, between her big irregular teeth, one after the other, fat red strawberries dipped in sugar.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t want cream?’

  ‘I like them better like this. They taste quite different with cream.’

  ‘Or is it that you’re banting?’

  A blush. ‘Oh well, I. But I do really like them without cream.’

  Philip thought of Cynthia. The best thing in a way would be just the luxury of the first kiss, the softness of the mouth, its sad corners, the eyes closed, the lovely beginnings of laxity. Of course it wouldn’t be like that, she would be horrified, but, then, she is so strange, so unsuspecting, one might have reached her mouth before she drew away. But it couldn’t be more than a touch, I can see her look of outrage, she would.

  ‘Yes, we have certainly been lucky with the weather.’

  But I could make her, it would be better like that, I would hold her down, my fingers would bite into her soft upper arms, I would crush her, crush myself against her.

  ‘But all brides look the same, don’t you think? They all look radiant.’

  Because obscurely she must want it. I couldn’t want it so much myself otherwise. It must be so, she must want it. Do you want it, do you want my face pressed into your warm neck, my hand on your breast? Do you? For she was there now, she had walked up to them, smiling. He thought impatiently, Don’t smile that stupidly understanding smile which means, Thank you for talking to the dull Miss Moreton. Smile the other smile, the smile of complicity, like you did the evening I sat on the wall, when I had told you about the money.

  ‘Miss Moreton tells me she likes strawberries better without cream. Can’t I get you some?’

  My dear Edmund, it was in church that I realized it. I am sure you have no idea of this, but as a matter of fact you all behave in a slightly unusual way in church, I have always admired it before, even if it has sometimes amused me, but today I realized for the first time how horribly exclusive it is.

  You walk into the church as if it were the house of some relation of yours with whom you were on friendly and familiar terms, and before the service begins you talk quite loudly, sitting in your family pew, looking about you when you come in you kneel for a moment but with only that touch of deference due, as I said, to an older relation. The service is conducted in the way in which the vicar knows you like it, the psalms sung to the tunes you know, with no tiresome innovations, and the hymns, well, one or other of you has probably chosen them anyway, while consulting with the vicar about the lesson, which one or other of you will read. You like the hymns. You rise to your feet briskly and rather noisily when they begin, and sing lustily. Your father sings reasonably well, and the women’s voices don’t particularly stand out, but your hymn singing is noticeably loud, cheerful and inaccurate. No one else sings much at all, except one of your cowmen whose voice is nearly as loud as yours and a little more in tune. You turn round sometimes to look at him when you are singing and you smile at each other and afterwards say, ‘What would they do without us?’

  You must remember that I have spent a lot of time in church one way and another, because of Father being a dean, and the differences between your sort of church and mine, though small, seem to me significant. Of course I know that you are patrons of the living and so choose the vicar, and I know that you gave the altar cloths and the rugs, and most of the money for restoring the tower, and that the females of the family in Victorian times embroidered the kneelers, and that the monuments are mostly to vanished Westons, but during the sermon you either sleep obviously or make comments. I know that none of you snore, and the comments don’t usually go much beyond a hearty ‘Quite so, quite so’ from Sir Aylmer, or a croaking ‘Nonsense’ from old Mrs Weston, but – well, I wonder if you can see at all what I mean. Even today when the Bishop was there you were the same. Of course you were most respectful and charming to the Bishop, but a little as if he were your elderly relation’s most trusted, most faithful, most loved by you all since you were children, upper servant. Anyway in church today all this struck me most forcibly and I thought for the first time that it was not a joke, that you were quite right God is one of you and I am not.

  Poor Miss Moreton. She faded away, and we did not notice her go. I wonder why Philip is staring at me. Is he wishing that they would all go and that it was already this evening? But it is Violet’s wedding, my pretty daughter’s wedding. I can’t be wishing it were over. It must be that I am imagining that that is what he is thinking I expect I am wrong anyway. Probably my hat is crooked.

  ‘Is my hat crooked?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought perhaps – you seemed to be staring at me.’

  ‘I expect I was. I was wondering what you were thinking.’

  ‘I was wondering the same about you. I expect, if we guessed, we would both be wrong, don’t you think so?’

  My dear Alice, was it we who had tired you, without meaning to? I know we can be demanding sometimes, and you are so good, you see, you do too much. Mother, for instance, is used to having everything done for her by someone else, she takes it for granted. I love you for doing too much, and for being too simple ever to think of not doing yourself whatever needs to be done. In fact I love you I have got so used to saying that to you in my imagination that I could write it to you without any embarrassment or reserve. But you must understand, you do understand I am sure, that I can’t do anything that would distress them too much, I must break it to them gently, let them get over Violet’s wedding and then introduce them to the idea of you as their daughter-in-law. Because Mother can be quite difficult sometimes. Not that that worries me particularly, we can cope with Mother, you and I. But Father – I know you understand, won’t think it means I love you the less. I want it all to go quite slowly for us, I want the whole of the rest of our lives to be filled with it, with our development, I want it to be an eternal game of tennis, to and fro, to and fro, and we getting better all the time with practice, and never scoring, an endless sunlit game of tennis with the score for ever love all. You do understand? You don’t think I ought to be in some way more dashing in my love for you? Because of course I will try to do whatever you want. Only you see the sort of person that I am.

