“I do hope you can manage. It’s rather short notice.”
Eliza looked gloomy.
“It’ll have to be something out of a tin, which is what I never thought I’d come to, but there’s not many can say they’ve not had their spirits broke by the war-when I think how I wouldn’t have margarine inside my kitchen, let alone having to manage with drips and drabs of fat, and go on your knees to the butcher for the bones to boil it off!”
“But you’re such a lovely cook. That’s where real cleverness comes in-everything tastes as if you had pounds of whatever you wanted.”
If there had been one shade of insincerity in her tone, or even in her thought, Eliza would have been on to it like Mactavish with a mouse. There being nothing but sheer conviction, she allowed herself to accept the tribute.
When they had considered that a coffee-cream could not be ready in time, and that there was not lard enough to make a tart, Eliza came down firmly upon Queen pudding, there being two eggs left over and the grocery order due again tomorrow.
Then as Marian turned to go, Eliza stayed her.
“There is something I think I’d better say, Miss Marian-”
Marian’s heart sank. After only two days she could feel that it was going to be a wrench to part with Eliza, and it sounded dreadfully as if Eliza was going to give notice. And then remorse smote her. If she felt like this all in a flash, no wonder Aunt Florence and Aunt Cassy were sitting on the other side of the wall being jealous and angry because of having Eliza reft from them. There had been a couple of dreadful communal meals at which this had been made quite clear. She braced herself for the blow.
Eliza stood up tall and stiff, with the bone of her nose showing yellow under the skin and her eyes the colour of the sharp steel knife which she had just taken out of the table drawer. She said,
“It’s always best to get things settled, and I’d like to be sure where I stand, so perhaps you’ll let me know if you would be thinking of making a change.”
This didn’t sound like giving notice, but you couldn’t take anything for granted.
“I don’t want to change anything at all, Eliza.”
“Then I’m sure I shall be very pleased to stay. I always did say this was the better range of the two, and Mactavish has settled down.”
“I’m very glad, Eliza. The only thing is, I feel bad about Mrs. Brand and Miss Remington-”
Eliza did not exactly sniff. The muscles of her nose twitched. She said firmly,
“Mrs. Bell is doing for them, and her sister Mrs. Woolley will come up mornings and cook for them. I’ve put her in the way of the range, and they can hot up what she leaves for the evening. It’s all fixed, and nothing for you to worry about. And if you and Mrs. Felton’ll do your own rooms-”
“And the study,” said Marian quickly-“I’d like to do the study.”
“We’ll get along fine. And if I may say so, I’ll be glad for Penny to have a little more company, and Felix too.”
Chapter 11
On the other side of the wall Miss Remington lifted her head with a jerk.
“I’m sure it’s a blessing this room doesn’t face the same way as the drawing-room.”
The ladies were in their own sitting-room. It looked towards the road and had a view of wind-driven shrubs on this side and rising ground beyond. There was a good deal of furniture and a great many knick-knacks. Every inch of the wall space was taken up. A number of small tables cluttered the floor. The blue plush curtains were heavy. The Brussels carpet had worn remarkably well, its harsh blues and browns being practically intact.
Mrs. Brand said, “We don’t get the sun, or the view of the sea.”
Cassy tossed her head.
“You don’t care for too much sun, and I’m sure the sea makes quite enough noise on this side. So does Helen Adrian. I shall speak to Felix. They really ought to keep the window shut when they’re practising. I don’t see why we should have to close ours.” She went quickly to the casement as she spoke and jerked it to with a bang.
Florence Brand was darning a stocking. She looked up. She allowed her eyes to rest upon her sister for a moment, and then went on darning, taking a thread and leaving a thread in a slow, deliberate manner.
“People pay to hear her,” she said.
Miss Cassy turned round.
“I don’t know why you have her here.”
“I don’t have her here. And Felix won’t much longer.”
Cassy stared.
“How do you know? She’d marry him for two-pence.”
Florence Brand shook her head.
“Oh, no-not now-not without Martin’s money.”
“Well, she’d be a good riddance,” said Cassy Remington.
As she spoke, the door, which had been slightly ajar, was pushed a little wider. Mrs. Bell’s lugubrious face with the fair streaky hair coming down in loops looked round it.
“Emma’s doing fish for you, Mrs. Brand. She’s brought it with her, but there wasn’t any haddock, so it’s cod, and a few herrings for breakfast.”
She went back through and told her sister Mrs. Woolley that Miss Remington had turned up her nose, but what was the good, someone had got to eat cod, and they were carrying on like nobody’s business about that Miss Adrian.
In the drawing-room Felix lifted his hands from the keyboard and said,
“Not much wrong with the voice. Let’s run through that again. And try letting it out a little.”
