The Nutmeg Tree (15 page)

“Let's stop and have a bock,” said Bryan, as they reached the big café.

“Why? You can't want one now, after all you had at lunch,” said Susan reasonably.

“I don't want one, I should like one,” explained Bryan.

Susan did not answer, but merely walked on. She was in no mood for frivolity. Bryan, glancing sideways, observed, and felt it a pity, that her profile was at its best when her mouth closed in that quiet inflexible line. How different a mouth from Julia's with its full lower lip and deep corners! How different from Julia altogether, this slim young Amazon who walked looking straight in front of her, with never an answering glance for the admiring looks commanded by her silver Anglo-Saxon colouring. If only the Julia in her—and surely so vivid a mother must in a daughter live again—could be brought out and allowed to flower! And as always, in the midst of his resentment, Bryan was at once tantalized and enchanted by the vision of a Susan not silvery, but golden; not cold, but warm; of a Susan whom he felt so capable of discovering and of bringing to life—if only the silver Susan would let him.…

“Why did you say that at lunch?” demanded Susan abruptly.

“Say what, darling?”

“About not caring how dirty the money was, so long as it paid for you.”

Bryan grinned. He knew well enough why he had said it: to get a rise out of good old Julia, because he was morally certain that there was something fishy about that note. Although her previous afternoon's activities were in detail unknown to him, he had given, without the least loss of appetite, a surprisingly good guess at their general outline; but he also shared Julia's opinion that Susan would not be pleased.

“That! I don't know,” he said lightly. “Just for the sake of saying something, I suppose.”

“I wish you hadn't,” stated Susan, frowning. “If you didn't mean it, it was just foolish; and if you did it was rather rotten.”

“All right, I'm just a fool,” agreed Bryan amiably. “Let's try going across-country.” He wanted to get off the highroad, among trees, into the shelter of a hedge: he had the firmly-rooted masculine conviction that all female criticism was best met by kissing.

Rather to his surprise, Susan nodded. They turned aside, taking one of the lanes that wound to the right over a little hillock. On its summit rose the abandoned shell of a fine new villa; there was no water on that hilltop, as the impetuous architect had belatedly found out. “What an idiot he must have been!” thought Susan absently. She had no patience with people who leapt before they looked—who staked everything on a view, without considering the water-supply; and since she was now (so to speak) considering a water-supply herself, she did not respond to the pressure of Bryan's hand. She knew already that he could supply her with the view.

“You're not a fool,” she said seriously. “And things like that—they worry me, Bryan. The things that slip out when you're not thinking.”

He let go her hand and regarded the landscape with an air of exasperation.

“Darling, if you expect every word I say to be weighed in the balance first—”

“You know I don't. I should hate it.”

“—or if you expect me to talk all the time as though I'm on oath—”

“I don't!” cried Susan again. “It's not that at all!”

“Then if you want to know,” finished Bryan angrily, “I think you're making an absurd fuss over nothing.”

They broke off, aghast. But to Bryan, who had often wished to provoke just such a scene, the moment was not without its compensations. He enjoyed, fiercely, the pleasure of letting his irritation get the better of him. He enjoyed Susan's wide gaze of distress, and the faint colour that stained her throat. Then the savage moment passed, and his heart dropped like lead.

“Susan—darling—”

“It's all right,” said Susan quietly. She too had recovered herself; she could meet his imploring gaze with a smile. “Only—only if you feel like that, and I feel so differently, it seems pretty hopeless.”

“Nothing's hopeless, if you'll stick to me,” said Bryan urgently. He meant it. His penitence was so great that he felt capable of any sacrifice—more, of any long laborious toil—that would reinstate him in her graces. Susan turned away her head. To her also it was a moment for self-examination.

“I know Julia thinks I'm a prig,” she said slowly.

“Damn Julia!”

For some reason Susan's expression immediately relaxed. Her next words came more easily, almost impetuously, as though a confidence withdrawn had been suddenly renewed.

