by E. H. Young
“This is the first I’ve heard of your nice plans. They might happen oftener if you told me about them.”
“Oh, it’s not that I’m doing without things you might manage to give me, not that kind of thing at all.”
“They all lived happily ever after, is that it?”
“Yes,” Sandra said unwillingly. “Is it stupid?”
“No, I don’t think fairy tales are stupid.”
“Well, really,” Sandra admitted, “I’m afraid it’s more like tracts. Everybody good and happy all of a sudden, you know. And why aren’t they always, anyway? That’s what puzzles me. I mean why wasn’t it arranged like that?”
“I’m glad it wasn’t,” Rosamund said briskly. “I think that would have been very dull. Most of the fun of life,” and she thought of Mrs. Blackett, “comes from the impact of one person on another. Most of the sorrow, too. People may be charming, separately but devils when they are together. That’s interesting, risky too, and perhaps interesting just because it’s risky.”
“Oh,” Sandra said. “Yes, I see. So perhaps a plan I’ve made, in case of need, wouldn’t do after all.”
“In case of need?”
“Well, you never know, do you?”
“No.” Rosamund laughed. “That’s another good thing. What’s this plan of yours?”
It was, though Sandra did not know it, the plan Rhoda, for a different reason, had made already.
“I thought it might be very convenient, some day, and very nice too, if Miss Spanner married Mr. Lindsay. I don’t suppose, at his age, he’d mind about her rather funny looks.”
“Don’t you?” Rosamund said, thinking this child was much younger in some ways for her years than most of her contemporaries.
“Well, would he?” Sandra inquired. “And though I like his face, he isn’t handsome himself, is he? And then, Miss Spanner would take care of him. He ought to have someone to do that.”
“There’s that George of his,” Rosamund said.
“A woman would be better. They think of things.”
“And yet I hadn’t thought of that,” Rosamund said, as though to herself.
“You have such a lot to think of,” Sandra said excusingly, but her mother had no sense of guilt. She was delighted to realize that her feelings for Piers were free of any maternal tinge. She was seeking her own happiness, she hoped he was seeking his, as young lovers did, as all lovers should, without any thought of giving care and kindness, though perhaps with some hope of receiving both, and Sandra, seeing the brightness of her eyes when she looked up and the serious yet soft lines of her mouth, characteristically attributed this air of tender pleasure to her mother’s hope of good fortune for her friend.
“So you think it’s a good idea,” Sandra said.
“I don’t think Agnes would.”
“Oh well, it was just in case.”
“In case of what?” Rosamund asked quickly, but Sandra did not answer.
“It’s funny,” she said, “that what’s good for some people has to be bad for others. A good thing oughtn’t to be able to hurt anybody. When you get a prize, for instance, it means that someone else doesn’t. Or two people in love with the same person. One of them gets hurt. It seems as if there isn’t enough niceness to go round.”
“Not all at the same time anyhow. I suppose the important thing is not what we get but what we do with it, or how we do without it.”
“Yes.” For herself, Sandra found no difficulty there. It was all the other people for whom she was concerned and, knowing this, Rosamund said, “You can’t bear everybody’s burdens.”
“But we’re told to.”
“Yes, if we can. I think that’s the point. There are a great many that simply won’t be shifted from one back to another and then it’s no good worrying. Waste of energy. That’s one of the few things I’ve learnt so far, though it was never one of my temptations to bother much. And another thing I’ve learnt is that you have to learn everything for yourself. Advice from one’s elders is quite useless, so I won’t give you any.”
“You’ve been giving it all the time,” Sandra said with pleasing pertness, and Rosamund went away, thinking it odd that she and Fergus, each with a strong sense of self, had produced this little creature who seemed to have none.
“If James and Sandra could be mixed,” she said to Miss Spanner, “the result would be a person like my father.”
“But you can’t mix them, so you’ll have to put up with them as they are.”
“Willingly and gratefully,” Rosamund said.
