The Echoing Grove

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘You looked such an awful colour, I thought you were going to pass out.’

  He shook his head; but he felt thoroughly weakened, helpless, he wanted only sympathy and guidance. He wanted to say: ‘For God’s sake, take over, I don’t know what to do’; and so finally collapse in a last expenditure of shame and frustration.

  Next moment he said it, almost under his breath: ‘I don’t know what to do.’ He felt his face working and heard convulsive sighs emanating from his own aching throat; also a voice from nowhere, from the pit, icily shrill, rejoicing: ‘I say, you chaps!—here’s Masters blubbing again.’

  He was grateful to her because she did not come maternally to draw his head down on her breast, but went on sitting, half turned away, in a familiar attitude again, her immature, imperfect, charming profile unconscious of itself in deep reflection, drawn down into a schoolgirl’s double chin.

  ‘Listen, Rickie,’ she said presently. ‘Wash out the bitchy things I said. I’m sorry!’

  ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for,’ he said: to this one too.

  ‘Yes, I have. And I am. You’re terribly worried about her?’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes. But there’s nothing I can do about her.’ He sat up and blew his nose.

  ‘She’s really in a bad way?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You’re afraid she’ll take to the bottle again?’

  The statement, clinical, made without an edge of diffidence or even of query, caused him another surge of suffocation, this time quickly suppressed. It seemed to him in everybody’s interest to surrender Dinah’s pride.

  ‘I don’t know that I’d exactly pin it down to that,’ he said, uncomfortably. ‘She had been drinking this evening and judging by … the state of the kitchen …’

  ‘What was the state of the kitchen?’ Her head came round, she looked across at him with lively curiosity.

  ‘Well … quite a number of empty bottles … I should be inclined to think—yesterday and the day before and the day before as well … and probably tomorrow and the day after … How should I know? It’s not my business anyway—it’s nobody’s business how she … But of course it was painful. To have my nose rubbed in it. What I am responsible for. On top of everything else, I mean.’

  She took up her work again and said after a moment or two, in a considered way: ‘You shouldn’t feel too responsible. Some people always do drink their way through trouble. I couldn’t myself, nor could you, but as she’s done it before, I suppose she’s that sort of person: she’ll do it again. She stopped before. She’ll very very probably stop again. But it is upsetting.’ She laid down her work, brooding. ‘Horrid altogether. And awful for you, I do see.’

  ‘Christ!’ He burst into a laugh and checked it, telling himself that to counter with bitterness and sarcasm would be to start the vicious duel again. ‘That’s not the point, is it—my lacerated feelings? Hers seem to me a lot more important. I can’t subscribe, you know, to this simplified view. Apart from which, I call it taking on a pretty big responsibility to label anybody a drunk.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she protested quickly, as if a little hurt and shocked. ‘On the contrary, I said I thought—this was only temporary. She’s very resilient.’

  He was moved to remark aloud upon the similarity of the comments these girls made about one another; he refrained. He said rather shortly:

  ‘I misunderstood you, then. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.’

  He wondered if perhaps there was now nothing more to say. He put his arms out along the arms of the chair, leaned his head back, closed his eyes and said:

  ‘She’s drinking because she’s alone and because she’s in despair. If she did it before, you know, and I know, that was why she did it. You know why she stopped: because I stopped her. Not forcibly, of course. Because she stopped being alone. And because I was able to make her happy. We don’t need to go into how—everlastingly regrettable that was on my part. Not again. What’s bothering me is that I can’t stop her this time … As for you, I don’t know what’s going on in your head. I can’t imagine. You’re behaving very well, I must say.’

  The more he talked, the more the drone of his own voice seemed to anaesthetize him. He might, he thought, have gone on much longer, but on the other hand it was a bit less trouble not to go on any longer. He continued to lie somnolent, every muscle slack, his mouth fallen slightly open. It crossed his mind that if he could remain thus, he was in a very strong position—yes, scoring proper bull’s-eyes, like a person coming round from chloroform. No use for the nurse to bridle, flounce, scold, weep, coax, cross-examine: he was entirely excused; she simply had to take it.

