To the North (6 page)

To be with Cecilia made a slowing-down and a break in this anxious consciousness; it was like falling asleep. Aware of her pretty figure in black on the sofa beside him, her head turned his way, her expressive hands—that, unlike other hands, seemed to exist to touch, to communicate their vitality—he relaxed under the enchantment of a delectable strangeness, this foreignness to himself that passed for her mystery. To be with her, so nearly to love her was to lend oneself wholly to an illusion, to hang in a drop of light in the lustres along her mantelpiece, to be reflected for less than a moment, like a bird’s shadow flashing across a mirror, in her dazzling ignorance of oneself.

Julian knew too well that in grumbling about his niece to her he was presenting himself in a most unattractive light: one should discuss one’s difficulties only when they are over. Intoxicated by his utter failure to please, he went on to complain that Pauline’s age was difficult, that he did not care for responsive women, that she annoyed the servants and blew in her glass when she drank; all this, he said, need never have mattered if it were not so clear she would never be one of those people whom, in spite of all their failings, it is impossible not to like.

“But, my dear,” said Cecilia briskly, after what seemed some hours of this, “she’s only a girl, after all: she can’t eat you.”

“I know.”

“What do you mean by responsive?”

“Like a bear you have to keep on throwing buns at.”

“Oh dear: I wonder if I am responsive? She doesn’t read yellow novels or smoke in her room?”

“Oh, no, she is most respectable; she chaperones herself the while time.”

“Isn’t she pretty at all?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Spotty?”

“I’m afraid she is, rather.”

“Oh dear, poor little thing.”

“It’s horrible,” said Julian, lighting her cigarette for her, “to be talking like this about a child. But she rattles me terribly. I can never just look at her; I always feel as though I were catching her eye.”

Cecilia, realising that what he really wanted was to talk to her about himself, not Pauline, was a little mollified. “Don’t be neurotic, Julian,” she said more kindly.

“I don’t feel she can be enjoying herself. I’ve got a woman to take her to museums and things, and she’s been to a film with a friend, but I think that shocked her.”

“Poor little thing. Would you like me to ask her to tea, or something like that?”

“Oh, well,” said Julian. This, as a matter of fact, had been in his mind, but the way Cecilia put it it did not sound possible.

“I would, only what should we talk about all the time? She’d be so bored… . Why didn’t you bring her this afternoon?”

“Don’t be silly, Cecilia,” said Julian sharply.

Cecilia, startled, knocked ash very carefully off her cigarette. “Well, you know,” she said, “you do get things on your mind.”

“What a bore I must be.”

“Oh, no.”

Cecilia was, as a matter of fact, rather fond of children; she felt sorry for poor little Pauline shut up in that cold flat and would have liked to do something for her, though not to please Julian. Naturally she was irritated with Julian, who should have known better than to sit beside her, after three weeks of absence, looking at once haggard and dumpy like a widower with five children. She had amused herself for a short time by her impersonation of a dissipated and heartless woman. Her Aunt Georgina’s example gave her a horror of searching talk; all the same she liked to receive confidences if these were conferred prettily, with some suggestion of her own specialness, not dropped on her toes all anyhow, like a bulky valise someone is anxious to put down. Looking thoughtfully past Julian while he maundered on about Pauline, she remembered the one occasion when he had kissed her passionately, and looked again at her rather beautiful mouth. She was aware of her power to overbear in him something speculative and recessive, to be not for one instant his sister. After that dreary letter to her in Italy, after pretending to Emmeline he did not know where she was when she went abroad—here he was, consulting the married woman about his niece. The brittle-ness of the pretext—for such, in a flash that brightened the afternoon, it did now appear—at once piqued and soothed her: though their interview was remaining so frank and serious, he had come for a touch of the subtle excitement she could command. But their inequality seemed immense: she could never marry him.

She told herself, she would have married Henry again and again. Turning half round, her elbow among the cushions, fixing on Julian a melancholic dark look, she missed Henry with impatience, as though he had gone to come back and was already too long away. From her marriage a kind of vulgarity Julian’s tentativeness aroused in her had been absent, and that year when, however little she knew of Henry, she had best known herself, had a shadowy continuity among her impressions. Henry was with her casually, as though he came strolling into the room; there were cues he could never resist, incidents that provoked him to actuality. Without being aware, before or after his death, of his influence as an influence, she still took impressions on his account and often suspected her judgments were not her own. The mantelpiece was too high, he would always have thought so; with double discomfort she felt draughts to which he would have objected steal through the shut French window between the curtains. Now she could hear him agree, with that easiness that was so slighting, how very nice Julian was… . These moments when he and she met— he going up, she down on a moving staircase, when their fingers brushed for a moment across the handrail—still left Cecilia perplexed and smiling.

