The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot (44 page)

She forced herself to remember her elation of the afternoon. I can’t go back on my campaign now anyway, she thought, whether Jill’s right about the world or not. And even if she is right, I want to know. She’s never had any curiosity. Better to be the cat that’s killed than be like her. And then shame blotted out every other emotion; she could feel its physical suffusion, its blush above the discomfort and the
burning
of the fever. She saw a picture of herself, smiling and nodding and laughing and questioning, her face contorted into every grimace of charm. Lively, interested, helpful, thoughtful, loving Meg – out to do good for everyone, with no bother at all, least of all to herself. So quick at summing up, so quick with a touch of understanding here and there, so quick that there was no need to give a thought to what would happen really, so quick that she could keep the centre of her mind cosily and completely on herself and her own problems, and the centre of her heart too. Just rushing to the centre of people’s lives and setting things right here and there and then off again as quick as she had come. The magic touch of a wand, no more was needed. And if Jill got hurt, well, really – she’d done her best and after all she had her own life and the test had been coming on so really she’s had no time. … She saw herself gesturing and smiling and loving and worming confidences, and the face got older, wrinkles and lines came round the eyes and the mouth, but the smiling vivacity remained. Such a sweet, understanding, humorous, impulsive old woman. Seeing herself
helping others, and seeing herself seeing herself helping others, and  seeing herself seeing herself on and on. But always right at the centre herself, and at the end death. She could not tell, when the large tears began to pour down her cheeks, whether it was fright or self-disgust or self-pity or the constricting pain in her throat that had made her cry; but crying, she fell asleep.

She woke in the morning to a throat so painful that had she wanted to call to Jill she could hardly have done so. But she wanted above all to get up, go out and start life. When she moved in the bed, her limbs ached; when she pushed her legs out from the bed, they would not hold her. She sat on the edge of the bed and the tears flowed down once more. She must have sat so, shivering, for a quarter of an hour, before Jill came in.

‘I think,’ she said, and she wondered if her words were intelligible, it cost her so much to say them, ‘that I’ve got a high temperature.’

Jill said, ‘Get back into bed then. I suppose I’d better send for Dr Martin. Or do you have a doctor of your own?’ She shook her head. So Dr Martin came.

Acute tonsillitis, he said, and, after hearing Jill’s account of Meg’s circumstances, delayed shock Not in the technical sense, of course, but a nervous shock. He said to Meg, ‘You mustn’t feel worried by all this. There’s nothing to be ashamed of about it. You’ve had a dreadful experience. The remarkable thing is that your will’s kept you going for so long. I read the whole thing, of course, in the paper at the time. No one would have been surprised if you’d collapsed there and then. Rest is all you need. I’ll give you a strong sedative. The
interaction
of will and body depends on a very intricate mechanism.’ If shame had shown in her face, Meg thought, it was because she knew what Jill must be thinking. He also said, ‘Now there’s no need to worry about jobs at the moment. Time enough for that when you’re well again.’ She did not dare to look at Jill. She would have liked to speak to the doctor on his own, but since this seemed impossible, she said, not looking at Jill, ‘I can’t be ill here. If necessary I must go to hospital.’

He smiled. ‘Mrs Stokes will look after you all right. We’ll see how you go along.’

She went along in much the same way. The tonsillitis diminished; with sedatives and sleeping pills she slept a good deal; but when she was awake she wept involuntarily until her whole body seemed
enfeebled
from the convulsions of sobbing.

On the fourth morning, Jill said, ‘Meg, I’ve taken things into my own hands. It’s not possible for you to be here in this condition. I’m not in the position to nurse you. I don’t believe this flat is a good place for you. Dr Martin says that you can travel in. a closed car, so I’ve rung David and he’s coming this afternoon to take you down to Sussex. I don’t know whether it’s the right course, but I can’t take the responsibility in case you break down completely.’ 

S
LOWING
up at the side of the road, David pressed the button to lower the hood. He said, ‘People speak against these convertibles, but when you do get fine weather, it’s so well worth it.’

