Wherever the throb and grind of traffic was most hellish, wherever the glare from the confusion of goods in shop windows was weariest and the stench of petrol fumes most overpowering, there, at the worst moment, she would happen to glance up and see Mrs. Benson.
Sometimes the woman seemed to recognize her; more than once there had been a grin and a wave of a thick hand, a parody of pleasure at the sight of her that surprised and sickened Christine; anyone would have thought that they had been real friends.
She could not always be sure that it was Mrs. Benson, either; those great stout women with dyed hair all looked alike, especially with a cigarette sticking out of their face.
It was a common face, in both senses of the word; moving like some embodiment of the scene through the noise and the sickening smells.
Christine summed up her feelings towards this figure from the past, in the thought: she makes me think of everything I hate most.
“Three changes of bus and then that walk to the pillar-box—I always think ‘hooray’ when I see the pillar-box—yes, it is a difficult journey, I think it’s nice of people to come out all this way to see us.”
“It’s nice when you get here,” said Christine, and Moira rippled.
They were standing—of all places—in Tom’s bedroom. Tea was over, and, after some comfortable talk, Moira had suggested that Christine might like to see over the house; she herself loved seeing over people’s homes; and Christine’s acceptance had been more eager because she knew that Tom was out. She had half-expected to see The Boots standing by his bed, and told herself not to be silly, and leant forward to look out of his window.
“What’s that blue hill you can just see between the trees?”
“Oh—up Mill Hill way—it might be the country, mightn’t it, with all the trees.”
“And so quiet. I like all these shady roads.”
“Oh, so do I. I love living here—never want to go anywhere else. We’ve been here nearly thirty years—came here before the war.”
Christine looked down into Frank’s garden. A drowsy scent floated up from its tiny parterres and brick paths, framed in their thick beech hedge and shaded by their laburnum and lilac.
“Anne cut the grass on Sunday. It looks nice, doesn’t it?”
Christine admired, then went on to ask how Anne was getting on with her mathematics, over which there had been difficulty. Now there was improvement, Moira said; Michael had been helping her. He found English difficult. Having been ‘set on’ being a dentist since he was twelve, he was more interested in ‘that kind of thing’, and in machinery, than in poetry and essays and that kind of thing.
“I don’t see why you need poetry to be a dentist,” Christine said.
“You don’t use it while you’re pulling out teeth, you silly girl,” said Moira, rippling again. “It’s to give you a broad general education. Culture. That’s what the Grammar Schools aim at—so I’m told. Oh, I used to love poetry when I was Anne’s age. Did you?”
Christine’s mother used to say ‘you silly girl,’ but not in the affectionate tone that Moira had used, and her question about liking poetry had not been put in the form ‘didn’t you?’, which would have implied that all nice people did like it.
“I never read any.” At school, Christine remembered, they used to say You’re a poet And don’t know it. And poetry rhymed. Poetry?
“My favourite poem used to be Sohrab and Rustum, by Matthew Arnold,” said Moira. “I know bits of it by heart. I was always saying them over to myself, I was so crazy about it.”
And then and there, sounds began to come out on the shady air of the room above the glowing garden; the blue hill looked between its leaves; the scented air listened; marriages of the ordinary vowels and consonants that Christine heard and used every day, but had never in her life heard used as they sounded now—
“Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamir,
A foiled circuitous wanderer—till at last
The long’d-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.”
Moira’s coarse-featured face, with its surrounding curls of greying hair, was full of gentle delight. Her eyes were fixed questioningly on Christine’s face.
Christine was looking down, pulling slowly at the hem of her jacket. She was so moved that the struggling of the feelings with herself—to escape, to express themselves—to make some sound that should not spoil the sounds she had just heard—was actual pain. Oh, what was it? This something—this world hinting at its own existence but no more than hinting—that could neither be had for the wanting nor would tell you what and where it was? Surely, it had nothing to do with the real world? It hardly seemed to be there at all. It was something you just saw or felt or heard for an instant—and wanted ever afterwards with all your heart and never forgot.
And there was no one to talk to, and Mortimer Road still held her in its dull grip.
“Where’s Tom these days?” she asked, looking up at last. “Yes—fancy your remembering all that—I haven’t seen him for ages.”
The confused sensations of delight and pain showed themselves only in the directness of her question. She didn’t care a straw where Tom was, and usually she would have been too conscious of what Tom’s sister would think, to ask such a thing. But now she blurted it out without hesitation.
Moira sat down on a chair beside the window, keeping her eyes fixed on Christine’s face. Her expression was still gentle, but faintly troubled now. Yet she did not hesitate as she said:
“He’s got a girl-friend, much younger than he is. They’ve been going out every night; she lives just down the road. I think he means to marry her, Christine.”
Silence.
“I kept it from you as long as I could, dear—but I feel sure, now, that you don’t really mind. Not mind in the way you and I were talking about that first afternoon you came here.”
Another pause.
“It’s all right, I don’t mind,” Christine said slowly.
“I’m so glad, Chris. I knew you wouldn’t, but it’s a relief to hear you say so.”
