She was disappointed, but not so disappointed as she would have been some months ago. She told herself that if she intended to follow the advice which he had bestowed upon her at the party (and she did) the best way to begin was not to take his own casualness to heart. It was natural, she told herself, that the Nilands and the Challises should mean more to her than she did to them, because their lives were full, while her life, in all that human beings most desire, was empty.
When once we begin to make the best of circumstances, the task becomes easier as we proceed. Change of heart, conversion, seeing the light, are all names for the quick or gradual turning of our faces towards that ancient Way, worn by the tired feet of millions of ordinary people who ‘tried to make the best of it’ as well as by the bleeding feet of the Saints. During that autumn, Margaret also resolutely turned her mind away from the great tragedians, the great philosophers, the great wrestlers and strugglers and questioners, and listened instead to music and poetry. Occasionally some strong-minded acquaintance suggested that she was being weak, cowardly and escapist (that blessed word), and then Margaret would think of Lev, who would have demanded ‘So what?’ and continue in her habits, strengthened. (Lev had been sent abroad, Zita informed her, and the family at Westwood had heard no more of him. Zita naturally assumed him to be dead, and was aggrieved when Margaret received a card from him at Christmas.)
The holiday which the two girls had spent together had proved a success. Margaret had set out upon it with apprehensions concerning Zita’s talkativeness and touchiness, to say nothing of other qualities which might well come to light after sharing existence with her for a week, but most of her fears proved unfounded. The fresh scenes and new faces and sense of freedom acted upon Zita like a tonic; her Jewish liveliness and warmth expanded in them; and she also possessed the invaluable quality of making an occasion go; at least there was never dullness where Zita was.
Margaret became protectively fond of her. In many ways she seemed the elder and Zita turned to her for advice and comfort. This (though tiresome when leading to sessions prolonged into the small hours) was flattering.
It was as well that she had become true friends with Zita, for when she returned to London she found that Hilda was engaged.
And never was anyone so engaged as Hilda; she might as well, thought Margaret, have worn a label; so dreamy, so silent, so solemn was she. Sometimes Margaret would see her in the evening, setting out for a walk with the young petty officer in the Navy who had brought about this transformation. They walked in silence, looking at one another, with Hilda’s arm passed through his in defiance of Regulations, and to Margaret he seemed a pleasant, ordinary young man enough. They were to be married soon, and would share his leaves in the very small flat which Hilda had been fortunate enough to find until his ship was ordered abroad. It would then be lonely for Hilda, but Mrs Wilson hoped that she would quickly have a baby and then there would be plenty to do.
So the skimmer over the surface was caught; the dancer trapped and bound and made to undergo those feelings at which she had so often smiled in others. Margaret was glad that her friend was to be so happily settled, and looked forward to being bridesmaid at the large and elaborate wedding which was being planned; she thought that the change in Hilda was poetic justice.
Mrs Steggles said that Hilda had gone downright soppy over that boy, and refrained from mentioning Margaret’s own unengaged state. Mother and daughter found it easier to get on together than they had at one time, and when the inevitable estrangement with her dear friend, Mrs Piper, occurred, rather later than Margaret had anticipated, it was to Margaret that Mrs Steggles vented her indignation and turned for comfort.
The Steggleses attended Dick Fletcher’s wedding, and saw Mrs Coates looking indeed damn’ pretty in a pink dress and a flowery hat with floating veil. She pressed Margaret’s hand effusively and studied her with eyes in which the expression did not soften except when she glanced at Dick. During the reception at Westwood-at-Brockdale afterwards, Margaret thought how completely the installation of its new mistress had destroyed the fairy-tale feeling in the little house. It was still pretty; still so clean as to seem unreal amid the shabbiness and dirt of war-worn London, but the hush through which the wind-bells sounded had gone for ever.
She saw Linda once more, dressed suitably and with obvious care, but the child did not seem to recognize her until Margaret asked her if she had ‘forgotten Margaret?’ and then Linda smiled and put out her hand, but it was not clear if she did remember. It seemed to Margaret that her manner had returned to the apathy from which she herself had once taken pride in leading her, and once she overheard the bride speak to her somewhat sharply, but perhaps it was healthier that the child should be treated with normal impatience when the occasion demanded and, in any case, Margaret herself could do nothing about it.
