The Aloe (10 page)

“I’ve two Kings” said Stanley “any good?” “Quite good” said Beryl. Linda stopped rocking and got up. Stanley looked across. “Anything the matter, darling?” He felt her restlessness. “No nothing I’m going to find Mother.” She went out of the room and standing at the foot of the stairs she called “Mother –” But Mrs Fairfield’s voice came across the hall from the verandah.

The moon that Lottie and Kezia had seen from the storeman’s wagon was nearly full – and the house, the garden, old Mrs Fairfield and Linda – all were bathed in a dazzling light – “I have been looking at the aloe” said Mrs Fairfield. “I believe it is going to flower – this year. Wouldn’t that be wonderfully lucky! Look at the top there! All those buds – or is it only an effect of light.” As they stood on the steps the high grassy bank on which the aloe rested – rose up like a wave and the aloe seemed to ride upon it like a ship with the oars lifted – bright moonlight hung upon those lifted oars like water and on the green wave glittered the dew – “Do you feel too,” said Linda and she spoke, like her mother with the “special” voice that women use at night to each other, as though they spoke in their sleep or from the bottom of a deep well – “don’t you feel that it is coming towards us?” And she dreamed that she and her mother were caught up on the cold water and into the ship with the lifted oars and the budding mast. And now the oars fell, striking quickly quickly and they rowed far away over the tops of the garden trees over the paddocks and the dark bush beyond. She saw her mother, sitting quietly in the boat, “sunning” herself in the moonlight as she expressed it. No, after all, it would be better if her Mother did not come, for she heard herself cry faster faster to those who were rowing. How much more natural this dream was than that she should go back to the house where the children lay sleeping and where Stanley and Beryl sat playing cribbage – “I believe there are buds,” said she. “Let us go down into the garden Mother – I like that Aloe. I like it more than anything else here, and I’m sure I shall remember it long after I’ve forgotten all the other things.” Whenever she should make up her mind to stay no longer – She put her hand on her Mother’s arm: and they walked down the steps, round the island and on to the main “drive” that led to the front gates – Looking at it from below she could see the long sharp thorns that edged the Aloe leaves, and at the sight of them her heart grew hard. She particularly liked the long sharp thorns. Nobody would dare to come near her ship or to follow after. “Not even my New Foundland dog” thought she “whom I’m so fond of in the daytime.” For she really was fond of him. She loved and admired and respected him tremendously – and she understood him.
Oh,
better than anybody else in the world, she knew him through and through – He was the soul of truth and sincerity and for all his practical experience he was awfully simple, easily pleased and easily hurt – If only he didn’t jump up at her so and bark so loudly and thump with his tail and watch her with such eager loving eyes! He was too strong for her. She always
had
hated things that rushed at her even when she was a child – There were times when he was frightening – really frightening, when she just hadn’t screamed at the top of her voice – “you are killing me” – and when she had longed to say the most coarse hateful things. “You know I’m very delicate. You know as well as I do that my heart is seriously affected and Doctor Dean has told you that I may die any moment – I’ve had three great lumps of children already.” Yes, yes it was true – and thinking of it,

she snatched her hand away from her mother’s arm for all her love and respect and admiration she hated him. It had never been so plain to her as it was at this moment – There were all her “feelings” about Stanley one just as true as the other – sharp defined – She could have done them up in little packets – and there was this other – just as separate as the rest, this hatred and yet just as real. She wished she had done them up in little packets and given them to Stanley – especially the last one – she would like to watch him while he opened that . . . And how tender he always was after times like that, how submissive – how thoughtful. He would do anything for her he longed to serve her. Linda heard herself saying in a weak voice, “Stanley would you light a candle” and she heard his joyful eager answer “My darling of course I shall” and through he went giving a leap out of bed and drawing the moon out of the sky for her – She hugged her folded arms and began to laugh silently. Oh dear Oh dear how absurd it all was! It really was funny – simply funny, and the idea of her hating Stanley (she could see his astonishment if she had cried out or given him the packet) was funniest of all. Yes it was perfectly true what Beryl had said that afternoon. She didn’t care for anything – but it wasn’t a pose – Beryl was wrong there – She laughed because she couldn’t
help
laughing. –

