by Rumer Godden
‘You are being foolish and cowardly Griselda,’ says Dr Flower. ‘Very foolish and very cowardly. It is a purely natural process.’
‘I wish doctors had purely natural processes,’ says Griselda with that bitter little smile. ‘Then they might do something about the purely natural pain. Oh well—’ she says and then she cries: ‘But it isn’t the pain, nor the ugliness, nor the trap—’
‘The trap, Griselda?’
‘Yes, the trap. I am sick of them Dr Flower. I am sick and tired of your giant and your men. I am tired. Tired. Tired.’
‘And so I was born here, nearly eighty years ago,’ Rolls was telling Pax and Grizel as he went before them down the stairs. ‘I – the Me I know came into being.’ And he added to himself, That I is very valuable to me. I should hate it to be lost. He looked at Grizel as she caught him up and came down beside him, and he hoped that she would marry this slim dark, somehow notable young man. In spite of her protests, he thought that she would. ‘Grizel …’ he said.
She stopped, looked up at him, and he thought how much he liked her face with its clear skin and straight small nose, the pretty mouth, the direct blue eyes and well-brushed fine brown hair. ‘Yes Uncle Rolls?’ But he said nothing to her after all. What is the use? he said to himself. Why worry? To-morrow we must go.
‘I had the whole house very nearly right,’ said Pax in that moment. ‘But now it is all crystallized in my mind. Thank you for taking us over it.’ He looked round as they came into the drawing-room. ‘There is a crystal quality about the house this evening,’ he said, ‘as if this were the moment. No,’ he corrected himself, ‘as if all the moments were crystallized in this.’
‘How could they be?’ said Grizel crossly.
‘Stop wrangling,’ said Rolls, and he went on, speaking to Pax: ‘There is a poem; I found it a few days ago and it stays in my head. Listen: –
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered,
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion …
… In my end is my beginning.’
‘I didn’t think of you and poetry, Uncle Rolls,’ said Grizel.
‘Didn’t you?’ Rolls’s smile was tender and pitiful and a little envious as he looked down on her cross miserable face. ‘There are several things you don’t think of yet, Grizel.’ And he said: ‘Wait here. I have something I want to give you, for our last night. It is in the safe upstairs. I shall be a few minutes.’
When he had gone Grizel moved away from Pax to the fire and stood with her back to him warming her hands.
‘You have been delightfully cross all evening,’ said Pax pleasantly.
‘I wish you would go away.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why. Do we have to start arguing all over again?’
‘I am afraid we do,’ said Pax.
‘You have turned me into a worse coward than I used to be.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘I tell you I can’t bear it. I don’t want to be attached or concerned or intimate.’
‘Selfish little beast.’
‘Yes I am selfish. I want to be. I want to be like those people who come through a war without a scratch.’
‘No one comes through a war without a scratch; not this war anyway,’ said Pax. ‘You can’t, so why go to all this trouble to try?’
‘Ever since I arrived, ever since I came to this house, everything has made one long attack on me.’
‘Well, why should you escape?’ asked Pax unsympathetically, and he said seriously, his eyes bright, ‘No one is going to escape this time.’
‘Judgement Day?’ asked Grizel flippantly.
‘If you like.’
‘Armageddon? And we shall all become the images of Christ?’
‘Christ was a model of what can be done,’ said Pax and his voice was light and certain. ‘You see I can only believe that Christ started evenly; even as we are. I don’t think anyway it is necessary to believe he was born divine. I think that is optional. He became divine,’ and he said quietly, ‘That is why I think they are right when they call him the hope of the world.’
‘I do nothing but cry,’ said Grizel angrily.
‘Why? There is nothing to cry about.’
She squeezed her handkerchief between her hands. ‘Why? Why? Look at me now. I am starting again.’ She bit her lips but the tears ran down her cheeks. ‘I am a mediocre person,’ she said angrily. ‘I didn’t ask for heroics. I only want to be comfortable and enjoy myself.’