When Dick accepted her congratulations, she could detect no trace of consciousness in his manner. If he had once suspected that there was a wealth of love in herself which could have enriched his life, he had forgotten it; and if her own satisfaction in his happiness was tempered by a wonder at his being content with a Mrs Coates, she was prepared to admit that she still knew but little about men.
Sometimes when she went to Westwood-at-Highgate she caught glimpses of Gerard Challis. According to the theatrical gossip writers, he was working upon a new play, but the theme was being kept a secret, and Zita had not been able to glean from Seraphina or Hebe what it was.
In case the reader should like to be better informed than the theatrical gossip writers, we will reveal that the play was called In Autumn; it was about a woman who was described by her friends as ‘corrupt yet fiery’ – a sort of compost heap and bonfire in one, but not so useful as either – married to a man who was a mystic. She had been philandering for years, cheerful in the belief that when she wanted to Go Back to him he would Understand, but when she did want to Go Back to him (in the middle of the Blitz, of all inconvenient times) he did not Understand, and so she was compelled to return, broken-hearted, to her latest lover. The husband went off to India and lived with a yogi in a cave, which (except for the yogi) was exactly what he would have had to do if he had stayed in London.
This gem was to be flashed upon the British public in February, about the same time as the new issue of clothing coupons, but as Kattë was still playing to packed houses, perhaps the British public deserved what it got. Mr Challis was paying very large sums in Income Tax and complaining bitterly about them. (He was fond of money, as we know; not in a cheerful, greedy way but in a solemn contemptuous way that we, for our part, think far worse.)
Margaret no longer felt a strong interest in him or his plays. When her respect for him as a human being had been destroyed, her admiration for him as an artist had been destroyed also. For Alex Niland, who deserted his wife at intervals and approached young women with kisses on his lips and drink in his hands, yet painted pictures breathing goodness and beauty, she made excuses. At least, she thought, he doesn’t pretend to be better than he is; he doesn’t pretend to be anything; he’s just himself. But then, she liked Alex Niland.
All that now remains to be said of Mr Challis is that late in life he himself Went Back to Seraphina with what remained of his heart, and was received by her with the unfailing loving-kindness she had always shown towards him. And so, farewell to this gifted man.
Margaret had more than once, in response to an abrupt invitation thrown out by Hebe, visited the house at St John’s Wood. She found it as full of charm for her as the house at Highgate. Hebe was gradually filling her home with large, solid pieces of Victorian furniture against which the children could bump without any damage to themselves and – which was almost as important at that time – without any to the furniture. She bought big dishes wreathed with red and blue flowers which had once held the noble joints of Victorian days, and served meat and vegetables together upon them in order to reduce the washing-up; and she invited her friends to sit with her and make p
atchwork in the evenings and refresh themselves with bowls of soup, afterwards using the coverings thus made to adorn their shabby chairs and beds. She had her bees in the garden and had planted the flowers which bees prefer, but she was now engaged in a struggle with her neighbours about her right to keep chickens, and she had been reluctantly compelled to abandon altogether the scheme of the goat. Vogue had already approached her with the object of chronicling some of these activities, with photographs, in its pages.
When Margaret alighted at Martlefield, her ticket was taken by the same sturdy young woman whose costume had aroused the distaste of Gerard Challis in the summer, and when she came out of the station she saw that the field which had then impressed her with its sheet of gold buttercups was now scattered with leaves flying past from the elms, while the foliage lingering upon the more distant trees resembled a bloom of yellow plush.
The weather was so splendid that she was a little disappointed to see the dog-cart, the cob and Bertie coming towards her; she would have enjoyed the three-mile walk. She wondered if Bertie had been compelled to abandon his Business with the Plums in order to meet herself and would be sulky in consequence? Indeed, he did look rather severe, but she knew that this was his usual expression and was due to his opinion of the British Empire rather than to any more personal grief.
