The Dangerous Years (21 page)

John woke them next morning by battering on the door. He jockeyed them for being a pair of lazy devils, and losing the first sight of the mountains. Joan washed and dressed the boy, to the accompaniment of the extra exertions of the locomotive, puffing up into the foothills of the Alps.

Adrian at first was irrepressible with excitement, but by the time they arrived in the late afternoon he had worn himself out, and it was a pale little waif who entered the hotel, clinging to Joan's arm, and staring about him with tired eyes. Darkness came down soon after they arrived, and the hotel woke to its evening festivities, which Boys sniffed at with good-humoured contempt.

Joan put Adrian to bed early, reassuring him by promising to look in during the evening, and again when she went to bed in the next room. She told him that Mr. Boys would be in the room on the other side of her.

“Won't you be lonely?” he asked, when he learned of this disposition of forces.

Joan parried the question, but he returned to a problem
that puzzled him. She recollected his father's words about his having a one-track mind.

“Mr. Boys is your husband. Why don't you sleep together? My mother and father do. Don't all mothers and fathers?”

“Well,” she said, putting out the bedside lamp, “you see, we are not a mother and father, are we? So that makes a difference.”

“Yes, I suppose it does,” he said, dubiously. “But I don't see …” Joan did not wait. She left the night lamp glowing, and shut the door. Her heart was thumping as she returned to her own room. The old unhappiness came sweeping down, and she thought of her mother again; a subject put into the back of her mind during the journey. The sound of dance music floated up from below. Oh, the world is mad, mad; she thought. Leave me alone! She could not be sure whom she was addressing. John would serve. But was she sure that she did want him to leave her alone? Hesitating in the corridor, she looked back at the door of his room, behind which, no doubt, he was examining his skis, or polishing his skates.

John had them up early next morning, to see the sunrise and the first darting of the fierce beams along the valley. The western heights turned to flamingo-wings, deepened, faded, set to a day-long splendour of distant purity. Each excrescence along the valley, snow-mounds, humps of human index, runnels left by skis, patches of fir, threw an extension of itself along the surface which had been swept clean overnight by a wind so delicate that it might have come down out of the full moon, which was still smouldering in the south-west after sun-up.

Man, wife and the little changeling (who seemed to be diminished in size in this strange setting) stood in the winter garden, looking out over the alpine drama, hushed into awe. From time to time Boys sniffed, his healthy nostrils snuffing the prospect of battle.

“We must get out,” he said, putting a hand on the child's shoulder. “What d'you say, Joan? No need to waste time. Though I'm free for a good spell, you know. No need to hurry back to Cambridge. So we can start gradually. Do a little more each day. You going to be a climber, son?” He addressed Adrian affectionately. The child had captured him merely by being so eager to see the mountains.

Joan studied them both, standing between her and the world of light beyond. They made a double silhouette, mere outlines, dense against the blinding glory. She quoted a couple of lines of verse:

“‘Were those clouds mountains, I would take
A thousand risks to scale their heights.'”

John looked round, amused.

“Nothing cloudy about
those
heights, old girl. That's the real thing, the old adversary. Gy Bod, it makes my blood tingle!”

He led them away to breakfast, in the super-heated dining-room, and the chatter of guests, all equally urgent to get through the meal and out of doors.

After the scented beauty of Paris in winter, the odourlessness of the alpine air acted on the senses like an antiseptic on a wound. It stung, it cleaned, it drew the tender ligaments together and braced the minds of the newcomers. It drove the child crazy. The very silence of the snows, that absorbed even the cries and bangings and scrunchings of the crowd of humans in the vicinity of the hotel, acted upon Adrian's imagination. He stood about, his small body disfigured by the clothes which Joan, over-anxiously, had piled upon him; not a word did he say, at first. His eyes flickered, reflecting the upward glitter of the snow, so that his face took on a slightly imbecilic look. Then he turned, and peered in the direction of the sun,
staring into the sky and blinking at the intense blue and the invisible fire centred there. He was murmuring something to himself, and his gloved hands rose and fell from his hips.