And why this mania to keep alive? For it really was mania! What am I guarding myself so preciously for she thought mocking and silently laughing? I shall go on having children and Stanley will go on making money and the children and the houses will grow bigger and bigger, with larger and larger gardens – and whole fleets of aloe trees in them – for me to choose from —

Why this mania to keep alive indeed? In the bottom of her heart she knew that now she was not being perfectly sincere. She had a reason but she couldn’t express it, no not even to herself. She had been walking with her head bent looking at nothing – now she looked up and about her. Her mother and she were standing by the red and white camellia trees. Beautiful were the rich dark leaves spangled with light and the round flowers that perched among the leaves like red and white birds. Linda pulled a piece of verbena and crumbled it and held up the cup of her hand to her Mother – “Delicious” said Mrs Fairfield bending over to smell – “Are you cold, child are you trembling? Yes, your hands are cold. We had better go back to the house” – “What have you been thinking of” said Linda – “Tell me” – But Mrs Fairfield said “I haven’t really been thinking of anything at all. I wondered as we passed the orchard what the fruit trees were like, whether we should be able to make much jam this autumn – There are splendid black currant and gooseberry bushes in the vegetable garden. I noticed them to-day. I should like to see those pantry shelves thoroughly well stocked with our. own jam –”

A letter from Beryl Fairfield to her friend Nan Fry.

My darling Nan,

Don’t think me a piggy-wig because I haven’t written before: I haven’t had a moment dear and even now I feel so exhausted that I can hardly hold a pen – Well, the dreadful deed is done. We have actually left the giddy whirl of town (!) and I can’t see how we shall ever go back again, for my brother-in-law has bought this house “lock stock and barrel” to use his own words. In a way it’s an awful relief for he’s been threatening to take a place in the country ever since I’ve lived with them and I must say the house and garden are awfully nice – a million times better than that dreadful cubby hole in town – But buried – my dear – buried isn’t the word! We have got neighbours but they’re only farmers – big louts of boys who always seem to be milking and two dreadful females with protruding teeth who came over when we were moving and brought us some scones and said they were sure they’d be very willing to help. My sister, who lives a mile away says she doesn’t really know a soul here, so I’m sure we never never shall and I’m certain no body will ever come out from town to see us because though there is a bus it’s an awful old rattling thing with black leather sides that any decent person would rather die than ride in for six miles! Such is life! It’s a sad ending for poor little B. I’ll get to be a most frightful frump in a year or two and come and see you in a mackintosh with a sailor hat tied on with a white china silk motor veil! Stanley says that now we‘re settled, for after the most ghastly fortnight of my life we really are settled, he is going to bring out a couple of men from the club each week for tennis – on Saturday afternoons – In fact two are promised us as a
great treat
today – But my dear if you could see Stanley’s men from the club, rather fattish – the type who look frightfully indecent without waistcoats – always with toes that turn in rather – so conspicuous too, when you’re walking about a tennis court in white shoes and pulling up their trousers, every minute – don’t you know and whacking at imaginary things with their racquets. I used to play with them at the Club Court last summer – and I’m sure you’ll know the type when I tell you that after I’d been there about three times they
all
called me Miss Beryl! It’s a weary world. Of course Mother simply loves this place, but then when I am Mother’s age I suppose I shall be quite content to sit in the sun and shell peas into a basin but I’m not not not What Linda really thinks about the whole affair, per usual I haven’t the slightest idea. She is as mysterious as ever.

My dear you know that white satin dress of mine. I’ve taken the sleeves out entirely put straps of black velvet across the shoulders and two big red poppies off my dear sister’s chapeau. It’s a great success though
when
I shall wear it I do not know . . .

Beryl sat writing this letter at a little table in front of the window in her room. In a way of course it was all perfectly true but in another way it was all the greatest rubbish and she didn’t mean a word of it. No, that wasn’t right – She felt all those things but she didn’t really feel them like that – The Beryl that wrote that letter might have been leaning over her shoulder and guiding her hand – so separate was she: and yet in a way, perhaps she was more real than the other, the real Beryl. She had been getting stronger and stronger for a long while. There had been a time when the real Beryl had just really made use of the false one to get her out of awkward positions – to glide her over hateful moments – to help her to bear the stupid ugly sometimes beastly things that happened – She had as it were called to the unreal Beryl, and seen her coming, and seen her going away again, quite definitely and simply – But that was long ago. The unreal Beryl was greedy and jealous of the real one – Gradually she took more and stayed longer – Gradually she came more quickly and now the real Beryl was hardly certain sometimes if she were there or not – Days, weeks at a time passed without her ever for a moment ceasing to act a part, for that is what it really came to and then, quite suddenly, when the unreal self had forced her to do something she did not want to do at all she had come into her own again and for the first time realised what had been happening. Perhaps it was because she was not leading the life that she wanted to – She had not a chance to really express herself – she was always living below her power – and therefore she had no need of her real self – her real self only made her wretched.

