She was appalled, suddenly, at her long absence, fancied disasters—the house on fire, the boys alone, the faithful Florrie neglecting to put them to bed and going out on a spree; and in any case, Robin staying awake to weep for her. Conviviality crumbled at her words: disintegration set in.
It was then that Christopher Seddon invited them all to stay the night: not so much politely as with obvious eagerness, almost with anxiety. They could borrow everything, he said; there were always plenty of new toothbrushes in the house. He looked at Hugh. And Hugh said he would simply love to stay. And Clare, thinking of Norah’s cramped spare bedroom facing the street, resounding day and night with the groaning reverberations of a defective pipe, agreed with him, appealing to Norah for corroboration.
“I can’t,” she protested miserably (for it was terrible to spoil their fun): “I simply can’t leave the boys all alone. They’re expecting me.”
“Of course you can,” said Gerald. “Ring up and tell Florrie. They’ll be all right. It’s ridiculous.”
But she shook her head. She would not. It was like Gerald to choose the one and only time when his unsociability would have been a help to enjoy himself madly at a party and object to departure. His eloquent eye pleaded with her rather threateningly.
Grace said suddenly:
“I must go too.” She turned to Hugh and added: “My husband will be expecting me.”
Unbidden and most unwelcome had arisen the thought of Tom—his voice if she were to ring up and tell him she was staying; his manner when she finally returned. Probably he had missed his Saturday-evening movie on her account, and was waiting up for her, uneasy, gnawed with envy and curiosity; and somehow pitiful, shame-faced. She must go back to Tom, her husband.
In the end it was satisfactorily arranged. Hugh was to take both Grace and Norah home in the car, and then return himself, at full speed, to spend the night. It was his own idea.
“I shall enjoy it frightfully,” he insisted. “I often whizz off at night when it’s fine, just for the fun of it.”
Norah went to look for Mary Seddon who had disappeared, as was her wont, directly after dinner.
She found her sitting by the fire in her own boudoir—embroidering a flower-panel, she explained, for a screen.
“All from my last autumn garden. I picked some of everything and mixed them up,” she said, articulating delicately in the flat voice of deafness. “Dahlias, yellow daisies, and some of the mauve feathery ones, zinnias, and several sorts of chrysanthemum: the tawny ones, and two of this exquisite spidery kind—look, pale pink and lemon—and some of the tiny raspberry-coloured button ones. They work in so well. Won’t it be charming? I intend a panel for each season, but I like an autumn garden best, so I started with that.” She smiled over her spectacles, a smile of enchanting peacefulness.
Norah came and knelt beside her. She sorted some silks and handed her a threadful of crimson for her dahlia.
“It’s a warm night for a fire, but I like it,” said Mary Seddon. “Directly the sun goes I light the fire.”
Norah nodded. She liked it too. Domestic comforts were as inevitable a part of Mary Seddon as her rings, her flowered silks.
After a while, unwilling to shout, she took a piece of paper and wrote upon it with the tiny gold and purple-enamelled pencil that hung—and had always hung—on a long gold chain at Mary Seddon’s waist:
Cousin Christopher has asked everybody to stay the night. But I am going home to Robin and David; and Grace Fairfax, the tall one in grey, is going too. May Gerald and the two young ones stay, and may I come out again to-morrow in my car, and bring the boys?
Mary Seddon read the message and smiled. “Very nice,” she said. “I shall like to see your boys.”
Yes, thought Norah, she would smile adorably at them and stroke their hair, murmur a few affectionate words, be to them something more impressive, tender, and alarming than they had ever known: so that to their lives’ end they would not forget her. And she would make one think, by some divine idiosyncrasy of comment, that they were both distinctly unusual children. But she would approach no nearer from her remoteness. She had a way of making one feel that after all there were so many human beings … one could not expect anything particularly new or surprising; it was nothing much, one way or the other, to have produced two oneself.
