The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels)

by Rosamond Lehmann

  He’ll soon be asleep.

  But she listened and knew he was going on being awake. He was usually such a quick, peaceful, easy sleeper. It brought home the fact that he was unhappy, and she felt distressed. Finally she whispered:

  “Go to sleep.”

  His hand came out, feeling over her bed to find her. She pushed hers out from under the bedclothes, and he grasped it and held on tightly.

  “I love you,” he whispered. “You don’t believe me, but it’s true.”

  “I do believe you.”

  Yes, it was true. It was only that the word love was capable of so many different interpretations. It could perfectly well be nothing to do with exaltations, with the lake and the chestnuts, or with going up the darkening cliff-face stopping to kiss, seeing the mauve sea below, hearing the gulls. For another person it could just as well be I do love you, you’re so sweet, such a delicious person to be with and so attractive. We do make each other happy, don’t we, darling? … It was what he’d always said, from the beginning: Let’s make each other happy. There’d been no deception: only two people.

  Soon after, she heard him fall asleep.

  They got up early next morning. He drove her to Oxford Station and left her there; going back to London together was too much to face. He bought her a ticket and the morning paper, and then he went away, and got into his car, and drove off.

  In the afternoon she went to a cinema. She sat the programme twice round, and then she went back to Etty’s house. Etty had just come in, with a copy of the Evening Standard.

  “Oh, darling,” she said. “Isn’t this horrid? I didn’t know if you’d have seen it.”

  This was a headline saying, Baronet’s Son in Car Crash. There wasn’t much other news that day, so they let themselves go over it. Mr. Rollo Spencer, only son of Sir John Spencer, Bart., had been injured that morning in a collision with a motor lorry on the London road, between Henley and Maidenhead. He had been removed to Maidenhead Cottage Hospital, suffering from grave leg and head injuries. His car had been completely wrecked, and the lorry seriously damaged, the driver escaping with a severe shaking. The exact cause of the accident was not yet known, but eye-witnesses including the lorry driver state that Mr. Spencer, apparently miscalculating his powers of acceleration, passed another private car just before a deep bend in the road, and subsequently found himself unable to cross completely to his left side before the bend, where he met the lorry—also travelling somewhat too close to the crown of the road—in a head-on collision. The surface of the road appears to have been somewhat slippery at the time and this was undoubtedly a contributive factor.

  There followed a brief biography.

  “Isn’t it too devastating?” wailed Etty. “I was so afraid you’d see it before I could break the shock. It’s on some of the placards too. I know how devoted you are to them all. Oh, dear, let’s hope for the best. I expect he’ll be all right. It’s marvellous how people do recover …”

  The telephone rang. Etty answered it and after a moment said:

  “Yes, would you hold on, please? …Darling, it’s for you. I don’t know who.”

  She handed over the receiver and went discreetly out of the room to change for dinner.

  “Is that Olivia?”

  “Yes, Lady Spencer. Yes—yes—?”

  “I thought I must get in touch with you—in case you’ve seen these tiresome evening papers.” Strong, crisp, invigorating voice, unimpaired.

  “Yes. I just have—”

  “He’s all right.”

  “Oh! …”

  “Quite conscious and as comfortable as can be expected. We can’t altogether say he’s out of danger, but we hope and believe with his splendid constitution he’ll pull through.”

  “How bad?”

  “A broken jaw, poor dear, and a rather horrid smashed leg, I’m afraid …”

  “Pain?”

  “Well—he’s under morphia … Everything’s being done that can be done. We got hold of Slade-Murray at once—you know he’s such a brilliant surgeon … And he’s in a nice room, and they all seem so capable and anxious to do everything possible.”

  “Can I see him?”

  There was a split second of silence. Shocked …

  “No, I’m afraid that’s out of the question.” The voice was firm, on the indignant side. “… At present,” it added, less uncompromisingly.

  “But I must. Don’t you see? It’s my fault.”

  “What do you mean?” The voice froze alarmingly.