“H’m,” said Miss Spanner. “And you would have thought—”
“That’s most unlikely. Keep to the first person, Agnes.”
“Very well. Then I’d have thought Felix would have stayed at home to-night.”
“Why should he?”
“To keep us company, of course; the place feels empty, and we’d be better company than what he’s keeping, I’ll be bound. What do you imagine he’s doing?”
“I don’t imagine anything, on principle.”
“Your principles seem to me to be a complete lack of them.”
“But you have plenty. There’s no sense in two people doing the same job.”
She sat down, studying the familiar figure of her friend, rearranging her hair, stripping her of the dark blue dress patterned in large white zigzags, its open neck modestly veiled with muslin, putting her feet into shoes which had not belonged to the late Mrs. Spanner and coming, as usual, to the conclusion that it would be a form of sacrilege to tamper with anything unique.
“And you darn so much better than I do,” she added, watching Miss Spanner’s needle going in and out. “And pay me handsomely for letting you do it. It’s not fair but it suits me very well. Still, when Chloe goes and Felix gets a salary I could easily manage with less.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Miss Spanner. “I went to see about a wireless set this afternoon.”
“I don’t see the connection.”
“Not yet,” said Miss Spanner darkly. “I thought I’d get one of my own. There’ll be a lot to listen to soon if I’m not much mistaken.”
“You are often very much mistaken, but I’m afraid you’re right about that.”
“And I hadn’t the faintest idea—how could I have?—so you can’t say I was poking my nose where it wasn’t wanted. It must have been the hand of Providence that led me there. You see, it wasn’t the shop I’d meant to go to but, I don’t know how, I found myself inside.”
“Was it very difficult?”
“What?”
“Getting in. You sounded rather tottery or as though there were obstructions.”
“Don’t try to be funny,” said Miss Spanner. “As I’ve said before, it’s a queer thing that you and I can never have a straightforward conversation and if you don’t want to hear any more I won’t bore you with it,” but before Rosamund could reply and thwart her, she said quickly, “It’s in that shop the will-o’-the-wisp gets her living. At least,” she added, “one hopes so.”
“Will-o’-the-wisp?” Rosamund’s questioning tone was genuine. Then she remembered. “The girl who was having tea with Felix?”
“Yes. It must have been her early closing day.”
“And she works in a shop. Like Chloe. That’s all right. I hope you bought something. I expect she gets a commission.”
“I said I’d go again to-morrow.”
“For another look?”
“To give you a chance, too,” and as this remark provoked no immediate reply, Miss Spanner looked up a little timidly, but only one eye was fixed on Rosamund; the other was intently examining her own nose.
“Yes, you may well squint,” Rosamund said at last, “I hate to insult you, but that pretty idea is worthy of your mother. I’m sure she used to spy through the keyhole when she sus
pected the servant of having a young man in the kitchen. I daresay she spied through your bedroom keyhole too.”
“She couldn’t. I took care of that,” said Miss Spanner, and Rosamund’s scorn was changed to laughter.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose I do lots of things you’d think much worse than that.”
“What?” Miss Spanner asked eagerly but again getting no reply, she said, “And anyhow, it’s all Paul’s fault. That boy’s nothing but a nuisance. He never leaves the wireless alone. I’m not going to have him touching mine. It was when yours had to be repaired that Felix must have met that girl. I’m pretty sure that’s the shop he went to. I’ll ask him, shall I? I’ll ask him the best place for buying one and you’ll see that won’t be the place he recommends.”
“I’d much rather you didn’t.”
“Very well,” said Miss Spanner, compressing her lips. “Have it your own way. And if you like, as you’re so scrupulous, I’ll go to another shop myself.”
“No, don’t do that. She may be hungry. Perhaps that’s why Felix took her out to tea. Does she look hungry?”
“She looks like thistledown. Elusive. I told you that before. But she’s a good saleswoman and that bears out another thing I told you. She’s as hard as nails. But she’ll get a surprise, won’t she, when I tell her where to send the set? She may even get a bit of a fright.”
