Hotel du Lac

by Anita Brookner

  ‘The sad fact is that Mrs Pusey, although still game, suddenly looked rather old. But when, after long and sustained courtesies on the part of Mr Neville, she finally revealed that she was seventy-nine, we were all genuinely astonished. Calculations flashed through our minds; each of us knew exactly what the others were thinking. If Mrs Pusey admits to seventy-nine, then Jennifer must be about my age. Mine and Monica’s. And that is what she is. Jennifer, like me, is thirty-nine, although her curious combination of plump body and expressionless face makes her seem no older than fourteen. For what Jennifer insistently expresses, now that I come to think of it, is latency. She has the unsettling presence, or possibly the equally unsettling absence, of many adolescents; her apparently uninformed voluptuousness would be almost shocking if it were not cancelled by her daughterly obedience. Jennifer is blatantly wholesome, seemly, innocent. Yet in comparison, I, who am none of these things, feel like her maiden aunt.

  ‘It was then that Mrs Pusey, coaxed on by the attentive Neville, told us how the early years of her marriage were overshadowed by the completely inexplicable absence of children. Here another snowy handkerchief was produced from her bag, shaken out, and applied to the corner of her lips. “No matter how hard we tried,” she said, “nothing seemed to work.” She sighed reminiscently. This remark hung rather heavily in the atmosphere; Monica brooded, while I wished that I had left earlier, with Mme de Bonneuil. Then, after twelve years of selfless and dedicated “trying”, Mrs Pusey’s efforts were rewarded, and lo and behold, there was Jennifer. “My husband always wanted a little girl.” Here she turned to Jennifer, who flashed her an altogether expected smile and lovingly held out her hand. Thus encouraged, Mrs Pusey went on to regale us with anecdotes of Jennifer’s early years. Needless to say, these were all they would have hoped for, although she was outrageously spoiled. “Well, when you’ve waited so long, you tend to give them everything they want, don’t you? And my husband couldn’t bear to see her in tears. It upset him dreadfully. Iris, he used to say, let her have the best. I’ll leave you a blank cheque. And so we did, and she’s none the worse for a bit of spoiling, are you, darling?” Again, the smile, the outstretched hand. And certainly Jennifer’s glossy health would seem a more than adequate repayment for such efforts, on which, for some obscure reason, Mrs Pusey had to be congratulated all over again. I have to tell you, David, that among other things, Jennifer had a pony called Twig-let. And then we had the full recital again: Haslemere, Head Office, and how she has everything delivered.’

  Edith laid down her pen. This letter would have to be finished later, and even possibly revised. Unsound elements seemed to have crept into her narrative; she was aware of exceeding her brief. And was then aware of the restrictions that that brief implied: to amuse, to divert, to relax – these had been her functions, and indeed her dedicated aim. But something had gone wrong or was slipping out of control. What had been undertaken as an exercise in entertainment – for had not the situation seemed appropriate, tailor-made, for such an exercise? – had somehow accumulated elements of introspection, of criticism, even of bitterness. ‘Well, darling, what news from Cranford?’ David used to say, stretching out his long arm to gather her to him as they sat on her big sofa. And that had always been her cue to present him with her gentle observations, always skilfully edited, and to watch the lines of fatigue on his lean and foxy face dissolve into a smile. For that is how he saw me, she thought, and out of love for him that is how I tried to be.

  But now, possibly because of the champagne, she felt unsettled, wary. There seemed to be no immediate reason for this except fatigue, stretched nerves. The evening, of course, had gone on far too long after an extraordinary day. At some point, Monica had started to tell her story to Mrs Pusey, who listened with avid interest masked by an air of solicitous condescension. There seemed to be no means of escape. Jennifer, one ankle balanced on the opposite knee, this attitude permitted by the entirely modest amplitude of her harem pants, yet still managing to be both childish and inappropriate, seemed to have absented herself once more behind her docile face. She lay back in her chair, toying with her curls, her eyes watching from under half-closed lids; from her teeth a tiny thread of saliva hung glistening. Edith swallowed invisible yawns. She was aware that even Mr Neville was mildly inattentive, although his habitual courtesy of expression gave nothing away.

