“It wasn’t on when I woke up,” said Christopher.
“I think we ought to lie down now,” said Jane. They lay down. “But you needn’t go yet,” she added.
“What a blue sky,” said Christopher, gazing out of the window. “Blue as bluebells. Blue as Percy’s eyes. D’you know who Percy is? He’s Mabel’s friend.”
“He mended my wheelbarrow,” said Jane.
“Once we had tea on the lawn when Mummy was away, and Percy came to tea. He had tea with all of us. Did you think Mrs. Eccles had tea with us too? Well, she didn’t. She was having a barf.”
“Mrs. Eccles was a cook,” said Jane. “She’s gone now.”
“Percy’s very funny,” said Christopher. “He said Mabel Mabel under the table.” He burst into shrill laughter.
“He’s got a motor-bike,” said Jane.
“He said another thing. He said I’ll have a shave and go to my grave.” Christopher doubled up, convulsed.
“Do you ever make up poetry?” said Olivia.
“No,” said Jane.
“I do,” said Christopher.
“You don’t.”
“Do tell me one,” said Olivia.
His face froze in an agony of concentration. A poem should come. He willed it. He said rapidly:
“The clouds pass and pass. Willy’s lying in the grass.”
“Very good,” said Olivia. “Anymore?”
He turned away his head, let his lids fall, muttered:
“I can’t answer any more voices.”
“I think we ought to go to sleep now,” said Jane politely. “We’ve said our prayers. Will you pull down the blind?”
Speculating on Kate’s reasons for bringing up her children in the strict letter of orthodoxy, Olivia did so, kissed them and went to the door. Jane said out of the yellowish twilight:
“If we go for a picnic to the woods to-morrow, will you come too?”
“Would you like me to?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will.”
“We didn’t remember you very well,” said Jane. “We thought your face would be like Auntie Ruth’s.”
“Are you glad it isn’t?”
“Yes,” said Jane.
Christopher sprang violently inside the sheet, and lay still.
“Kate, shall you ever have any more?”
“More what?”
Kate lay on her back in the copse, relaxed, staring into the beech tops. They had brought the children in the car to the old picnic wood.
“Children.”
“Oh … No … Too much sweat.”
“I suppose it is an awful sweat.”
“I don’t mind them once they’re there—but it’s the hell of a performance to go through four times. Nothing to be said for it.”
“Did you feel awful when they were coming? I don’t seem to remember.”
“I felt sick at first, of course. Most people do.”
“How long for?” I must know.
“Oh, I forget. It varied. Six weeks—eight weeks.”
Kate rubbed her eyes, bored, on the verge of irritation, as always when her health was in question. Why go on about feeling sick? … She added with a sort of sour triumph: “I did everything just as usual, of course. Nobody ever knew I had a qualm. You don’t want to go giving it away to everybody.”
She can’t have felt like me, she can’t have. …
“But after the beginning, did you feel well?”
“I felt all right, more or less. One doesn’t feel one’s brightest.”
I mustn’t go on.
A little way away the children ran about, hunting for the initialled tree-trunks. Occasionally one or the other shouted, “Is it tea-time yet?”
“Yes,” called Kate finally, sitting up. They came tearing back and she unpacked the tea basket, and spread out interesting white paper parcels.
“We call this jelly red,” said Christopher, parting his sandwich. “Sometimes we call it pink. I call it a mixture.”
“We had doughnuts when we went to tea with David,” said Jane. “And do you know what his daddy said? He said: If I catch you calling your sister pig any more I’ll spank you with a slipper, so he called her horse. David’s older than me, a whole year, but I can lift him as easy as anything.”
Christopher belched. He said in pride and surprise:
“Did you hear me make that turn?”
“When Mabel does it, she says beg pardon,” said Jane.
“Do you know why I do it? It’s because I’m a windbag.” He looked dreamy. “Men think it funny, but ladies don’t care for it … Mum?”
“Yes?”
“What man of all the men you know would you choose to make that noise for you?”
“You, I think.”
He smiled secretively, flattered, self-conscious.
