‘How do you do?’ said a deep voice from a large shape seated beside Juliet. It was swaddled in numerous shawls and rugs, on the summit of which one of the new ‘stableboy’ flat caps could be seen incongruously perching.
‘Oh – hullo,’ Juliet muttered, and the car moved off and Clemence Massey, catching a glimpse of silvery hair and youthful contours in the subdued light, thought despairingly, Oh God. Just his type.
‘I should have said “Hullo”. I beg your pardon,’ said the voice next to Juliet, awfully; and Clemence and Frank exchanged a glance with the corners of their lips lifting. Then no one said any more, as they went onwards.
And so young! Clemence was thinking. Oh, why does God or Something make it so difficult for me to have the one thing I want?
‘And what did you think of Mr Pennecuick’s dreadful little shacks?’ Mrs Massey demanded presently of Juliet. ‘Doesn’t it seem strange to you that anyone should wish to live in such a peculiar style? But I suppose, being young, you see nothing peculiar about it?’
‘We never went inside,’ was all Juliet could think of to say.
‘You haven’t missed a thing,’ said the deep voice triumphantly.
Clemence Massey was not a young woman of dramatic temperament; one of her strongest traits was common sense. But if anyone had quoted to her Thoreau’s verdict on the mass of mankind living lives of quiet desperaton, all her deepest longings would have cried: ‘Yes, oh yes – that’s me!’
She was twenty-seven.
Since early adolescence, her longing had been for a baby, a home, a husband: perhaps in that order. However, Nature had given her the type of ordinary, pleasant personality and appearance least likely – unless from an unusual stroke of luck – to attract men. And then, to add a stronger pain to the ever-present conviction that she was unlikely to marry, she had drifted gradually into love with her childhood friend Frank Pennecuick, the most unsuitable man possible.
A romantic, a solitary, an adolescent lover of girls who suggested mermaids or fairies, a conservationist. A Friend of the Earth. And, in many people’s eyes, a crank; his very name rhymed with the contemptuous word.
They were ‘best friends’. Frank had more than once said so. And sometimes she felt that it was not he whom she loved, but what he could give her: the baby (babies, rather, for Clemence wanted six) and the home.
She had also faced the fact that she wanted to change him. She wanted to see him put on a stone and a half in weight, eat ‘proper’ food, live more as other people did. And, in the unlikely event of his proposing to her, he was not going to like that aim at all.
So the days of quiet desperation marched on: ten o’clock until twelve at Dr Masters’s surgery as his receptionist; the drive home from St Alberics to lunch with Grandmamma in the pretty cottage in immaculate Wanby; the afternoon back at her desk and telephone; the drive home to Wanby at the end of the day through winter sleets, long fading summer sunsets, flying autumn leaves, the aching evenings of promising springs.
But at least he was coming to live at Wanby. In those awful converted cowsheds. The whole of Wanby would be good-naturedly amused. But he was coming.
And that mane of hair and that slender young body had come to live at Hightower, too, five miles away.
The car stopped at the gate of Hightower and Frank rang the bell.
‘I hope Sarah won’t come down; it’s got really cold,’ Clemence remarked, aware that lowered spirits, rather than the chill autumn evening, had caused her to shiver.
‘If Sarah likes to make a fool of herself that’s her business. Juliet, you may help me out.’
Juliet, a romantic figure in her hooded cape, advanced upon the capped bundle, and spent the next minutes supporting one cold, squarish paw as it crept from the car, and then, under sharp instructions, rewinding scarves and shawls about it.
The light above the gate showed delicate features sunk in smooth flesh of that tint suggesting a tea-rose. Narrow dark-grey eyes sparkled out from a massive old face.
‘Ha – Antonio – good,’ Mrs Massey observed, as after nearly ten minutes, the gates swung open. ‘Thank heaven for a man.’
‘Really, Grandmamma,’ Clemence said absently.
‘Good evening, Antonio – how are you? And the pretty fiancée? And the naughty Surprise?’ said her grandmother.
‘Grandmamma, don’t you want to go up by car?’
‘Antonio will give me his arm.’
