The Wedding Group (23 page)

When Cressy came home, he had been fed and Midge was sitting with him on her lap, gently rubbing his back.

‘Yes, I know, darling. I’m more sorry than I can ever express,’ she said, as Cressy stopped short, looking at the fragments of pottery on the floor. ‘I lifted Timmy up to see it, too near to the shelf, and he suddenly shot out his arm and knocked it down. Oh, it was stupid of me, and I am so grieved that it’s gone. I loved it so much. I hope you will be able to forgive me.’

‘Well, it was yours, not mine,’ Cressy said, bending down to pick up the pieces. It doesn’t matter, she thought. Those days when it would have mattered seemed to have gone.

‘No, don’t! I’ll do that. I was just going to,’ Midge said. ‘As soon as I’d finished with Timmy. You take him, dear, and get up
his wind. There! You want to go to your Mummy, don’t you, my darling boy? I’ll get a brush and dust-pan.’

She handed over the baby and went out to the kitchen. When she came back, he was crying again.

‘That’s the first tear there’s been from him all afternoon,’ she said.

Then I’m not necessary to anyone, Cressy thought.

Archie died.

‘Well, you certainly did your duty by him,’ Midge told David. ‘And it was hardly called for under the circs.’

He felt sad and relieved, and the sadness derived from the relief. He had described the quiet death to her as gently as he could, trying to be careful of her sensibilities: and she had thought that no one can misunderstand a mother so completely as her own children. Usually this had suited her very well, and did so now. When her feelings were on the surface, David looked for something deeper; but her deepest thoughts he never guessed. Archie’s death meant nothing to her. She hardly remembered him. Once, she might have been glad to have a dead husband, rather than one who had deserted her; but she no longer cared.

David and his brother Geoffrey went to the funeral. The church was almost empty. Some men, doing repair work inside, went and stood outside in the graveyard and smoked, while the service was going on. David could hear their leisurely voices through an open window.

Afterwards, in the dark, neglected house, the solicitor went
through the will. The house itself was left to David, as an extra bequest, and in ‘recognition of his constant devotion’. He felt ashamed and put-out before his brother, who nodded and murmured magnanimously at the news. David wondered if his father had pictured him living there one day, with Cressy and the baby, in London at last, and away from Midge in Archie’s home, but without Archie there to be bothered by the baby’s crying.

The baby, however, was over his crying ways. Midge told herself that she would make something of him in time.

‘He’s a credit to you,’ Mrs Brindle said, and Midge saw nothing wrong with her words. ‘He never takes his eyes off of you. Just look at that lovely smile.’

It was the morning that Midge was minding him, while Cressy went to Quayne to say good-bye. He was in his pram, just outside the drawing-room window, and both women kept taking peeps at him. He lay awake staring up at moving leaves, petals floating in the air. Sometimes, he would catch a glimpse of a face, a movement at the window and smile.

‘It’s real spring-cleaning weather,’ Mrs Brindle said. ‘The sun shows up everything.’ She flicked her duster at a swaying strand of cobweb. ‘I’ll have to get down to it, I can see that.’

Midge hardly listened, putting on her coat, her gloves, getting ready to set off with Timmy in the pram.

‘I wonder what on earth she’d do without you,’ Mrs Brindle said, meaning Cressy.

Midge smiled complacently. ‘I sometimes wonder, too,’ she admitted. ‘But I said when he was born that I meant to be useful.’

‘I only hope it will keep fine while you’re out. It’s very on and off, the weather.’

The sun went in for a minute, and dark clouds banked up behind the cherry blossom.

‘I shan’t go far,’ Midge said; but she was determined to go, rain or not, for she loved pushing the pram about the village and, even, because of Timmy, had struck up slight friendships there.

‘Well, I’ll get on,’ Mrs Brindle said, in a wistful voice, as if she were not paid to do so.

Feeling marvellously in charge and exhilarated, Midge pushed the pram down the drive and out into the lane, and the sun came out again, and there was nothing wrong in her world.