  They had still been there at midnight. Monica, once launched, was not to be side-tracked, and cigarette after cigarette was smoked. And Mrs Pusey had nothing really helpful to offer in the way of advice; indeed, memories of her own term of trial, so successfully concluded, inclined her only to bracing clichés, which had not gone down too well. Monica’s face had drooped into its habitual lines of discontent, and the evening had ended on a distinctly less harmonious note than that on which it had started, and, at one point, had bid fair to continue. At least Kiki was absent, shut into Monica’s bathroom again by Alain after yet another misdemeanour. M. Huber, somewhat disappointed in his role of master of ceremonies, had nevertheless stayed downstairs, hoping for words of appreciation. But these were not forthcoming. It seemed as if everyone were too tired to redeem the situation, and when Mr Neville offered his arm to Mrs Pusey she was only too happy to accept it. It took a little longer than usual for her to lever herself out of her chair, but finally she had left, leaning on Mr Neville, with Jennifer bringing up the rear.

  Edith, reaching the haven of her room, closing the door behind her, tried to discover the reason for her low spirits, which seemed intricately bound up with the events of this evening, and the thoughts it had provoked. Was it that she was simply a stranger to the very act of celebration? Mrs Pusey’s birthday, Jennifer’s imagined wedding, had seemed to her so very much more three-dimensional than anything she could remember in her own life. For her birthdays in her parents’ house, Edith herself had made the cake and her father had brought it in, ceremoniously, with the coffee. Those occasions had been brief and timid excursions into family life as she had supposed they might ideally live it; her mother was stimulated into reminiscences of the coffee houses of her youth, and had talked vividly and amusingly, before falling once again into the sorrow of reminiscence. By that time the coffee had been drunk and on the plate the cake lay in ruins, and when Edith carried it back into the kitchen, her birthday had been over. And there had never been any mention of weddings.

  And now, paradoxically, in the blessed silence and dimness of her room, Edith felt her own fatigue dissolve, and the underlying unease, of which she had been intermittently aware during the writing of her letter, began to stir, to increase, to take over. And at this very late hour, she felt her heart beat, and her reason, that controlling element, to fragment, as hidden areas, dangerous shoals, erupted into her consciousness. The careful pretence of her days here, the almost successful tenor of this artificial and meaningless life which had been decreed for her own good by others who had no real understanding of what her own good was, suddenly appeared to her in all their futility. Perhaps the champagne, the cake, the celebration, had eroded the barriers of her mind, trailing sly and unwelcome associations, making a nonsense of those careful arrangements she had worked out for herself, banishing amusement, returning her to seriousness and to painful reflection, demanding an accounting. She had thought that by consenting to this tiny exile she was clearing the decks, wiping the slate, and that she would be allowed to return, suitably chastened, in due course, to resume her life. ‘I am clearing the decks, Edith,’ she remembered her father saying, as he tore up the papers on his desk. ‘Just clearing the decks.’ He had smiled, but his eyes were full of sad knowledge. He had known that nothing would be the same for him again, that his stay in the hospital was not to be the brief interlude he had bracingly told her mother it would be. And he had not come home. And maybe I shall not go home, she thought, her heart breaking with sorrow. And beneath the sorrow she felt vividly unsafe, as she did when she saw that the plot of a novel would finally resolve itself, and how this
might be brought about.

  Sitting alone in the silence, she bowed her head and passed scrupulously in review the events that had brought her, out of season, to the Hotel du Lac.

  9

  On the day of her wedding Edith had woken earlier than usual, her senses alerted by the quality of the light, which was hard, white and uneasy, harbouring surprises of an unpleasant nature, far removed from the mature sunshine on which she had been counting. She took the weather as an omen, and her abrupt awakening as a sign, though of what she could not say or even think. More to the point, as she passed her dressing table she caught sight of her face and was shocked to see it so pale and drawn. I am no longer young, she thought; this is my last chance. Penelope is right. It is high time I forgot my hopes, the hopes I was born with, and faced reality. I shall never have that for which I long with my inmost heart. How could I? It is too late. But there are all the comforts of what is called maturity: pleasant companionship, comfort, proper holidays. It is a reasonable prospect. And I was always a reasonable woman, she thought. We are all agreed on that.