Antonio courteously assenting, the procession set off.
‘Do you want to ride, Frank?’
‘Good heavens, Clem, a hundred yards won’t kill me—’
‘I only thought – if you’ve been chasing about all day.’ She guided the car within the gates, and braked.
‘You know I can walk fifty miles without tiring,’ and he turned back. ‘Juliet! Buck up – we’re late.’
I know you’re still thirteen, in some ways, and that’s one of the reasons I . . . feel about you as I do, Clemence thought, as she locked the car.
Frank waited impatiently until she had carefully done so, tested the result, and put the keys into her purse, then pulled her arm within his own, pulled in Juliet on the other side, and marched them both off.
‘I cannot stand that stuff your grandmother uses,’ he confided to his best friend; the scent of ‘French Almond’ was diffusing itself around the majestic progress of Mrs Massey and Antonio.
But Clemence felt too depressed for more than a wan smile. She already knew he disliked artificial scents; hadn’t she given up her own timid use of ‘April Violets’? Of course, he had not noticed.
‘Can he really? Dear little bambino,’ Mrs Massey was saying in response to Antonio’s confidences concerning the individual whom she called, playfully, the Surprise. (Mrs Massey, who disliked small children more often than not, regarded the Surprise as a naughty joke; the child’s hastily married parents had been full of shame, and had received a severe lecture from Father Beccio. Nor did Antonio relish the remarks of Senora Massey. He looked upon her as a rather disgraceful old woman.)
Now he nodded obediently. Yes, his little son could say ‘Papa’. It was for the boy, and in a lesser degree for Anna, back in Spain, that Antonio had bullied and argued and shouted his brother and sisters into coming to work in England. Now he would be glad when they reached the house.
Frank was aware of Juliet’s arm held firmly within his own, and it was bony. Not attractively fragile, not limp and clinging. Just bony. And his next thought was: Have to feed her up, poor little devil. A thought he had decidedly never had about any of the others.
7
‘Dolly, my dear!’
‘Adelaide, how lovely to see you!’
The stout figure, having shed its coverings in the hall to reveal a smart black dress (worn over two black brocade petticoats and two bodices of light wool), marched across to the wheelchair, and a tea-rose cheek was pressed to one suggesting wrinkled leather.
‘I kept dinner back half an hour – what detained you, dear?’
‘Oh – something with the car – I don’t know – Clemence is so clever with all that sort of thing.’
Mrs Massey settled herself with enjoyment close to the log fire, and her gaze just touched the drinks table. But—
‘Wouldn’t you like to go in at once, dear? You won’t want a drink – you must be hungry.’
Miss Pennecuick began making helpless rising movements, and even as Mrs Massey thought Oh, won’t I? Frank had an arm about his great-aunt, and was carefully leading her towards the dining-room.
‘I’m longing to learn what you think of my little girl. Did I hear Frank say you picked them up in Wanby?’
‘Yes – he’d been showing her those dreadful cowsheds.’
Mrs Massey, deprived of the preprandial short, noticed with satisfaction, as she took her place, that Addy had done her guests handsomely with the wines. But then, she always did. The weekend was going to be a shocking bore, with no company except that of Frank – if o
nly he would marry my poor girl! – and the anaemic cockney chit, but at least the food and drink would be good.
And there would be the girl’s background to investigate (Mrs Massey had thought her story fishy, from her first hearing of it) and she must find out if Frank were attracted to her; she was rather his type. Poor Clemmie. Yes, after all, there might be something to pass the time. And when she got them alone, she could always gossip with the servants.
She slowly made her way through the excellent dinner, her bright eyes moving curiously from face to face. The chilly wind has flushed Clemence’s cheeks unbecomingly and that shade of powder was wrong. Why, oh why, didn’t she inherit some of my looks and charm?
‘How is Pamela?’ began Miss Pennecuick, having slowly disposed of a fragment of plaice. She relied upon Dolly for news of mutual friends who were too old and frail to ‘get about’.
‘Dying,’ said Dolly with disapproval, savouring her own plaice.