Replete, they ran about, each with an empty paper bag.
“Christopher, Christopher, there’s a little baby in here.”
He took a frantic peep.
“Shut it up! Shut it up!”
Screwing it tight at the mouth they rushed with it and poked it into a hollow place among beech-roots.
Christopher peered into his bag. His face was wild.
“Jane, there’s a giant in mine!”
“A GIANT! … Shut it up, shut it up.”
“Hide it so he can’t see us.”
“No, bury it, bury it, so he can’t get out.”
They ran about in a frenzy, squealing.
“What a remarkable game,” said Olivia.
“Idiotic,” said Kate.
She lay on her back again, unaware of the dropping around her of ripe plums for analysts. Suddenly she said in a different voice, a voice for Olivia:
“God, I wish they were all grown up! If I could have a wish that would be it. Grown up and—all right—independent—off my hands … It seems such years before one can hope to feel they’re all safely through … Perhaps one never will … Supposing they’re not happy … Sometimes when I get back from London or somewhere and smell eucalyptus coming from the bathroom again and know they’ll all catch it and Christopher’ll have a temperature and Priscilla a cough—I go quite … I feel what’s the use, why not leave them out on the grass all night or something …”
“I can imagine …”
Kate, darling, this is you, I know yon, you’re too vulnerable. Does Rob know you are? … I must have a child, to share this with her.
I’m going to have a child.
It was real for the first time, it was love and truth, she saw it with joy. A son, mine and Rollo’s … Now I’ll tell Kate, and then it will be irrevocable. Kate, listen …
She turned her head and looked down at the figure beside her—the pink, soft, firmly-modelled lips, slightly parted now, young-looking, the clear-water eyes looking up, abstracted, the wavy hair swept loosely backwards, the long supple body that had borne four … Beautiful still; but where were those lyric lines, that astonishing grace really like a flower, a young tree? … She was the wife of Dr. Emery, living an ordinary middle-class family life, valued, successful, fairly contented. One saw her life running, peacefully, unsensationally now on its course, right on to the end: and why did this make one want to cry? Kate isn’t wasted. But there should have been something else, I alone know her, some exaggeration …
Kate, listen … Madness … Kate, I’m …
Staring up into the glowing black-ribbed roof of beech boughs Kate said suddenly:
“Who d’you think I saw when I went to the village this morning? Tony Heriot. Coming out of the post office as I went in.”
“Speak to him?”
This was important. Their small cool voices betrayed them.
“No, I didn’t … He looked at me and so
rt of just lifted his hat-brim and went on and got into his car. Directly I saw that car I knew it was his … I wonder how long he’s home for …”
“Was he embarrassed?”
“I don’t know … A bit, I think. Neither of us knew whether to stop or smile or what …” She rolled her head sideways on the dead beech leaves, away from Olivia. She said with the ghost of a smile, “I nearly fainted.”
“Kate … What did happen?” For not a word, through all those old hot-eyed, heavy days, had passed Kate’s lips. Locked behind her stretched, harshly contracted, resigned, incredulous forehead, she had resisted them all … Imprisoned me, too, far away from her …
“Nothing,” said Kate finally. “It wasn’t anything. He was going to come to Paris and see me—it was all fixed up—and then he never came. Never wrote. Absolute fade-out. By the time I was back he’d gone off to India … Oh, I don’t know—it was all quite idiotic. I suppose he just thought better of it … Or sometimes I feel certain his beastly parents interfered—thought he was getting involved … God knows.”
“He married, didn’t he?”
“M’m. About five years ago. I saw it in The Times.” She relapsed into silence. The reversed angle of her head on its flat leaf pillow narrowed her eyes to shining slivers of green glass beneath the dropped lids. After a bit she said:
“I’m glad I’ve seen him again. It’s always been something to get over. I’ve dreaded it.” She turned her neck again and looked straight upwards. She said simply: “Whatever happens, nothing can be as bad as that again. The endless blankness and suspense … One can’t put up any defences …”
“You don’t mind any more … do you, Kate?”
