Henry and Cato (22 page)

Lucius was awake too. He had had one of his bad nights. He decided to see his doctor, though he knew that his doctor could do nothing for him and would be concerned only to get rid of him politely. His lower teeth were climbing up and he felt as if he might swallow them at any moment. He took them out, and after fumbling vainly for the bedside table, dropped them on the floor. He sat uncomfortably with his pillows all awry watching the daylight come. Then he got up and went to the window to see the first cold sunlight touching the reddish tops of the woodland. He could not stay still, but twisted and paced, entertaining his various pains. He kicked his teeth away under the bed. He put on his glasses and stared at the table where he had sat up late last night composing.

Tell her I was young once and star-bright Who am now invisible …

Only I am not invisible, thought Lucius. I can still make a perfect idiot of myself. Why on earth had he lied to Gerda about John Forbes? To save himself a moment's discomfort he had acted in direct opposition to his own interests. The longer Gerda cherished this idea about Colette the more obstinately devoted to it she would become. Why had he not truthfully and firmly warned her off it? Did Lucius want Henry to marry Colette and live happily ever after at Laxlinden? No, of course not. He wanted Henry to go back to America and leave him and Gerda in peace. His feeble inability to look after his own welfare disgusted him. He felt ashamed of his muddleheadedness, of his mean envy of Henry's youth, of his stupid aching body with which nobody would sympathize, of his decayed intelligence, of his age, of his mortality. He recalled with distress and resentment his talk with John Forbes, and shuddered at the picture of himself which he had glimpsed in John's mind. I lead a worthless life, he thought, I live in unreality and untruth. If only there could be total change, regeneration, escape. If only I could run and run and get back to the people, back to where real wholesome, ordinary life is being lived. I have given myself a mean role and cannot now stop enacting it. Oh if only I could get out! But even as he thought these familiar thoughts he knew: unreality is my reality, untruth is my truth, I am too old now and I have no other way.

‘Did you see any sign of a ring in Sandy's room?' Gerda asked.

‘A ring? No.' Henry, wolfing toast, had made a brief appearance at breakfast time.

‘You know the ring I mean. The Marshalson Rose.'

‘The thing you used to wear, with rubies and diamonds?'

‘Yes. It's the Marshalson engagement ring.'

‘Why aren't you wearing it?'

‘I gave it to Sandy. I hoped—'

‘I didn't see it.'

‘I expect it's there somewhere. It's in a blue velvet box.'

‘A blue velvet box? Wait a moment.' Henry vanished, returned quickly with a box in his hand. ‘Is this it?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's empty. I thought it was for cuff-links. No ring.'

‘I expect you'll find it. It must be somewhere there.'

‘Why do you want it? No one's getting engaged that I know of—'

‘Well—it's a valuable ring. Rhoda, dear, could you go, there's someone at the door. I expect it's Bellamy. The mower has got into the marsh again.'

‘No, it's Gosling the architect.'

‘Henry, you don't need an architect to fix up those cottages at Dimmerstone. Regan the builder will do it.'

Henry was gone.

‘You're very silent,' said Gerda to Lucius.

‘I'm in pain.'

‘I'm worried about that ring.'

‘Henry will never marry Colette Forbes.'

‘Why is everyone so rude to me these days? Henry's rude, you're rude. Can't you even try to be pleasant?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘I'm in pain.'

‘Colette—'

‘Oh, Mrs Marshalson—'

Gerda had driven Lucius to the doctor's surgery. Now, shopping in the village, she had met Colette.

Colette was in jeans, her tail of polychrome brown hair tucked down inside her speckled blue sweater, the shorter locks blown into tangles, her cheeks shining and red in the east wind. Gerda was tucked up in furs.

‘Cold, isn't it.'

‘These spring days are icy.'

‘April's worse than February.'

‘Colette, won't you come up and see us at the Hall? Henry would be so pleased.'

‘Well, I—'

‘Please come. Come to tea or for a drink. What about tomorrow?'

‘I'd love to, only I have to go to London. Perhaps I could ring up—'

‘Yes, do. Just invite yourself. We'd all love to see you. How charming you're looking, my dear. I love your sweater.'

