The house was long in the front, built of small rose-coloured bricks, and arching out in two large bow windows. A wide door with a stone pediment faced the avenue across a square of grass. The main garden lay at the side. Mor cycled between two pillars and skirted the grass. He left his bicycle leaning against the wall of what had once been a coach house and made his way on foot towards the front door. He felt that he was being watched, and looked up to see Miss Handforth gazing at him out of the window above the door. He waved cheerfully at her. He was one of Handy’s favourites.
Miss Handforth met him in the hall, sweeping round the white curve of the staircase with a vehemence which made the house shake. She was a stout powerful middle-aged woman with a face like a lion and a foot like a rhino. She had once been an elementary school teacher.
‘Hello,’ said Mor. ‘How goes it, Handy? How’s his Lordship?’
‘No more lazy and troublesome than usual,’ said Miss Handforth in ringing tones. ‘You’ve arrived early again, but I don’t suppose it matters.’ Handy never addressed people by their names. She coughed unrestrainedly as she spoke. ‘I’ve got a most awful cold, though how I could have caught it in this weather’s a regular mystery. It must be hay fever, only the hay’s in, I don’t know if that makes any difference. If you want to wash, go straight through, you know the way, the downstairs toilet this time, if you please. The boss is still getting up from lying down, but Miss Thing is in the drawing-room if you want to be polite. Otherwise go and knock on the dressing-room door. I must go and look at the dinner.’
Miss Handforth went away, coughing and sneezing, through a green baize door in the direction of the kitchen. Mor went through to what she called the downstairs toilet and tried to wash his hands. They were blackened, as usual, by the ancient rubber grips on the handle-bars. Soap made little impression on the dirt, although plenty came off on the towel. Mor, who had deduced from Miss Handforth’s tone that she was hostile to Mr Demoyte’s other guest, decided that he would not be, as she put it, polite, and instead he mounted the stairs and knocked on the door of Demoyte’s dressing-room. A growl came from inside.
‘May I come in, sir?’ said Mor.
‘No,’ said Demoyte’s voice. ‘Go away. You’re infernally early. Three minutes ago I was asleep. Now I have to make a decision about my trousers. I’m not going to receive you in my shift. There’s a charming lady down in the drawing-room.’
Mor turned away and went slowly downstairs again. Half thoughtfully he straightened his tie. As he made for the drawing-room door he saw through a vista of passages straight into the kitchen; the figure of Handy was discovered in a listening attitude. Mor made an ambiguous gesture of complicity. Handy replied with another gesture and a resounding snort. Mor was not sure what she meant. He went into the drawing-room and closed the door softly behind him.
The room was full of yellow evening light and its three tall windows were wide open on to the garden. It faced the side of the house, overlooking a long enclosed lawn which was separated from the front drive by a brick wall. Beyond the lawn was a thick dark yew hedge cut in the centre by a stone archway beneath which an iron gate led into a second garden which was invisible from the windows. This garden consisted of another lawn, with a wide herbaceous border at either end. Beyond it and at a higher level lay a third garden which was reached by a flight of stone steps. On either side of the steps were two clipped holly bushes, and on either side of these a low box hedge which grew on top of the flower-hung wall which marked the difference of level between the two gardens. This last one was the rose garden, a triangular strip ending in an avenue of mulberries which led towards the farthest tapering point of Demoyte’s estate. After that there were taller trees through which in winter were revealed the red roofs of the housing estate, but which in summer enclosed the horizon except where at one place their line was broken by the upwardly pointing finger, just visible from the house, of the neo-Gothic tower of St Bride’s.
