The Morning Gift (44 page)

'Nonsense,' said Frances. 'I bought some shoes for the Godchester christening.'

'That was twelve years ago,' said Martha.

Frances detested buying anything for her personal adorn-ment, but if it had to be done then it had to be done at Fortnum's in Piccadilly. Displeased, she took Martha's shopping list and headed south with Harris in the Buick. Beside her on the seat was a cardboard box padded with wood shavings and containing a dozen dark brown bulbs which, after some hesitation, she had dug out of her garden on the previous day.

When in London, Frances did not stay with Quin, whose flat she regarded as faintly disreputable and liable to yield French actresses or dancing girls. She dined with him, but she stayed at Brown's Hotel where nothing ever changed, and sent Harris to his married sister in Peckham.

Her day had been carefully planned, yet when she found Harris waiting the next morning with the car, the instructions she gave him surprised even herself.

'Take me to Number 27 Belsize Close,' she said.

Harris raised his eyebrows. 'That's Hampstead, isn't it?'

'Nearly. It's off Haverstock Hill.' ;

Now why? thought Frances, already regretting her impulse. She was seeing Quin that evening - why not give the bulbs to him to pass on to Ruth?

The streets as they drove north became meaner, shabbier, and as Harris stopped to ask the way, they were given instructions by a gesticulating, scarcely comprehensible foreigner in a large black hat.

Number 27 was all that she had feared; a dilapidated lodging house, the door unpainted, the wood sagging in the window frames. A cat foraged in the dustbins; the paving stones were cracked.

'I won't be long,' she told Harris, and made her way up the steps.

Leonie, enjoying the calm of her sitting room, for Heini had gone to see his agent, heard the bell, went downstairs and saw an unknown, gaunt lady in dark purple tweeds, and behind her an unmistakably expensive, though ancient, motor car with a uniformed chauffeur.

'I can help you?' said Leonie - and then: 'Are you perhaps the aunt of Professor Somerville?' .

'Good heavens, woman, how did you know?'

'There is a look… and Ruth has spoken of you. Please come in.' Then, with the sudden panic which assails women the world over at an unexpected apparition: 'There is nothing wrong at the university? All is well with the Professor… and with Ruth?'

'Yes, yes,' said Miss Somerville impatiently, wondering again why she had come. The house was appalling: the worn lino, the smell of cheap disinfectant… 'I brought some bulbs for your uncle. You are Mrs Berger, I take it? Ruth mentioned that he liked autumn crocus and I have more than I know what to do with. Would you please give them to him?'

'For Mishak?' Leonie's face lit up. 'Oh, he will be so pleased! He is in the garden now, you must of course take them yourself- he will want to thank you. And I will make us a cup of coffee. No; tea, of course… I forget!'

'No, thank you. I won't stay.'

'But you must! First I will show you the garden… it is best to go through the house because the side door is stuck.'

Frances followed her reluctantly. Now it was going to be impossible to get out of an invitation to drink tea. Foreigners could never make it properly and she would probably be expected to eat something sickly with a spoon.

Mishak was digging his potato patch - and as he straightened and turned towards them, Frances was gripped by a fierce, an overwhelming disappointment.

I have come to fetch you,
he had said to Marianne, opening his briefcase, lifting his hat, and she had imagined a dapper little man in an expensive overcoat, a man of the world. But this was an old refugee, a foreigner in a crumpled jacket and cloth cap, shabby and poor and strange. It was all she could do to force herself to approach him.

Leonie explained their errand and Mishak leant his spade against the fence.

'Autumn crocus?' he said. 'Ruth told me how they grow under the cherry tree.'

He took the box, pushed aside the shavings. His hands, as he searched for the bulbs, were earth-stained, square and stumpy-fingered. Hands that planted and mended, that hammered and turned screws. Not really foreign; not really strange…

'Yes,' said Mishak, touching a bulb. 'How I remember them!' He didn't even thank her; he only smiled.

The tea was excellent, but Frances could not stay.

'I have to shop,' she said wearily.

Leonie's eyes lit up. 'Where do you go?'

'Fortnum's in Piccadilly.'

'Ah, that is a wonderful place,' said Leonie wistfully. 'You buy a dress?'

Frances nodded. 'And shoes.'

'What kind of shoes?' It was Mishak who spoke, and Frances glared at him as shocked as if it was a tree which had dared to interest itself in her concerns.

'The same as I always buy,' she said testily. 'Brown strap shoes with a side button and low heel.'

'No,' said Mishak.

'I
beg
your pardon?' Frances was unable to believe her ears.

'Not strap shoes. Not low heels. Not buttons,' said Mishak. 'Fortunati pumps with a Cuban heel, in kid. From the Milan workshops; they use a different last.'

Leonie nodded. 'He knows. He worked for many years in my father's department store.'

Frances was in no way appeased. 'Certainly not! I wouldn't dream of it. I've had the same shoes for years and I haven't the slightest intention of changing now.'

