‘If you do come to see us, you’ll arrive on the little puffing steamer which crosses the Schwarzsee from the other village, where the railway-station is, and we’ll be standing on the pier to welcome you, along with all the rest of the population. (I wish I could promise you they’d be in leather shorts and starched petticoats, but these, alas, are getting rarer; worse still, being adopted by tourists with pillowy hips and pork-pie knees.) Then we’ll show you the sights: the church, and the Post Hotel, and the beer-hall where they dance, stamping around to the music of the fiddle and concertina, and the Schloss, in its park among the lime-trees, which has been rented by a rich family from Bavaria, whose doings the villagers discuss from morning till night. And, finally, our own house, which I know you will love as much as we do, because it’s really a woodland version of your house in London, only with a steep-pitched roof and a carved balcony along the upper floor. It’s all wood, of course, with a delicious turpentiny smell that makes you sleep at night as though you were drugged. And you shall have flowers in your room; there are millions of them on the hillsides now, primulas mostly, mauve, red, violet, white and yellow. (I hate having to tread on them when we go out walking.) And you shall have trout from the mountain streams for supper.
‘Are you beginning to waver, as you read this? Oh, Mary, do, do come! You are the only human being I can imagine who would fit perfectly into the life we lead here. As far as I’m concerned, at any rate, it’s perfect: I couldn’t have dreamed of such peace and security, this side of the grave. For the first time, my work-life and my personal life seem to have joined, like two rivers mingling and running along the same bed. It’s Stephen, of course, who’s responsible for this truly miraculous feat of hydraulic engineering. What have I ever done, to deserve him? And yet, ungrateful as one is, I find myself continually thinking: why couldn’t I have found him before it got so late—two o’clock, already, in my life’s afternoon? Why couldn’t we have met ten years ago? But then, I have to remember, he’d have been twelve! How strange and sad it is, this business of ages. Deep down, it doesn’t matter, it has no significance at all: love, on that level, is so simple. It asks no questions. But up on the surface, where we spend so much of our time, there’s a perpetual, tragic frustration. We have to wear masks, and keep pretending to be what we seem at that particular moment. And yet—if I had the magic power to make myself younger, or Stephen older, would I use it? No, of course not. That would be turning our relationship into something else; and I wouldn’t dare. Who am I, to meddle with a masterpiece? I’d as soon alter one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. But enough of this nonsense … What I do dare to say is—as of this moment—that I really believe Stephen is happy.’
Yes, I was very happy at the Schwarzsee, that summer. In some ways, it was the best, or, at any rate, the most completely satisfying, part of all the time Elizabeth and I spent together. I was happy because I was beginning to believe in the day-today reality of our marriage. I was losing the feeling of inferiority I’d had at those parties in London; losing the fear that I was merely the junior partner in a love-affair. I was beginning to see that I could be necessary to Elizabeth the writer, as well as Elizabeth the woman. Far from having to stop myself being jealous of her work, I found I could actually share in it.
The resolutions Elizabeth had made before our marriage—to be ‘a proper wife’, to keep house for me and darn my socks—broke down almost immediately, when we were actually settled in our house. All the time we’d been travelling around, she had been fretting to get her novel restarted, and I saw her glancing rather furtively at the manuscript, several times, while we were still unpacking. I was delighted, of course; this gave me all kinds of opportunities to make myself useful. It was I who went down to the sawmill and bought planks to repair the bathroom wall, I who interviewed the carpenter, I who unskilfully repainted the front door and the window shutters, I who found a woman to come in and cook for us. I’d never done such things before in my life—Sarah had always taken care of them—and I felt splendidly efficient.
When I showed Elizabeth my finished paint-work, she hugged me. ‘Oh, darling, I’m so proud of you!’
‘It isn’t very good, I’m afraid. Look at that smear.’
‘I think the smear’s the most beautiful part of it. That gives it a kind of peasant touch … I’ve just realized—none of the men I’ve known could even begin to do something like this. They’d pick up the paint-brush and then make some clever remark and put it down again.’
