The Gazebo (2 page)

She took hold of herself with an effort. The open street was here, and she had got to face it. And catch a bus, and go back to Belview Road. She became really conscious for the first time of the twenty-five scarlet skulls glaring at her from the shop window. Once you had seen them it was quite impossible to lose them again. They insisted on being seen and disliked, they forced their way in amongst your thoughts and occasioned an extraordinary revulsion there. Here was murder and sudden death. Crude violence violently displayed. And she was letting herself be worried about a hair-lotion and a pot of vanishing-cream! All at once something in her kicked and it seemed damnably silly. To start with, she probably wouldn’t see Nicholas at all. People in the suburbs go up to town, but no one comes down from town to a suburb unless there is something to bring him there. There was nothing to bring Nicholas to Grove Hill. The aunt with whom he used to come and stay had gone to join a sister in Devonshire. There was very little likelihood that Althea would meet him round any street corner. But if by any chance she did, why should he see her looking as if she had been feeding an empty heart on ashes for the five longest and loneliest years of her life? It was true, but the naked truth could be a terribly shaming thing. She would never see Nicholas again, but if she did see him she would contrive to fly a flag or two.

As she turned away from the shop window. Myra Hutchinson waved to her from across the street. She was a decorative creature, vivid as a poster in brown corduroy slacks and an orange cardigan above which her hair glowed like a newly minted penny. When they were at school together she had been a wisp of a white-faced girl with sandy eyelashes. Those days were gone. The lashes were now dark enough to set off the grey-green eyes. There was colour in the cheeks, there was a brightly painted mouth. The effect was cheerful and attractive. She had been married for five years and she had three children. She was a couple of years older than Althea, and she looked half a dozen years younger.

Althea turned round and went back to Burrage’s.

IT WAS WHEN she was walking up the High Street on the way to the bus stop that she encountered Mr Martin. She was passing his office – Martin & Steadman, house-agents – and he was seeing a prosperous-looking client out. The client went off in the direction from which Althea was coming, so that Mr Martin really couldn’t help seeing her.

He was a sidesman in the church which Mrs Graham attended, and they had known each other since she was a little girl. A couple of years ago he had let their house for them, and she had taken her mother down to the sea for three months. It had not been a very successful experiment, and she had no wish to repeat it. She bowed, gave him a grave smile and was about to pass on, when he said,

‘Oh, Miss Graham – good morning. How very fortunate, running into you like this. Could you spare me a moment?’

She said, ‘Well…’ and found herself being ushered across the threshold, through the outer office, and along the narrow passage which led to his private room. The house was an old one. There were two meaningless and inconvenient steps down at one end of the passage and two more up at the other end, but the room itself looked pleasantly out upon a garden full of old-fashioned flowers. As she sat facing Mr Martin across his writing-table she could see a round bed full of roses set in a square of crazy paving, and beyond it two wide borders full of phlox, helenium, carnations and gladioli, with a paved path running between them. Mr Martin fancied himself as a gardener. His own garden up the hill was a show piece, and nothing pleased him better than to hear people stop and admire it as they went by. He beamed at Althea and said,

‘Now I expect you are wondering why I wanted to see you.’

‘Well, yes…’

He leaned back in his chair and put his hands together in a professional manner.

‘Of course I could have rung you up, but I didn’t want to make it too formal, if you know what I mean.’

Since she hadn’t the least idea, she said nothing at all. After a moment he went on again.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I have had a client making inquiries about house property in this neighbourhood, and it did just cross my mind to wonder whether you would be interested.’

‘I’m afraid not, Mr Martin.’

Well, he had put it to her, and she had come out with what looked like a flat enough ‘No’. He frowned, pushed out his lips, and said in a casual tone,

‘It’s a Mr Blount and his wife – delicate sort of lady – Fanciful, if you know what I mean, and it seems Grove Hill has taken her fancy. Thinks it’s healthy, which of course it is. Thinks it suits her. They are staying at that guest house of Miss Madison’s half way up the hill, and she says she doesn’t know when she’s been anywhere that suited her better. She says she doesn’t know when she’s slept better anywhere, so they are all set to buy and it just crossed my mind to wonder…’

‘Oh, no, Mr Martin, we haven’t any idea of selling.’

‘No?’ said Mr Martin. ‘Now you know, your mother gave me quite a different idea. Just a few words I had with her over the hedge the other evening. I was passing, and I stopped to admire your begonias in the front garden – very fine indeed, if I may say so – and Mrs Graham certainly gave me to understand…’

‘What did she say, Mr Martin?’