‘It's Norwegian. I love your coat. Is it mink?'

‘Oh, nothing so grand. At your age you can wear anything and look lovely.'

‘But Mrs Marshalson,
you're
lovely—I don't know if anyone ever told you—but you're, well, even now—someone must have told you when you were young—'

‘Well, that was a long time ago. I must run now. Come and see Henry, he'll be so delighted.'

When Gerda reached the car Lucius was already sitting in it.

‘What did the doctor say?'

‘Nothing.'

‘What did he give you?'

‘Nothing.'

Gerda drove in silence for a minute.

‘Why, there's Henry.' She stopped the car. ‘Want a lift home, Henry?'

‘No thanks.'

‘Was that Merriman you were with? He vanished so quickly. He's very elusive these days. If you walk back you'll meet Colette Forbes. She was asking after you.'

Gerda pulled the car out and drove on towards the Dimmerstone road. Lucius, looking over his shoulder saw that Henry had not turned back towards the village, but was proceeding along the lane, stretching out his hands on either side and executing dancing steps. Gerda, glancing into the driving mirror, could see nothing because her eyes were full of tears. When she was young there had been scores, hundreds, to laud her beauty.

‘Oh, I'm so glad. I thought perhaps you wouldn't come.'

‘But of course I've come. I said I'd come.'

‘I'm so relieved.'

Henry had telephoned Stephanie Whitehouse and invited himself to lunch.

For the last two days, since his talk with Cato, Henry had been in a state of unholy excitement. He felt that he had been struggling with demons, and the struggle itself, whatever exactly its outcome, had given him a kind of satisfaction. He had been shaken by Cato's opposition; so much so that he had, without changing his mind, allowed it to haze over a little, to become, in relation to his project, cloudy. He felt instinctively that after a period of comparative vagueness he could return to a greater certainty. And this instinct, this slight warding off movement, had made it easier for him to do what he now more immediately wanted to do, think about Stephanie Whitehouse. In fact the two things hung together. Until he had somehow ‘settled' Stephanie he could not, would not be worthy to, proceed with any drastic plan concerning his mother.

Henry had, since his first meeting with Sandy's mistress, watched himself with interest and with a kind of glee. It was as if for a brief while, he had allowed himself to be ‘taken over' by his brother. He could scarcely doubt that it was open to him to ‘keep' Stephanie Whitehouse in exactly the same way and on exactly the same terms. As he had gloatingly thought, lying on his bed soon after that extraordinary first meeting, she was his prisoner. She would not run away. She would, submissively, wait. Yet as those visions, with a remarkable speed, proliferated and developed, he attempted too to resist them. How could he so grossly classify another human being? This girl had loved Sandy. Why should she care for Henry? Because she had once been a prostitute why should he assume that she would welcome him as a lover? They were two strangers who had just met. Why should a myth out of the past determine their dealings? Stephanie was a mystery, a secret, something to be warily studied. And even supposing, because she was his dependent, as it were his serf, she were to take him into her bed, did he want that? The idea of her certainly excited him. But was not this a weird, perhaps bad excitement, something to do with Sandy? Did Henry want a serf, especially now when he was about to defeudalize his life? What an amazing problem. He found himself smiling as he reflected upon it.

Of course Henry knew that he would have to see her again and that everything in his world was waiting for this meeting. And, Henry knew, this would be no mere business meeting, but a part of the deep drama, the very metaphysics, of his life. Simply to ‘pay her off' and say good-bye, which would certainly be one solution, was morally and psychologically impossible. He was responsible for Stephanie Whitehouse and he must rise to the level of this responsibility. He must go to her in simplicity and in honesty, respecting her, seeing her as secret and separate, seeing her as free. He must shake off all the seedy obviousness, the banal smirking vulgarity, which could so easily demean his view of the situation. He must purge his excitement. He must become humble.