  And Geoffrey Long, that kind man who had been produced for her at that not too far distant dinner party, and who had been so lonely since his mother died: what more excellent guarantee could anyone produce of a safe and sensible future? Only a very innocent man, she thought, could play the traditional suitor so openly, and how impressed everyone had been, principally Penelope, but in the end even Edith herself, by his devotion, his generosity, his endless flowers, his fussy care, and finally his mother’s gloomy opal ring. And he had offered her a complete life, a new home to move into, new friends, even a cottage in the country, luxuries which she would never have thought to procure for herself. And he was a personable man, if a little old-fashioned in his views: he did not, for example, approve of women working, and he teased her about the amount of time she gave to her books. And there was something so agreeably straightforward, even comic, about his courtship. And everyone said how good he had been to his mother. Everyone said how lucky his wife would be. Everyone said how lucky Edith was. Penelope said it with that faintly nettled air that implied that she herself would have been a more worthy recipient. And Edith was constantly reminded of her good fortune. And, really, there was no need to disclaim any of this. She was lucky. I am lucky, she reminded herself, looking at that drawn face in the glass of her dressing table.

  She made a pot of very strong tea, and while she was waiting for it to draw she opened the kitchen door to inspect her garden. But there was a small and niggling wind which blew a tiny shower of dust around her ankles, and the door kept swinging backwards and forwards, interrupting the curious light, bringing intimations of cloud, although there was no cloud, and a cessation of things to be taken for granted. Like this little house, so long her private domain, a shell for writing in, for sleeping in, silent and sunny in the deserted afternoons, before the children came home from school, and turned in at other gateways. Those becalmed afternoons, when the strength and heat of the sun on the window at her back merely drove her relentless typing fingers onward as if they had a life of their own. And the ensuing exhaustion, always signalled by an alteration in the light, which returned her to herself and to her tense back and shoulders and her slight cramp, and an awareness of untidy hair and smudged hands, and with this awareness a disgust, as if something orgiastic had taken place, while the children were coming home from school. Then, leaving that room, she would go down to the kitchen and open the back door, sniffing the heavenly, the normal, air, while waiting for her kettle to boil. And would take her tea to her plain little white bathroom, where she would wash away the day’s fatigue and its residue, and hang up the simple cotton dress she wore for working in, as if only some unassuming garment were appropriate for her daily task – that illicit manufacture of a substance not needed for survival. And in her bedroom, a cool room which got the morning sun only, and then for a brief period, she would dress herself carefully and brush her hair, as she had been taught to do, a long time ago, and pin it up with her usual unthinking expertise, and when she had judged herself, gravely, in the mirror, to be presentable, she would go downstairs, pour herself another cup of tea, and at last feel ready for the garden.

  She would miss the garden most, she thought, although she was not really a gardener. Most of the work was done by a taciturn and alarmingly pale boy from the greengrocer’s; what he lacked in words he made up for in his passion for plants and the assiduity with which he cared for them. He came three times a week, in his lunch hour, and she would leave his lunch on the kitchen table: she tried to tempt his appetite, worried about his white face, and although he longed for a cheese roll and a bottle of beer, he swallowed her careful delicacies, sensing that this was important to her, and taking it seriously. ‘I’m off then,’ he would call up the stairs. ‘Might look in Sunday.’ ‘All right, Terry,’ she would call back. ‘The money’s on the dresser.’ For the money seemed to them both a separate issue, hardly connected with the loving work of housekeeping to which they both, in their different ways, applied themselves.