“How?” Rosamund asked.
“I don’t look very prosperous, do I? That will be a disappointment.”
“You look shabby enough to be suspected of great wealth. But Agnes,” Rosamund said reluctantly, “just tell me one thing. Has she a nice voice?”
“Voice all right,” said Miss Spanner. “Vowels very refined.”
Chapter XXVII
Mr. Blackett, when he entered his house that evening, took a look at himself in the hall mirror before he removed his hat and, trying to look without prejudice, he saw what would have arrested his own respectful attention. Observing this person with the neat beard, the black hat set at a very slightly rakish angle, the well-cut jacket, the bow tie, his carefully groomed appearance in interesting contrast with his other-worldly air, he would have been curious, recognizing this stranger as someone very different from the ordinary Radstowe man of business. He would not have been amused, yet Mrs. Fraser’s smile, when she looked at him from her balcony, had promised to develop into laughter. There were all kinds of laughter. There was the one of pure joy, though he had never heard it, and there was the painful laughter, almost like sobbing, he had heard once from Bertha, but he did not think Mrs. Fraser was threatened with that kind of hysterical outburst; had he not presented himself to her in his shirt and socks, reminding her—and he frowned angrily and hung up his hat—of some ridiculous playing-card? She had seemed to have some satisfactory little joke of her own about him, but he flattered himself that he was not the kind of man about whom little jokes could be made. No, Mrs. Fraser’s attitude towards him could be otherwise explained. Like all inferior people, she had to mock at what intellectually and in every other way was beyond her reach and this thought took him brightly into his wife’s drawing-room.
“And what have you been doing with yourself on this fine day?” he inquired.
She looked up from her sewing without troubling to smile. The natural set of her lips was already amiable enough. “I did some shopping and then Mrs. Fraser and I sat on the hill and ate chocolates.”
“My dear Bertha! Couldn’t you find some better use for your leisure?”
“How?” Mrs. Blackett asked so unexpectedly that Mr. Blackett was momentarily at a loss.
“Anyhow!” he exclaimed.
“Such a beautiful view,” she said.
“I grant you the view,” Mr. Blackett said generously.
“And a charming acquaintance.”
“Oh, acquaintance! I was afraid you were going to say friend.”
“No,” she said gravely, “I wouldn’t take that liberty.”
Turning from her, he swung on his heels and felt strangely baffled. Usually, in his study, in the dining-room, that movement brought him opposite a window; here his outlook was blocked by the pale inner wall of the drawing-room. Two pale water-colours hung on it, one on each side of an elegant little settee on which no one ever sat and, facing that demure pallor, he seemed, for a moment, to be hopelessly imprisoned. But he managed to break out.
“And eating chocolates out of doors!” he said. “Like schoolgirls!”
“Yes, it was absurd. I felt quite young,” she said, and Mr. Blackett heard another kind of laughter, a clear, unemotional sound evoked by the memory of a pleasant, unemotional moment.
“A decent courtesy towards a neighbour is one thing,” said Mr. Blackett, addressing the pale wall and looking, though he did not know it, like a child made to face it for a punishment.
“But going for a walk and having a talk with her is quite another,” said Mrs. Blackett to save him the trouble. “But it’s the other thing that is so attractive and sometimes,” she added on a higher but not a louder note, “sometimes it’s the other person,” and as though Mr. Blackett knew that the time for his release had not yet come and, docile, would not move until the word was given, he remained just as he was, standing quite still, but he gave a little laugh and said, “I’ve never really looked at these pictures before. Where did they come from?”
“From home.”
“Home?” Mr. Blackett said in pained reproof.
“My old home.”