‘Oh dear – how dreadful for Charlie—’
‘Don’t think he cares a button,’ said Dolly, with relish. ‘Can’t wait to get her money.’
‘How long does Edward give her?’ (Edward was Dr Masters.)
‘Oh good heavens, Addy, how should I know? This is very good Sauterne. Do you still go to Weston’s in St Alberics?’ Dolly held her glass up to the light.
‘I believe so – Antonio attends to all that sort of thing. Have you any news of Betty?’
The news of Betty, extracted by a process which reminded Frank of a fisherman skilfully landing a fish reluctant to be caught, was not good. Neither was the news of Herbert and Marie, and not much could be said for Doris and Martin. He did not try to catch Clemence’s eye; he knew she would find nothing amusing in the conversation. And when he turned for entertainment to Juliet, she was staring with parted lips up at the window.
He lifted his head to see what had caused that expression: Antonio had not drawn the curtains fully and between the folds shone the quarter moon. ‘“Goddess excellently bright”,’ he quoted softly, thinking, with a return to the romantic mood which had fed and tortured him since adolescence, that Juliet’s hair was exactly the moon colour.
‘Pardon?’ This came after a pause, as she seemed to realize that he had spoken. ‘You say something?’
‘Yes I did, and it was damn silly of me and I shan’t make the same mistake again.’ He did savage things to his table napkin.
Juliet showed no interest either in his romantic murmuring or in his subsequent temper, and it was with relief that he heard Clemence say firmly: ‘Grandmamma, tell Aunt Addy about your latest battle with Mr Peppiat.’
‘Oh yes, Dolly, I shall be so interested – but are you quite certain you want to leave dear little Wanby? So pretty – so idyllic.’
‘Quite sure, thank you,’ Mrs Massey snapped. ‘If it wasn’t for the sherry bottle, I should have cut my throat years ago, living there.’
Miss Pennecuick knew that her old friend loved to shock, and dutifully played up. ‘Tell me about Peppiat, tiresome man. I remember his grandfather being just the same.’
‘So do I, Addy.’ Mrs Massey was for a moment annoyingly divided between a desire to appear both younger, and as old, as her friend. ‘It’s in the family, I suppose. Oh, he shillies and shallies, you know. Isn’t sure whether he’ll want the property for his son and daughter-in-law if they come back from Australia. And that goes on from week to week. It’s maddening . . . and now he’s talking about a higher rent.’
‘You like Wanby, don’t you, dear?’ Miss Pennecuick turned to Clemence’s quiet, attentive face.
‘I’m perfectly happy there, Auntie. But I do realize it’s pretty deadly for Grandmamma. There’s nothing really there, you know . . .’
‘Some of the finest elms in Hertfordshire.’ A snap from Frank.
‘I can’t live on elms,’ struck in Mrs Massey. ‘At least in St Alberics there is a rep, and a public library, and the arts centre, and a few people under . . . a few interesting people.’
‘Everybody,’ Frank observed morosely, ‘is interesting,’ and a silence fell, devoted to eating. He did not hear Mrs Massey’s mutter of ‘Fiddlesticks’.
He fell to wondering, as he sipped apple juice of his own brewing, how Juliet felt at being waited on by servants. Probably she did not think about it at all; she was staring at the moon again.
He felt decided relief. He had finished with the elusive fairies who had held him, as in the net of Vivien the Sorceress, since he was sixteen.
Gradually, but surely, a love for the huge Earth and a longing and intention to devote himself to its welfare – and rescue – had replaced the mood of the knight palely loitering. (It will have been noted that Frank was a confirmed quoter, perhaps because his feelings were stronger than his capacity to express them.)
A mild conversation about the repairing of clocks and watches in the neighbourhood had begun. Antonio was sliding crystal plates, laden with something Portuguese and creamy, before each guest.
How nearly Frank had lost his freedom for ever! Three years ago, that pale red hair and siren’s mouth had so enthralled him that he had proposed marriage. The greedy girl had accepted him, as a man rich enough and besotted enough to give her all the rubbish she wanted.
There had followed eighteen trial months, in which they tore one another to pieces.