Nevertheless, there was yet another silence, during which Moira kept her eyes rather carefully away from Christine’s brooding face. A bee flew in from the garden and flung itself against the window and banged about exasperatedly; Moira got up, and steered it, without co-operation on its part, out on to the air again.
Christine was feeling surprised, amid all her other confused, shocked, angry thoughts, that Moira and she had come into the open like that about the situation between herself and Tom.
Moira had spoken right out. She had known, all along, that Christine might be her sister-in-law. Well, Christine had guessed that. But she seemed to have it all so clear in her mind—how, Christine felt, how Tom must be feeling—how she herself felt—all of it; all the feelings and facts that in Christine’s old home would have been muddled or ignored. Christine liked this clarity; she hung on to it, through her sensation of shock, with one of comfort. Yes, Moira was a dear.
“I don’t mind,” she suddenly said, “but it’s a surprise and I don’t mind telling you I feel a bit—annoyed.”
“That’s only natural, dear,” Moira answered pitifully. Her eyes, moving over the large, still figure leaning against the window-frame, seemed to see all the Christines there had been since Christine had been a child; the cheerful dutiful girl who knew nothing about anything, the uncomplaining slave of electrical devices; the starved spirit slowly led out at last into the wider world. But she said no more.
It would also have been natural if Christine had given way to her strong curiosity and asked some questions about this girl much younger than Tom whom he meant to marry, but pride forbade her. She stared heavily out of the window for a moment longer, then determinedly began on a new subje
ct with—
“I don’t know what to do about those foxglove seeds, Moira. I can’t go scattering them about anywhere; I should feel so silly.”
“It’s all right, I always tell people he gives them to to make a forget of it. It’s a kind of compliment, really, when he gives them to you.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Christine said, feeling her way into understanding why this should be so, and relieved to have something else than Tom Richards to think about.
“He thinks you’re—you’re worthy to spread about two million foxgloves round the place,” Moira explained. “It means he likes you.”
“Does it?”
“Yes, and old Frank doesn’t like everybody, believe you me. I tell him he’s an old recluse. But he does like you, he says you remind him of his favourite sister, the one who died.”
Christine meditated this. “Does he come of a large family?”
“Frank? Oh—huge. There were ten of them. They paired up, as kids in big families do, and he and Em were always the ones.”
Christine would have enjoyed, even amidst irritation, hearing more about Em. It was this sensation of amplitude, of having within herself stores of information about cosy, funny, nice people, diffused by Moira that was one of the things Christine found attractive in Avalon Road. But she was tingling with shock, and irritation and, behind that, the memory of that poetry. She wanted to be alone, to think about that—yes, that was what she wanted.
“Hush’d Chorasmian waste,” suddenly said Moira.
“What?”
“It’s another bit of the poem. I’ve just remembered it.”
“—What was that word? Chorus—something? Say it again.”
“Hush’d Chorasmian waste. Doesn’t it sound beautiful?”
Christine gave a nervous smile, but did not answer. In a moment she said—
“I’m glad Frank likes me. I like him, too.”
On this pleasanter note, she was taken up to see the attics; and nothing more of any significance passed until they were in the hall, saying good-bye: she had warned Moira that she would not be able to spend the evening at Avalon Road because she would be needed at home to get supper.
“Well … come again soon,” Moira said. She was tying up a bunch of stolen flowers with string taken from a drawer in the hall table; Christine was inspecting her hair in the looking-glass above the hat-stand. She hesitated—then went on. “Chris … I must say this. Please don’t let it make any difference to you being friends with us—this business about Tom, I mean. You won’t will you? Frank and I like you so much; we don’t want to lose you.” She smiled, looking up into Christine’s slightly surprised face. “You know, you’re like one of the family.”
“Of course I won’t,” Christine said emphatically—just stopping herself from saying it would take more than Tom Richards getting married to some bit of a girl to make her drop his sister. She tried to say something more, but failed; by this time she was so choked with unfamiliar thoughts and sensations that nothing would come out, and she could only repeat “Of course I won’t,” and affectionately return Moira’s parting kiss.
On the long, complicated bus-ride back to Highgate, she was so sunk in thought that more than once she was almost carried past the stop where she changed. Over and over again, she thought of that spinster’s defence heard so often in Mortimer Road—I could have been married if I’d wanted to—and Mortimer Road’s unvarying comment, Oh yes I daresay. Well, now she, Christine Smith, formerly of Mortimer Road, would never truthfully be able to say it; and she minded; she didn’t care a button about Tom Richards—queer to think that he had once been the admired and respected Mr. Richards of Lloyd and Farmer’s!—but she would have enjoyed being able to make the spinster’s defence and know that it was true. That was only natural, wasn’t it?
Gradually, however, bitterish thoughts faded into the background. The spell of Pemberton Hall had worked upon her to such effect that, if her soul may be compared to the keyboard of an organ, its stiff, mute stops had been wooed gently out, and made to give forth a faint music. And when the bus stopped at last outside Golders Green Station, she was actually thinking more of the poetry that Moira had said than of Tom and his new girl friend.