“No, I don’t mind any more. One gets over everything in time.”
Christopher came hurrying up from where he had been, out of sight somewhere. He sat down quickly beside his mother. After a bit he said:
“This wood’s rather big, isn’t it?”
“Fairly big, but not dark, is it? A friendly kind of wood.”
“M’m.” He leaned against her. “When will it be time to go home?”
Kate sighed, inaudibly.
“Now, I think,” she said cheerfully, getting to her feet, holding his hand.
This before-dinner bout was the worst yet. The drive perhaps … or the emotion in the wood. It was all gone, the good feeling. Nothing now but the black miasma. The cold sweat broke out all over her. Faint … Get out of here. She found the lavatory door, unlocked it feverishly, got out along the passage—to the head of the stairs.
She cried out with all her strength:
“Mother!”
Mrs. Curtis was there at once, flying out from nowhere, her face opening with alarm, amazement. Olivia fell down with a crash at her feet.
Then she was lying on her bed with Mrs. Curtis holding smelling salts and nurse feeling her pulse.
“Hallo!” she said, “I feel fine.” She pushed away the salts.
“That was a silly thing to do,” said nurse, her eye cool, sharp, professional.
“It was … The heat always lays me out.”
“Lie still,” said her Mother.
“Like a drop of brandy?”
“No, thanks, I couldn’t …”
“Cup of weak tea?”
“That would be lovely.”
Nurse went away.
“Sorry, Mum. I don’t know why I bellowed for you like that …”
“Are you unwell?” Mrs. Curtis shook out eau-de-cologne on a handkerchief, and dabbed her forehead.
“That, and the tag-end of this rotten upset.”
Kate came in with a cup of tea.
“You needn’t have sent nurse,” she said. “I’d got it already. Here, can you hold it? … A nice lump you were to carry.”
She heard their voices bright and casual, saw their faces preoccupied, concerned. She repeated her explanation.
“I’ve never known you go off like that before,” said Mrs. Curtis. “Kate used to be the one for faints.”
“Oh, mayn’t I too, please? Kate can’t always have everything.” She sat up and sipped the tea.
“I think I’ll just ask Dr. Martin to look in.” Come to think of it, she’d been a bad colour again lately … Tiresome girl … Eating well though …
“Yes,” said Kate sharply.
“Oh, Mum, don’t be absurd. Just for a little faint. Besides, the poor old boy’ll just be sitting down to his supper.”
“Well” Mrs. Curtis weakened. Dear old Dr. Martin, his well-earned rest, it did seem a shame. “If you’re not better to-morrow …”
“But I shall be. There’s nothing really wrong. I feel a king now, as Mrs. Banks would say.”
“Well, stay where you are. I dare say a good night’s rest is all you want. I’ll send you up some nice fish and the sweet.”
“She’d better get to bed,” said Kate. “I’ll see to her.”
“Yes, do. I must give Dad his supper.”
Mrs. Curtis went away; Kate stayed, keeping a rather silent fierce lookout while she undressed and got into bed. She rattled on, absurd jokes and tags of mimicry running glibly from her tongue: to make Kate laugh, to take that look off her face … She was successful. By the time the gong sounded, Kate had relaxed, was wreathed in smiles.
When they were all safely in the dining-room, she got up, took the pills and the bottle from the back of the drawer—where I used to hide face powder, that other deadly secret—went to the bathroom, ran the basin tap and poured away everything. There, thank God. Those brews were poisoning me. I’ll be better now.
I must go away to-morrow, say Anna’s back, asks me to join her. They won’t miss me. Not safe to stay here any longer, now they’ve all begun to watch … Send Rollo a telegram in the morning. She composed it in her head.
Leaving to-day, ring up or write London please. Liv.
III
“Is that Mr. Spencer’s house?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Could I speak to him, please?”
“Mr. Rollo—Mr. Spencer is out of town.”
“Oh, is he? Could you tell me when he’ll be back?”
“I couldn’t exactly say, madam. Mr. Spencer has gone to Ireland. I fancy he goes on to Scotland until the middle of September.”