He knew that most people would have said that he was the one who should give way – Ottolie’s desires for a smart modern house, gadgets, a very large car, foreign travel, and four dinner parties a week were all natural; it was he, loving simplicity, solitude, silence and the company of one beloved other, who was the crank.
To be fair to her, she had tried. But in arguing with her, he had felt that she looked on him as actually mentally ailing. Who but one so afflicted could prefer a bunch of weeds to a great ‘arrangement’ of roses at one-fifty each?
He had been living, at the time of their affair, in a cottage rented from his friend Edmund Spencer, the poet, and – his reverie again remorsefully acknowledged it – Ottolie had praised the light given by the oil lamp, admired the clusters of wild roses in summer and what she called ‘but-they’re-only-leaves’ in winter, even played at simple-life housekeeping.
But it had been hopeless.
There was nothing to do (she had said) in the evenings, but talk or read; and she had been a reader only of books dealing with some resurrected political or sexual scandal. Wonder she never experienced; mystery, in the true sense, passed her by. Personalities and money were the only things that interested her. At the end of the eighteen months he had told her, with agonising regret for the beauty and the false fairy spell he was discarding, that they must part.
Their first night absent from one another he had spent in tears; for his loss and for the waste, the bitter waste.
Ottolie, who was twenty-two and feeling that hols had started after a term of some sixteen years, gave a party that same night long remembered in the neighbourhood with pursed lips and waggings of the head.
What came to Frank’s rescue was the simplest and humblest of growths on earth: grass. He had taken a degree in botany in his early twenties, and had kept up, in a casual way, his reading of journals devoted to that subject and to ecology; he grew gradually more interested in the questions relating to the cultivation of wild-growing grasses for food, and finally, chancing in a small seaside town in Essex upon a society of amateur enthusiasts calling itself the Association for the Investigation of Edible Grasses, he joined it, put some thousands of his money into housing it, engaged a small, well-paid, dedicated staff, established himself firmly as adviser and supplier of cash – and found that grass had purged the poison from his spirit.
‘Like a dog or a cat,’ he said to Edmund Spencer. ‘I was ill, and I needed grass.’
Now the AIEG’s membership was global, and rising into its second hundred thousand.
Poor Clemence, Mrs Massey would sometimes think. First airy-fairy Ottolies, and now grass. Who but
Frank Pennecuick could present such a combination of rivals?
But he was very comfortably off, and one day soon he would inherit his great-aunt’s fortune. He would do very nicely for dearest Clem, who would of course cure him of all that grass nonsense and make him live in a proper way, when once they were married. Mrs Massey encouraged the idea.
Mrs Massey drank strong and well-sugared coffee. Frank held a light for Juliet’s cigarette.
‘Juliet, baby, I wish you wouldn’t smoke so much. It worries me,’ said Miss Pennecuick plaintively. ‘You know, the doctors say dreadful things can happen.’
Juliet used the weapon she had found the most useful for many years: silence. Her mother called it the sulks.
‘I can put you onto a cigarette made from herbs, Juliet, that won’t hurt you at all,’ said Frank.
‘Except making her sick, I should think,’ said Mrs Massey. ‘Give me one, Frank, will you? No, not your home-made horrors, an Embassy. Thanks—’ as he held a match for her. ‘Now tell me, how is your house going?’ She puffed, in a self-conscious, Edwardian style.
‘Well enough for me to sleep there next week – if that suits you, Great-Aunt?’ turning to her.
‘Of course, dear, you know you can come and go as you please, though I always love to have you here. But won’t it be terribly damp?’
‘Not in my sleeping bag.’
‘And so isolated, Frank. It really worries me.’
‘A mile from the M1,’ smiling. ‘This place is more isolated, really, you know.’
‘Yes, but we have two strong young men on the premises—’
‘And aren’t I a strong young man?’
She laughed reluctantly. ‘Of course, dear boy. But it really will be – it sounds – such a peculiar way to live, it isn’t as though it were necessary,’ delicately implying the healthy state of his income. ‘The fact is, you have made yourself unfit to live as most people do.’ (Here Mrs Massey nodded emphatically.)