XI
IN COUNTRY AND IN TOWN
The weather was true to them, and this was a larger matter than it mighthave been. They were not making love. They were "not out for that," asBlanche herself actually told Martha, with annihilating scorn, when theold dear looked both knowing and longing-to-know at the end of the firstday's run. They were out to enjoy themselves, and that seemed shockingto Martha "unless something was coming of it." She had just sense enoughto keep her conditional clause to herself.
Yet if they were only out to enjoy themselves, in the way Miss Blanchevowed and declared (more shame for her), they certainly had done wondersfor a start. Martha could hardly credit all they said they had done, andas an embittered pedestrian there was nothing that she would "put past"one of those nasty motors. It said very little for Mr. Cazalet, by theway, in Martha's private opinion, that he should take her Miss Blancheout in a car at all; if he had turned out as well as she had hoped, and"meant anything," a nice boat on the river would have been better forthem both than all that tearing through the air in a cloud of smokydust; it would also have been much less expensive, and far more "thething".
But, there, to see and hear the child after the first day! She looked sobonny that for a time Martha really believed that Mr. Cazalet had"spoken," and allowed herself to admire him also as he drove off laterwith his wicked lamps alight. But Blanche would only go on and on abouther day, the glories of the Ripley Road and the grandeur of Hindhead.She had brought back heaps of heather and bunches of leaves justbeginning to turn; they were all over the little house before Cazalethad been gone ten minutes. But Blanche hadn't forgotten her poor oldMartha; she was not one to forget people, especially when she loved andyet had to snub them. Martha's portion was picture post-cards of theGibbet and other landmarks of the day.
"And if you're good," said Blanche, "you shall have some every day, andan album to keep them in forever and ever. And won't that be nice whenit's all over, and Mr. Cazalet's gone back to Australia?"
Crueller anticlimax was never planned, but Martha's face had brought iton her; and now it remained to make her see for herself what anincomparably good time they were having so far.
"It was a simply splendid lunch at the Beacon, and _such_ a tea atByfleet, coming back another way," explained Blanche, who wasnotoriously indifferent about her food, but also as a rule much hungrierthan she seemed to-night. "It must be that tea, my dear. It was _too_much. To-morrow I'm to take the _Sirram_, and I want Walter to see if hecan't get a billy and show me how they make tea in the bush; but he saysit simply couldn't be done without methylated."
The next day they went over the Hog's Back, and the next day rightthrough London into Hertfordshire. This was a tremendous experience. Thecar was a good one from a good firm, and the chauffeur drove like anangel through the traffic, so that the teeming city opened before themfrom end to end. Then the Hertfordshire hedges and meadows and timberwere the very things after the Hog's Back and Hindhead; not sowonderful, of course, but more like old England and less like the bush;and before the day was out they had seen, through dodging London on theway back, the Harrow boys like a lot of young butlers who had changedhats with the maids, and Eton boys as closely resembling a convocationof slack curates.
Then there was their Buckinghamshire day--Chalfont St. Giles andHughenden--and almost detached experiences such as the churchyard atStoke Poges, where Cazalet repeated astounding chunks of its _Elegy_,learned as long ago as his preparatory school-days, and the terribledisillusion of Hounslow Heath and its murderous trams.
Then there was the wood they found where gipsies had been camping, wherethey resolved that moment to do the same, just exactly in every detailas Cazalet had so often done it in the bush; so that flesh and flourwere fetched from the neighboring village, and he sat on his heels andturned them into mutton and damper in about a minute; and after that areal camp-fire till long after dark, and a shadowy chauffeur smoking hispipe somewhere in the other shadows, and thinking them, of course, quitemad. The critic on the hearth at home thought even worse of them thanthat. But Blanche only told the truth when she declared that the wholething had been her idea; and she might have added, a bitterdisappointment to her, because Walter simply would not talk about thebush itself, and never had since that first hour in the old emptyschoolroom at Littleford.
(By the way, she had taken to calling him Walter to his face.)