  ‘Shall I go and see her?’ said her voice, at last, from afar; and he replied, at last, from an equal distance:

  ‘Would that be a good idea?’

  ‘Goodness knows.’ He heard her get up and rustle about, brushing, smoothing, tucking in chair covers, emptying an ash-tray with brusque-sounding movements. ‘But you wouldn’t object?’

  ‘It’s not for me to object.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up saying it’s not for you to this and that. I’m fed up with it, it’s so feeble and priggish. I merely wanted to make sure I don’t get bawled out by either of you afterwards for my utterly crass, gross, tasteless, tactless, beastly cheek—just like me—even to suggest such a thing.’

  ‘I can’t answer for her,’ he said, opening one eye. He watched her snatch up a harmless cushion, beat it into shape, fling it back into its correct position. ‘She might not trust you—beforehand … as I do.’

  He saw her pause in her brisk automatic tasks, standing still with her head lifted as if listening attentively for the meaning of his last words.

  ‘Well, she ought to trust me,’ she said finally, rather aggrieved. ‘After all, we’ve known each other since …’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘But I’m glad you do,’ she added with a light sigh, sardonic possibly.

  ‘What will you do?’ he murmured.

  ‘Do?’

  ‘Say. If—when—you meet.’

  ‘That I shall never tell you.’ He opened both eyes wide to see her posed before the fireplace, drawn up to more than her full height, looking extraordinarily dignified, dramatic. ‘And I must ask you now to give me your solemn word never, never to question me.’

  ‘I swear it.’ Sitting as it were at her feet in his armchair, he felt at a disadvantage.

  ‘And I must rely on you never, never, never to question her.’

  ‘You can rely on me.’

  ‘It’s the first thing I shall tell her—if I see her: that you’ve given me your word. And she must too. That’s my condition: it’s to be between myself and her, and nobody else.’

  He tried to imagine Dinah thus confronted. Would she feel, as he did, impressed, abashed and hypnotized?

  ‘Why are you shaking your head?’ asked Madeleine, rather sharply.

  ‘I didn’t know I was.’ He sat up, yawned. ‘It must have been reflex action. Something—what is it?—walking over my grave.’

  ‘It is fantastic,’ she agreed, rubbing her eyes. ‘Perhaps I’m still numb. Or dotty. If I let myself think about it I’d …’ She stooped and began to gather up her work and fold it into a large quilted bag. ‘Mind you, I haven’t decided yet if I’ll do it at all. If I can possibly face it—apart from whether it’s any use.’ She switched off the lamp on the table by her chair. ‘But somebody’s got to take action, I suppose. We can’t sit at home making wax figures and sticking pins in them and burning each other in effigy. With you scurrying between us to collect the drips.’

  He did not care for his rôle. He got up and said politely:

  ‘Well, I’m going to bed now. And I’m extremely grateful.’

  He dragged his heavy limbs upstairs, telling himself that women were formidable, really relentless; not a nerve in their bodies.
>
  He fell asleep at once and dreamed that he was bouncing two hard rubber balls on the asphalt floor of something like a school games yard, watched by his mother and somebody like Corrigan. Bounce, bounce, higher, higher! ‘Look out!’ ‘It’s quite all right,’ said he, or someone, reassuringly. ‘They’re made of elastic. Very, very, very resilient.’

  The floor began to crack and tilt.

  Two days later he went abroad. During this time Madeleine remained active, serene and wifely. The children were round him while he shaved and dressed, and both evenings were devoted to pleasant social engagements in the company of friends of their mutual circle. Looking beautiful, her brilliance misted in an aerial web swathed over a small white straw hat with two white roses nestling in its brim, she accompanied him to the airport to see him off. He went first to Milan, then to Rome, then to Bucharest. He was a poor correspondent, but he wrote regularly to Madeleine—sketchy travel bulletins; her letters, long, affectionate, amusing, arrived regularly at every address he wired to her. She said she missed him; he told her in reply that he often wished her with him; but wherever he went, whatever he saw, it was Dinah that he missed. Five, six times he started the letter to Dinah, the final true terrible letter of love, the ineluctable farewell; each time he tore it up.

