The Drowning People (25 page)

Can’t wait to see you.

E

I read this in the car as we drove from the station; and I listened absently as Eric and Jacques spoke to each other at intervals in polite French. As the countryside rattled past and we slowed, approached and passed through a pair of dilapidated stone gateposts I thought excitedly that Ella would soon be in my arms. I remember my excitement then, the impatience with which I waited as we rattled down a long uneven drive towards the house, an ancient block of faded stone dotted by cracked blue shutters. It surprised me that such a house should belong to the Harcourts and that it should be left in such an obvious state of disrepair; certainly the splendors of 23 Chester Square had led me to expect something grander than this, something less desolate.

I saw Ella as we rounded the final curve in the drive. She was waiting for us on the narrow flight of cracked stairs which led to the front door, a fragile figure in pale blue cashmere with ruffled hair and glowing cheeks. I flushed with pleasure as I saw her and looked at Eric to smile too, but he was staring ahead and did not see me. I remember that now. But as the car came to a halt I gave no thought to the firm set of his mouth or to the tension in his shoulders, supposing—if I supposed anything at all—that our long journey had tired him. It had not tired me. As soon as Jacques had braked I was out of the car and Ella was in my arms and I was holding her and swinging her off the steps and she was laughing and pressing herself against me and pulling my shoulders tight to hers. I remember the fine bones of her neck, the delicate arch of her nose, the strands of hair flying about her face as we moved together. Even now the sweet thrill of our reunion on that cold day makes my heart race. And I know with a certainty which will sustain me that our love was not evil, that its end was not inevitable, that Eric’s death and even Sarah’s could have been avoided had either of us been older or stronger or wiser than we were. But we were not; and I ache now for that lovely smiling girl and for the lost passion of the time before my guilt.

It’s ironic, you know: that my tears tonight and all this week will not be for my dead wife but for the lost love of her cousin; that Sarah’s bloodied body has less power to move me than Ella’s sweetly acrid smell of soap and cigarettes, forgotten for so long but now remembered. As I held her in the icy wind I filled my lungs with it. She was laughing wildly when I let her go and she pushed me playfully away as she offered a rosy cheek to Eric.

“Leave your bags here,” Ella said to us, smiling, as she led the way into a low dark hall, cheerless despite the vase of flowers on its central table. “You should see the house before you unpack.”

And so we saw the house; and as she led us through it I thought that her vitality was out of place in its somber corridors and drafty rooms; that the click of her heels on its flagstones should be heard in lighter, younger air than that to be found between the unloved walls of that decaying house. Recollection is curious. I never went back to it after Eric’s death, and that was almost fifty years ago; but every detail of Les Varrèges—for that is what the house was called—is etched in my mind still. I can trace the patterns of its thick walls, the sequence of its few large rooms; I can recall the number of doors in its low-ceilinged hall, the musty odor of wood smoke and dusty rugs which hung heavy in its air. I remember its fireplaces, large enough for a small person to stand upright in; its pockmarked wooden beams made from the timber of sixteenth-century warships and blackened by centuries of soot; the layout of its guest wing, a nineteenth-century addition; the plan of its gardens.

“I’m afraid we haven’t opened all the bedrooms,” Ella told us as she led us down a vaulted passage. “There are only us three in the house. And Dr. Pétin, of course, who’s in there.” She pointed to a door. “Jacques and Madame Clancy live in the village and we didn’t think it worthwhile opening and airing everything for so few.”

I followed her, delighting in the lilting cadences of her voice.

“You’ll meet the good doctor later,” she went on. “I expect he’s gone for one of his rambles.” As she spoke she paused outside a paneled oak door. “This is your room,” she said to us. “I thought I’d put you two in one without any leaks.” And she turned a handle and motioned Eric and me inside a large airy room, more homely than the others, which gave onto the garden. A strong smell of lavender mingled with the odor of wood and fire met us and Ella, sniffing, pretended to choke. “Madame Clancy is a great devotee of scented bedrooms, you know,” she explained as she went to one of the sash windows and opened it. “But we’ll clear the stench soon, don’t you worry.”