So he had felt, and for this reason he had put off his visit; for this reason too, though he had no intention of mentioning her, he had gone to Cato, juxtaposing with his thought of her, his own plan for his salvation. Now, with that plan for the moment postponed, he felt the urgency of testing himself. Yes, it was a test, a trial. And if he could, with Stephanie ‘get it right', then he would feel, in the matter of his mother, that much more confident. Thus obscurely had he wrestled with himself. But when he at last lifted the telephone, and when, soon after, he made his way to Knightsbridge, entered the lift, and walked on the yellow carpet towards her door, the wildest emotions filled him and all careful thoughts and plans were obscured.

Stephanie Whitehouse looked different, younger, prettier. Perhaps it was just that she had taken greater care with her appearance. Probably she had had her hair done. It was sleeker, wavier, curving with her head. Her slightly bouncy smallness, the wide tilted nose, the roundness of her head, her face, her eyes, gave the effect of a little horse. She was, in a way which startled Henry, new, a presence. Her face was ostentatiously but carefully made up, the pouting lips scarlet, the eyelids mauve, the line of the eyes discreetly pencilled. There was a pleasant warm smell in the flat.

Henry, without extending his hand, moved rather awkwardly past her into the sitting-room, as if he were pushing his way in.

They stood in the room, beside the red leather sofa, looking at each other. Then Henry stretched out his hand and she, not even pretending a handshake, took his hand, his wrist, in both of hers. It was a grab, a clutch. Henry's fingers gripped her cuff. Then, both breathing deeply, they stood apart. Henry said, ‘What a lovely warm sunny day, isn't it.'

‘Yes, it's like spring at last.'

They looked at each other with wild eyes.

‘You didn't mind my just suddenly inviting myself?'

‘No, no—But I haven't had time to cook anything or—'

‘But that's lovely, a picnic—'

‘Yes—a picnic—'

Today she was smarter, wearing a black linen pinafore dress with a flowery blue blouse foaming out at the neck. Henry lowered his gaze, seeing how the linen curved over her rather large bosom, seeing her breathing. He looked down at her glistening black high-heeled shoes. He was reminded of the little elegant hooves of a young donkey.

‘Won't you take your coat off? Would you like a drink?'

‘Thank you. Sherry. I see you have some.'

‘I got—You gave me so much money—'

‘Please don't speak about money, Miss Whitehouse.'

He dropped his coat on the floor. She picked it up and took it away into the hall. Then she poured out a glass of sherry and gave it to him. Her movements seemed to him gentle and humble, indescribably graceful. Doubtless a geisha would move like that.

‘Mr Marshalson, I'm so grateful—'

‘I wish you'd call me “Henry”.'

‘Oh thank you—but then please—could you please call me “Stephanie”?'

‘Stephanie. Thank you. But you haven't given yourself a drink—won't you—sorry, I seem to be offering you your own sherry!'

‘But it's your sherry.'

‘It isn't. Look, are you all right? I mean—has everything been all right—since I was here?'

‘Oh yes, yes. I've been just waiting for you.'

‘I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I've been busy down at the Hall. I suppose you never—went there with Sandy—no, well, of course not—'

‘Went—?'

‘To the Hall, to Laxlinden.'

‘No.'

‘It's a beautiful place. Well, you can see from the picture.'

‘The picture?'

‘Yes, here, this water colour. Did Sandy never tell you that that was his house?'

‘He hardly ever talked about it—perhaps he knew I didn't want to hear about that other life—of course I couldn't go there—'

Henry looked into the picture. Francis Towne, seated probably upon the obelisk hill, had painted an April evening, the southern façade a light brilliant gold in the sun, the big trees in first leaf, casting their huge round shadows upon the green slope, the blue sky scattered with little radiant clouds. He turned back to Stephanie. Her eyes were full of tears.

‘He was secretive. I was just a little part of his life. He didn't tell me things.'

‘Oh—Stephanie—I'm so sorry—'

He extended his hand again and this time she took it in a handshake grip. They looked at each other. The tears, unwiped, overflowed her eyes. One leapt onto her bosom.

‘I'll just go and—see the lunch is ready. It's in the kitchen. I hope you don't mind.'

With a quick embarrassment she withdrew her hand, dashed the tears away and hurried from the room. Left alone Henry circumnavigated the absurd sofa and went to the window, grimacing with excited tenderness, pity, a desire to laugh, a desire to cry. Then he followed her into the kitchen. They sat down to lunch.