“Christopher is happy to have young society,” she said. “What pleasant looks and ways that young man has! Poor Christopher finds it very refreshing. I knew a Hugh Miller many years ago: this boy’s father, I dare say. There is a likeness.”
Of course. She had known everybody—sailing through the worlds both of society and of social rebels and outcasts in some astonishing and successful way of her own.
“And have you talked to my grandson?” she said after a pause.
Norah looked at her, nodded again.
“He’s a dear boy—most affectionate and coltish. Quite unlike his father. … I had a good deal of wretchedness and disappointment with his father. However, that’s all over long ago. …” She paused. “Ralph writes, you know, so he tells me. I dare say he has talent. His grandfather was a painter—an extremely handsome man. I have often noticed that painting and writing interchange from generation to generation. … Now, should there be leaves, do you think, or simply the flowers? I’ve drawn it very roughly.”
She examined the work critically, her head on one side. She had said all she wanted to say, and one could ask her nothing more.
“Simply the flowers,” said Norah. She got up. “Good night, Cousin Mary.” She stooped to kiss her.
“Dear Norah …” Mary Seddon laid a white hand on her cheek. “It is so pleasant to see you again. You don’t come here very often.”
Norah shook her head. No need to excuse herself, or say how much she longed to come oftener, and could not.
“I had a most interesting conversation with your husband,” she went on, stitching away. “I was very much struck by his intelligence. What remarkable eyes he has! … beautiful. He seems such a kind man, so gentle.”
Kind. Well, perhaps he was. It was rather nice, the way he had talked on with as much enthusiasm and un-self-consciousness as if she had not been deaf at all. And she saw him suddenly, giving extra coaching night after night to penniless examination candidates—would-be teachers who could not afford to pay him. Yes, he was a nice man.
She went back to the drawing-room and found him amid an applauding group doing parlour tricks: a strikingly unexpected sight. He was on his hands and knees, hands tied behind his back, a bottle on his head, in the act of taking a handkerchief in his mouth and lifting it from the floor. Even when she exclaimed he did not drop it. His eyes were fixed on Clare, proudly, eloquently. The handkerchief was hers.
They drove in silence, all three packed into the front seat. Norah threw an arm round Grace’s shoulder, for there was not room for all the arms; but the gesture made them smile at one another, gently. They were two women, friends of many quiet years, going back to their homes after a brief holiday.
And Norah thought: “I am a person whose own life is the past. But what does it matter?”
And Grace watched the pale hand moving on the wheel. The seal ring on the little finger suited its proportions, that had both strength and elegance. A well-bred hand it was, with shapely nails and fingers. Her eyes dwelt on it, fascinated. She wanted to put her own hand upon it; and, drowsy with the night air, half dreamed she did so, felt the touch; roused herself, pressing both hands into her lap. Her mind fastened upon the mystery of his physical proximity. Their shoulders were pressed together, their heads were close; but on the other side of a fragile wall of bone, he was immeasurably separated from her. How was it that this tingling physical awareness did not permit her secretly to enter through some crevice of his mind, and mingle with his thoughts?
In a moment, it seemed, the lights of the town were about them
, and they had dropped Norah at her door.
Hugh drove the car into a garage.
“I must fill up,” he said. “Also there’s a little job of work on a plug to do before I go out again. I’d like to leave her here if you don’t mind walking back to the house.”
“Of course not. I’ll say good night now; you mustn’t come with me.”
“Rot; come on.”
He slipped his arm through hers, and they set off along the empty street.
“I like walking in a town at night,” he said.
“Yes. All the shapes look so important and unfamiliar—the buildings and the walls; and the footsteps you hear, and the people you pass. You want to ask them why they’re still about. … I feel by day the people in the street are just a crowd: they scarcely know where they’re going and why. But by night each person is by himself and has his own meaning. If I were a writer and wanted to get the whole picture of life I’d be up and about all night. You’d learn everything then that is of any importance.”
