The Nutmeg Tree

by Margery Sharp

  “I’ll take mine black,” said Julia.

  She gulped it down and put the cup back on the table. Susan had a book with her, Bryan looked half-asleep; in two minutes Mrs. Packett would be asleep as well. Julia pushed back her chair and prepared for flight.

  “Do you know how to make shortbread?” asked Mrs. Packett, opening her eyes.

  “Yes,” said Julia recklessly. “I believe I’ll go for a walk.”

  But Mrs. Packett, like so many of the old, heard only what interested her.

  “Which sort of butter do you use—salt or fresh?”

  “Fresh,” said Julia.

  “I always use salt,” said Mrs. Packett. “I must make you some. And I’ll show you my special maids-of-honour.”

  “That will be lovely,” said Julia.

  “And almond buns. I always think—”

  “Lovely,” said Julia again. “I shall enjoy it like anything. I know how clever you are. I believe I’ll go for a good walk.”

  It was the reappearance of Anthelmine that saved her. For Anthelmine brought out not only the milk, but also a fine plump chicken offered for sale by the man who looked after the vine; and Mrs. Packett, an expert in poultry, naturally forgot everything else while she poked it in the chest. She poked, weighed, and finally approved; and when she turned back to the coffee table, her daughter-in-law was gone.

  The road to Belley covered nearly four miles, and the day was hot; but Julia—a yellow bow round her neck, her hat over one eye—did not care a damn. She felt extraordinarily lighthearted. She had a smile for everyone she met, and nearly caused the death of two bicycling poilus who kept turning round to wave to her. Julia waved back. She waved also to the car which had so narrowly missed them. Soon, very softly, she was singing as she walked.

  She sang the Marseillaise.

  She had reverted to type.

  2

  Her first act on reaching Belley was to sit down under a tree on the promenade and overhaul her face. It didn’t look bad, considering the long walk, and with the help of lipstick and rouge and a touch of eyebrow-pencil she was soon as fresh as a daisy. No mere daisy, however, could display such handsome tints as those in which Julia now blossomed forth; she was not actually painted, but she was perceptibly made-up. When she had quite finished she walked once past the big café by the bus stop (just to make sure she had got the effects right) and then turned up the other side of the promenade towards the Pernollet Hotel.

  There were four cars standing outside, but only one with a G.B. plate. Julia strolled by and looked at it carefully: it was an old but well-kept Daimler, in charge of an elderly but spruce chauffeur; on the back seat lay a couple of air-cushions, a couple of English magazines, and a large plaid rug. The French cars, standing behind, were all two-seaters, of the sort which gentlemen do not usually drive alone; and after some consideration Julia decided to stick to her own nationality. She looked at the Daimler once more, noted that the magazines were the Strand and the Cornhill; then walked a little way down the street and, with a philosophic sigh, wiped off most of her lipstick.

  As she turned back she saw that she had been right: the owners of the car, who were just getting in, matched it perfectly. They were two middle-aged Englishwomen of the type so ably caricatured in the French press; their resemblance to horses was not strict, but it was there. As the second flat back disappeared Julia moved forward and put her head in after it.

  “Excuse me,” she said quietly—in her best Packett manner—“but are you by any chance going back to Aix?”

  The Misses Marlowe, after recovering from their surprise, quite pleasantly admitted that they were.

  “Then I wonder,” continued Julia, “whether I might possibly ask you for a lift? I find there isn’t a bus till four, and my children will be waiting for me.”

  The ladies consulted each other by a glance. If Julia had moved away they could have consulted verbally, and the younger, who had just read a novel by A. E. W. Mason, might have developed scruples; but Julia did not budge. She stayed where she was, half in the car already, and in consequence was not refused.

  “Of course,” said the elder lady, “certainly”; and Julia nipped in.

  It was a pleasant journey. The car moved swiftly and easily along, and the two Samaritans had no cause to regret their kindness. For their new companion proved most interesting, and told them many amusing anecdotes about the three children—Ronald, Rachel and Elizabeth—whom she had left with their governess at Aix.