'You have a high arch; it is a gift,' said Mishak. He felt in his pocket for his pipe, remembered that it was filled with the stumps of cigars which Ziller brought from the Hungarian restaurant, and abandoned it.
^;

'Anyway, no one sees what I wear up there,' said Frances, still glowering. 'God sees,' said Mishak.

Ruth, coming in late from the university, heard about Miss Somerville's visit and was instantly transformed.

'Oh, what did she say? Tell me, Mishak - tell me everything she said! Did she talk about the garden?' ;

'Yes, she did. They've had a hard winter, but the alpine gentians are almost out, and the magnolias.'

'What about glassing in that bit of the south wall by the sundial? Is she going to do it? She wanted to see if she could grow a lapageria so far north - everyone said she couldn't and you can imagine the effect that had on her!'

'I believe she means to; yes.'

He exchanged a glance with Leonie. They had not seen Ruth look like this for weeks.

'Oh, Mishak, it was so beautiful up there, you can't believe it! It's so
clean
and everything has its own smell, completely distinct, and the air keeps moving and moving. There must be more air there than anywhere in the world! Did she tell you whether Elsie has got on to the WEA course in Botany?'

'No, she didn't. Who is Elsie?'

'She's the housemaid. She's really interested in plants and so nice! And what about Mrs Ridley's grandmother - I told you about her - she was going to be a hundred in February.' She looked up, suddenly afraid. 'She's still alive, isn't she? She
must
be - she was so looking forward to her telegram from the King.'

'We didn't speak of her either,' said Mishak.

'I suppose the lambs will just be being born - John Ridley said the end of March. They're like sheep in the bible up there, so clean, and you can hear them cropping the turf… And it's full of rock roses; and the birds…' She shook her head, but it wouldn't go away; sometimes she thought it would never go away, the vision of blond grass and blue sky and the white horses of the sea.

'But she told me about the little dog,' said Mishak. 'She's keeping it and they're calling it Daniel. She said I should tell you and you would understand.'

'Daniel? Oh, yes - of course.' So Miss Somerville had not betrayed her foolishness on the journey to the Fames. 'After Wagner's stepdaughter - you know, Cosima von Billow's daughter, Daniella, only it's a male, of course. Yes, that's good! He looks like a Daniel - God help any lions if he gets into their den; he's really fierce!'

Leonie, who had been listening to this conversation with increasing puzzlement now said: 'But, Ruth, you see Professor Somerville every day. Why don't you ask him about these things yourself? Whether the old grandmother is dead or the lambs are born? He must know.' ;

Ruth flushed. 'I wouldn't talk to him about Bowmont; it's none of my business - and anyway he's always working; he's incredibly busy this term.'

Busy and abstracted and not at all friendly… And there were rumours that he was leaving.

She took out her lecture notes, but before she could settle down to work, the door opened and Heini came in. It was a quarter to ten, too late to practise without incurring the wrath of Fraulein Lutzenholler and he now went to sit disconsolately on the sofa, avoiding Ruth's eyes. It was a fortnight since the meeting in Janet's flat and he had still not forgiven her properly, but as she pushed back her notes and went to make him a cup of cocoa, Ruth understood what she had to do. For it was not only Mishak and Leonie who had learnt something from Miss Somerville's visit. Ruth herself had obtained rather more insight into her own mind than she cared for - and now it was necessary to act.

And this meant changing the way she had been thinking. It meant repudiating her goat-herding grandmother and the consolations of her mother's Catholic faith. It meant saying goodbye to the Baby Jesus in his crib and the consoling angels with their feathered wings, and calling on her other heritage: the stern, ancient and mysterious Jewish faith where the word of the rabbis was law and it was the God of the Ten Commandments and not of the Sermon on the Mount who reigned supreme. It was there that she would be cured of her disability and find her way back to Heini. She had not quite wanted to admit kinship with those black-bearded, shut-off figures in their skull caps… the Hassidim wandering poverty-stricken through Polish forests, the thirteen-year-old boys who studied and chanted like old men, ruining their eyes. Yet it was in the traditions of just those people that she would find deliverance.

The laws of England had failed her - or she, with her carelessness had failed them. Mr Proudfoot could not give Heini what he needed, but there were other and older laws she could evoke.

It would take courage - a great deal of courage - but she knew now what she had to do.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

She tried not to run… tried to keep to a decorous walk, but it was impossible because she
had
to get there quickly. To Quin's flat while her resolution held… to Quin who even now might save her.

She was beside the river, on a path between the Thames and the road with its busy end-of-the-day traffic. The lamps had just been lit, their reflections shone on the water, for the tide was high and the current raced out towards the sea.

'Oh, God, let him be in,' she prayed. 'Let him be in and alone!'

But what right had she to pray? She wasn't even a proper sinner who was entitled to the Almighty's ear; she was a cold rejective failure. God hated the mean in spirit, she was sure of that. Or would he have understood about Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis and the terrifying Eugene Feuermann? Would he think of her as simply ill and heed her after all?