I was completely tongue-tied: I could not think of any way of spending it. Mrs. Maudsley tried to help me out. “What do you say to a picnic?”
“That would be very nice.”
“Unless it rains,” said Mrs. Maudsley, scanning the heavens. “Or a drive to Beeston Castle, after luncheon? You haven’t seen it, have you?”
“That would be very nice,” I repeated, miserably.
“Well, shall we do that, if it doesn’t rain? I expect you’d like the morning free to play with Marcus.”
“Yes, please.”
“And at five o’clock you’ll cut your birthday cake.… Yes, Denys?”
“I was only going to say, Mama, that we still don’t know what Leo wants.”
“I think we do,” said Mrs. Maudsley, mildly. “That suits you, doesn’t it, Leo?”
“Oh yes,” I said.
Mrs. Maudsley turned to her elder son.
“Are you satisfied now, Denys?”
“I only meant, Mama, that on his birthday he ought to choose for himself.”
“But hasn’t he chosen?”
“Well, no, Mama, you’ve chosen for him.”
His mother’s face expressed a prayer for patience. “He did not offer an alternative, so—”
“I know, Mama, but on his birthday—”
“Can you suggest anything yourself, Denys?”
“No, Mama, because it’s not my birthday.”
I saw Mrs. Maudsley’s fingers clench. “I think you’ll find the arrangements are satisfactory,” she said evenly. “Now, for us grown-ups—”
As soon as Marcus and I were out of the room he said:
“No, Leo, you can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Wear that tie.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” explained Marcus, speaking slowly and spacing out the words, “it is a made-up tie.”
After we had scuffled a little, Marcus said: “It’s all right for Trimingham, of course—he can wear anything; but you, you have to be careful.”
“Careful, what of?”
“Not to look like a cad. But I won’t say any more about it because it’s your birthday.”
I had plenty of time during the morning to savour my sensations. My new true personality tasted rather flat. For one thing it had no birthday spirit; it would not admit that this was a day different from other days, with special privileges of feeling and behaving. It was always warning me not to get above myself. When I had made a fool of myself in the eyes of other people, I fought against their judgment even while I smarted; but I could not so easily fight against my own judgment. My new mentor would not allow me to inspect the place where the crime had been committed, which, in common with other murderers, I hankered to do; it would not even let me visit the rubbish-heap to see if the corpse of the plant had found its way there. When the sun came out, as soon it did, shining between heavy piled-up clouds, I would not let my spirits rise to greet it. When we saw Marian and Lord Trimingham strolling together, heads bent towards each other, I strove to repress the uprush of delight I felt. All my relationships, with both people and things, seemed to have lost their edge. Even with Marcus, whose place in my regard had always been ambiguous, one thing at school and another at his home, I did not feel at ease; our friendship was the product of many fine adjustments, of many feelings nicely balanced, and I saw a round-headed boy a little shorter than myself, being specially nice to me, refraining from talking French because it was my birthday.
My birthday! It all came back to that. But I didn’t feel it was my birthday: I felt I was an indifferent spectator at someone else’s—someone in a Norfolk jacket buttoned across his chest, belted across his tummy, wearing thick stockings and laced boots whose serrated hooks grinning upwards were like mouthfuls of serpent’s teeth swallowing his legs.
I did not realize that this attempt to discard my dual or multiple vision and achieve a single self was the greatest pretence that I had yet embarked on. It was indeed a self-denying ordinance to cut out of my consciousness the half I most enjoyed. To see things as they really were—what an impoverishment! Chafed in my flesh, chafed in my spirit, I wandered aimlessly about with Marcus, half wishing that he would barge into me, or call me names, or practise his superior French on me, instead of wrapping me in the cotton-wool of his society manner.
Just before luncheon I stole up to my room and changed into my green suit, after which I felt more normal.
