Outbreak of Love (7 page)

She was ready early, and as usual on any festive occasion, swathed in clouds of blue chiffon to emphasize the colour of her eyes.

“We mustn't be late,” she said. “We want to make a good impression.” She always used means to produce the opposite effect from the one she wished. She always paid her bills immediately, saying: “Then, if ever I were short of money the tradesmen would not press me.” Whereas it was obvious that as she had been so regular they would at once suspect something wrong. When she said “press me” she gave a little giggle. It was also obvious that by arriving late at a party one made far more impression than by hanging about waiting in empty rooms. This consistent inverted reasoning of Mildy's may also have been due to her condition, as when she acted instinctively, without exercising her brain, she often showed sense and dignity.

As we waited for the car she had ordered, both of us rather pleased at our appearance, she was suddenly overcome by elation. In the manner, as she thought, of a coy and wilful mistress, but which unfortunately was only that of a schoolmistress, she said:

“Now you're not to speak to the twins.”

I was outraged. I still had an attitude towards her of affectionate gratitude for all the comforts with which she surrounded me, and could not be openly rude. Her voice held a tremor at her own rashness, and when I did not answer she realized that she had again started off on the wrong foot, which was to put her out of step for the whole evening.

When our cab drew up at the Radcliffes' door, Steven and Laura, my parents, had just alighted from the car ahead of us, and we all went in together, so that when we were announced Mildy and I were only part of the excess of Langtons. As we walked on into the drawing-room, I said: “Doesn't Aunt Diana look marvellous?”

“My sister always looks a lady,” Mildy replied primly, confusing my adolescent impulse towards the glorious and superlative, with her dreary standards.

“Who said she didn't?” I muttered, and turned to speak to my father.

Diana did look striking. Her mother had left her several rolls of beautiful materials, which she had bought when on her European travels—in Paris, Lyons and Genoa. Now and then when Diana had wanted a dress for some special function, she had brought out one of these rolls, and had it made up. There were only three left and she had used one of these for this evening. It was of gold and crimson brocade, and she had discussed with Josie whether it was not too magnificent. Finally she had said: “If I can't wear it now I'll never wear it,” and she had it made to her own design. It gave her a slightly renaissance appearance, but with her dark hair, into which she had twisted her pearls, she could carry it off, and when Bessie, before she set out exclaimed with a different intonation from Mildy's: “Lor', mum, you do look a lady when you're dressed up!” she knew that it was a success.

When Russell Lockwood came into the little gallery which led to Elsie's drawing-room, and saw Diana, with Wolfie and the Radcliffes, standing at the top of the low flight of steps, he received a slight shock. He had not expected her to be receiving the guests, and he had certainly not expected her look of beauty and immense distinction, so that he could hardly believe that she was the same woman whom he had met in Collins Street.

Diana saw his start of surprise and she was amused and pleased by it. It gave her a sense of restored self-possession, and wiped out the slight hurt she had felt at his failure to call, so that when he shook hands she was able to say with pleasant indifference:

“How d'you do? D'you still like Melbourne?”

In spite of her easy tone, they were both aware of the fact that he had not called, and for once his perfect composure was a little disturbed. This showed in a certain delicacy of his walk as he passed on.

Arthur Langton, our great-uncle, was standing at the side of the room, and we had gathered round him for the sake of his conversation which was either ribald or sentimental. I repeated that Aunt Diana looked marvellous.

“Yes,” he said, “is she meant to be Beatrice d'Este or somebody? There is that precious ass Russell Lockwood bowing over her hand as if she were. He walks as if he were carrying his heart in an alabaster vase and is afraid of dropping it.”

Arthur, aware of the defects of his own generation, spent much of his time conveying that they were a race of heroes and ravishing beauties who could not be reproduced nowadays, so that if one of a younger generation did achieve anything, if only as Diana this evening, in beauty and distinction of appearance, he had to pretend that it was slightly ridiculous. It had been said by some victim of his wit that he had begun life as a conscious hypocrite and was ending it as an unconscious one. He now certainly gave an exhibition of humbug of which he appeared quite unconscious. Russell came over to our group and said:

“Do you remember me, Mr Langton? I'm Russell Lockwood.”