After greetings of a suitably casual nature had been exchanged, Margaret inquired how everybody was, and if there were many people staying at Yates Row.
‘Bung full, that’s what we are,’ replied Bertie briefly, thereby casting the first shade over her hopes of uninterrupted and lengthy conversations with her hostess. ‘Everybody’s all right down here. My gran died, though.’
Margaret expressed regret and as soon as was delicately possible inquired if Irene were still at Yates Row.
‘Oh yes. She’s a permanency, seemingly. That Edna of hers goes to the village school. This week-end there’s a whole lot of kids down from London supposed to be helping with the plums. Supposed is right. Then all last week there was my sister.’
‘Oh, how nice for you. How old is she?’
‘Ten. Regular nuisance, she is. Can’t think how I ever put up with her when I was at home.’
‘You come from London, don’t you?’
‘Walthamstow, E.17. I was evacuated here in 1939. Got me education down here and all and haven’t never gone back again. Catch me going back.’
‘Don’t you like London?’
‘Not after the country, I don’t. Mechanized farming; that’s going to be my line. There’s nothing really doing for my class in London; it’s all right for your class.’
While Margaret was getting over this one, the governess-cart arrived at the well-remembered row of houses, looking different in their autumnal setting, and she alighted and walked slowly up the path, glancing about her. There were still some red apples amongst the highest branches of the orchard trees, and a few dahlias and sunflowers that had escaped the frosts were swinging their massive rich heads in the wind above the mossy paths.
‘They were all out nutting yesterday,’ observed Bertie, beginning to lead Maggie the cob away. ‘Didn’t get any, of course. Squirrels had them all weeks ago. Lady Challis was ever so amused, she says it was just the same when she was a kid. That’s your room, up there,’ pointing to a gabled attic window where a white curtain was streaming forth, ‘Lady Challis says you’re to go on down the meadow when you’ve put your things away, they’re all down there.’
Voices and laughter came towards Margaret on the wind as she walked through the garden at the back of the houses a little later, and soon she could distinguish figures moving about among the plum trees at the far end of the wide meadow, which extended for the whole length of Yates Row at the end of the gardens. The trees were of all heights, bearing many different varieties of plum, and this was convenient for the pickers, whose ages were as widely diverse as the fruit they were gathering. The children carefully pulled down the bloomy, hard, dark-purple globes from small trees yielding late fruit for jam, and high above their heads, perched on ladders resting against the trees rocking ceaselessly in the wind, worked the grown-ups, laughing and calling to one another in gasps as the gusts snatched their breath away. High above them all, in the tallest veteran tree, with one foot on the last step of a ladder and the other planted in a crotch of boughs, was Lady Challis.
Margaret recognized her from afar, and shyly approached the foot of the ladder. She stood there unnoticed for a few moments, alternately glancing up at her hostess and endeavouring to reconcile with her conception of the latter’s poetic dignity a glimpse of thin limbs clad in laddered grey stockings and other very utilitarian garments; and looking at the children, who seemed as mixed in age and class as the plums themselves but who were all rosy with rushing about in the wind and all carrying on that pompous, slightly self-righteous running commentary with which children always accompany any useful work.
‘I say, they do need picking here, there are simply thousands of them, absolutely choking up the boughs, there wouldn’t be any room for new ones next year if I didn’t pick them.’
‘I know. It’s a very useful job of work. Don’t say thousands, Claudia. My mummy says you exag-erate.’
‘Exag-gerate, not exag-erate. Oh well, there are twelve on this branch, anyway. Look, Edna, you want to put them gently into the basket, not drop them in, you’ll spoil the bloom if you do. My mummy says half the joy of a plum is the bloom. I say, this one is super ! As big as a shell-egg!’
‘Not a very large egg.’
‘Oh yes, an enormous egg. Look, I’ll put it very gently in the basket so as not to spoil the bloom … oh, go away, Maggie!’ in a terrified shriek.
Margaret ran over and led away the cob, who had trotted up and put her nose into the plum-basket, and Claudia came out from behind a tree.
‘Hullo, Claudia. Do you remember me?’ Margaret asked, smiling.