  “I’d just said good-bye to him … I upset him. He was being careless, I’m sure, he’d never have … He’s such a good driver …”

  Nothing occurred in the receiver; until at last the voice said in a new, muffled way:

  “I wondered where …” But almost immediately resuming sharp control. “Pull yourself together now, my dear. What nonsense! As if there were the slightest reason to blame yourself … It seems to have been one of those unfortunate accidents when the fault, if you can call it fault, was on both sides. Rollo insists on taking most the of blame—he told me at once it was his fault, but you know what he is—so generous.”

  “He does talk then?”

  “Well, of course we don’t allow him to—more than a few words. I was going to tell you that the lorry driver called personally to inquire this evening—most distressed, poor man. I thought it was so nice of him. It’s always so horrid when there’s bad feeling afterwards …”

  “Is she with him?”

  “Yes, she’s with him now.”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s being quite splendid—so quiet and sensible. I’m delighted with her. We were a little afraid for her—the shock—but I don’t think we need have been. She’s pulled herself together wonderfully and thinking only of him—I’ve just driven up to collect a few things and then I shall go straight down again. Now listen, Olivia. I shall keep you informed—do you understand? Every day. I will ring up or write you a line without fail. You can trust me … I will also take the first opportunity of telling him you have inquired and that I myself spoke to you.”

  “Thank you … He might worry … Thank you … If you just mention me along with a lot of other names—he won’t think anything … I mean … naturally I would inquire, wouldn’t I? Being friends, that is, we were friends …”

  “Of course, my dear, such old friends …” Kindly, pitying …

  “Thank you, Lady Spencer.”

  “Good-bye, Olivia.” Wishing to cut off as quick as possible.

  “Good-bye. Thank you more than I can say. I’m so terribly grateful …” Don’t cut off, don’t leave me alone in outer darkness …

  But the receiver had been hung up. She didn’t want my thanks, or any of my emotions. It was not to pass beyond the limits she imposed. Her magnanimity, her perfect behaviour made subjection a moral obligation.

  Oh, she’s wonderful! … Lady Spencer, you’ve won. I am beholden.

  She went upstairs. Etty was in the bath, and called through the door that she must fly, she’d be half an hour late.

  She went on up to her own room.

  This is what I always knew would happen, this is the punishment. I foresaw it—an accident, his relatives round the bed and me outside. What I didn’t foresee was the clemency even of one …

  She’s sitting by his bed, so quiet and sensible, thinking only of him, I’m delighted with her, let’s hope she won’t have a miscarriage. He’s bandaged, he’s under morphia. He’s not out of danger. If he dies, I did it. He wouldn’t mean to kill himself, but I meant it. I corrupted his confidence and destroyed his happiness. I accused and condemned him; I put death in him.

  Where’s that handkerchief … She began to search frantically, terror-struck, pulling open drawers and throwing things about. There it was, at last, in the place where she’d
looked first—the blue and green silk handkerchief crumpled and neglected—torn too, where I tore it … She wrapped it round her wrist and tied it tightly. There. And never take the ring off for one moment day or night. Charms. And I will keep awake all night, holding on to him, without one moment’s relaxation … I’ll save him. … I shall do it—not her, or any of them … Will he know … will he think of me? …

  Start now.

  Anna! If Anna where here I could go and be in the same room as her. If I could see Simon …

  It’s no good, they’re far away.

  Start now.

  II

  Mrs. Cunningham’s November party for Amanda was an outstanding event. Amanda herself was supposed to have selected her guests, but as it turned out the ingredients were fundamentally the old familiar ones, with a sprinkling on top of Amanda’s contempories—the word friends would give the wrong impression, she had none—striplings and virgins still obscure and folded in the bud: a decoration or flourish, like the nuts and cherries on top of a pudding.