He searched his memory.

‘Oh, nothing definite of course. Pray do not think I meant to imply that there was anything definite. It was just she gave me the impression that the house was larger than she required – in point of fact that it gave you too much to do, and that she would not be averse to a sale if the terms were sufficiently advantageous.’

A little colour had come into Althea’s face. Mr Martin admired it. He had a benevolent disposition, and he had known her since she was ten years old. She had had quite a bright colour then. He liked to see a girl with a colour. He was afraid Althea Graham had a very dull time of it, shut up with an invalid mother. Very charming woman Mrs Graham, of course, but a girl needed younger friends. She was the same age as his Dulcie, and Dulcie had been twenty-seven a month ago. Married young, both of his girls, and no good saying he didn’t miss them, because he did, but a young woman needed a home of her own and a husband and children. He looked at Althea who had none of these things and said,

‘Mr Blount would give a very good price…’

Mrs Graham was pottering in the garden when Althea came up the road. It was a warm sunny day, and other people besides Mr Martin stopped and looked over the hedge to admire the begonias. Mrs Graham had a pleasant feeling that the admiration did not stop at the flowers. A garden was the most attractive setting a woman could have. Her hair was hardly grey at all, and she had kept her complexion and her figure. She had a picture of herself, graceful and fragile amongst her flowers.

She came into the house with Althea and told her about the people who had passed and what they had said.

‘And the Harrisons and Mr Snead will be coming in to bridge. Well, you must make a cake and some of those nice light scones. It really was very pleasant in the garden. Did you get that Sungleam stuff? Now I wonder would there be time to get my hair washed and set? It would have to be before lunch, because of my rest in the afternoon.’

‘Mother, I’ve got to cook the lunch. Of course if you could manage it yourself…’

There was a pause, after which Mrs Graham said gently,

‘You are sometimes a little thoughtless, dear. Do you think it is kind to remind me that I am a burden to you?’

‘No, Mother…’

Mrs Graham smiled bravely.

‘It’s all right, darling – I don’t want to complain. It’s just – Mrs. Harrison is always so well turned out, and it would have been rather nice. I’m really longing to try the Sungleam, but of course, as you say, there’s lunch.’ She broke into a sudden smile. ‘No, darling, I’ve had an idea. You’ve been rather a long time this morning, but we can manage if we are quick. We’ll do my hair, because I do feel that is important. You know, Mrs Justice is having her cocktail party on Saturday, and I don’t like to leave trying a new thing like the Sungleam to the last minute in case it didn’t turn out all right, so we’ll get on with it now. We’ll just have an omelette for lunch, and some of that last cake you made. It is a particularly good one, and there isn’t really enough of it to come in for tea. So hurry, darling, hurry, and you’ll see it will all fit in beautifully.’

The Sungleam proved very successful. It was while she was setting the abundant fair hair that Althea said,

‘What did you say to Mr Martin to make him think that we should be willing to sell the house?’

Mrs Graham said in an absent-minded voice,

‘Mr Martin… Oh, dear I don’t think that curler is right. You’ll have to take it out again.’

Althea undid the curler and repeated Mr Martin’s name.

‘He admired the begonias – over the hedge – and you seem to have given him the idea that we should be willing to sell.’

Mrs Graham picked up the hand-mirror and twisted round to see the curls at the back of her head.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ve sometimes thought – houses have been fetching such very good prices…’

‘We should have to buy another, and that would fetch a good price too.’

‘Oh, there wouldn’t be any need to settle down again at once. I have wondered about a cruise. I believe one meets the most charming people. The Harrisons went last year, and they enjoyed it so much. They missed all the cold weather and came home again in the spring. It sounded delightful.’

‘The Harrisons could afford it. I don’t see how we could.’

‘Oh, it would have to come out of the money we got for the house.’

‘And what do we live on when we have spent our capital?’

‘But, darling, what else is there to live on? It’s the only possible way. The Harrisons have been doing it for years – she told me so herself. Suppose it costs us five hundred pounds. I don’t know that it would, but just for the sake of argument suppose it did. I don’t know how much interest we get on that for a year, but by the time the income tax has come off there is so little left that I can’t see that it really matters whether we get it or not – and we should have had our cruise. You know, darling, it is all very well for you – you get out a great deal more than I do – but there are times when I feel that I might have better health if I could get away from Grove Hill. I said so to Ella Harrison, and she said of course what I really needed was to meet fresh people and to have more interests in life. As she says, I am really quite a young woman still. I was only seventeen when you were born, and even so, she wouldn’t believe me when I told her you were twenty-seven.’