‘Of course. You were here in the summer,’ replied Claudia graciously, smoothing her long ruffled tresses.
‘Hullo, Margaret,’ said Edna, who had continued picking unperturbed, ‘We’re helping with the Plum Harvest. It’s a very useful job of work. Lady Challis is going to make fifty pounds of jam to-morrow’ (oh dear, thought Margaret) ‘and Frank and me are going to have the scum for our tea if we watch it and see it doesn’t catch.’
‘Which is Frank?’
‘My cousin. Over there.’ She pointed to three small boys who, apparently bored by the method of hand-picking, were violently shaking the tree upon which they were engaged. ‘He’s the one in the pixie-hood. He’s had a bad ear. M-something.’
‘Mastoid,’ put in Claudia.
‘Boys! No!’ cried Lady Challis’s voice so close to Margaret’s ear that the latter started. She turned round and saw her hostess standing at her elbow, frowning and shaking her head at the group who were agitating their tree. ‘Bad for the plums! You do it by hand or not at all!’
Then she turned smilingly to Margaret:
‘Here you are then. I’m so glad that you could come. Are you hungry?’
‘A little, but not very,’ Margaret answered, smiling too as she remembered that almost the first remark Lady Challis had ever addressed to her had been about food.
‘Quite sure? There’s an enormous stew in a pot on the range, but we don’t have lunch until half-past one on Saturdays.’
‘I saw it as I came through the kitchen. It smells heavenly.’
‘It’s got prunes in it,’ confided Lady Challis. Then she gazed at Margaret for a moment, while her large eyes, now faded by age, took on an inquiring, and then a faintly apologetic, expression.
‘Do forgive my being so absent-minded,’ she said at last, ‘but did I ask you to come down for any special reason (apart from liking to see you again, of course), or was it just to help with the plums?’
‘Well –’ began Margaret, slightly taken aback, ‘as a matter of fact, when I was here in the summer you did say that I – I might
talk to you, if it wouldn’t take up too much of your time, that is.’
‘Of course. How stupid of me not to remember.’ Her tone was relieved and brisk. ‘Did I promise?’
‘Well, you did, actually.’
‘Then we’ll get another ladder (there’s one over there they’ve just finished with) and we’ll go up the plum tree together and start talking right away. I always keep my promises, don’t I, young ladies?’ appealing to Edna and Claudia, but the appeal received no more than an ‘Of course you do, Lady Challis,’ from Claudia which was obviously merely polite, and a robustly sarcastic, ‘Oh, of course!’ from Edna, which made Lady Challis burst out laughing and cast a glance at Margaret that banished the latter’s slight disappointment.
As she climbed the second ladder, carried to the tree by Bertie and an elderly countryman who helped about the grounds, and gradually mounted into an unfamiliar world of mossy branches and rustling clusters of dark-green leaves through which blew faint scents of bark and sunned fruit, Margaret felt her spirits rising to meet the immense clouds hurrying across the sky. Balancing herself against the seamed trunk, she gazed upwards through the pattern of leaves, which suddenly seemed black against the sunny blue vault overhead, and saw that where there was a large gap in the intricate pattern, the sky thus revealed resembled a fathomlessly deep pool, calm despite the buffeting wind that made the whole tree, from hidden roots to sun-nourished leaves, rock and sway without rest.
She lowered her eyes, and met Lady Challis’s smile, as the latter confronted her from the summit of a ladder on the opposite side. She was enclosed by leaves; her head was thrust right amongst them and some were touching her thin cheek as she glanced about in search of the large, ripe fruits, the Emperors among plums, that had lingered on week after week, escaping the long (but not quite long enough) hooked stick of the gatherer.
‘There are lots up here,’ she called to Irene, who was waiting below beside a basket and who now looked up at Margaret with a smiling greeting. ‘We’ll have them down in no time. Have you got your stick?’ (to Margaret, who had an unresentful suspicion that her hostess had forgotten her name, if indeed she had ever known it). ‘Hook it over a branch when you aren’t using it and mind you’re careful not to drop it. Now!’ She reached out energetically across a branch with her stick towards a cluster of plums. ‘Talk!’