The Blue Rose (10 page)

“You mustn’t kiss me. You’ll catch my cold.”

For answer he kissed her again. “I’m just going out to smoke a cigarette, but I shan’t be long and I’ll expect you to be asleep by the time I get back.”

“What time are we leaving in the morning?”

“Leave all that to me. I’ll call you in plenty of time.”

It was not the kind of wedding night she had imagined but she was so glad to get to bed and shut her smarting eyes that she didn’t really care very much. It must be much harder on Stephen. She felt that she had let him down badly. She
must
be well by the morning.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEY had a very long day next day and Rose’s cold continued to be so bad that she dozed a great part of the time while Stephen was driving. The country they passed through wasn’t very interesting anyhow except for the fact that anything new is interesting, but this
northern
part of France was very bleak with its huge fields and wide horizons and poor, dun-coloured villages.

The flight itself to Le Touquet had been fascinating and unbelievably quick. Within twenty minutes of boarding the aircraft at Ferryfield they were driving away from Le Touquet Airport. There was a shuttle service that seemed to be continuous. They saw an aeroplane arrive—a large, squat, old-fashioned-looking machine (though it was in fact newly built for this purpose); its blunt nose opened, a ramp was wheeled up to it and three cars were driven off. As soon as this operation was completed their own car, one other car and two motor-bicycles were driven on. The ramp was wheeled away, the blunt nose was closed and the passengers proceeded to enter the aeroplane by a side door. The cabin inside was rather cramped, but the flight was so quickly over that Stephen barely had time to smoke one cigarette before the notice
no smoking
came on for landing.

Rose stepped down for the first time on to French soil. It was a lovely spring day and the air seemed softer than in England. By the time they had gone through the Customs and shown their passport the car was ready waiting for them to drive off. Rose had not got a passport of her own. Stephen had had her name put on to his. “I shall never let you travel without me,” he had said simply, “so there is no point in your having your own passport. It would only mean one more thing for me to carry—one more thing to get lost.” She was perfectly content with this arrangement.

They stopped for lunch at some little inn by the road where a delicious meal was produced of
hors d’oeuvres
and omelet, salad and French fried potatoes. Even with the partial loss of taste resulting from her cold, Rose realized that she had never tasted French fried potatoes before.

“I always like to have a light lunch when I’m driving,” Stephen said. “And make up for it in the evening! There’s a great danger on these long straight roads of falling asleep if one has eaten too much. And I never have a drink when I am driving either.”

It was a very exhausting day, but they did get to Nancy at the end of it, though not until nearly eight o’clock. Stephen drew up at a hotel in what is perhaps the most enchanting square in the world—the eighteenth-century Place Stanislas. Their room was in the front, looking over the square, and Rose found difficulty in tearing herself away from the window. Many of the buildings were illuminated and there was the sound of dripping water from a fountain.

Stephen came up behind her and put his arms round her. “Do you like it?”

“Oh, it’s magic.”

“How are you feeling?”

“A little tired.”

“It’s not been too much for you? Do you think you ought to have dinner in bed?
...
All right, but you must go to bed immediately afterwards again.”

“Oh Stephen.” She turned to him. “I’m not your wife yet.”

“We can wait. I want you to feel really well first. It means so much. I don’t want it when you’re not absolutely yourself
...
The worst is over, I’m sure. You’ll be perfectly all right by to-morrow, I expect, and the hotel in Basle—The Three Kings—is the most wonderful I have ever stayed at
...
To tell you the truth I’m rather glad you had a cold last night. That motel is excellent as motels go but it’s not the most romantic place in the world.”

“But this must be,” she said.

“I think you’ll prefer Basle. You wait till you see our room there.”

“But this room is so luxurious.”

“You wait till you see the one at The Three Kings!”