Meg said, ‘I think they’re ideal, David.’

The traffic was heavy on the road on this hot May afternoon. The cars seemed to pass them in little groups of three or four, held up by some slow-driving family party or elderly couple out for the run,

David said, ‘The trouble with a little spring weather round here is that all the residents of Seaford or Eastbourne come out of their retired holes to assure themselves that they aren’t dead.’

Meg smiled, ‘It’s a real holiday scene, isn’t it?’ she said. David looked at her for a moment but she was still smiling sweetly out
towards
the downland.

He said, ‘You get more variation here. I’m particularly fond of these chequered fields, especially where there are splashes of clover or mustard. It relieves the gauntness of those great, knobbly-kneed runs of downland.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘they’re quite beautiful. In the sun,’ she added vaguely.

He said, ‘All the same, I think we’ve had enough of picnics up on the Downs in these last few days.’ She smiled at him as though in pleasure at their special agreement about this. ‘And there’s quite a wind today,’ she said. She seemed pleased to contribute. ‘And the sea,’ he said, ‘even down at Cuckmere Haven, would be horribly crowded.’

‘Yes, I don’t think the seaside would be any cop.’ If the slang word suggested a particular liveliness it was only by contrast with the
uniform
gentleness that now seemed to flatten out her speech. ‘We could turn off here,’ he said, ‘into Alciston. It’s one of the few villages round here that has not been tatted up for tourists. It’s warm there even in winter. But I don’t think it’ll be too hot …’

She interrupted him,’ Oh, no,’ she cried, ‘it’s so lovely to have the hot weather, David.’

‘I managed to evade Else’s picnic basket today. I thought we’d had enough delicatessen on our outings this week.’

‘They’re so good, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘I’m amazed at how many things Else can do. And all so well. And she’s really one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.’

He said, drawing up in front of a cottage with wooden benches and tables in the front garden, ‘I’m afraid this will be no more than a farmhouse tea. No leberwurst.’

She said, ‘How lovely.’ He deliberately said nothing, did not even leave the car.

She said, after waiting for a minute or two, ‘What an attractive garden it is, David. What are those spiky plants with the yellow flowers?’

‘Crown Imperials. They’re a fritillary. You get them in a lot of cottage gardens. There are some by the east wall in Gordon’s garden.’

She said, ‘Oh, I must go and look at them when we get back.’

At the tea table, piling strawberry jam on to her slices of bread and butter, she said as though continuing a conversation, ‘I suppose you’re right. I
did
always resent Father leaving us like that and probably I
did
blame it on Mother.’ She frowned at the puzzle. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I never was able to see that they were just incompatible and that by not accepting it I only made things more difficult for her. Poor Mother!’

David said,
‘I
think so.’

Meg said, ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure, David.’ She helped herself to two pieces of madeira cake at once.

David said, ‘Those’ll be rather dry, Meg. Let me ask for some more jam.’

She looked at him a moment questioningly. ‘Oh, would you, David? That would be lovely. I love jam on cake. Yes, I’m sure you’re right. That the only thing to think about them both is that they were as they were. Or at any rate that
we
couldn’t have done anything about it. Of course, I think I was bound to think as I did then. I don’t blame myself for that. That would be silly, don’t you think?’ She was speaking so quickly with her mouth full that David had some difficulty in understanding her. ‘After all,’ she went on, ‘the girl sides with the father and the boy with the mother. I always thought those rules were too simple to be true, but I don’t see why they shouldn’t be, do you? As you say, it’s far better to accept these things.’

‘I don’t think I ever said quite that, Meg,’ he laughed.

She laughed in answer but a little strainedly. ‘No. I don’t suppose you did. I meant your general view of withdrawal.’ She paused. ‘What I mainly mean,’ she went on, ‘is that I really think that I can now accept Mother and why she was as she was.’

David said, frowning, ‘You were bound to find it a strain living with her. You could never live like that. Any more than I could.’

She said, ‘No, we couldn’t, could we? All that moving about.’