‘Then why did you come here? This is a country fighting for its life,’ said Pax mildly. ‘Didn’t you expect it to be heroic and uncomfortable?’
‘I expected it to be exciting,’ said Grizel defiantly through her tears.
‘No my darling,’ said Pax. ‘You are not as young as that.’ He came to her and put his arm round her and held her. ‘Why not be truthful Grizel? You love me and I love you. That is the truth isn’t it?’
Grizel nodded dumbly and her tears dropped on to his hand.
‘And there is nothing we can do to stop it is there,’ said Pax, ‘however much we try?’
‘Nothing we can do,’ said Grizel. ‘But …’
‘Kiss me,’ said Pax.
She put her arms round his neck and kissed him with her whole heart. ‘Oh Pax, I love you. I love you so much but it is silly, stupid, to be vulnerable and hopeful now. Talk to me Pax. Help me. Comfort me.’
‘Things are serious just now,’ said Pax with his cheek against hers. ‘You have to treat them seriously but it is of no use to be afraid. I should be afraid if it made us any safer, but it doesn’t. You have to think, I think, that anything we do in any time, the smallest thing, like ordering the paper to come every day or promising to go out to dinner next Wednesday week, or getting a new tube of toothpaste, particularly the large size that lasts twice as long, is an act of faith. It is an act of faith to think or hope or plan, but I intend to go on doing it. There are dozens of things I want. I intend to go on as if I shall get them all.’
‘What are they Pax? What do you want?’
‘You first. I want to be married at once. Then I want a child. Immediately.’
‘Are you – so fond of children?’ asked Grizel doubtfully.
‘Only of my own,’ said Pax. ‘Yes. I want a child. I want to make quite sure of that while I am here on earth.’
‘Don’t Pax.’
‘It is only an act of faith,’ said Pax. ‘And whether it is a boy or a girl, I want us to call it Verity.’
‘Verity,’ said Grizel sounding it and testing it. She liked it. ‘But he won’t live here in this house,’ she said regretfully.
‘Then in a house like it,’ answered Pax, ‘if he can’t live here. But you never know Grizel. I feel he will live here. Here and at Laudi. That would be a link.’
‘All the new children ought to be links,’ said Grizel. ‘He would link us all up. Link Lark and Rolls again through you and me. Shall we tell Rolls?’
‘No,’ said Pax slowly. ‘I don’t think so. I shouldn’t disturb it now.’
The door opened and Rolls came back into the room. He had a small leather case in his hand. ‘I wanted to give you this Grizel,’ he said. ‘To-night.’
Grizel looked at his face. He seemed rapt away
from them so that he did not really notice them nor see what she was sure was an alteration in their faces; he did not see that they stood in front of him hand in hand, or if he did, it seemed to him so natural, as it seemed to her now, that it called for no remark.
‘To-night is important,’ said Grizel slowly. It was to-night that had made her speak in this new tender voice, effulgent with tenderness.
‘To-night is our last night and you and Pax dined with me,’ said Rolls. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘It is enough,’ said Grizel judiciously, ‘but it isn’t all.’
From the front door a bell rang through the house.
‘Proutie is out on duty to-night,’ said Rolls moving towards the door.
‘Wait. I will go,’ Grizel ran past him. They heard her open the door and heard voices and then she came slowly back along the hall.
‘It is a telegram, for Pax.’
‘For me? But nobody knows I am here.’
‘Somebody does,’ said Grizel, holding it out to him. ‘It is for you.’
Pax took it and slowly opened it. He read it with his back to them in a silence and when at last he spoke his voice was high and nervously light and he looked at Rolls. ‘It has come through Switzerland. From Geneva,’ he said. ‘It is from my cousin. I – am sorry sir—’
‘Lark?’ asked Rolls.