“Yes, of course.” His tone was a humorous comment on the contents of that home. “Well, one rather wonders whether the artist meant them to be looked at. I hardly think he can have expected it,” and turning at last, he saw to his surprise, an increased look of contentment on his wife’s face. He had meant to hit her back for the little blow he thought she had directed against him, but perhaps it had been unintentional, while his own, carefully aimed, seemed to be accepted with enjoyment, and he realized his foolish readiness to mistake simplicity for subtlety. A little guiltily conscious as he was of his preoccupation—half pleasure and half vexation—with his neighbour, he was apt to find a meaning in Bertha’s words which was not there, but how could she, in her innocence, suspect him of this teasing self-indulgence or understand it? She would be shocked and completely puzzled by it, as though she were reading intellectually erotic poetry and, with this comparison, Mr. Blackett found a happy, though vague explanation of his state. It satisfied him however; it excused what his respectability condemned. He had been thwarted in his ambitions and out of duty and necessity he had repressed them, but he was an artist by temperament, susceptible to every form of beauty. He had missed physical ecstasy too and it was mere chance that a certain woman’s beauty, it might just as well have been another’s, had stirred him into restlessness of mind and body, his mind wasting itself in speculations about a creature who, without intellect of her own, could have been a spur to his through the satisfaction of his senses. Denying himself what she seemed to offer, he found relief in the desire to humiliate and hurt her. No, it would be quite impossible, even if it would be wise, to try to tell Bertha that.
“So you agree with me about the pictures,” he said.
“They are not very good pictures,” said Mrs. Blackett, “but one doesn’t always like things because they are good. Or people,” she added.
“But one should,” he protested. “That is why I like you,” he added with tender playfulness for, whatever temporary discontents she roused in him, he came back to the permanent security she promised and her accidental shrewdness always amused when it did not faintly startle him.
“And your companion of this morning,” he said, “is like the paintings. Recognized as not very good, but agreeable to you in some way. But be careful, Bertha. You must trust me to know more of the world than you do and I don’t care to think of you sitting up the
re on the hill with her in any kind of intimacy.”
“I can well understand that,” Mrs. Blackett said with warm sympathy, and Mr. Blackett did not quite know what to do with this remark. Its sincerity had a flavour of defiance, but there was none in her expression. She had laid down her work and this time she really smiled at him, pleased, apparently, to meet him on common ground.
“Then why—?” he said.
“Why not?” she replied. “I spend a great deal of time with my bad pictures. Why shouldn’t I spend a little with Mrs. Fraser, even if she isn’t very good? I like my pictures and I like her. And why don’t you think she’s good?”
“I know enough to persuade me of that,” he said, “and I would rather you were not seen with her in Upper Radstowe. She is very well known here.”
“Of course. She spent her childhood in that house. So did her father.”
“Yes, that’s the pity of it. I think it my duty,” he said regretfully, “to tell you that Mrs. Fraser is not a widow.”
“Isn’t she?” Mrs. Blackett cried. “Oh, poor thing!” she mourned, in the most animated exclamation he had ever heard from her, but, a little fuddled with the pleasure of making this revelation, he heard nothing peculiar in her words or her look of grief. “And she seems so happy!” Mrs. Blackett said.
“Yes, that’s what one finds so distressing. Rather blatant.”
“Or brave,” Mrs. Blackett said. “Is her husband in prison or something?”
Mr. Blackett laughed. “I believe he is a perfectly respectable person. I imagine he has been obliged to leave her.”
“And what obliged him? His business?”
“His self-respect,” Mr. Blackett said.
Mrs. Blackett was silent for a moment. “What a lot of it he must have,” she said.
“And what do you mean by that, exactly?” he asked, coming to himself.
“It must have been difficult to leave her,” she answered slowly. “She’s pretty, but it’s much more than that. What is it?” she asked in innocent inquiry. “I think it must be because she’s so full of life, but not fussily, not noisily. She seems to have some secret way of enjoying every minute. She doesn’t say anything particularly interesting, but she makes you feel that everything is. She’s welcoming, she’s warm,” Mrs. Blackett said, lingering on the words and, as he heard his own thoughts falling relentlessly from his wife’s lips, it was all Mr. Blackett could do not to lift his hands to his ears and cry imploringly, “Don’t!”