23
LUNCHEON was seldom over before three o’clock, and our drive was timed to start at a quarter past. But the clouds had gathered again. This time they had an ominous look, white upon grey, grey upon black, and the still air presaged thunder. One after another we went outside, stared at the sky, and came back with our verdicts.
It was the first time we had had to wait upon the weather, and the first time I had seen Mrs. Maudsley undecided. It did not show in her face, which, as always, bore the generalized expression of a portrait; but her movements were uneasy. At last she proposed we should wait a quarter of an hour to see what happened.
We were standing about the hall in the uncertainty that a provisional plan brings, when Marian said:
“Come with me, Leo, and tell me what the weather means to do.”
I followed her outside and conscientiously turned my eyes up to the lowering sky.
“I think—” I began.
“Don’t trouble to,” she said. “What about a walk, if we don’t drive?”
I don’t suppose that anyone nowadays would dare to look as innocent as she did.
“Oh yes,” I said eagerly. “Will you come with me?”
“I wish I could,” she answered, “but it’s not that sort of walk, it’s this.” And as she spoke, her hand touched mine, which opened on a letter.
“Oh no!” I cried.
“But I say yes.”
She wasn’t angry this time, she was laughing, and I began by resisting her half-heartedly. I was handicapped by having to hold the letter. Between us we must have made a great deal of noise, for I laughed too, louder than she did, louder than good manners permitted, as loud as any spooning holiday-maker on the sea-front; and I didn’t want to stop, I wanted to go on to a conclusion. Daring each other with our eyes, we lunged and dodged and feinted. I suppose she was trying to make me say I would take the letter; I had forgotten how the scuffle started and hardly knew whether I was defending myself or attacking her.
“Marian! Leo!”
At the sound of Mrs. Maudsley’s voice we broke away, Marian still laughing, I panting and ashamed.
Mrs. Maudsley walked slowly down the steps.
“What were you fighting about?” she asked.
“Oh,” said Marian, “I was teaching him a lesson—” She got no further, for at that moment, as Denys might have done, I dropped the letter. Crumpled, untouchable, it lay on the ground between us.
“Was that the bone of contention?” Mrs. Maudsley asked.
Marian picked up the letter and stuffed it in my pocket.
“Well, yes, Mama,” she said. “I wanted him to take this note to Nannie Robson, to tell her, poor old dear, that I would go and see her some time this afternoon. And would you believe it, Leo didn’t want to! He pretended he had something on with Marcus. Yes, you did!” she insisted, smiling when I began to protest that I would take it.
“I shouldn’t let it worry you, Marian,” Mrs. Maudsley said, giving us each in turn her straightest look. “You say she often doesn’t remember whether you’ve been or not; and I thought that Leo and I would take a walk in the garden. It’s too threatening to go to Beeston now. Come along, Leo; I don’t believe you’ve seen the garden properly; Marcus isn’t interested in flowers yet—that will come later.”
It was true that I hadn’t seen the garden properly. Frankly, I preferred the rubbish-heap, for there I had a sense of adventure which was absent from the garden. But my mother had told me something about flowers, and botany was a subject I r
espected. In the abstract, flowers delighted me; my fantasies were incomplete without banks of them in the distance. I liked to think about them and know that they were there. I liked to read about them, especially the more sensational kinds, the carnivores: the sundew, the pitcher-plant, and the teasel, which could turn insects into soup. But pure flower-gazing was a habit I had not acquired, and in Mrs. Maudsley’s company I rather dreaded it. Still breathless from the struggle, and obscurely feeling I needed some protection from her, I said:
“Would you like Marcus to come with us?”
“Oh no, he has had you all the morning, he must spare you for an hour. He’s very fond of you, you know, Leo, and so is Marian. We all are.”
I could not fail to be delighted at this speech, but how to answer it? Experience at school gave me no clue; such things were not said there. I invoked my mother’s image and tried to use her tongue.
“You have all been so kind to me,” I ventured.
“Have we? I was afraid we had neglected you, Marcus being in bed and so on. And I was laid up, too. I hope that they looked after you all right?”