“If I am, I shall be one all my life. That's what I want you to understand, Bryan: if you find me too—too difficult now, I don't believe I shall ever be easier. I can't pretend. I can't behave as though things aren't important, when I know they are. Things you think are too little to worry about. I've tried—it does sound priggish, and I know it—to set a guard about myself.…”

There was a long silence. They were both too much moved for speech; they were both suddenly humbled, Susan before the vision of a perfect integrity, a holiness of the mind, Bryan before the reflection of it through Susan. It was the deepest emotion he had known, and so strange to him that he could not understand, but only feel. His words, when at last they came, and inadequate as they were, had at least sincerity to strengthen them.

“You're the best thing there ever was, Susan. You make me feel one of the worst.”

She reached out behind her—she was now walking a little in front of him—and felt for his hand. He took it and plunged on.

“You've got such hellishly—such heavenly—high standards. You—you'll have to haul me up to them.”

“Can I, my dear?”

“If you want to, you know you can. Only—pull hard.”

She drew him close beside her, and they finished their walk like lovers.

3

That night, for the first time since her arrival at Muzin, Julia was unhappy. She told herself three fortunes, and each was worse than the last: she was going to have trouble in old age, and be jilted by a fair stranger, and suffer disappointment in her plans. Nor was she in the least surprised, for everything was going wrong already. Her successful raid on Aix had produced totally unexpected consequences, and so had her scheme for the discomfiture of Bryan Relton. He and Susan had returned to the Villa trailing positive clouds of glory: they spent the whole evening walking up and down the terrace discussing his career. “It can't last,” thought Julia; but when she looked at her daughter's face she almost doubted. Susan was so strong-minded! But even if she gained complete ascendency, if she managed to hold Bryan's nose to the grindstone and turn him into a pillar of the law, she couldn't change his nature. He might behave like a solid pillar for year after year, but one day he would crack, and then down would come all Susan's firmly-built house. “Perhaps it's that lunch,” thought Julia, quite aghast at her own gloomy prescience. “Rich food never did agree with me.…” But she knew she was fooling herself; rich food as a rule was just what she throve on. However, she went to her room and took a soda-mint, and either that or her long night's sleep did her good. She woke up still feeling melancholy, but only gently and sentimentally so; and since it was an instinct with her always to make the most of any emotion, she slipped out alone and bent her steps towards the ruined pavilion.

Chapter 14

1

It was more dilapidated than Julia had thought—doubly so, indeed, for even the repairs were themselves in need of repairing. A sheet of zinc under the roof no longer kept out any but the mildest weather; in every wall long zigzag cracks split the superimposed plaster. There were seedlings between the boards, cobwebs under the beams; and the only elegant thing there was a little slender grey-green lizard that fled at Julia's step.

Her disappointment was great. She had hoped for true-lovers' knots, faded but still blue, perhaps even a cupid or so; especially she had hoped for some sign of recent occupation. A cushion, a letter, a mere heart scratched on the wall—any of these would have pleased and contented her. But there was nothing. There was not even a view, for the nut trees grew too close. “It's a shame!” thought Julia vaguely; her pity being half for anyone else who might be similarly disappointed, half for the pavilion itself. And the emotion (though vague) was not a barren one: with sudden resolution she took out her lipstick and drew a heart of her own.

Scarcely had she finished when a sound of voices below brought her hastily back to the doorway. There were people on the path, Susan and Bryan and a tall unknown man. He had grey hair, and as he walked his hand rested lightly and familiarly on Susan's shoulder. Susan looked up, even her height diminished by his, and smiled affectionately. Bryan, a little behind, was wearing his best deferential air.…

Sir William had come.

2

Julia now naturally wanted to get down unobserved and go back to the house and tidy her hair and come out again and be discovered in the garden; and as the path turned almost at once, she had every hope of being able to do so. But Bryan, already behind, let the others pass out of sight while he stopped to tie his shoe.

