The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot (45 page)

David said, ‘He’s all right. He couldn’t have been more obtuse over Gordon’s death but …’

She looked for a few moments distressed and anxious, then she said, ‘Yes, I suppose he is very limited. Everyone here seems so special to me.’

David got up. ‘I think we should go back now,’ he said briskly.
Seated in the car, he said, ‘Shall we go back through Lewes and have a drink there, or round through Glynde?’ Before she could refuse, he said, ‘No, Meg, I want you to decide.’

Distressed, she stared at him. ‘Don’t you think,’ she said at last, ‘that with so many people about we might avoid the town and have a quiet drink at home?’

‘Well. Yes, I do,’ he said.

‘I’m so glad,’ she said. Relief at his agreement seemed to relax her. She lay back and closed her eyes.

As they were following the hairpin river road, he cried, startled by a sudden grey streak of flight, ‘There goes a heron, Meg.’

She woke startled. ‘Oh, yes. How fascinating!’ she cried. And now she sat, looking out of the window and commenting brightly. ‘Isn’t that an enchanting church? Are there many Norman churches around here, David? What an attractive white house! Whose lodge gates are those, I wonder? It’s so beautiful at this time of the evening, isn’t it?’

He could have kicked himself for destroying her mood of calm. At last he said, ‘I think your dress is very beautiful. I’d forgotten how smart you always succeed in looking, Meg.’

She stopped in the middle of a sentence extolling the size of an elm tree and looked at him. Then she laughed, ‘Did you think I’d wear that old sat out tweed skirt for the rest of my life, David? Of course not. Only I couldn’t really put on anything decent while I was still weeping everywhere, could I?’

He felt that he had struck a hopeful note of disagreement. He sought to improve on it. ‘Would you call that dress pink or brown?’ he asked.

‘Or beige, I wonder?’ she said still laughing and imitating his rather prissy tone. ‘Do you really want to know, David? They’ve all come back, you know, the beiges and the dirty pinks that Mother would have worn when we were children if she’d been smarter and less determined always to wear smart black.’

He said, ‘I don’t remember.’

She answered, ‘Oh, nonsense. You’re only two years younger than I am. If I wanted to be whimsical I should ask myself what happens to all these delightful colours when they aren’t in fashion. Do they live in some world of absolute values?’

‘Do you want to be whimsical?’

‘No. I don’t think so. Except perhaps about those dirndl skirts Else
wears in the evenings.’ She closed her eyes again and slept. As they approached Andredaswood, he woke her.

‘Meg,’ he said hesitantly, ‘I think we’ll have to do without an expedition tomorrow.’

She was at once alarmed. ‘Oh, dear God!’ she said.

‘Well, I really must give some attention to the nursery. You do see that.’

She answered quickly, ‘Oh, yes, of course, I do see that. Yes, of course you must. I’ll sit in Gordon’s garden if the weather stays hot like this. Perhaps you may find you have a few moments in the
afternoon
and come and sit with me?’

‘I’m sure I shall,’ he said.

‘Well, you mustn’t come unless you’re really able to, David. I
intend
to start reading Hardy through again. So I’ll be quite all right. Do you think I should begin with Bathsheba or with the Albrights?’ she asked as they stopped at the front door. ‘I thought not
Jude
because it’s not typical,’ she was saying as they went into the house.

Else Bode, greeting them in the hall, asked, ‘And was the country also so beautiful today, Meg?’

‘Oh, yes. It was quite lovely,’ Meg answered.

‘There is some sadness in this middle May all the same. The first time that young Spring finds himself a little tired and cannot think why it is so.’

‘Yes,’ Meg said immediately. ‘Yes. That is true, Else.’ She seemed to search for some addition to her acquiescence. ‘The leaves are
perhaps
losing a little of their variety.’ She received Else’s smile of
agreement
with pleasure. David started up the stairs. ‘I’m fairly sure not
Tess
,’ Meg said. Her voice seemed to David to follow him, trying to hold him. ‘I know that to begin with Angel Clare would put me off. Or don’t you feel that about
Tess
,
David?’

