Dusty Answer

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘Would they? Would they? You don’t know what revolting ones they are.’

  He laughed and said indulgently:

  ‘It’s no good trying to frighten me.’

  ‘It’s true,’ she cried. ‘D’you suppose I’m trying to be humble because I think it’s the correct idea?’

  He said nothing, and she felt him trying with perplexity to think out the proper method of dealing with her mood. Finally he said:

  ‘Judy. I’ll tell you what seems to me the only important thing – and that is, that we should be absolutely truthful with each other. Don’t you agree? I think telling the truth is my only principle – besides washing. As long as I know exactly where I am, I can stand anything.’ He drew her to him and turned her face so that his warm kind eyes could look into hers. ‘I’ve always dreamt of finding someone I could tell everything to, and trust absolutely.’

  Tell everything to … Oh God! Was he going to say: ‘My wife and I must have no secrets from each other?’ Was he that sort of fool? He went on:

  ‘Judith I might as well try to lie to myself as you. And I can’t lie to myself. Why if I were to stop loving you even – if that could be – I’d have to tell you straight out. I couldn’t pretend. I hope you couldn’t either.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t.’

  He went on with a shade of anxiety.

  ‘And supposing there was ever anything worrying you – anything on your mind – please try to tell me. You needn’t be afraid. I hope perhaps – you might think it was – rather nice to feel there was a person you could rely on always. Would you, Judith?’

  He paused, breathless and deeply moved.

  ‘Yes, Martin.’

  ‘Please think of me as that person.’

  ‘I will, Martin.’

  ‘You’re not worrying about anything now?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘That’s right. As long as I know. I thought yesterday … But I suppose it was the rabbit?’

  She shuddered, and nodded her head, remembering her dream, unable to speak.

  He said in an amused, tender big-man-to-little-woman way:

  ‘You poor little thing to be so upset.’

  She laughed in response, deprecatingly, drearily.

  He tightened his arm round her, sighed happily and said:

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Nor can I.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

  ‘Nor did I.’

  ‘After all these years … Do you know, I’ve been in love with you ever since I’ve known you? Never anybody else for a moment. But I didn’t dare hope … I wonder what Roddy will say when we tell him.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘You know I was almost sure not so very long ago that if you liked any one of us specially it was Roddy.’

  ‘Were you really, Martin?’

  ‘Yes, and what’s more I thought he was bound to fall in love with you. God, I was jealous!’

  ‘Jealous of Roddy? Were you? How ridiculous!’

  ‘Not really ridiculous. Roddy’s so terribly nice and attractive, it seemed only natural you should prefer him to a dull chap like me.’

  ‘He didn’t ever say anything, did he, Martin?’

  ‘Not he. Roddy’s the darkest horse I know.’

  ‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ She laughed. ‘I suppose heaps of people fall in love with him?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said gravely. ‘He’s run after all right.’

  ‘Does he – do you suppose he – falls in love himself, much?’

  ‘Oh, more or less, I suppose.’

  ‘Not seriously?’

  He laughed and shook his head.

  ‘Not very seriously I don’t think.’

  ‘Perhaps he was a tiny bit in love with me … for a bit …’

  ‘I dare say he was. I don’t see how anybody could help being,’ he said with light tenderness, dropping quick kisses on her hair.

  ‘And then I suppose he stopped … And found somebody else …’

  ‘Perhaps he did. Don’t let’s worry about him anyway. He and I have different ideas about – all that sort of thing. He’s rather naughty and spoilt I think – though he is such a good chap,’ he added hastily, as if fearful of sounding disloyal.

  She persisted, in anguish:

  ‘How do you mean, naughty and spoilt, Martin?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know.’ He was embarrassed, unwilling to give his friend away. ‘A bit of a sensation-hunter perhaps.’

  That was it then: she had been a new sensation: one that had quickly palled, because she had been so swiftly, so entirely yielded up to him. She should have whetted his appetite by offering only a little at a time and then withdrawing it: so, he might still be desirous of her. Instead she had satiated him at the outset.

  She would know better next time … But there would be no next time. Instead, there was Martin now who said:

  ‘Won’t you kiss me?’

