Westwood (22 page)

‘Well, that would be very nice, I’m sure, if Grandpa would come with us,’ said Grantey, fixing Mr Challis with a severe, respectful eye.

‘Oh do – oh – do – oh – do!’ shrilled Barnabas and Emma in chorus, hopping up and down and clawing at the luckless man.

‘Hush, Barnabas and Emma, you’ll wake Jeremy,’ said Grantey. ‘It’s a nice day, sir,’ she added. It was plain that she would think badly of him if he did not come.

If only Mr Challis had given a short incredulous laugh and bounded away up the stairs, patting his grandchildren upon the head as he fled, and saying firmly, ‘No, no, poor Grandpapa has work to do,’ all would have been well, but he did not. He hesitated, looking down at the two little figures in their bright coats. Emma had a hood edged with fur and looked like a child from some painting of the Whig Age; so well-bred, so confident and happy. They really are beautiful children, he thought, momentarily proud that they were of his blood.

‘Oh yes, Grandpa, oh yes!’ implored Barnabas, dragging at one hand, while Emma caught at the other.

‘Well, only a little way then,’ said Mr Challis weakly, but they instantly burst into a chorus of gratified squeaks:

‘Grandpa’s coming, Grandpa’s coming! Oh goody, oh goody, goody, goody!’

‘There, isn’t that nice,’ smiled Grantey approvingly, and Mr Challis, still adding warnings about his only coming a little way to which no one paid the faintest attention, went to put on his coat and hat. He felt a little flattered, not realizing that his grandchildren would have been just as delighted had Cortway proposed to accompany them: novelty was all.

‘The sun’s going, we’d better go straight down Hampstead Lane and into Kenwood for a little while, then along the Spaniards and home to our tea,’ said Grantey decidedly, as they began to mount the hill leading to the village.

‘Legs a’’ said Emma as if to herself.

‘Rubbish,’ said Grantey, ‘we haven’t been out five minutes; they can’t ache. Grandpa will hold your hand if you ask him nicely, I expect.’

Emma mutely lifted her eyes to Mr Challis, at the same time stretching up a hand in a tiny fur glove.

‘There, is that better?’ he said awkwardly, taking the little hand in his own. Emma did not reply.

‘Don’t go in the road, Barnabas, a motor will come along and cut you in half,’ said Grantey. ‘You take Grandpa’s other hand, there’s a good boy now.’

It was a cold afternoon, but they made such a good pace up the hill that they were all warm when they reached the village.

‘Perhaps you’d better carry her across, sir, she sometimes lets go,’ said Grantey. Mr Challis lifted Emma with one hand and steered Barnabas across with the other. It was surprising that such a fairy could weigh so heavy and the fur of her hood tickled his nose. Barnabas tried to pull his hand away.

‘Don’t do that, Barnabas, you’ll make Grandpa drop Emma,’ observed Grantey in a detached, slightly melancholy tone. ‘Oh, dear, was that a drop of rain?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mr Challis, pausing on the pavement and endeavouring to set down Emma, who resisted. One or two ladies walking to half-past three evensong glanced with approving smiles at the tall, handsome gentleman carrying the quaint little girl.

‘I expect you’ll have a job making her get down now; she’ll want to be carried all the way,’ said Grantey in a low voice, gliding onwards with the pram and speaking over her shoulder: ‘Get down now, Emma, there’s a good girl, you’ll tire poor Grandpa out.’

‘Cawwy,’ said Emma, snuggling closer.

‘Come along, now, you’re quite big enough to walk,’ said Mr Challis, trying to speak playfully and only sounding irritable.

‘Yes, Emma, poor Grandpapa,’ warned Grantey, now some distance ahead with the pram. ‘Get down at once, now.’

‘You’ll have to carry her,’ remarked Barnabas. ‘If you don’t, she’ll scream.’

Half an hour later the party had decided to walk through Kenwood to escape the keen wind, and as Grantey feared that she would disturb Jeremy if she were put into the pram, Mr Challis was still carrying Emma.

