The Chinese Garden (9 page)

‘There,' said Chief. ‘There. It's good, Rachel Curgenven. You will write more, and write better. I'm certain of it. But you must keep to the lyrical vein. This translation is, perhaps, a kind of exercise. But it's your own imagination you must explore, not Virgil's.'

She was not always so perceptive for she was too dominated by her own emotional needs. Perhaps at that moment the isolated poles of being which were Chief and Rachel, touched and struck off, in the electric atmosphere, a single illuminating flash. It was more than the warmth of encouragement. It was the rare self-illuminating light that flickers occasionally at one touch of an alien hand.

Rachel said good-night with the usual formal handshake. It was twenty minutes to ten. She lingered for a moment.

‘Would you give me permission to do something irregular?' she asked.

‘What, my dear Rachel? By irregular, I suppose you mean against the rules?'

‘Well, not exactly. Beyond – outside the rules,' said Rachel.

‘What is it then?'

‘May I walk once round the house, outside?'

‘It's very cold, and I imagine very dark.' Chief walked over to the window and pulled back the heavy curtain. The February night was illuminated by a brilliant full moon.

‘It's like daylight,' said Rachel, ‘and I can put a coat on. I don't mind the cold, anyway.'

Rarely did Chief fail to respond to a suggestion such as this.

‘You may go with my blessing,' she said, giving with her hand an exquisite gesture of dismissal.

Rachel went quickly down the turret stairs. She found her coat and let herself out of the back door into the night. Above her, a pale grey sky stretched over the hills, raddled with cloud. The walls of the house wore a sheeted, ghostly look. The light wind that was pargeting the cloud above her, stirred the leaves of the great magnolia near the house.

Fearful but enthralled, Rachel walked slowly through the lower path of the pleasure garden, out on to the back drive which led down to the stables. She could see clearly the black mass of shrubbery which held the Chinese garden. She felt a wild desire to see it by moonlight, to evoke from it an even greater mystery and enchantment; its weed-haunted pool a mirror for stars, its pagodas and bridges
harbouring unfathomable shadows, drained of colour. Normal childhood fears overcame her. Should she persuade Margaret to go with her, who knew the garden as well as she did, or better? She hurried round the house, over the loose gravel, and in at the still-open front door. There was no one about. It was nearly ten. Quietly, she crossed the hall and let herself into the back corridors. The music cell was still empty, and she stood there in the darkness, her heart beating, her eyes filled with the pattern of the garden, silver and shadow.

But Margaret did not come. Standing alone, Rachel's exaltation ebbed away. The scents of night faded from her nostrils. The cold bloom of the night air vanished from her skin. The immediate smell of fungoid decay, the close touch of stale air in the deserted room, slowly enveloped her. With a sudden impulse, she left the music cell, and crossing the hall, let herself out of the front door once again.

She turned away from the house and began to walk quickly across the grass towards the distant shrubbery. There was no need now to go to the bridge by the longer and more discreet route. A few lights still shone from the upstairs windows and she fortified herself against her fears by looking back at them from time to time. Then a kind of bravado began to take possession of her. The shrubbery enclosing the Chinese garden loomed larger, and her physical terror at its black density increased with every step, but to counteract it there grew within her a stubborn determination to meet its challenge and a romantic conviction that the garden was hers only if she could win it through this night ordeal. When she reached the palings she realized with momentary relief that she had no pliers, hesitated, even turned back towards the house, and then
faced the palings again, stiff with fear, almost weeping. She pulled the loosened strands of wire apart and pushed her way into the undergrowth. Her progress to the centre became an ordeal. The Chinese garden assumed the stature of a spiritual prize. She pursued her way doggedly and the purgative property of pure terror stripped her mind of its earlier associations. Its bravado, its romanticism, its secrecy, were pared away, leaving in their place something so intimate, so powerful in its impact, that her final emergence upon the edge of the dark lake, with its silent pagoda and waiting willows, was like an embrace.

When Rachel left the garden, she was too exhausted to combat the simple, primitive panic of trees and darkness. She ran back to the house as though fiends were after her and climbed in by a form-room window. Lights were out now. The house was full of shadows and creaking. She went up by the back stairs past the corridor where Rena slept. She paused at a landing and looked along the passage and saw with surprise a figure standing at one of the windows. For a moment she backed against the wall, fearing to be seen. Whoever it was turned to go, and for a second her head was silhouetted against the window. It was Margaret. Rachel called out in a whisper.