The drawing-room was empty. Mor felt some relief. He fingered his tie again, and sat down quietly in one of the chairs. He loved this room. In his own home, although there were few ornaments, and such as there were were chosen carefully by Nan to harmonize with the curtains, no part of it seemed to blend into a unity. The objects remained separate, their shapes and their colours almost invisible. Here, on the contrary, although the room was overcrowded and its contents extremely miscellaneous, all seemed to come together into a whirl of red and gold wherein each thing, though contributing to the whole, became more itself. A rich Feraghan carpet covered the floor, almost entirely obscured by equally splendid rugs which lay edge to edge over its surface. Pieces of furniture stood about, without plan or pattern, their only obvious intention being to provide as many smooth surfaces as possible upon which might be placed cups, bowls, vases, boxes, together with a variety of smaller objects made of ivory, jade, jet, glass, and amber. Petit-point cushions crowded so thick upon most of the chairs that it was quite hard to find anywhere to sit down. The walls were papered in a gold-and-white pattern, but were rarely visible between the most splendid of the rugs which hung upon them, stretched at various angles between the floor and the ceiling, and glowing there with silky vitality like the skins of fabulous animals. Mor half closed his eyes and the forms about him became hazier and more intense. He let the colours enter into him. He rested.
Then suddenly with a strange shock of alarm he realized that upon a table at the far end of the room a very small woman was kneeling. He had not noticed her as he came in, since the colours of her dress faded into the background, and he had not expected to see her at that point in space. She had her back to him, and seemed to be examining one of the rugs which hung on the wall behind the table.
‘I’m so sorry!’ said Mor, jumping us.‘I didn’t see you!’
The young woman turned abruptly, tilted the table with her weight, tried to spring off it, and then fell on the floor. Mor ran forward, but she had recovered herself before he reached her.
‘You frightened me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
They looked at each other. Mor saw a very short youthful-looking girl, with boyishly cut dark hair, and darkly rosy cheeks, wearing a black cotton blouse, an elaborately flowered red skirt, and a necklace of large red beads; and he became for an instant acutely aware of what the girl was seeing: a tall middle-aged schoolmaster, with a twisted face and the grey coming in his hair.
‘I am Rain Carter,’ said the girl.
‘I am William Mor,’ said Mor. ‘I’m so sorry I alarmed you.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I was just looking at this rug. She spoke in a slightly prim way.
‘That’s one of Mr Demoyte’s treasures,’ said Mor. ‘I believe it’s a Shíráz.’ He thought, how very small she is, and how like a child. Perhaps Evvy was right after all. Her eyes were dark brown and fugitive, her nose rather broad and tilted. A not unpleasant face.
It is a Shíráz,‘ said Miss Carter. ’Do you notice how mysteriously the colours behave here? Each piece has its own shade, and then there is a sort of surface colour which the whole rug has which is different, a sort of blush.‘ She spoke with a pedantic solemnity that Mor found touching and absurd. He found himself wondering if she could really paint. He stretched out his hand to touch the rug, and as he moved it its lustre changed. The surface was extremely close and smooth. He caressed it for a moment.
Before Mor could think of a suitably impressive answer to Miss Carter’s remark, Demoyte came in. Mor turned about, and looked at Demoyte with some surprise. At this time in the evening the old man was usually to be found wearing a frayed velvet jacket, of a tobacco-stained red colour, and a rather limp bow tie. This evening, however, he was wearing a grey lounge suit, which Mor had rarely seen, and an ordinary tie. He had put a clean shirt on. He came in with head thrust forward and bore down upon them. Though he stooped now, he was still a tall man and with a head only just not grotesquely large for his body. His n
ose seemed to have grown bigger with age. His eyes were blue and looked out between many ridges of almost white dry skin. Scant white hairs still clung in a gentle film to his bulging skull.
‘What!’ shouted Demoyte, ‘you haven’t given Miss Carter a drink! Mor, you are only fit to be a country schoolmaster. Excuse our provincial habits, Miss Carter, we don’t know any better. You will have some sherry?’ He began to pour it out.
“Thank you,‘ said Miss Carter, ’but do not blame Mr Mor. He has only this moment seen me. He thought I was part of a rug.‘ As Miss Carter replied to Demoyte her primness became coyly animated. Mor looked at her again. Although she had no accent, she spoke English as if it were not quite her native tongue. He remembered that her mother had been French.
‘And so you might be, my dear,’ said Demoyte; ‘a flower, a bird, an antelope.’ He handed her the glass with a flourish.
Miss Handforth was discovered leaning in the doorway. ‘The dinner’s ready,’ she said, ‘but I suppose you aren’t.’