“Yes,” he said, puzzled. He thought it over: parties, cafés, night-clubs … paupers and tramps on benches and under bridges … prostitute, of course … what else? … lovers—burglars—a murderer now and then … night-shifts in factories … people sitting up by sick-beds and death-beds … people knowing damned well in the night how unhappy they were and how queer life was. (Yes, he remembered about that. …) He had seen a lot of night life himself, in Europe and in a far continent; had felt on the bridges of silent ships at night something of what she seemed to mean. He said again:
“Yes.” He added: “I wish I were a writer.”
“Do you?”
“Mm. Sort of get things out of oneself—couldn’t one?”
She looked up into the youthful face above her own, and said nothing. He still had his arm through hers.
They reached her door. The iron gate creaked loudly, as it had for the last ten years, when he pushed it open for her.
“Now you must hurry back,” she said. She took his hand. “You have given me a lovely day.”
“It has been fun, hasn’t it?” he said, a little embarrassed. “I hope you’re not too tired.”
“No, no. Better. Cured. Renewed.” She smiled. “I shall have all this to think about now. It will keep me going for a long time.”
Extraordinary, rather worrying woman! Her pale face looking at him in the lamplight moved him. His hand was still in hers; and as it seemed rude to take it away, he tightened his clasp.
“We must have another jaunt some time,” he said.
But she thought: “It will never happen again”; and it did not matter—at least, not yet. She was all right by herself now; she had been set going again. Like her lilac tree, she thought, looking at the few white blooms which to-day’s sun had unfolded fully, she was to be re-created after many years. She reached up and picked a head.
“White lilac,” she said. “I’m very proud of my tree. Do you like the smell?”
She wanted so much to give it him. … She held it out awkwardly.
“Thanks awfully,” he said. “I love a button-hole. … Well, good night.”
“Good night.”
He went away at a brisk pace, whistling a little tune. She waited till he was out of sight before starting to throw earth at the upper window: for she had forgotten her key, and the lights were all out.
It was half an hour before Tom woke from his first slumbers and heard her; and after listening some time in great alarm, realized the situation, and came downstairs. How annoyed she’d be, he thought, switching on the light in the hall. Serve her right. But she was smiling when he let her in. Her smile did not console him. He had missed his movie and spent a dismal evening with the account-book and his own meditations before betaking himself to bed with his grievances; and when she entered his house at one o’clock in the morning, fresh and sparkling with happiness and the night air, he felt so strongly that this, in some unformulated way, was absolutely the last straw, that he was stricken dumb at the sight of her. It was not until breakfast the next morning that he could bring himself to ask her if she had had a good time.
Hugh broke into a run. An hour to get back, going all out, and then perhaps another bathe—an icy plunge in the starlight, quick in, quick out again. He pictured the shock and the ensuing glow through all his body. Lovely! … Lovely to wake up to-morrow morning in the country. Hurry, hurry! The old boy had insisted that he would wait up for him. He was a rum un, frightfully nice though. So was the old lady. She was a corker.
Rounding a corner, he collided with a small female figure.
“Sorry,” he murmured, hurrying on.
But a tiny exclamation, a glimpse of a face mournful as a monkey’s, a little pierrot face, made him remember and turn to greet her.
“Hullo, it’s Pansy, isn’t it? Good evening, Pansy. Do you remember me?”
“Yes, I remember you.”
“Haven’t seen you for ages. Where’ve you been hiding?”
“I’ve seen you now and then,” she said. “You never see me.”
“Where are you off to now?” he said. (Funny place to meet her.)
“Nowhere in particular.” She smiled at him.
There was a silence.
“Well,” he said, “I’m in an awful hurry, I’m afraid. Going off for the week-end. Good night, Pansy.”
Fixing him with her strange veiled stare; she said:
“I still go down to the Palace most evenings.”
“Right you are, Pansy. I’ll come and look for you one of these days. We’ll have another dinner together, shall we? Do a show.”
He left her hurriedly with a smile and a wave of the hand.