Althea gave a short laugh.

‘Was that intended as a compliment for me?’

Mrs Graham had a small satisfied smile as she said,

‘Well, darling, I am afraid not. She just couldn’t believe I had a daughter as old as that. She said she always thought your father must have been married before, and that you were a step-child. Very ridiculous of course, but I could see she meant it.’

Standing behind her mother and looking into the mirror on the rather elaborate dressing-table, Althea could see the two faces reflected there. Even with her hair full of setting-combs and curlers Mrs Graham was a pretty woman. The legend of her marriage at sixteen was of course apocryphal. She had been twenty-one, and Althea was born the following year. Mrs Graham was therefore forty-eight, and she knew perfectly well that Althea was aware of it, but she had been moving the date of her marriage back for years. Beyond sixteen she would, unfortunately, not be able to go, and the trouble was that Althea looked her age and more. She must be induced to take more interest in herself – to encourage the wave in her hair and use a little discreet make-up. She had been an attractive girl – some people had even called her beautiful. It wasn’t a style Mrs Graham admired. Men preferred blondes, and so did she. But Thea had quite good features, and if she were to give herself a little trouble she ought to be able to take five or six years off her age. Of course it wouldn’t go down at Grove Hill, which was full of girls who had been at school with her, but on a cruise among quite fresh people where she could allude to her as ‘my young daughter’ and throw in a smiling remark about girls always being too serious when they had just left school… She went on thinking along these lines, and presently came back to Mr Martin.

‘I think I might really ask him to come and see me. He will know that I cannot get down into the town.’

Althea had finished with the combs and the curlers. She was now putting things away in the washstand drawer. She said over her shoulder.

‘Why do you want to see him?’

‘Darling, to ask him about getting a good price for the house.’

A thought knocked insistently at Althea’s mind. She didn’t want to let it in, but it was difficult to keep it out. She couldn’t help wondering whether Mrs Harrison had told her mother that Nicholas Carey was back from wherever he had been for these five long years. It meant nothing, it couldn’t mean anything, but if Mrs Graham thought that it might, it could be a reason for her interest in a cruise. She said a little more sharply than she had meant to.

‘I saw him this morning, and I told him we didn’t want to sell.’

Mrs Graham turned round on the dressing-stool. She was flushed and shaking.

‘You never told me!’

‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

‘You didn’t want to tell me because you knew what I would say!’

‘Mother… please…’

‘You knew I would like to sell. You knew I wanted to get away from this place that was making me ill.’

‘Mother!’

‘You think of no one but yourself. Do you suppose I don’t know why you don’t want to go away? You’d have jumped at it any time during these five years, but now just because Nicholas Carey is home again you don’t want to go!’ She laughed on a high, angry note. ‘Do you know so little about men as to suppose that he ever gives you a thought? Darling, it’s really very stupid if you do. Five years!’ She laughed again. ‘There will have been dozens of girls since you. That’s what men are like. Have you looked in the glass lately? When Ella Harrison told me he was back I wondered if he would even recognize you.’

‘Mother, you’ll make yourself ill.’

It was her only defence, her only weapon. If she answered back, if she let the sick hurt in her turn to anger, the scene would end as other scenes had done – her mother suddenly frightened at the storm she had raised herself, gasping for breath, alternately clinging to her and pushing her away. There would be the dosing, the getting her to bed, the telephoning to Dr Barrington. It had happened so many times, and she knew her part in it, a part in a play which has been played so often that her response to the cues had become automatic. She must keep her voice low, she must avoid saying or doing anything that could offend, she must produce the sal volatile and the smelling-salts at exactly the right moment, and when the time came she must allow herself to be forgiven.

She went through with it now. It wasn’t, after all, to be one of the worst scenes, since Mrs Graham had fortunately remembered about Mr Snead and the Harrisons coming in to bridge. She had had her hair done on purpose, and she didn’t want to waste the Sungleam, so she checked herself, pressed her hand to her heart, sighed, closed her eyes, and said faintly,

‘I’m not really strong enough for this sort of thing, darling – you ought to know that. If you will just help me to the bed…’

There was a good deal more to it than that – the sal volatile of course, the careful arrangement of pillows, the bed-jacket – ‘no darling, I think I would rather the blue one’ – the fetching of a hot-water-bottle, the spreading of a coverlet, the drawing down of the blinds, the quotations from what Dr Barrington had said upon other occasions, to the final brave ‘I shall be all right if I can be perfectly quiet for a little’ before an erring daughter was dismissed to make the cakes for tea.