The sun streamed in through the three windows. The two double casements stood wide, but the window in the middle, which was really a door, was closed. All the curtains were of pale brocade with the colour bleached out of it. The room corresponded to Martin Brand’s study on the other side of the wall, and it looked and felt as if it had never been lived in. An ivory wall-paper with a satin stripe was here and there interrupted by watercolours with wide white mounts and narrow gold frames. The furniture was, as Penny had described it, gilt and spindly. Most of it was shrouded in dust-sheets, but the covers had been carelessly pulled off two of the larger chairs and tossed in a heap upon an Empire couch.
In the midst of all this stiffness and pallor Helen Adrian looked as warmly alive as sunshine. Her hair was very nearly as golden. Her skin glowed with health, and her eyes were just that one shade deeper than sky-blue which makes all the difference. She shook her head and said,
“No, that’s enough.”
Felix jerked back the heavy lock of dark hair which was always falling into his eyes.
“Just let your voice out. I believe it’s better than ever.”
She was leaning over the piano towards him.
“No-I don’t want to.”
He said accusingly, “You’re scared,” and she nodded.
“I’m afraid of singing out. I don’t feel-”
“You don’t need to feel. Sing! It’s all there-just let it go.”
He struck the opening chords, but she remained leaning there, tracing an imaginary pattern on the dark wood and looking down at her own finger with its polished rosy nail.
“Felix-”
He banged out a bar and stopped.
“What is it?”
“It’s no good. I can’t go on to a concert platform and sing in a whisper, and I’m not going to let my voice out and crack it.”
“What are you driving at?”
“Oh, well-”
“You’ve got an engagement in Brighton in a fortnight’s time. How are you going to keep it if you won’t try your voice?”
“Well, that’s just it-I don’t think I’m going to keep it.”
“And all the rest of your engagements?”
“I don’t think-”
“You don’t think? You’ve got to think!”
“I’m not going to crack my voice.”
“There’s nothing the matter with your voice.”
She straightened up with a little laugh.
“Well, it is my voice, darling-I’m glad you admit that- and if I don’t want to sin
g, you can’t make me.”
He swung round on the piano-stool.
“Do you mean anything by that?” Then, with the blood rushing into his face, “What do you mean?”
She was watching him. Now she smiled.
“I just don’t want to sing, darling.”
He got up and came towards her quite slowly and deliberately.
“Do you mean now-or-”
“I mean now.”
“All right, then we try again tomorrow-is that it?”
“No, I don’t think so. Felix, do be reasonable.”
The blood had drained back. The lock of hair had fallen forward again. It emphasised his pallor.
“What do you mean by being reasonable?”
She laughed lightly.
“It’s not anything you’d understand very well, is it, darling?”
He said heavily,
“No, I’m not reasonable about you-you needn’t expect it. But you’re going to tell me what you mean.”
“Am I?”
He said with sudden violence,
“Some day you’re going to get yourself murdered!”
Quite involuntarily she flinched. It was only Felix in a temper; but just for the moment something in her wavered and was afraid.
She stepped back, and the movement brought the door into her line of vision. The ivory panels, the china handle and door-plates with their pattern of small pink roses, stood very slightly at an angle. The door was not quite shut. She went over to it, opened it, and looked out. A yard away Mrs. Bell was on her hands and knees in the passage, polishing the floor-boards.
Helen Adrian shut the door in a controlled manner and went back. Felix was still in a temper, but he didn’t frighten her now. She stuck her chin in the air and said,
“Next time you feel like murdering anyone, darling, I don’t think I should tell the daily first.” Then, with a laugh, “Oh, come off it, Felix! Let’s go down and see if it’s warm enough to bathe.”
Chapter 12
Richard Cunningham walked out along the cliff road. He knew that nothing in the world would have prevented him from coming down to Farne and going to see Marian Brand. If he had been twenty, he couldn’t have been more set on doing a foolish romantic thing. If he had been twenty, he wouldn’t have thought about it being foolish or romantic, he would have just done it. Since he was thirty-five, he was fully aware of the folly and on the edge of being able to laugh at the romance. No, that wasn’t true. He would have liked to be able to laugh at it, to keep a back way out in case the whole airy structure crashed and let him down flat after the manner of so many castles in Spain. But he couldn’t manage it. If the castle came down, it came down, but nobody or nothing was going to stop him walking into it with his eyes open.
He told himself, as he had done at intervals during the past month, that he was allowing an obstinate whim to drive him. To which there always came the spontaneous reply that it might not be a whim at all but an instinct. He had seen Marian Brand once as he passed the window of her compartment before the train was wrecked, and once for a moment before he fainted when they had just been dug out of the debris. There had been dust in her hair, and blood on her face. He had talked with her on and off for something like two hours with a smashed railway carriage tilted over them in the ditch which had saved their lives. He had sent her flowers, and a copy of The Whispering Tree. He had written to her three times. During the rush of his business in the States he had found it a refreshment to write those letters. They did not touch on intimacies, but they were intimate because they had been written without taking thought as to what was said or how it would be received. The whole world might have read them, but they could only have been written to one person.
There was the background. And now he was going to lunch with her. Either the thing was an instinct, or it was a folly. He would know at once. It was a lovely May morning with a blue sky and just enough light cloud moving to keep the sea in change instead of that eternal blue glitter which tires the eye.