At Quayne, footsteps rang on the bare floorboards, and voices echoed in empty rooms. Cressy felt in the way, as removal-men pushed by her with crates of books and china, and all the familiar furniture she had known for ever, the decent, solid oak and elm; the farmhouse chairs and the Welsh dresser, the kitchen table, ribbed from many years of scrubbing. Rose was harassed, Joe melancholy. He felt like a piece of furniture himself, and was sad to be leaving his daughter, or rather, being taken away from her.

‘We’ll have that smart dinner in a restaurant,’ he promised her. ‘You’ll see, I’ll take you yet. We’ll meet up in London, and you’ll be no end surprised to find how I know my way about there.’

‘Please, Joe!’ Rose said. ‘They want to load that box you’re sitting on.’

Harry was in the studio, giving out sharp commands. The men staggered out with ‘The Raising of Lazarus’, hardly able to keep straight faces.

The old farm wagon had soon after dawn gone grinding slowly down Quayne Hill, with Yves’s potter’s wheel, and lawnmowers and garden tools, sawn logs, sacks of old potatoes and two goats. Others had left later, by train, and Cressy had missed saying good-bye to her cousins. Now only Father Daughtry,
Harry and Rachel, Rose and Joe were left to squeeze into the old Rolls-Royce.

Father Daughtry, wearing his dark, shabby rain-coat, paced about in the courtyard, wiping a tear or two from his face, feeling muzzy from last night’s farewell-party in the Three Horseshoes. Now he would have to make a new set of cronies, and he scarcely felt up to it at his age. He was in the way, too, he thought. He had so few possessions that he had nothing to do.

When the removal vans had driven off, those who were left gathered in the empty chapel, and Father Daughtry was obliged to say a few prayers – for those who were to come to Quayne, as well as for those who were setting out from it – and thanksgivings for what had been. Cressy, standing back by the door, felt that she was at a funeral: there was the same alloy of sadness and hope and gratitude in the service.

She was unhappily aware that it was nearly time for her farewell to her mother. She felt an uneasy dread, and shame, and knew that she must suffer the terrible emotion of embarrassment. There had always been – or as far back as she could remember – awkwardness between them. Perhaps a better daughter would have made a better mother of Rose, she thought – a submissive daughter of the kind Rose was herself, of the kind she could have understood, and had, perhaps, expected.

I said terrible things to her when I was living here, Cressy recalled, and quickly tried not to recall. The relationship had been sullied by words – her own words – which could never be taken back, and would not, in the nature of words, be forgotten, even if forgiven.

She went timidly out of the chapel before the others and stood waiting in the courtyard, hoping she would not cry. After they had gone, she had the long walk home to face, with her depressed feelings to keep her company.

There was no room for her in the Rolls-Royce. Rachel
brought out baskets of food, and packed them in the car. Then she put her rough hand under Cressy’s chin and kissed her. When her parents kissed her, Cressy threw her arms round them and held them tightly for a moment. As far as her mother was concerned, she knew it was too late. She had forced herself to be demonstrative, and it could not do any good. Joe climbed into the high driving-seat, and Harry, before he got in beside him, laid his hand on Cressy’s head, as if he were blessing her, but was doubtful of the outcome. She stood crying and waving as they drove away.

Now she was the only one left at Quayne, although she could no longer think of it by that name; for Quayne itself was on the move. To the real country, while it was still there. And when that was real no longer, what then, she wondered. Perhaps it would see Harry out, and then they would all drift apart, and live on God knew what. They had set out, like very proud and scornful refugees, leaving the vulgar threat of modern life, its contagions and encroachments.

She began to walk slowly down the hill, past the Regency-type villas, and the great clearing made about them in the woods. It began to rain, and she felt very dismal, and hoped against hope that Midge would invite her to stay the night.

Midge, too, was caught in the rain. It drummed down on the pram hood and cover, and she went as quickly as she could up the hill towards home, with her head bent and the rain on her face. There was nothing for tea, she thought. She had not bothered to go to the Walnut Tree, and would not get extra wet just to buy cakes for Cressy.