‘I don’t think it was only that for you, Meg, you know. It was the sort of places and people she moved about in.’

‘It wasn’t my sort of world certainly. But they were both very restless. Father must have been driven on by something too.’

‘I think
he
was ambitious, though heaven knows it came to nothing. And curious about things too,’ David added judiciously.

Meg said without a moment’s pause, ‘Yes, I suppose that, when I
really
come to think about it, I see that he was.’ She ate the remaining biscuit. ‘I think
I
just want to stay put.’ She laughed.

He said, waiting for the change from a pound, ‘Shall we walk up into the foot of the Downs?’

‘Oh, yes. That would be lovely,’ she cried. She got up and set off to the gate so that he had to run to catch her up.

She said, pulling off buds from the heads of yarrow and dropping them into the high grass as they walked up the road, ‘You
do
really think that I could not have managed at Jill’s, David?’

He said, ‘Yes, of course. I’ve told you so. In any case,’ he laughed, ‘I honestly think from the way she spoke that she wouldn’t have let you stay there.’

‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean you
do
think that it was
understandable
my trying to improve things between her and Evelyn, even though I went the wrong way about it.’

‘Yes. Very understandable. As you know I personally believe that one can’t help people much. I’m inclined to think it’s better to stand aside.’

‘You
do
mean then that I should have adapted myself to Jill’s
attitude
to Leonard …’

‘No, no,’ David interrupted. ‘Withdrawal doesn’t mean
acceptance
. In fact in this case literally the opposite. You should have
withdrawn
yourself altogether. There’s no cause to moralize about Jill Stokes’ embittered attitude, but there’s also no reason for living with it. What would be the sense of that?’

Meg walked beside him in silence for a few minutes. She
continued
to flick buds from the weeds as she walked. A tough scabious plant resisted the light pull of her finger-tips and she stopped for a
moment
, dragging at the whole plant. Its steady resistance seemed to rouse her from her thoughts, for she said, ‘It’s so difficult to give other people what one doesn’t ask for oneself. Although I see that that’s an egotistical approach. And not satisfactory. Just because I don’t feel that my pride is a sort of guardian of Bill’s memory doesn’t mean that Jill truly …’ She broke off, then a second later began to speak very quickly, ‘I
do
think I was
bound
to feel that I should try and make some effort to come out of my grief. And then Jill’s feelings about things were so much what I feared to fall into. You see the suddenness and the strangeness of Bill’s death don’t really make any difference to the fact. I have to adapt myself like anybody else. Only, Andrew’s must have seemed the same to Jill. As you might expect, I’d never really fully thought about that. But you see Bill’s death
was
an awful shock and I thought, “I won’t ever be caught off my guard again. I must know what’s going on in the world.” It seemed so important not to sit back, I ought to have known after the fool I made of myself with Tom Pirie, but I was surprised when I talked to Jill’s son-in-law. You see Bill and I lived in a very narrow circle in a way …’

David had been looking anxiously around as the words poured out over him. Now from the last farmhouse yard of the village came waddling a fat green-black Muscovy duck. He said, ‘I like those creatures.’

Meg broke off immediately. ‘Oh, yes,’ she cried, ‘they
are
delightful
, aren’t they? What sort of ducks are they?’

‘Muscovy ducks,’ he said. ‘They’re excellent table birds.’ He waited as though expecting some comment on this phrase but none came. ‘The white are particularly fine,’ he added. Then, as they left the
village
behind, she said suddenly, ‘You’re very
good
at withdrawing. From conversations, I mean.’

He laughed. ‘It’s nice to hear a little bite in your comments again, Meg,’ he said.

In her turn she laughed but nervously. ‘Is it, David?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I must be an awful bore nowadays. But there’s so little reason for biting. Honestly, David, I shouldn’t have believed that people could have been so kind as everyone has been here. Else, it goes
without
saying, of course. But did I tell you how good Mrs Rattray was? She’d come in to see you, I think, and she heard me crying upstairs.
I’d got up to wash my face and I broke a bottle of hand lotion. My hands were cut and everything seemed so hopeless. She was so kind and so
efficient.
She’s been a nurse, hasn’t she? Did I tell you how good she was, David?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you did tell me, Meg.’