  She looked at him, aching with tears that were like an inward bleeding; and put her lips on his cheek for half a second.

  ‘Listen Martin.’ She took his hand and started to speak hurriedly, for fear of more kissing. ‘About that truth business. What was I going to say …’ She steadied her voice. ‘Yes. If you tried to – compel the truth you’d expect a lie, wouldn’t you? That’s logic. I’d always expect a lie anyway. I mean … I shouldn’t be at all surprised by it. I’d say it was my fault for not leaving you alone – not letting you be free enough – I’d think: well, I tried to coerce him, so he chose to deceive me. He was quite right.’

  ‘A lie’s a lie,’ said Martin obstinately.

  ‘A lie’s a – What does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything. Unless you believe God watches and writes down in his notebook: Martin Fyfe told a lie on Monday. If this goes on he won’t get his harp. Do you? Truth! What’s truth? Why, half your so-called truths are built on lies. You can scarcely distinguish. I could – I bet I could – act a lie to you all my life and you’d never know it. Be a lie.’

  He flushed swiftly at the last words and said in a stiff way:

  ‘I dare say you could. You’re clever enough for anything and I’m a fool. But don’t try, please …’

  ‘But there must be no compulsion, Martin!’ she insisted, horribly. ‘You wouldn’t try – to get at me – would you? You’d let me be, by myself? If you ever forced me when I was unwilling I’d tell lies and lies and congratulate myself for it. And I’d never forgive you.’

  He lit a cigarette and said, close-lipped, eyes fixed on the grass:

  ‘Does all this mean you want me to understand you’ve – changed your mind and wish to cry off?’

  She threw out her arms dramatically, crying:

  ‘Can’t I say anything? Can’t I say anything without being misunderstood? … being …’

  ‘I’ve never seen you like this, Judith.’ He got up and stood looking at her in despair. ‘It worries me. I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s not customary I suppose, in an engaged young lady …’

  She shut her eyes, and the tears scorched their lids bitterly.

  ‘Judy, what is it?’

  ‘Oh Martin!’ Hands pressed to forehead, voice a faint moan, she struggled on: ‘Only there are – some things – aren’t there? – there might be things which can’t be told. Things one must forget – try to – at once –’

  ‘Yes. Yes. If you say so,’ he soothed and whispered.

  ‘Because of the useless misery … and because they’ve – withered up your heart – so that you couldn’t recall them – even if you tried.’

  ‘Yes, my dear.’

  ‘I’ve had – one or two unhappinesses in my life. Everybody has, I suppose. I want to forget them …’

  ‘Of course, Judy, of course. Yo
u must never tell me anything you’d rather not.’

  She put her arms round his neck for a moment.

  ‘Thank you, Martin.’ She dried her eyes and said: ‘I won’t be so silly any more.’

  And if a doubt or a fear had begun to cloud his mind, his voice was none the less gentle, his eyes none the less trusting.

  He took her back to the garden and gathered sun-warmed strawberries for her; and they talked cheerfully together until lunch time.

  That afternoon Martin fished for trout in the stream, and she sat on the bank and read a page of her book now and then; and sometimes watched him; and mostly dreamed.

  His small-boyish absorption was amusing and rather appealing. He was immensely happy, moving along the bank in cautious excited silence, casting deftly up and down stream. If he were to be disturbed or upset in his pursuit, he would say ‘Ach!’ and swear, and flush all over his face, just as he had in the old days. Even if she were the disturber it would make no difference. She knew better than to interfere, or to speak except when spoken to, and then briefly and to the point. That was in his eyes one of her most admirable qualities. He loved to have her beside him, behaving nicely and looking pretty, shewing interest, and smiling when it was seemly.

  By the constant upward curve of his lips and by occasional dwelling glances, she knew he had thrown off the memory of this morning’s unnatural emotional perplexities, and was content.