Pax nodded. For a moment he could not speak and he bent and stirred the fire and beat in a piece of coal. Presently he stood up again and said: ‘She died last month. Before I came here, she was dead.’ And then he turned back to Rolls. ‘You knew,’ he said. ‘You knew.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Rolls answered. ‘I guessed.’ He took Pax gently by the shoulder and turned him from the fire. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘this is the time that you and Grizel should go out dancing.’
‘Dancing. Now?’ asked Grizel.
‘Yes.’
‘No, Uncle Rolls.’
‘Yes. Quite apart from any other reason I want you to leave me please. Pax wants you Grizel. Wait though. There is something else. Two other things. I found this when I went upstairs.’ He showed them a letter. ‘I had forgotten to open it, but I answered it at once. I answered it,’ he said, ‘but it concerns you. It will concern you, not myself.’ He gave the letter to Pax not to Grizel. ‘He will be the head of the house I hope,’ he said. ‘You won’t let her rule, will you Pax?’ Pax read the letter, still holding the telegram in his hand.
‘Willoughby is young Willoughby of my solicitors,’ said Rolls. ‘A conceited useless young man I consider, but this time it seems that he has been of use.’
Grizel read the letter over Pax’s shoulder … After a great deal of correspondence and several interviews … the owners … changes of circumstances and present conditions … the difficulty of getting materials and labour … am delighted to be able to inform you … the house is now for sale, subject to the … if you …
‘For sale! We can buy it,’ cried Grizel. ‘Oh Uncle Rolls! But can you buy it? Will you?’
‘I have,’ said Rolls. ‘This is the answer and the cheque is in it. Here it is. You can post it on your way to-night.’ He gave the envelope to Pax. ‘In return you can leave me that.’ And gently he took the telegram from Pax’s hand and put it in his waistcoat pocket. ‘The house,’ he said, ‘is to belong to you.’
‘Why Uncle Rolls! To us and you. Ours,’ said Grizel. ‘Forever.’
‘It is only a lease of occupation, mind,’ said Rolls.
‘But you said … you have bought it, Uncle Rolls.’
‘I have bought it,’ said Rolls. ‘But don’t you forget that, Grizel.’
‘We thought it was going to end after to-night,’ said Grizel, ‘and it isn’t. It is going to live.’
Rolls looked down at her then over her head at Pax. ‘Do you subscribe to that?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I do,’ said Pax and again he gave to little words their greatest weight.
‘Then you can leave me with a quiet conscience,’ said Rolls.
He opened the case he held and put it into Grizel’s hand.
‘Pearls,’ said Grizel. ‘Oh! Uncle Rolls!’
‘Pearls,’ he chuckled. ‘They are a small string but perfectly matched. You won’t get a string like that in a hurry,’ he boasted. ‘I gave them to Lark. I kept them because … Well, you must have them now Grizel. I gave them to her on her birthday.’ He chuckled again. ‘I was determined to go one better than Pelham. You didn’t know, did you, Grizel, that your grandfather was in love with Lark? He gave her a bracelet. The shops were shut when I found that out but I made them open one for me. I knew the fellow. I had bought odds and ends from him before and he had shown me these. He didn’t think that I could buy them though. There was nothing there to touch them. They cost me every penny I had and I had to sell Mousetrap, my best pony. But you should have seen Pelham’s face when he saw them! And Selina’s!’
‘And Lark’s,’ said Grizel softly.
The boasting and the glee went out of him. ‘Oh well,’ he said and there was something humble and gentle in his voice. ‘She wore them for one night and then she gave them back to me.’
‘Was she very angry?’ The pearls looked up at Grizel, a string of translucent separate little moons on their pale velvet.
‘It was of no use to be angry,’ said Rolls. ‘It was my doing, but I suppose you might just as well have said to a puppy “Don’t breathe.” Yes a puppy,’ said Rolls and he sounded angry now. ‘A conceited, selfish, self-engrossed young puppy.’