“
Sst!
Julia!” he hissed.

With as much dignity as she could muster, Julia advanced to the top of the steps.

“What are you doing there?” she asked severely.

“The question is, what are you? I spotted you as we came up, and thought perhaps you weren't feeling social.”

“I wasn't,” said Julia crossly. “I'm not now. Is that Sir William?”

“It is, darling. The ranks of the godly are increased by one. Shall I help you down?”

But Julia refused his assistance and descended alone. She had no time to waste on foolishness.

“You go on with the others,” she directed, herself taking the lower path. “I've an important letter to write.”

“Hi! Julia!”

Simply to stop him shouting, she turned and looked back.

“What is it now?”

“When you've written your letter—and changed your frock—where would you like us to discover you?”

Julia had a very good mind to ignore the impertinence altogether. But she didn't.

“Under the pines,” she said hastily; “and
not
for half an hour.”

3

Exactly twenty-five minutes later she was in position. She had on a fresh white frock, and not too much lipstick. On her knee lay
The Forsyte Saga
. She wished for a dog, but the villa could not supply one, and Anthelmine's cats were too common-looking.

The minutes passed slowly while Julia held her pose. She was afraid to lean back, in case the seat should mark her dress; there were several deck-chairs, but the rustic bench had a suggestion of Marcus Stone which strongly appealed to her. As once before, on the lower terrace, Julia was acutely aware of herself as part of a charming picture. “There ought to be a man!” she had thought; and now that a man was imminent, her consciousness was correspondingly heightened. With straining ears she listened for the voices in the vineyard; and when at last they became audible they were so much closer than she expected that she had barely half a minute to become absorbed in her book.

To the party above she was now distinctly visible, and Susan called cheerfully down to her. Julia did not stir. She was going to look up with a start, but she was going to do it at close range. She just turned over a page and smiled slightly, as though at some cultured witticism.

“Hi, Julia!” cried Bryan, quite close at hand.

At that Julia started in earnest, for he had leapt the last bank and was speaking positively in her ear. She gave him one good glare, and turned with a welcoming smile for the more decorously approaching figures of Susan and their guest.

“This is Sir William—my mother,” said Susan, also directing upon Bryan a repressive look. It was unfortunate for the young man that the return of his lady-love's favour at once produced in him those same high spirits which had been the cause of his losing it. As Susan said herself, she could not pretend; she could not pretend now to be pleased that he had leapt down that bank and made her mother jump into the air just as Sir William was about to be introduced.…

Julia, however, noticed none of this, being too much taken up with her own deportment. It was beautiful. She graciously inclined her head, graciously extended her hand, and by moving a little along the bench, invited Sir William to sit.

“Take a deck-chair, sir,” suggested Bryan maliciously. “That thing's as hard as nails.”

But Sir William sat down by Julia. He was tall and thin, sunburnt, with slightly rough grey hair and the kind of profile she most admired. An aquiline nose was one of her weaknesses, and Sir William's was a real beak. “Distinguished!” thought Julia, after her first discreet glance. “He could play an Ambassador just as he stands!”

“What a beautiful place this is!” said Sir William distinguishedly.

“Remarkable,” agreed Julia. “Are you fond of scenery?”

Sir William said that he was. He added that as he had his car with him, he hoped to see a good deal of it. If the next day were fine, they might all motor up the Grand Colombier and have lunch on top. They would be able to see the Rhône and Mont Blanc.

“What kind is it?” asked Julia.

Since Sir William looked a trifle puzzled, it was perhaps as well that Bryan answered for him.

“Dark blue Daimler,” he said succinctly. “I hope, sir, that barn doesn't leak?”

“I hope so too,” replied Sir William with philosophy, “but any barn a Frenchman isn't using is pretty certain to be derelict. However, the weather seems settled enough.”

Susan glanced up at the blue and white sky.

“The clouds are coming from the Midi,” she said, “which isn't a very good sign. Julia's had the one perfect week this summer.”