“Oh yes,” I said.
We walked on past the cedar tree to where the flower-beds began.
“Well, now,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “here’s the garden. It looks a bit lop-sided, doesn’t it—with that L-shaped wall? I’m not sure I should have made it like that, but they keep the east wind and the north wind off, and then such lovely roses grow on them. But are you really interested in flowers?”
I said I was, especially in poisonous ones.
She smiled. “I don’t think you’ll find many of those here.”
To demonstrate my knowledge I began to tell her about the deadly nightshade, and then stopped. I found I did not want to speak about it. But she was only half listening.
“In one of the outhouses, you say? You mean where the old garden used to be?”
“Yes, somewhere there … but—will you tell me what this rose is called?”
“Mermaid: isn’t it a beauty? Do you often go to the outhouses, as you call them? I should have thought it was rather a dank place.”
“Yes, but there might be poachers.”
“Do you mean real poachers?”
“Oh no, just pretence ones.”
We stopped by a magnolia with a pink blush on it, and Mrs. Maudsley said:
“This always reminds me of Marian. How sweet of you to say you’d take her note to Nannie Robson! Does she often send you with messages?”
I thought as quickly as I could. “Oh no, just once or twice.”
“It rather worries me,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “that I stopped you going just now. Perhaps you would like to go? You know the way, of course?”
Here was an opportunity of escape: the door stood open. But how was I to answer her question?
“Well, not quite, but I can ask.”
“You don’t know the way? But I thought you had taken messages there before?”
“Yes, well, yes, I have.”
“But you still don’t know the way?”
I didn’t answer.
“Listen,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “I think perhaps the note should be delivered. You have it in your pocket, haven’t you? I’ll call one of the gardeners and ask him to take it.”
An icy chill went through me.
“Oh no, Mrs. Maudsley,” I said, “it’s not a bit important, please don’t bother.”
“It is important in a way, you see,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “because Nannie Robson will want to get ready for her—old people don’t like being taken unawares. Stanton,” she called, “could you come here a minute?”
The nearest gardener put down his tools and came towards us with a gardener’s gait, swaying and slow. I began to see his face: it was like an executioner’s. Instinctively I put my hands in my pockets.
The gardener touched his cap.
“Stanton,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “we have a note here for Miss Robson, rather urgent. Would you mind taking it?”
“Yes’m,” said Stanton, holding out his hand.
I dug my fingers into my pockets. Trying not to let the paper crackle, and wriggling helplessly, “I haven’t got it!” I exclaimed. “I am very sorry, but it must have fallen out of my pocket.”
“Feel again,” said Mrs. Maudsley. “Feel again.”
I did, without avail.
“Oh, very well, Stanton,” Mrs. Maudsley said, “just tell Miss Robson that Miss Marian will be going there some time this afternoon.”
The man saluted and went off. I had an impulse to follow him, simply to get away, and had actually taken a few steps when I realized how hopeless such a move was, and came back.
“Had you changed your mind about the note?” asked Mrs. Maudsley.
Hating sarcasm, as most children do, I made no answer, but gazed sullenly at a point half-way up my hostess’s ample lilac skirt.
“Take your hands out of your pockets, please,” said Mrs. Maudsley. “Has no one ever told you not to stand with your hands in your pockets?”
Silently I obeyed.
“I could ask you to turn your pockets out,” she said, and at once my hands flew to cover them. “But I won’t do that,” she went on. “I’ll just ask you one question. You say you have taken messages for Marian before?”
“Well, I—”
“I think you said so. If you don’t take them to Nannie Robson, to whom do you take them?”
I could not answer, but an answer came. There was a sound as if the sky was painfully clearing its throat, then all around the thunder muttered.