Elizabeth’s praise made me ambitious. It showed me how to complete my triumph over Strines and all the rest of the London party-goers. I would become absolutely indispensable to her. I would be a real, masculine, all-providing husband.
I started by offering to type her manuscript. Elizabeth never did this herself, and often complained of the mistakes they made at the agencies to which she used to send her work. I went into Bad Ischl and bought a typewriter, pretending to her that I could type quite well, though, as a matter of fact, I was practically a beginner. She never knew how many copies I had to make, at first, before I got one that was perfect. But I learned quickly, and soon I was a fairly competent secretary. Then I began to look after her correspondence. Elizabeth hated writing business letters, and was completely vague about contracts, percentages and foreign rights. I discovered, to my own astonishment, that these matters weren’t as complicated as I’d supposed. If I read a contract through carefully (which Elizabeth never did) I could understand it. Perhaps I had actually inherited some aptitude for business. After all, I was my Father’s son. Elizabeth thought I was a financial wizard, and I was pretty pleased with myself.
Then there were letters from admirers of her work; not many of them; but enough to make her feel guilty. ‘I do feel one ought to answer all of them—even the cranks and the autograph-collectors. But I’m always so embarrassed. It’s like playing Father Christmas at an orphanage. One’s expected to be so shamelessly genial.’ So I answered those letters, too; amusing myself by trying to parody Elizabeth’s style. This became an absorbing indoor game. Elizabeth roared with laughter when I wrote to a lady in Newcastle: ‘Yes, indeed I’m married—how clever of you to guess! You ask what he’s like. How does one describe a husband—if he’s the right one? Do you ever do jigsaw puzzles? Then you know that piece which looks like a very wriggly island. After endless attempts, you realize that it’s the key to everything. As soon as it’s in place, the whole picture suddenly makes sense.’ ‘Stephen—you monster!’ Elizabeth exclaimed, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. ‘I feel almost afraid of you. I believe you’ll end by writing my novels.’
Meanwhile, I developed my role of odd-job-man around the house. I learned, by experiment, how to fix the plumbing, how to build fires, saw wood, drive in nails properly, make doors and windows close or open, tack down carpets and keep the whole place clean. After carefully watching our cook, I decided to try the cooking myself, three nights a week; and soon began to produce casserole dishes which were much superior to hers, because they were prepared with love. Elizabeth over-praised them wildly, of course. She pretended to believe that I had special secret recipes, based on herbs I collected in the forest, and would detect new subtle flavours even in the eggs I simply fried for our breakfast.
Some of Elizabeth’s enthusiasm was no doubt due to the fact that all this overt activity of mine put her on the defensive. ‘I’m afraid I must seem terribly lazy to you, Stephen,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you can’t watch me when I’m alone in my workroom. You know, half the time I’ll be turning over the pages of a book, or walking backwards and forwards muttering some nonsense or other, or just staring out of the window with my mouth open. And yet, I do promise you, something is going on inside, all the time. I wish I could learn better coordination, though. I’m like a leaky old engine with the driving-belt slipping and steam escaping from every joint: I only just manage to function. Don’t get too impatient with me.’ I assured her that I didn’t. But, just the same, I was
only now beginning to understand vaguely how Elizabeth worked. I suppose, like most other laymen, I had thought of literary composition as a self-contained activity like digging in the garden or sewing. You went to the desk, picked up the pen, started to make marks on the paper; and, when you’d finished, that was that. I now knew, what should have been obvious to me from the first, that Elizabeth composed not only during her working-hours but, on and off, throughout the rest of the day. Quite often, when we went for walks together, she would suddenly cease to be with me; her mind had gone back home to the manuscript. I could sense her departure and return almost immediately: while her mind was away, I kept silent, happy and proud that she should feel free to do this in my company without excuses. I felt even happier when she tried, sometimes quite incoherently, to say what she was thinking about: ‘It’s Adrian—I don’t know—that scene with the policeman—it doesn’t exactly—the way they talk, that’s all right—only, somehow, it’s too logical—too much to the point—I ought to wander off, a little—Wait a minute, though: how would it be if—? No—But I do think I see a way—’ She was talking to herself, mostly. I never interrupted.