Stalking along the dull paths between the rhododendron thickets where the melancholy odour of autumn lingered, chilled by the shade of the giant beeches and oaks, his arms aching and his nerves jangled and disturbed by shrill little voices and Grantey’s flat tones, Mr Challis had almost decided to take a high hand and declare that he had remembered important business and must return home
at once
, when between a gap in the trees he saw Hilda. He recognized her immediately, and his discomfort and irritation was complete. What! to be seen by Daphne, the sea-goddess’s daughter, while he was carrying one grandchild and accompanied by two others, one an infant in the least interesting stage of infancy, and their nurse? In his annoyance he halted rather suddenly, but even as he determinedly set Emma down upon the path, Grantey said:

‘I think we’d better go out at that entrance now, sir, and straight home. It isn’t far and there’s a good path for the pram.’

‘’Ank ’oo, Grandpa,’ said Emma cheerfully, running away to shuffle through the leaves. Whether her thanks were for the ride or her release, her grandfather was too irritated to decide.

‘Oh – very well,’ said Mr Challis. ‘I shall leave you here. Good afternoon. Good-bye, children,’ and he was turning thankfully away, raising his hat, when Grantey said:

‘Say good-bye to Grandpa nicely, Emma, Barnabas,’ and up they came, and Barnabas was encouraged to put out a limp hand. He kept his face turned away in a bored manner while saying his piece, and was reproved by Grantey and made to say it over again.

‘That’s right. Now Emma. A nice kiss for Grandpa. There’s a good girl.’

The impatience with which Mr Challis touched Emma’s cold pink cheek with his lips was only just perceptible.

‘Good-bye, Grandpa,’ said Emma.

‘Good-bye, Grandpa,’ said Barnabas.

‘
I
like to be called “Gerard,” not “Grandpa,”’ exclaimed Mr Challis with a fleeting smile; his ears seemed to have heard nothing but that name, with its low comic associations, all the afternoon, and he resolved to put a stop to the children’s using it. ‘You may call me that if you like.’

Barnabas and Emma stared up at him, and it was evident that they did not understand.

‘Gerard, not Grandpa; you may call me by my name,’ he repeated irritably.

‘But your name
is
Grandpa!’ shouted Barnabas, as though making a discovery.

‘Oh well, never mind now,’ he said, giving it up. ‘Mrs Grant, you might see that they learn to use my Christian name.’ He raised his hat again and hurried away.

‘What did Grandpa mean about?’ asked Barnabas, presently. ‘Doesn’t he like us to call him Grandpa?’

‘Of course he does; don’t be silly,’ said Grantey. ‘Hurry up now, I want my tea, and so do you.’

‘G’an’pa,’ said Emma softly to herself as she rustled through the leaves.

Mr Challis’s search was unsuccessful for what seemed to him a long time. He began to fear that Hilda must have gone home, for the afternoon was now drawing in and a few drops of rain were beginning to fall. He was just sparing a thought for the party which he had left, and hoping that they would not get wet, when he turned round a large hollybush and there was Hilda, walking quickly just ahead of him. She was accompanied by a dog and an exclamation of annoyance actually escaped Mr Challis, who liked dogs no more than he liked children. He increased his pace almost to a run and dodged right round her and stood in her path.

‘Daphne!’ he said, taking off his hat.

Hilda, not at all startled, looked at him.

‘The name is not Daphne,’ she said pleasantly after a pause, ‘and don’t say you’ve met me before somewhere because I was just going to say it to you. No – don’t tell me – I want to guess.’

The peculiar charm which she had had for him was immediately reimposed by her sharp, sweet young voice.

‘I know!’ she said. ‘That awful fog a week or two ago. You lent me your torch.’

‘I had the delight of seeing you home,’ he said, falling into step with her.

‘Bobby!’ called Hilda, turning away from him and peering keenly into the rhododendrons. ‘He thinks there are rabbits in there, poor mutt,’ she explained.

‘He is not mistaken,’ said Mr Challis. ‘I myself have seen rabbits in Kenwood.’

‘Bobby, Bobby, come here!’ shouted Hilda, and as Bobby shot obediently out of a thicket she grasped his collar and put on his lead. ‘All the more reason he shouldn’t hunt for them if there are any,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m going home. It’s cold and I want my tea,’ and she nodded kindly at Mr Challis and was evidently preparing to leave him.

‘I will walk with you,’ he said. ‘You look like a painting by Signorelli in that cap.’

‘There we go again,’ said Hilda, aside.