‘Go away, Handy,’ said Demoyte. ‘You’re far too early. You all seem to want to get the evening over quick. Mr Mor’s better half is still to come.’
‘Well, what am I to do about the dinner?’ said Miss Handforth. ‘Spoil it by over-cooking, or let it get cold? I don’t mind which it is, but just let me know.’
There was a knock on the outside door, and then Nan stepped into the hall. Mor saw her head appear suddenly behind Miss Handforth.
‘Nan!’ he said, as if to protect her from the hostility of the house against her. He went to help her off with her coat, a service which it never seemed to occur to Demoyte or Miss Handforth to perform, and then led her back into the drawing-room, holding her by the hand. Nan had made what she herself would call a real social effort, and was dressed in a smart well-fitting black dress with which she wore a pearl necklace which Mor had bought once from Tim Burke at a reduced price as a wedding anniversary present. Her wavy hair, glossy and impeccably set, framed the pale oval face, smoothly powdered and unmarked by wrinkles, the long mouth and the shrewd eyes, intelligent, practical, reliable, full of power. She looked a tall handsome woman, well dressed and confident. Mor looked at her with approval. In any conflict with the outside world Nan was invariably an efficient ally.
‘Nan, may I introduce Miss Carter,’ said Mor, since Do-moyte said nothing. ‘Miss Carter, my wife.’
The women smiled and greeted each other, and Nan as usual refused the glass of sherry which Demoyte as usual poured out and offered to her.
‘As I said before, the meal is ready,’ said Miss Handforth, who was still standing in the doorway. ‘If the ladies want to go upstairs first, they know the way. Meanwhile I shall be bringing in the soup.’
‘Oh, shut up, Handy,’ said Demoyte. ‘Give us a moment to finish our sherry, and don’t rush the ladies.’
Nan and Miss Carter took the opportunity to withdraw, and Miss Handforth stumped away to the kitchen. Mor turned to Demoyte and looked him over. Demoyte peered at Mor, his eyes gleaming and his nose wrinkled in what Mor had learnt to recognize as a smile. Demoyte’s heavy sardonic mouth did not follow the usual conventions about smiling.
‘Why the fancy dress, sir?’ said Mor, indicating the lounge suit.
‘Not a word!’ said Demoyte, conspiratorially. ‘Am I to be summed up by a slip of a girl? You don’t know what I’ve suffered in these last twenty-four hours! She wants to see pictures of my parents, pictures of me as a child, pictures of me as a student. She wants to know what I’ve written. She practically asked if I kept a diary. It’s like having a psychiatrist in the house. Her sense of vocation is like a steam hammer. You wouldn’t think it to look at her, would you? But I’m going to lead her up the garden. I’ve got her thoroughly foxed so far. She shan’t know what I’m like if I can help it! These clothes are part of the game. Ssh! here she comes.’ They all went in to dinner.
They had reached the dessert. Nan was methodically eating a pear and Miss Carter was picking daintily at a branch of very small grapes. Mor was enjoying the port. Demoyte sat at the head of the table and Mor sat at the foot with the ladies between them. As Nan had predicted, no place had been set this evening for Miss Handforth. This person towered over the table, often leaning upon it as she made a remark, sneezing from time to time, and breathing down the ladies’ necks.
Demoyte said, ‘I asked old Bledyard to come to complete the party, but he made some excuse, obviously false. Miss Carter hasn’t met our Bledyard yet.’ Bledyard was the art master at St Bride’s, an eccentric.
‘I look forward to meeting him,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I have seen some of his work. It is good.’
‘Really?’ said Mor. ‘I didn’t realize Bledyard ever actually painted anything!’
‘He used to, certainly,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I have seen at least three good landscapes. But I gather now he has theories which interfere with his painting?’
‘His head is full of cant,’ said Demoyte, ‘which he employs to excuse the fact that he can’t paint any more. That’s how I see it. But at any rate Bledyard is a man. He’s got some stuff inside him. Not like the pious dolls poor Evvy will fill the place with before long. You’d better start clearing out, you infidel,’ he said to Mor.
