To the North (29 page)

“Just general good-will.”

“Do you think it really does much?—People’s good-will, I mean: does it see one far?”

“I suppose it must be reassuring. And people cement things: ‘In the presence of friends,’ and all that: if one must be committed it’s better to be committed right up to the hilt.”

She said quickly: “But what commits one isn’t what people know. And why should one want reassurance?”

“Don’t you, ever?”

“I don’t see why one should… . Cecilia says when she’s happy she feels like sitting alone in a café quite empty but full of looking-glasses, with all the lights on: herself makes a crowd, she says. But hundreds of one’s reflection could be so frightening—” She broke off to listen. “Is that Cecilia now?”

They both listened. “No.”

“I really must go to my bath— What do you and Cecilia talk about?—I’m sorry,” she added, colouring, “all I meant was, what
do
other people talk about, all the time? There must be something to say, but I wonder what? I feel speechless so often, as though I were climbing a mountain.”

“I feel speechless as though I were pulling one foot out after the other across a bog.”

“Oh Julian, but you’re not dull! I expect you make people talk; you make me talk now. And yet, if you know what I mean, I have really nothing to say to you. I don’t think these are my thoughts. Do you know what people are like?”

“I suppose we all think we do.”

“Cecilia tells me I don’t. One couldn’t expect, could one, to agree with anyone the
whole
time?”

“Not the whole time, but—”

“Oh surely,” she said, “disagreements are on the surface? Perhaps between friends the surface was meant to be rough. One has to try to speak: words twist everything; what one agrees about can’t be spoken. To talk is always to quarrel a little, or misunderstand. But real peace, no points of view could ever disturb—don’t you think so, Julian?”

“Yes—I do hope she will.”

“There seems no reason why she should. But Emmeline, if —in the remotest eventuality—what would become of you?”

“What,” she said rather wildly, “ever becomes of anyone?”

“I do wish, my dear, you’d have some idea… .”

She looked at him so intently that he was startled and felt a spasm of self-reproach. Then he saw that the face turning his way its arrow angelic oval in fact concealed the entire retreat of thought. She had gone away. With her whole good will, he no longer had her attention, for which her quick movement of consternation was all penitence. To have wandered, or have been suspended, while he was speaking of what was so near his heart … ! Her lips trembled, not daring to ask what he had just said.

“Idea?” she repeated. He cursed himself for a blunder: her mind might have spun itself out on that fine thread of talk that, snapped off by his question, now trailed in the air. It had been fatal to speak of the future: he felt the whole Emmeline in recoil. If she were difficult, even impossible, she was rare and dear enough to be humoured.

To this blank pause, Cecilia came in. They heard the front door click, a pause by the telephone-pad, the drawing-room door whirled open and she was with them.

“Oh Julian, I
am
so sorry— Emmeline darling, home?” She stripped off her white gloves, dropping her handbag into a chair: the room sat up visibly. “How terrible of me,” she added, animated and happy. “But why ever not have tea?”

“I forgot,” said Emmeline, stooping to pick up her hat.

“You’re tired,” Cecilia said swiftly.

“I’m going to have a bath.”

“I had Georgina to lunch. And oh, just think, Julian, I gave her a pudding I got from her own cook!”

She stopped to watch Emmeline wander out of the room; when the door shut: “Julian,” she cried, “what have you been saying to Emmeline? She looks all over the place.”

“We just talked,” he said, taken aback.

“I suppose she’s just tired. Georgina’s convinced that something’s wrong at the office.”

“Doesn’t Lady Waters exaggerate?”

“Oh yes,” said Cecilia, ringing for tea. “All the same, you know, there’s no smoke … Have I wasted much of your afternoon? Georgina gave me a lift to the top of Bond Street, so I did some shopping: a hat… . She was taking that unfortunate Gerda Bligh to a private view.”

Leaning back in his chair, he assured her she had not wasted his afternoon. He asked her about the hat, and told her about a picture he thought of buying. Whatever had been in his mind before lunch, when he so urgently rang up, had gone now or was adjourned: once or twice while she talked she sent him a flitting glance of inquiry, not knowing if she were glad or sorry.

Julian gone, Cecilia ran up to dress: it was very late, she was dining out. At last, very hurriedly, snapping one bracelet more round her wrist, she tapped at Emmeline’s door.

“Come in,” said Emmeline after a moment: she came to the door in her Chinese-blue dressing-gown with the dragons. In there, the bureau gaped open; letters and papers were tumbling out: she did not bring office order into the home. Damp from the bath her hair clung in strands to her neck: her lids drooped; headache was written over her forehead.