Poor little oddment, he thought, what was she doing in these parts, away from her habitual haunts and the more frequented streets? Had she an assignation?
She’d seen him now and then, she’d said. … Now where on earth? People were always seeing him without his seeing them. Pity he’d had to leave her in the lurch. He wouldn’t have minded giving her a good supper. She looked as if she needed it. Besides, she was amusing, with her prettiness and her queerness. Not the most virtuous debutante in her first season could safeguard her modesty with more decorum. The pathetic thing was the obviousness, the elaborateness of the pretence. She had to kid herself as hard as she could, one felt. She’d have a yarn to spin, if one were to ask her why she’d taken to the profession. And, as usual, he thought, he would believe her. He simply could not help a soft corner for prostitutes, a natural inclination to be sorry for them, to be polite to them. (Gross sentimentalism, Oliver had called it.) Perhaps that was partly why he experienced such increasing disinclination for their services. Nowadays, he told himself, reviewing the sexual temperature of the last year or so, one felt fed up with all that sort of thing. Reaction, distaste set in almost as soon as desire. One wanted—oh! longed for something permanent now, something aesthetically, emotionally satisfying. … Love, in fact.
And Pansy left the privet hedges, the clean pavements and Gothic porches of the residential quarter, and boarded a tram bound for the meaner suburbs where she dwelt.
She was worn out. Hours and hours she had been walking up and down that street … avoiding the policeman … and then, there he was, like Fate, like a miracle,—and then gone again. Well, it was better than nothing: he had remembered her; he’d been most friendly and polite. Perhaps he would soon come down to the Palace now. But being tired like this, she felt depressed. Wasn’t it all a pretence, his hurry, to get away from her? One didn’t go off for the week-end in the middle of the night. And who’d been giving him white lilac to stick in his coat?
She saw him waving, disappearing round the corner, and herself standing there, gaping after him; and it really seemed as if he knew what months she’d spent, what schemes she’d laid, to find out where he lived, and was having
a good laugh at her.
Hugh put away his car, and let himself into the great hall. His feet rang on the stone floor before the silence of the Persian rugs received them. The old tapestries on the wall, lit only by the central chandelier, seemed to tower above him, with their gods, goddesses, nymphs and satyrs, forests and fountains magnified, interwoven in rhythmical gigantic patterns. There was nobody about.
On the hall table gleamed a pale and solitary square of paper. He glanced at it in passing; and the name upon it, minute but clear as print, started up at him from the dark wood like a menace. He stopped dead; after a minute had to go back, look again; read Oliver Digby, Esq., and the London address.
So he was writing to him, this chap. So they knew each other. So Oliver had come back from wherever he was, lost, silent. So he was in London. And he had not let one know. He must have had both letters, then, and simply not bothered to answer them. So that was final.
And such an extraordinary and awful feeling—something he had never known before or dreamed of—swept through him as he stood there, that he had to hold on to the table for a minute. But the envelope stared up at him with spiteful mockery, whispering, “You don’t know what secrets are beneath this flap”; and he had to move away, before the temptation to seize and tear it open—yes, actually dishonourably to seize and tear it open—overcame him quite.
Damn him, damn him. … He had plotted it. If Oliver with all his cleverness and unforgivingness had plotted a way to pay him out to the bitter end, he could never have devised anything more cruel and more effective than this letter laid there, as if by the hand of an accomplice. “I have passed on,” said the letter. “Now you are naught.”
And to-morrow he would have to see this chap. … And what did he want: to avoid him, loathe him like the plague; or take particular pains to make a good impression on him? … It would need a desperate effort to shake off this business and enjoy to-morrow.
Grock dragged himself from the luxurious depths of a brocaded armchair and ambled to his side. But there was no enthusiasm in his faintly wagging tail, nothing to call forth the consoling reflection that at least one’s dog would always love one. There was some sort of slime or foam on his black jaws, and his expression was meditative, oddly weighty. He retired again to rest.
A Note in Music Page 13