Mor, who was anxious to skirt the dangerous subject of his clearing out, said quickly, ‘I believe we are both to lunch with Mr Everard on Thursday, Miss Carter. I think Bledyard has been invited too.’ He regretted this change of subject at once, since it struck him that Everard had as usual blundered in inviting him and failing to invite Nan. This aspect of the matter had not struck him when Everard had mentioned the lunch that afternoon. Nan put down her fruit knife noisily and drank some water.
‘You’ll get nothing to drink with Evvy,’ said Demoyte. ‘Better stoke up now. Have some more wine, Miss Carter. Can’t I persuade you, Mrs Mor? See, Miss Carter is drinking like a fish, and is more sober than any of us.’ Mor had noticed this too.
Miss Carter did not rise to this quip. She said rather solemnly, ‘I have only met Mr Everard once. I look forward to seeing him again.’
‘Impossible!’ said Demoyte. ‘What did you think of poor Evvy? Let’s hear Evvy summed up!’ He winked at Mor.
Miss Carter hesitated. She cast a quick suspicious look at Demoyte. ‘I think he has a fresh and gentle face,’ she said firmly. ‘He seems a man without any malice in him. That is both rare and good.’
Demoyte seemed taken aback for a moment. Mor taunted him with his eyes. ‘Little puritan!’ said Demoyte. ‘So you reprove us all! Let me fill your glass yet again.’
No, thank you, Mr Demoyte,‘ said Miss Carter. ’Of course, it takes a long time to know a man, and this is only an impression. What do you think, Mrs Mor?‘
Mor held his breath. He thought the question rather bold. He hoped that Nan was not going to dislike Miss Carter.
‘Well,’ said Nan, ‘I think fundamentally Mr Everard is a fool, and if someone is a fool, especially if he’s in a position of authority, this spoils his other good qualities.’
‘For once,’ cried Demoyte, ‘I find myself in complete agreement with Mrs Mor. And now, dear friends, it’s time for coffee.’
Coffee was taken in the library. Mor loved this room too. It lay above the drawing-room and had the same view, but it was a longer room. There were the three tall windows, corresponding to the ones below, and then an extra piece on the front side of the house giving to the library one of the big bow windows which faced the drive. Directly below this, cut off from the drawing-room, was a little room which Miss Handforth, making what was always supposed to be a joke, would call her boudoir. The bow window on the other side of the hall belonged to the dining-room, and above, to Demoyte’s bedroom. Next to the library at the back of the house was a guest bedroom, which also enjoyed a view of the lawn, and through whose other window could be seen, once it had grown dark, a reddish glow which showed, at a distance of some twenty miles, where London lay.
Demoyte s bo
oks were all behind glass, so that the room was full of reflections. Demoyte was a connoisseur of books. Mor, who was not, had long ago been barred from the library. Mor liked to tear a book apart as he read it, breaking the back, thumbing and turning down the pages, commenting and underlining. He liked to have his books close to him, upon a table, upon the floor, at least upon open shelves. Seeing them so near and so destroyed, he could feel that they were now almost inside his head. Demoyte’s books seemed a different kind of entity. Yet he liked to see them too, elegant, stiff and spotless, gilded and calved, books to be held gently in the hand and admired, and which recalled to mind the fact of which Mor was usually oblivious that a book is a thing and not just a collection of thoughts.
The others sat down near to one of the lamps. Mor wandered about the room. He felt free and at ease; almost, for the moment, happy. He looked out of the windows. The Close was never silent, since day and night there could be heard the hum of the traffic along the arterial road and the distant thunder of trains and their sad piping cries. Headlights of cars swept by perpetually in the middle distance, revealing trees and the scored surface of sandy embankments. Mor turned back into the room. He surveyed the group by the lamp. His eyes still full of the night, he felt detached and superior. Miss Carter was sitting with her legs drawn up under her. Her skirt spread in a big arc about her, and the lamplight falling upon the lower half of it made it glow with reds and yellows. She looked, Mor thought, like some small and brilliantly plum-aged bird. He felt he was being rude, and turned to one of the bookcases.