  If only their marriage could be a perpetual sitting on a green bank by a stream, watching him tolerantly, almost tenderly, with quiet pleasure in his bodily magnificence, with a half-contemptuous smile for his happiness, and yet with comfort in the knowledge of it, and in the knowledge that her mere presence was sufficient for it, while her mind was off on its own, worlds removed from him! …

  It would be such an immense easing of the burden if only so much insincerity as was implicit in the acquiescent body was required, without the lies of the lips and the mind. She on the green bank always, with leisurely musings, and he moving past her, up and down, not touching her or demanding or possessing, but fishing for ever: it would be a pleasant enough marriage. He would look up now and then, smile approvingly, and say:

  ‘Still there, Judith?’

  ‘Still here, Martin.’

  ‘Quite cheerful?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Feeling safe?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘That’s right. Well, I’ll go on fishing then.’

  ‘And I’ll go on thinking.’

  And he would smile again and send his line whipping and hissing through the air.

  All the rest could go by, remain unsaid, with no falsehood at all. Perhaps, after years of patient sitting, even Roddy might be forgotten; or transformed into an object for idle pleasurable regrets.

  In the midst of these speculations, Martin came back and threw himself down beside her.

  ‘No luck, Martin?’

  ‘Not a nibble … I don’t care. I’d rather talk to you.’ He gazed lovingly at her and said:

  ‘What are you thinking of?’

  She clenched her hands; then answered softly:

  ‘… of nothing …

  When I muse thus I sleep.’

  He turned her face towards him with a hand beneath her chin, and gently kissed her lips.

  ‘Dear Judith I’ll try to make you happy.’

  ‘And I’ll try to make you happy, Martin.’

  Perhaps in time … Perhaps in time even Roddy …

  At that moment of wistful peace it seemed admirable to undertake the task of making Martin happy.

  He said shyly:’

  ‘I wonder what made you say you’d marry me.’

  ‘Because I’m so fond of you.’

  ‘Ah! That’s not quite the same as loving, is it?’ His voice was wistful, but not disappointed.

  She took his hand.

  ‘No, Martin, not quite the same.’

  He wrung her hand and said cheerfully:

  ‘Well, it’s something to be going on with. It’s a great deal more than I deserve. Of course I don’t expect you to feel romantic about me. Nobody could feel romantic about me, anyway.’

  ‘Oh I think lots of people could. I’m sure they could,’ she said; and felt suddenly ashamed. For indeed he was a man whom many women might love. What right had she to take him?

  ‘Well I don’t want them to,’ he said. ‘Your liking’s more than enough for me.’

  ‘Dear Martin! I promise you, at any rate, I wish I were in love with you.’

  ‘Mightn’t that be the first step?’ he said smiling.

  ‘No, no,’ she answered lightly. ‘I’ve finished with falling in love. I was in love once.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Years ago! It doesn’t amuse me. I reject it. Never again …’ She felt her lip start to curl and quiver, and stopped: then added in the same bantering tone: ‘Foolishness. That’s what it is. And as far as you are concerned, it would seem almost incestuous.’

  ‘Don’t use horrid words.’ He sat up, amused but startled.

  ‘Well it would. Not that I disapprove at all of incest, in theory. Yet I must confess my instinct’s against it.’

  ‘And so’s mine,’ said Martin firmly. ‘Let’s have no more nonsense.’

  He bent forward and dismissed the nonsense with a hearty kiss.

  That was the last straw. Her mood, stretched finer and finer in the preceding few minutes, snapped. She rolled over away from him and stared into the water.

  The tiny brilliant green water-plants and cresses grew up from the mud and pebbles and spread their leaflets below the surface in delicate array, motionless as if under glass. Oh, to slip into the water and become something minute and non-sentient, a sort of fresh water amoeba, living peacefully among their thin-spun tangle of whitish roots – now at once, before Martin noticed her disappearance! He would peer and peer into the water, with his red anxious face; and all in vain. In the shadow of his face her unimpressive form would be but the more obscured; and, unmoved, she would stare back at him.

  God! – to go mad, crack-brained, fantastic, happy mad; or to be stretched upon a rack in a physical anguish which precluded thought!

  ‘Tea-time,’ said Martin. ‘What a good afternoon it’s been.’

  In the hall they were met with a telegram for Judith. ‘Decided go abroad this week instead of next. Come home tomorrow. Mother.’