‘Darling,’ she said to me, one day. ‘I hope you know how much you’re helping me. You’re like a tuning-fork I keep striking, to hear if I’m still on pitch … Oh, but I do wish—’
‘What do you wish, Elizabeth?’
‘That I could do the same thing for you. I wish you had something to tell me. I wish you’d go on and on about how you were making a fortune on the stock-exchange or how you’d designed a new kind of motor-bicycle. I wish you’d be terribly technical and abstruse. I think I’d really love it if you bored me to distraction.’
‘You never bore me.’
‘Don’t I really, darling? I bore myself, quite often. Horribly, I’m only afraid I shall bore you too, in time. And not in the right way, either. That is, unless—’
‘Unless what?’
Elizabeth smiled and kissed me. ‘Oh, I have my plans … Don’t ask me about them, Stephen. Just be patient.’
The Schloss, as Elizabeth told Mary Scriven in her letter, had been rented by a rich family from Bavaria, intellectuals and great patrons of the arts. They filled the place with their guests: well-known poets, painters, musicians and theatrical designers. One night, when the warm weather came, they had a magnificent dinner-party on a raft which had been towed out into the middle of the lake, bearing a dining-table, chairs, a silver centrepiece, and tall candles in glasses. Two motor-boats brought the guests, along with the food in big chafing-dishes. The village musicians played for them, sitting in a rowboat alongside. When they were ready for coffee, the butler sent up a rocket from the raft, and one of the motor-boats brought it, freshly brewed, from a portable stove on the shore.
‘How charming of them to take all this trouble!’ Elizabeth exclaimed. ‘I’m sure they’re doing it entirely to amuse us.’ The villagers seemed to agree with her that this was a public spectacle put on for their benefit. Many of them had rowed out into the lake, as we had, to get a closer view. Our boats formed a wide spectator-circle in the darkness surrounding the brilliant stage of the raft, on which the actor-guests laughed and chattered. Perhaps the consciousness of being watched actually added to their enjoyment. Candle-light made every face dramatic; and it gave the hostess, who was a black-haired middle-aged woman, a kind of uncanny tragic beauty. ‘What a marvellous first act for a play!’ said Elizabeth. ‘Only, you know, I have an unpleasant feeling that this isn’t a comedy. Not even a satirical one. Don’t you see something hovering over it all? It frightens me, somehow. I’m afraid it isn’t by Shaw. It might even be Ibsen.’
The morning after the raft-party, there was a stranger on the lake. I first saw him as he passed our windows, quite near to the shore, in a collapsible rubber boat, bronzed like an Indian and naked except for a pair of very British-looking football shorts. His suntan made his blue eyes pale and vivid and his blond hair seem almost white. He was a strikingly handsome boy with a slim muscular body, and he paddled with ferocious concentration, as though he were a South Sea islander in a war-canoe, on his way to attack a hostile tribe.
That afternoon, I met him in the post-office. He was having difficulty explaining something about a money-order. When I rephrased his broken German so that the Postmaster could understand it, he frowned and blushed; but this was only shyness. Five minutes later, we were drinking beer together, and he was telling me all about himself. He talked rapidly and tensely, with frequent apologetic grins, as though he was afraid that what he’d said was silly.
He was eighteen years old, his name was Michael Drummond, and he had just left his public school. He planned to stay in Central Europe the whole summer, travelling around and studying, until it was time for him to go up to Oxford. Among other projects, he wanted to paddle right down the Danube in his rubber boat; as far as the Black Sea, if possible. ‘But aren’t there some very dangerous rapids?’ I asked. ‘Probably,’ said Michael, in a vague impersonal tone, as if this could have nothing whatever to do with his trip. Then he looked at me, and we both began to laugh.
When I suggested he should come back with me to our house and meet Elizabeth and stay to supper, he hesitated, and then accepted with an eagerness he obviously tried to conceal. I guessed that he was lonely, as I’d so often been, myself, the year before in Paris. Like so many young people who go abroad by themselves, he’d probably imagined that he wanted to be alone—a solitary Byronic traveller—when, in fact, he didn’t.