They stood at the window, looking out over the roofs of the kitchen quarters at the back of the house.

‘I couldn't come,' Margaret said, defensively. ‘I got caught by someone. I'm awfully sorry. Did you wait for me?' And without waiting for Rachel's reply, she went on quickly: ‘I say, you're still dressed, and you're wet. Have you been
out
? By yourself?'

‘Yes.' Rachel felt dazed. ‘I waited for you in the cell and then I went out.' She did not say where.

They stood in silence. Neither knew what to say to the other. Both had come from an incommunicable experience. Both were trying to adjust themselves to the world of school, which was reasserting its dominion over them with every moment they stood there.

‘God, you will catch it if anyone finds you still dressed,' said Margaret. ‘I can say I was just going to the lavatory, but you can't.'

‘You're a good way off from your room,' observed Rachel.

‘I shall say I like the lavatories on this floor better than the ones on mine,' retorted Margaret, with a touch of her old sardonic humour. ‘Oh, damn, there
is
someone. Clear off. I'll deal with her.'

Miss Burnett slouched into the light, cigarette between her lips. Rachel had stood her ground, unwilling to go.

‘You're up late,' observed Miss Burnett. ‘Why?'

‘I was being excused,' answered Margaret, ‘and I ran into Rachel. She's been with Chief. Good night, Rachel. Good night, Miss Burnett.' Margaret started to go.

‘Wait a moment,' said Miss Burnett, ‘why down here?'

Margaret gave a conspiratorial grin. ‘Oh well, it gives me an opportunity to stretch my legs. It's so boring in bed when you can't sleep.'

Miss Burnett was close to Rachel now and could see that her hair was damp. No longer interested in Margaret, who was slowly walking away towards the stairs, she caught hold of the other and turned her fully into the light.

‘You've been with Chief?'

‘Yes.'

‘Your hair's very damp.'

‘I've been out for a walk. Chief said I could.'

‘Chief gave you permission – at this time of night in February?' repeated Miss Burnett incredulously.

‘Yes, she did really, Miss Burnett. Only … I wish you wouldn't say anything.'

‘Why? Because it isn't true?' asked Miss Burnett, her cigarette glowing in the dim light, and revealing a mocking expression on her face.

‘No. It
is
true. She did give me permission, but I was out rather longer than I meant to be.'

‘You're very cold,' said Miss Burnett. ‘Your hair's soaking. Where have you been. You, and I suppose Margaret. Not smoking in my chicken houses?'

‘No, not there, and Margaret wasn't with me. Please, Miss Burnett, don't tell Chief. She mightn't give me permission again if she knew how late I'd been.'

‘We shall be allies, Rachel,' answered Miss Burnett, stubbing out her cigarette on the window sill. ‘What was Margaret doing here, then?'

‘Oh, she was really just going to be excused. It was only an accident our meeting.'

‘It's a thin story,' she said, leaning back against the wall and surveying Rachel in the half light coming in through the window. ‘A damned thin story.'

‘But it is true, honestly.'

‘Are you very fond of Margaret?' asked Miss Burnett, suddenly leaning forward nearer Rachel.

‘Oh well, I like her,' answered Rachel defensively.

‘Why don't you … let her …'Miss Burnett hesitated and turned the sentence round another way. ‘I think you ought to see less of her.'

A feeling of rebellious hatred for Bampfield and for Miss Burnett's sudden volte-face came over Rachel.

‘Margaret and I hate this place,' she said savagely. ‘That's why we're friends. We
both
hate it. It's a prison. I thought at least
you'd
understand and leave us alone, but …'

‘I suppose I sometimes remember that I am one of your teachers, and responsible for your welfare,' said Miss Burnett drily.

‘I don't want you to remember. I want to be free.'

‘You can't be,' said Miss Burnett. ‘No one is.'

Rachel could feel tears rising in her eyes, and leaving the window she half ran back to her room and undressed and crept between the ice-cold sheets to abandon herself to transports of grief.

CHAPTER TWELVE

                
What we changed was innocence for innocence; we knew not

                
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd

                
That any did.

