by E. H. Young
“This is no time for getting married,” was Miss Spanner’s comment, when Rosamund told her of Chloe’s engagement and, almost in the same breath, she said, “Did you see Mr. Lindsay yesterday?”
A little startled by the proximity of these remarks, Rosamund at once said, “Yes.”
“I can’t think how,” said Miss Spanner. She had recovered her spirits but she was still a little uneasy. She could not forget that calculating look in Mr. Lindsay’s eyes. “I’ve been trying to work it out.”
“You would,” Rosamund said.
“He was here all the afternoon so perhaps you saw him in the morning,” Miss Spanner suggested. “Or when you were coming home. But then you were with James, weren’t you?”
“Yes, we came back together. I wish he hadn’t gone away.”
“Better if it had been Felix who had gone,” said Miss Spanner, compressing her lips.
“Don’t you like him as much?”
“I wasn’t thinking of my own preferences. I wish he was having his holiday now instead of later.”
“So do I.”
“But not for your reasons.”
“No?” Rosamund said with light indifference.
“And,” said Miss Spanner, annoyed by this airy manner, “I wonder I don’t hate the sight of you.”
“Perhaps you will some day.”
“Why?” said Miss Spanner sharply.
“Just satiety,” Rosamund said in the same light tone.
“Oh.” Miss Spanner was disappointed and returned to the attack. “What I find so trying is that you never converse.”
“I hope not. It sounds awful.”
“I can’t keep you to the same subject for two minutes. You won’t even answer a simple question if you can help it.”
“Agnes, your questions are never simple but then, neither am I. And d’you know what I think you ought to do? Take a course of severe reading—philosophy or something—or learn a language. That would keep your mind occupied.”
“It’s very well occupied, thank you.”
“It’s occupied but not very well.”
“That isn’t my fault,” said Miss Spanner primly. “But I wish I’d learnt languages long ago.”
“You can get a nice little set of books that teach you in about three months.”
“Too late,” said Miss Spanner. “I’d like to know what they’re really saying over there when they sound like the Zoo let loose.”
“Oh, we know near enough. But it’s a very large Zoo, and unfortunately there are no bars in it, or round it. I don’t like animals to be kept in cages, but I’d fasten all those up without the slightest qualm and keep them fastened up, too. We’ve been pretending, all this time, that there are only a few dangerous ones among them; the others are quite harmless; nice, gentle creatures, almost pets. That’s the part they played after the war and here they are again, following the bigger beasts and yelping enthusiastically when they roar, but they’ll be quite ready to behave nicely again if necessary.”
“But will it be necessary?” asked Miss Spanner. “That’s the point.”
“Just misled, poor dears,” Rosamund murmured, then turning on Miss Spanner, she cried, “Of course it will be necessary! I’d rather be dead than part of that menagerie.”
“Pray don’t be obvious,” Miss Spanner begged.
“No, I needn’t talk like that to you. But I’m sick of holding my tongue. We’re all afraid of saying what we think about the things that really matter in case some other fool may call us obvious or sentimental or immoderate, or accuse us of bad taste. We’re far too moderate and far too tolerant, so steeped in moderation,” she said, speaking very fast, “that we refuse to believe other people are not, in spite of all the evidence. We mustn’t think they’re worse in any way than we are. That would be self-righteous. Judge not that ye be not judged. I think that was rather an unfortunate remark. Of course no one has any evil intentions. They are sheep in wolf’s clothing, just dressed up for fun, that’s all!”
“Go on,” said Miss Spanner as Rosamund paused for breath. “I like to see you in a temper.”
“Do you call this a temper? I feel like screaming the place down! But we don’t do that. We shrug our shoulders and hope for the best and believe in it too! But what’s the good of talking, after all? I’m going to see the bank manager. I must have some money for Chloe’s clothes.”
“Don’t get too many,” Miss Spanner advised significantly.
“Don’t croak,” said Rosamund.