Elizabeth was at her very best, that evening: so beautiful and easy and lively. Her novel must have been going well. I saw her, in glimpses, as she must appear to Michael—the central figure in a legendary Evening With Elizabeth Rydal—and I found myself playing up to her, prompting her to tell her most amusing stories, being funny so that she could be even funnier. Michael’s brilliant blue eyes flashed back and forth from her face to mine, never missing a word, and several times he laughed so much that he coughed and choked. He didn’t leave us till midnight.
‘What an adorable child!’ Elizabeth exclaimed, after he had gone. ‘Those eyes of his! Didn’t they make you feel we were the most horrible old imposters? He’s as embarrassing as a looking-glass.’
However, on closer acquaintance, Michael proved to be a looking-glass of the most flattering kind, and we both enjoyed his admiration, even though we made fun of ourselves for doing so. I myself had an additional reason for liking to have Michael around. He was young enough to accept me uncritically in my new role of the mature married man. With him, I felt I succeeded where I had failed so dismally in London. Elizabeth soon began to refer to him jokingly as ‘our eldest son’.
With Michael I used to go fishing and rowing on the lake. Michael swam in it, too, but I couldn’t stand the chill of the snow-water. We went on long hikes, high up into the mountains. At first, I urged Elizabeth to come with us, but she refused smilingly: ‘I’m afraid I’m not very robust,’ she said. ‘I’d only be a drag on you.’ I had noticed, already, that she tired easily and would get out of breath after any small exertion, and this worried me.
‘It’s nothing, really,’ she assured me, when I asked her about it. ‘I expect I’m over-cautious. A doctor once told me to be careful.’
‘But, Elizabeth—you don’t mean there’s anything wrong with your heart?’
‘No, of course not. Nothing dramatic. Just a little weakness. Please don’t worry, Stephen darling.’
That was all I could get out of her.
Underneath his grins and laughter and tense gaiety, Michael was a very serious boy. He was an orphan, raised by a grim Scottish uncle, and he had been much alone as a child. He had thrown himself into the activities of his school life with Spartan fanaticism, become a fine athlete, won cups for track and boxing and captained the rugger fifteen; but he’d been too shy to make any close friends. When we were out together, we discussed all kinds of subjects. He was particularly interested in politics and economics, and certainl
y knew far more about them than I did. But we never mentioned Sex, except in the most indirect way. I felt, instinctively, that he could very easily be shocked, and I was quite sure that he had never had any experience.
When we were sitting in the boat on the lake, one morning, he said abruptly: ‘When you and Elizabeth get tired of having me around, I hope you’ll tell me.’
‘Why, Michael,’ I was genuinely surprised, ‘what on earth makes you think—?’
‘I know I’m a bloody nuisance, sometimes, trailing after you like a lost puppy.’
‘Nonsense! Elizabeth loves seeing you. We both do.’
‘I don’t know why you should,’ said Michael frowning. ‘There’s nothing particularly interesting about me.’ He began to blush violently, and looked out over the lake, avoiding my eyes: ‘If you want to know—after that first evening you had me to supper, I very nearly packed up and left this place. I felt I was beginning to like you both an awful lot, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to start being a bore. I decided to leave, and then I just couldn’t.’
‘Oh, Michael,’ I said, touched, ‘you mustn’t ever feel like that. I mean, I understand how you could have—that’s the way I might have felt myself, at your age. But you’re quite, quite wrong.’
‘I don’t think you do understand,’ Michael said, looking straight at me. ‘And I’m glad you don’t. But I won’t talk like this any more. It’s childish.’
It was about this time that Elizabeth suddenly announced that she would like to go to Salzburg for a couple of days. I was always pleased when she expressed a definite wish of this kind—she so seldom did—and I agreed immediately. To my slight surprise, she suggested taking Michael with us. ‘I don’t want to leave him here by himself,’ she explained. ‘It sounds silly, I know, but I just cannot bear to think of him being alone. He’s such a painfully lonely person, isn’t he? It wrings my heart.’ Somehow, this didn’t sound quite convincing; but I agreed, of course. So to Salzburg we all three went.
The World in the Evening Page 16