  “I say left,” smiled Julia, with pleasant humour, “but I’ve only been away from them three hours. I fancied Miss Graham—my governess—wanted them to herself for a while. I believe she thinks I’m bad for discipline.”

  “After all, they’re on holiday,” said Miss Marlowe indulgently.

  Julia nodded.

  “That’s what I say. And they do lessons every morning. French, you know. That’s why I brought them here.”

  “You don’t find Aix too relaxing?” asked Miss Marlowe the younger. “I should have thought Geneva—”

  “Ah, it’s on account of my aunt,” said Julia swiftly. “She’s taking the cure, and wanted me to be with her. She brought me up, and we don’t expect her to be with us much longer. Do you know Yorkshire at all?”

  They did not, so she told them a great deal about her early childhood in a bleak stone house set among purple moors. There was no doubt that Julia’s imagination, unexercised now for six days, had fairly taken the bit between its teeth. Convincing details, picturesque episodes, sprang one after another to her lips. She was run away with by unbroken ponies; she was lost in sudden mists; she struggled through the snow to the rescue of a pet lamb. The Misses Marlowe listened entranced, and so did Julia. She was not lying, she was entertaining; and the entertainment was so good that the first sight of Aix took both her and her audience by surprise.

  “How quickly we’ve come!” exclaimed the elder lady, quite unconscious of flattery. “Where can we put you down?”

  Julia hesitated. The geography of Aix was a blank to her, the only building she positively knew it to contain being the casino itself; and though there was now no real reason (the journey safely accomplished) why she should not boldly announce it as her destination, her artistic instincts rebelled. It was the pet lamb that worried them; it was all wrong to jump straight from a pet lamb to a casino, and Julia almost felt she owed her hostesses an apology. But the casino it had to be, for she dared not hesitate long; so devoted a mother could not possibly have forgotten where she was meeting her young.

  “At the casino, please,” said Julia. “How disreputable that sounds! But my aunt loves it.”

  “It’s all right in the afternoon, my dear!” said Miss Marlowe with a smile. “No one plays till night.”

  3

  At half-past four Mrs. Packett, who had spent an agreeable afternoon writing out recipes, emerged from her room and found Susan and Bryan still under the pines. Bryan was reading Mademoiselle Dax, Susan had a volume of Molière; as her grandmother approached she put it down and reached for the big cowbell that would summon Claudia with the tea.

  “Where is Julia?” asked Mrs. Packett.

  Bryan looked up.

  “She said something about going for a walk. She’s probably collapsed into a café.”

  “Dear me,” said Mrs. Packett, considering the sun-baked hillside, “and there’s no nice tea-shop nearer than Belley. I hope she won’t be too tired.”

  Susan alone showed no anxiety as to her mother’s whereabouts. She drank her tea, dipped into her Molière, and did not encourage conversation. It was one of her characteristics that when she did not wish to be spoken to, people rarely spoke to her: she had the faculty of wrapping herself in a cloak of silence, folded in which she courteously but firmly withdrew from society. “Packett in her cloud” was a familiar college expression; she was in her cloud now. But behind it her thoughts too were busy with the absent Julia.

  “Why is it all so different?” w
ondered Susan. “We’re here just as we used to be before she came, and yet it’s all changed.” A part of the change at least lay in the fact that she herself was no longer the undisputed centre of their tiny society—that the attention of Bryan and Mrs. Packett, previously concentrated on herself alone, was now liable to stray in another direction; but of this she was not consciously aware. What she was aware of, though but vaguely, was a general relaxing, so to speak, of the moral atmosphere. She couldn’t put her finger on anything definite; she only knew that it was becoming more and more difficult to brace Bryan up. This bracing of her suitor was a matter of great importance to her; she was extremely anxious that he should impress Sir William, not only with his keenness in love, but also with his keenness in his profession. She wanted to produce him as a coming young man—as he undoubtedly was, if only he would take a little trouble.…

  “It all depends on the people he’s with,” thought Susan. She had too nice a sense of decorum to add, even mentally, that he was in bad company when he was with her own mother; but the thought crossed her mind that Julia must by now be rather tired of Muzin.