  After three weeks, on his way back through Rome, he looked up a certain Italian count, a light-hearted chap, who had been his contemporary at Oxford, went dining and dancing, was introduced to a rather attractive woman, youngish, married but husbandless, plantureuse, unromantic but amorous, and to their great mutual pleasure spent the night with her in her luxurious apartment. Unfaithful at last to Dinah after all these years. Next morning, in a generally unadhering frame of mind, he got a short note off to her, told her he thought of her very often, sadly and helplessly, hoped she was getting out and seeing people, feeling better in every way; wished to God there was something he could do for her. He supposed he’d be back, he said, before very long: he couldn’t help dreading London and the dismal grind. With his love always, Rickie. Then he scrawled a postscript: if there was anything he could do, anything practical, would she promise to let him know? But they could not meet, she must see that by now, as plainly as he did. He could never forgive himself but clung to the hope that one day, looking back on it all, she would remember only their love which was something he would never forget and be able to forgive him. His greatest wish was for her happiness.

  That was that, he told himself, dropping it into the letter-box; pretty poor, but the best he could manage. Occasionally, during the forty-eight ensuing hours before he caught the home-bound plane, he reflected that he would try for the present to get abroad as often as possible. He had made excellent contacts, brought off three deals with which he had been entrusted: the uncles would certainly be pleased with him. More than once he considered ringing up his Italian bed-fellow to make another date. He did not do so. In retrospect she talked too much and he found her tuberose scent, still clinging to his suit, rather cloying and sickly. He sent her a box of red carnations. He told himself that in future, while seeking no amorous adventure, he would take whatever came along. Nothing, oh nothing on the grand scale, nothing ever any more to shame and torture. He would do his duty by Madeleine, poor girl, and by the children. He longed to be old and past the game that no one ever won. He was tempted to wish that he was fitted to become a monk.

  On his return, Madeleine greeted him with the news that they were moving into her old country home near Reading for the summer. Her father had been ordered a long sea voyage to ward off a threatened physical breakdown, and, with her mother, had embarked for South Africa. He was sorry about his father-in-law, of whom he was fond, and whose reminiscences, as a retired K.C. and excellent raconteur, he enjoyed; but he quite saw what made a temporary move from London so opportune; and he accepted her dispositions in a spirit of passivity tinged with glum relief.

  That summer was a fine one and he quite relished motoring out of town each evening, bringing a friend or two at week-ends, sitting and strolling late in the warm shrubby thrush-chiming garden. He felt it incumbent on him to resume what he understood to be known as a full married life with Madeleine, and they made panicky approaches to one another; but it was a failure. The twitch in his leg was as troublesome as ever, and he retreated with feelings of thankfulness and embarrassment to his dressing-room, out of range of the tears which Madeleine attempted both to bring to his notice and to conceal from him. This frightful awkwardness which had started really after the birth of Anthony seemed past mending. Humiliating for her, equally so for him. Bad for their nerves. Perhaps in time it would come right … unless he were to become completely impotent. His thoughts travelled to Dinah, and two or three times she was his partner in erotic dreams.

  This state of affairs continued for several weeks during which there was no letter from Dinah, no word of her on anybody’s lips, no telephone call, no dreaded hoped-for shock of meeting her round any corner. Then came help from the hills, the invisible hills towards which his prisoned gaze had long been strained. A cable to Madeleine from South Africa: Father dangerously ill. She cabled back to say she would start at once by air. Within forty-eight hours she was on her way.

  The evening before her departure she remarked: ‘I was told to inform everybody. I haven’t informed everybody.’

  He inquired nervously if she wished him to attend to this, and she replied that she didn’t give a damn one way or the other. ‘I expect,’ she added, ‘she’ll be turning up anyway, the moment my back is turned.’

  ‘No,’ he said quickly, vehemently.