He came to the white house standing behind its wind-driven shrubs, walked up to the twin blue doors, and knocked on the right-hand one. It was opened. He stood looking at Marian Brand, and she at him.
At once everything was quite easy. He might have been walking up to that front door every day of his life. There wasn’t any castle in the air. There was a welcoming house, and the woman he wanted. It was as simple, as inexplicable, and as comfortable as daily bread. He held her hand and laughed, and said,
“Take a good look at me! I’m clean, which is more than I was when you saw me before.”
She said, “I knew exactly what you would look like.”
“How?”
“I don’t know-I did.”
And then she was taking him through to the study, and they were talking about the house, about his journey, and each of them had so much to say that they were taking turns, catching each other up and laughing about it, interrupting and being interrupted, like friends who have known each other for a long time and don’t have to bother about being polite. It wasn’t in the least the way that Marian had thought it would be. She had been so pleased and proud about his coming, and then quite terrified. If she could have run away and kept a single shred of self-respect she would have done it. She had wondered what they would talk about, and been quite sure that, whatever it was, he would find it dull. And then it didn’t matter. They were easy and comfortable together. She could be just herself. It didn’t matter a bit.
When he asked about Ina she could say just what was on her mind.
“I’m worried about her. I told you about Cyril. He’s gone off in a temper.”
“Because you wouldn’t give him half your kingdom?”
“Something like that.”
“You won’t do it?”
“Oh, no-he’d only throw it away. But Ina’s fretting.”
“Is she fond of him?”
“She was.”
He whistled.
“Like that, is it?”
“She’s very unhappy. I’m afraid she won’t be here for lunch-she’s gone out-” She hesitated, and then went on. “She didn’t tell me-just left a message to say she was going down into Farne to see about a library subscription and wouldn’t be back. She didn’t know you were coming.”
“And you are thinking she may have gone to meet her husband?”
She looked startled.
“How did you know?”
Their eyes met, and he smiled. There was a moment when they looked at one another. Then he said,
“Wouldn’t he come here?”
“Well, I think he would try and get round Ina first.”
“Does it worry you?”
“I don’t want him to make her unhappy.”
“I expect he knows which side his bread is buttered.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then he may behave reasonably now he’s had time to think things out.”
Cyril being reasonable sounded too good to be true. She found herself saying so with a rueful laugh. And quick on that she had a sense of immeasurable relief. She had never had anyone with whom she could talk things over-never in all her life before. Now there was Richard. The feeling didn’t get into words, but it was there.
The bell rang for lunch.
When it was over they went down the garden steps to the cove and watched the tide go down, leaving first wet shingle, and then a stretch of sand with a double line of rocks running out into the shallow sea. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they were silent. It was a very happy, peaceful time.
Coming up the steps, they met Felix and Helen Adrian coming down. She wore grey slacks and a hyacinth-blue pullover, and her hair dazzled in the sun. She might have stepped off the cover of any Summer Number. The steps were narrow. Felix and Helen waited on the lowest of the garden terraces. As Richard Cunningham came into sight, she called out and ran to meet him.
“Richard-darling! Where did you spring from?”
He was
pleasant without enthusiasm.
“My dear Helen-what a surprise!”
She linked her arm in his.
“Is that all you’ve got to say? Where on earth have you been?”
“In the States.”
“You never wrote me a line! You’re not going in, are you? Come along down to the beach! I’ve got a million things to say to you. This is Felix Brand, my accompanist. I’m staying with his people. And-I suppose you know Marian-”
Felix looked murder at him.
Richard said, “Marian and I are very old friends. You’ll find it lovely on the beach. We’ve just been there. Now we’re going in. If you’re staying here, I expect I shall be seeing you.”
He went into the house with Marian.
Helen Adrian looked after them for a moment before she turned to Felix with a laugh.
Eliza brought tea to the study and said no, Mrs. Felton hadn’t come in, and she didn’t know where Penny was either. She retreated in a vaguely offended manner which Marian guessed might be put down to Miss Adrian’s account. It came over her that here was a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, and nearly everyone in both houses disliked her cordially. Felix was in love with her, but she had a conviction that he didn’t like her the better for that, or any more than the rest of them.
With this in her mind, she looked up from the tea she was pouring and said,
“Do you know Helen Adrian well?”
It was very pleasant in the study. A light air came through three open windows and brought the scent of flowers. A bumble bee zoomed in, and out again. It was all quite extraordinarily peaceful. He looked at Marian in the old blue and white cotton dress which she had worn for three summers, and which had never pretended to anything but utility, and thought what a restful woman she was to be with, and how she made any place she was in feel like home. Even if he hadn’t fallen in love with her he would have liked her more than anyone he had ever met. It was just as if her thought about Felix had touched him, because he remembered that he had once been in love with Helen Adrian without liking her at all. Without thought or effort he found himself saying,
“I was once in love with her-for a week.”
Through The Wall Page 8