“What's on, old man?” asked Boys, busy supervising the equipment, and pointing out to Joan various technical matters connected with their sport.

“It's an open scale,” said Adrian, a remark that caused the athlete to pause, stare at the child, then look enquiringly at Joan.

“We'd better get cracking,” he said. “He'll get cold if we stand about. I wish your mother was here. She'd appreciate all this, eh, Joan?”

The first morning was a strenuous one, getting muscles into gear, putting Adrian for the first time on skis, and giving him a lesson. They withdrew themselves a little from the learners, who were crowded round the two Swiss instructors. John proposed to teach Adrian alone, he being so young. Joan went off by herself for a few runs, hardly out of sight of the man and boy. She too wanted to withdraw herself; she could not be sure from what.

Ploughing her way up the slope of the first run, she rose above the top of the buildings, the fir trees, and stared across to the other side of the valley, over which the sun now stood, dwarfing the ridge below him. She felt his fierce light on her cheeks, and had to readjust her dark glasses. She turned up her throat to the caress, and let the fingers of light seize her. She began to breathe deeply, her breast rising and falling. The sunlight became a presence, a person. It whispered to her, and grew bolder. She turned away, studied the ground behind her, up the slope, then the run down, took her calculations of distances, and let go.

The air rushed past her, a laughter of powers almost to be seen, snatched at as she fled. She saw the two tiny figures below, growing larger and taller where they
struggled and floundered. She heard the shrill voice of the child, and his shriek of joy when he fell and John picked him up and set him going again. It was obvious that he was taking to it quickly, with a sense of the rhythm of the movements, and the right balance.

She came back to them, all the bells of her body ringing with a clamour of physical exhilaration. John chuckled, told her to take over, and went off for a trial run over the tracks of Joan's skis. Adrian welcomed this change with enthusiasm, boasting of his skill, falling again and revelling like a puppy in the snow. Hand in hand with Joan he began to move, colliding and bringing them both down.

“Look at that youngster,” said a passer-by, chuckling at the child's delight.

The midday break for luncheon came too quickly, but hunger drove the guests down to the hotel like a flock of sheep. Joan, after the morning's exhilaration and the heavy meal, grew sleepy, and she sat in the baroque drawing-room, the vastness of it giving her the impression that she was sinking away, the walls receding, advancing, with the great chandeliers glittering above, a menace of rainbow flashes. At the far end, on a low platform, stood a concert grand pianoforte, and several music-stands made of mahogany, in the shape of lyres on legs. The instruments of a dance-band stood around the piano.

Guests began to trickle into the room, smoking and chatting. The elders had already had enough outdoor activity for the day, and intended to make themselves comfortable, with reading matter, bridge, perhaps a little dancing when the musicians came to the stage. Joan did not observe them closely. She was sleepy, and the familiar unrest had begun to creep back. She wondered what was happening in Paris. But that must not be followed up; it had an unsavoury taste. She sat, with set mouth, combating this vagary of mind, when her attention was caught by Adrian, who had come in with her, John having gone
off again, his plan being to put in some
real
ski-ing until dusk.

“Oh!” said Adrian, suddenly catching sight of the paraphernalia on the platform. He stood up, his head erect, his attention fixed. “Look, Joan,” he said, without indicating what he wanted her to observe. But there was no mistaking his fascination, or its source. He was glaring at the piano hungrily. Then he looked up at the height of the room, its ceiling almost obscured in mist, or broken shadows from the chandeliers. He was calculating the acoustics, perhaps, or enjoying that unheard music which is sweeter than the heard.

More people came in, and dispersed themselves amongst the comfortable arm-chairs, sofas and around card tables. The room absorbed them. It could accommodate over a hundred, surely, if they were packed close; or maybe five hundred. Adrian appeared to be making all these calculations, his small body dead still, while his eyes roved up and down, and around, taking in everything.