S
HAKESPEARE

N
EXT
day, Margaret wanted to know what Miss Burnett had said the night before, and was relieved to find that she had not threatened to report Rachel, and had, apparently, accepted the excuse for her own presence on the landing. Rachel later saw her conveying this news to Rena, to the obvious delight of both. But Margaret displayed no further curiosity about that evening and offered no fuller explanation of her failure to come to the music cell. She appeared, in fact, to avoid Rachel as far as possible, and at chance meetings her face assumed an amiable, withdrawn expression. She made bantering remarks that glanced away so quickly that any real conversation was impossible. Sometimes, in the evenings, Rachel saw her and Rena flitting down the stone corridors to the music cells, and – like any other adolescent – she felt herself, rather bitterly, passed over. She was surprised, therefore, when Margaret gripped her arm one Sunday evening after chapel, and whispered – ‘Come out in the grounds with me. Please –' in tones of urgency.

It was fine, and the cold air hardly mattered to children who had access to so many secret places. By mutual consent they went to Miss Burnett's chicken room, a wooden shed
in which were stored the bins of meal. The soft mounds of toppings accommodated them very comfortably. Margaret produced a packet of cigarettes, and they settled down, side by side. It seemed like old times and Rachel felt touched and flattered.

‘You old devil,' she said affectionately. ‘Why didn't you come to the music cell that night? I waited for half an hour, and I'd had such an evening with Chief … I was aching to tell you about it.'

‘Were you?' said Margaret, evasively.

She was more enigmatical than ever. In the darkness, even her masklike face could not be seen.

‘Well, why didn't you come?' pursued Rachel, pulling happily on her cigarette. ‘I was angry at the time.'

‘It was Rena, I suppose. She wanted me. I wouldn't have told you that, but you're about the only person in this prison who would be likely to understand.'

Rachel felt that she understood perfectly well. She herself had a strong conscience about Bisto and had on occasion given up something she wanted to do far more, in order to be with her or keep a promise to her.

‘Have you read this?' asked Margaret suddenly. She held a newspaper cutting and played the light of her torch on it. The sixth form common-room took several newspapers, including
The Times
. I don't think any of us read the news. Some read the sporting columns – we were a great school for the manly game of cricket – and I at least read the book reviews. It was among these that I had read one day at the beginning of that term a full column review of Radclyffe Hall's novel,
The Well of Loneliness
. I wondered then what all the fuss was about. It seemed an important book, but I could not quite see why. My technical knowledge of sex
was too meagre to enable me to relate what little I knew to the reviewer's account of the novel. Now here was that very same cutting in Margaret's hand.

‘Have you read it?' she asked. ‘The book, I mean.'

‘No, have you?'

‘I haven't yet, but I'm going to. Anyway, if you've read the review you know what it's about.'

Unsure, Rachel said nothing.

‘How damned unfair it is – ' Margaret went on – ‘the way you can't live with someone you want, without everyone interfering and making your life hell. All anyone thinks about is marriage.'

‘Well, I haven't read the book,' began Rachel. Her ignorance handicapped her badly, and she wanted to get away from a conversation, the implications of which were vague and disturbing. She thought of her play.

‘Why should anyone
want
to marry?' she asked. ‘It's just a chain. In fact, that's what my play is about.'

Here at last was the opportunity to talk to Margaret about
Clytemnestra
. She felt she had been rather adroit, and was about to embark happily upon the theme of the play, when Margaret cut in. ‘I'm not talking about ordinary marriage. I'm not interested in it. It's only got one purpose – the procreation of children. I read the marriage service the other day, and I know all about it. And I don't want children.'

‘Marriage,' said Rachel pontifically, her mind still on Clytemnestra's marital troubles, ‘marriage is compulsory and licensed adultery. That's what I'm trying to say in
Clytemnestra
. It's about her free and glorious love for Aegisthus.'

‘What's
Clytemnestra
? I never heard of it.'

‘My play,' said Rachel impatiently.

‘Oh, yes.' Margaret hesitated. ‘I
do
want to hear about it, of course, but let me ask you something first – you might put it in your play, anyway. Why is everybody so dead set on
marriage
? Don't you think we ought to be free to live our own lives without society interfering with us?'