*

David, driving back from the rhododendron show at Vincent Square with Tim Rattray, thought, Gordon would have made much more of this success of Tim’s. It was true that Gordon had agreed heartily before his illness that this business of starting an
Andredaswood
series of varieties was all against their scheme of things. ‘
Nevertheless
,’ he had said, ‘Tim Rattray wouldn’t have come here if he hadn’t been able to raise new rhododendrons, so we’ve only ourselves to blame if we’re saddled with his successes. Besides, David, we shall
get a little prestige without you soiling your hands one speck by
contributing
to it. I’m always pleased when your rigid ethics reveal their casuistries. It is unfortunate, of course, that Tim’s additions to English horticulture should be of such extreme hideousness, but then that only ensures a greater market for them. Our moral duty at least is clear: we mustn’t allow our aesthetics to get in the way of his enjoyment of his triumphs.’

Certainly today’s first prize winner seemed more than ever difficult to praise. He wondered how even Gordon would have managed it. Bloom (gigantic) white flecked green, eye scarlet shading into a
delicate
shell pink. He had almost thought of putting his foot down at Tim’s chosen name – Andredaswood Loveliness, until he had
reflected
that no other name could do it justicel. Anyway, it was Tim’s variety and Tim’s the right to name it.

He said, ‘I do wish you’d have let me persuade you to have that slap-up dinner at the Savoy.’

‘Persuade! I almost went down on my hands and knees. The juices of that fillet steak are still in my mouth to remind me that I shall never taste it. If that’s what you call persuading, your entertainment claim isn’t going to worry the tax inspector much.’

David remembered all too clearly the reason why his persuasion had not been stronger. He said, ‘Well as soon as you told me Eileen was expecting …’

‘Oh, Eileen’s expected before,’ Tim shouted to drown David’s continuing, ‘and she hasn’t died of it.’ He laughed loudly at his own joke. Then he said, ‘No wonder they say sentimental old bachelors. I believe you think that the matrimonial state consists in anniversaries and special little dinners and what not. Eileen wouldn’t care whether we toasted the Andredaswood Loveliness tonight or next Saturday week as long as she had the drink. I’ve never known anyone so ardent for the married bliss of others. You ought to try your own medicine. I’ve never known why you …’ He stopped. David saw with alarm that a bright pink blush had crept over Tim’s cheeks and neck. People should never ask themselves questions, he thought. But they both began to speak at once.

‘I should like to join you and Eileen in drinking a toast …’

‘Well, at any rate, you’ll join us.’

They could laugh the moment away. Such luck doesn’t happen often, David thought; there’s a good chance, too, that he hasn’t seen my consciousness of his embarrassment.

‘I can get two bottles of champagne,’ he said, ‘if we stop at the house before going to your place.’

‘Excellent. And you can fetch Mrs Eliot along. And the Bode if she likes.’

‘I’d rather confine the occasion to you and Eileen, if you don’t mind, Tim.’

‘Oh, I think we ought to have Mrs Eliot. I’m sure the more she’s in on any social occasion the better. Besides she’s so easy on the eyes. I’d thought I’d give her a bloom or two and make some asinine speech about Andredaswood Loveliness.’

‘We can have another more official party one evening this week. We can ask the staff and you can make your speech then.’

‘Christ! I don’t think I’d like that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, I can’t keep this look of modest pride on my chivvy
forever
.’

‘All right. But I want the chance to talk to Eileen alone this evening. I mean to the two of you.’

‘Good Lord! Is this where I get the push?’

‘No,’ said David. ‘I want to ask Eileen one or two things about my sister.’

‘Oh! They drove on in silence for twenty minutes, then Tim said, ‘I don’t want to barge in where I’m not wanted or anything, but I must say I think it’s a frightfully bad idea to start talking about her behind her back. I’m not an expert on nervous breakdowns, but I know what moods and depressions mean. I know if any heavy
depression
moved down from Iceland and settled over me, nothing would make me go up the wall more than to think that people were getting together about me in corners. Anyway she’s made such a terrific recovery.’

‘Yes,’ said David. ‘Yes. She has. All the same I should like to talk to Eileen.’

‘Eileen was in a children’s ward. I hope you realize that.’ ‘Oh, it’s not because she’s been a nurse. It’s because she’s a very sensible person.’

‘Ah, there of course I’m with you all along the line.’