  To be Mrs. Cunningham’s daughter was to be situated from birth upwards in a paradoxical position—concealed yet public, beneath a responsible wing of sorts, yet so overpowering and magnificent a one as rather to dazzle and dismay than shelter its peering infant object. It might be that Amanda, like other little English girls of gentle birth, had received the attentions of a reliable Nannie, had hung up her stocking, learnt to ride a bicycle, worn a school hat and a gymn tunic, done fractions and the exports of Australia, played lacrosse, been taken to the pantomime—gone, in short, with the throng; but if it were so, it had not interfered with Amanda’s development. To be Mrs. Cunningham’s daughter set a problem in comparison with which all other interests and activities were negligible. She had solved it by being what nobody considering her parentage could logically have expected: a tricky, doubtful proposition, take it or leave it; the antithesis incarnate of the Victorian-heroic-statuesque; a nymph, tall, willowy, graceful, capriciously fascinating, with a cloud of ash-blonde hair floating to her shoulders, describing an aureole round a pale, indefinite smudge of a face with slanting half-shut eyes; not so much of delicate appearance as downright ill-looking; melancholy, emotional but unaffectionate, self-centred but disorganised, with a taste for art and theatricals and for inventing aesthetic gestures and poses to unlikely modern music. No doubt the heritage of will and shrewdness from her parents was greater than superficially appeared.

  At seventeen her future as unpredictable. She’d lead them a dance, was the expression which, looking at her, rose to one’s lips. How she herself would emerge, if at all, from the mixture of Celtic twilight and Aubrey Beardsley décor which at present enshrouded her, was another question.

  Meanwhile, putting a dab of vermilion on her long mouth to heighten the greenish pallor of her complexion, she chose to attend a school of acting and miming; and to celebrate her coming out by a festival which was to include charades, and three original dances by Amanda.

  The entertainment, charming and touching though it was, designed and executed entirely by Amanda and a tender troupe of associates, chiefly from the Slade and the dramatic school, rather interfered with the free development of the party spirit. After the clapping and cheering had subsided and Amanda had reappeared among her guests, gliding sidelong, rapt and speechless, in a dress of white brocade with a hoop—her great-grandmother’s—and a nosegay of moss rosebuds in her bosom—the crowd began to overflow the two connecting classical-cum-contemporary rooms which had hitherto congestedly contained it. Mrs. Cunningham stood in the double doorway, in black velvet with a deep fichu of cream lace, receiving with a smile of the lips, but not of the hollowed mater dolorosa eyes, congratulations upon Amanda. Not far off stood Mr. Cunningham, florid, Roman, stockbroking, incongruous; as usual an unaccountable addition to the party: yet there he was, always, at every one of the parties, quite affable and imperturbable; and no one knew what to say to him; and what the position, what the relationship was, no one could do more than conjecture. He provided the money, some said, and was proud of his artistic wife and children, and discreetly looked after his own interests by keeping a mistress in a little house in John Street. They were a devoted couple, said others; she relied on him absolutely, there had never been any unfaithfulness …

  But she was worn, white, this evening; she had aged. In her heart was locked away the image of Simon. She would never speak of him again. She had loved him for eighteen years …

  Now we shall get on without him, we shall make do with imitations of him. Peter, she thought, watching her son across the room, was an imitation. At twenty-five he had something of the look Simon had had as a young man: the merest superficial resemblance though: the quality wasn’t there. There was nobody left in the world like Simon, who had died in September. Naturally one would go on giving parties, going to the ballet, the opera, going abroad, filling the house, filling the days. Life was perfectly full, one saw to that; one could manage without Simon who had never been a practical part of any of it. There was scarcely anything tangible—scarcely a letter or a snapshot—to remember: anything, that is, of a private nature. His pictures hung on the walls. She had started buying them on Desmond Fellowes’ advice when Simon was unknown and twenty-one. She now owned the best of them. These would shortly be lent to a memorial exhibition. He wasn’t a great painter, but he might have been. It was in his nature, she thought, to be great; never to narrow or to crystallise in mediocrity. It was the richness and variety of his temperament which had hindered a straightforward development; so that at thirty-eight he was still half-promise, half-fulfilment. He hadn’t entirely found himself. A painter of charm, of intense individuality, not a great painter … I helped him, I gave him a splendid start … Oh, Simon I … You’ve left me nothing for myself. My portrait by you wasn’t done for me, it didn’t spring from our intimacy; which existed only by my will to which you were never subject …

  “Clara, my dear, it was charming.” Gil Severn came up and took her hand and kissed it. He stuck his monocle in and sighed.