Julian did
not
volunteer that Cecilia lacked background; it was Cecilia who suddenly saw this and asked him if it was so.

“Perhaps,” said Julian, wondering why she was not more tiresome. But charm—or what passed for her charm—apart, her satirical honesty, with her habit of rounding briskly upon herself, kept her at all times from being quite a bore. He was not, however, disposed to discuss her character… . There were quite long intervals when he did not think at all of her, when her personality was like an engaging book on a shelf by one’s chair that one has only to put out a hand for, but does not put out a hand for. Perhaps half the pleasure in some of these visits remained in returning to somewhere where she was not. Some effervescence she set up in him, subsiding, left a sediment, bitter-sweet, of a doubtful quality that he did not analyse. He wished sometimes he could forget her, and, since last night, thought sometimes of Emmeline, whom it might become impossible to forget.

Pauline was all alone in the flat, waiting for her Uncle Julian to come home. Life was not gay here: the late afternoon, ticked away by small clocks all over the flat, had been more than long. She had, it is true, been out before tea; she had asked Mrs. Patrick, the housekeeper, if it would be suitable for a young girl of her age to go out all alone for a ride in a bus. (Pauline had been told what happens in London and warned, especially, to avoid hospital nurses.) Mrs. Patrick, with hospital nurses also in mind, said it depended entirely upon the character of the bus. Taking thought, she had recommended the No. ii. The No. n is an entirely moral bus. Springing from Shepherd’s Bush, against which one has seldom heard anything, it enjoys some innocent bohemianism in Chelsea, picks up the shoppers at Peter Jones, swerves down the Pimlico Road—too busy to be lascivious—passes not too far from the royal stables, nods to Victoria Station, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, whirrs reverently up Whitehall, and from its only brush with vice, in the Strand, plunges to Liverpool Street through the noble and serious architecture of the City. Except for the Strand, the No. n route, Mrs. Patrick considered, had the quality of Sunday afternoon literature; from it Pauline could derive nothing but edification. So, anxious to get Pauline out of the flat, she recommended a ride with confidence.

Fully subscribing to Pauline’s idea that a young girl cannot be too careful, she would not, she said, have countenanced a No. 24, which goes down Charing Cross Road. Pauline blushed, she had heard about Charing Cross Road. So she boarded a No. 11 at the corner of Smith Street, rode to Liverpool Street, admired the grimy glass arch of the station and rode home. To-morrow, she promised herself, she would take the No. 11 in the other direction, to Chelsea, to look at the artists. There had been no hospital nurses, no one had looked at Pauline. Back in the flat, she had seed cake and toast for tea before Mrs. Patrick went out. Pauline thought to herself what a good thing it was that she was a dreamy child, full of interests, who liked playing the gramophone.

Shadows drew out in St. James’ Park, twilight swung a clear veil over the sky. Kneeling up to the window Pauline sought the company of the wild-violet evening and some few lights. She went to the other window: across the E-shaped court gay low lamps sprang into flower in other drawing-rooms, tea was taken away: Pauline sighed; this was the hour for intimate talk. Here she hung alone, at a toppling height in the London sky.

Pauline fingered the switches, but light poured into the pictures only, leaving the heart of the room cold. Olives writhing in the mistral, campanili flat in the sun, shadows gashing white water, a hare’s blood dripping into a glass all blazed alive at her with unfriendly vigour, as though she had opened windows into the wrong world. The room with its bunch of shadowy furniture became full of vacancy, in which Pauline hardly seemed to exist. A nice room, she thought, and suitable for an uncle—it had a too intelligent, muted luxury, a gloom of rugs and deep chairs, rather
triste
repose: in the shelves gilt lettering just did not catch the light—but needing a woman’s touch… . When Big Ben struck, there was no one to whom to say, as she always did, that this made her think of the wireless.