  Mamma had grown restless then, a trifle sooner than you had expected; and sent this peremptory summons. What an undreamed-of godsend!

  ‘You can’t go tomorrow, Judy,’ said Martin, much upset.

  ‘I must, Martin. There’ll be such a lot to see to. I must go as soon as I possibly can. I ought to go tonight.’

  The sooner she was out of the house the better.

  ‘You couldn’t possibly get there tonight by train. It’s such a beastly journey.’ He was struck with an idea and his face cleared a little. ‘I tell you what. Wait till after dinner and I’ll drive you back. If we started about eleven we’d be at your home soon after daybreak. Do, Judy, do. It’d be a marvellous drive. And I’ll break in on Mariella and cadge some breakfast. There’s so much to talk about. And if you’re going abroad we shan’t see each other for weeks. It’s most infernally disappointing, isn’t it?’

  She agreed that it was. But as for the drive, that would be a marvellous arrangement. If Martin would send a wire to tell Mamma to leave the front door key under the mat, she would go and explain to his mother. As she left him, her heart felt almost light. Perhaps she could manage to wriggle out and escape now, after all.

  7

  Martin’s mother stood on tiptoe to kiss her good-bye, while Martin went to fetch the car.

  Her box was ready in the hall. She had given a last glance through the open dining-room door at the
family portraits. She had been thankful to find them few and devoid of the likeness she dreaded. They were just anybody’s respectable family portraits. Of the dead sister there was no likeness.

  Martin’s little sitting-room, with its photograph on the mantelpiece of a solemn Roddy in Eton clothes, its cricket groups including Roddy in flannels and a blazer, its painted green fire-screen decorated by Roddy with strange figures – that had been far more terrifying. She would not have to sit there now and look at Martin’s photograph and scrap albums, as he had suggested.

  ‘I’m sorry you must go,’ said his mother, charming and abstracted.

  ‘I’m sorry too.’

  ‘But,’ she said gaily, ‘what a delightful idea, to drive through the night. Martin loves it, you know. I often hear him going off on a lovely night like this. Funny boy … His horn sounds so dreadfully lonely it makes me want to cry. He likes to have a companion. I used to go with him sometimes, but I’ve had to give it up. I feel too old next day.’

  She smiled sweetly; and suddenly, standing above her and seeing her so small and ageing, Judith felt no longer the great barrier of difference of generation, but the basic intimacy of their common sex; and with this an extreme tenderness and pity. She bent and kissed her – the poor thing, who must lie flat in her room thriftily husbanding her resources for the morrow, while she herself, coming thirty years of nights behind her, had the open dark for friend.

  She knew well enough you did not love her son: she trusted you not to betray him by marrying him. It would be horrible to force her to hate you … unthinkable.

  Car-wheels grated on the gravel outside, and Martin sounded his horn.

  In another few minutes they had waved good-bye to the small figure on the steps, and taken the road.

  Into the deep blue translucent shell of night. The air parted lightly as the car plunged through it, washing away in waves that smell of roses and syringa and all green leaves. The moon struggled with clouds. She wore a faint and gentle face.

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if there was rain before daybreak,’ said Martin; and, reaching at length the wan straight high road, accelerated with a sigh of satisfaction.

  ‘Faster, Martin, faster.’

  Faster and faster he went. She settled herself close against him, and through half-shut eyes saw the hawthorn and wild-rose hedges stream backward on either hand. The night air was a drug from whose sweet insinuating caress she prayed never to wake. Soon, through one leafy roadway after another, the headlights pierced a tunnel of green gloom. The lanes were full of white scuts and little paws, paralysed; and then, as Martin painstakingly slowed down, dipping and twinkling into the banks. Moths flickered bright-winged an instant in the lamplight before being dashed to their fried and ashy death. Once or twice came human beings, objects of mean and foolish design, incongruous in the night’s vast grandeur; and here and there, under the trees, upon the stiles, in the grass, a couple of them, locked face to face, disquietingly still, gleamed and vanished. She observed them with distaste: passion was all ugliness and vulgar imbecility.