Outside, a fog was creeping over the thick screen of yews at the garden’s end. It was a garden past its prime, a once-formal grid of gravel walks and hedges and pruned trees in long lines which had thrown over the yoke of human control and run wild once more. It was ghostly, that garden; romantic and appealing as all ruins are.

“We don’t use the house anymore,” Ella said quietly. “It was my mother’s favorite, you know. She and my father bought it just after they married and I don’t think Pamela likes it much.” She paused and looked about the room. “But Daddy would never sell it…. He lets it molder instead and thinks that a weekly visit from Madame Clancy is enough to keep it in working order.”

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“I do.” Her eyes met mine. “But I don’t like it falling down like this. And it’s terribly gloomy this time of year.”

I nodded.

Ella smiled at me and Eric. “That’s why I’m delighted you’re both here,” she said lightly. “You can relax after all your hard work in Prague and we can keep each other company.”

I nodded and looked towards my friend but he was facing away from me, looking out of the window at the long expanse of garden. I could not see his face and as Ella talked easily of towels and bathrooms I noticed a tension in his shoulders which I dismissed as weariness, remembering how little we had slept in the past twenty-four hours. So when Ella asked us whether we were tired, I said that I, for one, was exhausted.

“Well that’s hardly surprising after your journey.” Her small hand squeezed mine. “Why don’t you both have a rest? Shall I see you for a drink at sevenish?”

“That would be perfect,” I replied, thinking with pleasure of all the time that lay ahead of us to be filled as we wished. Eric, still by the window, said nothing.

“Well then, till seven.” And Ella was gone, closing the door gently behind her as she left.

Slowly I unpacked, dreamily examining the room about me as I did so, catching lingering traces of Ella’s smell. By the bed were old French novels, nicely bound; an armoire held a large china washbowl and a jug with blue flowers painted on it: forget-me-nots, I think. By the fire was a screen embroidered with courtly figures in a stylized rose garden. The house, I could see now, showed traces of once-careful attention only half-forgotten; and I wondered what Ella’s mother had been like, the woman who had chosen the furniture for this room, who had placed the novels by the bed for the amusement and edification of her guests. I went to where Eric stood, quite still, and looked at the view with him. What flowers there were, and they were few now, ran amok; and I saw row upon row of gravel paths lined with yew hedge stretching to a tall boundary line of trees. In the middle was a fountain; and as I watched it sputtered into life and water poured from the open mouths of its frogs.

“What do you think of it?” I asked, but Eric’s only response was a noncommittal grunt. There was a pause while I wondered if anything more serious than tiredness had caused the change in his mood, for even I could not pretend that the taciturn figure at the window bore any relation to the laughing companion I had traveled with; and I thought that maybe the strange atmosphere of that lonely house had depressed him. Certainly it could not have been further in mood from the eclectic splendors of Sokolska 21 and the deep rich colors of Madame Mocsáry’s apartment.

Abruptly he moved away from the glass. “I think I shall have a walk,” he said, and left me.

“Do you want some company?” I called after him as he shut the door. For a moment he paused, opened the door again and looked back at me through black unbrushed curls.

“It is not me who you want to keep you company now, James,” he said quietly; and before I could speak again he had closed the door and I could hear the measured tread of his feet on the stone as he went away down the passage.

Alone in the house with Ella I conquered my impulse to go to her, telling myself that there was plenty of time; and instead I had a hot bath and a shave, for a lover’s vanity could not be satisfied by my dirty travel-stained reflection. I wanted to be fresh for the evening. And as I was dressing Eric returned from his walk more cheerful than he had been when he left for it and full of talk of a deserted quarry beyond the trees at the end of the garden. Pleased at the improvement in his mood I spent a pleasant half hour talking to him before dinner, which we ate with Ella in a small dining room that led off the kitchen. I remember that meal; I remember the old-fashioned china on which it was served, the cozy fire which crackled as an accompaniment to our conversation. We were alone, just us three, for Dr. Pétin had been called out to deliver a baby in the village and was not expected back until very late. We ate a selection of cold meats, left that afternoon by Madame Clancy. We talked of Prague, of the Mocsáry sale, of the quarry which Eric had seen on his walk.