  Cynthia turned to Philip with her loveliest smile and said, ‘I mustn’t stand here talking to you. I can save you up for tonight, when we shall be alone.’

  It made him dizzy for a moment, and by the time he had recovered she had walked away.

  Edmund thought, I wonder why Philip is looking like that. I hope he hasn’t been drinking too much. I know he said some thing to Alice which upset her. I wish he wouldn’t do that. It’s all right for me, I know old Philip, I don’t take him seriously. I respect him, of course, for being different, for having some odd opinions. In his position I should be the same. I wonder what he really does think, though. We haven’t talked properly for a long time. We used to, but he has been so much more withdrawn lately. It may be because he has taken a bit of a risk in leaving the Army and all that, and will be on the defensive with us until it has proved a success. He doesn’t seem to talk to any of us intimately now, except M
other of course.

  ‘Edmund, I am rather tired, I am going to go in. But I can’t see Violet anywhere I must see her before I go. Do you suppose she has gone to change already?’

  ‘Sit down, Granny, and I’ll go and find out for you. Oh Kitty, has Violet gone to change?’

  ‘No, not yet, she’s over there.’

  ‘Granny’s going in, she wants to say good bye to her.’

  ‘I’ll go and tell her. No, you stay there, Granny. She’ll come to you.’

  ‘Kitty is enjoying herself.’

  ‘Yes.’ They are all enjoying themselves. So was I, until a moment ago. Exhaustion comes on me so quickly these days, and then everything changes, it is like a dark cloud across the sun, the same scene but differently lit, oh no, it is not the same at all.

  They all looked so pretty, a moment ago. Well, they look pretty now. But different.

  She was sitting, waiting for Kitty to bring Violet to her, on a bench on the terrace in front of the house, looking down on to the lawn. At the end of the lawn was the yew hedge and beyond that, hidden, a rose garden, before the park with its fine clumps of trees. On one side of the lawn was the formal garden in front of the orangery, on the other a walnut tree, longer grass, shrubs and trees with roses climbing them, that retreated into the distance, half wild and beautiful. Here where she sat the garden was tamed, the gravel paths carefully raked.

  It is like a lake, the lawn. We sit down and watch the people skating, in a Dutch painting, in muffs. I wish Violet would come, there is a little cold wind. One could almost believe they were on the ice. If I half shut my eyes because they are aching, the people more than ever seem to glide. The women especially. It is because of their hobble skirts, they had had to learn to walk like that. There is Cynthia, a superb skater, with attendant admirers a little behind, and Enid Tamworth, rather jerky, chattering all the time, in brilliant scarlet, startling among the surrounding sweet pea colours of this summer. They do make a pretty scene, even when one has clouded them over with one’s own tiredness and turned the smooth green lawn to ice they are so pretty and smart and lively. I must not go to sleep. It seemed to be getting dark, it must be late. But no, of course it doesn’t get dark until much later than this, this is the summer I must open my eyes properly. But I can’t, the reflections from the ice dazzle them. It is so bright. How can the skaters bear it, turning and gliding there, chattering and laughing? Doesn’t it make their eyes ache? Groups form and reform, now a figure dashes across the ice to take another by the hand, to lead it away, gliding more slowly, hand in hand. How bright it is, and how active they are. If I shut my eyes a little more the dazzle goes from the ice, now it is only soft grey and transparent, so smooth, and under it shapes moving slowly, so much more slowly than the skaters on top. Fish, I suppose. But how can they breathe without air? Someone should make a hole in the ice, oh, but it is all right, there is a crack in it, I can see it quite clearly, it’s odd that I didn’t notice it before. So the fish will be able to breathe. Is that why they are so close to the ice, bumping against it from underneath, so as to reach the air? They seem very large fish. Such great round heads But the crack! Is it safe for the skaters? Do they know? Shouldn’t some one warn them? And with those great fish underneath. If they are fish. Why doesn’t someone do something?

  ‘Why doesn’t someone do something?’

  ‘Mother, good heavens, what’s the matter?’ Aylmer bent down towards her Edmund was on the other side.

  ‘You ought to warn them,’ she said. ‘You must do it, Aylmer. It’s for you to do. You must warn them to get off.’ She waved her hand towards the lawn.