“Well, I like that!” said Miss Spanner indignantly.
“But start writing a novel.”
“Me?’ said Miss Spanner. “As though I’d dare. I’ve much too high a standard.”
“Oh, you needn’t try to get it published,” Rosamund said easily. “I just thought it might get some of your funny ideas out of your system. If you wrote down all the mysteries you make out of nothing, you’d see how silly they are.”
“That would only be through lack of skill,” said Miss Spanner. “They’re not so silly as you think. For instance, there’ll be trouble across the road, sooner or later.”
“Bound to be.”
“Why?” asked Miss Spanner, with jealousy for her own perspicacity.
“You know best, Agnes. You always do.”
“There you are again! I can never get a straight answer out of you,” Miss Spanner complained.
“I don’t want to spoil your fun,” Rosamund said.
She went out into the Square and stood still for a minute, listening to the familiar sounds, the usual sounds of the traffic she could not see, an errand-boy whistling, footsteps, the church clock striking the half hour. Nothing came from the river, it must be low tide, and the beasts in the Zoo, here, were silent. Like the other beasts, in another country, it was at night they roared, but not with frenzy, not gathering for the hunt; theirs was the awful indignation of the wrongfully imprisoned who have no redress. And Mrs. Blackett, watching from behind the dining-room curtains and ready to follow Mrs; Fraser, as she often did, and meet her on their shopping excursions, saw her lift her hands a little way and drop them and imagined that the movement synchronized with a breath drawn and let out. And she was right for, whatever might be wrong with this country of hers, there was still freedom in it and Rosamund expressed her thankfulness with that sigh and made a token gesture of love with the raising of her arms. She had never set foot outside her native land, but that did not affect her certainty that there was none to equal it, either for the quality of its people or its beauty; the toleration she had abused matched by the landscape which, at its most spectacular, had a comparative restraint, and she did not believe there were any meadows like English ones, any villages as snug or old houses more gracious. It was possible that there were no worse slums and she knew that under those pale hills at which she looked so often from her own little hill above the river, there was a ghastly mess of deserted works, miles and miles of them, the iron of them ironically red with rust while the faces of the men who had worked there once and of the boys who had looked there for a living and been denied it were pale with the lack of iron in their blood. And they were patient, with bitterness but without violence, and these were some of the men who might be called on to fight. They would do it and, still without more violence than was inherent in the dreadful job, with too little anger against their enemies and too much belief that they were of the same stuff as themselves, unwilling and decent victims of necessity.
The gentle sound made by Mrs. Blackett as she shut the front door behind her broke into Rosamund’s meditations and she looked round.
“How nice!” she said.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Blackett.
Her dress was not draped over a bustle and she was not wearing a bonnet but, as usual, she gave that impression and, as usual, Rosamund felt, th
ough she did not believe, that this woman of another generation, like her own mother in an early photograph, should be deferred to a little and spared close contact with the thoughts and habits of a less sheltered age. She found it difficult not to take Mrs. Blackett’s arm at the crossing near the church and pilot her safely to the other side, but the policeman on duty, saluting Rosamund, saw them over safely.
“I always feel very grand when he does that,” Rosamund said.
“But you must be used to that kind of thing,” said Mrs. Blackett simply.
“I’ve lived here for so long,” Rosamund said, “and yet,” she reminded herself, “as much out of it as in it. It’s only, I suppose, because the important things have happened to me here. There was the war and Felix and James and Chloe were born here. I was living with my father in the house we have now.”
“May I ask you, please forgive me if I shouldn’t,” Mrs. Blackett said gently, “but I’ve often wondered whether he was killed, your husband.”
“Wounded three times,” Rosamund said, “but he wasn’t killed.” She laughed. “If he had been how could I account for Sandra and Paul?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. How stupid of me.”