Pauline had been given to understand that girls were a softening influence. She felt that her Uncle Julian might well confide in her; with this in view her searching eyes seldom left his face. “Little Pauline,” he might begin. She had hoped much of this lamplit hour. He had been disappointed in love… . Or a lady in violets and furs might come to the flat: Pauline doubted, however, if that would be respectable. … At her confirmation classes they had worked their way through the Commandments: at the seventh, an evening had been devoted to impure curiosity. She had been offered, and had accepted, a very delicate book and still could not think of anything without blushing. She felt she had erred in accepting the delicate book when she lacked impure curiosity, but the other candidates, all averting their eyes, had held up their hands for it and she did not like to be out of anything. So that now flowers made her blush, rabbits made her blush excessively; she could no longer eat an egg. Only minerals seemed to bear contemplation… . Trying the switches again and moving one lamp to a mirror, Pauline curled her lip back to study the gold band over her teeth. Was this why no one had spoken to her on the bus, or had she that look of indefinable purity?

She could not help feeling that she was a lonely child. She stretched out on the divan, one hand under her cheek, and, as Julian still did not come and the windows darkened, reflected that she was an orphan, had had a French great-aunt and a troubled family history, had been confirmed when she was thirteen, was alone in her rich uncle’s flat five stories up, and that her favourite poet was Matthew Arnold. These dramatic facts of her life fully coloured an hour’s blankness.

Then she heard Julian’s key in the flat door. He perceived for a moment her pensive figure among the cushions, and, as she sprang up to embrace him and kiss him just short of the ear, could not be thankful enough this was not his wife.

“All alone?” he said heartily.

“Ever so happy,” said Pauline.

The remark was unanswerable. “Still, it’s too bad,” said Julian. He felt really guilty and wished he had brought her chocolates or something to eat.

Pauline said she had been for a nice “explore” on a bus. “Good,” said Julian, and glanced at a letter he longed to open.

“I love buses,” said Pauline brightly. “I sat inside but saw everything. It was just like
Punch
. Such a sweet nun got in: we smiled at each other.”

“Do you like nuns?” said Julian.

“They have such sweet faces,” said Pauline firmly. “It was a No. n; coming back, the City looked quite enchanted.”

“It doesn’t enchant me.”

Approaching, she stood at his elbow and watched with large eyes while he mixed himself a whisky and soda. “Do you really like that?” she enquired, “or do you only drink it because you are tired?”

“Yes … I mean, no.”

“Horrid old office, keeping you so late.”

“As a matter of fact I went out to tea.”

“I thought you never went out to tea.”

“Well, I do.”

“I expect it was fun,” said Pauline. From one glance at his face she turned quickly away, blushing: there was a pause full of delicacy. He suggested that they should go to a film at the Polytechnic, a film with no nonsense in it, about lions.

WHO IS MARK LINKWATER?” said Lady Waters, about three weeks later.

“A friend of Cecilia’s.”

“My dear Emmeline, if I did not know that I should not be asking: that is just why I ask.”

“He’s a barrister,” replied Emmeline, after a moment’s consideration.

“I dare say … I understood from Cecilia you don’t like him?”

“Yes, I do,” said Emmeline unexpectedly. “He’s unlike most people.”

Lady Waters’ manner intensified. “How?” she said.

“Rather bumptious,” said Emmeline, smiling.

“I did not care for his manner.”

“Who is that that is bumptious?” enquired Sir Robert suddenly, putting down
The Times
. He loved and esteemed Emmeline—did he not send her clients?—and was delighted to have her with them at Farraways for the weekend. Farraways, a small country house in Gloucestershire, had been left to Georgina for life by her first husband, Cecilia’s uncle: it had been offered to Cecilia and Henry for the honeymoon but they had preferred Spain. It was a dull-faced, pleasant Victorian house with big bow windows, low window-sills and a long view down a slope of the Cotswolds. The other guests for this weekend were a young married couple, the Blighs, who might, Lady Waters was certain, still save their marriage if they could get right away from people and talk things out, and a young man called Farquharson who had just broken off his engagement on Lady Waters’ advice. At present, this Saturday at about half-past five, the Blighs, who would have been passably happy if Lady Waters had left them alone, were quarrelling at the far end of the garden, while Mr. Farquharson, who would have got along nicely married to almost anyone, was writing long letters of explanation to everyone up in his room. Sir Robert, his wife and Emmeline still sat round the tea-table in the drawing-room bow window. Emmeline could think of no reason to get up and go away. Sir Robert in the country was like a dog; he liked to be taken long walks (which was chiefly why Emmeline was invited); indoors he sought human propinquity, but while seldom sitting apart from his wife or her friends took no part in the conversation. Anything could be discussed, Sir Robert remained unconscious. His interruption to-day was without precedent, and must be the effect of Emmeline. Lady Waters was rather annoyed.