‘Of course I do,' said Rachel. ‘I keep telling you – that's what the play is about. The essence of love is that it should be free.'

‘Nobody thinks that – or very few.'

‘All the great writers thought it,' said Rachel sweepingly. ‘You should read Shelley.'

‘I hate Shelley,' replied Margaret promptly. ‘He was soft and fat and white, like a snail without a shell.'

‘He wasn't,' retorted Rachel. ‘You wouldn't say that if you'd read
Prometheus Unbound
.'

‘Well, he looked like that.' Margaret sounded sulky. ‘And he had sordid love affairs and some poor fool drowned herself for love of him.'

‘Well, why not? It was noble of her. I'd drown myself for someone like Shelley.'

‘I wouldn't,' answered Margaret. ‘I'd only drown myself for someone really worth while … for someone really beautiful that I felt I couldn't … I couldn't live without.'

‘Like Rena?' asked Rachel, hardly knowing why she had put the question.

Margaret let out a long hiss of breath, as though she had been holding it in tensely for some moments.

‘Like Rena,' she said. ‘You'd think Chief would understand, wouldn't you? But she and the others, they're always trying to separate us. Georgie Murrill wouldn't sign my pass last Saturday. Rena and I were going to Colverton, and we'd put Audrey Parrish down a third, though we were
going to get rid of her, of course, and Georgie crossed the pass through and made Rena go with that ghastly Anderton crowd and Audrey and me go with Ann Ashley and her party. God knows what right people like Georgie Murrill have to interfere.'

‘Oh, they're always trying to separate people,' said Rachel. ‘They don't like me being so friendly with you.'

‘I know,' said Margaret. ‘But somehow, not Chief. She's different. She'd understand, and what's more, she's got courage. She doesn't care what the world thinks.'

‘I don't see why you're so worried,' said Rachel, ‘you seem to see plenty of Rena in spite of them all.'

Margaret shrugged her shoulders, as though dismissing the subject.

‘Oh, it'll work out,' she said lightly. ‘I think I miss your scintillating conversation, Rachel. I grow old and think too much. I find myself discontented.' She was her old half-mocking self. ‘Divine discontent.'

‘God, that's what I feel,' said Rachel at once, putting her cigarette out. ‘If only I could write something worth while.'

‘You will,' said Margaret, ‘I'm sure you will. You're the only person in this damned hole – I keep telling you – you're the only person who isn't utterly ordinary. You make it bearable.'

There was a moment's pause. Almost without intending it, Rachel heard herself say, as though she were unable to leave the subject alone, ‘What about Rena?'

‘Rena?
She
doesn't make Bampfield bearable. Sometimes I even hate her. I do tonight. I sometimes despise you, when you play the fool and fritter away your talents on parodies, but I never
hate
you.'

‘You seem very thick with Rena, if you hate her.'

Margaret drew on the last remnant of her cigarette, lighting up for a moment her dark, intense eyes, and strong jutting nose. ‘Don't
you
think she's fascinating?' she asked. ‘I do.'

Rachel remained silent.

‘Let's go back,' said Margaret abruptly. ‘I feel awful – melancholy mad. I could cut my throat. Play something to me before we go to bed. I don't want to go up yet. I can't face … well, I can't face it. I'd like to sleep out in one of these corn bins, but I suppose those bloody prefects would find out and raise the hue and cry. Let's go in and you play me some Bach, Rachel. There's just time, if we hurry.'

‘Why do you always want Bach?' asked Rachel curiously, whose own tastes at this time ran to the Romantics.

‘He's another world,' said Margaret.

‘Not Bampfield, you mean?'

‘Not Bampfield, not anywhere. He's outside me and you and Rena and the whole blasted universe. I wish I could play the piano. I'd play nothing but Bach. Everything falls into place in his music. It's the only music I like. Strong and intellectual. Above ordinary feeling.'

‘I don't think Bach's unfeeling,' said Rachel.

‘No, not unfeeling, but not full of ordinary down-in-the-mud feelings. Not all messed up with feelings for one particular person.'

‘Oh, well,' said Rachel, uncomprehendingly. Her playing of Bach was largely the result of technical necessity and she infinitely preferred Beethoven's slow movements. She sat down at the piano and watched with a certain wonder the dark unrest of Margaret's face change almost to serenity as she played.