  ‘Do you mean to get off the grass? But I am reconciled to having it ruined.’ He sat down beside her on the bench and patted her arm soothingly. ‘It’s all beyond my control. But it will be all right, don’t worry.’

  And here was Violet coming across the lawn towards her, her hand on Wilfred’s arm, with Kitty beside them chattering, the sun was shining.

  ‘You have been a beautiful bride,’ said old Mrs Weston. ‘Everything that we had all hoped and expected of you. Hasn’t she, Wilfred?’

  ‘I should say so.’ Wilfred’s eyes – face, indeed – glowed with pride, happiness and general enthusiasm.

  ‘I do hope it hasn’t tired you, Granny. Shall I look in to say goodbye when I’ve changed, before we go?’

  ‘That would be sweet of you.’

  ‘I will then. It will be quite soon, because we must go, mustn’t we, Wilfred? I don’t want to at all. It’s been such fun.’

  ‘I’ll take you up,’ said Aylmer.

  Mrs Weston took his arm, and they went into the house.

  ‘It’s been a wonderful day, hasn’t it?’ he said.

  She agreed.

  ‘You sounded worried just now,’ he went on. ‘Or had you been dreaming?’

  ‘I had been dreaming,’ she said. ‘But sometimes I wonder if the life we lead is, in a sense, real life. I mean, do we not live as if we had already made the world fit for people to live in as we do, when in fact we have not done that?’

  ‘But I think we have, as far as England is concerned.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right.’

  ‘I’m sure I am.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And aren’t we all still working at it? You are always so general, you know, in your comments. To be particular, what more could I, for instance, do?’

  ‘You do so much. I don’t know I only know. It is all to do with the requirements of love, which are endless. The demands are limitless. It all depends on your idea of yourself, and on Man’s idea of Man. That’s all that matters. There isn’t any reality.’

  ‘You are too metaphysical for me.’

  ‘Kitty, now. You know, I think it is an excellent idea for her to do this course next year. She might be a teacher, or at least an influence. You see if humanity could be re-educated, redirected. That must be where the hope is, in the education of the young.’

  ‘Dear Kitty, she has some way to go herself before she starts directing others. Now here we are. Shall I ring for Fletcher?’

  ‘I suppose you will have to. Unbearable woman. I shall have to listen to her many comments on the wedding.’

  ‘Never mind, think what a nice day you can have tomorrow, driving about going over the whole thing with Moberley. Violet is coming to say good bye to you, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes I shall be all right now. Dear Aylmer. I wish everyone were like you.’

  ‘It would be a dull world if they were,’ he replied with his customary cheerfulness.

  Philip thought, I really want to destroy them. They are so artificial, everything that they say means something else everything is within the bounds of propriety, even impropriety, I want them to be blown away, the little bright bubble of their world to burst. Why? Because they irritate me, isn’t that enough? I want them to be blown to all the corners of the earth, and all their little trinkets lost. I want them to be frightened of me, instead of saying, ‘How nice for a young man to want to be a rebel,’ I want them to learn what they themselves are really like, I want them to face it, I want them to own up. Why won’t Cynthia be what she really is, why does she pretend to be this false creation of Aylmer’s? I could create her, I am creating her now, but I would create her as she really is. And all the time the whole thing borders on farce. Why doesn’t Cynthia clap her hands and say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I should like you all to go home, I should like you to leave me alone with my nephew in order that we may make love’? Well, she doesn’t say that because she doesn’t mean it. Or if she does mean it she doesn’t know she means it. Why doesn’t she mean it? And can one be said to want a thing if one doesn’t know one wants it? Yes, of course one can. And she must want it, she must I must make her want it.

  ‘You are rather naughty, Tammy. You are so gallant that soon nobody will believe a word you say about anything.’

  He protested, expostulated, explained. Cynthia, not listening, thought, He
is rather an old bore. I have always been fond of him, and enjoyed talking to him, and flirting with him, but today he strikes me as rather an old bore. I wonder if he has changed, or I, or neither of us? I would rather talk to Philip, flirt with Philip. Perhaps I am too fond of Philip. It is silly, I mustn’t let it show. But he makes everyone else seem dull. He doesn’t ever really let me know what he thinks of me. Of course he is fond of me, he must be, but I think he despises me a bit, he makes me feel foolish sometimes, and inadequate. It is funny, hardly anybody else makes me feel like that. But he must be fond of me. He talks to me, he comes to see me, even if its only to torment me, he touches me, he said he used to be in love with me when he was a child. Perhaps he is more fond of me than he would like to be, perhaps he would like to despise me more than he does, I quite like that idea. But he has women, that mistress with the cough, he probably doesn’t think of me at all, except as part of the background, his pseudo mother. I know that’s not true. I’m glad it’s not true. But I mustn’t be silly about Philip.

  ‘Violet, darling, I think you ought to go and change.’