  She went on to say that this summer had been a complete and hideous fiasco, that he could not have shown more plainly his boredom and distaste for her, that all her efforts—her patience, her cheerful front, her willingness to forgive—had gone for nothing. Then she checked herself and declared that by this time Papa was probably lying dead and here she was worrying about their squalid personal lives instead of thinking about Papa. Here goes again, he told himself, observing the tears course down her cheeks; and offering a shoulder, did his best to comfort her.

  All solicitude and practical attentions, he drove her to the airport. On the way she asked him to get out of London as early as possible each evening, so that the children should see him before bedtime. He promised. She smiled, pathetic, wan, and said:

  ‘I don’t ask you for any other promises.’

  ‘You don’t need to,’ he replied in all sincerity.

  ‘And by the way I rang up Aunt Lilian, of course, the day the cable came, and asked her to pass on the news to Dinah.’

  ‘Oh, you did.’

  ‘Well, naturally. After all, it’s Papa—I’m not the only daughter. I asked her to help by taking on the job of telling all the relations. Of course she was delighted.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I said I’d cable to her as well as to you, and she’d better go on keeping everybody posted.’

  ‘I see. Then I’ll leave it all to her.’

  ‘By now, if Papa’s alive, he’ll know I’m coming. I wonder if it could possibly make just that particle of difference—as they say it does in books …’

  ‘Easily darling, it might. It’ll help him hold on. You know how he adores you.’

  ‘Yes. I’m his spoilt favourite child … Whom would you want to send for if you were dying?’

  ‘Sh!’ He took his hand off the driving wheel, caught hers and gripped it hard, in tender repudiation and reproach.

  This time it was he who stood at the barrier watching her walk away from him towards the giant blunt-snouted bull with wings. When she turned back finally to wave and smile at him he felt extremely moved; and when her first cable came saying Arrived safely Papa definitely better, his relief was enormous. Her airmail letter gave him details. Now that anxiety was over, she was thoroughly enjoying herself, staying on her brother’s farm, riding, and doing
tremendous motor expeditions. She expected to sail for home with her parents in three weeks’ time: this meant that late September would see her home.

  Late August, the dog days, the fag end of the stale season, brought him the next help. The door to a sealed room, long airless, rank with the sour undissipated odours of fumigation—that door cracked, shook, swung ajar. He advanced, reluctant, unresisting; transparent, clotted.

  It was Corrigan again, Corrigan (Elaine) to the rescue. When he got the appalling letter he told himself beware!—it was only another trap. He discerned, without words for what was evident, the pyramiding guilt, the false atonement; he saw the track, serpentining back again to him, by which the tricky jungle runner, ignored by Madeleine, had run again with hot confidential news.

  She dared no longer keep him uninformed, announced that thick backward-leaning script; no doubt he thought of her harshly, cursed her in his heart perhaps: this was her cross and she must bear it. She had done all for the best, as she saw it, without thought of self, and would continue so to do. Three weeks ago Dinah had turned up at her door dead drunk. She had taken her in, nursed her, kept her from the bottle and her drinking companions. (A memory rigidly suppressed now stabbed him sharply: Madeleine, that evening before she left, hysteria climbing in her: ‘As for—if you think—if you only …’ then with a gasp stopping, biting on a finger as if to bite back … well, he’d guessed what: almost, the curtain had been stripped back; the Scene with Two Fingers, never to be revealed, revealed.) She had seemed better, the letter went on to say; but suddenly, a few nights ago, a terrible thing had happened: Dinah had discovered where she, Corrigan, hid the tablets some doctor—a personal friend, it seemed—had prescribed her for insomnia, taken them secretly from the drawer and swallowed the whole bottleful. She had been rushed in the nick of time to hospital … she would spare him a medical account. With the utmost difficulty, the authorities had been dissuaded from informing her next-of-kin: she, Corrigan, had invented a plausible story and managed to put it across. Yesterday Dinah was discharged, was now in her house, in bed, had given her solemn promise; but had lost, her friend felt, the will to live; had said quietly this morning that if only she could see Rickie her mind would be at rest. Therefore, would he in his goodness come as soon as possible?