“Or perhaps how nice,” Rosamund said, and their eyes met in a shared amusement. The bustle and the bonnet, Rosamund decided, were only a disguise. They had no correspondence with Mrs. Blackett’s mind and she, sustaining her air of amusement, announced that wherever they came from, Mrs. Fraser had charming children.
“They seem so alive and so—so free,” she said, “and yet they are never aggressive.”
“Not even Paul?” Rosamund said. “I’m afraid he’s rather given to jumping on to Mr. Blackett’s flat roof. It’s a great temptation.”
“I can understand that,” Mrs. Blackett said, with, Rosamund fancied, just a suspicion of dryness. And it suddenly occurred to her that she and Mrs. Blackett were missing a good deal through not seeing more of each other.
“Have you much shopping to do?” she said. “I must go to the bank, but afterwards shall we meet and have coffee somewhere?”
“I’d rather meet you on the hill,” Mrs. Blackett said.
“Would you? Much nicer. Then we’ll wait for each other there.”
It was Mrs. Blackett who waited and Rosamund, who had resented Mr. Blackett’s presence on her hill, was glad to see his wife there, sitting very straight on a seat that faced the hidden Channel. She enjoyed the company of men; their presence enlivened her and whether she had detained the bank manager or he had detained her, she was not sure; but like many other women, she found her own sex more interesting. Their minds, being less direct, were more amusing to follow and the mind of a woman who had married Mr. Blackett, remained married to him and still seemed content, must either be nearly empty or else full of surprises.
Mrs. Blackett turned as she heard quick footsteps and, looking at Mrs. Fraser with her own share of curiosity, she noted again, with envy, the air of youth and enjoyment she wore about her, naturally, without the effort which might have made her foolish.
“I’ve brought some chocolates,” she said. “Soft ones so that our cheeks won’t bulge and we can get rid of them quickly if we see anyone we know. It’s most undignified to be discovered eating.”
Mrs. Blackett dipped into the bag. “I know very few people here,” she said, and she might have added “or anywhere”. She might have told Mrs. Fraser that since the fleeting friendships of her schooldays she had never before spent a few idle moments like this with a woman to whom it would be easy to talk freely, not thinking carefully before she spoke or regretting her words afterwards, but the habit of reserve was very strong in her; she could not take proper advantage of this opportunity.
“Don’t let’s be polite with the chocolates,” Rosamund said. “Let’s eat as many as we want. Bad for the figure but good for the rest of one, not to be everlastingly holding back.”
“And yet,” said Mrs. Blackett, speaking in a low, toneless voice, as though to herself, “there can be a very great pleasure in doing that.”
“A form of self-indulgence?”
“It can be that,” Mrs. Blackett said.
Rosamund took another chocolate. “I approve of self-indulgence so long as it hurts no one else. It’s a very harmless kind that doesn’t.”
“There’s one’s own character to consider,” Mrs. Blackett said, still seeming to commune with herself, “but that’s one’s own affair, or,” she turned to Rosamund, “is that impossible?”
“Quite,” was the cheerful answer. “We’re all tied up together. The best things we do often have terrible results, so what’s to be done about it? Be good and risk the consequences, or just do as we like and risk them again? Meaning to do right is one thing but sometimes it’s quite another to recognize it. Perhaps we’ll be judged by our intentions, though it’s still rather hard on the people who suffer from them. What a speech! That’s the second I’ve made to-day. Agnes had the benefit of the other,” and as Mrs. Blackett, remaining silent, seemed to put a closure on this discussion, Rosamund said, “My Chloe is going to be married.”
Inevitably, Mrs. Blackett was drawn from her own meditations by this interesting information. “She’s very young, isn’t she?”
“No younger than I was.”
“I suppose not. No younger than I was, either. I expect,” she said, and Rosamund thought Mrs. Blackett’s brown eyes were pathetic but half hopeful above the serenity of her mouth. “I expect you will find it difficult to believe that I was only forty on my last birthday,” and without stopping to think or to fear that Mrs. Blackett might be hurt, Rosamund said quickly, “It’s your clothes,” and then waited a little anxiously for a reply.