“It’s where they mined the stones for the house,” Ella told us. “It’s very deep; my mother had it flooded for her guests to swim in.” She took a sip of wine. “Now most of the water has drained away and I’m not sure how deep the pool still is. But you’re welcome to a dip, of course, though as December is beginning I wouldn’t advise it very strongly.”

It was Eric who said he wanted to see the quarry by moonlight, and when dinner was over and Dr. Pétin had still not returned we decided that there was no time like the present. So armed with torches the three of us made our way across the gravel paths and through the yew trees, laughing at first—for the atmosphere between us had eased—but gradually falling silent as the spell of the garden took its hold over us. Ella’s small hand found mine in the darkness and held it tightly. Eric, out in front with the torch, shone it back for us and then forwards. Beyond the screen of yews there was nothing to see but a field with rows of neatly planted apple trees that loomed sinister in the darkness.

“We’re heading up there, past the orchard,” Ella whispered to me and pressed me on over the hard ground.

We passed through another line of trees and as we emerged from their cover Eric flicked off his torch and plunged us into darkness. For a moment all was black. Then the moon appeared from behind a bank of cloud and from far off schooldays a line of poetry recurred to me, sole survivor of many, and I thought of Tennyson’s
Idylls of the King
and of the line about “The barren lake / And the long glories of the winter moon.” Here was a barren lake; here was a winter moon luminous in pale gold. Before us was the steep cliff of the quarry, dropping away to black water many feet below. From a cloudless heaven the moon cast an eerie light over the scene and turned bushes into hob-goblins and trees into scrawny giants. We were all silent. In the moonlight I saw Eric’s profile: the prominent arch of his Gallic nose; the line of his jaw; the curls of his black gypsy locks. Beside him was Ella, fragile as china, her skin glowing ghostlike, her fingers interlocked. I stood between them, watching her play with her rings.

I remember telling myself as I stood there that here was beauty. But there was something uncomfortable about the beauty of that scene nonetheless, something disturbing about the quarry’s isolation and its vast unplumbed depths. I thought of huge beasts moving at its murky bottom, waiting. And when my eyes left Ella’s small hands and their glinting rings I looked up and saw Eric watching me with something like pain in his eyes. I saw that Ella was watching him but it was too dark to see the look on her face. My eyes met my friend’s and he switched on the torch once more; the spell, cast so delicately, was broken abruptly. “Come on,” he said, “I’m cold.” And he led the way back to the house with quick defiant steps. Ella and I followed without a murmur.

During that walk a change came over us. Nothing was said; none of us spoke at all, in fact. But when we reached the house things were not as they had been when we left it. There was no comfort in our silence. And as we passed the guest wing on our way to the front door I saw with relief that Dr. Pétin’s light was on.

Ella walked past his windows without acknowledging them. “I can’t face him now,” she said as we climbed the steps; and she looked at me and began to say more but thought better of it. She had not taken my hand or offered me hers on the walk back and as I touched her shoulder now she moved away. “I have to be bubbly and vivacious at all times,” she said eventually with a weak attempt at a smile, “or I don’t get a good report sent to Daddy and Pamela. I’ll introduce you tomorrow.” And she let Eric and me into the darkened hall and bolted the great oak door behind us. “This place gives me the creeps,” she said suddenly, looking about the dim room.

“Me too,” I answered feelingly, wishing that Eric were not with us and that I could be alone with Ella. My friend’s presence and the strange mood which had overtaken him on the walk back made me uncomfortable.

“I think it’s beautiful.” Eric’s tone rang out, unnaturally loud, from the half-darkness. He was standing by the fireplace at the other end of the room, hardly visible in the dying glow of the embers.

“Don’t drift off like that,” I said, startled, surprised by my own edginess.

“Are you two frightened of ghosts?” His tone was derisive and I saw Ella trying to decide whether the mockery in it was friendly.

At length she spoke. “You’re right, this is silly. Good night to you both. May you sleep dreamlessly.” And with a kiss on my cheek she slipped out of the room.

I began to follow her but at the door she turned, looked back, and shook her head. I stood hesitating in the middle of the room. She disappeared. Irritated suddenly, I turned to Eric. “Come on, bedtime,” I said.