A rainbow Cressy noticed, running to catch up with her. It was just like one of Father Daughtry’s corny old sayings, and he was probably remarking on it now, as they drove on towards the promised land.

‘Oh, I feel very strange,’ she said breathlessly, as she came up with Midge. Midge had heard her, turned briefly to see her coming; but had battled on at the same pace. ‘It was like going to a funeral,’ Cressy explained. Feeling that she should, she attempted to take over the pram; but Midge went on pushing determinedly. ‘They got off all right, then?’ she asked, without interest.

‘I feel like an orphan,’ Cressy said dramatically, but Midge did not reply.

Rain cascaded off the brilliantly green branches, and by the time they reached home they were both very uncomfortable.

They went in through the back door, and Mrs Brindle was there to greet them, with a look of incredulity on her face, and a pair of diamond ear-rings in her outstretched hand.

‘In a jar of rice!’ she shouted. ‘A jar of rice, of all things. I thought I’d taken leave of my senses.’

Midge untied her rain-hood, and shook it carefully over the doormat.

‘A jar of rice?’ she repeated, after a pause.

‘I just couldn’t believe my eyes. I was turning out the larder and washing all the jars. I emptied the rice out into a bowl, and there they were. Well, as I say, I simply couldn’t believe my eyes.’

‘What a most extraordinary thing,’ Midge said, beginning to take off her wet coat. ‘I’ll just see to the baby, and then you must tell us all about it.’

‘I suppose,’ Midge said to Cressy, later that day, ‘I suppose they were interrupted, and hid them there and meant to come back for them another time. It was rather a clever place, really. And to think I’ve lived here in blissful ignorance, not knowing what they meant to do. Quite honestly, it makes me more nervous than ever.’

‘Who could have interrupted them?’ Cressy asked. ‘They were gone when you got back.’

‘Well, anything might have – anything, anybody.’ But tradesmen all called in the morning, and she had no friends. ‘The telephone even,’ she suggested. But no one ever rang up. ‘People are always coming here to collect for something – poppies and life-boats and the cruelty to children.’

‘Well, as long as you’ve got them back again. They must be awfully valuable.’

‘Yes, I doted on them.’

‘What about the insurance?’

‘Yes, of course, that.
They
must be told. One feels rather foolish.’

They were having tea, and Cressy could not help thinking of
the days when éclairs were urged upon her. Midge was trying to feed Timmy with some sieved prunes. He put his arm out sternly, warding off another spoonful. She kept scooping it from his chin and pushing it back between his lips. What he had in his mouth he allowed to stay there for a little, and then, frowning, bent his head and dribbled it on to the tray of his high chair.

The invitation to stay the night was not, as was usual, forthcoming. Midge seemed absent-minded, almost as if, for once, she wished to be alone.

‘I suppose I had better start thinking about going home,’ Cressy said, leaning back in her chair. She wondered if Midge had heard her – she seemed so occupied with Timmy, and made no reply. ‘Damn, it’s beginning to rain again.’ A few threads of rain slanted across the window and, glancing out at them, Cressy suddenly said, ‘Good heavens, here’s David.’

His car had turned into the drive, and she watched him getting out of it. ‘I haven’t a thing for supper,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid I can’t ask you to stay here,’ Midge said. ‘I was just going to have an egg myself. He shouldn’t come and go without warning. I should be awfully annoyed if I were you.’

‘I guessed I’d find you here,’ David said, when Cressy opened the door to him. Rather unexpectedly, for these days, he took her in his arms and kissed her.

She was not in the least annoyed with him, and said, ‘How nice and early you are. I only wish I had some food in the house.’

‘Hasn’t it been one of the nicest evenings?’ David asked her, as they drove along the wet motor-way.

Midge had kept Timmy for the night, and David and Cressy had gone out to a pub, and eaten infra-red-ray steaks, as Cressy called them, in a bar full of brass and copper and humorous
notices, such as ‘Do not leave the bar when it is still in motion’ and ‘God bless our mortgaged house’, done in poker-work. Over a low doorway were the words ‘Duck or Grouse’, and the lavatories were called ‘Lasses’ and ‘Lads’.