“Of course I remember you, my dear boy,” said Arthur warmly. “Your mother was one of my greatest friends.” Yet it was possible that he was sincere in his greeting, and only trying to amuse us when he ridiculed Russell's delicate gait. He may also have done this to repudiate the aberrations of his own youth when he had adopted most of the affectations of the aesthetic movement. It is easy at seventy to pretend that one was a robust and athletic young man, as no one remembers or cares enough to question the pretence.

Our attention was drawn away from Russell by a burst of what my father called “high-powered English voices”, those of Cousin Sophie and the twins. They saw Russell and came over to us. Cousin Sophie, partly as a result of the moral struggle she had been through to get here, but more because of the shock of having to shake hands with Wolfie, which like Russell she had not foreseen, did not give out her usual emanation of erudition and social strength, but had almost an air of apology as if she had condoned immorality.

The twins surrounded Arthur with cries of affection, and then turned to me.

“Why, it's the runaway curate!” they exclaimed, calling me this name for reasons which have been explained elsewhere. “We never see you about. You're very elusive.”

I smiled at them shyly.

“Can't you say something?” demanded Anthea.

“I don't know what to say except how d'you do,” I protested.

“You should say I've been longing to meet you.”

“Well, I did want to.”

“Did want to? Oh how feeble! You should have been desperate. You live with your aunt don't you?”

I admitted this, feeling it was rather disgraceful.

“Why d'you live with your aunt?”

“I have to live somewhere, don't I?”

“You could live with us.”

“You haven't asked me to.”

“We'll see what you're like first. He's not nearly as sophisticated as we thought, is he?” Anthea asked Cynthia.

“Only his clothes. I suppose because they're English,” said Cynthia.

“As a matter of fact I got this suit in Melbourne,” I said. “It's my first tails.”

“You shouldn't tell us that. You keep giving yourself away.”

“What else can I do with myself?” I asked. This amused them very much.

“You ought to put a high price on yourself. People take you at your own valuation.”

“Do they take you at yours?” I was beginning to rally. They did not like this at all.

“Now you've been gauche,” said Cynthia.

“We shan't ask you to live with us,” said Anthea. “But we'll ask you to dine. Mother, ask the runaway curate to dine.”

Cousin Sophie was saying to Russell: “It was so strange meeting Father Talbot in Rome. I'd known him years ago at Dublin Castle, when he was in the Lancers.” Her conversation was freely sprinkled with references of this kind. It was the sort of thing Russell listened to with attentive interest. Overhearing it I imagined that I was at last in brilliant circles, and that the twins' adolescent badinage was the kind of wit that sparkled across the dinner tables of European embassies.

“Would you come to supper on Sunday night?” asked Cousin Sophie, giving me a moment of attention.

“Oh thank you. I'd love to,” I said eagerly.

“Then you can come to my tea-party first,” said Arthur.

“Oh thank you. I'd love to,” I said again, eagerly.

My mother asked me if I were coming up to Westhill for the weekend.

“I can't,” I replied. “I've been asked to the twins.”

“That will be amusing,” she said, but she looked a little disappointed. “Perhaps you would like to come?” she suggested to Mildy.

“If Guy is going to be out all day, I may as well go away,” said Mildy plaintively.

“You'd better come up on Friday,” said my father. “Which train will you catch?”

“Oh!” Mildy turned on him her reproachful blue eyes. She did not want to go away, and had only threatened to do so to “tease” me. No one knew this, and no one knew what she meant by these reproachful stares. He thought that she was being too sweet and feminine to cope with such manly things as time-tables, though the three daily trains had been the same since their childhood.

“We'll meet the afternoon train,” he said firmly. Mildy looked very sad.