A puppy? Yes. That, thought Grizel, was what they often called a young man, as they called a woman a cat. A young young man; but where, she wondered, had that quality gone? How singularly unlike puppies were the young men she now knew; how unlike a puppy, for instance, was Pax. Rollo, then, must have been many years older than Pax. Have young men grown older then? she asked. Are they now more human? Have they achieved humanity? Are they not now, as they used often to seem to be, not puppies but half cardboard creatures, half animal? In Rolls’s time the animal was not allowed to be mentioned, was that why only the cardboard seemed to remain? Looking back, judging by what she had heard, she seemed to see Rollo as stiff, conventional and powerless. Not a blood. Not a blood but a blade. She looked at him now and she asked, ‘What about you now Uncle Rolls?’
‘For years I was too busy to remember,’ his words came forcefully into the quiet of the room. ‘I was too busy to think. She, Lark, the Marchesa, was busy too. Then she had long hours to spend alone. So had I. That is all.’ And he smiled. ‘All there is to tell. She used to say we should have six children and a million pounds a year. Well, it isn’t quite like that. It couldn’t be. But we don’t want anything else.’ And he said to Grizel, ‘Put on the pearls.’
Pax came up behind her and lifted the pearls from the case and put them round her neck and fastened the clasp. ‘Say “Good night”, Grizel,’ he said. ‘We are going now.’
She reached up and kissed Rolls and he bent down to her and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips clung to his and she tightened her hand on his arm. ‘Good night.’
‘Good night Grizel. Good night Pax.’
‘Good night. Good night.’
They left him and went out and shut the door. Presently he heard the front door close.
The room was still.
‘Have those two children gone?’
‘Just gone. I get days – and particularly nights – of being afraid for Pax,’ said Rolls.
‘It is funny,’ said the Marchesa. ‘When he was little he had great sad eyes like an owl, fearfully wise. Now he is big his eyes have gone little and merry and bright.’
‘They are wise all the same,’ said Rolls. ‘I used to call him “the Interloper”. I don’t feel he is an interloper now.’
‘An interloper? When I used to make him fly upstairs? Oh, poor Pax. He used to love that game and to hear about the house. I remembered everything for him.’
‘Do you remember everything now?’
>
‘Not everything. Things change. Things that we thought were little, have become big; big ones, little; like Pax’s eyes. Some things I remember are such absurd irrelevant things. I remember a forget-me-not wreath. Why?’ said the Marchesa. ‘I never had one.’
‘Wait. What is the name of a flower—’ said Rolls suddenly – ‘It has two names, one easy and one difficult. A knot of little flowers, deep purple. They are the first thing I remember. They have a very fragrant smell.’
‘Heliotrope, and they call it cherry-pie.’
‘I knew you would know.’ He sat down with a contented sigh. ‘I never had time for flowers except through you. I think of you and flowers. I am sick of belligerent women,’ said Rolls.
‘The candles are burning down,’ said the Marchesa.
‘That dress you wore, that night, our night – what was it made of?’ asked Rolls.
‘But I told you.’
Clearly into the night outside came the sound of an alert and a moment after, far off, the beginning of the guns.
Rollo asks the same question as Rolls. ‘What is that dress made of?’
‘But I told you,’ says Lark.
‘Tell me again. No you needn’t. I know. It shines as if it were not there. It is called illusion.’
‘Silly. Our grandmothers wore illusion.’
‘Is there a real stuff called illusion? You didn’t mind coming home Lark? Missing those last dances?’
‘No. Did you?’
‘No.’
They have come home to talk. ‘Let us get away from here. I want to talk to you Lark. I must be alone with you, for a little while I must.’ Now they are here, alone together, they can neither of them say a word they mean.
Lark is sitting on the arm of one of the red chairs, her dress spread round her. Rollo stands by the fire, one elbow on the mantelpiece, one leg, in its shining breech and boot, balanced on the fender rail. The gas is not lit, but Slater has left candles burning in the sconces above the piano and each side of the mantelpiece. They shine down on Rollo’s hair, reddening its chestnut, making it gleam. Lark looks at his hair.