In a way of course it was all perfectly true but in another it was all the greatest rubbish and she didn’t believe a word of it. No, that wasn’t right: she
felt
all those things but she didn’t really feel them
like that.
It was her other self, whose slave or whose mistress she was which? who had written that letter. It not only bored – it rather disgusted her real self. “Flippant and silly” said her real self, yet she knew she’d send it and that she’d always write that kind of twaddle to Nan Fry – In fact it was a very
mild
example of the kind of letter she generally wrote. Beryl leaned her elbows on the table and read it through again – the voice of the letter seemed to come up to her from the page – faint already like a voice heard over a telephone wire, high, gushing – with something bitter in the sound – Oh, she
detested
it today. “You’ve always got so much animation B” said Nan Fry – “That’s why men are so keen on you” – and she had added, rather mournfully – (for men weren’t keen on Nan – she was a solid kind of girl with fat hips and a high colour) “I can’t understand how you keep it up, but it’s your nature I suppose.” What rot! What nonsense! But it wasn’t her nature at all! Good Heavens! if she’d ever been her real self with Nan Fry Nannie would have jumped out of the window with surprise. My dear you know that white satin dress of mine – Ugh! Beryl slammed her letter case to. She jumped up and half consciously – half unconsciously she drifted over to the looking glass – There stood a slim girl dressed in white – a short white serge skirt – a white silk blouse and a white leather belt drawn in tight round her tiny waist – She had a heart shaped face – wide at the brows and with a pointed chin – but not too pointed —— Her eyes – her eyes were perhaps her best feature – such a strange uncommon colour too, greeny blue with little gold spots in them. She had fine black eyebrows and long black lashes – so long that when they lay on her cheek they positively caught the light some one or other had told her – Her mouth was rather large – too large? No, not really. Her underlip protruded a little. She had a way of sucking it in that somebody else had told her was awfully fascinating. Her nose was her least satisfactory feature – Not that it was really ugly – but it wasn’t half as fine as Linda’s. Linda really had a perfect little nose. Hers spread rather – not badly – and in all probability she exaggerated the spreadness of it just because it was her nose and she was so awfully critical of herself. She pinched it with her thumb and second finger and made a little face – Lovely long hair. And such a mass of it. It was the colour of fresh fallen leaves – brown and red, with a glint of yellow. Almost it seemed to have a life of its own – it was so warm and there was such a deep ripple in it. When she plaited it in one thick plait it hung on her back just like a long snake – she loved to feel the weight of it drag her head back – she loved to feel it loose covering her bare arms. It had been a fashion among the girls at Miss Beard’s to brush Beryl’s hair. “Do do let me brush your hair darling Beryl,” but nobody brushed it as beautifully as Nan Fry. Beryl would sit in front of the dressing table in her cubicle – wearing a white linen wrapper – and behind her stood Nannie in a dark red woolen gown buttoned up to her chin – Two candles gave a pointing, flickering light – Her hair streamed over the chair back – she shook it out – she yielded it up to Nannie’s adoring hands. In the glass Nannie’s face above the dark gown was like a round sleeping mask. Slowly she brushed, with long caressing strokes – her hand and the brush were like one thing upon the warm hair. She would say with a kind of moaning passion, laying down the brush and looping the hair in her hands – “it’s more beautiful than ever B. It really is lovelier than last time” – and now she would brush again – she seemed to send herself to sleep with the movement and the gentle sound – she had something of the look of a blind cat – as though it were she who was being stroked and not Beryl – But nearly always these brushings came to an unpleasant ending. Nannie did something silly. Quite suddenly she would snatch up Beryl’s hair and bury her face in it and kiss it, or clasp her hands round Beryl’s head and press Beryl’s head back against her firm breast sobbing – “you are so beautiful. You don’t know how beautiful you are beautiful beautiful.” And at these moments Beryl had such a feeling of horror such a violent thrill of physical dislike for Nan Fry –” That’s enough – that’s quite enough. Thank you. You’ve brushed it beautifully. Good night Nan.” She didn’t even try to suppress a contempt and her disgust – And the curious thing was that Nan Fry seemed rather to understand this – even to expect it, never protesting but stumbling away out of the cubicle – and perhaps whispering “forgive me