Mr Challis did not speak for a moment, for the scene was beautiful. The grey sky had a few streaks of red breaking its monotony low in the west, and the boughs of the beeches knotted against it in a darker grey had an ethereal look, despite their massiveness, where they silverly reflected the fading day. On every side avenues of glossy rhododendrons wound away into a premature twilight, with here and there a hollybush gleaming out in scarlet berries, and far off, between thickets and trees, were glimpses of cold green hills and the misty city in the valley. A bell was tolling faintly in the distance. Hilda’s beauty, keen and bright as the winter air and the holly-berries, glowed in its scarlet trappings, and the gossamer sheen of youth and health was upon her hair.

Most of Mr Challis’s troubles could have been traced to his thirst for perfection; he was no maker-do with what God provides; he must have perfection and here, for once (he told himself with beating heart), perfection was.

Still he did not speak, but continued to look at Hilda so intently that he stayed her from moving
on; she returned his gaze inquiringly, holding back the dog which was eager to be off.

‘Something wrong?’ she asked at last.

He started, and a smile, youthful in its ingenuousness and warmth and almost shy, passed over his face. So he had sometimes used to look twenty-five years ago, before he had become famous.

‘Everything is right,’ he answered impetuously, ‘and you are so beautiful!’ He timidly put out his hand towards her. ‘May I take your arm?’

‘If you like,’ said Hilda, looking at him curiously.

‘Are you quite sure you feel all right?’ she added.

‘Quite,’ he said, drawing her arm within his own, and walking on. ‘It is only (“only,” great heaven!) that I think I have found something I have been looking for all my life.’

Hilda was not unused to this sort of talk, though she usually heard it in a simpler form, and she did not feel so bewildered as might have been expected. Masculine admiration was of course acceptable to her, and provided that boys behaved themselves (and they usually did) she accepted it with pleasure and gave in return her friendship, a kind sympathy and interest, and occasional sweet fresh kisses, that made her the secret dream in many a young man’s heart in many parts of the world.

Mr Challis was not a boy, but he was saying the same sort of things that her boys usually implied, and she felt agreeably flattered, and thought that she and Margaret would have a good laugh over this later on.

‘Let’s see, your name’s Marcus, isn’t it?’ she said as they walked along.

‘How wonderful of you to remember!’

‘How could I forget?’ said Hilda in a tone which Mr Challis was too bemused to identify. ‘And you live quite near me.’

‘Yes – er – yes, I do.’ Mr Challis did hear this sentence clearly, and its implications disconcerted him. He did not want Daphne to know who he was and where he lived. Something precious and new was beginning for him to-day, he thought; something which was to give him back the fresh intensity of his youth; but even the beginnings of this lovely and rare experience were slightly influenced by the secrecy and caution that he had used in his former affairs. He could not help it; he had acquired technique and finesse and tactics in twenty years of amorous-spiritual intrigue, and even Love itself was not strong enough to stifle these disagreeable qualities immediately.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not curious,’ said Hilda, laughing. ‘I shall call you Marcus the Mystery Man.’

‘All men are mysterious,’ he said absently, and thought –
I shall be able to work to-night. Is she going to stimulate my imagination, as none of the others ever did, so that I can create more vividly than ever before?

‘My dad isn’t,’ said Hilda promptly, ‘and by the way, we’re having a party this evening. Like to come?’

Mr Challis ventured on a fine, withdrawn smile as he pictured the crowd of dull young people assembled in the ugly little suburban house, playing noisy games and drinking beer.

‘It is very kind of you, Daphne,’ he said gently, ‘but this evening I have to work.’

‘What a shame, on a Sunday,’ said Hilda. ‘But perhaps you want to?’ she added, surprising him. ‘I bet your work’s something intellectual, isn’t it?’ and she went on, without waiting for a reply, ‘It isn’t really a party; my mother sort of keeps open house every Sunday night for any of my friends that like to come in. But we don’t just have pot-luck. Mum hates pot-luck. She says
it’s lazy. She makes smashing sandwiches out of recipes in the papers and Dad knows a man who can get sherry and things, and Mum makes a sort of punch. And we have all the best mats and china out. The Service boys like it. Everything’s so rough for them, you see, and they do like to see things nice for a change.’