It had been like … like a kind of signpost pointing towards That Day: not the feeling itself, but belonging … belonging … like it, anyway. Like it.
See her giving up the Rustings because of Tom’s cooling off! No fear!
All the same, when she finally did get down from the bus, she was still feeling decidedly ‘off’ men, and when she encountered, by a casual glance, a huge Face on a political poster on a nearby hoarding, looking winningly at her and suggesting that she should Trust herself to it, she felt an instant sense of irritated repudiation.
She seldom thought about politics, and her usual response to any remark about them was the thought, spoken or unspoken—at it again—or always going on about something, and the wish that They would shut up and give everybody a bit of peace. After such an afternoon, the mere sight of this vast countenance was an affront. Soapy, thought Christine.
She got home in a thoroughly unsatisfactory state of mind.
Chapter 22
BEFORE SHE REALISED it, late summer had come and some leaves were turning among the trees in the Square, and everyone at Pemberton Hall had gone off on holiday.
Mrs. Traill departed with a friend, small, calm and tough as herself, for Montenegro; the Merediths were paying a round of visits to friends, returning to the Hall for a few days between these occasions, Miss Marriott flew off to one of the warm islands somewhere for three weeks, and Mr. Lennox went to America, to play on Broadway the part he had played in London. Christine was left alone in the spacious, sunny house.
She enjoyed this season of idleness and quiet. There had been kind, if unfussy, enquiries about whether she wouldn’t mind sleeping alone in that great place? Wouldn’t she like to invite a friend to stay? But of course she could! Didn’t she know that?
No, Christine didn’t want a friend to stay, and she wouldn’t be nervous.
So they all went away, and Pemberton Hall and Christine were left to entertain one another.
It was a quiet, busy time. She experimented with some elaborate cooking, concentrating on what might be described as Famous Cakes of The Western World, and trying her hand at Maids of Honour and even Lady Baltimore, which—quite unknown to Christine—is the only cake ever to have given its name to a novel. But this failed, in her opinion, because she couldn’t buy pecan nuts anywhere, not even at some of the grand London shops patronized by Diana Meredith.
But when they were made there was no one there to show them to and eat them with. She invited Moira over to tea every week, and that was very enjoyable, only—only—after Moira had gone, the house seemed larger, and quieter than ever.
Still beautiful, still offering that ‘happy welcome’ once detected by Mr. Johnson. But that wasn’t enough.
You needed to hear it said in a human voice.
She missed her employers. Their peculiar group-atmosphere of charm, casualness and amusing malice had crept into her veins like some irresistible drug, and there wasn’t any denying that the days were long. Pleasant, but long.
Those people across the Square whose wireless was always playing Old Favourites of the Thirties didn’t seem to have gone away; for music floated through the Long Room every long, warm, drowsy afternoon while the pigeons cooed and stuffed themselves in the Square and the first leaves sailed down. It might have been in the house itself; gay ripples from a piano, silly, sweet songs in a man’s agreeable tenor, occasionally an old music-hall favourite. Christine would hum, or even softly whistle, to herself as she recognized airs popular in her girlhood.
The glamorous atmosphere diffused by her employers, however, was not completely absent; they knew interesting people, as well as being interesting themselves, and sometimes she saw a Name or a familiar face in her favourite newspaper.
For instance,
about the middle of the month Mrs. Marriott married Lord Belsize! (Christine felt that it should be announced like this, rather than as “Mrs. Marriott and Lord Belsize were married.”) She bought two papers that morning, and there were photographs in both and a paragraph in that ‘Londoner’s Diary’, though it wasn’t what you might call interesting, being all about how Lord Belsize used to keep some kind of pig from dying out, up in Yorkshire. Who would want to read about that? And years ago, anyway.
Mrs. Marriott had come out ever so clear, wearing one of those caps, with more petals all over it than Christine had ever seen on one before, and looking more like a Pekinese than ever. Lord Belsize appeared to be shrinking from the camera; at least, his expression suggested it, though his stance was soldierly, as befitted an ex-Guardee. Christine took the papers over to Avalon Road to show to Moira. They both said, poor old man, which was satisfactory.
Then, towards the end of the month, Nigel Rooth’s had an early dress show, and Christine marvelled over a photograph of Ferenc Brigg’s designs and his hair, which he wore in a fringe and tucked behind his ears. She gave less attention to one of a suit by Miss Marriott, whose lines, classic in their simplicity, yet had just the effortless touches of exaggeration needed to make them beautiful. They seemed dull somehow—to Christine at least—after seeing his. For he had at last designed a suit, just as Antonia had dared him to and feared that he would. It was a trouser-suit, perversely smart.
Early in September, Moira told her, Tom and his Glenda were getting married. He had bought a small house; Christine was relieved to hear that it was at Woking, miles the other side of London. Moira talked quite openly and frequently about his plans, as if taking it for granted that Christine’s hard feelings, such as they were, had healed themselves, and this was a fact; they had. All the same, Woking was near enough.