”
at the door – And the
more
curious thing was that Beryl let her brush her hair again – and let this happen again, – and again there was this “silly scene” between them always ending in the same way more or less, and never never referred to in the daytime. But she
did
brush hair so beautifully. Was her hair less bright now? No, not a bit – “Yes, my dear, there’s no denying it, you really are a lovely little thing” – At the words her breast lifted, she took a long breath, smiling with delight, half closing her eyes as if she held a sweet sweet bouquet up to her face – a fragrance that made her faint. But even as she looked the smile faded from her lips and eyes – and oh God! There she was, back again, playing the same old game – False, false as ever! False as when she’d written to Nan Fry – False even when she was alone with herself now. What had that creature in the glass to do with her really and why on earth was she staring at her? She dropped down by the side of her bed and buried her head in her arms. “Oh,” she said “I’m so miserable, so frightfully miserable. I know I’m silly and spiteful and vain. I’m always acting a part, I’m never my real self for a minute” – And plainly, plainly she saw her false self running up and down the stairs, laughing a special trilling laugh if they had visitors, standing under the lamp if a man came to dinner so that he should see how the light shone on her hair, pouting and pretending to be a little girl when she was asked to play the guitar – Why she even kept it up for Stanley’s benefit! Only last night when he was reading the paper – she had stood beside him and leaned against him
on purpose
and she had put her hand over his pointing out something and said at the same time – “Heavens! Stanley how brown your hands are” – only that he should notice how white hers were! How despicable! Her heart grew cold with rage! “It’s marvellous how you keep it up!” said she to her false self! but then it was only because she was so miserable – so miserable! If she’d been happy – if she’d been living
her own life
all this false life would simply cease to be – and now she saw the real Beryl a radiant shadow . . . a shadow . . . Faint and unsubstantial shone the real self – what was there of her except that radiance? And for what tiny moments she was really she. Beryl could almost remember every one of them – she did not mean that she was exactly happy then it was a “feeling” that overwhelmed her at certain times —— certain nights when the wind blew with a forlorn cry and she lay cold in her bed wakeful and listening certain lovely evenings when she passed down a road where there were houses and big gardens and the sound of a piano came from one of the houses – and then certain Sunday nights in Church, when the glass flickered and the pews were shadowy and the lines of the hymns were almost too sweet and sad to bear. And rare rare times, rarest of all, when it was not the voice of outside things that had moved her so – she remembered one of them, when she had sat up one night with Linda. Linda was very ill – she had watched the pale dawn come in through the blinds and she had seen Linda – lying, propped up high with pillows, her arms outside the quilt and the shadow of her hair dusky against the white – and at all these times she had felt: Life is wonderful – life is rich and mysterious. But it is good too and I am rich and mysterious and good. Perhaps that is what she might have said – but she did not say those things – then she knew her false self was quite quite gone and she longed to be always as she was just at that moment – to become
that
Beryl forever – “Shall I? How can I? and did I ever not have a false self?” But just when she had got that far she heard the sound of wheels coming up the drive and little steps running along the passage to her door and Kezia’s voice calling “Aunt Beryl. Aunt Beryl!” She got up – Botheration! How she had crumpled her skirt. Kezia burst in. “Aunt Beryl – Mother says will you please come down because Father’s home and lunch is ready –” “Very well Kezia.” She went over to the dressing table and powdered her nose. Kezia crossed over too and unscrewed a little pot of cream and sniffed it. Under her arm Kezia carried a very dirty calico cat. When Aunt Beryl had run out of the room she sat the cat up on the dressing table and stuck the top of the cream jar over one of its ears.
Now
look at yourself said she sternly. The calico cat was so appalled at the effect that it toppled backwards and bumped and bounced on the floor and the top of the cream jar flew through the air and rolled like a penny in a round on the linoleum and did not break. But for Kezia it had broken the moment it flew through the air and she picked it up, hot all over, put it on the dressing table and walked away,
far
too quickly – and airily.