  “If Uncle William’s motoring to Paris,” she observed casually, “Julia might like to go with him.”

  Mrs. Packett looked at her in surprise.

  “Has she said anything about going so soon, dear?”

  “No, but she’d have a lovely run. It’s the only way to see the country.”

  “I thought she’d stay and wait for us,” said Mrs. Packett. “I want to fly the Channel, and I’m sure she’d come with me if you don’t care to.”

  Susan said nothing.

  “She must be dreadfully hot if she’s walking,” added Mrs. Packett solicitously. “I do hope she’s had some tea.”

  Susan said nothing to that either.

  4

  Well it was for Mrs. Packett’s kind heart that her vision did not reach as far as the Place du Revard; for there, at that moment, stood Julia in the most deplorable state of heat and thirst. Aix was a howling wilderness to her: she had lost her five francs in five seconds, there were no millionaires (at least none unattached), and not a single coronetted car. She was too footsore even to go and look at the shops. She was so desperate that if the property-aspirin had been poison indeed she would quite possibly have taken it.

  To make matters worse, she had just come upon a large café of the most superior kind; its broad terrasse was hedged from the pavement by a row of beautifully clipped bushes just as high as her chin; and over these, as she loitered by, Julia could not help seeing the throng of happy creatures inside. There were beautiful ladies in white hats, less beautiful males who were evidently going to pay for what the ladies consumed; and at the sight of so many drinks Julia’s heart fainted within her. She needed a drink. She needed a drink badly. What with heat, disappointment and weariness, she felt as though she had never needed a drink before.

  By the time she reached the end of the hedge, longing had turned to resolution. She had not only needed a drink, she was damn well going to have one.

  Julia turned round and slowly retraced her steps. She was determined that if they put her in prison it should be for three Manhattans. But as she once more followed and looked over the bushes, it occurred to her that perhaps she needn’t go to prison at all. Several of the tables were occupied by gentlemen alone, some obviously expectant, but one or two as obviously free, and over these last Julia ran an experienced eye. Her final choice was plump and middle-aged, a prosperous-looking Anglo-Saxon whose general sobriety of demeanour was relieved by a bright and roaming glance. By great good luck there was an empty table beside him, and towards it Julia now made her way.

  She had two preliminary objects—an eye to catch, an eye to avoid. The first belonged to her neighbour, the second to the waiter; and she succeeded in both, for the terrasse was so crowded that an inactive client could easily escape attention, and Mr. Rickaby—such was the prosperous gentleman’s name—had attention to spare. Julia had not been seated two minutes before their eyes met: her own gaze was the abstracted kind, so useful for forming a sound opinion before committing oneself, and she held it at least ten seconds before starting and turning away. But she soon fell into a reverie again, and naturally the same thing happened. When it had happened three times Mr. Rickaby spoke.

  “Very slow service, isn’t it?”

  “Terrible!” said Julia, with an encouraging smile.

  It encouraged Mr. Rickaby so much that he slewed round his chair till he was practically sitting at her table.

  “Waiting for someone?” he asked.

  Julia twisted her mouth and shrugged. Instinctively she had pitched on exactly the right line—a slightly mournful cynicism such as Mr. Rickaby would enjoy dispelling. She was almost certain that he was a man who liked to do good.

  “What you want,” said Mr. Rickaby, “is a drink.” And without waiting for an answer—thus showing that he was also a man who knew his way about—he energetically hailed a waiter and ordered two Martinis.

  “Thanks,” said Julia indifferently. She felt it was still too early for a gleam of gratitude, so she turned three-quarter face—not profile, because of the plumpness under her chin—and stared into the distance, and let him have a good look at her. Mr. Rickaby evidently appreciated what he saw, for when the drinks came he at once stated his intentions.

  “Our eyes have met,” quoted Mr. Rickaby softly, “our lips not yet—here’s hoping. You by yourself here?”

  “At the moment,” said Julia.

  “But not for long,” suggested Mr. Rickaby.

  Julia shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’m alone in Aix,” she said; “I haven’t any luggage, and I haven’t a bean. So hope is just what I need.”