The party from Government House came in. The room was now fairly full and people turned to watch them. Arthur said:

“If you took a plaster cast of Lady Wendale's face it would be very pretty. As it is, it isn't sufficiently convex.”

“The concave countess in fact,” said Anthea.

Russell looked rather startled.

Cousin Sophie being English, and having mutual friends with the vice-regal staff, was on more intimate terms with them than most Melbourne people. Lady Wendale caught sight of her and with Miss Rockingham and the two aides-de-camp, John Wyckham looking diffidently amiable, and Freddie Thorpe like a resentful bull, also joined our group, of which the original central attraction was Arthur. Miss Rockingham's proud and sagging eyes which showed that every year she was spiritually refreshed by the kiss of the Queen of Spain, glanced with gracious expectation round the room, lighting with satisfaction on Russell.

My parents who, from some obscure and involved psychological motives, always avoided the society of English people in Australia, moved away. Mildy for the simple reason that she thought they would despise her, and anxious to detach me from the twins, said: “Come on Guy, let us find a seat.” I pretended not to hear her, and torn between her desire for my company and her terror of the great, she went into the ballroom and sat by her repellent friend Miss Bath, whom Arthur called “the wrong end of the magnet”.

Freddie Thorpe gave an appraising glance at the twins, and immediately fixed his attention on Anthea.

“You like music?” he asked.

“Yes. Do you?” she replied.

“No. Hate it. Don't mind a band.” Anthea, because of the blue lapels and gold buttons on his coat, and his direct, masculine and rather brutal blue eyes, thought this very amusing.

“Why have you come?” she asked.

“Had to. Don't mind now I've met you.”

“You liven things up a bit yourself.”

“D'you mean that?” he asked, looking at her with a sharp and potent glance.

“I couldn't possibly tell you,” said Anthea.

He did not know what she meant, and he hoped to God, a vain hope, that she was not going to be clever. But she was a good-looker, nice legs, and her voice was all right. With a decent allowance now, and £5,000 a year in the future, she would not be a bad investment for his manhood.

Miss Rockingham in her muted foghorn voice asked Russell how long he had been out.

“About two months,” he said, “but I was brought up in Australia.”

“I didn't know,” said Miss Rockingham, being too well bred to give the usual exclamation of surprise and say: “I'd never have thought so.”

“Are you returning soon to England?” she asked.

“I don't think so. I shall probably stay a year at least.”

“I have come for a year.”

“I'm glad,” he said. There was a comfortable feeling between them that they would meet fairly often. He liked people with her knowledge of the great world, and she thought that he looked intelligent.

Josie was staying with some school friends and had not come with her parents. She was almost the last to arrive, and was alone. Elsie's butler, who had known her since she was a baby, and was proud to see her for the first time in a grown-up evening dress, and moved by the delightful smile she gave him, and also because she was Diana's daughter, announced in a particularly loud and impressive voice:

“Miss Josephine von Flugel.”

This sudden bellow brought an immediate silence, and everyone turned to see what had caused it. They were amused at the contrast between the pompous circumstance of her entry, and this young girl standing in a clear space near the door, looking faintly surprised and smiling to find herself there. It was as if a thunderclap had passed and a crocus had sprouted from the ground. Though it may have been said too often, it is true that young girls do look like flowers, if they have any looks at all. Their petal skins and the delicate tendrils of their hair have an affinity with the beautiful growths of the natural world, so that whoever embraces a young girl seems to hold the whole realm of nature in his arms. Everybody smiled, but John Wyckham gaped at her almost in astonishment. His lips were parted and his eyes smiling in a sort of wonder, and I thought he must have met her before and for some reason be surprised at finding her here this evening.

She stood a moment in the open space, and then seeing Uncle Arthur, she came over to him and the babel broke out again. Miss Rockingham shed on her one of those smiles of pure benevolence and love which the young receive in this first bloom, while there is still something childlike remaining in physical maturity, and which are scattered on them like blessings as they enter a room, or walk along a city street; until that bloom fades and they are aware that something has gone from their lives, a brightness has left the air, but they do not know what it is.