“I’m going now,” said Cecilia. “I’m terribly late— To please me, Emmeline, don’t go out again. You—”

“I told Peter I’d go to his party, but I think perhaps I’ll ring up.”

“Yes, do. There are
cachets févres
in my drawer.”

“I’ll find them.”

“Emmeline—there
is
nothing wrong?”

“Nothing, honestly. Have a nice time.”

“Nothing Julian said worried you?”

“No, he was sweet.”

“I do wish you’d give up the office, or take a holiday. I wish you’d at least think it over. Everyone says—”

“I don’t want to,” said Emmeline with that impassable note in her voice.

“But you might suddenly want to; you might find it such a bore. You’re really too young to get tied up: it is such waste of you, such waste of time—”

It was like Cecilia to rush at essentials with one eye fixed on the clock. Emmeline said: “Cecilia, you will be most terribly late!”

“Or suppose you got married—”

Emmeline, smiling, re-knotted the cord of her dressing-gown. She said: “Nobody wants to marry me.

AND ANOTHER THING,” Mrs. Dolman went on, voice twanging over the wire, “if you can’t make your friends go out quietly you’d better keep them all night. Two men in what sounded like ski-ing boots crashed past our door about three o’clock; neither Oswald nor I got another wink. Then your friend with the giggle came down and dropped her evening bag, several keys and a good deal of change, and had quite a hunt for everything, bumping against our door. I may add that she left the lights on. Why didn’t you see her out?”

“Who, Daisy? There’d have been far more noise if I had. It was her look-out: she wouldn’t go with the others.”

“And please see that your empty bottles go down in the ash-can and don’t leave them outside your door. The cat knocked one down to-day and it was by the mercy of heaven it didn’t go through the banisters and splinter on somebody’s head. And another thing—”

“You should shut that cat up, it nearly broke my neck for me last night, moping about on your stairs in the dark. Besides, it’s dirty— Now shut up, there’s a good woman: I’m in a hurry.”

“Cook’s taking this weekend off: why, heaven only knows. If I don’t let her, it just means she won’t come back: I see that in her eye. She’s had enough trouble with you. If you want Boulestin sauces at ten minutes’ notice you’ll have to go somewhere else—”

“-Willingly.”

“So till Monday you’ll have to eat out.”

“That leaves me cold,” said Markie. “I’m going off this weekend too. As it happens. Otherwise ten minutes’ notice like this would be damned annoying. If you can’t manage servants at your age you’d better shut up shop. Anyhow, what became of that sherry I sent down for sauce? Where’s the whiskey I didn’t lock up? That woman’s so tipsy she can’t whistle. Now clear off the line for God’s sake: I’ve got some telephoning to do.”

“If you are going off, they’d better turn out the flat. Last time I was in the place smelt like a bar— Shall you want anything forwarded?”

“No, I’ll be in on Monday. Yes, they can clean up, but if I find anything missing I walk straight out. And don’t let them touch the books, either. That’s all, I think.”

“Have a nice weekend,” said his sister agreeably.

“Thanks. I’m going to Wiltshire.”

“And next time your friends come in—”

“Oh, sleep it off!” said Markie. He hung up.

At this time of the morning, the whole flat looked as though it had been slept in. There was a general staleness, rugs rucked up, cushions about the floor, ash everywhere but in the ashtrays. Daisy had left a comb on the mantelpiece; rings from the bottoms of glasses were stamped on the furniture. Markie, shaved but still in his dressing-gown, pulled a suitcase down from the bathroom shelf and began to drop things into it: he was not taking much to Wiltshire. The telephone rang again: “Damn!” he said wearily. But it was only Emmeline.

“Markie, I’ll be ready by one. Do you bring cigarettes, or do I?”

“I will. And the drinks, of course.”

“And her matches are sure to be damp. Do you like ham or tongue?”

“Anything, anything. I’m seeing a man at eleven: don’t keep me, there’s a good girl.”

“All right— Do you think Connie’ll leave soap, or should I—”

“We won’t wash. I’ll be ready one sharp. Good-bye, angel.”

Emmeline ran the car up some ruts into the lean-to; Markie swung the suitcases out and they went round to unlock the cottage. Connie Pleach had lent Emmeline her cottage out on the downs, not far from Devizes.