  The mingled pathos and bravery in her voice touched them both. Mr. Rickaby made sympathetic clucking noises, and in each of her own eyes (without any conscious effort) Julia felt a tear start. It did sound awful, put baldly like that.… The only thing was, was it too awful? Had it frightened him off? Just in case, Julia shifted a point farther from pathos and a point nearer to bravery.

  “I’m a fool,” she said gamely. “It’s not really so bad as that.”

  “Poor little girl!” said Mr. Rickaby.

  Julia’s answering sigh was partly one of relief. It was O.K., she’d been quite right, he did like to do good. With a sudden flash of insight she saw him as a man who liked his good times, but occasionally had trouble with his conscience, and as a man therefore to whom the combination of a good time with a Good Work would be a positive godsend.…

  “Tell me all about it,” said Mr. Rickaby. “Tell me how you came here.”

  “With Lucien,” said Julia.

  “Lucien?”

  “The dress designer,” said Julia. How, she could not tell, but this sinister figure had at that very instant sprung fully-fledged from her brain. Lucien, the designer … a man about fifty; tall, heavy, with narrow coffee-coloured eyes …

  “Never heard of him,” said Mr. Rickaby, evidently with pride. “Some dago chap?”

  “Armenian,” corrected Julia. “Lucien is just the trade-name.”

  “Armenian! My God!” said Mr. Rickaby.

  Julia sighed her agreement.

  “You can’t trust them,” she said sombrely.

  “And he’s left you planted here?”

  Julia gulped.

  “This morning—when we were leaving the hotel—there was another woman in the car … Someone he’d just picked up. A very tall ash-blonde, with dark eyebrows.”

  “I believe I’ve seen her about,” said Mr. Rickaby.

  For a moment Julia was quite startled by her own powers.

  “Not that one,” she said hastily. “This one had only turned up last night.… But there she was in the car, and of course I wouldn’t stand it. I said so. And then—can you believe it? He simply drove off.”

  “No!”

  “With my luggage in the back!”

  There it was, a
good, interesting, watertight story, and Julia felt justifiably proud of it. It accounted for everything, and it aroused in Mr. Rickaby the pleasurable sentiment of righteous indignation. The things he was saying about M. Lucien were hard but deserved. Nothing, Julia felt, was too bad for that devilish designer—especially when you thought how he treated his work-girls. For a moment in Julia’s imagination there hovered a vision of dreadful Armenian excesses: for M. Lucien was by this time so real to her that she knew exactly what happened whenever he got a girl to stay late. But she pulled herself up; she wasn’t going to risk a libel action; and her next cue was already overdue.

  “Now tell me about you,” said Julia earnestly.

  Mr. Rickaby told her. His story was not nearly so colourful as Julia’s, but it was the one she wanted to hear. He was alone at Aix, and finding it rather dull. He had been overworking—overdriven, said Mr. Rickaby—and his doctor had ordered a complete change. He was obviously suffering for someone to talk to, and within the next half-hour had told Julia all about the complicated negotiations (amalgamation of two men’s outfitting stores) which had led to his overworking and his presence at Aix. It was the sort of talk Julia was used to, and she knew so many of the right questions to ask that Mr. Rickaby conceived a very high opinion of her brains.

  “You understand,” he said at last. “You’re an intelligent woman.”

  “It’s so interesting,” said Julia modestly.

  Mr. Rickaby slapped the table.

  “There you are. You’re interested because you’re intelligent. Now my wife isn’t interested at all. The fact of the matter is, she doesn’t understand me.”

  From sheer force of habit Julia glanced at her watch; For several years she used to have a permanent bet with one of her girl-friends that every man you met said that within the first hour; the girl-friend had said no, within the first half-hour; and they used to get quite a lot of fun out of jockeying their opponents (so to speak) into position—Julia holding the declaration off, Louise trying to bring it on; and then whoever lost had to stand the other a lunch. Good old Louise! thought Julia, with quite a rush of affection; she hadn’t thought of the girl for years, but it was queer how that well-remembered phrase brought her suddenly to life. Red hair, she’d had, and a way with the boys that nearly always ended in a row.…