She did her best at dinner to keep up but she was drooping with fatigue and feeling stupid from that kind of muzziness in the head that a bad cold always produces, so she was glad of Stephen’s gentle firmness in making her go to bed directly after dinner. Again he waited until she was in bed to tuck her up and kiss her good-night. She wondered how long it was before a husband and wife stopped feeling shy of each other. Had Francie and Derek ever felt shy?

II

It was an easy run of only a hundred and fifty miles the next day to Basle, just inside the Swiss frontier, and they got there in good time for lunch. It was a strange feeling crossing from one country to another merely by passing a barrier like a level crossing. On one side all the officials were dressed in one kind of uniform, and within a stone’s throw they looked and dressed completely differently. Rose wondered what it would be like to live on a frontier. Would the very fact of living so close to another culture emphasize your own nationalism? There was a great deal, she felt, to be said for living on an island.

She almost gasped when the manager of The Three Kings showed them to their bedroom. It was on the ground floor and the windows looked on to the Rhine. Indeed the river was so close that it was almost like being on a ship. The room was as vast as the salon of a palace, and the walls were covered in pale green figured silk. The curtains, with beautifully swagged pelmets, were of the same silk looped up at the sides with silken cords, and the furniture was of the most elegant Louis XV, a style with which Rose was unfamiliar but which perfectly suited this room with its gloriously moulded plaster ceiling and great carved chimney-piece. Adjoining was a very large, luxurious bathroom.

“But it’s a palace!” she exclaimed as soon as the manager had withdrawn. “It’s the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen. And having the river like this
...
! Oh, Stephen, I feel I’m in a dream. Are all the rooms like this?”

“No, only a couple of them
...
I booked this almost the day you said you would marry me. I could see us here so clearly. For me it is like a dream come true.” He held out his arms to her and she went to him swiftly. “Look at me, Rose!” and he took her head between his hands and looked into her eyes. “You are better, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I feel much better. Quite different.”

“Will you do something for me?”

“Anything in the world.”

“Don’t go out and look at the shops this afternoon but stay here and sleep if you can—or at any rate have a long rest so that you will feel really well for this evening—while I do my work. Will you do that for me?”

“Of course, if you want me to. Though I seem to have done nothing but sleep since we left London.”

“It’s the best thing you can do. I’m sure you were overtired before we left. That’s why your cold has been so bad
...
While I’m working this afternoon I want to think of you lying here in this bed—our bed.” She turned and looked at the bed and saw for the first time that unlike those at the last two hotels it was a double bed, the largest she had ever seen, and a queer little thrill ran through her.

“I thought to-night, if you felt up to it, we would go and dine at a place I know on the Rhine—it’s only a few kilometres out of the town. Now you are better I feel that our honeymoon has really begun
...
Come on, let’s go and have lunch. I’m starving, I don’t know about you
...”

It was a gay lunch in the restaurant of the hotel which had a glassed-in verandah looking on to the river. “I wish you didn’t have to go and work this afternoon,” she said.
“For your own sake I mean,” she added quickly, not wanting to sound too possessive.

“Only for my sake? I hoped it might be for yours too
...
You really do look yourself again.”

“I feel it. It’s almost worth being ill for the joy of feeling better again.”

“Like knocking one’s head against a stone wall for the pleasure of leaving off? I can do without that kind of pleasure, thank you!”

After lunch he said good-bye to her in the vestibule but he did not kiss her because they were surrounded by people. Even now they were married he could not bear to be demonstrative in public. “You will do what you promised this afternoon?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Good-bye then, my love. I shall be t
hinkin
g of you all the time. I’ll try not to be too long. I ought to be back by six anyhow.”

Left to herself Rose went back to their wonderful room and did a little unpacking. It was not worth getting out very much for just one night, but she unpacked one dress to wear that evening and Stephen’s shaving things and dressing-case. It was an intense pleasure to her to be able to look after his things. Already his brushes and his dressing-gown were familiar and infinitely dear to her.

