The Nutmeg Tree (21 page)

Julia looked at him severely.

“
You
'll be with Susan,” she said, “down in the East End. You'd better learn how to gargle.” And before he could think of an answer—before she herself could become more deeply committed to Mrs. Packett's riotous plans—Julia got up and strolled towards the house.

It was the simple and devastating truth that no plan meant anything to her unless it involved Sir William. Until she knew what Sir William wanted her to do—until she knew what he was going to do himself—she was like a ship without a course, like a weathercock waiting for a wind. If he wanted her to keep a cake-shop, she felt she could do even that. She could do anything! Anything in the world, if he would only tell her what! If he told her to go into a convent—“But they'd turn me out,” thought Julia, with a sudden return to common sense. She sat down, just where she was, in the entrance hall, and tried to make that common sense work. Suppose, after all, he just wasn't interested? Suppose his own plans, already cut and dried, took no account of her whatever? Might it not be that their happy, perfect intimacy, to her the most precious thing life could ever hold, was to Sir William simply a pleasant holiday friendship, and no rarer than any other? “Then I'm done for,” thought Julia. “I'll just have to grin and bear it.” She tried to grin then, and found it extraordinarily difficult. She felt like a set of teeth in a dentist's window. The vigour of this image, and the fear that someone might pass through the hall, brought her to her feet; she didn't want to be found looking like a sick Cheshire Cat.

“It'll all be the same in a hundred years,” thought Julia gloomily; and meanwhile wandered out again, into the neglected part of the garden, where no one ever went.

2

Four miles away in Belley, at a table outside the confectioner's in the square, Susan and Sir William were finishing their tea. They were both rather silent, but whereas Susan was conscious of this, and wanted to resume, or rather redirect, the conversation, Sir William was not. His eyes were fixed on the top storey of a tall grey building immediately opposite—a top storey which was unoccupied, slightly dilapidated like the rest of the building, but which possessed a deep triple-arched loggia. There was an odd charm about the place—it was like a crow's nest over Belley, and in summer breakfast on that balcony, with the town stirring below, and a distant view of the hills, would be pleasant indeed.…

Sir William suddenly found himself thinking that he would like to live there with Julia.

This extraordinary notion both astonished and pleased him. He had not believed himself capable—for the last twenty years he hadn't been capable—of such a juvenile emotion. He was like a man who discovers that he can still touch his toes. And other, equally juvenile ideas came thronging after the first. He remembered a square in Cracow where all the houses were painted with bright designs, the square where they held the flower market. His eye had been caught there, in just the same way, by a little blue room, an afterthought of a room, perched like a cottage on top of a tall green-and-yellow building; now, after an interval of seven years, he mentally placed Julia at the window. And there were other places as well: Paris in springtime—“Good God!” thought Sir William. “Isn't that the title of a song?”—and the English countryside in June, and London in autumn when dusk came down like blue smoke. He knew what Julia would say to all of them—“Isn't that pretty, William?” or “I do like a nice view!”—yet for some reason the very ineptitude of her remarks only made her company more desirable. They were so funny. They made him feel at once amused and tender.…

“There's no doubt about it,” thought Sir William, as though he had reached the end of an argument. Then his mind wandered off again, this time to the Riviera.

Susan meanwhile had eaten two chestnut-cakes, and now felt that the time had come for a little serious conversation. Serious conversation at the villa was always liable to interruption, either from her suitor or her mother, and while she had been quite genuine in her desire to visit the librarian, she was also glad of an opportunity to get Sir William to herself.

“You've never told me,” said Susan abruptly, “what you think of Bryan.”

Sir William detached his gaze from the balcony and came reluctantly back to earth.

“Does it matter?” he asked.

“Well,” said Susan, somewhat taken aback, “I'd naturally like to know how you feel about him. I mean—isn't that what you came for?”

“So it is,” said Sir William, with an air of surprise. “However, as you're determined to marry him in any case, there doesn't seem much point in a discussion. I believe I'll have another cup of tea.”