‘But I don’t think I told you that it was she who first suggested that her husband should visit me. She said it would do me good to see men as well as women, Tim’s a quite enchanting person, isn’t he? He’s obviously first rate at his job. And then Mrs Boniface! She’s wonderful. The crown of all daily helps and yet not just a character but a person.’ She searched his face as she spoke.

He said, ‘I’m glad they’ve all been so helpful.’ They had passed the small copse now and were out on the open downland. He sat down abruptly on a grass hummock. ‘Meg,’ he said, ‘if there were
anything
at Srem Panh that you felt you hadn’t truly faced, you wouldn’t let any silliness about money stand in the way of you taking a trip back there, would you?’

Her short, tight skirt did not allow her to spread herself on the grass with his agility. She stood over him, her shadow cutting out the sun, reminding him how cold the wind still was, and he thought how smart she always managed to look – this brownish-pink dress, for
instance
. Looking at her now, he could hardly identify her as she had been throughout April – with her hair seldom brushed, her face
grubbily
white without make-up, her dressing gown food-stained; but the breakdown had nevertheless marked her so that she looked at
moments
sixty and then again sometimes five or six years less than her age.

She said, ‘Srem Panh? Oh no, David, there’s nothing there. I’ve almost ceased to remember it, thanks to Andredaswood. When I look out of my window in the morning here over to the forest, I …’

He interrupted her, ‘Look, Meg,’ he said, ‘there could be things there that have played some part in your illness. You have spoken once or twice of your feeling above all that the unknown had so
suddenly
struck at you. And it was so, of course. I feel that the events that caused Bill’s death lie behind you, like a cupboard full of bogies. I can understand you shutting the doors so firmly at the time. At the time you wanted to escape. But now it worries me, I confess, that you should seem so little curious about the background to his death.’ She had folded herself down beside him now; her long legs tucked under her, her knees protruding below her skirt. She stared at him in distress,
but he looked away and continued talking, ‘Perhaps if you were only to read some books about the place. And the families of those young men – I understand so well what a horror it was to you to be able to do nothing to save them. I know that’s all past, but the families might need help.’ His voice died away. He saw as soon as he said it that there was nothing for her in Badai. Yet he knew he was searching for some expression of the disquiet he felt.

Meg seemed surprised at his incoherence. She waited for him to say more, picking at the straggling roots of a cinquefoil. Then she said, ‘Oh, I don’t think so, David. I’ve felt that this sudden blow from
outside
was only a symbol of my ignorance of the world. That I’d been punished for living in a fool’s paradise. But to say that a thing is a
symbol
surely means in a way that it’s something one should dismiss once one’s seen what it’s a symbol of, doesn’t it? It did make me feel that I shouldn’t be caught again. That I should be more involved here in England. Now I don’t know really. But I never thought I ought to know anything about Badai. Why should I? It was purely accidental that it all happened there. And as to the possibility that such accidents have some meaning on another level, I know little enough about the surface reality without looking further. I was upset that I could do nothing for these men, but it taught me, I must say, the limitations of my powers. That lesson ought to have made me more withdrawn if anything could. But I see I don’t understand what you mean by
withdrawal
if it implies involvement in Badai politics.’

He saw that her smile was ironical. Once again he was pleased that she should be laughing at him and pleased, too, that his incoherence had made her speak with some certainty. He laughed. ‘I was being illogical,’ he said. He thought how delighted Gordon would have been with the whole occasion. ‘I think you’re quite right. I just wanted you to feel that there was no difficulty about money.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t if I wanted it,’ she said. ‘But in any case Doctor Loder has been most emphatic that I should forget the whole thing as far as I can. I do consider myself lucky in having him. He’s quite
unusual
for a G.P., David, isn’t he? He’s so alive and intelligent.’