Then he began to move forward, gradually edging towards the stage. Joan was nodding. Sleep, the just reward of skiers, was overcoming her. But before the boy could reach the piano, Joan, prodded by instinct, roused herself, and saw what he was at. Instantly she realised the responsibility undertaken in bringing the child away from Paris and the influence of Aloysius Sturm; yes, and also the colonel and her mother. The thought of this latter couple roused her fighting temper. She darted after Adrian, took him by the arm, and said almost roughly, so that he looked up at her in amazement, almost in fear:

“No, Adrian! You must not play while all these people are about. They want to be quiet after lunch. Besides, it is not what your father would like. He …”

Happily, no further explanation was possible, for the bandsmen came in, and Adrian's attention became passive. He wanted only to watch them, and to listen.
He sat at first on the arm of Joan's chair, kicking the side of it with his shoe. But after the first two items, the usual march and Viennese valse, when the pianist gave a solo, the boy slipped down and made himself snug on Joan's lap. He seemed to be bored by the performer, a capable pianist, who was playing a serenade by Rachmaninoff, a hackneyed piece, but new to the child. He pressed his head down into Joan's shoulders and clasped her jersey so firmly that it dragged down over her breast.

“Don't strangle me, Adrian,” she whispered, below the music. But he only clung the closer, as though afraid, or appealing to her about something too poignant for his nerves to tolerate. His lips trembled, and tears gathered in his eyes.

“I can't!” he muttered.

“Hush, darling. Can't what?”

She was lost too. What could be working in that young brain? Obviously he was desperate about something. It was not right for him to be emotional. It was wearing him out. His father was quite sure in that diagnosis. The smallest excitement, such as this languid Russian serenade, acted like a drug on the boy. Joan looked around with some embarrassment, and saw near her an elderly man who had just appeared in the room. He was stocky, with a large, square head and a heavy face, iron-grey hair and moustache, thick brows. He looked sternly around, and frowned at the group of musicians on the platform. His eyes were sombre. Joan could see them, for he stood close to her. Then she saw that he had observed Adrian's nervous behaviour. His gaze settled on the boy, and he approached, to put a short-fingered hand on his shoulder.

“Eh?” he said, as the pianist finished and a few hands clapped. “It is too sad for you, my son?” He smiled, and the grim statue, carved in limestone, came to life. The gentleness and humanity of the stranger's face acted on both the boy and the suspicious young woman. He spoke
to Joan, asked the boy's age, patted his cheek, and passed on, murmuring, “Intelligent; intelligent!” He saw that the saxophonist was about to perform, and he walked out through another door. Joan observed that one or two of the guests showed interest in the stolid figure, and made some remarks to each other about him. Then both she and Adrian fell asleep, the child in her arms, while the dance band played on, their music making a latter-day lullaby.

In Paris the calm, cold weather broke, and gales began to blow from the west, bringing rain and disorder. The boulevards became ravines, along which it was an adventure to struggle, with flapping garments, water in one's eyes, a hat lost, or an umbrella disembowelled. Bobbles were torn from the plane trees, posters from the kiosks. Up by the Lion de Belfort, where the height caught the full blast, a hoarding fell across the road and smashed a shop window. Casualties were reported in the evening papers. Day after day passed in this rout, with nights disturbed, so that even the Parisians talked of the weather, as though degenerating into an English habit.

Mary Winterbourne and Colonel Batten, however, accepted all this as an obbligato to their deep content. Their days were innocent, their nights paradisal.

Mary rapidly lost all sense of guilt. At fifty, few things surprise us, and a new habit is formed in a day. She took this superb and sensual life almost for granted, bringing to her passion for Tom Batten a matter-of-factness that charged her endearments and caresses with a solidity that amazed him, and filled him with gratitude. By comparison, young love, with the timidities of a girl and the half-roused appetite of a youth, was hardly more than a barmecide feast. Mary Winterbourne and Tom Batten, scarred by life, weighed down with past responsibilities,
depressed by that sense of impersonality which comes with wider experience of the world and a recognition of one's own littleness, suddenly found a way to throw off the burden of the years. The meridian passed, their sky already faintly shadowed toward the coming night, they looked westward boldly, and saw this superb pageant of light, touched with a sultry vagary of colours, reflections and broken rays from the clouds of the past. The beauty made them drunk.