Susan's eyes over the teapot, as she poured out for him, were both watchful and puzzled. She evidently suspected some trap; she simply could not believe in a genuine lack of interest.

“That sounds as though you didn't like him,” she persisted. “Why?”

“I neither like nor dislike him,” said Sir William. “He seems to me much the same as any other young man. He's got some money and a profession, we know who his people are, and as soon as you're twenty-one if you want to marry him you can. Now what about getting home?”

Susan obediently rose and accompanied him back to the car. Her countenance was placid, but she felt a vague dissatisfaction. Put into words—into such words as Julia used—it would have amounted simply to this: Sir William wasn't making enough fuss.

“If you've any real objection—” she began.

“I haven't,” said Sir William swiftly.

“I'm perfectly willing to listen to you. Just as I've listened to Grandmother and to Julia. I'm not unreasonable.”

“It is the height of unreason,” pointed out Sir William, “to go on discussing a question after your mind is made up. It's a sheer waste of everyone's time.”

Susan was silent. She had too clear a head not to see Sir William's point, but for once a logical position was not comfortable to her. Always, before, when she thought of her marriage, she had seen it on the other side of an obstacle—an obstacle of which the chief manifestation was precisely those discussions which Sir William had just put an end to; now she saw it quite close. There was no obstacle any more. With Sir William on her side, or at any rate not opposing her, she could marry Bryan Relton the moment she was twenty-one.

Susan remained silent.

3

High up on a terrace in the vine Bryan Relton lay on his back and looked at the clouds. Like Julia, he had left the tea table in a somewhat troubled frame of mind; but the pleasantness of his situation had already made him forget the worst of his cares. They had never been heavy: they were like the clouds—small, and as yet hardly approaching the sun. Susan's new preoccupation was one of them; he was getting very tired of her continual cloakrooms, and if she were going to make a habit of them …

He rolled over—the clouds seemed suddenly larger than he had thought—and reached for a stem of grass. It was not the best chewing sort, but the sensuous pleasure of drawing it from its sheath for a moment completely absorbed him. He put his face down close and snuffed deeply, like a young animal. Scent of dry soil, sweeter scent of clover! By raising his head he got a whiff of cool breeze: then down to the warm earth again, and the clover sweeter than before. It was the very epicureanism of the nose. His imagination began to range—to bonfires, to tar oozing on a ship's deck, to bacon cooking for breakfast, even to the hot petrol-laden air of Piccadilly on a summer afternoon. They were all good, and the world was full of them. There simply wasn't enough time to do them all justice—nor to see all the sights, and hear all the sounds, that clamoured for attention. Properly to appreciate everything, felt Bryan, was a full-time job; and he was forced to admit, as he meditated, that the late and great Victorian, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, had exactly formulated his creed. “For to admire and for to see”—it couldn't be better put. And there was the other chap, who wanted to stand and stare.… “Rum if I were to turn out a poet!” thought Bryan; but he knew himself too well to nourish false hopes. He wasn't creative. He'd never do any work in the world, but at least he'd be grateful.

It suddenly occurred to him that in this scheme of existence he had left out Susan. At the thought of her, and particularly at the thought of their walk back from Belley, his conscience stirred. He had promised—all sorts of things: diligence, sobriety, every human virtue. Impossible promises, which surely she had taken at their right emotional value! “She must know what I'm like!” argued Bryan. “She won't expect miracles!” He buried his face once more in the grass, drew in the fragrance, and wished she were there with him. He had an obscure conviction that if Susan could once feel the power of that warm earthy smell, he would be able to convert her.

He was back at the old place. He was still in pursuit.

“Blessed Susan!” said Bryan into the grass. The blades brushed against his lips, alive and springy; he had just time to enjoy the sensation before falling asleep.