She would be quite glad of a rest that afternoon as a matter of fact. She was not feeling quite so well as she had led Stephen to suppose but thank goodness she was feeling well enough now to be able to pretend to be even better, and by this evening she was quite sure that she would be absolutely herself. She had never felt as pulled down as this with a cold before. No doubt she had been under a great strain in London the last few weeks and she knew that she had lost a great deal of weight—far more than even Francie realized. It had all been pretty hectic what with the coffee bar and the arrangements for the wedding and her trousseau
...

She ought to write to Francie. She would write to her now. (Like most women she preferred writing on her lap, or even in bed, to a writing table.) She got out her fountain-pen therefore and some writing paper and a stiff book to write on and put them on the table by the bedside. She wondered which side of the bed Stephen would prefer. She pulled back the quilt of green satin and revealed wonderful thick satin-bound green blankets to match the room. What luxury! She would get into her dressing-gown but keep on her petticoat. No, on second thoughts, she would put on Stephen’s dressing-gown. It would make her feel so lovely and close to him, and she could take it off before he returned in case he did not like her wearing it.

She wrapped herself in the soft silk of his dressing
-
gown and got into bed under one of the beautiful soft, light blankets
...
She must write to Francie
...
but first she would have five minutes’ nap. She was so tired—so unreasonably tired.

She did not know how long she had slept and she did not hear him come in, but she woke to find him bending over her. Instinctively her arms went out to him. “You have been very quick.”

“No, my love, you must have been asleep for a long time. You have got my dressing-gown on
...”

“I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I love you wearing it.”

“I wanted to feel close to you.”

“You are close to me
...
Dear one, are you feeling well and rested?”

“Yes, so well and so rested.”

“My dear wife.”

“My dear, dear husband.”

Rose had expected to be nervous but there was nothing to be nervous about, for in truth the fusion of two people who love each other is the most natural as well as the most beautiful thing in the world.

III

If Rose had thought that she was as happy as it is possible to be when she was first engaged to Stephen, she was to discover that night at Basle that when once you are truly man and wife a great, new, unexpected well of joy and peace is opened up to you which you can find in no other relationship.

It was an evening she would never forget. They dressed together and then drove out for dinner to the restaurant on the Rhine which Stephen had told her about. It was a simple place filled with Swiss in holiday mood—mostly parties of young people thoroughly enjoying themselves and breaking into song at every possible opportunity. The pretty young waitresses were dressed in national costume so that Stephen and Rose might well have imagined themselves to be taking part in a musical comedy. The food, however, was anything but stage food. It was excellent of its kind, though not up to the French cuisine—and there were great quantities of it. The portion of veal, for instance, that was brought to Rose covered her whole plate.

To drink they had Rhine wine in carafe—the
vin ordinaire
of the country which would have cost two or three pounds in an English restaurant.

“How happy the Swiss seem,” Rose remarked, looking round her with intense interest.

“Yes,” Stephen replied. “And yet, do you know, according to statistics they have the highest suicide rate of any country in the world!”

“I never understand statistics,” Rose said. “They never seem to have any relation to real life
...
In future I shall only be able to think of the Swiss in terms of these happy parties sitting here eating their enormous platefuls and d
rinkin
g beer and breaking into song for no apparent reason.” She wanted to fix this scene in her mind for always—the long pitch-pine tables and benches covered with rough but newly laundered check cloths; the waitresses with their swinging skirts and pretty fair faces; the atmosphere of geniality and comradeship; the great river running swiftly below them—but more than anything Stephen’s beloved face sitting opposite to her—her husband in very truth now; and at the back of her mind the happy knowledge that in due course they would be returning together to that wonderful room at The Three Kings, and that to-morrow they would be moving on to Italy (Italy! How she had always longed to see Italy!), and that after three blissful weeks alone together they would be returning to their own lovely home
...
Happiness in the present swells to its full intensity when it is held between the soft thoughts of a happy past and a happy future. One can never be completely happy in the present when one is conscious of some menace or misery just round the corner.