  The garden was only truly hers in the very early morning and in the evening, after her day’s work, when she simply sat on a rather uncomfortable wrought-iron bench – a kind gift from Geoffrey who had laughed at her old spreading creaking wicker chair – and watched the sun dip below the hedge and welcomed an increase in the sharpness of the scents. At this time, she knew, her neighbour’s child, a child of heartbreaking beauty whose happiness and simplicity were already threatened by a crippling speech defect, would come out to see if she were there (but she was always there) and would slip through the hedge to say goodnight. And Edith would watch her wrestling with the words, her thin little body juddering with the effort to unlock them, and she would smile and nod as if the words were perfectly intelligible, and would put her hands to the child’s jerking head to still it, and would whisper, ‘Good night, my little love. Sleep well.’ And would kiss the child, now calm, and send her off to bed.

  The evenings were less interesting. A visit to Penelope to hear about the day’s events, a small meal, half of which Terry had had for his lunch, the plants to be watered, and then bed, very early. Sometimes it was still light when she went to bed, but as the light was of such very great interest to her she would put down her book just to watch it fade, and change colour, and finally become opaque and uninteresting. Then it was time to sleep. Her bed was white and plain and not quite big enough. Geoffrey Long, a sturdy man, had wincingly, but with his usual good nature, remarked on this more than once. As had Penelope, whose own bed would have accommodated four adults and which, when not in use, was heaped with all manner of delicate little pillows covered in materials which proclaimed to the world at large, ‘I am a woman of exceptional femininity.’ Some women raise altars to themselves, thought Edith. And they are right to do so. Although I doubt if I could carry it off.

  In any event, the marital bed in Montagu Square, where Geoffrey had formerly lived with his mother, had already been installed, and soon she would take her place within the confines of a handsome bedroom, the colours of which she secretly found a little too insistent. She had chosen them herself but had, fatally, perhaps, invoked the aid of Penelope who had guided her expertly through a selection of department stores, while discoursing on the ways to please a man. ‘It’s no good being wishy-washy, Edith,’ she had said, several times. ‘A man can’t feel at ease in a cell. You have to recognize his needs.’ Edith, feeling faint in this airless world and apologetic because she found so little to arouse her enthusiasm, and because Penelope seemed so much more involved in the enterprise than she was herself, succumbed at last to her persuasions, and also to the terribly thin face of the poor salesman, whose lunch hour they were monopolizing, and chose a counterpane of dull marigold, with expensive marigold coloured towels to hang in their dark green marble bathroom, and some thick satin-bound blankets the colour of cinnamon. They were new and handsome, but it seemed to her that they absorbed the ligh
t and were stuffily authoritative. She could not see herself ever repairing to this bedroom after a day’s writing, or taking a nap on the splendid cane-headed bed. And she had noticed precious few children in Montagu Square, and there was no garden, so that her day would have an entirely different pattern when her writing time was over. But then she would not be writing. Perhaps she would never write again. She would have that life that she supposed other women have: shopping, cooking, arranging dinner parties, meeting friends for lunch. All those worldly acquaintances who had been so kind with their invitations to little gatherings and whom she had hitherto repaid only with a desire that they should see her garden. I have not paid my dues, she said to herself, on a day when she had looked with timid pleasure at her new and spacious kitchen. I must have seemed like a foundling to them. That will have to change.

  And it had changed. No one had been hurt. On the contrary, everyone was delighted. David had laughed at her new recklessness and had teased her with an unknown lover. ‘You must be in love,’ he had said. And she, not daring to break that unwritten contract between them, had not said what she wanted to say, and had missed her chance for ever. So that when he had taken her hand surreptitiously one day at a private view to which she had gone with Penelope, and she had guided his thumb to her third finger where he had felt the rim of Geoffrey’s mother’s ugly ring, he had stiffened, but had said nothing. What was there to say? There had been no promises. And later that evening, on their last meeting, he had pressed his face into her neck and mumbled, ‘Do you mean it?’ And she had meant it, because sometimes he stayed away too long. And because he had not dissuaded her. But a month later, on her wedding morning, she was still standing in her kitchen, thinking of all the things she had not yet said to him.