It came meekly. “I know.”
“Was that rude?” Rosamund asked. “You needn’t answer. It was, but I couldn’t help it. Chloe and I—she’s in a dress shop, you know—always want to meddle with other people’s clothes. My own are nothing; I can’t afford good ones. I run these cotton things up myself and you’d be shocked if you saw them inside out, still, one gets an effect, and it angers me when superior people say such things are not important. It’s important to make everything as beautiful as we can.”
“I quite agree,” Mrs. Blackett said, “if I put myself into your hands I’m sure you would do a great deal to improve me and I should like that, but,” she said, looking, Rosamund thought, rather odd, “on the whole I think I get rather more fun out of looking as I do.”
Chapter XXVI
Afterwards, Rosamund wondered whether Mrs. Blackett, half opening that door to intimacy, had been disappointed when her timid or tacit invitation had not been accepted; at the moment, it had been difficult to know how to respond and Rosamund had hoped her smile was adequate, suggesting interest without curiosity, but there had been more than tact in her restraint. It seemed unfair to encourage confidences when she meant to make none herself. There was even the possibility that Mrs. Blackett was more eager to receive than to give and offered something in the nature of a bait but, in spite of the natural frankness of her nature, Rosamund did not bite and Mrs. Blackett neither tempted nor appealed—whichever it might be—again. The smile could not have been adequate. Mrs. Blackett had very gently shut the door and Rosamund, with a little heartache, decided that she ought to have risked giving it a push. It was better to be snubbed, she thought, than to be unkind, though perhaps Mrs. Blackett considered she had said enough for the instruction of an intelligent person and Rosamund had a malicious pleasure that evening when she saw Mr. Blackett approaching the house in which his wife amused herself with a perpetual masquerade. “Poor fool!” she thought, smiling down at him from the balcony. It was strange to think that in a short time she might be connected with him by marriage. It was something of a deterrent too and, stepping back into the empty drawing-room, she wished she could find Piers sitting there.
When she was with him she had no doubts. In his absence the situation seemed unreal, rather absurd, inconvenient and, for one of her upbringing, faintly improper. And she did not like secrets; she hated the necessity for discretion; nevertheless, she knew that when she saw him again she would think it a very good secret, well worth a temporary discomfort. But he was not here now, she had not heard again from Fergus and the whole thing seemed fantastic and something of a bother. What on earth was she going to do with Agnes and the children and particularly with Agnes? Even the younger children would soon be setting out on their own voyages, while Agnes thought she had reached a permanent harbour. She had been persuaded into it and she liked it and there would be a peculiar cruelty in turning her out of it. It would be easier, Rosamund thought, to deny herself and Piers the happiness they looked for. “If she won’t come where I go, I shall have to stay here with her,” she thought as she went to the top of the house to say good night to Paul and Sandra. With Paul this was a mere matter of putting her head round the door and telling him to hurry; to-night, with Chloe away, staying with her future mother-in-law, Sandra would expect a lengthy visit.
“Sit there,” she said, leaning from her pillows to pat the end of the bed. “I do hope she isn’t feeling unhappy.”
“Who is it this time?”
“Chloe of course. In a strange place, you know, and I expect her mother-in-law is awfully—awfully upholstered. Inside and out. And wears very strong, very long stays.”
“Yes,” Rosamund agreed, “and she’ll be horrid to Chloe. I expect she’ll cry herself to sleep to-night and to-morrow she’ll be like a young lady in an old-fashioned novel and say she can’t marry Peter because his mother disapproves of her. And then she’ll fall into a decline and die.”
“Don’t make fun of me,” Sandra said.
“I certainly shall. What else can I do with you?”
“I’m not really pessimistic, only anxious about people I’m fond of. I like to be prepared for the worst and when it doesn’t happen, it’s such a lovely relief. And when the nice things I plan don’t happen either, I’m not much disappointed.”