Rain followed instantly. I can’t remember how our interview broke up, or whether either of us said anything more, nor do I remember how we reached the house. But I remember running up to my room to take refuge there, and my dismay when I found it already occupied by another person. Not by the person himself, but by his belongings: his glass, silver, leather, ebony, and ivory, his hairbrushes and sponge and shaving-tackle. I tiptoed out, not knowing where to go; so I shut myself in the lavatory, and was rather relieved than alarmed when impatient fingers rattled the doorknob.
All of us except Marian and Mrs. Maudsley assembled at the tea-table. There were several faces strange to me: house guests for the ball. It was so dark outside that the lamps were lit; I couldn’t rid myself of the idea that it was dinner-time, not tea-time. Lacking our hostess, we stood about, watching the lightning flashes through the windows, and talking desultorily. Nobody said much to me; I was like a hero or a victim kept apart until the ceremonies should begin. My thoughts were in a tumult, yet everything around me appeared normal; in the middle of the table was my cake, a white iced cake, surrounded by pink candles and with my pink name scrawled across it. At last, by a concerted movement in the room, I knew that Mrs. Maudsley had come in. The others began to cluster around the tea-table, but I hung back.
“Sit here, please, Leo dear,” said Mrs. Maudsley, and unwillingly I crept into the place beside her. But her manner was all affability; I needn’t have been frightened.
“I’ve had to move you from your room,” she said, “to Marcus’s. I’m very sorry, but we had to have yours for another, older bachelor. Marcus is so pleased to have you back. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” I said.
“Do you see what’s in front of you?” she asked.
Quite a lot was in front of me: crackers, flowers strewn on the tablecloth, and—suddenly I saw it—another cake, a facsimile of the one in the centre, but tiny, topped by a single candle, and with my name written on it.
“Is it for me?” I asked stupidly.
“Yes, everything’s for you. But, you see, I don’t like the number thirteen—isn’t it silly of me? I think it’s unlucky. So we’ve put twelve candles round the big cake, and then, when they’re blown out, you shall light this one.”
“When will that be?” I asked.
“When Marian comes. She wants to be the first to give you a present. Don’t try to guess what i
t is. The others are on the sideboard waiting for you.”
I peered across at the sideboard and saw several parcels, gaily done up in coloured paper. I tried to make out, from the shapes, what might be in them.
“Can you wait?” said Mrs. Maudsley, gently teasing.
“How soon will it be?” I asked again.
“About six o’clock, we think. When Marian comes back from Nannie Robson’s. She won’t be long now, we were so late starting. My fault, I’m afraid, I wasn’t ready.”
She smiled, but I noticed that her hands were shaking.
“Did you get wet?” I asked. I felt an irresistible impulse to make some reference to our talk. I couldn’t believe she had forgotten it.
“Only a few spots,” Mrs. Maudsley said. “You didn’t wait for me, you unchivalrous fellow.”
“Leo unchivalrous?” asked Lord Trimingham, who was sitting on Mrs. Maudsley’s other side. “I don’t believe it. He’s a regular lady’s man. Didn’t you know he was Marian’s cavalier?”
Mrs. Maudsley didn’t answer. Instead she said: “Isn’t it time that Leo cut the cake?”
I couldn’t reach it in the middle of the table, so the cake was brought to me. I didn’t make a very good job of cutting it.
“Leave a piece for Marian,” someone said.
“She ought to be here now,” said Lord Trimingham, looking at his watch.
“It’s still raining,” Mr. Maudsley said. “We’d better send the brougham down to fetch her. Why didn’t we think of it before?”
He rang the bell and gave the order.
“Was it raining when she started?” somebody asked; but no one could answer, no one had seen her go.
The cake was eaten, all but one thick wedge that lay on its side in the middle of the plate, with the candles burning round it.
We heard the carriage drive past the windows.
“She’ll be with us in ten minutes now,” Lord Trimingham said.
“And then she has to change, hasn’t she?” said Marcus.
“Sh,” said Denys. “That’s a secret, a most important secret.”
“What’s a secret?” Mrs. Maudsley asked. “What’s a secret, Denys?”