4

It would have been sentimentally appropriate if Susan, on her return from Belley, had gone up and found him there and waked him with a kiss; but she went straight into the house to undo her books, and it was Julia, fleeing into the vine before the approach of the car, who unromantically tripped on his shins. Bryan sat up, rubbed himself, and at once perceived that he would get no sympathy.

“That's a silly place to lie!” said Julia. “Right in the path for people to fall over you!”

“If people looked where they were going,” retorted Bryan, “other people wouldn't get trampled on. Is Susan back?”

“I expect so. I've just heard the car.”

“And Sir William,” murmured Bryan. “Now we shall both have company again.”

Under his inquisitive eye Julia walked a little along the terrace and sat down on a large rock. She couldn't go back into the garden, and her roamings had tired her.

“I expect Susan's looking for you,” she said.

“I've no doubt of it,” agreed Bryan complacently. “I can also take a hint. Have you an assignation, darling?”

Julia did not deign to answer. Instead of departing, the young man strolled over and dropped down at her feet.

“It's wonderful,” he said companionably, “what a knack we both have for attracting our betters.”

“I don't know what you mean,” said Julia.

“Don't be modest, darling. You know perfectly well Sir William's fallen for you.”

In her heart, and despite her recent sad communings, Julia did know, and the thought gave her a secret delight; but she had no intention of sharing it with Bryan.

“You shouldn't talk like that about him,” she said sharply. “You ought to have more respect.”

Bryan grinned.

“So you've fallen for
him
, have you? What a place this is!”

“You're right there,” agreed Julia seriously. “It's all these views and rosebushes. I remember the first morning—when you made a fool of me—I was thinking the very same thing. And that's all it is with Sir William. He doesn't mean anything.”

“But even his non-meanings are sacred? You'd better look out for yourself, darling.”

Julia got up and walked to the edge of the terrace. She was a good liar, but she didn't want Bryan staring into her face. For—why not admit it?—it wasn't just the rosebushes. She could tell that. She could tell not by the way Sir William looked at her, but by the way he didn't look at her—at table, for instance, and when there were other people there. He didn't want them to see, and no wonder.…

“When you're Lady Waring—” said Bryan behind her.

Julia turned on him.

“Don't say such things!”

“Why not? Wouldn't you like to be Lady Waring?”

“No, I wouldn't.”

“Why not?” asked Bryan again.

“Because it's not my line. If you want to know, because I'm not good enough for him—just as you're not good enough for Susan.”

“You mean if he asked you, you'd refuse?”

“Yes. And you've no business to talk to me like this.
We
've no business to talk about him. But there you are,” said Julia harshly, “I'm the sort of woman anyone talks to about anything. I can't keep them off.”

She walked quickly along the terrace to where the path branched up and down. Contrary to her usual habit, she began to mount. Down—along the line of least resistance—were people, and for once Julia wanted to be alone. The truth she had just spoken was bitter in her mouth: for a moment she had seen, as though from outside herself, the kind of woman she was; and the image was hateful to her. “If only I'd known!” thought Julia desperately. If only she'd known that—that this was waiting for her, how different she would have been! It was too late now, and she knew it; the life she had been living had got under her skin, into her blood, had become a part of her that she could never now eradicate. For it was all rot about repentance, really: it was no more use repenting over spilt milk than crying over it. You could mop the milk up and squeeze it back into the jug, but it wasn't the same. It was dirty.

A tangle of blackberries barred her path; Julia pushed through, scratching her arms, and taking a queer pleasure in the pain. She was higher now than she had ever been, on a narrow ledge so closely grown with saplings that even where the cliff, on her left, dropped steeply down, she could not see out. It was like a strait green corridor, roofed against the sun. Every now and again an outcropping boulder jutted across the track, and on one of these Julia at last sat down. She had tired her body, but her mind worked pitilessly on, marshalling one after the other all the most discreditable incidents of her life. The times when she had got tight, and done things she was sorry for afterwards. The times when she had made herself cheap, hanging round bars in the hope of a dinner.…