Of other conversation, however, there was not and never had been theslightest dearth between them; but it was, perhaps, a sad case ofquantity. These were two outdoor souls, and the one with the interestinglife no longer spoke about it. Neither was a great reader, even of thepapers, though Blanche liked poetry as she liked going to church; buteach had the mind that could batten quite amiably on other people. Sothere was a deal of talk about neighbors down the river, and some of itwas scandal, and all was gossip; and there was a great deal about whatBlanche called their stone-age days, but again far less aboutthemselves when young than there had been at Littleford, that first day.And so much for their conversation, once for all; it was frankly that oftwo very ordinary persons, placed in an extraordinary position to whichthey had shut their eyes for a week.
They must have had between them, however, some rudimentary sense ofconstruction; for their final fling, if not just the most inspiring, wasat least unlike all the rest. It was almost as new to Blanche, and nowmuch more so to Cazalet; it appealed as strongly to their common stockof freshness and simplicity. Yet cause and effect were alike undeniablylacking in distinction. It began with cartloads of new clothes fromCazalet's old tailor, and it ended in a theater and the Carlton.
Martha surpassed herself, of course; she had gone about for days (orrather mornings and evenings) in an aggressive silence, her lipsprovocatively pursed; but now the time had come for her to speak out,and that she did. If Miss Blanche had no respect for herself, there werethose who had some for her, just as there were others who seemed to haveforgotten the meaning of the word. The euphemistic plural disappeared atthe first syllable from Blanche. It was nothing to Martha that she hadbeen offered a place in the car (beside that forward young man) moredays than one; well did Mr. Cazalet know her feelings about motorsbefore he made her the offer. But she was not saying anything about whatwas past. _This_ was the limit; an expression which only sulliedMartha's lips because Blanche had just applied it to her interference.It was not behaving as a gentleman; it was enough to work unpleasantmiracles in her poor parents' graves; and though Martha herself woulddie sooner than inform Mr. Charlie or the married sisters, other peoplewere beginning to talk, and when this came out she knew who would getthe blame.
So Blanche seemed rather flushed and very spirited at the short andearly dinner at Dieudonne's; but it was a fact that the motoring hadaffected her skin, besides making her eyes look as though she had beendoing what she simply never did. It had also toned up the lower part ofCazalet's face to match the rest; otherwise he was more like ameerschaum pipe than ever, with the white frieze across his forehead(but now nothing else) to stamp him from the wilds. And soon nobody waslaughing louder at Mr. Payne and Mr. Grossmith; nobody looked betterqualified for his gaiety stall, nobody less like a predestined figurein impending melodrama.
So also at the Carlton later; more champagne, of course, and the jokesof the evening to replenish a dwindling store, and the people at theother tables to give a fresh fillip to the game of gossip. Blanchelooked as well as any of them in a fresher way than most, and Cazalet anoble creature in all his brand-new glory; and she winced with pride atthe huge tip she saw him give the waiter; for an old friend may be proudof an old friend, surely! Then they got a good place for watching morepeople in the lounge; and the fiddling conductor proved the best worthwatching of the lot, and was pronounced the very best performer thatCazalet had ever heard in all his life. Many other items were praised inthe same fervent formula, which Blanche confirmed about everythingexcept his brandy and cigar.
Above all was it delightful to feel that their
beloved car was waitingfor them outside, to whirl them out of all this racket just as late asthey liked; for quite early in the week (and this was a glaringaggravation in Martha's eyes) Cazalet had taken lodgings for himself anddriver in those very Nell Gwynne Cottages where Hilton Toye had stayedbefore him.
All the evening nothing had been better of its kind than this music atthe very end; and, of course, it was the kind for Blanche and Cazalet,who for his part liked anything with a tune, but could never rememberone to save his life. Yet when they played an aged waltz, actually inits second decade, just upon half past twelve, even Cazalet cocked hishead and frowned, as though he had heard the thing before.
"I seem to know that," he said. "I believe I've danced to it."
"I have," said Blanche. "Often," she added suddenly; and then, "Isuppose you sometimes dance in the bush, Walter?"
"Sometimes."
"That's where it was, then."
"I don't think so. You couldn't get that tremendous long note on apiano. There it goes again--bars and bars of it! That's what I seem toremember."
Blanche's face never changed. "Now, that's the end. They're beginning toput the lights out, Walter. Don't you think we'd better go?"