They pushed the door open; at the first breath Emmeline, who had not come here before, felt she had been quite right about the matches. The “woman who came in” had lit a fire; twigs snapped and charred in thin smoke, a kettle hung over them on a hook. Two windows looked at the skyline up the calm grey-green flank of the down, a lovely picture of emptiness whose changing lights flooded at every moment the small grey room. The windows, closed, shut in a faint smell of bleached damp from limp calico curtains: there was a smell of oil lamps. A great gilt harp, one of Connie’s heirlooms she could not house in her basement flat, effectively blocked the wall-cupboard beside the grate. A red Recamier couch shed stuffing; there were two string stools, backless, a Windsor chair, broken, and a kitchen table painted cobalt blue.

“Where,” said Markie, looking about, “does the woman sit down?”

“I don’t think she does, much; she generally walks about.” Emmeline, beaming, dropped a whole armful of parcels and added: “But we’ll sit here.” Sitting on the red sofa she held out her arms to him, so very happy to have arrived. He kissed her (for they could always go back to the inn at Devizes); side by side on the sofa they still looked about. A big black-and-white of Prague (one of Emmeline’s posters) flapped at them from three drawing-pins; there were some photographs, one rather hackneyed Van Gogh and a framed certificate stating that Connie had joined the Band of Hope. A distinct mustiness drew their attention to bookshelves. “At least,” she said, “there are plenty of books.”

“Oh, there are.”

“Now don’t,” said Emmeline. But with Markie so cheerfully carping she felt quite un-anxious. Her eyes shone, colour tinged her cheeks; fresh wide air and escape from the pressure of London had restored her equanimity. And she was enjoying, too, the domestic role: had she not spent the morning shopping at Fortnum’s, determined all should be of the very best? No sardines, no cheese from the village shop should offend Markie. Perhaps her disassociation from cups and saucers, of which she had spoken to Julian, came simply from living with the pervasive Cecilia: here objects had each their full circle of charm and mystery. She patted the red sofa, leaned back to twang the harp; then, getting up, moved the harp and looked into the cupboard. Here she found pewter plates, two Coronation mugs, Breton bowls, a Crown Derby cream jug, a good deal more china from Woolworth’s and several grey dinted spoons. There was a smell of mice. “Here’s Worcestershire sauce,” she said, “either curry powder or mustard and— oh, poor Connie, she did leave soap!”

“Happy?” said Markie.

“Yes— Shall we keep the harp somewhere else?”

“Have you found the glasses?”

For a moment this worried Emmeline, then she discovered them just at eye-level, ranged in a row. While Markie undid the drinks she went into the scullery; here the oil-cooker was potent: she opened the window. Shadows edgeless and soft in the flooding mild light rolled over the face of the downs; close by the window three hollyhocks bore up their spikes of red frilly flowers. Leaning out over the warm sill, Emmeline touched a hollyhock.

“I say, Markie,” she called in a minute, “there aren’t any stairs.”

Drawing a cork, he shouted: “Look in a cupboard.”

She looked; there the stairs were, neatly packed in, twisting up to the attic light.

“How clever you are,” she said, muffled, head up the staircase. “How do you know about cottages?”

“I’ve heard of them.”

In fact, this Connie’s cottage idea of hers had been received by him in the first place with great mistrust. Fancy played little part in his pleasures and he did not lightly let the amenities go. He had anticipated, quite soundly, that she might spend much of their time looking bothered or even stricken and asking where things could be. He had heard enough of weekends of this kind to be exceedingly funny about them without having had to expose himself to the discomforts of any one cottage. There was a good deal of business with tin-openers, you hauled about buckets and kept running backwards and forwards for milk or beer: what animation arose had a raft-like quality of gratitude for survival. Never feeling that this could be fun, he declined invitations of this kind—so persistently that, just now, he had lugged the suitcases over the bumpy threshold with a dreamlike malicious pleasure, as though he were to hear of this happening to someone else… . He and she, however, had long been planning to go away. Their brief and irregular meetings—so little fair weather between the last frost of arrival, the earliest shadow of saying good-bye—were unsatisfactory to both of them, wretched for her. Their free time was too short for travel; the risks and banalities of an English hotel she refused to contemplate. It would have been his idea of a joke to have borrowed Farraways, servants, cellar and all (he overlooked Lady Waters). Failing this—which Emmeline did not seem to think funny and would be incapable, anyhow, of bringing off—there had remained Connie’s cottage. So Markie let Emmeline have her own way. To play at house with her for two days would be not uncharming; there was also no doubt her first round with a Primus would reduce Emmeline to entire and rare dependence on male capacity. Two days undisturbed possession of her, clear of Paris or London, had a sweetness hard to resist. Markie had measured the map with his thumb nail before starting: Devizes, he always reflected, was quite close by.