There, when they arrived, was Eileen Rattray, half the right little wife to come home to, with all cares of house or children banished for her weary hero, and half, since John and Anne were still shouting upstairs, the kindly, efficient, no nonsense modern mother. Seeing
her, David thought, what sort of sentimentalism makes me
determined
to denote her the one very sensible person on the place.
Normally
, perhaps, it was because he wanted above all to get on with Tim’s wife, for a hundred mixed reasons – preventive, defensive, apologetic, identifying. This evening, however, he knew quite well why it was: she was the one person who was likely to give him the advice he wanted to hear. What fakers we all are, he thought.

They toasted Andredaswood Loveliness. Tim said, ‘We ought to get some proper champagne glasses, darling. Even if it is only for the odd occasion.’ He looked, as David had never seen him before, pompous as he said it, although it was clear that he intended to look composedly worldly. To David’s regret, Eileen took her husband’s manner quite seriously. ‘Yes, darling,’ she said, ‘but I think you’d
better
choose them. I should have no idea what to get.’ So much for the ‘good sense’ you’re so determined to see in her, David told himself: he scouted the idea of ‘loyalty’.

‘I’m not stopping at this, you know. I’m determined to put
Andredaswood
on the pothunter’s map, despite all David’s isolation policy. With any luck I ought to push through Andredaswood
Splendour
and Andredaswood Daintiness next year.’

David, as he smiled his congratulations, pictured them. Green white (gigantic), eye chocolate shading to oxblood; and white flecked rosepink (gigantic), eye lilac shading to pale mauve. Even daintiness for Tim would have to be gigantic. He realized that Tim’s ghastly taste only added to his attraction. He felt too that in not objecting to Andredaswood Daintiness he was performing a very satisfactory act of self-abnegation. Anyway it was all a just punishment for having agreed to maintain the pretentious name of ‘Andredaswood’ when they moved in.

He said, ‘Eileen, I wanted to ask you how you thought Meg was getting on?’

Tim said, ‘Mr Chairman may I once more register a formal protest before this unsuitable matter begins.’

David said, ‘Tim thinks it’s wrong for me to discuss Meg when she’s not there. But after all I have to do it with the doctor and it’s much more useful to talk to you.’

‘I didn’t say wrong. I said it might upset her if she got to hear of it.’

‘Oh, no,’ Eileen said, ‘that’s silly, darling. She won’t get to hear of it. But what’s the matter, David, anyway? She’s made good progress for a depressive.’

‘Yes,’ David said doubtfully.

‘I think it’s amazing how she’s pulled herself out of it considering what she’s been through.’ It was clear that Tim, for all his scruples, intended to contribute.

‘Oh, depressives can help up themselves quite a lot,’ Eileen said. David longed to remind her that she had after all been a children’s nurse.

‘Oh, yes,’ David said, ‘she’s a person of great courage and strength of will. That’s perhaps what worries me. She’s content here, even happy. But it’s such an acquiescent sort of contentment. There’s nothing here for her. She used to have such spirit and now she’s …’ he mumbled, then said, ‘I wish she wasn’t so anxious to please.’

‘Good manners,’ Tim said. ‘Besides, isn’t that exactly what you were asking for? You said to me the day you went up to town to fetch her that she’d stuck her neck out too much. You said she ought to detach herself more from things, take things more peacefully; or something like that. I think she’s marvellous.’

Tim’s reference to his illogicality somehow annoyed David very much. He said irritably, ‘That’s not really to the point, Tim. In any case you’ve misunderstood me. I don’t grumble at her being more
detached
. Certainly not. It would be a great step forward. But she’s not really. She’s calmer, and that’s excellent as far as it goes. But it’s a negative sort of calm, or rather I feel that it’s a desperate sort of calm. It’s too near to apathy. Quite honestly, Eileen, I’m worried lest she should simply lapse into a feeble, contented dependence. I feel that I ought to urge her at least to
think
about getting a job. Detachment without some simple function to fulfil is an impossibility in
this
world.’ He noted his emphasis with horror, but the others had not noticed it. Nevertheless he corrected himself. ‘Today. The only thing is that
I
can’t really be the one to suggest it.’

Eileen clearly welcomed this more practical aspect of his views. ‘Yes, I see, David,’ she said, ‘but hers isn’t a hysteric case, you know. She’s a genuine depressive. Doctor Loder says so.’

Tim drank his glass of champagne off in one gulp and gave himself another. ‘How do you know what Loder says?’ he asked angrily.

‘I think Climbers told me,’ she answered casually.