  “It was rather moving,” she said, smiling faintly.

  “Touching,” he said. “Lyrical creature …”

  “She hasn’t much talent,” said Mrs. Cunningham, in the way that caused her friends, her children especially, to consider her severe, alarming, cold. “Just that she’s got youth, and there’s a grace …”

  “Exquisite,” he agreed with enthusiasm, suppressing, his private emendation: no talent at all.

  The fact is I don’t know what to do with her, thought her mother, gazing beneath marble lids towards where Amanda was, unfortunately, dancing with Jasper, handsome and swarthy, bending his magnetic eyes, his wide, square brow upon her, exerting wizardry. Successfully or not? Amanda looked fugitive, innocent … Well, she must look after herself. The death of Simon had been her first grief. She’d known him all her life. It had disorientated her, made her distraught, rebellious for a day; vowing never, never … crying out why, why? … Spurning comfort. Then she had put him away from her. At least it seemed so. In youth these things go over … Though I know nothing about her. She was undoubtedly at her best with Simon; happy and unaffected. She’ll miss him.

  Olivia joined Adrian downstairs in a small back room, a kind of study.

  “Hallo, darling,” she said. “Who are you prowling after?”

  “My dear, the relief of finding you.” … He seemed tearful.

  “You haven’t found me. You weren’t even looking. Adrian, will Anna come, d’you suppose?”

  “I think so. Colin rang up from Sallows about four. He said she’d practically decided to appear—and if he could manage to keep her to it he was motoring her up almost at once.”

  “It’s time she was here.”

  Her heart turned over in her chest. The first time since Simon died … When I see her it’ll be true. Nobody had seen her so far, except Colin: she’d suddenly asked
him down to Sallows last week to help go through Simon’s things. Simon had left her his house, and she’d been there ever since she came back after burying him.

  “My dear, a word to the wise. I have a strong feeling the whisky will run out before long. It’s apt to at these respectable festas. Should we make sure of more than our share?”

  “Upstairs again?”

  “Yes, upstairs.” He was looking about him in a vague yet preoccupied way. Something on his mind …

  They emerged into the hall, and met Anna and Colin, just arrived, at the foot of the staircase.

  “Hallo! … You’ve missed the performance.” Olivia gave Anna a hug, speaking with off-hand brightness. For one must be natural, deny any change, any ghost in attendance …

  “Should we regret it?” said Anna, quietly smiling, just like herself.

  “Between ourselves,” said Adrian loudly, “it was the most witless, arty, boring performance I’ve ever attended. Never was such a lack of any idea of anything paraded.”

  “Amanda looked rather divine in her tunic,” said Olivia.

  “Did Peter perform?” said Anna.

  “Peter was very good indeed to my mind as the front part of the bull in the charade—or was it the back part?”

  “The back,” said Adrian. “I’ve been trying in vain to discover the front ever since they doffed their disguise. Does anybody know who he is?”

  “I didn’t notice him,” said Olivia.

  “He was one of those absolutely charming pug faces … Don’t you remember, Olivia, when he peeped out through the hole in the neck at the end?” His eye roved anxiously round. “I distinctly saw him come downstairs, but my pursuit was impeded and he vanished. I wonder if he’s slipped up again.”

  “Take care you don’t slip up,” said Anna, just like herself, starting to ascend the wide, shallow, curving staircase. But just at the turn she stopped, seemed to shrink back. “I suppose it’s a respectable party,” she said uncertainly.

  “On the well-conducted side. There’s a perfectly devilish array of young. Hurry if you want a drink.”