“I see … I suppose letters would be forwarded …”
“Oh, yes, certainly, madam. Anything sent here would be forwarded at once.”
“Thank you very much.”
Third time of ringing up Rollo’s house: third time unlucky. These voices speaking for him made him mythical, removed him far out of reach, guarding him like a public personage in an artificially important world. This time it was a different voice again: the muted voice, benevolent, of an old retainer … Familiar somehow, surely … Who could it be?
There was nothing to do but wait for a letter. Surely he must write. Why hasn’t he? … He’ll write the moment he gets my letter, or, anyway, my wire … Who forwarded that? Uncomfortable thought … signed Liv.
It doesn’t matter.
His letter came the last day of August, by the same post as Anna’s.
He wrote, darling, he wrote one page, saying sorry you’ve not been well, I got your wire and letter. I did ring up but got no answer, thought you were still enjoying yourself abroad, thought safer not to write till I knew you were back. London was so awful I couldn’t stick it, he said. A pleasant house-party here but not exciting, some duck-shooting, Dickie Vulliamy and his new wife are here, she’s a nice amusing woman. Not at the very top of his form, he said, but all right really: he’d be all right with some fresh air and exercise. Scotland next week, this is my Highland address, back about the middle of the month. Take care of yourself, darling, he said. You know I’m no good at letters, but I love you, darling.
He did
n’t mention Nicola.
Anna’s letter was a scrawl on a torn-out page of a notebook, almost illegible. She’d been on the point of leaving, but now Simon wasn’t well, a bad chill and to-day a temperature, and feeling awful. She was staying a few days longer, till he was better. She’d let Olivia know the moment she was back and they’d go down to Sallows. Simon sent his love.
To be alone, sick, in London in this dry, sterile, burnt-out end of summer, was to be abandoned in a pestilence-stricken town; was to live in a third-class waiting-room at a disused terminus among stains and smells, odds and ends of refuse and decay. She sank down and existed, without light, in the waste land. Sluggishly, reluctantly, the days ranged themselves one after the other into a routine. Morning: wake heavy from heavy sleep, get up, one must be sick, go back to bed; nibble a biscuit, doze, half-stupefied till midday; force oneself then to dress, each item of the toilet laborious, distasteful, the body a hateful burden. Tidy the bedroom more or less, dust a bit in the sitting-room, let in what air there was: for Mrs. Banks was on holiday, there was no one to keep one up to the mark, no sharp eye and sharper tongue to brace one or contend against. Prepare to go out for lunch. Rouge, lipstick, powder … do what one might, it wasn’t one’s own face, it wasn’t a face at all, it was a shoddy construction, a bad disguise. Walk down two side streets to the Bird Cage: morning coffee, light lunches, dainty teas, controlled by gentlewomen; blue tables, orange chairs.
She maintained in one compartment of her handbag a supply of salted almonds and these she chewed on the way … She kept on at them steadily till the mob-capped lady waitress set before her the first delicacy of her two-shilling three-course ladies’ lunch. At least there was no particular smell in the Bird Cage, nobody smoked much or drank anything stronger than orangeade. There was nothing to remind one of men. The china was sweet and the menus came out of Woman’s World. She ate greedily through the courses, reading the Daily Express. The waitress had a wry neck below the mob cap, and a check dress with short puffed sleeves and a dainty apron. The depressed angle of her head suggested mild suffering, feminine patience and resignation. After the pudding she inquired meekly, “The usual?”—and brought with a sad smile a portion of mousetrap cheese, extra charge threepence, saying sometimes, not always, “You never get tired of cheese, do you?” With answering deprecatory smiles, Olivia thanked her; and when she had retired, ate a morsel, then secreted the remainder in her bag. Necessity makes one cunning: she was never surprised in the act. Such fellow fowls as patronised the Cage—never more than two or three, every one was out of town—appeared both cowed and famished, concentrating glassily upon the food card, repudiating their helpings with light throat-clearings and refined, difficult, swollen-cheeked pauses in mastication.
The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels) Page 27
